In a special Independence Day episode, scholars Akhil Amar of Yale Law School and Peter Onuf of the University of Virginia join host Jeffrey Rosen for a discussion on the historical legacy of founding father Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence. In a National Constitution Center event a few months ago, Professor Amar announced his intention to “break up with” Thomas Jefferson; and in this episode of We the People, we explore why he’s decided to break up with Jefferson—including his actions and views on slavery—and what aspects of Jefferson's legacy deserve defense. Professors Amar and Onuf also explore the positives and negative aspects of his legacy and influence on the country, as well as recommendations on how to understand and study Jefferson today.
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Today’s episode was produced by Lana Ulrich, Bill Pollock, Samson Mostashari. It was engineered by Bill Pollock. Research was provided by Lana Ulrich, Samson Mostashari, Tomas Vallejo, Connor Rust, Rosemary Li, and Yara Daraiseh.
Participants
Akhil Reed Amar Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, most notably The Bill of Rights (1998), America’s Constitution (2005), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012), and The Constitution Today (2016). His latest book is The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840 (2021). Amar is the host of the weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution.
Peter Onuf is Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor Emeritus in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia, Senior Research Fellow at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies (Monticello), and Mellon Distinguished Scholar in Residence, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, 2017-2018. Onuf is the author of numerous book on Jefferson, including Jefferson’s Empire: The Language of American Nationhood (2000; The Mind of Thomas Jefferson (2007); Most Blessed of Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination (with Annette Gordon-Reed, 2017); and Jefferson and the Virginians: Democracy, Constitutions, and Empire (2018). Onuf was founding co-host of the podcast and radio program Backstory.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources:
- Akhil Amar,The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840(2021)
- Peter Onuf, The Mind of Thomas Jefferson (2007)
- Peter Onuf and Annette Gordon-Reed, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination (2017)
- Peter Onuf, Jefferson and the Virginians: Democracy, Constitutions, and Empire (2018)
- Should We Break up with the Founders?, We the People episode (April 2023)
Excerpt from Interview
Akhil Amar: "Oh, he knows poetry. Oh, he knows art. Oh, he knows music. Oh, he's a great architect". Only problem is actually, if you want to run a country, you need to understand banks. And armies and war and finance and international trade. And he actually doesn't understand these things. He thinks the banks are kind of Ponzi schemes, which they're not quite.
So that's Jefferson on the bank. Washington rejected him. Marshall rejected him. Unanimous Supreme Court rejected him. His pally his little protege, wingman Madison actually flips and flops in his presidency, signs the bank bill into law. Now, my bigger objection on states’ rights... And Madison says, "Oh, you can't have a carriage tax."
And, eventually, and the Supreme Court says, unanimously, "Yes, you can have a carriage tax. You need taxes for armies, and you need armies to, to prevent being reconquered by the Brits." But my biggest objection is that he does play footsie with the secession idea. He doesn't completely repudiate that and that's going to be important later on in American history.
Jeffrey Rosen: Peter, what is your evaluation of Jefferson's legacy on questions of strict construction states’ rights versus national power. And tell us about the footsy that he played with secession and how it was embraced by Calhoun and by the more radical southern secessionists. And how this plays into his legacy?
Peter Onuf: Well, that's a great question Jeff. And I think the best way to think about Jefferson and his legacy is in two ways. First, Akhil is emphasizing the centrality of states. We're talking about states’ rights. I'm not going to argue with that, and I've explained why I think that's so important in Jefferson's scheme.
But Jefferson and his conception of federalism, and I mean with a small F, has an idea or a vision or a hope of nested jurisdictions which strengthen each other. And the main... What Jefferson is thinking about what…And for legacy, I think he leaves us as well, is a conception that embraces federalism in which the American people then achieved their greatest strength and possibility and flourishing, peace and prosperity. This notion of a people I think is critical for Jefferson, and it's something that I think we owe to him. And there's a downside to this idea of a people, because it is defined in terms that we find reprehensible and exclusive, exclusionary.
Yet the idea of democracy as unleashing, containing, the power of the people and pursuing the good of the whole. That idea of a distinct American people as opposed to any other people is a very powerful one.
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