The Flawed Greatness of Thomas Jefferson

It is always hard to know where to begin with Thomas Jefferson—or where to end. In that respect, he is not that different from a great many other talented political figures in our history. The politician’s art all but requires a talent for enigma, an ability to draw in disparate followers and factions while remaining mysterious, un-pin-down-able, containing worlds of seeming contradiction within both public image and private life. Think of the tangled moral complexity of men like Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon Johnson, or Martin Luther King Jr., for example. In each of those cases, and there are a great many more that could be adduced, one must find a way to account for extraordinary moral lapses in careers that were generally successful, built around high ideals that largely benefitted the nation. Read Full Article »