It was a divisive argument from the man who drafted the Declaration of Independence, says Meacham, coming from the “voice of the man who believed secession fatal to America instead of the man who wrote about the primacy of states’ rights.”

He allowed those punished under the law to be set free, but did not immediately return the fines that had been levied from them.ĭuring this same time as vice president, Jefferson wrote the Kentucky resolution (James Madison wrote the Virginia resolution of the same time) in which he argued, through the proxy of the Kentucky legislature, that the Alien and Sedition were unconstitutional and that the states held the right, and the duty, to declare any acts of Congress that were not authorized by the constitution unconstitutional. And yet, as President, he did not fully wipe out the effects of those First Amendment inhibiting laws. Rather than a ideologue bound to one philosophy, Jefferson was a pragmatic politician, and while he believed in the principles of freedom he espoused in the words he penned in the Declaration of Independence, the means he chose to approach and uphold those principles changed depending on his position.Īs they say, where you stand depends on where you sit and examples from Jefferson’s life are plentiful.Īs a member of the opposition party and vice president during the Adams Administration, Jefferson vigorously opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts as a blot on the liberty and freedom promised by the Bill of Rights. As he notes in the closing pages of the epilogue, Jefferson has been evoked by more recent American presidents and political figures on both sides of the spectrum, proving to be “an inspiration for radically different understandings of government and culture.” This seems to me, and Meacham endorses the idea, to be due to Jefferson’s versatility in his lifetime. With The Art of Power he delves into the life of one of the most beloved of founding fathers. Meacham is the author of two previous books on American presidents, winning the Pulitzer prize for his look at Andrew Jackson in American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. As I finished it, however, I found myself a reluctant admirer, appreciative of Meacham’s style and of the biography, not to mention of the man. It took me a long time to begin to like Jon Meacham’s portrait of Thomas Jefferson in Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.

Thomas jefferson by jon meacham