Monticello Blog
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To our detriment, Jefferson's "wall of separation" concept has often been grossly misapplied to individual speech that references religion.
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Today was the grand opening of the new Monticello Visitor Center & Smith Education Center, and we are sooooooo tired right now.
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In the latest issue of Common-Place ("The Journal We Don't Pay For"), Alison L. LaCroix relates how she, another professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and some intrepid law students tried to get inside the legal minds of the Founding Fathers by reading the same fiction they read.
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On the election of the United States' first African-American president
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man ... feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day... --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Cabell, February 2, 1816
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"A nation, by establishing a character of liberality and magnanimity, gains in the friendship and respect of others more than the worth of mere money." --Thomas Jefferson, Special Message, January 13, 1806.
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"man ... feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day..." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Cabell, February 2, 1816
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Advocates of "strong" or "participatory" democracy invoke Jefferson's letters to Joseph C. Cabell and Samuel Kercheval, usually acknowledging that they refer to local self-government in what Jefferson calls "ward republics," but without grasping the fuller implications of Jeffersonian federalism.
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One of our alert former fellows brought Hillary Clinton's quotation of Jefferson during her recent Secretary of State confirmation hearings to my attention. Of course I can't help myself from checking to make sure that famous people quoting TJ have actually gotten their quotes correct.
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Recently on a weekend trip to D.C. I stopped in at the Library of Congress to visit the Thomas Jefferson's Library exhibit. This reconstructed library of the books Jefferson sold to Congress in 1815 was unveiled on Apr 12 this year as part of the new Library of Congress Experience, exhibits that allow users to interact with primary sources from American history.