The Jefferson Blog

Lloyd Dobyns: Hi, welcome to Colonial Williamsburg: Past & Present on history.org. This is "Behind the Scenes" where you meet the people who work here. That's my job. I'm Lloyd Dobyns, and mostly I ask questions.

Can the ideals that guided the founding fathers stand up to modern scrutiny? A new blog on Colonial Williamsburg's Web site will try to find out. The blog launches this July. A new quote from Thomas Jefferson will be posted each week, and we'll be asking you to share your thoughts on Jefferson's philosophies in today's world.

Joining me now is the next best thing to Thomas Jefferson: Bill Barker, a Jefferson scholar and interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg that I have talked to several times before, and we always enjoy it.

The idea is, a Thomas Jefferson statement goes up, and we ask people to comment on it. The first one, I kind of like. "The flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776 have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism. On the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them."

The question then becomes, can American democracy – what we basically started here in the 18th century – thrive in foreign soil?

Bill Barker: Well, Lloyd, this is exactly what Mr. Jefferson is saying in that statement, that the flames kindled on the 4th of July have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished.

Imagine, he's writing this, this is one of the last letters that he writes before he dies on the 4th of July in 1826, realizing what has transpired over the 50 years since the Declaration of Independence was not only written, but unanimously resolved.

In fact, by the time Jefferson leaves the presidency in 1809, there are two imitations of the Declaration of American Independence. One of them is in the province of Flanders. Flanders has adopted, more or less, our example and nearly reiterates, word for word, the Declaration of American Independence. Imagine that, right in the middle of all of the ancient kingdoms of Europe.

The other, which I think is the more profound, is the Declaration of Independence for the people of Haiti. To think that that island, once populated to the greatest majority by slaves, had overthrown the yoke of serfdom and slavery to achieve their own independence and to imitate our Declaration of Independence is enough proof to Mr. Jefferson that, indeed, the flames kindled on the 4th of  July have spread too much over the globe. They can never be extinguished. The word is out.

The fascinating thing that Jefferson writes later on in life as well, "There is not one new or original thought in the Declaration of American Independence. All of it has been written before, and you may find it in the elementary books of public right: the works of Aristotle, Cicero, Algernon Sidney, John Locke.

They are simply purporting once more the essential truths of man's continual struggle for liberty. So, the written word is there. It cannot be extinguished now, and any effort to try and extinguish it or to suppress it, he is saying in this regard, is just not going to succeed. It will be futile.

Lloyd: You say everything in the Declaration of Independence has been written before. Did this come at a particular time in history where it could be planted and the seed would grow, as it did in Flanders and Haiti, or was our timing good?

Bill: The timing was very good, particularly because we had already become used to printing presses. We could disseminate the written word now, and this could go throughout all the land and be printed in the newspapers.

The time was right to put this all in print, America being the example now of where man had already been living more free than he had ever been in human history for several generations.

Lloyd: I want to be sure that I understand completely. You say what we started here has already spread too far for any despot to take it back. You think that's a good idea, or not so good an idea?

Bill: It's a wonderful idea. I mean, it is the very core of man's struggle for liberty. This innate right, that he has the innate right given to him, as Mr. Jefferson writes, "Not by any government, not by any chief magistrate, rather, given to the family of man across the globe by nature and nature's God. It is his right to cast off the yoke of tyranny and to assume for himself the powers of self-government."

So, this idea of man being capable of governing himself, purported as far back as in the time of Aristotle, is now beginning to root in through its simple dissemination of that right through the printing presses, by word of mouth, by correspondence, and most importantly, the 13 colonies in America. To which, as Mr. Jefferson said, "The oppressed of the world may find their freedom and liberty." He says, "Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe?" Well, America has already become that asylum.

The unique thing we begin to show the rest of the world is that though we are 13 individual and distinct colonies, that we can draw these differences together, E. Pluribus Unum, one out of so many, and this is not only for our common safety, this is not only for our common defense, but most importantly, it is for the common good. As Mr. Jefferson says often through the rest of his life, "A beacon light to the rest of the world."

Lloyd: I hate to play devil's advocate, but while we were giving a beacon light to the rest of the world, we were setting off revolutions around the world. So the first principle of the American Revolution was war.

Bill: It resulted in war. It finally resulted in the taking up of arms. After all of their efforts, all of their petitions had appeared to be for naught, and were shoved under the tables of Parliament, well then finally they were beginning to recognize we need to draw together committees of safety, committees of defense, committees of correspondence, and pull ourselves together. Our last resort, if necessary, is to take up arms.

The interesting thing, Lloyd, is that this has already happened in England. It happened in England a century before. It happened in the civil war with Oliver Cromwell and Charles I. It happened later in 16 and 80s between James II and William of Orange. In fact, the result of that revolution, the Glorious Revolution, is the British Bill of Rights.

The very first effort of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, September 1774 is to all agree that we must reconfirm the British Bill of Rights, to which we ourselves in these colonies are entitled to.

Lloyd: OK, let's give you another one of your quotes. "If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence." What is a holy war?

Bill: The Quakers simplified it very well, considering that there is the divine in every being. In every human being there is the divine. We have this natural right, and the right to recognize it, and to carry our communion with our maker as we choose. It's when we talk about a holy war, look at the wonderful asylum for the wars over differences over religious opinion throughout the globe from time immemorial.

We find in Pennsylvania, we find in Rhode Island – Rhode Island is established by Roger Williams, who is trying to escape the impositions upon his right to worship as he chooses in Massachusetts Bay. The Quakers, through William Penn, provided religious asylum in Pennsylvania and granting freedom for religion to all other sects who care to settle in Pennsylvania worship freely. This has already taken hold in amongst the 13 colonies where we don't even have it in Great Britain or any other kingdom of Europe.

Lloyd: When you are in your Jefferson persona, and you're answering questions about Jefferson, you have a broad background. Have you ever hit something about war or independence or rights of man where you just sort of stopped and said, you know, I think I may know the answer, but maybe I don't know the answer.

Bill: Of course. And so did he.

Lloyd: Oh really?

Bill: Oh, absolutely. I must tell you, we often forget that Mr. Jefferson held certain opinions as a young man, which he later was influenced to revisit and to reconsider, and he lets us know that in his letters.

He provokes, in each and every one of us who wants to read him, that education is not finite. We are continually learning, we are continually enlightening ourselves, and what we may have held as a certain belief in our youth will dramatically change and provoke a greater recognition to, because of more universal experiences.

Mr. Jefferson, throughout his entire life, is learning, and studying, and being welcoming further enlightenment to understand. Recognizing the human capacity to not thoroughly grasp everything. This is part of man's eternal struggle for liberty, to be the further enlightened, to make further scientific discoveries, to engage further education.

Lloyd: Later in life, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, if I've got this correct, carried on quite an extensive correspondence later in life. John Adams particularly trying to draw out Thomas Jefferson on where he thought he had been misquoted, misdirected, misinformed perhaps. And Jefferson, if I read correctly, was not much up for this. It was not one of his favorite exercises. Although, he frequently wrote back to Adams, he never gave Adams quite what he wanted. Adams, to a degree, I think, was trying to get to exactly what we're getting to today.

Bill: Absolutely.

Lloyd: With the blog, a lot of people now get to play John Adams' part. What do you think of the blog idea?

Bill: No one could have been more in favor, or would be more in favor, of such a blog idea than Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Again, this is another more efficient and immediate method of disseminating information unto the people, and to spread the word. To spread the word, particularly to provoke people themselves to further spread the word, and to question it, and to reply. 

This is what gives the success of the Declaration of American Independence, the success of the American Revolution, and the success of over 100 further Declarations of Independence, written by new nations across this world today. A great number of them having been formed out of the old Soviet Union during the 1990s.

So, all of the blog idea, the immediate information, the questioning, the putting one's two cents' worth into the conversation and into the debate, and into the argument, helps to continue to spread the word and support and fuel the flames kindled on the 4th of July. And as well, in that effort, to help extinguish the feeble engines of despotism.

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