provided a link to www.JeffersonLeadership.com is included.
Category Archives: Agriculture
Thomas Jefferson on understanding the federal budget
How well do you understand the federal budget?
The accounts of the United States ought to be, and may be made, as simple as those of a common farmer, and capable of being understood by common farmers.
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, March 6,1796, 39
Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Jefferson had been off the national scene for three years. His ongoing conflict with Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton led him to resign as President Washington’s Secretary of State in 1793. Hamilton continued in his role until 1795, and his influence continued even after he left office.
Jefferson didn’t approve of anything Hamilton believed or did, including Hamilton’s “accounting” for federal funds. Read a little more about his style of bookkeeping in this previous post.
No doubt, Jefferson could not be objective about anything Hamilton. Jefferson saw in the other man the mirror opposite of everything republican (note the small “r”). Using federal accounts to confuse and obscure was one more way for Hamilton to set himself above or apart from others.
For a better treatment of Hamilton in only 50 pages, I recommend Chapter 4 of Thomas Fleming’s excellent book, “The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers.”
For an entertaining and cleverly done video of Hamilton, see PBS’s “Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton.”
Invite Thomas Jefferson to simplify complex issues for your audience.
Call Patrick Lee, 573-657-2739
Thomas Jefferson on equal rights vs. favoritism
Is a little favoritism OK? Does it lead to a lot?
The general law prescribes an open sale, where all citizens may compete, on an equal footing for any lot of land which attracts their choice. To dispense with that, in any particular case, requires a special law of Congress, and to special legislation, we are generally averse, lest a principle of favoritism should creep in, and prevent that of equal rights. It has been done however, on some occasions, where a special national advantage has been expected to outweigh that of adherence to the general rule.
To George Flower, 1817, http://1.usa.gov/s68JFV
Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Today’s post is from the same letter as the last post on December 12, about non-English speaking immigrants. Buried in the text of that 2 ½ page handwritten letter was this interesting nugget.
Apparently, Flower inquired of Jefferson about some special consideration for Illinois land he hoped to purchase for a colony of English farmer immigrants. Jefferson declined to get involved and referred Flower to the federal land office. Then, the former President wrote the comments above. Let’s summarize those comments:
1. The law allows all land purchasers to compete on equal footing.
2. Going beyond that law requires an act of Congress.
3. Americans tend not to favor special legislation, because
a. It opens the door to showing favoritism.
b. It subverts the principle of equal rights.
4. However, if a “special national advantage” (not an individual or group advantage but one that could benefit the nation, i.e. all its citizens) outweighed the general principle of the law, a Congressional exception by law could be granted.
Jefferson cited an agricultural exception given to Swiss immigrants on the Ohio River and another for Frenchmen on the Tombigbee River. He didn’t know whether Flower’s “improved system of farming” would merit similar treatment.
Items 1, 2, & 3 summarize what Jefferson would call “republican” principles: equal opportunity and treatment for all, no favoritism and the rule of law. Item 4 recognizes Jefferson’s practical side: We are prepared to change the law if it will benefit everyone to do so.
Mr. Jefferson will regard each of your audience members equally and with respect,
be they paupers or kings!
Call Patrick Lee, 573-657-2739
Thomas Jefferson, discouraged at life’s end
How will you protect your senior years from great disappointment?
Cultivators of the earth are the most virtuous and independent citizens.
Notes on Virginia, 1782, 2885
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth.
Thomas Jefferson to C. W. Peale, 1811, 2896
To keep a Virginia estate together requires in the owner both skill and attention. Skill, I never had, and attention I could not have; and, really, when I reflect on all circumstances, my wonder is that I should have been so long as sixty years in reaching the result to which I am now reduced.
Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1826, 2879
Patrick Lee’s Explanation
The third excerpt is one of the saddest things I’ve ever read from Jefferson’s pen. He loved farmers, farming, and everything connected to the soil. The first excerpt is from his book, written when he was 39. The second came at age 68, two years into retirement from the Presidency and public life. The last came just months before his death.
Jefferson was deeply in debt. His health was failing. An attempted lottery to raise money by raffling some of his lands was faltering. He had no means of preserving his beloved Monticello or any of his assets as an inheritance for his only surviving child and her large family.
Perhaps it was the regret of an ailing, indebted old man to claim he never had any skill at managing his estate. He did have that skill and exercised it well when he was able to do so. He was right in claiming that his estate did not receive the attention it needed from him. From 1784, when he left America to be minister to France, until his retirement in 1809, he neglected his lands while he devoted himself to public service.
Some of his financial woes were due to economic recessions. Some were forced on him by others. Some were due to his own spendthrift habits. Regardless, it is sad to see this optimistic, forward-looking man reduced to such a discouraged condition.
Mr. Jefferson has a far more positive message than this to share with your audience!
Call Patrick Lee, 573-657-2739
Thomas Jefferson on the cotton gin
Could the Civil War have begun in 1793?
As the State of Virginia … carries on household manufactures of cotton to a great extent, as I also do myself, and one of our great embarrassments is the clearing the cotton of the seed, I feel a considerable interest in the success of your invention, for family use. Permit me, therefore, to ask information from you on these points. Has the machine been thoroughly tried in the ginning of cotton, or is it yet but a machine of theory? What quantity of cotton has it cleared on an average of several days, and worked by hand, and by how many hands? What will be the cost of one of them, made to be worked by hand? Favorable answers to these questions would induce me to engage one of them.
Thomas Jefferson to Eli Whitney, 1793, 1845
Patrick Lee’s Explanation
1793 was the year young Whitney, just 28, invented the cotton engine, more commonly know as the cotton gin. Jefferson was asking questions of Whitney, to determine whether he should buy one. It held great promise for both him and other Virginia cotton growers.
The cotton gin made cotton production profitable, which strengthened and expanded the South’s hold on slavery as a labor supply, leading to one of the causes of the Civil War, six decades in the future. Ironically, Whitney never made money with his invention and turned to manufacturing guns for the federal government. He championed the practice of interchangeable parts for manufactured goods. That practice was adopted by northern manufacturing states and gave the Union a strong military advantage in that same Civil War.
Learn more about Eli Whitney here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Whitney
Learn about innovation and inventions firsthand. Invite Thomas Jefferson to speak.
Call Patrick Lee, 573-657-2739
Thomas Jefferson on botany at the University of Virginia
Will you have this much vision for the future when you’re 83?
It is time to think of the introduction of the school of Botany into our institution. [University of Virginia] …
1. Our first operation must be the selection of a piece of ground of proper soil and site, suppose of about six acres … we are to regard the circumstances of soil, water, and distance …
2. Enclose the ground with a serpentine brick wall seven feet high. This would take about 80,000 bricks and cost $800, and it must depend on our finances whether they will afford that immediately, or allow us, for awhile, but enclosure of posts and rails.
3. Form all the hill sides into level terraces of convenient breadth, curving with the hill, and the level ground into beds and alleys.
4. Make out a list of the plants thought necessary and sufficient for botanical purposes, and of the trees we propose to introduce, and take measures in time for procuring them … The trees I should propose would be exotics of distinguished usefulness, and accommodated to our climate …
Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Emmett, 1826, 929
Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Jefferson labored for a dozen years to create the University of Virginia. He raised the political and financial support, surveyed the grounds, designed the buildings and supervised the laying of cornerstones. He developed the curricula. recruited the professors and served as its rector (in today’s terms, president) when the University opened in 1824.
Two years later and just months before his death, Jefferson envisioned adding a botany school and described its scope.
Thomas Jefferson on farm societies & the Constitution
A worthwhile purpose, but is it constitutional?
I have on several occasions been led to think on some means of uniting the State agricultural societies into a central society… some have proposed to Congress to incorporate such a society. I am against that, because I think Congress cannot find in all the enumerated powers [of the Constitution] any one which authorizes the act, much less the giving of public money to that use. I believe, too, if they had the power, it would soon be used for no other purpose than to buy with sinecures* useful partisans.
[*Definition of sinecure, Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary: An office or position that requires little or no work]
Thomas Jefferson to Robert Livingston, 1801, 243
Patrick Lee’s Explanation
As one devoted to agriculture, Jefferson endorsed “societies” that would advance that cause. Some states had such societies. Uniting those groups across state lines had merit, and Jefferson gave thought to how that might be done.
He was opposed to it being done by a law of Congress. The authority to do so wasn’t in the Constitution, and public money shouldn’t be spent on it. Political patronage and corruption would be the logical result.
Just because something was a good idea or might have a public benefit was a not sufficient ground for Congress doing it. Its authority was limited by the Constitution. All other powers remained with the states.
Thomas Jefferson on falling real estate values
What if your home lost 80% of its value?
The long succession of years of stunted crops, or reduced prices, of general prostration of the farming business under the levies for the support of manufactures, &c., with the calamitous fluctuations of value in our paper medium [money], have kept agriculture in a state of abject depression, which has peopled the western states by silently breaking up those on the Atlantic, and glutted the land market, while it drew off its bidders… Property has lost its character of being a resource for debts … [Land which once] sold readily for from fifty to one hundred dollars the acres (and such sales were many then,) would not sell now for more than from ten to twenty dollars, or one-quarter or one-fifth its former price.
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1826, 236
Patrick Lee’s Explanation:
This was written in the last few months of Jefferson’s life. (He died July 4, 1826.) He was deeply in debt and wanted to sell some of his land to pay creditors. He couldn’t do that because a.) There was little market for land. or b.) If it would sell, it might bring only 20% of the value it held several decades before. He owed more on the land than it was worth.
What five reasons did Jefferson give for the prostrated land values?
Much of an individual’s net worth in America is tied to their equity in real estate and appreciating real estate values. What would happen to your net worth if the value of your real estate was reduced 80%? That was Thomas Jefferson’s fate in 1826.
