Thomas Jefferson From Time and Time Again the Tree of Liberty

Soldiers open up burn down on rebels during the Shays' rebellion

To William Stevens Smith (xiii Nov. 1787), Jefferson uses the metaphor of the tree of freedom in what has become a famous (or infamous) passage apropos Shays's Rebellion.

Yet where does this anarchy be? Where did it e'er exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And tin history produce an instance of a rebellion and then honourably conducted? I say aught of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, non wickedness. God prevent nosotros should ever be xx. years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is incorrect will exist discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of expiry to the public liberty. We accept had xiii. states independant 11. years. There has been 1 rebellion. That comes to 1 rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country always existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to fourth dimension that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Allow them have arms. The remedy is to fix them right equally to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must exist refreshed from time to time with the claret of patriots and tyrants. It is it'southward natural manure.

This oftentimes-referred-to passage, an apologia for the deportment of farmers and other dissenters in Massachusetts (the rebellion began in 1786 and connected in pulses till June of 1787), has perplexed scholars for decades, because the general reaction of others in Jefferson's twenty-four hours (e.1000., Henry Knox and George Washington) was warning or fifty-fifty panic. Why was not Jefferson alarmed or panicked? What became apparent to many was that the Manufactures of Confederation disallowed a strong fundamental government, impotent in such a crunch. Moreover, the rebellion illustrated the fragility and tenuousness of the marriage. Consequently, Jefferson's response in the letter is not simply singular, but also customarily interpreted every bit evidence of a sanguinary streak in him.

The letter, many scholars assert, is simply one more than instance of Jefferson's hypocrisy. Conor Prowl O'Brien develops a radical thesis effectually information technology and a few similar messages in The Long Thing. The alphabetic character to Smith is an attempt to rationalize the violence of Shay'due south Rebellion. Jefferson, he thinks, would accept been at ease with "the most militant segment of the modern American militias." Peter Onuf in The Heed of Thomas Jefferson mentions Jefferson's avowed cowardice apropos of Benedict Arnold's invasion of Virginia. He refers to the tree of liberty statement in the letter to Smith to show Jefferson, "himself no hero," was "eager enough that others should dice." He sums, "Here, for skeptical military men, were the archetype symptoms of civilian bloodthirstiness, justifying itself by appeal to the most exalted ideological principles." Gordon Wood in Empire of Liberty notes that Jefferson was a radical revolutionist, at to the lowest degree in his early political career. He quotes from a British guest at a dinner partner with Jefferson, "[Jefferson] cannot alive but in a revolution, and all events in Europe are merely considered past him in the relation they bear to the probability of a revolution to be produced by them." C. Vann Woodward in The Hereafter of the Past, sees nothing astonishing in the alphabetic character. "This comes as no surprise from the author of the Declaration of Independence." He adds that Jefferson, regarded equally "Mr. Revolution" in France, was construed to be the "leading earth authority on the subject."

Other scholars urge caution apropos taking the metaphors too straightforwardly.Dumas Malone says Jefferson was "far more than aware than most of [his contemporaries] of the everlasting dangers of tyranny and force. Rebellion—occasional rebellion—on the function of men nurtured in self-government seemed to him much the bottom evil." Alf Mapp writes in Thomas Jefferson: America's Paradoxical Patriot, "So great is the volume of Jefferson's correspondence that even a tiny proportion of it written with unguarded hyperbole affords numerous quotations for the use of those who portray him as an extremist."

In understanding with Malone and Mapp, at that place is nothing remarkable in the letter, if we understand how Jefferson thought of rebellions. First, rebellions, for Jefferson, are not revolutions. They are more condom than substantive in that their aim is preservation or alteration, not wholesale alter. 2d, Jefferson notes that rebellions accept been common occurrences in most countries over the centuries. Given that, the worries about Shays's Rebellion are de trop. Third, Jefferson acknowledges that even the best intended governors, if governing long, will tend to govern in their own interests and non in the interests of the citizenry. "Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people solitary," he writes in Query 14 of his Notes on Virginia. Thus, rebellion from time to time will serve as a alarm to those empowered with the rule of a state that they are non to abuse those powers. And then, a few lives lost in the effort to preserve citizens' rights and liberties is small beer when compared to the inevitable result of lethargy: the evanescence of coercive government and its corrosive, liberty-burking effects—axiomatic past the study of history.

Jefferson'southward argument, hyperboles and metaphors aside, is much the same equally John Stuart Mill'southward in On Freedom, when Manufactory writes of the nascence, maturation, and pass up of ethical doctrines or religious creeds. "Their significant continues to exist felt in undiminished force, and is perhaps brought out into even fuller consciousness, and then long as the struggle lasts to give the doctrine or creed an ascendency over other creeds." Thus, doctrines or creeds flourish when there are diversity of stance, freedom of debate, and toleration of variety for human being flourishing—viz., when adherents are immune to, and do, fight on their behalf. It is much the same with Jefferson. That is why he considers sanguinary rebellions from time to time to exist the manure that keeps salubrious the tree of liberty.

Were Jefferson alive today, he would certainly be taken aback by the always growing urbanity besides as the wearisome uniformity of that urbanity due to corporate monopolies (e.m., Exxon Mobile, Walmart, Apple tree, and CVS) in America. Moreover, though he would doubtless embrace the advance of technologies for enhanced spread of information and communication (e-mail, prison cell phones, and the Internet) as he did the press press, he would pooh-pooh, as he did non-substantive novels, the insipid uses to which such technologies are being put (empty text messages and unimportant phone calls, also as overuse of the Internet for lilliputian concerns)—all evidence of aloofness and faineance of the full general citizenry, each focused merely on advancing his own affairs. No better evidence of that is in Query XVII of Notes on Virginia, in which Jefferson prophesies that the American denizens, upon cessation of the revolutionary war, "will forget themselves, simply in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights."

Yet thus far we have eschewed what perchance is most remarkable in the alphabetic character to Smith: the sentiment that Jefferson seems to be enjoining rebellion, fifty-fifty when the people are confused well-nigh the facts. "The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will exist discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive." Notwithstanding these significant claims cannot exist taken as evidence that Jefferson countenances rebellious actions in cases of consummate or abundant ignorance. Call up Shays's Rebellion was mostly of farmers, disgruntled by economic difficulties in Massachusetts and the dire governmental actions to solve them, though at that place were other concerns. There were good reasons for rebellion of some sort, even if the rebels were not informed of all the facts. Motives—"they were founded in ignorance, not wickedness"—must be considered before punishment is harefootedly doled out.

Notwithstanding, Jefferson puzzlingly adds, "If they [the people] remain repose under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public freedom." Again, there is no reason to see "misconceptions" to imply consummate or abundant ignorance, just merely partial ignorance, and it is critical to underscore Jefferson'south conception of lethargy equally "the precursor of expiry to the public liberty." Jefferson equally early as 1776 (Resolution for Rotation of Members of Continental Congress) recognized that it was necessary "to forbid every danger which might arise to American freedom by standing too long in part the members of the Continental Congress." He as well recognized the "selfish interests of kings, nobles and priests" over the centuries (TJ to Ellen Randolph Coolidge, 17 Aug. 1825). Thus, a government of the people has also to be by the people. It follows that "the influence over government must be shared amidst all the people" (Query XIV) and that the people have a right to act when their interests are being neglected or abused. That is why Jefferson in his letter to Smith advocates pardoning and pacifying the people when they rebel. The people "preserve the spirit of resistance," and that spirit of resistance in turn preserves their rights and liberties. Governors cannot be trusted.

Yet Jefferson did non ever appeal to hyperbole or rebellion to make his point apropos of acting on behalf of preserving freedom. He recognized that once a constitution was in place, there would be a express office for rebellion. He says to C.W.F. Dumas (x Sept. 1787), "Happy for us, that when we find our constitutions lacking and insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we tin assemble with all the coolness of philosophers and set it to rights, while every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to improve or to restore their constitutions."

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Source: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/160075

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