Mr. Jefferson Comes to Town

Abstract

O MARCH 4, 1809, in the newly completed hall of the House of Representatives, Thomas Jefferson attended the presidential inauguration of his friend and fellow Virginian, James Madison. Observers noted--they could hardly fail to, such were Jefferson's high spirits--that he was elated to be leaving public office. One week later, on March 11, Jefferson left Washington. He would never return. Indeed, in the remaining seventeen busy years of his life, he would never leave Virginia, or even venture far from Monticello. Today, two and a half centuries after Jefferson's birth, I would like to consider this question: Is Jefferson still instructive to us? Or has he become a glittering anachronism, with little to say that is pertinent to our nation's current discontents? These discontents are, essentially, of two kinds, and they are related. One is physical, the other is cultural and moral. But, then, it was an aspect of Jefferson's genius that he knew that the