Jefferson on Trial
Bestor, Arthur E. Jr.
BOOKS Jefferson on Trial The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Volume 6, 21 May 1781 to 1 March 1784. Julian P. Boyd, editor. Mina R. Bryan and Elizabeth L. Hutter, associate editors. Princeton...
...Only the death of his wife (Sept...
...Despite the amends that were made to him in this and other ways, Jefferson for a full year could not be induced to re-enter public life...
...Though the last weeks of Jefferson's governorship were marked by a near breakdown of state administration, this attempt to fasten the blame upon him personally and to impugn his honor was a typically McCarthy-esque move...
...As in a morality play, the democratic virtues walk the stage conspicuously labeled, and the corresponding vices are routed by declamation and argument...
...II As a medium, the radio has never had much use for subtlety, and to read these scripts in pitiless type is faintly embarrassing, like listening to an earnest high-school debate on capital punishment...
...In it we follow Jefferson through the bitterest experiences of his personal life and see him emerge to full maturity...
...Whether the performance will convert the vicious in the audience is an open question, but it will at least comfort and sustain the virtuous, which is something in these dark days...
...Jefferson is, by intention, rather a personification than a person, and in one sketch he is brought back from the grave to debate the question of revolution with a Soviet agent...
...It is therefore well, before the bonfires begin, to have as many copies in print as possible, so that a fair number may be secreted and saved against the day when McCarthyism takes its proper place in history alongside the other obscene 20th Century philosophies of intimidation, repression, and brain-washing...
...IN this, the 178th year of American Independence and the first year of American book-burning, it is heartening to realize that the words of Thomas Jefferson are still being published without let or hindrance...
...6, 1782), which ended his hopes of quiet domestic felicity, could persuade him to reverse his decision...
...10...
...The scripts are, in part, historical re-creations, though they are perhaps best described as parables in an historical setting...
...668 pp...
...Beacon Press...
...Princeton University Press...
...The introduction is by Dumas Malone, whose scholarly knowledge was at the command of the four script-writers throughout the preparation of the programs...
...With his acceptance, on Nov...
...Jefferson wrestling with almost hopeless problems of military supply and finance...
...His retirement from the post (June 3) was followed a day later by an irruption of the British into Monticello itself, and nine days later by a resolution of the Virginia House of Delegates to inquire into "the Conduct of the Executive for the last twelve Months...
...The present volume concludes, fittingly enough, with the documents in which Jefferson developed, during the spring of 1784, his views concerning the government of the Western territories—that phase of our constitutional system to which he made perhaps his most direct and distinctive contribution...
...165 pp...
...In it, also, we follow the fortunes of the Republic from the shadow of imminent military disaster through victory to a realization of the intricate problems that faced it in organizing its institutions for peace and permanence...
...Twelve radio dramatizations, presented in 1952 by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters, under a grant from one of the funds established by the Ford Foundation, are here printed in a handsome, illustrated volume...
...Eventually, no doubt, Sen...
...and illustrations...
...Reviewed by Arthur E. Bestor, Jr...
...and illustrations...
...Edited, and with an introduction, by Dumas Malone...
...The sixth volume, covering the three years from May 1781 to March 1784, does not have to be dramatized in order to be dramatic...
...To a very large extent the words are the actual words of Jefferson, woven together with great ingenuity and a nice sense of dramatic timing...
...Joseph R. McCarthy will decide to commit the writings of Jefferson to the flames also, for every page of them preaches, with insidious power, a concept of Americanism which is the complete antithesis of that in which the commissar of thought control from Wisconsin believes...
...The repu-tation-stabber replied with a vague set of charges, and then left town...
...He undertook a careful study of foreign relations, he threw himself into the work of Congress, and he found time (as he was to do throughout his life) for correspondence about the "big bones" being found in the West and about other scientific and philosophic matters...
...Written by Morton Wishengrad, Milton Geiger, Joseph Mindel, and George Probst...
...Jefferson's Ability, Rectitude, and Integrity as cheif [sic] Magistrate"—an act of common decency that no victim of detraction can hope for from a present-day American legislative committee...
...It takes no more than common sense to realize that the American answer to communism is to be found, not in the devious insinuations of McCarthy, but in the straightforward affirmations of Jefferson: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man...
...Jefferson wrote to the author of the resolution that "it could not be intended just to stab a reputation by a general suggestion under a bare expectation that facts might be afterwards hunted up to bolster it," but he knew perfectly well that this indeed was the intention...
...hence the legislature promptly took steps "to obviate and to remove all unmerited Censure" by resolving ^to declare the high opinion which they entertain of Mr...
...But it ought to triumph in the short run as well as the long...
...3.50...
...One acknowledges with gratitude the service which the educational broadcasters are rendering, but as a reader one turns, for sheer intellectual enjoyment, to the original and subtle mind of Jefferson himself as presented, unfiltered and unglamorized, in the magnificent Princeton edition of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson...
...The political morality of those simple days still clung to the presumption that a man is innocent until proved guilty...
...The Jeffersonian Heritage...
...26, 1782, of the appointment of Congress as plenipotentiary abroad (a mission that fast-moving events caused to be cancelled), Jefferson reconsecrated his life to the nation's service—now a man nearing forty, chastened by suffering, experienced in action, and matured by ceaseless reflection on events and their deeper significance...
...That Jeffersonianism will eventually triumph over McCarthyism, who can doubt...
...The volume opens (May 21, 1781) with Gov...
...To bring this sane realization home to the American people is the mission of the volume entitled The Jeffersonian Heritage...
Vol. 17 • October 1953 • No. 10
