He is the greatest enigma among major figures
in American history.
I think we are attracted to him in part because
of his mysterious character.
If he were a monument, he would be a sphinx.
If he were a painting, he would be the Mona
Lisa.
If he were a character in a play, it would
be Hamlet.
He was a farmer, a violinist, a writer, a
surveyor, a scientist, a lover of fine wines,
and a restless architect who couldn't quite bring
himself to finish his own house.
He was a reluctant politician, with a voice
so soft he barely make himself heard from
the podium, but he helped to found America’s
first political party.
He denounced the moral bankruptcy he saw in
Europe, but delighted in the gilded salons
of Paris.
He was a statesman who was twice elected President
of the United States, but did not think his
presidency worth listing on the achievements
on his gravestone.
He was a lifelong champion of small government,
who took it upon himself to more than double
the size of his country.
He endured the loss of nearly everything he
held dear, but somehow never lost his faith
in the future.
He distilled a century of enlightenment thinking
into one remarkable sentence, which began—
we hold these truths to be self-evident that
all men are created equal.
Yet he owned more than two hundred human beings,
and never saw fit to free them.
“Thomas Jefferson was a shadow man,” said
John Adams.
His character was like the great rivers whose
bottoms we cannot not see and make no noise.
He remained a puzzle even to those who thought
they knew him best.
Embodied contradictions common to the country
whose independence it fell to him to proclaim
in words whose precise meaning Americans have
debated ever since.
