Where are these people in these days?

[longhorn 81]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is amazing. There are two parts.

Be sure to read the 2nd part (in RED).

 

Thomas Jefferson was a very remarkable man who started learning very early in life and never stopped.

 

At 5, began studying under his cousin's tutor.

 

At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French.

 

At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages.

 

At 16, entered the College of William and Mary.

 

At 19, studied Law for 5 years starting under George Wythe.

 

At 23, started his own law practice.

 

At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses.

 

At 31, wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America” and retired from his law practice.

 

At 32, was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress.

 

At 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence.

 

At 33, took three years to revise Virginia?s legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom.

 

At 36, was elected the second Governor of Virginia succeeding Patrick Henry.

 

At 40, served in Congress for two years.

 

At 41, was the American minister to France and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams.

 

At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington.

 

At 53, served as Vice President and was elected president of the American Philosophical Society.

 

At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of Republican Party.

 

At 57, was elected the third president of the United States .

 

At 60, obtained the Louisiana Purchase doubling the nation's size.

 

At 61, was elected to a second term as President.

 

At 65, retired to Monticello .

 

At 80, helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.

 

At 81, almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia and served as its first president.

 

At 83, died on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence along with John Adams

 

Thomas Jefferson knew because he himself studied the previous failed attempts at government. He understood actual history, the nature of God, his laws and the nature of man. That happens to be way more than what most understand today. Jefferson really knew his stuff. A voice from the past to lead us in the future:

 

John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White Housewith the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

 

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe ." -- Thomas Jefferson

 

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

 

-- Thomas Jefferson

 

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."

 

-- Thomas Jefferson

 

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." -- Thomas Jefferson

 

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." -- Thomas Jefferson

 

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson

 

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

 

-- Thomas Jefferson

 

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

 

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

 

-- Thomas Jefferson

 

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:

 

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

 

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have brilliant people in politics these days but few have integrity and character. - Waite

[physicsnerd 139]

I would say that Ron Paul is a politician of the Jeffersonian tradition.

[magsite20 1,664]

To find people of that caliber here are a few places to start looking:

[DrThunder88 912]

"At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of Republican Party."

 

Jefferson was a founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, which would later morph into the contemporary Democratic Party.

 

"He understood actual history, the nature of God, his laws and the nature of man."

 

Just to be clear, Jefferson was a deist. His view of god was as an impersonal, distant creator, not the personal, responsive father figure some religions interpret him to be. He was also a major fan of Jesus, but for all his ascription of human excellence onto the man, Jefferson embraced Christian (used in the same sense the philosophy of Immanuel Kant might be called "Kantian") moral philosophy and not any of the Christian magic. Jefferson's understanding of the "nature of God" does make more sense and is more agreeable to me than non-deistic interpretations, and I agree that Jefferson's irreligious outlook and political practices behooved our nation greatly in our formative years as it would today. I'd also say that Jefferson was correct in proffering at least some of the moral teachings of the New Testament that would be valid regardless of the parentage of the teacher.

 

Still, Jefferson was one of our greatest leaders. He was a polymath like few others in his time or ours who is unfortunately relegated to third-banana status in the minds of many Americans.

Edited November 12, 2011 by DrThunder88

[BpS12 512]

"You wont see this(kind of man) again. These are the old ways." from 13th Warrior, but pertainant.

 

Jeffereson is one of my favorite Christians, second only to Mom and just ahead of an ex-lawyer, now Catholic preist friend, and a few folk on these forums.

 

I think many of us are nearly as contemplateing as He was, but few if any are or will ever be as capeble as He in articulating and acting on those contemplations. That is a quality that seperates great men out of mediocre men.