The Political Spectrum

I have many pet peeves. Topping the list are those pesky critters who run for the train and hold the doors open in act signifying that they believe they are the most important people on Earth, and they can't wait those sixty seconds for the next train. People who hold elevator doors open to carry on conversation, people who drive slowly in the left lane, people who stand on the left side of the Metro escalator: all major pet peeves. But also near the top are those conservatives who wax poetic for Thomas Jefferson.

I don't get it. Don't these people understand that he's the last one among the Founding Fathers that we ought to hold in veneration? Probably not. Most conservatives know two things about Jefferson - he wrote the Declaration of Independence and he was for limited government. That's enough for some to think he was a paragon of early American conservatism. And yet nothing about Jefferson's ideology is compatible with those issues conservatives hold dear.

Jefferson was the first of those hated secularists. Some tend to dismiss the "wall of separation" metaphor as being misunderstood, but it is not. Jefferson disliked organized religion, and wanted religion to be as divorced from the public sphere as many of those on the modern left. He was comfortable in the continental (French) enlightenment world of Voltaire and others who disdained religion.

Further, Jefferson's constitutional theory is decidedly unconservative. There are those who might point to Jefferson's "strict constructionism" as evidence to the contrary, but this strict constructionist ideology was based on the belief that constitutions should be frequently altered. He believed that each generation was independent of the other, the dead having no rights. As such, the will of each succeeding generation should determine the constitutional structure. Thus Jefferson's strict construction was tied to a decidedly populistic ethos. Since the constitution theoretically emanated from the people's will, that will should be respected. But the popular will was ever-changing, and therefore the constitution should adapt to the generational will. Thus Jefferson's constitutionalism was relatively ungrounded and rather transient.

It is true that Jefferson distrusted governments and was not a fan of energetic government, but there's more here than meets the eye. First of all, one would be hard pressed to find anyone of the Founding generation who was much of a fan of activist government. I would posit that even Hamilton would be uneasy with the current behemoth that is the federal government. And yet the Framers constructed a constitution that was a response to the inefficiency of the Articles of Confederation government. They did not seek to construct a completely inefficient and unenergetic central government, but rather they worked to strengthen an institution that they felt was too weak to provide security. Jefferson was ideologically sympathetic to the anti-Federalists, the uber states' righters if you will. While conservatives are generally more protective of federalism than the left, we cannot be ignorant of the role of the federal government. States should retain many rights and privileges that have been usurped, but by no means should we champion a federal government that is utterly incompetent to function effectively.

I sense that many on the right praise Jefferson merely because he was a member of the Founding generation. And while we should respect Jefferson's genius and talent, we also ought not lose sight of the fact that not all Founders were created equal.