In starting a new government, how does one proceed? With
attention to precedent, using an existing framework as a guide?
From scratch?
This was the question facing the newly formed Virginia
Assembly in the autumn of 1776. Jefferson's draft constitution
had been received but dismissed, not out of malice but out of a
desire to reach policy decisions by a fuller consensus. Nonetheless,
Jefferson was put in charge of a committee to revise the existing
laws of Virginia, making deletions where necessary and additions
where appropriate. Significantly, one of his closest associates
in the enterprise was a James Madison, a first term legislator
eight years Jefferson's junior. It was the beginning of a political
alliance that would last for fifty years.
Jefferson, Madison, and company gradually laid out a plan
for the constitution of Virginia involving several proposals to
create greater freedoms and opportunities for less privileged males
of European descent. Under existing British laws, the right to
vote was predicated on a man's property holdings, and the right
to inherit property was predicated on one's place in the family
line. Thus, the ruling class of colonial Virginia was essentially
a fraternity of eldest brothers.
Jefferson attacked this system by helping abolish primogeniture and
entail, two long-standing traditions that directed inheritances to
a single heir. Under the new system, a more equal distribution
of lands was encouraged. Since only landowners were eligible to
vote, an increase in the number of landowners would increase the
number of eligible voters. Further, by making immigration a less
complicated and exclusive process, new families arrived in droves
and began to settle along the frontier. Eventually, Jefferson reasoned,
these measures would help to efface the influence of the long-standing
oligarchy of large landowners.
In these early reforms, Jefferson's underlying devotion
to democracy is made plain. Believing in the virtues of talent
above the virtues of association, he envisioned a society founded
on meritocracy rather than on aristocracy. To fully achieve the
dream of a meritocracy, Jefferson recognized the necessity of overhauling
the existing educational system. Unique to his day, he believed
that the state should take up the task of schooling in order to
best cultivate the most talented minds from all social classes.
Jefferson's views on universal public education were unprecedented
and far too progressive for his associates at the time. But while
Jefferson's plans to create free public schools did not succeed at
first, many of his proposals on education later became law, and
as such laid the groundwork for the labor of his later life, the
founding of the University of Virginia.
True to his Enlightenment values, Jefferson placed a higher
value on the logic and reason of secular education and sound government than
on the ancient demands of ecclesiastical tradition. Correspondingly,
he wished to separate school and state initiatives from religious
strictures. But such a task was not an easy one. Since its foundation,
the Commonwealth of Virginia had been expressly aligned with the
Anglican Church, which collected taxes from all citizens and exercised
considerable control in matters of government. In addition, many
feared that disestablishment would serve to weaken religious convictions
while strengthening the state apparatus disproportionately.
Jefferson himself had been raised an Anglican, but wished
to disestablish the overarching control of the Anglican Church
in the interest of broader religious freedoms. As he famously
wrote, "it does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there
are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks
my leg." This view bespeaks Jefferson's commitment to religious
toleration and his own open approach to spiritual questions.
In his unorthodox scrutiny of the life and works of Jesus,
Jefferson displayed a willingness to examine Jesus as a moral rather
than strictly devotional figure. Such a critical appraisal of
Jesus placed Jefferson outside of the Christian mainstream and
more firmly in the New England tradition of Unitarianism that would
later produce such religious freethinkers as Ralph Waldo Emerson
and Henry David Thoreau (See the SparkNote on Walden by
Thoreau). These views would later cause many to cast
aspersions on Jefferson's faith, depicting him as an infidel and
even an atheist during the presidential campaign of 1800. As was
his custom in the midst of a scandal, Jefferson elected to remain
above the fray, declining to honor such accusations with a response.
In religion as in politics, Jefferson's bedrock principle
was to leave independent men with the liberty to decide for themselves.
Thus, the separation of church and state was a first principle.
Over time, the tide of revolution began to work in this direction,
and priorities of state began to take precedence over the prerogatives
of the church. The first major step in this direction occurred
in 1779, when all Anglican clergy were removed from the government
payroll. Although the Church retained significant powers, the first
dent had been made. Then, in 1786, Jefferson's Statute
of Virginia for Religious Freedom was approved by the
Assembly, after a decade of fierce opposition from church leaders.
From this point on, all official association between church and
state was utterly severed. Further, civil liberties were expressly
guaranteed to all citizens regardless of religious convictions or
lack thereof.
The push toward secularization in America remains one
of Jefferson's most significant legacies to this day. As an apostle
of the Enlightenment, he succeeded in planting an ethical-political
framework where a moral-religious framework had previously stood, and
this in a country that was supposed to be more fundamentally devoted
to the cause of religion than the various nations of Europe. Later,
as President, Jefferson would attempt to strengthen the integrity
of the several states at the expense of the clergy in New England.
In these efforts he was less effective, but by setting up a viable
secular alternative in Virginia, Jefferson did much to create the
foundations for a national society that was truly pluralistic in
terms of religion.
Beyond religious reforms, Jefferson set about to modernize
the existing legal system and penal code, which dated from the
English feudal system. Although in many regards his amendments
were improvements, Jefferson came under fire for certain clauses
that his critics viewed as uncharacteristically illiberal. Chief
among these were various gruesome methods of execution in the case
of a capital offense, castration in the case of rape, and retributive
violence in the case of a maiming or disfigurement. These measures
were eventually moderated, and an original plan to sentence perpetrators
of felonies and misdemeanors to hard labor was changed to provide
for an incarceration system. After many lengthy and niggling debates, Jefferson's
revised code of laws was adopted in full in 1796. He never considered
it one of his greater successes.
From an educational, legal and religious standpoint, Jefferson's values
were ahead of the curve, and his policies were correspondingly
bold. However, with regard to slavery, Jefferson suffered from
a truly mixed record: often discussing the need to abolish slavery,
but finding himself continually frustrated at his unsuccessful efforts
to affect change. Eventually, a sense of lassitude set in, driven
perhaps as much by economics as by ideology. For as a large-scale
slave-owner throughout life, a significant portion of his fortunes
were predicated upon the peculiar institution.
Jefferson is frequently celebrated for his democratic
reforms, but the blot on his record with regard to slavery is difficult
to ignore. Further, Jefferson tended to penalize the privileged
without markedly improving the lot of the poor. This too is a
legacy that America continues to live with today. As historian
Henry Adams suggested, "Jefferson's reforms crippled and impoverished
the gentry, they did little for the populace, and for the slaves
nothing."
Regardless of Jefferson's conspicuous failings, the positive
influence that he contributed as a Virginia legislator was unsurpassed
in his time. By setting up a model state constitution, he provided
a blueprint for other states to follow. Moreover, many of his
state policies were later adopted at a federal level. The immense
economic, political and social changes that Jefferson wielded by
the power of his pen have led many to call his accomplishment a "bloodless
revolution" of sorts.
But while this "bloodless revolution" could be taken in
the safe haven of the Virginia Assembly, war with the British continued
to rage just to the north. And though he professed to have no
interest in military operations, Jefferson's legal aplomb and aptitude
for leadership gradually drew him toward the bloody fray that his
own rhetoric had done so much to incite.
