“Jefferson yielded to Madison’s stronger concern. He needed him and he trusted him.”
Clay and David discuss a number of letters between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison that reveal their working relationship, their friendship, and how Madison protected Jefferson politically.
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living;" that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.
[…]
This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.
[…]
Turn this subject in your mind, my Dear Sir, and particularly as to the power of contracting debts, and develope it with that perspicuity and cogent logic which is so peculiarly yours. Your station in the councils of our country gives you an opportunity of producing it to public consideration, of forcing it into discussion. At first blush it may be rallied as a theoretical speculation; but examination will prove it to be solid and salutary. It would furnish matter for a fine preamble to our first law for appropriating the public revenue; and it will exclude, at the threshold of our new government the contagious and ruinous errors of this quarter of the globe, which have armed despots with means not sanctioned by nature for binding in chains their fellow-men.
James Madison to Thomas Jefferson
My first thoughts though coinciding with many of yours, lead me to view the doctrine as not in all respects compatible with the course of human affairs. I will endeavor to sketch the grounds of my skepticism.
Jefferson’s Second American Revolution
The Jefferson Watch
What Would Jefferson Do?
“We couldn’t allow a French national to be here, stirring up anti-administration feeling in this country, or fitting out privateers in our wars.”
Tune in to your local public radio or join the 1776 Club to hear this episode of What Would Thomas Jefferson Do?
Jay Cost, author of the new book James Madison: America's First Politician joins Clay Jenkinson this week to discuss the book and share insights on the politics of Madison and Jefferson's time.
When reading Thomas Jefferson’s correspondence, one often sees examples of his belief that the less government, the better. In this week's episode, President Thomas Jefferson discusses the writing of the Constitution and comments on The Journal of the Federal Convention by James Madison. Jefferson wrote, "it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation."
This week in an interesting debate match, Clay Jenkinson and Joseph Ellis argue over who is the “Indispensable Man” of the American Revolution. Ellis argues for George Washington, while Jenkinson says it has to be Jefferson. A very wise listener suggests that they are both wrong: it’s Benjamin Franklin.
This week we present the third of four conversations between the author and historian Joseph J. Ellis and The Thomas Jefferson Hour creator Clay S. Jenkinson about the letters exchanged between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams from 1812 until the death of both men on July 4, 1826. In this third episode Ellis says that during this age, “letter writing was an art and these are two of the best letter writers in in late eighteenth century America. I don’t know that anybody is better. Franklin is pretty good, but Madison’s letters read like the footnotes of an insurance policy.”