Thomas Jefferson speaks about a famous letter of advice he wrote to his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph on November 24, 1808.
Included in the letter was this paragraph:
When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, He has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? If a fact be misstated, it is probable he is gratified by a belief of it, and I have no right to deprive him of the gratification. If he wants information, he will ask it, and then I will give it in measured terms; but if he still believes his own story, and shows a desire to dispute the fact with me, I hear him and say nothing. It is his affair, not mine, if he prefers error.
We speak with President Jefferson about his "Circular to the Heads of Departments," a memo he wrote dated November 6, 1801 which provides insight into Jefferson's governing style. He refers to his cabinet as one of the most harmonious in history, and he closes his letter by writing, "If I had the Universe to choose from, I could not change one of my associates to my better satisfaction."
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.”
We present the second 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 second episode, they discuss some of what the letters reveal about both men including their thoughts on slavery in America. As Joseph Ellis says in the program, “Jefferson is the most resonant figure in American history because he straddles the greatest insights and the worst instincts.”
We present the first 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 first episode, we discuss how the correspondence began. As John Adams wrote to Jefferson on July 15, 1813, “You and I, ought not to die, before we have explained ourselves to each other.”