President Thomas Jefferson is interviewed by the youngest guest host to ever appear on the Jefferson Hour: Grace Beeby, a freshman at Holy Names Academy in Seattle, Washington.
Grace Beeby first discovered her love of history on a middle school field trip to the Oregon Coast. There, as the wind howled around her and the rain poured down, she found herself surprisingly exhilarated to be standing quite literally in the footsteps of the great explorers Lewis and Clark. This moment ignited not only a new-found sense of adventure, but a full-scale obsession with American history. She is a devoted listener of The Jefferson Hour and an avid reader of history books and biographies. For her school's end-of-year talent show, she brought the house down with a rap number from the hit Broadway musical "Hamilton". Along with her continued admiration for Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, she also loves the Founding Fathers, musical theater, social justice, and drawing.
"George Washington ... was as close to a perfect human being as we believed existed on Earth."
— Clay S. Jenkinson portraying Thomas Jefferson
This week, we speak with President Jefferson about George Washington's farewell address which was first published in Philadelphia's American Daily Advertiser on September 19, 1796, 222 years ago.
"He was part of the extension of slavery that made the Civil War inevitable, and that led to almost 800,000 deaths."
— Clay S. Jenkinson
This week President Thomas Jefferson speaks about the political mistakes he made.
"You have to wait 14 years under the naturalization law before you can become a full citizen of the United States. These were palpable violations of the Bill of Rights."
— Clay S. Jenkinson portraying Thomas Jefferson
We spend this week, as requested, responding to submitted questions and correcting some factual errors pointed out by our listeners.
"Paine refused to take proceeds from this book."
— Clay S. Jenkinson
This week, we present another of our Jefferson Hour Book Club episodes and discuss Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.