President Thomas Jefferson (as portrayed by humanities scholar Clay S. Jenkinson) discusses a letter he wrote to James Madison from Paris on September 6, 1789 in which he wrote, "the earth belongs in usufruct to the living".
Further Reading
- Founders Online: To James Madison from Thomas Jefferson, 6 September 1789
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.”