“Anything that is non-violent is an acceptable form of protest in a Republic.”
President Jefferson shares his view on what he calls an essential need for citizens to speak out about issues they disagree with and he explains why dissent is necessary for the health of American democracy.
Further Reading
- The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 by Conor Cruise O'Brien
- The Atlantic: "Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist" by Conor Cruise O'Brien
- From Monticello.org: Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787: "what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure."
- From Monticello.org: Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787: "were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Mild Protest
The Jefferson Watch
From Clay:
When I watch the video of the athletes kneeling in silence, I see purpose, dignity, anguish, and conviction. What I don’t see is people brandishing semi-automatic weapons, people wearing camouflage fatigues, people wielding openly hateful, often racist signs denouncing the president of the United States, people calling for Second Amendment solutions to America’s ills. No, that was what one saw at a Tea Party rally during the Obama years, and it was always defended as a venerable American tradition drawn from the playbook of the Minutemen and the Boston Tea Party.
Read this week's Jefferson Watch essay, "Mild Protest."
What Would Jefferson Do?
“The more compromise we can find, and the more civility and harmony between us, the likelier we are to prevail as a great nation.”
Tune in to your local public radio or join the 1776 Club to hear this episode of What Would Thomas Jefferson Do?
This week, Clay Jenkinson discusses Jefferson’s first inaugural address with regular guest Lindsay Chervinsky. The speech, inaudibly delivered on March 4, 1801, is regarded as one of the top five in American history.
This week, Clay Jenkinson interviews frequent guest Beau Breslin of Skidmore College about the most famous decision in Supreme Court history.
Professor Beau Breslin of Skidmore College returns to the Thomas Jefferson Hour to talk about important passages that were edited out of key American documents of the Founding Era, including the famous anti-slavery passage of the Declaration of Independence.
This week's episode of the Thomas Jefferson Hour was recorded live at Radford University in Radford, Virginia in February 2023.