The Jefferson Rule: Why We Think the Founding Fathers Have All the Answers

From the Jacksonians to the Tea Party, historian Sehat (The Myth of American Religious Freedom) shows how a range of American political leaders have invoked the Founding Fathers for their own ideological ends. Sometimes this has been on behalf of America’s highest ideals, as when Martin Luther King, Jr. described the Declaration of Independence and Constitution to be “a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.” Far more often, however, the Founders’ diverse views have been levied to present a one-dimensional view of American political philosophy, as when Ronald Reagan drew a straight line from Thomas Jefferson to the “conservative principles of limited government, fiscal austerity, and states’ rights.” America’s founders, as Sehat documents, were complex and often contradicted themselves: for example, Jefferson had stood for states’ rights in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and a strong federal government in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Sehat indulges in long digressions while discussing debates over such matters as Reagan’s tax and budget cuts of the early 1980s. He also never explains his cryptic title—what exactly is “the Jefferson rule”? Still, this is a sobering, informative study of concepts from America’s political origins too often viewed with rose-tinted glasses. [em](May) [/em]