{"id":838,"date":"2014-06-24T00:07:49","date_gmt":"2014-06-24T05:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=838"},"modified":"2014-06-24T14:17:53","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T19:17:53","slug":"what-did-thomas-jefferson-read-on-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2014\/06\/24\/what-did-thomas-jefferson-read-on-government\/","title":{"rendered":"What did Thomas Jefferson Read on Government?"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.let.rug.nl\/usa\/presidents\/thomas-jefferson\/letters-of-thomas-jefferson\/jefl179.php<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1807 President Thomas Jefferson responded to the questions of John Norvell Washington regarding the study of civil government and history.\u00a0 The letter is dated June 14, 1807.\u00a0 Jefferson answered plainly: “I think there does not exist a good elementary work on the organization of society into civil government: I mean a work which presents in one full & comprehensive view the system of principles on which such an organization should be founded, according to the rights of nature.”<\/p>\n

However, did Jefferson know of any\u00a0books that might suffice?\u00a0 He wrote, “I should recommend Locke on Government, Sidney, Priestley’s Essay on the first Principles of Government, Chipman’s Principles of Government, & the Federalist. Adding, perhaps, Beccaria on crimes & punishments, because of the demonstrative manner in which he has treated that branch of the subject.”<\/p>\n

First, he recommended John Locke’s Treatises on Civil Government<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 This is no surprise since he borrowed heavily from\u00a0Locke’s ideas to write the Declaration of Independence.\u00a0 Second, he recommended Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Sidney was a\u00a0republican contemporary of Locke\u00a0who\u00a0opposed the Restoration Monarchy and suffered execution for it in 1683.\u00a0 Both authors wrote in response to Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha<\/em><\/strong> (a defense of the divine right of monarchs) and both dealt with the arguments of Thomas Hobbes regarding absolute rule.\u00a0 Third, Jefferson referred to Joseph Priestley’s Essay on the First Principles of Government <\/em><\/strong>in which he argued for political and religious liberty in England in the late 18th century.\u00a0 Fourth, Jefferson recommended Nathaniel Chipman’s Sketches of the Principles of Civil Government<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Chipman was a lawyer, politician, and judge from Vermont.\u00a0 He had fought in the Revolutionary War.\u00a0 Lastly, Jefferson recommended the Federalist Papers<\/em><\/strong> written by James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton.\u00a0 One could argue that these works form the basis for classical liberal and early American political thought.\u00a0 Cesare Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments<\/em> <\/strong>laid the foundation for modern criminology and called for reform of prisons in 1764.\u00a0 It condemned both torture and the death penalty.<\/p>\n

Jefferson could have stopped there but he chose to recommend two works on money and commerce.\u00a0 First, he encouraged Mr. Washington to read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations<\/em><\/strong> which rejected government-regulated mercantilism and argued generally\u00a0in favor of free markets and self-interested merchants.\u00a0 Second, Jefferson recommended Jean-Baptiste Say’s work on economics\u00a0which at the time was only available\u00a0in its original French Trait\u00e9 d’\u00e9conomie politique.\u00a0<\/em>It was later translated into English and influenced economic theory in the 19th century. (Do a search on Say’s Law.)<\/p>\n

In this letter Thomas Jefferson has recommended the works we should read to understand civil government and economics in the early 19th century.\u00a0 He\u00a0set forth a list of\u00a0works on classical liberalism and free market economics.\u00a0 They are all available in print and many of them in complete texts online. \u00a0Perhaps, we should at least be familiar with the basic arguments of these works.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.let.rug.nl\/usa\/presidents\/thomas-jefferson\/letters-of-thomas-jefferson\/jefl179.php\u00a0 In 1807 President Thomas Jefferson responded to the questions of John Norvell Washington regarding the study of civil government and history.\u00a0 The letter is dated June 14, 1807.\u00a0 Jefferson answered plainly: “I think there does not exist a good … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,13,55,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-history","category-politics","category-thomas-jefferson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}