The Dopeness of TJ

I posted the “original draft” of the Declaration of Independence yesterday. I didn’t want to post the final draft, because it’s pedestrian, but also, there is something refreshing in seeing the “original draft”. It shows that like all other writers, Jefferson needed a good editor. This is best demonstrated by his original opener:

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, and to assume among powers of the earth the equal and independent station to which the laws of nature and of nature's god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the change.”

You lost me at hitherto TJ. The lead, or opening, is supposed to be attention grabbing, you know, really laying it out there. Objective failed. Jefferson suffers from smart guy syndrome of the nth degree and he clearly is trying to pack as much of that William and Mary vocabulary into this essay question, assigned by Congress, as he can. The final version reads much better – as does the section about life, liberty, and happiness, though slightly changed in meaning in the final draft from the original. Writers need good editors and Jefferson needed someone to tell him that it was just as important for the guy in the local Butcher shop to know what the hell he was talking about as it was for the King.

The Declaration is one of the finest examples of deduction written in a public document – there is no course for conclusion than the one given, derived from the evidence presented. I love the declaration because it is so over the top and so undeniably ballsy. It is a literally a big f-off to the King and his toadies, given in that 18th century way, which contrary to most old time things, doesn’t sound at all quaint. There is a degree of quaintness in the original draft; Jefferson is clearly intellectually musing here but in the final, when he’s at his best, he lets it go with the classic American bullet point approach to government. Here’s what we believe, here’s what you did, here’s where we’re going.

When I play that strange colonial fantasy game in my head, you know the one where you imagine yourself as a fly on the tavern wall at some of the best colonial discussions, I like to picture Jefferson as a humorless know-it-all, dressed in finery, and reading in the corner of the tavern, failing to engage his fellow guests. They all thought TJ was a little too good for them. TJ thought he was a little too good for them too and he would retire early, go to his rooms, and scribble out some notes from Locke that he simply must do something with if he ever had the chance.

Sometime around midnight, Tom Paine stumbles up, a little worse for the wear, drunk off Bishop’s finger (see Boswell for the recipe) and beating at his door wanting to see if TJ wants to come off and throw rocks at the loyalist’s windows. TJ declines, but he invites Paine in for a nightcap; as insufferable as he might be at least he was good company. TJ would smirk and listen to Paine who was telling him a casual story about whoring or about their mutual opinion that John Dickinson was, in the words of the erudite Paine, “a total dick.”

Then I wake up from my daydream and realize just what a massive pain in the ass I must have been in high school history class.

I have no great admiration for Jefferson the man but I do for Jefferson the mind. Jefferson the man is a bit of a let down because of the whole slavery thing and the fact that he was a petty and vindictive guy. He also, notes Christopher Hitchens in his pithy biography of TJ, had no sense of humor, a trait that probably made dinner parties with him a bit of a let down. However, it took a lot of guts to write the Declaration, and it took a pretty good mind (a horrid understatement) to come up with language that would cast a shadow over the rest of American Rhetoric, in imagery as well as societal values; from Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr., great people go back to the Declaration for reassurance that their words fit the narrative of America. Jefferson doesn’t prove that one person can change the world – but he does prove that one person and a committee of editors can, and in this case, did.