Jefferson’s Hundreds - Forgotten Plan for Restoring a Failed Republic
You might think that the most passionately held political thoughts of Thomas Jefferson
- the author of the US Declaration of Independence, no less
- would be a noteworthy part of American history.
- But no, those have been left out of the books
- and you can be sure that salaried academic historians have seen them many times.
What People Don’t Know
- A crucial thing people don’t know about Jefferson is this:
- he was fully convinced that freedom in America was fatally wounded
- in fact on its deathbed - by 1810 or so.
- He maintained that he and his fellow founders had blown their opportunity
- and that American freedom had already slipped away.
- it seems almost inconceivable to many Americans
So, let me back this statement it up, by quoting a few of Jefferson’s letters:
1. Letter to John Holmes, April 22, 1820:
- "I regret that I am now to die in the belief that
- the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776,
- to acquire self-government and happiness to their country,
- is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons,
- and that my only consolation is to be,
- that I live not to weep over it"
2. Letter to Nathaniel Macon, 1821:
- "Our government is now taking so steady a course as to show
- by what road it will pass to destruction.
- That is: by consolidation first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence"
3. Letter to John Cartwright, June 5, 1824:
- "Our Revolution presented us an album, on which we were free to write what we pleased.
- Yet we did not avail ourselves of all the advantages of our position…
- [What we really needed was] to break up all cabals"
--- [“Cabals” here are “political parties”. George Washington and John Adams also bewailed them]
4. Letter to Samuel Johnson, 1823:
- "I have been criticized for saying, that a prevalence of the doctrines of consolidation,
- would one day call for reformation or revolution"
5. Letter to William B. Giles, 1825:
- "I see with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides,
- with which the federal branch of our government is advancing
- towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States,
- and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic;
- and that too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power"
I don’t think that any honest reader, who can see Jefferson’s actual words,
would still conclude, that he’d have any respect at all for the modern US government
- And, please believe me, that there are more passages like these.
Jefferson’s Hundreds
- While Jefferson was fully convinced that he and his friends had blown their opportunity,
- he wasn’t one to simply give up.
- So, in typical fashion, he put together a plan to recreate the republic.
- And you can find this plan in letters to his friends.
- (As best I can tell, no one in Washington ever gave them the time of day)
- You should be able to find the originals online.
This is from a letter to John Tyler, dated May 26, 1810:
- "I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength.
1. That of general education
- to enable every man to judge for himself,
- what will secure or endanger his freedom.
2. To divide every county into hundreds,
- of such size that all the children of each
- will be within reach of a central school in it...
3. Every hundred, besides a school, should have:
- a justice of the peace,
- a constable, and
- a captain of its militia.
4. These officers, or some others within the hundred, should
- be a corporation to manage all its concerns,
- to take care of its roads, its poor, and its police by patrols, etc.…
5. Every hundred should elect one or two jurors
- to serve where requisite, and
6. all other elections should be made in the hundreds separately,
- and the votes of all the hundreds be brought together. …
7. These little republics would be the main strength of the great one
- We owe to them the vigor, given to our revolution in its commencement...
- General orders are given out from a center to the Foreman of every hundred...
- Could I once see this timely,
- I should consider it as the dawn of the salvation of the republic..."
Jefferson repeats essentially the same plan to Samuel Kercheval in 1816:
- "The article, nearest my heart, is the division of counties into wards.
- These will be pure and elementary republics,
- the sum of all which, taken together, composes the State,
- and will make a true democracy as to the business of the wards,
- which is that of nearest and daily concern.
- The division into wards... enables them by that organization
- to crush, regularly and peaceably, the usurpations of their unfaithful agents
- and rescues them from the dreadful necessity of doing it insurrectionally.
- In this way we shall be as republican, as a large society can be,
- and secure the continuance of purity in our government,
- through salutary, peaceable, and regular control by the people.
Jefferson’s plan, in simple terms, is this:
- Divide the entire country into 100-person units
- with full self-governing powers.
- These units can then delegate some of their powers to larger governmental bodies, or not.
- The tiny size of these units would ensure
- that every person in the country knew his or her local representative...
- as in, “can knock on their door and complain to their face”
This plan, which I like to call "Jefferson’s Hundreds"
- would be simple to implement.
- These groups could be formed in any number of ways,
- in locations urban or rural.
- After all, counting to one hundred is hardly difficult.
Would It Work?
- Whether governance in America is too far gone for reform
- is an important and legitimate question,
- but for the sake of today’s discourse,
- let’s assume that it remains a possibility.
- So, if reform was still possible,
- Jefferson’s Hundreds would be a reasonable and effective way
- to return to America’s first freedoms
- And there is absolutely no reason why it wouldn’t work.
Possible opposition
- Sure, the televised suits and uniforms would scream intimidating things
- about the Articles of Confederation being too weak,
- but that old argument can be solidly refuted.
- (I hope to devote an issue or two of my newsletter to the subject soon)
- Then, of course, we’d hear: “What about the highways!?”...
- another emotional, but paper-thin objection.
- And so on...
- all answerable, if people are actually permitted to try.
Might some people act, like pigs, under “the hundreds”?
- Certainly some would
- but under this arrangement, their piggishness would be open to view and response,
- rather than being protected behind the cloak of authority.
So, if we were really serious about reforming America
- this would be the plan to pursue.
- It’s clear, of immense effect,
- and has the best of pedigrees.
- Furthermore, it is fully in harmony with the founding ideals of this country,
- in particular with the Lockean concept of man’s natural freedom.
So, to close, here are a few quotes from other American founders
- Please imagine how they’d apply in a country built upon Jefferson’s Hundreds,
- and then reflect on their scope under the current arrangements.
- I think the exercise will be worth your time.
1. Samuel Adams, "The Rights of Colonists", November 20, I772
- "The natural liberty of man, is to be free from any superior power on earth,
- and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man;
- but only to have the law of nature for his rule"
2. Patrick Henry, Speech to the Second Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775
- "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
- Forbid it, Almighty God!"
3. Samuel Adams, Letter to his wife, November 7, 1775
- "We must be content to suffer the loss of all things in this life,
- rather than tamely surrender the public liberty"
4. John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1815
- "The fundamental article of my political creed is that:
- despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power is the same
- in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratic council, an oligarchical junta, and a single emperor.
- Equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical"
5. John Adams, Letter to Jonathan Jackson, October 2, 1789
- "There is nothing, which I dread so much,
- as a division of the republic into two great parties,
- each arranged under its leader,
- and concerting measures in opposition to each other.
- This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil"
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http://www.caseyresearch.com/freeman/the-hundreds-thomas-jeffersons-forgotten-plan-for-restoring-a-failed-republic
Bonus:
- Джефферсон, "О государственном долге, банках и деньгах": http://hojja-nusreddin.livejournal.com/2258779.html
- Jefferson’s Hundreds: http://hojja-nusreddin.livejournal.com/3520076.html
- Джефферсон о банкстерах, деньгах, свободе, народе, власти, удаче: http://hojja-nusreddin.livejournal.com/3184153.html
- Jefferson's response to jihad, 1784: http://hojja-nusreddin.livejournal.com/3175648.html
- Джефферсон - первый негритянский президент США: http://hojja-nusreddin.livejournal.com/50556.html
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