The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson [Order the Book

Amazon Book Sales Wallbuilder Email ^ | March 15, 2012 | David Barton with forward by Glenn Beck

[gorush]

Read the six volume “Jefferson and His Time” and there will be no doubt that there is a Alinsky-type hit out on him.

[gorush]

Correction...it was “Thomas Jefferson and His Time” by Dumas Malone.

[arderkrag]

Jefferson and the Bible: Did he really want to rewrite the Scripture?

He didn't just want to, he did. It's called the Jefferson Bible.

Jefferson believed that the ethical system of Jesus was the finest the world has ever seen. In compiling his own version of The Bible, he sought to separate those ethical teachings from the religious dogma and other supernatural elements that are intermixed in the account provided by the four Gospels.

Source.

[This I Wonder32460]

“Did he really have children by his slave, Sally Hemings? “

Yeah, he probably did have children with his sister-in-law, Sally Hemmings. She was his wife’s half sister and was raised in their household, so though her status was slave, she was part of the household and one of several unacknowledged family members.

[achilles2000]

The DNA evidence doesn’t support it. More likely: just a lie intended to “normalize” Clinton/Lewinski affair.

[sauropod]

order

[sauropod]

From what I recall, he cut out anything having to do with the deity of Christ out of his own bible.

The Smithsonian has it. I saw a picture of it in the Smithsonian Magazine quite a few years ago.

[kearnyirish2]

“Yeah, he probably did have children with his sister-in-law, Sally Hemmings. She was his wife’s half sister and was raised in their household, so though her status was slave, she was part of the household and one of several unacknowledged family members.”

I’ve read compelling evidence that it was a brother who would often visit, and I couldn’t care less either way, but I think they’re in a rush to judgment as far as Thomas himself is concerned. The “half-sister” relationship you mention only makes me more skeptical; that makes him really freaky if he did sire children with her.

[AnAmericanMother]

Correct.

The "family tradition" that Jefferson was the father of Hemings's children was pretty much disproved by the DNA tests (although before the reporters got to them the family believed that "an uncle" not Thomas Jefferson was the father).

One of her six children did have a male Jefferson in his ancestry, but the time does not line up with Thomas Jefferson. The consensus is that the father was probably his brother Randolph (and hence the "uncle" of Jefferson's daughters), but there are at least three other male Jefferson candidates other than Thomas who were present around the time of conception.

So, yeah, it was a campaign to make Bill Clinton look not so awful by trashing Jefferson.

[itsahoot]

So the story goes, now read the book to find out why he cut those scriptures out.

[kearnyirish2]

I agree; see # 9.

Attempts to “normalize” Clinton’s affair only succeed until you remind his supporters that Monica was subpeonaed in a sexual harassment lawsuit that the Clintons settled for $890K and that resulted in the suspension of his law license for 5 years. When you remind people that Monica was involuntarily dragged into a case where Clinton pulled his penis out for Paula (who was NOT one of his numerous mistresses/ girlfriends), they tend to shut up and never mention him again in your presence. Women who still defend him deserve to be harassed in the same manner as Paula Jones was; then they can decide whether or not BJ Clinton was such a good guy (though the women I know who love him would probably appreciate the attention from any man).

[LomanBill]

NO SALE, Barton-bots.

 

 

"...who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time;

 

...

 

 that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. "

 

"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"

--The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
--Thomas Jefferson, 1786

http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/vaact.html

 

[cookcounty]

[ I wonder who the "who" is, and what precedes the end of this sentence, and why you excised it.] "...who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world,"

[Yashcheritsiy]

What is a “Barton-bot”?

[LomanBill]

>>I wonder

http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/vaact.html

>>> who the “who” is

Those “who” exercised coercion over the faith of others?

[LomanBill]

>>What is a “Barton-bot”?

Well, they might be like-minded folks akin to the revisionist Useful Idiots who tried to unexist Thomas Jefferson from certain sections of the Texas state school curriculum.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=Barton+Texas+Curriculum+”Thomas+Jefferson";

[LomanBill]

>>So the story goes, now read the book to find out why he cut those scriptures out.

Nah.  Jefferson's own words explain it quite succinctly:

 

[Jefferson accomplished a more limited goal in 1804 with "The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth", the predecessor to The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.^[3] He described it in a letter to John Adams dated 13 October 1813:

In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurges, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines.^[2]]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

 

 

 

 

 

 

[quicksilver123]

For better than 10 years, I’ve lived just 3 miles from from Monticello here in Charlottesville Virginia, and the more I know about the man, the less impressed I am. I think the Declaration was the high point, and it was all down hill from there, and I care not at all about his involvement with Hemmings.

He was Governor of Virginia during the Revolution and was actually impeached by the State Assembly in early 1781 because of the mess he had made in the state, and because of the unseemly way he had abandoned the state capital to the British. Following his flight to Monticello, he foolishly came within minutes of being captured there by the Redcoats. He was only saved from conviction when the tide turned in favor of the Colonists when Cornwallis was trapped and eventually defeated at Yorktown that fall.

Following the Revolution, Jefferson was sent to Paris by Congress to serve as “Minister Plenipotentiary” between 1784 and 1789. He was in France at the start of their Revolution and became so drawn to those events that he surreptitiously authored a charter of rights to be presented to King Louis XVI, and hosted a meeting of French revolutionary leaders to discuss plans for the new government. As History records, the French Revolution spun out of control after Jefferson left, but his enthusiasm hardly cooled over the years. Many consider the mass hysteria in France at the time to be a prime cause of the radicalism that we still suffer from to this day.

When he returned to the US and became Washington’s Secretary of State, the revolutionary government of France sent diplomat Edmond-Charles Genêt, better known to history as “Citizen Genêt,” to America. Genêt’s mission was to drum up support for the French cause, but Washington was deeply concerned by his subversive activities, and during cabinet meetings would stress that the American position was to be kept secret and guarded from Genet. On a regular basis, Jefferson would pay lip service to Washington’s instructions, and then hours later over a late lunch, share with Genet everything that Washington had asked be kept secret.

As President, Jefferson did what he could to hobble and diminish the third branch of government by pursuing the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase for purely political reasons. Impeached by the House, it was only the even handed actions of his lame duck Vice-President, Aaron Bur that prevented Chase’s conviction in the Senate.

As payback, the bitter Jefferson declared jihad on Burr and later had him arrested and tried for treason. The trial was heard in Richmond and was the trial of the century. The circuit judge that oversaw the trial was Chief Justice John Marshall who detested Jefferson even though they were cousins. Despite underhanded moves by Jefferson, a jury acquitted Burr, but he never regained his reputation, although the charges were trumped up. Burr was no traitor.

As I mentioned, I credit Jefferson for the brilliance of the Declaration (the product of a committee really), with the bold decision to go forward with the Louisiana purchase (unconstitutional though it was), with the occasional flashes of political genius, and with having lived an interesting life.

Unlike Washington, who had come to recognize the evils of slavery and who freed his slaves in his will, Jefferson freed not a one, and in fact they were all auctioned off to attempt to pay his debts upon his death. He always lived beyond his means and was always so deeply in debt that the State of Virginia established a special lottery of which all the proceeds were sent to the third President to help him pay his creditors. Unfortunately, influential as he was, his tepid popularity made the lottery less than successful.

I believe that Jefferson is properly remembered as one of the fathers of the Democrat party because he has so much in common with the modern party. Had he not lived such a long life and spent so many years crafting his image for history, he would not enjoy the gilded reputation he has today.

[iowamark]

Good post. Jefferson was a brilliant man but leaves a very mixed legacy.