Opinion: What would the Founding Fathers think of Barack Obama?
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On the Fourth of July, our thoughts naturally turn to those words penned by Thomas Jefferson and first read aloud on the square behind Independence Hall in Philadelphia 232 years ago today:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
So what would Jefferson, a noted slave-owner, have thought about the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama?
For that answer ....
... we turn to Joseph J. Ellis, a professor at Mount Holyoke College, whose book “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation” won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2001.
His response: Not much.
“Jefferson believed that African Americans were inferior not just because of their socialization and nurture, if you will; he believed that they were biologically inferior,” Ellis says on “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” broadcast today on Bloomberg Television (7:30 p.m. Eastern, 4:30 p.m. Pacific). “And that led to a kind of permanence to the stain that he imposed on them.”
Still, “the Jeffersonian principles that he crafted and made famous with his lyrical language -- ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ -- there is no question that those principles are the heart of the American promise,’ Ellis says. ‘And in that sense, I think Obama’s candidacy is a fulfillment of Jeffersonian values -- no question about it.”
Fellow Founding Father George Washington would have a more tolerant view, Ellis adds: “Washington was not burdened in the same way that Jefferson was by a belief in biological black inferiority. He thought that -- over time, that the African American slaves, once freed, would become equal citizens, and he believed that was entirely possible.”
And what about the equally historic candidacy of Hillary Clinton, who came so close to winning the Democratic presidential nomination? The colonies’ First Feminist, Abigail Adams (wife of Founding Father John), would have approved, Ellis says.
“She wrote a letter in March of 1776 to John, clearly articulating her view that the values of the Revolution were incompatible with denying women rights, with what they call patriarchy, and so that -- she saw, clearly, that the values being propagated had implications for women and for gender,” he tells Hunt. “ ... I think the idea of a woman -- in this case, Hillary -- actually making a very serious run for the presidency would have pleased her enormously.”
--Leslie Hoffecker