science and of the system of things in which we are placed." (This is a
clear, if later-written, indication of Jefferson's transition from a
theological-religious to a natural scientific world-view.)
We know from his notebooks that be was deeply impacted by the writings
concerning religious and philosophical themes and history of Lord Boling
broke (1678-1751), whose works are a rather tedious, rationalist,
empiricist critique of all of the religious and philosophical systems then
known of in the world. Jefferson seems, from his note-taking, to have read
all of the several volumes at this early period as a student. (Jefferson
would eventually come to assemble one of the greatest personal libraries of
his time in America; it became the core of the current Library of Congress,
for, after the British burnt the first one in 1814, Jefferson sold his
personal library of about 6,500 books to the US Congress to rebuild its
library. Even with this comparatively small reading in Boling broke,
Jefferson received a broader and more solid intellectual education than
today most Americans do after many years of schooling.)
If Jefferson lived uncritically in the Christian cosmos as a child,
Boling broke's critical works (and not only this author) would have deeply
affected the Jefferson's young understanding - and this effect in his ideas
and philosophy lasted for the rest of his life. So that when we look to see
what Jefferson did mean of man and cosmos when he wrote the words still
famous around the world today, we find that he did not hold a religious or
spiritual view of man and cosmos, as had the early settlers (and still many
of Jefferson's contemporaries) of the "age of faith" in American history.
Indeed, Jefferson had rejected most of their ideas and beliefs, believing
rather in a material, physical, natural scientific view of man and world.
(He held a Deist view of God, as the original creator, who had ordered
nature and life through the "laws of nature", but otherwise was detached
from earthly life. And in general he tended to reduce all religion to
morality.) Closer to Darwin in spirit and time (of whose later writings he
could know nothing of course), Jefferson would later symptomatically place
busts of Bacon, Locke and Newton in his self- designed home of Monticello -
which is now become a place of American pilgrimage. This is an indication
of his lifelong adherence - beginning as a student - to a natural-
scientific view of man and world. Jefferson rejected most religions and
metaphysical philosophies and their ideas as myths. (He especially disliked
for example Plato, St. Paul, Athanasius and Calvin.) Sometimes he viewed
them as the deliberate fabrications of priests and kings to manipulate and
control their people. Jefferson thought that man's "reason" should rule
man.
The “American Creed" and Mankind's Spiritual History
Jefferson's words came to be repeated on e. g. "Fourth of July
Celebrations" throughout America over the years and came to be a sort of
creedal statement as to what it means to be "American" - as we saw also in
the President's address in November of 1995 But in fact very few Americans
are clear about either the original context or meaning of the "American
Creed" - the "cosmos" of these words - or of Jefferson’s rejection of most
of the spiritual beliefs which many of these Americans personally hold,
commonly blended together with Jefferson's contrasting, antithetically-
conceived grand expressions! In other words, these ideas from 1776, still
alive today, are in fact only truly to be understood within a scientific-
natural view of man, nature, society. God and world. And this is so even
though the religious, spiritual and philosophical beliefs of the vast
majority of the US people - who often use them in close association with
Jefferson's phrases, when they explain and understand America and life -
were in fact rejected by Jefferson before (and after) he wrote them. His
human and social ideals were conceived within a natural cosmos of man; they
are ideals of man in this world. He had rejected a spiritual cosmos and
anthropology to man.
Jefferson would, symptomatically, at the end of his great life (devoted
largely to serving America) attempt (unsuccessfully) to exclude the
teaching of religion from the University of Virginia which he had brought
into being. Contrariwise, most Americans - in their (generally) extremely
limited knowledge of even their own nation's history-place together views
which Jefferson himself considered to be fundamentally antithetical. The
beliefs of a greater spiritual cosmos, e.g. Dante's world's, the spiritual-
metaphysical beliefs of man and world, cannot properly be fit inside of
Jefferson's world and his ideals - at least not realistically
intellectually. The cosmos of the "American Creed" has its own reality and
dignity - but it is not such that all of the ideas which Americans have
come to place inside of its famous phrases, can, truthfully and
unproblematically, be placed.
In my view - and no one who reads this great man's biography can doubt
his devotion and service to America, Jefferson was true to the history,
reality and life of mankind in his time. One of his biographers called him
"one of the most devoted disciples of the Age of Reason". (Nostalgia and
longing for the "age of faith" - like the time before the "Fall of Man" -
is understandable; but the "age of reason" was, if not an inevitability or
necessity of history, still nevertheless a new more realistic relationship
of man to nature. So that no mere easy return to the past is true or
realistic.) He was a realistic man of science; he could not and would not
rest in the "age of faith". And, as was characteristic of this and later
time, once the Bible and religion were subjected to the "age of reason",
the beliefs of the "age of faith" could never be immediately accepted
unquestioned again.
While he was close to Darwin in his scientific attitude, he would have
deeply lamented Darwin's eventual rejection both of a creator God (chance
and natural selection rather than divine design) and the view of man's
reason and conscience as special "gifts" (Jefferson) of God to man.
In fact, Darwin and Jefferson (as well as many of their contemporaries of
course), were offended by many of the same "unbelievable" aspects of
Christianity and in relationship to Jefferson's phrases as well!
Here is an aspect - perhaps even more fundamental and definitive in some
ways than the problem of the popular and noble "American Dream" - of how
Americans are unaware and unconscious of the lineage of their own spiritual
and intellectual origin and history. Very, very few even college-graduate
Americans could even begin to give a serious account of the relation-ship
between their own personal spiritual beliefs, the cosmos of their "American
Creed" and the intellectual and spiritual history of mankind (e.g. Indo-
European sources, Dionysus the Areopagite's cosmography, Dante's Comedy,
even Newton, Laplace, et al). They are simply unaware and uninformed of how
America's "ideas" acutally stand inside of not only European, but
Occidental and world intellectual and spiritual history. Indeed, I am
certain that even the current President of the USA himself- himself an
active Christian Southern Baptist believer - would find it difficult to
give such an account of the relationship of his Baptist religious beliefs,
to the natural ideas of man and cosmos in the "American Creed" which he had
cited in his November 1995 speech, in which he defined America to the
world. But American ideals - the cosmos of the American Creed-do stand
within the entire spiritual and intellectual history of Mankind - however
little this may be clearly conceived and worried by Americans themselves.
The cosmos of the "American Creed" is a natural, not a spiritual one. The
failure to recognize and understand this clearly cannot be of spiritual and
intellectual hope, health and help to Mankind. If America is now in many
ways leading the world, it should, presumably, know and understand more
deeply and clearly what America and her ideals are actually about.
Jacksonian Democracy
Andrew Jackson became the U. S. President in 1828. For weeks thousands of
people had been coming to Washington, D. C. to see his inauguration.
Jackson was the hero of common people. He was truly a President of the
people.
Jackson was a fighter. He took part in the Revolutionary War. His
soldiers called him "Old Hickory" because hickory wood was the toughest
thing they knew. When he had moved to Tennessee he served its people as a
lawyer, judge, Congressman and senator. But he won his greatest fame as a
soldier. Because of his activities in Florida, the U. S. was able to take
control of that area from Spain.
Jackson believed in people who loved him. He felt that common people
could run the government. This idea has come to be called Jacksonian
democracy. These people elected him as their President. He gave them their
first chance to really have a part in government.
Not everyone benefited while Jackson was President- Women, black and
Native Americans were not able to take part in gov_ernment. In fact, in
some cases, the government worked against them.
The Cherokee nation serves as an example of what happened to many Native
American tribes and people in Jackson's times. The Cherokees had a great
