constitution

Yes. They will be rewriting it to get rid of all the swear words.

I thought they would be changing all the amendments to add the following three words at the end - in my pants.

I've been approached to translate it to Latin.

Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers, knew times and circumstances changed, and there was no way they could tell how things were gonna change, and they were, after all, just doing a first draft of how they thought government should function and had never tried creating one from scratch before, so he felt that they should just throw out the old Constitution every twenty-five or thirty years and write a new one. They never thought they were creating a Sacred Document, the way certain segments think today. According to Jefferson's intent, we're about a hundred and ninety years overdue for a rewrite. Wherever they are now, the Founding Fathers are shaking their heads at our obduracy. Other than that, that's not what Pelosi said, no.

Jefferson was minister to France at the time of the constitutional convention, and he did not return until 1789, by which time it had been ratified. He took no part in the writing of the constitution.

I didn't know that. I thought he was involved in some way. Did he help design it before he left for France or something?

i heard he had some fonts on his computer that some of the others didn't have

Well, the only "plan" brought to the convention was the Virginia plan, but i don't know up what basis anyone would allege that Jefferson was involved in that, although the Jefferson fan club (which is quite large, and seems to pay little attention to the historical record) claims he was. The Continental Congress authorized the convention in February, 1787. The convention first sat in May 1787. Jefferson left for France in 1784. There was just barely time from the congressional act to the seating of the convention for letters to go to Jefferson and a reply come back. I see no good reason to assume that, as so many people claim, Jefferson was responsible for the Virginia plan.

That being said, i will freely acknowledge that i entertain a very low opinion of Thomas Jefferson.

By the way, Jefferson didn't design ****--the Virginia plan, even if one could make the dubious case that he was responsible for it, was not adopted. In fact, it served as the lightening rod around which the compromises were written. It called of a unicameral legislature with proportional respresentation and a plural executive--a committee rather than a single magistrate. Those were the two most prominent ideas in a rather stupid plan.

My knowledge of Jefferson as relates to the constitution is purely anecdotal, so I'm not implying any challenge to anything you're saying, I was just curious as to the actual facts.

Why do you have a low opinion of Jefferson. I was under the impression that he was an intelligent and wise advisor of that age. Is that not accurate?

I don't think so. Jefferson went to William and Mary, where he met several influential professors. One of them introduced him to Locke and Bacon. Another, Wythe, was his mentor on the law. Jefferson freely used the ideas of others, particularly of the English empiricists and of Mr. Wythe, but never attributed his ideas--he was happy to be seen as an original thinker. His version of the Declaration of Independence was fraught with emotional appeals, and the committee of the Continental Congress who were responsible for the document heavily edited it before presenting it to the Congress. Nevertheless, the Jefferson Fan Club (TM) would have you believe that it sprang full blown from his mind like Athena rising from the brow of Zeus.

He in fact opposed the ratification of the constitution, and there was plenty of time for correspondence across the Atlantic for him to sow the seeds of doubt. His Democratic Republican Party (usually just called the Republicans in those days) were a response to the bad publicity which oppoenents of the constitution got during the ratification process. Those supporting the ratification of the constitution called themselves Federalists, and, with no organized opposition, opponents of the constitution were called Antifederalists by the newspapers, not a very attractive name. When Jefferson returned to the United States, founding the Democratic Republicans was a smart move politically, as he co-opted both names for popular government, and created a party which could effectively oppose the Federalists. The Jefferson Fan Club (TM) would have us believe that this was the origin of the modern Democratic Party, but that's nonsense. Andrew Jackson created the Democratic Party from the wreck of the Republicans.

Washington invited Jefferson to be his Secretary of State, and Jefferson accepted. However, he absolutely hated Alexander Hamilton, which he did not tell Washington. He then worked behind the scenes to attempt to sabotage Hamilton's financial plan, which was adopted despite Jefferson's efforts, and which quickly put the nation on a sound financial basis, and obtained sound credit references for the United States in foreign financial markets as soon as the news of the adoption of the plan reached Europe.

Washington and Adams built up a strong, professional navy, and a small but professional army. It's a good thing they did, too, because Jefferson had this idiot idea that the nation could be defended by the militia (excellent long-distance runners) and a gunboat navy. During the War of 1812, with the sole exception of the Battle of New Orleans (fought after the war was over, but before word had reached Jackson), the miliita ran away. At Queenston Heights, the New York militia pushed the wounded aside so that they could get in the boats to get back to the American side of the Niagara River. At Bladensburg, six or seven thousand militia (the English claimed nine thousand although the number is clearly inflated) ran away from fewer than two thousand red coats. Sailors and Marines then fought the English to a standstill until the sun went down, at which time the Marines marched away with their dead and wounded. The English had high praise for the sailors and Marines. There were plenty of sailors and Marines to fight on land because the gun boat navy had either been sunk almost immediatley or captured by the Royal Navy. The professional Navy built up by Washington and Adams engaged, captured and burned HMS Guerriere, engaged, and captured a prize HMS Macedonian, engaged, captured and burned HMS Java, engaged and captured a prize HMS Frolic and engaged and sank, in under 15 minutes, HMS Peacock. All of this before the Royal Navy was able to respond. It was not until the summer of 1813 that HMS Shannon engaged and cpatured a prize USS Chesapeake.

Jefferson's gun boat navy was a disaster, and had there not already been an army and the Marines, i really don't know how we would have dealt with the English. The cadets of the United States Military Academy at West Point first marched off to war in 1814, wearing the gray uniforms they wear to this day. Jefferson was opposed to the establishment of the Academy, but bowed to the will of the Congress which had the votes to override a veto.

No, i don't see Jefferson as either an original thinker nor a great statesman. I think he represents one of the greatest PR jobs in our history, though.

With constantly accelerating improvements in the industrial arts, of which we are all so proud, there is bound to come a point when, to quote Thorstein Veblen, "immutable rules of conduct enforced under progressively changing conditions should logically result in a muddle".

The conditions in 1787 were becoming seriously changed by the 1850s in relation to the ascendency of business principles over the technical means of production and at this stage they are more or less dominant. Although Dylan has said--"Even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt".

Which means a completely new economic arrangement is more or less in place.

If things are changing fast anything from yesterday is out of date.

By the way, if Jefferson had had any balls (it appears he didn't) we would have gone to war with England in 1807. USS Chesapeake was lying off Point Comfort, Virginia, taking in supplies for a cruise, her decks heavily emcombered. HMS Leopard, a fourth rate of 50 guns, "spoke" her, meaning she indicated a desire to lay alongside and exchange news and mail. When she was alongside, she demaned the right to search Chesapeake for deserters, and naturally, her captain refused. Leopard fired a broadside into Chesapeake, killing or wounding about two dozen men, and then boarded her. They took four men off Chesapeake and then sailed for Halifax. Her captain claimed that the men he had taken were native-born Englishmen and deserters, even though one of them was a black man. The four were eventually returned to the United States. Jefferson did nothing. In 1807, England was less well prepared to fight such a war, and the United States Navy was much better prepared than she would be in 1812, after a decade of Jeffersonian neglect. The troops sent to North America in 1814 were veterans of Wellington's campaign in Spain. They would not have been available in 1807.

Jefferson was a putz.

From the little I've read he has been over-rated.

still, he accomplished more in one week than you have in your entire life thus far.

How do you know that fm? Was what he accomplished worth accomplishing?

You're always making wild, meaningless statements. Now Jesus--there's a guy. He accomplished something.

People, usually unintelligent people, like to imagine that the personages they have decided to admire by force of convention, or possibly on a whim, are of some use as well as of great distinction. The cult of celebrity.

It is an established canon of taste that the loss of the institutions of primogeniture and entail lead to a surfeit of vulgarity. As a vulgar person yourself, as your post demonstrates, as do many others, I can understand you being a bit gone on Mr Jefferson.

I've seen him referred to as a communist and a Girondist. I think by Dixon Wecter. He betrayed his class. An opportunist in carpet slippers which he insisted on wearing on some state occasions and at social evenings greeting great ladies. Wor a plonker. A free-basing ego on spindly legs.

I bet he had servants.

oss of primogeniture has, at least been good for the genome of the entire family, not to mention improvements of dental hygiene .

youre babbling again spndi, just try to keep up and you wont have to play recall of your catholic grade school history crap.

It will have been "good" if it being so saves your position.

Can you not bloody well see yet, after all this time, that your declaration of the "good" is tautological and that your conclusion is contained in your premiss.

That's crass vulgarity.

uhh, your the one who brought up primogeniture dumass.