Thomas Jefferson

470 Pages·1994·16.5 MB·English

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“HE KNOWS BETTER, BUT HE WANTS TO EXCITE WONDER.”
1740 1741 1742 BORN 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749
1750 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759
1760 1761 1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767 1768 1769
1770 1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779
1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789
1790 1791 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 1799
1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809
1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819
1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 DIED 1826 1827 1828 1829
1. John Quincy Adams’s evaluation of Thomas Jefferson’s tendency to exaggerate and to picture himself as being at the center of
things. Chief Justice John Marshall, who despised him, referred to him as “the great Lama of the mountains.” More recently Pauline
Maier has evaluated Jefferson, for an American Heritage survey, as “the most overrated person in American history.” Professor Paul
Finkelman, who is presently the John Hope Franklin Visiting Professor of American Legal History at the Duke University School
of Law, characterizes him as having been “the monster of Monticello,” and a “creepy, brutal hypocrite.”
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PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON SALLY HEMINGS
Table of Altitudes
Yoda 2 ' 0 ''
Lavinia Warren 2 ' 8 ''
Tom Thumb, Jr. 3 ' 4 ''
Lucy (Australopithecus Afarensis) 3 ' 8 ''
Hervé Villechaize (“Fantasy Island”) 3 ' 11''
Charles Proteus Steinmetz 4 ' 0 ''
Mary Moody Emerson per FBS (1) 4 ' 3 ''
Alexander Pope 4 ' 6 ''
Benjamin Lay 4 ' 7 ''
Dr. Ruth Westheimer 4 ' 7 ''
Gary Coleman (“Arnold Jackson”) 4 ' 8 ''
Edith Piaf 4 ' 8 ''
Queen Victoria with osteoporosis 4 ' 8 ''
Linda Hunt 4 ' 9 ''
Queen Victoria as adult 4 ' 10 ''
Mother Teresa 4 ' 10 ''
Margaret Mitchell 4 ' 10 ''
length of newer military musket 4 ' 10''
Charlotte Brontë 4 ' 10-11''
Tammy Faye Bakker 4 ' 11''
Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut 4 ' 11''
jockey Willie Shoemaker 4 ' 11''
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 4 ' 11''
Joan of Arc 4 ' 11''
Bonnie Parker of “Bonnie & Clyde” 4 ' 11''
Harriet Beecher Stowe 4 ' 11''
Laura Ingalls Wilder 4 ' 11''
a rather tall adult Pygmy male 4 ' 11''
Gloria Swanson 4 ' 11''1/2
Clara Barton 5 ' 0 ''
Isambard Kingdom Brunel 5 ' 0 ''
Andrew Carnegie 5 ' 0 ''
Thomas de Quincey 5 ' 0 ''
Stephen A. Douglas 5 ' 0 ''
Danny DeVito 5 ' 0 ''
Immanuel Kant 5 ' 0 ''
William Wilberforce 5 ' 0 ''
Dollie Parton 5 ' 0 ''
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PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON SALLY HEMINGS
Mae West 5 ' 0 ''
Pia Zadora 5 ' 0 ''
Deng Xiaoping 5 ' 0 ''
Dred Scott 5 ' 0 '' (±)
Captain William Bligh of HMS Bounty 5 ' 0 '' (±)
Harriet Tubman 5 ' 0 '' (±)
Mary Moody Emerson per FBS (2) 5 ' 0 '' (±)
John Brown of Providence, Rhode Island 5 ' 0 '' (+)
John Keats 5 ' 3/4 ''
Debbie Reynolds (Carrie Fisher’s mother) 5 ' 1 ''
Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) 5 ' 1 ''
Bette Midler 5 ' 1 ''
Dudley Moore 5 ' 2 ''
Paul Simon (of Simon & Garfunkel) 5 ' 2 ''
Honoré de Balzac 5 ' 2 ''
Sally Field 5 ' 2 ''
Jemmy Button 5 ' 2 ''
Margaret Mead 5 ' 2 ''
R. Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller 5 ' 2 ''
Yuri Gagarin the astronaut 5 ' 2 ''
William Walker 5 ' 2 ''
Horatio Alger, Jr. 5 ' 2 ''
length of older military musket 5 ' 2 ''
1
the artist formerly known as Prince 5 ' 2 /2''
1
typical female of Thoreau’s period 5 ' 2 /2''
Francis of Assisi 5 ' 3 ''
Voltaire 5 ' 3 ''
Mohandas Gandhi 5 ' 3 ''
Kahlil Gibran 5 ' 3 ''
Friend Daniel Ricketson 5 ' 3 ''
The Reverend Gilbert White 5 ' 3 ''
Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev 5 ' 3 ''
Sammy Davis, Jr. 5 ' 3 ''
William Laws Calley, Jr. 5 ' 3 ''
Truman Capote 5 ' 3 ''
Kim Jong Il (North Korea) 5 ' 3 ''
Stephen A. “Little Giant” Douglas 5 ' 4 ''
Francisco Franco 5 ' 4 ''
President James Madison 5 ' 4 ''
Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili “Stalin” 5 ' 4 ''
Alan Ladd 5 ' 4 ''
Pablo Picasso 5 ' 4 ''
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PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON SALLY HEMINGS
Truman Capote 5 ' 4 ''
Queen Elizabeth 5 ' 4 ''
Ludwig van Beethoven 5 ' 4 ''
Typical Homo Erectus 5 ' 4 ''
1
typical Neanderthal adult male 5 ' 4 /2''
1
Alan Ladd 5 ' 4 /2''
comte de Buffon 5 ' 5 '' (-)
Captain Nathaniel Gordon 5 ' 5 ''
Charles Manson 5 ' 5 ''
Audie Murphy 5 ' 5 ''
Harry Houdini 5 ' 5 ''
Hung Hsiu-ch'üan 5 ' 5 ''
1
Marilyn Monroe 5 ' 5 /2''
1
T.E. Lawrence “of Arabia” 5 ' 5 /2''
average runaway male American slave 5 ' 5-6 ''
Charles Dickens 5 ' 6? ''
President Benjamin Harrison 5 ' 6 ''
President Martin Van Buren 5 ' 6 ''
James Smithson 5 ' 6 ''
Louisa May Alcott 5 ' 6 ''
1
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 5 ' 6 /2''
1
Napoleon Bonaparte 5 ' 6 /2''
Emily Brontë 5 ' 6-7 ''
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 5 ' ? ''
average height, seaman of 1812 5 ' 6.85 ''
Oliver Reed Smoot, Jr. 5 ' 7 ''
minimum height, British soldier 5 ' 7 ''
President John Adams 5 ' 7 ''
President John Quincy Adams 5 ' 7 ''
President William McKinley 5 ' 7 ''
“Charley” Parkhurst (a female) 5 ' 7 ''
Ulysses S. Grant 5 ' 7 ''
Henry Thoreau 5 ' 7 ''
1
the average male of Thoreau's period 5 ' 7 /2 ''
Edgar Allan Poe 5 ' 8 ''
President Ulysses S. Grant 5 ' 8 ''
President William H. Harrison 5 ' 8 ''
President James Polk 5 ' 8 ''
President Zachary Taylor 5 ' 8 ''
average height, soldier of 1812 5 ' 8.35 ''
1
President Rutherford B. Hayes 5 ' 8 /2''
President Millard Fillmore 5 ' 9 ''
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PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON SALLY HEMINGS
President Harry S Truman 5 ' 9 ''
1
President Jimmy Carter 5 ' 9 /2''
3
Herman Melville 5 ' 9 /4''
Calvin Coolidge 5 ' 10''
Andrew Johnson 5 ' 10''
Theodore Roosevelt 5 ' 10''
Thomas Paine 5 ' 10''
Franklin Pierce 5 ' 10''
Abby May Alcott 5 ' 10''
Reverend Henry C. Wright 5 ' 10''
1
Nathaniel Hawthorne 5 ' 10 /2''
1
Louis “Deerfoot” Bennett 5 ' 10 /2''
1
Friend John Greenleaf Whittier 5 ' 10 /2''
1
President Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower 5 ' 10 /2''
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots 5 ' 11''
Sojourner Truth 5 ' 11''
President Stephen Grover Cleveland 5 ' 11''
President Herbert Hoover 5 ' 11''
President Woodrow Wilson 5 ' 11''
President Jefferson Davis 5 ' 11''
1
President Richard Milhous Nixon 5 ' 11 /2''
Robert Voorhis the hermit of Rhode Island < 6 '
Frederick Douglass 6 ' (-)
Anthony Burns 6 ' 0 ''
Waldo Emerson 6 ' 0 ''
Joseph Smith, Jr. 6 ' 0 ''
David Walker 6 ' 0 ''
Sarah F. Wakefield 6 ' 0 ''
Thomas Wentworth Higginson 6 ' 0 ''
President James Buchanan 6 ' 0 ''
President Gerald R. Ford 6 ' 0 ''
President James Garfield 6 ' 0 ''
President Warren Harding 6 ' 0 ''
President John F. Kennedy 6 ' 0 ''
President James Monroe 6 ' 0 ''
President William H. Taft 6 ' 0 ''
President John Tyler 6 ' 0 ''
Captain John Brown 6 ' 0 (+)''
President Andrew Jackson 6 ' 1''
Alfred Russel Wallace 6 ' 1''
President Ronald Reagan 6 ' 1''
1
Venture Smith 6 ' 1 /2''
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PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON SALLY HEMINGS
John Camel Heenan 6 ' 2 ''
Crispus Attucks 6 ' 2 ''
President Chester A. Arthur 6 ' 2 ''
President George Bush, Senior 6 ' 2 ''
President Franklin D. Roosevelt 6 ' 2 ''
President George Washington 6 ' 2 ''
Gabriel Prosser 6 ' 2 ''
Dangerfield Newby 6 ' 2 ''
Charles Augustus Lindbergh 6 ' 2 ''
1
President Bill Clinton 6 ' 2 /2''
1
President Thomas Jefferson 6 ' 2 /2''
President Lyndon B. Johnson 6 ' 3 ''
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 6 ' 3 ''
1
Richard “King Dick” Seaver 6 ' 3 /4''
President Abraham Lincoln 6 ' 4 ''
Marion Morrison (AKA John Wayne) 6 ' 4 ''
Elisha Reynolds Potter, Senior 6 ' 4 ''
Thomas Cholmondeley 6 ' 4 '' (?)
William Buckley 6 ' 4-7”
Franklin Benjamin Sanborn 6 ' 5 ''
Peter the Great of Russia 6 ' 7 ''
William “Dwarf Billy” Burley 6 ' 7 ''
Giovanni Battista Belzoni 6 ' 7 ''
Thomas Jefferson (the statue) 7 ' 6''
Jefferson Davis (the statue) 7 ' 7''
1
Martin Van Buren Bates 7 ' 11 /2''
M. Bihin, a Belgian exhibited in Boston in 1840 8 '
Anna Haining Swan 8 ' 1''
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PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON SALLY HEMINGS
One of the debates of the 18th Century was what human nature
might be, under its crust of civilization, under the varnish of
culture and manners. Jean-Jacques Rousseau had an answer. Thomas
Jefferson had an answer. One of the most intriguing answers was
that of Charles Fourier, who was born in Besançon two years
before the Shakers arrived in New York. He grew up to write
twelve sturdy volumes designing a New Harmony for mankind, an
experiment in radical sociology that began to run parallel to
that of the Shakers. Fourierism (Horace Greeley founded the New-
York Tribune to promote Fourier’s ideas) was Shakerism for
intellectuals. Brook Farm was Fourierist, and such place-names
as Phalanx, New Jersey, and New Harmony, Indiana, attest to the
movement’s history. Except for one detail, Fourier and Mother
Ann Lee were of the same mind; they both saw that humankind must
return to the tribe or extended family and that it was to exist
on a farm. Everyone lived in one enormous dormitory. Everyone
shared all work; everyone agreed, although with constant
revisions and refinements, to a disciplined way of life that
would be most harmonious for them, and lead to the greatest
happiness. But when, of an evening, the Shakers danced or had
“a union” (a conversational party), Fourier’s Harmonians had an
orgy of eating, dancing, and sexual high jinks, all planned by
a Philosopher of the Passions. There is a strange sense in which
the Shakers’ total abstinence from the flesh and Fourier’s total
indulgence serve the same purpose. Each creates a psychological
medium in which frictionless cooperation reaches a maximum
possibility. It is also wonderfully telling that the modern
world has no place for either.
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PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON SALLY HEMINGS
1681
June: After not seeing any dodos on the island of Mauritius of the Mascarene island group east of Madagascar in the
Indian Ocean for almost a couple of decades, there was a final report of a sighting.
The species was by this point being driven to extinction by humans and by the feral dogs, pigs, rats, and
monkeys introduced by humans to the island. (Two bird species closely related to the dodo also would become
extinct: the Réunion Island white dodo by 1746, and the long-necked Rodrigues Island solitaire by 1790. These
flightless pigeons would not be the only Mauritian bird species driven to extinction — of 45 bird species
originally noted, only 21 remain.) At this point extinctions were still being conceptualized incorrectly along
the same lines as ordinary migrations or displacements. President Thomas Jefferson believed that true species
extinction would be quite impossible, as conflicting with his notion of the necessary providence and
benevolence of deity, and therefore he expected that at some location on the surface of the earth our explorers
were bound to begin to discover living creatures in possession of the massive bones (dinosaurs) being
discovered encased in the American rocks. This dodo species would become, along with the turtle and the giant
land tortoise, among the very first forms of life to become the subject of discussion about potential extinction
caused by humans. By the mid-1750s there would begin some sporadic and unsatisfactory attempts to arrest
the decline of tortoise and turtle populations on the islands of Mauritius and Rodriguez (which is off to the east
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PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON SALLY HEMINGS
and too tiny to indicate on this map showing Mauritius and Réunion).
After January 1849: … Who knows but races become extinct because they have departed too far from
their type As the Dodo having become gross and in a great measure lost the habits of the bird. its wings would
no longer lift it from the ground– And the ostrich we might prophecy will soon share its fate & the domestic
fowl also –if not continued by new importations from the forest.
I find the following statements in a Review of “The Dodo and its Kindred, or &c by H.E. Strickland”
in Blackwood’s Mag. Jan. –49. … Strickland describes the Dodo as in “the general aspect suggestive of gigantic
immaturity.” a sort of “permanent nestling” says the rev. “covered with down instead of feathers.”
The earliest account of the Dodo is by a Dutch voyager who visited the island of Mauritius in 1598. The island
was discovered between 1502 & 1545 One was seen in London “about 1638” by “Sir Hamon Lestrange the
father of the more celebrated Sir Roger”
Only 3 heads & 2 feet now remain of the Dodo. Which was at one time regarded as a fabulous bird. They became
extinct between 1681 –& 1693. There are also 5 old paintings of this bird left.
On the neighboring island of Rodriguez was another species Didus solitarius the Solitaire also now extinct.
Perhaps there was also another species on the island of Bourbon.
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PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON SALLY HEMINGS
(Perhaps this is politically incorrect, but is one not reminded of Al Capp’s creation, the “shmoo,”
and of the British Parliament’s creation, the “constitutional monarch”?)
IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT IT IS MORTALS WHO CONSUME OUR
HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS, FOR WHAT WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO DO IS
EVADE THE RESTRICTIONS OF THE HUMAN LIFESPAN. (IMMORTALS,
WITH NOTHING TO LIVE FOR, TAKE NO HEED OF OUR STORIES.)
Sally Hemings “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project