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What Would Thomas Jefferson Do? (2017)

by Listening to America with Clay Jenkinson

1776 Club exclusive
1.
"It’s worth a trip across the Atlantic just to see the wonders of France." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
2.
3.
"The minute we start to behave as a Machiavellian nation and do only what's in our economic & political interests, then we cease — in my view — to be a republic." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
4.
"[America was], as I put it to a close friend of mine, something new under the sun." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
5.
"There were people who felt that I might be a dangerous man." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
6.
Term Limits 05:00
"The people are sovereign and they need to assert their sovereignty. By throwing the rascals out from time to time, they will remind government that it exists to serve us — not the other way around." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
7.
"The President's purpose is primarily administrative." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
8.
"I'm a pacifist; I try to do as little damage to the rest of the world as possible." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
9.
"My policy was to play down the imperial presidency and to make sure that I did nothing that could be construed as monarchical." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
10.
"The press is vital to the success of the nation." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
11.
"You need to be well-prepared to be a good citizen. You need to have facts at hand and you need to be able to marshal them in a rational, intelligent and linear way." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
12.
"There may be some misunderstanding by what I meant by 'the pursuit of happiness.'" — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
13.
"All positive legislation must come out of the congress of the United States. Any president who creates law from his desk should be impeached." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
14.
"Family is private and there should be a wall of separation between one's private life and one's public offices." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
15.
"The person who received the largest number of electoral votes would be president and the person who received the second largest number of electoral votes would be vice president." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
16.
"There is nothing more important than judicial competence." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
17.
"No occupation is so delightful to me as putting my hands into the earth." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
18.
"In my ideal America, I would have preferred a barter economy to a money economy." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
19.
Social Class 04:59
"Most crime is economic crime. The economies of the Old World couldn't provide jobs and opportunities for everyone who wanted them." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
20.
"One of the great qualities of the American character was the self-reliance that was thrust upon us by the 3,000 mile ocean that separated us from the skill sets of the Old World." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
21.
"Sometimes it's necessary even if you don't mean it." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
22.
"I had what I think must be regarded as the most harmonious administration in the history of the United States." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
23.
"If it gets too large, it will lead to economic collapse and wars of adventure." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
24.
"If the people are informed, they will govern themselves." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
25.
Isolationism 04:59
"It's not in our interest to pay much attention to the struggles and the squabbles and the chaos and the madness and the insanity and the superstitions and the corruptions of Europe." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
26.
"We were eager for immigrants to come from Europe. In the beginning, we had a very favorable and generous immigration system." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
27.
Independence 04:59
"You will be free as long as you work hard at being free." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
28.
Work Habits 04:59
"I had been a hard worker all of my life. From my earliest childhood, I had read five, ten, sometimes fifteen hours per day." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
29.
"I don't think you can always depend upon officials to tell you everything you might need to know." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
30.
"The idea was that once you create this constitutional mechanism, that it will distill the will of the people." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
31.
Nepotism 04:59
"People are often unnecessarily loyal to close relatives in a way that clouds their judgment." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
32.
"If there were a veteran, and his qualifications were equal to those of the civilian's, I always chose the veteran as an act of gratitude." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
33.
Diplomacy 04:59
"I believed, as a figure of the Enlightenment, that it's simply too late in the world's history to solve disputes through bloodshed." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
34.
"I was willing to use a kind of incendiary rhetoric from time to time." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
35.
"Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!" — Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
36.
"The universe is a clock … it's an elaborate machine." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
37.
Advisors 05:00
"Friends must protect us from ourselves." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
38.
Travel 04:59
"No part of me was ever interested in going on a traveling tour of the country." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
39.
Hurricanes 05:00
"All human suffering matters to the rest of us; that's what a civilization is." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
40.
Books 04:59
"Books were much more expensive in my time, and much more difficult to get." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
41.
"I wanted a much looser system of self-government amongst the students." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
42.
"I see a flag as a symbol and not much more." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
43.
"The national government should only intervene in such affairs if it is constitutionally permitted to intervene." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
44.
"The more compromise we can find, and the more civility and harmony between us, the likelier we are to prevail as a great nation." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
45.
46.
47.
Thanksgiving 05:00
"As president, I believed in two federal holidays." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
48.
"A republic doesn't expect people to serve for life or to have career politicians or permanent bureaucrats." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
49.
Travel 04:59
"Travel is a mirror that we look into and see something of our own style, but we also see possibilities for our own enlightenment." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
50.
"When the mind is free, everything else will follow." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
51.
Roy Moore 04:59
"I would never have descended to endorse or repudiate any candidate anywhere in a state." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson
52.
"The basis of a republic is a well-informed, well-educated, skeptical citizenry." — Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson

credits

released January 3, 2017

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Listening to America with Clay Jenkinson

The Thomas Jefferson Hour is a weekly radio program dedicated to the search for truth in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson.

Nationally acclaimed humanities scholar and award-winning first-person interpreter of Thomas Jefferson, Clay S. Jenkinson, portrays Jefferson on the program, and he answers listener questions while in the persona of our third president.
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