Even Jefferson made a few mistakes, and although he might've had a hard time admitting them during his lifetime, it costs us nothing to look at them in retrospect from 200 years. Clay made a list, and it comes to about eight. We had: criticizing Washington, attacking Hamilton, the Kentucky Resolutions, demanding papers in the XYZ Affair, the Embargo Acts — when Jefferson thought better of the American people's patience than was actually the case — and believing that the French Revolution would come out harmoniously. Jefferson actually doctored some of his early correspondence to make himself look less naive on the bloodbath of the reign of terror.

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DS: 00:00 Good day, Thomas Jefferson Hour podcast listeners, and thank you for listening.

CSJ as TJ: 00:05 It is such a delight to have you in our community. I travel a lot. I was just on the Lewis and Clark trail, David, and people said how much they appreciate this program that they look to it for clarity, that they look to it for civility, that they look to it for historical contextualization. And I'll tell you the story. This is a really weird story. I was walking down — sorry, I was walking up the Wendover death march. Have I told you this?

DS: 00:33 I'm not sure.

CSJ as TJ: 00:33 I'm walking up the Wendover death march, which is seven and a half miles straight up, no rational being —

DS: 00:39 You were admonished once for calling it a quote, "death march."

CSJ as TJ: 00:41 I know — the Wendover hike.

DS: 00:43 Right.

CSJ as TJ: 00:44 And it's a bear and we come around this corner and then there's the slope that's like straight up for the last third of the journey and it's hot and the trees are barren and you're tired. And I saw a young man walking down and I thought, I've never seen anyone on this trail. Not once. And I waited, and he came down to my level and he got within about 15 feet of me and he said, 'you're Clay Jenkinson.' And I was so shocked. I said, 'yeah, who are you?' And he said, he gave, his name is Jimmy. He's maybe 23 or 24. He said he's a college graduate or just finishing up at a Missouri University and he's traveling the country this summer. And he said, ',I've heard your podcast with David Swenson and I am an avid fan and listener. I've read your books. And I wanted to do the Wendover hike as a to show respect for you.' And it was so moving to me —

DS: 01:43 Wow.

CSJ as TJ: 01:44 — because I'm like coughing up a lung and just wishing that a stretcher would come, that a helicopter would come and take me out. And here's this young man just beginning his life. And he's like, 'you matter to me.' And I thought — it really moved me. I can't even express it, but I thought, I have an obligation to people that we've touched to be more clear, more intelligent, better grounded, more thoughtful, more insightful, more disciplined, physically in better shape. It's, I mean, that sounds crazy, I know, but there's a responsibility in doing what we do because we're taking on one of the greatest men who ever lived — a problematic individual to be sure — but we're voicing him and people listen to that and they hearken to it and they shaped their views of life and they shape — to a certain degree — and they shaped their views of history to a certain degree based on what comes out of my mouth and your mouth. And I thought this is kind of a responsibility to get this right. And I thought, next year I'm going to be, I'm going to be like marching up that hill with the greatest of ease. I'm going to be in the best shape of my life, or certainly better shape.

DS: 03:00 Did you get a picture of Jimmy?

CSJ as TJ: 03:02 No, but I, you know, I couldn't even — I was on the ground writhing. I was just fighting — I said, I'll give you a thousand dollars for an oxygen tank, Jimmy. But I said, get back in touch. So Jimmy, if you're listening, I want to know you and I want you to come visit the barn. We will even take you without a blindfold.

DS: 03:21 What?

CSJ as TJ: 03:21 Yes, Jimmy. Well maybe not.

DS: 03:23 We'll talk about it.

CSJ as TJ: 03:24 But I mean —

DS: 03:25 It'd be great to hear from him.

CSJ as TJ: 03:26 But you hear me, don't you that, that there's a responsibility in inhabiting one of the great people who ever lived and trying to get it right and not misusing them, not distorting it, not misapplying it, not doing it for personal gain, or mouth one's own political views and to be better at it, to be the best you can be at it. It really struck me.

DS: 03:52 That's great. That's a great story.

CSJ as TJ: 03:53 It was one of the great — I can't explain it but I think you hear it.

DS: 03:56 I do.

CSJ as TJ: 03:56 It was like one of the — I came away somber, thinking, if this kid — when you go west to Missoula, you have to ask a lot of questions. Nobody knows where this thing is. And when you start it, you think what kind of a moron would climb this hill? And he did it because he believes in what we say, it just struck me as deepening and humbling and a challenge for me and for you, but mostly for me to be careful because we're embodying something that people listen to on a volunteer basis. This is not required radio. And so I just came away thinking I want to be my best self at all times and certainly my better self every time. And I just, I was so pleased for this young man and he really, he sent me back. I mean it was, I thought, if he feels that, imagine what he would feel if I really got my act together. So that's how I felt. Anyway.

DS: 05:02 I don't know if I want to go there or not, but I like the rest of it a lot. And I hope that Jimmy does listen.

CSJ as TJ: 05:09 I want to hear from him.

DS: 05:10 You know, it may be that he'd rather remain anonymous.

CSJ as TJ: 05:14 He could have died on that mountain.

DS: 05:14 Probably not. 23, 24.

CSJ as TJ: 05:16 No, he's, he was scampering around like a mountain goat.

DS: 05:19 So if he's out there, help us find Jimmy.

CSJ as TJ: 05:22 Yeah, I want to find him and I want to get him on the show and I want to talk with him. Then there's the Ukulele guy. The guy who's making me a Ukulele.

DS: 05:29 Yeah.

CSJ as TJ: 05:29 A man is making me a Ukulele.

DS: 05:31 You got to learn to play.

CSJ as TJ: 05:32 I said, if he makes me the Ukulele. We'll feature him on the show because I want to hear about the makers movement. Crafting. He's a gifted instrument maker. His name is Kevin, and I wanted to talk about the process and then I want them to teach me, I think I told you once, my father had a Ukulele and he taught me to play "Sunny Side of the Street," and he said it's a babe magnet. I've never found that to be the case, but it's not too late.

DS: 05:57 Look at George Harrison, you know, I mean.

CSJ as TJ: 05:59 Oh, and, my daughter. I have to tell you, you —

DS: 06:02 He carried four around in his car in case anybody needed one.

CSJ as TJ: 06:05 I wish I'd met him. You turned me on to the McCartney karaoke thing or I turned you on, I don't remember. It was fantastic. My daughter is living in New York. She was out in the Hamptons doing some work. She went to this restaurant in an evening and she was parked in this parking lot and a jeep rolled up next to her and out came Paul McCartney. She was —

DS: 06:30 As she would say, 'wow.'

CSJ as TJ: 06:32 She was within three feet of Sir Paul McCartney. She gets the Beatle. She gets why they're so central to our lives and still to people today. And she said, 'Dad, I didn't have the guts to say, Paul McCartney, I' — you know, because she said, you know, that's not going to be useful to him. He just wants to go have supper. But she said it was one of the thrills of her life to see this guy get out of a jeep who happened to be one of the last two surviving Beatles and our favorite Beatle. It was amazing. And she just, she was like star struck for the first time in her life I think.

DS: 07:10 Cool. Well we should stop all this —

CSJ as TJ: 07:13 Send money is what we need. Ukuleles and other musical instrument.

DS: 07:15 I haven't done my pitch, but —

CSJ as TJ: 07:18 Gifts of all sorts.

DS: 07:20 I think those of you who listened to Clay tell a story about Jimmy know that, if you want to support this show, go to jeffersonhour.com, join the 1776 club or whatever, and we really appreciate it. We take none of that. It all goes into supporting the show. Of course. That's why you have to ask for free things, right?

CSJ as TJ: 07:40 I beg. It's not asked. It's beg. And David, if I've touched one person —

DS: 07:44 Who knows.

CSJ as TJ: 07:45 I've maybe touched two, you know, I mean, who knows, but I take it so seriously. And if people think that this is important —

DS: 07:53 There's got to be some sort of metaphysical, a mathematical formula for like, you do this and then it goes out and you don't know what happens, and again and again. And I used to think about that with CDs. When you produce musical CDs, how many people does it — how does that work?

CSJ as TJ: 08:07 What's the butterfly effect?

DS: 08:09 Yeah.

CSJ as TJ: 08:09 How does it change anything?

DS: 08:10 Yeah.

CSJ as TJ: 08:10 Does it change anything?

DS: 08:11 Yeah.

CSJ as TJ: 08:12 Is it entertainment?

DS: 08:12 That's another show.

CSJ as TJ: 08:13 Yeah, but it's important and all I'll say is we take it very seriously. We take nothing except the many gifts I begged for and we are very appreciative of all of you. So listen now to this interesting edition of the Thomas Jefferson Hour in which Mr Jefferson freely admits that once in a long while he made serious political mistakes. Thanks for listening.

DS: 08:36 Good day, citizens, and welcome to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, your weekly conversation with President Thomas Jefferson. Mr Jefferson is portrayed by the award winning humanities scholar, author Clay Jenkinson. I'm your host David Swenson, and seated across from me. Now he's President Thomas Jefferson. Good day to you sir.

CSJ as TJ: 08:56 Good day to you, my dear friend.

DS: 08:58 Mr Jefferson, we must start with a pleasantry because I'm going to ask you to have a difficult conversation this week. So how are things at Monticello? How is your garden, sir?

CSJ as TJ: 09:10 The garden flourishes. It's a huge terrace, 300 yards long. It's a massive garden, not just to feed the community at Monticello. We have many guests, sometimes as many as 50 overnight guests, and the slave population and the white overseers and the workmen and so on and so forth. But I also like to experiment with plants. Plants that were sent to me by Lewis and Clark, or brought back by Mr Lewis, or plants that were offered to me from abroad. I brought back cuttings of olives and cuttings of grape vines and an upland species of rice that I smuggled out of northern Italy. And so the gardens were much more important than just feeding us. They were a kind of laboratory of agrarianism.

DS: 10:00 I too like to experiment in my garden, Mr Jefferson, and thanks to you, I actually do keep a garden book and try to refer to it.

CSJ as TJ: 10:07 How fare things for you this year?

DS: 10:09 Quite, quite nicely. You know, every year is different. Some things better than others, but —

CSJ as TJ: 10:13 Didn't you say something about a two pound tomato?

DS: 10:16 I did. And thank you. I had a two pound Green Cherokee, green tomato. It was quite good.

CSJ as TJ: 10:22 You ate it?

DS: 10:23 I did sir.

CSJ as TJ: 10:24 And it was still green?

DS: 10:26 This is its natural color, it gets a bit yellow, it's called a green, but it never gets red. It gets a bit yellow. But it was quite a monster.

CSJ as TJ: 10:35 You know, my view is that the success of one thing or the failure is recompensed by another. What sort of a success rate do you have the summer?

DS: 10:42 Certain things are doing wonderfully and other things, not so much. I do have a good, a good small crop of carrots and tomatoes and potatoes, but my greens, it's too hot and I —

CSJ as TJ: 10:56 A hot summer in Dakota?

DS: 10:57 — my lettuce and my spinach and I miss it. Even if I reseed it, as you suggested, I — the hot weather just doesn't agree with it.

CSJ as TJ: 11:05 Perhaps if you relocated in Virginia, things would go better.

DS: 11:09 Well, it could be. I've tried to a couple of things. Putting a sort of a white netting over them to keep them out of the sun. But I digress. Mr President, I want to talk to you this week about — well, I don't know how to put this delicately, but I know you made some political mistakes during your service to the nation, sir, and I thought I might bring them up and get you to comment and — so that I can better understand what your thinking was.

CSJ as TJ: 11:33 Well, everyone who holds power makes mistakes and I'm sure I made more than my share. That's one reason why I was reluctant to leave the harmony and the joy of Monticello to go into the cauldron of American politics. I'm very thin skinned and I'm easily wounded and I'm easily inspired to walk away. I wrote a letter to Abigail Adams once and said, I have no spirit of disputatiousness, that when there is conflict, my instinct is to slip away and to retreat to my mountain fortress of harmony and family. I understand that there are certain people that enjoy the flow and the tensions of politics. I am not one of them.

DS: 12:25 And yet you were quite good at it. I wanted to start with talking about Mr Hamilton. Forgive me sir, but —

CSJ as TJ: 12:33 So much for harmony.

DS: 12:35 As I said, forgive me sir, when you began to work closely with Mr Hamilton, I would say about 1790. Um, if that's —

CSJ as TJ: 12:45 That's correct. I came back in 1789. I took up my, my duties in the late spring of 1790 in the temporary national capital at New York.

DS: 12:55 The two of you were of different ages. You were 12 years older than him. You were 47. He was 35. My understanding is that you had a real difference, a real fundamental difference in the style of government that you wanted in the United States.

CSJ as TJ: 13:15 Well, first of all, not to spend too long on Colonel Hamilton, but he traveled out of his own portfolio as the secretary of the treasury. He actually regarded himself as the prime minister in the manner of Robert Walpole from British history. And he meddled in the work of the Department of State, which was my own portfolio.

DS: 13:36 He meddled in that, sir?

CSJ as TJ: 13:37 Oh indeed. And he actually worked with British agents to undermine the official foreign policy of the United States. He said to a man named Beckwith, 'if Mr Jefferson, as secretary of state in any way offends you or challenges you, just come see me because I can speak for George Washington and I promise you we're more in sync with the British empire than Mr Jefferson might suggest.' That's virtually a form of of treason, but —

DS: 14:04 — say he didn't really have the authority to do that —

CSJ as TJ: 14:06 He took the authority, and the cabinet had not yet jelled in the way that it has in your time when the portfolios are more bounded than they were in mine, but he always saw himself as the prime minister, as Washington's favorite and as somebody who was free to do whatever he pleased.

DS: 14:23 Well, there was some truth to that, wasn't there?

CSJ as TJ: 14:25 Yes, there is some truth there. Washington had great admiration for him and Washington had brought him into his administration and the secretary of the Treasury is a very important post. Please don't assume that I'm not interested in that one, but I do believe that that his ambitions, Mr Hamilton's ambitions, were such that he would never have been content to stay with any cabinet post.

DS: 14:48 No. He, he wanted a centralized government, which you did not.

CSJ as TJ: 14:52 The stronger, the better. The more centralized, the better. He wanted a huge national debt, a national army. He wanted broad construction of the constitution. He wanted to swallow up the states. In fact, he wanted a monarchy, but that's another question.

DS: 15:06 Hm. Forgive me Mr Jefferson, but my understanding is that you were behind some personal attacks on Mr Hamilton, including attacks on his finances.

CSJ as TJ: 15:16 Well maybe yes and maybe no. Let me quickly explain. So he proposed that we fund the debt at par and he didn't announce this to the American people before he had announced it to his friends and cronies, and so they went up and bought depreciated war bonds for pennies on the dollar. Then and only then did Hamilton announce to the public that these would be redeemed at par. So the original holders who were farmers and widows and soldiers and so on, had sold their bonds for three cents on the dollar or twenty cents on the dollar. Hamilton and his cronies knew that these would be redeemed at 100 percent, at a dollar for a dollar. But the American people weren't aware of this. So this is corruption at the most basic level.

DS: 15:58 During my time, there are certainly laws that a man would be prosecuted for that.

CSJ as TJ: 16:02 And there should have man then, but he got away with it. But I thought that in addition to allowing his cronies to profit at the expense of war widows and soldiers, I thought that he himself was profiting. And so I urged Congress to pass resolutions of inquiry into his conduct and his personal finances. It turns out that he was able to quash those concerns. He wrote brilliant memos almost overnight defending his own personal behavior and proved, I think to the satisfaction of a virtually everybody, that we had been wrong in assuming that he was personally corrupt. And so this was a mistake, I should have kept it on policy because the policy is indefensible, as you've said, the policy allowing speculators to aggrandize themselves at the expense of widows and soldiers, some of whom were maimed, and farmers and mechanics and sailors. That's appalling in and of itself. It's a naked conflict of interest. And he was giving insider trading tips to some of his closest friends. We should have kept it at that. By going beyond that boundary into his personal character and personal behavior, particularly his financial behavior. We made it possible for him to defend himself and that had an effect of, in a way, discrediting the larger attack or criticism that we were making of his official conduct. So I will acknowledge that I was a bit paranoid and I went a bit too far in going after Hamilton's private financial affairs.

DS: 17:32 Well, there's another gentleman that you attacked. I've never heard you do anything but to speak of this gentleman in the highest regard. But it said that you actually attacked George Washington privately.

CSJ as TJ: 17:47 I did say a few in private letters that were quite critical of George Washington. I do think he's one of the greatest men who ever lived. He's maybe the most important American, possible exception to that would be Dr Franklin. Washington was a brilliant strategist. He had the character of Cincinnatus. He could have been king or dictator. He chose to be a private citizen —

DS: 18:11 But he fell under Hamilton's spell.

CSJ as TJ: 18:14 You are correct, sir. He fell under the sway of this Machiavellian ambitious figure Hamilton.

DS: 18:21 So that had something to do with your attacking George Washington.

CSJ as TJ: 18:25 I felt that he favored Hamilton unnecessarily and listened unnecessarily to Hamilton's manipulations, but also, now I want to be very careful here, towards the end of his second term, and I should say Washington did not want a second term. We insisted upo