Demolishing Jefferson

Since I deeply and actively dislike Thomas Jefferson and admire John Adams, I am posting this link, here, which is written by the great Daniel Hannan but principly offers up the wonderful Myron Ebell's "taut" destruction of the Jeffersonian mythos.

A sample...

“On thinking in the U. S. about the division and dispersal of power, it was not Jefferson but John Adams who was the major figure. Indeed, Jefferson was on the other side, although his rhetoric was designed to mislead. Jefferson may have said that that government is best which governs least, but he never had a useful thought about how to keep limits on government except to recommend revolution in every generation. Which is of course disastrous. But he was a very silly man - a true, because superficial and calculating, product of the Enlightenment. While Adams was horrified by the French Revolution as soon as Burke was, Jefferson was still enthusiastic even after the terror had begun. Jefferson was the inventor of faux egalitarianism, which was a way of keeping the enlightened patrician (and slave-owning) class in power based on the rationale that they were protecting the interests of common folk. FDR and Teddy Kennedy are the direct descendants, and indeed Jefferson was FDR’s hero and model of a patrician who protected the interests of his class by “representing” and looking out for the working man."

Myron goes on - in particular holding Adams over Jefferson.