The Jefferson Rule
How the Founding Fathers Became Infallible and Our Politics Inflexible
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In The Jefferson Rule, historian David Sehat describes how everyone from liberals to conservatives, secessionists to unionists have sought out the Founding Fathers to defend their policies.
Beginning with the debate between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton over the future of the nation, and continuing throughout our history—the Civil War, the World Wars, the New Deal, the Reagan Revolution, and Obama and the Tea Party—many politicos have asked, “What would the Founders do?” instead of “What is the common good today?” Both the Right and the Left have used the Founders to sort through such issues as voting rights, campaign finance, free speech, war and peace, gun control, and taxes, though those Fathers were a querulous and divided group who rarely agreed.
In this “sobering, informative study” (Publisher’s Weekly), Sehat shows why coming to terms with the past would be the start of a productive debate. The result is, simply put, “required reading for those desperate for sane, intelligent political arguments” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). The Jefferson Rule “takes the reader through an engaging and insightful survey course in American history” (The Christian Science Monitor).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From the Jacksonians to the Tea Party, historian Sehat (The Myth of American Religious Freedom) shows how a range of American political leaders have invoked the Founding Fathers for their own ideological ends. Sometimes this has been on behalf of America's highest ideals, as when Martin Luther King, Jr. described the Declaration of Independence and Constitution to be "a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir." Far more often, however, the Founders' diverse views have been levied to present a one-dimensional view of American political philosophy, as when Ronald Reagan drew a straight line from Thomas Jefferson to the "conservative principles of limited government, fiscal austerity, and states' rights." America's founders, as Sehat documents, were complex and often contradicted themselves: for example, Jefferson had stood for states' rights in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and a strong federal government in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Sehat indulges in long digressions while discussing debates over such matters as Reagan's tax and budget cuts of the early 1980s. He also never explains his cryptic title what exactly is "the Jefferson rule"? Still, this is a sobering, informative study of concepts from America's political origins too often viewed with rose-tinted glasses.
Customer Reviews
The Jefferson Rule
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. A very quick read, packed with tons of facts and laid out in a way that makes it easy to follow and grasp. As an amateur student of history I had always grimaced when I heard so many pol's invoke the Founders for their cause de`jure - and get away with it. Sehat's book not only corrects the history, but shows how laughable so many of these grabs are in citing when specific politicians have committed this pho-pa. Hard core Tea Partiers and right wingers will probably dismiss this work as another intellectual spin job from the cultural elite. But in the actual words of a founding father, John Adams, " facts are stubborn things."