Thomas Jefferson by M. Andrew Holowchak

Author:M. Andrew Holowchak
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781616149536
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2014-10-21T04:00:00+00:00

There is…an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it’s ascendency.

Key here is the adscription of “without either virtue or talent” to the category of aristoi, based on wealth and birth. That shows Jefferson thought, pace Adams and Theognis, that wealth and birth contribute nothing to the category of aristoi, properly (i.e., naturally) grasped.

Moreover, the rhetorical question near the end of the passage is crucial to grasping Jefferson’s political experiment. Following Aristotle, it is not so much the form of government that matters—whether it is a government directed by one, a few, or a large number—but whether the social structure makes it probable that the true best will govern, and do so in the best interests of the citizenry, of which they are a part. The many, though equally deserving of rights and in equal possession of a moral sense, cannot be the best.7

The only way to allow for the best to govern is to leave governmental offices in the hands of the people, equal in moral sensitivity and deserving of natural rights. They, when given the benefit of general education, are best suited to choose the natural aristoi. Jefferson himself played a direct role in political reforms, aimed to pave the way from the natural aristoi: for example, abolition of primogeniture and entails, to allow for social equality, and freedom of religious expression, to sever the link between religiosity and rule. When the natural aristoi govern, all benefit.8

One scholar describes Jefferson’s program as turning Aristotle upside down. For Jefferson, there are no natural slaves, only natural aristoi, as everyone meets a certain moral minimum and only a few rise above that minimum.9 What vitiates the comparison is that Aristotle has both natural slaves and natural aristoi. He too has a moral minimum, but one that is not applicable to all persons—only to them who are Greek and free. Only among Greeks can virtue be cultivated and the path to virtue is long and arduous. The great majority of people, as non-Greeks, are hopeless moral causes.

For Jefferson, there was always the threat of the concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of a few, governing through birth or elected for life, and its concomitant degenerative effect, observed throughout history. Jefferson preferred independent and politically active citizens.10 He thus moved to abolishing primogeniture and entails to put “the axe to the root of Pseudo-aristocracy.

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