Thursday, October 1, 2026
Recently I watched a six-part documentary series on Thomas Jefferson. I couldn’t help but notice all of the twists and turns, achievements and criticisms, successes and failures of this brilliant yet very flawed man. I found myself constantly drawing parallels to today’s political and moral landscape.
Of course, the series, which has been out for a year, is part fact, part opinion and lots of storytelling. You can draw your own conclusions, but it’s impossible to know the whole truth. It’s also impossible to use current morality to judge someone who was born 283 years ago, in a very different place in a very different world.
So much of what Jefferson wrote was in conflict with what he did. Clearly he was an enigmatic figure. How do we praise him for writing the Declaration of Independence, serving as governor of Virginia and ambassador to France, and becoming the third president of the United States? Yet he was an owner of 600 enslaved people, presumably fathering as many as six children with one of them, Sally Hemings, who was believed to be the half-sister of his deceased wife.
Jefferson publicly condemned slavery as a moral evil, but privately owned hundreds of enslaved people, and struggled to reconcile his ideals with economic and social realities. His own children were born into slavery.
He was not a successful governor, yet he eventually became president. As president he violated his own writings and teachings by buying land from France in 1803, effectively doubling the size of the United States, acquiring 828,000 square miles of territory from France for $15 million. I think of elected officials today who do some very smart as well as some very dumb things. It’s impossible to predict the effects of our decisions, and how history will judge any of us. Public life, private life, family, religion, policy decisions; it can be overwhelming.
Jefferson believed immigration could strengthen the United States, but emphasized careful assimilation and civic responsibility. To me, that doesn’t sound too much different from legal immigration: coming to the United States with the goal of becoming a citizen and making the country stronger, not changing it to resemble the country you left.
Jefferson embraced a rational, morally focused Christianity while advocating for religious freedom and a strict separation of church and state. As more and more of our elected leaders are focusing on myriad global beliefs, can we agree on the separation of church and state? It’s very hard to do. Do you recognize every religion, or no religions?
Talk about a mixed legacy — how do we apply Jefferson’s misdeeds to today’s norms? You can’t rewrite history. This dilemma has continued throughout our 250-year history. Every president has great achievements and fantastic failures. In order to give equal bipartisan time to the modern era, think Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. I can easily point to both fantastic achievements and sensational failures of these two men. I am certain we could do the same for almost any elected official, at any level. I am thinking the solution is honesty, admitting mistakes. The hypocrisy that continues to exist today is very disheartening.
But Jefferson is, in part, a lesson in hypocrisy. He brought such greatness to a brand-new country, yet he could not separate himself from his own abuses of the system.
We know we are a flawed society, yet somehow we made it to 250 years. Let’s see if we can leave our children and grandchildren with at least another 250 years.
Ed Fare is the mayor of Valley Stream.
