Word: jeffersonã
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...work that revisits a historical figure as popular and as abundantly studied as Thomas Jefferson must provide a new spin. In “Jefferson??s Secrets,” Burstein boldly attempts to use Jefferson??s understudied retirement years (1809-1826) as the twist, providing a new lens through which to view and perhaps reevaluate our third president. Burstein studied the massive amount of retirement correspondence to investigate Jefferson??s views on his mortality, slavery, his relationship with Sally Hemmings, and political opposition...
Fortunately, the correspondence does provide insight into Jefferson??s views on a number of interesting topics, including his attitudes towards women, political confrontation, and his legacy...
...study of these issues—which Jefferson rarely addressed during his political career—that Burstein’s work proves so valuable, for only through an investigation of his retirement papers can one understand these private parts of Jefferson??s life...
...only in the two chapters about Jefferson??s views of slavery and Jefferson??s affair that Burstein’s writing really thrives. Jefferson is portrayed as a political ideologue stuck in a dilemma—on the one hand advocating the equality of all men, and on the other owning slaves and repeatedly expressing no support for abolition efforts in the early nineteenth century...
Unfortunately, even the work’s most compelling section is flawed. Burstein is supposed to be showing us Jefferson through his retirement correspondence. However, in explicating Jefferson??s views towards slavery, Burstein relies overwhelmingly on earlier texts. Jefferson??s opinion on slavery and abolition are most famously documented in his 1785 “Notes on Virginia”—the lack of additional material in the retirement correspondences belies the author’s point that a new Jefferson can be found in these letters...