We reexamine one of the most popular characters in Hamilton as Thomas Jeffersons real-life legacy comes under growing scrutiny.
After Alexander Hamilton, no character has a bigger entrance inLin-Manuel Mirandas musical than Thomas Jefferson.
For if Hamiltons intro begins Act One, then Jefferson opens Act Two.
Jefferson is an intellectual equal to Hamilton and thereby an audience favorite.
Otherwise Hamilton, and his 21st century musical, turn a largely blind eye.
Sally be a lamb, darlin wontcha open it?
is the lone winking acknowledgement Hemings is given by Diggs Jefferson.
Still, he was aware enough.
And Elizabeth was likewise the daughter of another white man and Black slave.
He desired to bring my mother back to Virginia with him but she demurred.
So she refused to return with him.
In consequence of his promises, on which she implicitly relied, she returned with him to Virginia.
Soon after their arrival, she gave birth to a child, of whom Thomas Jefferson was the father.
At least on that count, he held true.
Harriet married a white man in Washington City, whose name I could give but will not.
And Jeffersons contributions extend beyond that rhetoric.
A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, he wrote.
GODAND A RELIGIOUS PRESIDENT, wrote a Federalist newspaper.
JEFFERSONAND NO GOD!!!!
Of the 25 arrests made under the new laws, there were 10 convictions.
Of those 10, seven were Jefferson-friendly newspaper publishers.
throw him into the Potomac!
before robbing the mint and sailing to New Orleans.
Facing a Complete Legacy
Jefferson lived a life full of great historic achievement and heavy moral failing.
But even in his remote mind, he was aware of the inescapability of human fallibility.
Yet they then renewed their affection in 1824 after Adams son ascended to the White House.
The latter incorrectly whispered as his final words, Thomas Jefferson still survives.
But he did not.
Nor did the familial bonds of the Black men and women who served him best.
One such life he ruined after his last gasp was Joseph Fossett, Sallys cousin and Jeffersons enslaved blacksmith.
As for Fossetts wife and six other children, including three daughters, they were all auctioned off.
[But] They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human.
Yet Jeffersons visage, warts and all, is in many ways the face of America.
And in the process it aspired closer to these self-evident truths Jefferson immortalized as the pursuit of happiness.
