B.F. Sparrow's Weblog & Miscellany
Jefferson Encounters Political Theory in the Twenty-First Century
Published 12 February 2022
Owing to a bizarre accident involving an atomic physics laboratory, a bit of walnut shell, and a pack of obease dust mites, Thomas Jefferson was displaced from time and sent into the twenty-first century. He arrived at the National Mall in Washington D.C. some time in October of last year and quickly struck up a conversation with a passing lobbyist. Little did they know they had attracted the attention of a CIA technician with a parabolic microphone who proceeded to record and transcribe their conversation. Through means we are not at liberty to discuss, this website has obtained a copy of that transcript. It is faithfully reproduced below.
JEFFRESON: It is, then, a little over two-hundred thirty years since my friends in Philadelphia set to paper this nation’s first constitution, yes?
THE AMERICAN: What do you mean by calling it our first constitution?
JEFFERSON: Has even the sequence of ordinal numbers changed since my time? I mean the original constitution that has preceded all the others. Surely a time so far removed from the eighteenth century can look back upon many constitutions, each age having developed one suited to itself.
THE AMERICAN: Are you unwell, sir? Perhaps your journey has upset the balance of your faculties or done some injury to your memory, for you should know better than anyone that the constitution is unique and sacred. It is the fountainhead of liberty and the safeguard of all hope and prosperity. It is divinely inspired like the scriptures, and since your time we have scarcely dared to change it at all.
JEFFERSON: I do not believe that the scriptures are divinely inspired.
THE AMERICAN: By comparison to the constitution, sir, neither do I.
JEFFERSON: In that case, I suppose I may take great hope and consolation that my comrades’ vision was was so acute and clairvoyant to have created such a long-lived form of government. Might I trouble you to show me some of its workings? Might we visit the Senate chamber?
THE AMERICAN: It would be a profound honor to show it to you, sir.
--IN THE SENATE--
THE AMERICAN: Ah, we have come at an excellent time, they are in the midst of a fiery debate.
JEFFERSON: Now this is queer.
THE AMERICAN: What is queer?
JEFFERSON: When I was vice president there were seventeen states and thirty-two senators, yet I count only twenty senators present.
THE AMERICAN: Twenty-three, the presiding officer is a Senator today, as are those two women over yonder.
JEFFERSON: I stand corrected, yet I still ask how this can be. Have you reduced the number of states, or the number of senate seats to which each state is entitled?
THE AMERICAN: We have not. There are presently fifty states and one hundred senators.
JEFFERSON: Then where are their seventy-seven colleagues?
THE AMERICAN: What a preposterous question. They are obviously absent for important and pressing reasons.
JEFFERSON: Are they away on diplomatic business?
THE AMERICAN: No.
JEFFERSON: Are they giving advice on the conduct of some present war?
THE AMERICAN: No.
JEFFERSON: Are they conferring with the President?
THE AMERICAN: Don’t be obtuse, man. They’re doing what they’re sent here to do, soliciting money from new donors, taking orders from current donors, and being reminded of their most deeply held convictions by their staffers.
JEFFERSON: Where is the vice president?
THE AMERICAN: She is likewise doing what she was sent here to do, skulking around the White House groveling for trivial errands and scraps of power and prestige.
JEFFERSON: On that subject, may we see the White House and the President.
THE AMERICAN: Keep your voice down! Are you insane?
JEFFERSON: I would have hoped our association hitherto would have satisfied you that I am not.
THE AMERICAN: You’ve doomed us both. It is a minor miracle that we have not already been shot by the Secret Service. Mere men do not see the President in person. Any private citizen who so much as wants to get within a thousand yards of the President is probably a TERRORIST.
JEFFERSON: So much for all men being created equal.
THE AMERICAN: All men are created equal. The President, however, is a god.
JEFFERSON: I do not believe in God.
THE AMERICAN: Compared to the President, sir, neither do I.
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