American Sphynx: Thomas Jefferson and the American Contradiction

He wrote "all men are created equal" — and owned more than 600 people over the course of his lifetime. He championed small government — then doubled the size of the nation with a land deal he couldn't constitutionally justify. He claimed to despise political parties — then built one of the most effective political organizations of his era. Thomas Jefferson is America's most contradictory founder, and in this episode, host Michael Bahr digs into American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis. What do we do with a man whose ideals were genuinely revolutionary and whose personal life was genuinely inexcusable? And what does Jefferson's unresolved contradiction tell us about the unresolved contradictions of America itself? Big questions. Honest answers. Let's open the book.