Liberty or Death

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, said Thomas Jefferson. He was certainly a great man, certainly. A libertarian in all respects, he viewed the cause of liberty unfinished with the final establishment of the American government. In fact, it was just started. To Jefferson, this was a perpetual revolution. He was a man that was always against the wind, always chocked up controversy as it were. His puritan and philosophical political worldview held the Electoral college in deadlock for 32 rounds of voting. Only at the request of his old friend John Adams, did he slightly soften his position against the necessity of the navy and a standing army which swayed one elector to give him the victory and crown him the third president of the United States. In matters religion, as was Isaac Newton, he was a convicted non-Trinitarian, and constantly criticized the mainstream churches of his day as corrupt, both of which brought him ecclesiastical censure. Thomas Jefferson was among the first supporters of a movement that swept America later to be called the Christian Connection. Eager to bequeath posterity with his spiritual attainment, he wrote his own Bible version, which until today solicits debate in the halls of theology. Not only so, but as a firm supporter of temperance, he became a nominal vegetarian, eating very little meat and on very few occasions. Jefferson went ahead of his countrymen and saw the harmful effects of conferment of degrees and of the Papal school system. He endeavored to set up a system of schooling that would safeguard the liberties of the American Republic by educating minds to be individuals. He saw that a Republic can only be if its citizens are enlightened self-governing individuals. Since a Republic is a system where men chosen by their neighbors and fellows, and at regular punctuations of time, are given the privileges of exercising power for the common good, then he that seeks to govern others, must first learn to govern himself. Jefferson saw that self-government is the one divine attribute that man is allowed to have; and therefore, his nexus to God’s life which is eternal, and which is liberty “Against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:23)