Jefferson and the Constitution: NOT Love at First Sight

The story of Jefferson and the Constitution is one of the great love stories of American History... but it wasn't exactly love at first sight. When Jefferson first laid eyes on a copy of the Constitution that James Madison sent to him in Paris, Jefferson was impressed with a number of things... but this new Constitution was missing some things, as well.

Read Jefferson's letter to Madison HERE:

[thesimplecooks]

After using Tom Richey's videos to pass AP EURO a year and a half ago, I still watch his videos out of leisure as a happy college student who got 3 free credits thanks to Tom

[danielle]

I don't understand how you don't get more views. Your videos are great!

[chasekemp]

Hey Tom,

I'll be student teaching this coming spring and I owe a lot of my progress as a social science educator to your videos. Thanks for posting these!

[johnorlowski]

Great job on the Jefferson Constitution "Not Love at First Sight." This is the kind of information that brings history alive.

[cru]

this video needs at least 1000 more likes

[shanewalker]

Awesome keep up the good work, really wish he was here now we could use him deffinately! !

[lauriwiren]

Nice to have found this channel. These issues of federalism and anti-federalism are going to be very important in Europe the coming decades. Power hungry federalists in Brussels want to turn the so far weak and benevolent union into a federal state, much like what happened in America about 250 years ago.

[heidifagan]

1:08 Hi Tom, at some risk of sounding pedantic, I believe you have this “TJ’s first sight of the constitution” was from Madison, wrong. According to Jefferson and the Rghts of Man by Dumas Malone (Copr. 1951) and the Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress, TJ received his first copy of the constitution from Elbridge Gerry through the offices of John Adams, who was in London at the time. Crazy right? By the time he received his copy from Madison, along with a lengthy letter, he already had a month to think about it. See pages 166/167 and footnotes. Also interestingly, Madison didn’t send it to TJ b4 he sent it to others first. Besties, yes probs, but hmmmm, maybe he knew it was going to be a real chin wag and therefore needed some time to allocate b4 picking up his feathered quill? 😅 Best to you.

[lisbethkelly]

Thank you for this video. I've always liked Jefferson because of his theory of agrarianism.

[AP-gvkn]

i would NEVER be with a n y o n e without a bill of rights (4:30)

[alexmealey]

Can you do a video on the glorious revolution? Unless you already made one, then please point me in that direction.

[iftyhargil]

Hi Tom, Love your videos! I was wondering if you have some more information you can give about what you said regarding Jefferson's "a life presidency" opinion (5:03). Maybe some sources on it, or a reference. Thanks a bunch!

[Ds-gkqy]

Please can you make videos on the Russian Revolution? Your videos on the French Revolution really helped in my exam, they're so great! Thanks :)

[jucio-pt]

can you to a video of the articles of confederation and the amendments PLEASE!?😁

[alltheway]

So Tom do you consider yourself a Jeffersonian or a Federalist?

[robertrowland]

...the first biological lesson of history is that life is competition. Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life—peaceful when food abounds, violent when the mouths outrun the food. Animals eat one another without qualm; civilized men consume one another by due process of law. Co-operation is real, and increases with social development, but mostly because it is a tool and form of competition; we co-operate in our group—our family, community, club, church, party, “race, ” or nation—in order to strengthen our group in its competition with other groups. Competing groups have the qualities of competing individuals: acquisitiveness, pugnacity, partisanship, pride. Our states, being ourselves multiplied, are what we are; they write our natures in bolder type, and do our good and evil on an elephantine scale. We are acquisitive, greedy, and pugnacious because our blood remembers millenniums through which our forebears had to chase and fight and kill in order to survive, and had to eat to their gastric capacity for fear they should not soon capture another feast. War is a nation’s way of eating. It promotes co-operation because it is the ultimate form of competition. Until our states become members of a large and effectively protective group they will continue to act like individuals and families in the hunting stage.

The second biological lesson of history is that life is selection. In the competition for food or mates or power some organisms succeed and some fail. In the struggle for existence some individuals are better equipped than others to meet the tests of survival. Since Nature (here meaning total reality and its processes) has not read very carefully the American Declaration of Independence or the French Revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man, we are all born unfree and unequal: subject to our physical and psychological heredity, and to the customs and traditions of our group; diversely endowed in health and strength, in mental capacity and qualities of character. Nature loves difference as the necessary material of selection and evolution; identical twins differ in a hundred ways, and no two peas are alike.

Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization. Hereditary inequalities breed social and artificial inequalities; every invention or discovery is made or seized by the exceptional individual, and makes the strong stronger, the weak relatively weaker, than before. Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group. If we knew our fellow men thoroughly we could select thirty per cent of them whose combined ability would equal that of all the rest. Life and history do precisely that, with a sublime injustice reminiscent of Calvin’s God.

Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire. To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way. Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity. A society in which all potential abilities are allowed to develop and function will have a survival advantage in the competition of groups. This competition becomes more severe as the destruction of distance intensifies the confrontation of states.- Will Durant, The lessons of History

[evrena]

To bad Jefferson wasn't like "Damn Daniel" when he saw the Constitution xD (snapchat ref.) xD

[localfanclub]

Awesome video, and how cool do you feel to have your own fanpage? lol

[DissentOrConcur]

Can you make a video about the federalist philosophy verse the anti federalist philosophy. I knew Jefferson was apart of the antifederalist. Currently we see the federal government no longer service the people. The DC empire elites no longer serving the states. Jefferson predicted the federal government would become tyrannical like the British empire. At this point we do need more states rights as this would be more democratic. Allow for each state to compete more amongst each other.

[isabellarollin]

still a better love story the twilight