Thomas Jefferson and the Rhetoric of Virtue

Abstract

Thomas Jefferson and the Rhetoric of Virtue. By James L. Golden and Alan L. Golden. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2002. Pp. xvii, 522. Appendix. Cloth, $40.00.)Thomas Jefferson: Chronology of His Thoughts. Edited by Jerry Holmes. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2002. Pp. vii, 333. Chronology, appendix. Cloth, $35.00.)Although these two books provide different approaches to Thomas Jefferson's life (the first is monograph and the second is an editing of his letters with commentary), they have numerous similarities. Neither principal author James L. Golden nor Jerry Holmes are academic historians (Alan L. Golden, who died shortly after the manuscript went to press, taught history at Lock Haven University), but each has devoted considerable effort to understanding Jefferson's public and private life (the Goldens' book ten years in the making; Holmes's, twenty). Both works also reach favorable conclusions, on the whole, regarding Jefferson's contributions to his nation while admitting that he enigmatic-if not contradictory-in many areas of his life.James L. Golden is emeritus professor of and political communication at Ohio State University, and Thomas Jefferson and the Rhetoric of Virtue, written with his son, begins with the premise that a careful and systematic study of [Jefferson's] rhetorical philosophy and (x) contributes to our understanding of Jefferson's public and private life. Therefore, the book roots Jefferson's written (throughout the book, the authors use rhetoric and discourse interchangeably) in topics related to defined as the promotion of the public by placing the interests of society above personal ambition. A quest for virtue, the authors write in the Preface, was the guiding principle of his life, and the crucial duty of discourse, he believed, to move individuals and society as whole upward on the scale of good (xi).Part one of the book searches Jefferson's writings for the sources that he used to construct his philosophy of rhetoric. Although the authors argue that Jefferson read widely in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources (most notably English and Scottish Enlightenment thinkers), they also demonstrate that he used Greek and Roman classics (especially Cicero) in constructing his rhetorical principles-a fact, they believe, that historians have not fully appreciated. Chapters in this section also probe Jefferson's principles of organizing his thoughts and his use of language and mode of delivery in his private correspondence, in his political communications, and in his philosophical, religious, and historical musings. The authors conclude that Jefferson consistently espoused in his writings the belief that on moral issues, private and public perspectives were intertwined. (Throughout the book, the authors use the words moral, ethical, and virtuous interchangeably.)Part two investigates Jefferson's practice of rhetoric, asking whether he measured up to the standards that he established for himself in his writings. The authors conclude from this inquiry that in his letter writing, as spokesperson for the American Revolution, in his public addresses, and in his legal briefs, Jefferson successfully squared his rhetorical philosophy with his actions. [I]n most instances, the authors determine, Jefferson, in his verbal communication performances, succeeded ably in putting his rhetorical principles into (464). They locate other times, however, where he set aside his principles of rhetorical reasoning and deviated from his philosophical standards. For example, he disparaged Plato and Socrates for antirepublican sentiments, refused to believe that Ossian's poems were authentic, and criticized David Hume's History of England but failed to adhere to his own canons in elevating John Baxter's New and Impartial History of England above Hume's (chap. …