declares: (looking away)
Thomas Jefferson ([personal profile] declares) wrote in [community profile] dear_mun2012-07-12 10:04 am

Canon is HBO's John Adams.

It is good that we have a chance to speak, Miss Alice.

I have many questions of the state of this country and its politics, as well as the state of society, namely how that of the North has spread as a disease would into the unpolluted areas of the South. I find myself unsurprised that there was a Civil War, though it is best that slavery be eradicated from our shores. It is a bloodied stain on our free society. That enmity still exists between the halves of this nation is merely a sign that more power should be given to each individual one; after all, should not they decide themselves how their lives are to be governed?

Now, we must speak of this election. Is it true that they campaign from state to state, at great expense? That they take associating with the common people as a virtue, not as dirtying their campaign? This is a great change, and one I think for the better. The common man avoids a great many pitfalls of -- oh? Women, too? And that does not lend more civility to discourse? ... I see.

I will not give my opinion on the Mormon, nor on his moves against, as you say, the rights of women. No doubt my beliefs are firmly planted in a past that has no right for tyranny against the present. In fact, I find it a crime that the Constitution still stands, with less than fifty Amendments. We 'Founding Fathers' rule your law and regulation as a King Tyrant would, strangling your every opportunity. I imagined there should be a revolution and a change in government every twenty years or so. Perhaps that is excessive, for I imagine the country would look quite different had it undergone fifteen or so revolutions since the Declaration was signed. But no country should stand stagnant for 250 years. Surely your society, with moving pictures and instant communiques, gives rise to problems none of us could ever have anticipated, no matter how stable and enduring the work of our pens.

Now, to the Negro in the seat of the President. Barring the color of his skin -- you have told me he is quite educated, and I will take your word as truth; no doubt he is mulatto? Though I have found some Negros who speak with near as much eloquence as the white man -- would he not find it simpler, perhaps, to send his State of the Union address by letter? I know you have a high opinion of his oration, but given the squabbles of Congress, perhaps he should hold himself aloof. They may fight, but he will show himself above it all. The business of lawmaking is a petty one, full of little deceptions and conspiracies, and even the best of men may be sullied by too much involvement in it. (In addition, the executive's powers are very distinct from the legislature's, as is detailed in that aforementioned document the Constitution.)

I do think well of his efforts to make available doctors to the poor, but I think little of a federal government that may extend those rules into all the fifty states. The Commerce Clause has been abused by devils most merciless. It seems they have not so much as glanced at the Tenth Amendment! If they are to keep a document so long, they should at least do us justice of attending to our most important amendments to it.

Finally, I must not support those who use my name to lend credence to their cause. Though the end of simplifying the federal government is just, I cannot in all good conscience contribute to the tyranny of the past to the future. Furthermore, I will not stand to have my works misquoted, misattributed and misinterpreted. Their favorites are inevitably the ones that have been torn apart by vultures. Ah! -- If only the Declaration were my original words. Sacred and undeniable, not self-evident...

I am sure I will have more questions, but I will save them for another time. I bid you a good day, Miss.

[ DISCLAIMER: All of these opinions are muse's, not mun's, gathered by the mun's best interpretation of HBO's John Adams and historical research viewed through the lens of HBO's John Adams. If I get anything wrong, crit is absolutely welcome. ]

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