Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus by Wilson Jeremiah Moses (review)

In his 1970 biography, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, Merrill D. Peterson wrote of his subject, "Of all of his great contemporaries Jefferson is perhaps the least self-revealing and the hardest to sound to the depths of being. It is a mortifying confession but he remains for me, finally, an impenetrable man." Peterson suggested that Jefferson's historical importance might have been one barrier to understanding the man. "Jefferson became so much a part of the nation's ongoing search for itself, so deeply implicated in the whole epic of American democracy, that succeeding generations were unable to see him clearly and objectively in his own life and time." Peterson optimistically asserted, "the twin hysterias of exaltation and denunciation that once surrounded the Jefferson symbol have given way to a more neutral climate in which scholars might assert their legitimate claims and seek to restore the integrity of the historical personage."¹ Peterson's optimism has proved unfounded. In the fifty years since he wrote those words, Jefferson scholarship has not been characterized by a "neutral climate." On the contrary, Jefferson continues to be caught between "exaltation and denunciation" at the hands of scholars and in the minds of the public. Peterson, the great student of Jefferson's reputation, should have expected this. His Jefferson Image in the American Mind, published in 1960, showed that Jefferson's reputation has risen or fallen according to the social and political forces at work in particular historical moments.

It should not surprise us, therefore, that in a moment of acute political polarization and racial tension in the United States, Jefferson remains an object in an ongoing culture war. White supremacists held a torchlight rally around Jefferson's statue on the grounds of the University of Virginia in August 2017 prior to the rioting and murder of an anti-racism campaigner the next day. Recent scholarly interpretations of Jefferson have been largely critical. Wilson Jeremiah Moses's Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus provides such a critical interpretation of Jefferson's life and thought.

Moses takes Prometheus—the Titan of Greek mythology who stole fire from Olympus and gave it to humanity, providing the power of both enlightenment and destruction—as his archetype for Jefferson. According to Moses, Jefferson "fancied himself—with a complicated mixture of hubris and humility—not only as a Prometheus to the Republic, but as a Light-Bearer to all nations. He was willing enough to acknowledge that he had lit his taper from the sacred fires of Olympus, and he was supremely generous in passing the flame" (5). Prometheus, however, was a "Trickster God" who characterized by deceit and destruction. So too, is Moses's Jefferson:

His brilliant rhetorical pyrotechnics and gift of hyperbole made him a Modern Prometheus when he drafted the Declaration of Independence, for nobody really thought it "self-evident" all men were created equal, regardless of how one might interpret those words, and Jefferson soon retracted them with his "suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances are inferior to the whites." He also referred to ordinary white children as "rubbish" and declared that the "tender breasts of ladies were not formed for political convulsion."

(xiv)

Moses develops his theme—Jefferson as modern Prometheus who promised more than he delivered, more deceiver than enlightener—over the course of twelve chapters. These are really separate essays on related themes such as Jefferson's treatment at the hands of historians, Jefferson's views on manufacturing and enslaved labor; Jefferson and the Enlightenment; Jefferson and science; Jefferson and race; Jefferson and gender; education; and Jefferson's views of the presidency.

While Moses acknowledges Jefferson's intellectual gifts—his analysis is at its strongest when he assesses these and traces their origins and impact—this is a largely critical study. Moses suggests at various points that Jefferson's words inspired the...