The Other Declarations: Thomas Jefferson and the Language of American Democracy

The Declaration of Independence is Thomas Jefferson’s most enduring contribution, but his many lesser-known declarations offer essential lessons for what it takes to keep American democracy alive.

Thomas Jefferson spent his life writing declarations. He believed that the written word could shape democracy, and he worked tirelessly to do so. Ironically, Jefferson’s authorship of the Declaration has stood in the way of our understanding his many contributions to the practice of American democracy by way of his other declarations.

Renowned Jefferson scholar Jeremy D. Bailey shows how the founder wrestled with three fundamental and enduring problems in American democracy. The first is the freedom of the press and the problem of disinformation in electoral politics, or what Jefferson called “false opinions in league with false facts.” The second is the tension between the necessity of westward expansion and the desirability of some protection of the natural right of Native nations to own their lands. And the third is the question of slavery, and whether the United States could ever bring an end to the peculiar institution. These questions highlight timeless tension between the philosophical ideals and practical imperatives of democratic politics.

Jefferson was uniquely equipped, philosophically and politically, to address these difficulties, but our understanding of Jefferson, and of his successes and failures, is surprisingly incomplete. The Other Declarations gives us a fuller picture of one of our most consequential founders.

Jeremy D. Bailey is Professor of Humanities at the Hamilton School at the University of Florida and formerly held the Sanders Chair in Law and Liberty at the University of Oklahoma. Among many books, he is the author of Thomas Jefferson and Executive Power and The Idea of Presidential Representation: An Intellectual and Political History.