President Biden gave his State of the Union address last week and, as usual, it was a spectacle full of pomp and circumstance. The president promenaded through the halls of Congress before ascending to the lectern and proceeding to act like a domineering monarch by laying out a laundry list of items he wants Congress to work on.
For modern presidents, this is all par for the course. But for three of Biden’s most illustrious predecessors — Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe — obsequious deference to the chief executive was positively un-American. To make one man the center of the nation’s political life was antithetical to the Constitution and republicanism in the eyes of the three Jeffersonians.
In his newest book, “The Jeffersonians: The Visionary Presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe,” historian Kevin R.C. Gutzman gives us an expansive yet highly detailed account of exactly how this trio of Virginians governed the nation and the legacy of republicanism they left behind. We might better understand how to tackle our own political ills by examining the example they set.
Gutzman’s story begins with the titular Jefferson. Taking office in 1801, Jefferson and his supporters saw his election as nothing less than a revolution. As Gutzman writes, “Part of that Revolution was a sharp shift in manners.” Consciously setting himself apart from his predecessors, Jefferson wanted to be seen as a true man of the people. He chose to walk to the Capitol in plain clothes for his inauguration, eschewing
