Jeffersons Accomplishments as President vs. Today

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – The Twelfth Amendment is passed.  The method of choosing electors is changed.  John Taylor of Caroline actually becomes one of those members of the electoral college that ultimately voted for the reelection of President Jefferson.  He was asked to write a paper.  “What did your boy Jefferson do?” said the National Intelligencer.  Here’s what Taylor said Jefferson had accomplished under the caption “A Defence of the Measures of the Administration of Thomas Jefferson.” Check out today’s transcript for more…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  The Twelfth Amendment is passed.  The method of choosing electors is changed.  John Taylor of Caroline actually becomes one of those members of the electoral college that ultimately voted for the reelection of President Jefferson.  He was asked to write a paper.  “What did your boy Jefferson do?” said the Richmond Enquirer.  Here’s what Taylor said Jefferson had accomplished in the National Intelligencer — I said the Richmond Enquirer; I was wrong — under the caption “A Defence of the Measures of the Administration of Thomas Jefferson.”

We oftentimes talk about how great of a president Jefferson was.  Here’s how his biggest booster and promoter promoted what Thomas Jefferson had done with a government that was one-one trillionth the size it is today.  This is all that he could accomplish.  Are you people ready for this?  Taylor indicated the approval of the following measures which he said the president had recommended:

[reading]

A retrenchment of unnecessary expense; an abolition of useless offices; an adherence to specific appropriations; [Mike: In other words, no more omnibus spending bills.  If you want money, you have to appropriate it for that specific task and everybody has to vote on it.] a reduction of the army; an impartial selection of jurors; a revisal of the naturalization laws; [Mike: In other words, they repealed and got rid of the Alien and Sedition Act.] a faithful payment of the interest, and a prompt discharge of the principle of the public debt; unceasing efforts to perfect the militia.

[end reading]

Mike: Jefferson and company believed that the standing army was a threat to their liberty and was a threat to the union and was a threat to the sovereignty of the states.  They worked to dismantle the standing army, they were partially successful, and beef up the efforts in the states to inform the states, “You better have a militia, dude.  Don’t rely on Hamilton and Washington’s army and Adams’ army because we’re dismantling that joker as we speak.  The article goes on:

[reading]

He defended the assault of the administration on the federal judiciary and claimed that an absolute control over the laws by that branch of government was contrary to our theory of government and opposed to the idea of responsibility to public opinion.  The judges, he thought, were more liable to error than the legislature, for the latter was more amenable to the public will.  The abolition of internal taxes was defended as a highly salutary measure [Mike: In other words, they got rid of the carriage tax.  They got rid of the whiskey tax.], balanced the budget and cut taxes.  The abolition of internal taxes was defended as a highly salutary measure for “The internal revenues fostered a system of extensive patronage, dangerous to a republican government.”

[end reading]

Mike:  Remember how I told you that you could not swing a dead cat at the time the Constitution was implemented and in the early days of the republic without hitting the word “republican” or “republicanism”?  There’s an example right there.

[reading]

The internal tax system fostered a system of extensive patronage [Mike: he’s talking about tax collecting officers.] dangerous to a republican government.   [Mike: What do you think he’d think about the IRS today, folks?]  Five hundred officers were employed in their collection and $200,000 annually expended, amounting to 20 percent, while the expense of collecting the external duties amounted to only five percent without producing any diminution in the aggregate expense by a decrease of duties.  [Mike:  In other words, they could keep the tariffs, duties and impo stuff with the same amount of manpower and only had a five percent charge to hire and run the tax collections.]  Here then is an annual saving of $150,000.

[end reading]

Mike:  I told you to pay attention to the dollar amounts here, that you would laugh.  You probably are laughing.  You should be crying right now, not laughing.

[reading]

He claimed that the expenditures of the Navy Department were reduced $200,000, that the military arrangements represented a savings of $522,000, and that the abolition of useless officers brought the total reduction in expense to $1 million a year.

[end reading]

Mike:  They saved $1 million a year and it was a big deal.  That was reason enough to reelect Thomas Jefferson for a $1 million annual savings.  How many seconds would it take to — we spend $55 million a second, we calculated?  Remember that day when we broke it down, what the deficit spending was by the second?  I think it was $55 million.

AG:  Just a bit of cash.

Mike:  Yeah, just a drop in the bucket.

[reading]

In regard to the payment of the interest and the gradual discharge of the debt, the administration of Jefferson as true to the principle of justice as the planetary system to the laws of nature sacredly respected her eternal mandates, a regard to national good faith obliterated every minor feeling.  The regular payment of the interest has not for a moment been impeded while the ultimate discharge of the principle has been hastened beyond all precedent, towards which the annual sum of $7,300,000 has been appropriated.  [Mike: In other words, not only did they pay the interest on the debt, they paid $7,300,000 a year towards the principle to pay it down.]  As to the Louisiana Purchase, he felt that New England need not be apprehensive for the greater part of the population of the western country would come from that section.

[end reading]

Mike:  I read this to you and I share this with you to just try and put it into perspective.  There are many more people today, larger land mass of the union, blah, blah, blah.  Yes, I know the varying factors.  Still, they saved $1 million a year and that was reason enough to reelect President Jefferson.  They paid $7 million a year towards paying down Washington, i.e., Hamilton and Adams’ debt that had been run up.  They almost paid it off.

The greatness of Thomas Jefferson, when broken down into its small, constituent parts, gives you a little bit of a window on just how limited and small was the general government at the time.  I’m here to tell you, because I’m reading and writing about this right now, that even that miniscule amount of public expense was shocking, into the earth, the whole thing is going to crash shocking to the men of the revolution of 1776.  Put that into your pipes and smoke it.  We have dog catchers that spend more than Jefferson saved in an entire year.

End Mike Church Show Transcript