It is a common refrain, caricatured in political cartoons, proudly emblazoned on t-shirts and mugs, and blithely recited despite—or sometimes precisely for—its ominous undertones: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Sadly, in politics, a clever turn of phrase often has more staying power than the context from which it is lifted. These distilled sentiments retain little of their original essence, instead offering an exhilarating spirit that serves, at best, to inspire reverie, and at worst, to foment indignation. When loosed from the pen of so revered a statesman as Thomas Jefferson, as is the case of the above quotation, even what appears to be a loosely veiled threat can take on an air of legitimacy.
This quote is particularly easy to misconstrue, as even the surrounding text plays into the notion of approval of rebellion. Written to William S. Smith, a veteran of the War for Independence and the son-in-law of John Adams, in November 1787, the letter contained another ostensibly glowing endorsement of sedition: “God forbid we should ever be 20. Years without such a rebellion.” Taken together with his musings to both James Madison and Abigail Adams that “a little rebellion now and then” is desirable, these thoughts certainly paint a picture of Jefferson as one with quite an appetite for insurrection. Before coloring him as a radical, however, it is necessary to know not just context, but character.
The exchange concerned the recently unveiled United States Constitution, which was then working its way through the long, contentious ratification debate, as well as the uprising that had no small impact on its creation. Shays’ Rebellion had begun the previous fall as Massachusetts farmers balked at recent state legislation requiring their debts to be paid in hard currency. When loan default litigations rose, so too did the debtors’ countrymen to block court proceedings. As tensions mounted, Revolutionary war Captain Daniel Shays reluctantly joined their ranks as they faced down the state militia, becoming synonymous with the movement itself. The turmoil culminated in late January as Shays led over 1400 self-styled Regulators in an ill-fated attempt to secure arms at the United States Arsenal in Springfield, only to be scattered by cannon fire at the cost of four lives.
This brief tumult was extrapolated by the efforts of nationalists and—if Jefferson’s assessment can be believed—British propagandists into a specter of pervasive anarchy. This perception blunted the rather brash presumption of the previously scheduled Philadelphia Convention to exceed its mandate and propose a brand-new federal charter. Jefferson’s reluctance to believe the hype gives us the first clue to the true meaning of the lurid imagery in question. “Where did [this anarchy] ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts?” he asked Smith, further noting the honor with which the revolt was conducted. His view of the human condition—sober and unassuming, yet hopeful and conscientious—revealed the Shaysites as the flesh and blood people they were rather than a persistent bogeyman.
While the man who would be his chief rival in the coming years, Alexander Hamilton, asserted contemporaneously in The Federalist VI that “men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious,” Jefferson believed the Regulators’ grievances to be “founded in ignorance, not wickedness.” Here the traditional roles ascribed to the two men—the former often considered a staunch conservative while the latter is frequently cast as the idealistic liberal—are inverted. Indeed, in this instance, Hamilton and his fellow nationalists were the radicals and Jefferson was the reactionary. Characterizations of the novel form of government proposed by the Convention as, “the best constitution we at present have any right to expect” and “the best that can be obtained at this Time,” by Timothy Pickering and George Washington respectively, were the 1700s equivalent to the frequent cries in response to modern bloodshed that we “do something!”
These men and others of their ilk, who worked so diligently and passionately to secure the Constitution’s ratification, were the advocates for change. Having been its progenitors and nursemaids, theirs was the perspective with the most propensity to don rose color glasses in its examination. Jefferson’s, by contrast, was more inclined to objective observation, as he had been abroad at the time of its deliberation and had no direct investment or input.
His assessment that the Convention had, “in the spur of the moment…[set] up a kite [a hawk] to keep the hen-yard in order,” evinced the wisdom that something is potentially worse than nothing. He was under no illusion of “an [American] exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society,” as Hamilton accused of the Constitution’s detractors. Nor did he excuse Shays’ Rebellion, but, rather, condemned it to Madison as “absolutely unjustifiable.” However, his dispassionate assessment recognized that government is as prone to this imperfection as the citizenry, with the greater folly being to err on the side of consolidating and codifying that imperfection.
Perfection, as both sides of the debate freely admitted, could not be expected. This is precisely the sentiment that Jefferson intended with his seemingly incendiary remarks, pointing out that one rebellion in thirteen states during the eleven years of American independence amounted to “one rebellion in a century & a half for each state.” While Hamilton points to the history of mankind’s wars as a dire prediction for ruin without a consolidated government, Jefferson contrasts that long string of conflict with the relative peace the United States had enjoyed under the Articles of Confederation. “What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?” he asks. This is not a callous dismissal of the tragedy, but merely a recognition that tragedies exist and that trying to expunge them with further control only compounds their evil.
Much has been said of Jefferson’s detached deism and Hamilton’s scrupulous faith. Here, though, Jefferson takes to heart more readily the admonition of Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, on your own intelligence rely not; In all your ways be mindful of him, and he will make straight your paths.” God does not promise a path free from obstacles, from pain or difficulty, but he does offer a straight path. It is when one deviates from that path because of the conceit that a better one, perhaps with fewer tribulations, exists, that greater calamity ensues.
The United States had been on a remarkably straight path in 1787, one that respected the God given liberties of its people and entrusted order to that liberty. That path was by no means free from obstructions, but those hurdles had been cleared. By the time the Constitution was written, the government of Massachusetts had put down the immediate threat with its own militia and had made accommodations to head off further unrest. Acknowledging the world as it existed—with the potential of both unruly citizens and unscrupulous government—Jefferson advocated for a continuance on that path, with both the liabilities and virtues of liberty intact.
In both instances of his appreciation of “a little rebellion now and then,” he likens them to storms. They can be dangerous. They can be painful and even bloody, but they are natural, and they are not without their positive results. Just as storms are necessary to bring refreshing rains and cycle out the old for the new, he holds that “the spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions,” as to render its entire eradication untenable. To seek a world without rebellions is to seek a world without an atmosphere. For governments to clamp down on the people so tightly that no uprising is possible is to deprive them of the very thing that keeps government in check. To do this, is to starve the tree of liberty of its much-needed sustenance.
Life without the potential to suffer is life without the potential to prosper. It is no life at all, but merely existence. Likewise, a country without the occasional rebellion, Jefferson believed, was a country without liberty.