Jefferson: 1 war is enough for 1 man. i have gone through 1 which makes me not want to go on another

[basquebromance]

"but if ever i was gratified with the possession of power, when folks entrust their confidence in me, which i was enabled to use for both the prevention of war, towards which the torrent of passion is directed irresistibly, and when not another person in the United States, less supported by authority and favor, could have resisted it" - President Thomas Jefferson

during his final year in office, Thomas Jefferson confided in his fellow revolutionary John Langdon and told him that 1 war is enough for 1 man.

a leader less wily and contrarian than Jefferson, or one more avid for military glory, might have joined the national frenzy against Britain, but this leader said no. in contrast with all the pugnacious president of america's future, Jefferson's success in keeping the nation out of war deserves respect.

sadly, his well-intentioned but often bumbling successor, James Madison, went in the reverse direction.

 

[whitehall]

Madison? Are you talking about the War of 1812 where an American held prisoner on a British warship wrote the poem which would become the National Anthem? The British burned the freaking White House. Are you saying that Madison should have surrendered?

 

[Daryl Hunt]

Madison? Are you talking about the War of 1812 where an American held prisoner on a British warship wrote the poem which would become the National Anthem? The British burned the freaking White House. Are you saying that Madison should have surrendered?

If captured, I will tell them EVERYTHING!!!. Hell, I'll make stuff up since I don't really know anything more than what's served for Breakfast at the Mess. But I will tell them all about the troop movements, war plans, and more, just singing my lying butt off. That should get me an extra portion of bread.

 

[Mushroom]

"but if ever i was gratified with the possession of power, when folks entrust their confidence in me, which i was enabled to use for both the prevention of war, towards which the torrent of passion is directed irresistibly, and when not another person in the United States, less supported by authority and favor, could have resisted it" - President Thomas Jefferson

during his final year in office, Thomas Jefferson confided in his fellow revolutionary John Langdon and told him that 1 war is enough for 1 man.

Ahhh, Thomas Jefferson in a letter to James Maury in 1812.

To bad that Tom had already involved us in 2 wars. First as one of the firebrands that started the Revolution. Then as President, during the First Barbary War.

And the US and UK were approaching war for a decade prior to 1812. Jefferson himself escalated this with the Embargo Act of 1807, and short of a second war there was no way that the UK was ever going to accept US sovereignty. Point in fact, it was Jefferson's own Democratic-Republican Party (which Madison was a member of) that pushed the war.

Tom was an amazing man, but also full of contradictions. A slaveholder that favored abolition, an aristocrat that favored anarchy, a man of power that claimed to want constant revolutions, while stomping them out when he was in power.

I actually take a great many of the things he said at little face value. He very often said one thing, then did another.