American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 3.2 Thomas Jefferson

Episode Date: May 12, 2018

  Thomas becomes secretary of state after getting back from France, and from then on he is at the centre of Us politics. But how does he do? He has a dream of an agrarian utopia, but are his cheeses big enough? Are there too many Megalonyxs? Why have pirate declared war on them? And what is Burr up to now? Jefferson will have to overcome many obstacles if he wants to score high in this episode. 

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Taurus Jefferson Part 2. Hello and welcome to American Presidents. So tell us, rank him. I am Jamie. And I'm Rob, ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Trump. And here we are on episode 3.2. Hey. Thomas Jefferson, part two.

At the end of last episode, you said he needed to do a lot today to make up for some of his more dubious activities, shall we say. Yeah. So do you think he'll be able to? It's a well-known name, so maybe he does. Maybe he does something amazing. Shall we find out? Right, okay, so end of last time.

Jefferson's just arrived home with his daughters and his slaves and Sally Hemings, who is pregnant. Oh, dear. But he gets back to Monticello, and there, waiting for him, is a letter from Washington. I like letters. Washington, by now, is the president. And Washington wanted to know one thing.

Would Jefferson be his Secretary of State? Jefferson wasn't actually too excited by this prospect. He probably didn't know what he is. I don't know what his Secretary of State is, to be honest. Exactly. You what? Nah. I don't know, I just have to restate it to be honest. Exactly. You what? Nah, I'm alright. I mean, after all,

the French were still in the middle of freeing themselves from tyranny. That's where the action is. Remember, Jefferson wants to get back to France.

Oh, he's a big romanticist, isn't he? Yeah, he is. The glory of the revolution. And he doesn't want to miss it. It's all very exciting over there. But Washington presses

Jefferson and eventually Jefferson accepts. He accepts, but he stays at home for a while because his 17-year-old daughter gets married. Oh, congratulations. So once the celebrations are over, he heads off to New York, and he was horrified. What the hell is this place? Pretty much, yeah. What the hell is this place? Pretty much, yeah Perhaps in his time away he'd convinced himself that

America was somehow different to the rest of the world That all he disliked about the sprawling Paris Would never be reproduced in his homeland We're different in America Enlightened Yeah, but here he was in New York And there were people copying European fashions. They were referring to Washington as a monarch without it being a slur.

There were people just gently acting a bit royal. Oh. Yeah, he didn't like this. There were clearly rich and poor people. Yeah. There were people suffering in the streets. Jefferson didn't like that. It's almost like humanity took over again. Yeah. There were people suffering in the streets. Jefferson didn't like that. It's almost like humanity took over again.

Yeah. Things were reset to default. His vision of an America as a land of small farms and villages had already been destroyed and they hadn't started yet because he could see these cities were being built up. It depressed him slightly. But what was worst of all? His friend John Adams.

It's been a while since he'd seen John. He was now dressing like a member of a royal court. He was being pulled around a fancy new carriage. He was referring to Washington as his most benign excellence. Washington didn't like that idea, did he? No. Jefferson hated it. Adams, remember from his episode,

at this point decides that a monarchy actually is the best way forward give the constitution a chance, yeah, but eventually it would be a monarchy, we all know it deep down yeah, Jefferson did not know that deep down, he hated the idea so Jefferson, horrified, went the other way, if Adams was going to dress in fancy clothing, he was going

to dress very simply Adams dresses to the right, he dressed to the left things like that. I don't know if quite that personal, but he definitely was not wearing all the powdered wigs out all the time. He didn't have a carriage that was driving him around the city. Yes, they'd just pull him. Yes, the simple life.

Just piggyback him across the city. Yes. Yeah, others at the time described him as constantly turning up to meetings and clothes that were too small for him. Yeah. Speedos, I think. Ooh. They'd have been considered quite small back then.

Yeah, especially before every meeting he insists on doing lunges. Yes. Ooh. Now, I found many were quite surprised when they met Jefferson. I mean, this here is the quite surprised when they met Jefferson. I mean, this here is the author of the Declaration of Independence. Yeah. Not many people had actually met him before.

He wrote it, and then he went off to France. He was there for nine years, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah, he was there for a good long period. So people in that time had built up an image of Jefferson. Six foot eight. Yeah. Glowing blonde hair. Yeah, just dressed perfectly. Oh, yeah. Six foot eight. Yeah. Flowing blonde hair. Yeah, just dressed perfectly. Oh, yeah.

Articulate. Yes. Well spoken. Means the same thing. But, yeah, well, he wouldn't do things like that. No. He was never redundant in speech. Yeah, so they built up this picture in their head

of what the offer for Declaration of Independence looks like, and here's this shabby-looking man with grey and ginger hair who's wearing Speedos. Oh, can I have a rubber ring as well? Yes. A bottle of Limoncello in one hand. Oh, yeah. Quill behind his ear.

Yeah. It's just not what they were expecting. Still, Jefferson didn't care about all of that. That's the whole point. And he had work to do. He pushed, again, for sensible coinage systems to be put in place. And this is where it was accepted. Dollars and cents were born.

Thanks to him. However, his proposal to use decimals for weights and measures was rejected at this point. Why? I don't know, because the US could have been pioneers for this. The French hadn't adopted it yet. No. The US, if they adopted it now, would have been at the forefront of sensible measure systems and instead they are still

living in the past, like we are as well. If he sorted the money out there, he's partly decimalised it because... Yeah, exactly. He's decimalised the money system. He's got his foot in the door. Yeah, yeah. And he thought, well, we'll start with the money. I'm sure everyone will come around to decimalisation soon enough. 12 in lengths to a furlong.

16 furlongs to an ounce. Yeah, it's just... 42 ounces to a kilogram. That's what they're still using now. Yeah, it's insane. It's very confusing. Still, he's getting stuff done. But despite this good start, Jefferson was worried about one thing.

Alexander Hamilton. Ooh. Alexander Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton was over a decade younger. This bright up start had wormed his way into Washington's closest circle. And he had ideas. Ideas that horrified Jefferson. All I want. Well, as we've seen, this is the start of a two-party system that develops. Hamilton's Federalists and Jefferson's Republicans. Yeah, Hamilton believed in cities, industry, banks, controlling debts to stimulate economy, basically everything Jefferson hated about how Europe did things Hamilton thought was brilliant and pushed for it. Now to begin with, they work together, but fractures start to show when Hamilton

proposes that the government assume the state's debts and then issue bonds that the federal government would repay. The rich would therefore have a stake in the government working and a national-wide tax on whisky would help pay off all the debts. Tax whisky? Monster. I know. Horrible, horrible. Why would you do such a thing? Jefferson wasn't too keen on this idea. I can see why.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't be keen on it. Now, we only have Jefferson's version of what happens next. Apparently he came across Hamilton one evening looking haggard and distraught that his financial plan was not going to get enough votes. Lots of people thought like us that taxing whiskey

was against natural law. Yeah. Yeah. They talk for a while and Hamilton is able to convince Jefferson that something needed to be sorted out or the fledgling US economy would collapse. So Jefferson proposes a dinner between the two and Madison. Over dinner, the three men debate, and they strike a compromise. Madison and Jefferson would vote for Hamilton's proposal,

despite the fact they didn't like it. And in return, the new federal city would be built in the South. Now, if you remember in Washington's episode, Jefferson comes to rue the day that he agreed with this, because he then sees that Hamilton's financial plans take root and they're impossible to remove. Still, he's excited by this new city, which needed to be plotted out and surveyed. Now, Jefferson had recently had correspondence with a free black man born in Maryland called Benjamin Benneker. Benneker? I'm going to say Benica. Benjamin

had written to Jefferson about Jefferson's notes on the state of Virginia. Remember that towards the end of last episode he wrote a lot about many things. There's one small bit in it that Benjamin had issue with and that was the idea that black people were inferior in every single way to white people. You can see why I have a problem with that. Yeah, well, he wrote to Jefferson and went, what's that? Black people are inferior in intellect, are they? Well, here is a set of my self-taught calculations of tides, eclipses, suns and moon risings.

Can you do that, Jefferson? Can you, big man? Well, Jefferson was actually very impressed. He wrote back, and and i quote nobody wishes more than i do to see such proofs as you exhibit that nature has given our black brethren talents equal to those of other colors of men which is nice um a bit of a backhanded compliment yeah also he writes to a friend not long afterwards saying that he doesn't really believe that Benjamin is able to do this on his own. He must have cheated somehow.

Yeah. Meanwhile, however, Benjamin Benica helps to survey the federal city using a homemade clock and the movement of the stars to make measurements. This was a clever guy. Why would you need that? If you can measure the time it takes for stars to move, you can see the distances between places, I suppose. I guess you can triangulate. Yeah, it must

be stuff to do with that. Because if you're triangulating but it takes time to move, you've got to take into account the movement of the stars. So you'd have to time how long each movement takes between places, I assume. I don't know how you survey, especially when you haven't got modern equipment. Yeah, you just... I'd go out with, like, a trundle wheel and

some string. Hope for the best. Anyway, back to Jefferson. The rift between him and Hamilton was widening. Now Hamilton wanted to create a national bank in the model of the Bank of England. Jefferson despises England

and therefore hates the idea that the federal government would have this much control, pointing out that the Constitution does not give the government power to do this. This is unconstitutional. I will always strictly follow the Constitution. You can't do this. If there's one thing Jefferson believes in, it's the fact that the Constitution should be followed to the letter.

Hamilton wins this battle, as we've seen before. The bank gets created. Jefferson gets annoyed. Meanwhile, the French Revolution is starting to get a bit of bad press. Reports of mass drownings because they're running out of bullets. Things like that. It's just... it's not great. No. No.

Supporters of Jefferson, who by this point are morphing into the Democratic-Republicans, claim that the tales of mass murder and beheadings and blood in the street and the screams and the agony, etc, etc, it's just exaggeration. Yeah. It's fine. Yeah. Well, Jefferson's maintaining his idealistic position. He likened those innocents that had been caught up in the violence to battlefield casualties. That they were a price worth paying for the reward of freeing themselves from tyranny. And I quote,

Were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country and left free, it would be better than it is now. He's essentially saying here that if every one but two people died in a country, as long as they're free, the war would have been worth it. Oh, he glorifies war a bit too much, doesn't he? He's a bit of an idealist, yeah. Oh, yeah. Now, differences between the men working under Washington was obvious to all. One dinner party between Adams, Hamilton and Jefferson

had them talking about the British Constitution, and this highlights the difference between the three men here. Jefferson declared that the whole thing was corrupt. Britain is awful. It's just not suitable to lead men. Not in this day and age. Adams apparently then claimed that as long as you got rid of the corruption, that actually the British form of government is the best in the world. We should eventually emulate that when we can. Hamilton then sat back and announced that it was the corruption that made it work. I get the feeling he said that just to really wind Jefferson up. Not only is there corruption, but I quite like it, Jefferson.

It's brilliant. Without it, it'd be nothing. Yeah. In the same dinner, a bit later on, Jefferson's just grinding his teeth at this point, wondering why the hell he invited Hamilton to dinner. Hamilton nodded to three busts that were in the room. Who are these men, Jefferson? he asked. Jefferson replied that they were the three greatest men in history,

Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and John Locke. Scientists, philosophers. Apparently, Hamilton paused for quite some time. And then declared, the greatest man that ever lived is Julius Caesar. Now, we don't know whether Hamilton was serious or if he was just telling this to Jefferson to really annoy him. Him telling Jefferson that the greatest man to ever live is a man who brought down a republic and installed a monarchy

is going to really wind him up. Yeah, he's doing it on purpose now. Yeah, I definitely think he's doing it on purpose. He must have said it with a massive toothy grin. Yeah. I think Julius Caesar's better. Just imagine him saying Julius Caesar and everyone in the room just goes really quiet.

Everyone's got a sausage roll halfway to their mouth. Oh! No, no, no, no, no. Look away, look away, look away. I can't. Yeah. I'd like to think Jefferson didn't invite Hamilton to meals after that.

However, they couldn't avoid each other. Cabinet meetings were becoming more fraught, and eventually Washington had had enough. He sent letters to Hamilton and Jefferson, saying to both of them, My earnest wish, and my fondest hope, therefore, is that instead of wording suspicion and irritable charges, there may be liberal allowances and temporising yieldings on all sides.

Basically, calm down. Yeah, stop winding each other up. Stop it. Hamilton, put the bust of George III down. We're not having an op-in here. I know you're only doing it to each other up. Stop it. Hamilton, put the bust of George III down. We're not having an op-in here. I know you're only doing it to wind him up. No, we're not celebrating King's Day. Hamilton, is that a crown? No, I'm not wearing the crown. It is nice, but I'm not wearing the crown.

Well, Hamilton wrote back to Washington, pointing out that Jefferson was saying things behind his back. Oh, for goodness sake. And I'll quote, I know from authentic sources that I have been the frequent subject of the most unkind whispers. However, Hamilton then goes on to apologise and says he will do better in future.

Sorry, Washington. You're right. I'll do better. Jefferson, on the other hand, made it clear that he wanted to quit and then attacked Hamilton personally. I will not suffer my retirement to be clouded by the slanders of a

man whose history, from the moment history can stoop to notice him, is a tissue on machinations against the liberty of the country which not only received and gave him bread, but heaped honours on his head. Having a go at the fact that Hamilton's actually

an immigrant to the country and wasn't born here. Yeah. Also, Jefferson's the kind of person that's like, why use one word when you can use seven? Well, this is possibly one reason why Hamilton and Jefferson didn't get on. They were both very good with a quill. But they both rubbed each other up the wrong way.

That's using a quill wrongly. Yes. You can use it that way. Definitely shouldn't. So yeah, Jefferson also tells Washington that he'd never written a word against Hamilton in the newspapers, conveniently ignoring the growing number of Republican editors that were writing on his behalf. Yeah. But it was technically true. He'd never written anything.

He was just hiring people to write against Hamilton. Eventually Jefferson's had enough. He's done with politics. The country was going to hell. His vision of the future's gone. Hamilton had Jefferson's had enough. He's done with politics. The country was going to hell. His vision of the future's gone. Hamilton had his claws into Washington. He's going to quit. This is ridiculous.

But he is Secretary of State. He can't just leave. No. So he announces his intentions, but then all of a sudden, France and Britain declare war. Well, that's a bit annoying. Oh, man.

Yeah, he's Secretary of State. That's kind of his domain. I should make him my own, that. Yeah. That's why I was making slander about Hamilton. Well, Jefferson obviously says we need to help out France. They came to our aid. Yeah.

We won the War of Independence because of their help. They asked all that we gave in return was support when they needed it. Jefferson said that? Yeah. Can I guess what Hamilton said? Britain side! Well, Hamilton says, we signed a treaty with King Louis.

King Louis is dead. There is no Kingdom of France. Yeah. Yeah, this is a really dodgy argument, but it's enough for Washington, who declares neutrality. Being a realist, he realised we can't get involved in this, we're far,

we're just not strong enough. So any excuse not to get involved, that will work. So he goes with Hamilton's advice. Again, Jefferson, fuming. Political dreams in shatters, hopes of an agrarian utopia in tatters, and with growing doubts about the French Revolution, Jefferson quits and heads back to Monticello,

swearing never to get involved in politics again. And he never does. While there, he reverted back to being a gentleman planter. He worked on doing the house up extensively. The whole thing was levelled and rebuilt on a much grander scale. He got generally involved in the business of running his plantation, and despite his claims to hate industry, he set up a small nail factory. Then, in 1795

sally hemmings gives birth to her first child we have no record of what happened to the pregnancy from france presumably somehow didn't come to term but her first child is born now she's the slave isn't she yeah yeah oh yeah so is this jefferson's kid yeah we'll discuss that later in a disgrace gate but yeah over the next 14 years sally has five more children it's hard to prove definitively that they were all jefferson's but like i say we'll go through that later but for now yeah they are okay yeah so whilst he's just doing his stuff at home in monticello news comes through the whiskey rebellion people hate the whiskey tax. They're going to rebel against it.

Way, good. Yeah, exactly. Jefferson was appalled by Hamilton's use of an army to force through laws. So he sits at home and grinds his teeth some more. Then he learns of the Jay Treaty. If you remember, that was when Jay went over to Britain to try and stop the press ganging. And utterly failed because Britain to try and stop the press ganging and utterly failed

because Britain turned around and said no and give us more stuff otherwise we'll go to war with you. It is the British way. Yeah, that wasn't great. Jefferson finds out about it, grinds his teeth some more. And then Washington announces that he's stepping down. Republicans rushed to announce that Jefferson should be the next president. Jefferson wanted his friend Madison to take up the mantle. Madison would hear nothing of this. Jefferson, this is your time.

In fact, so worried they were that Jefferson would refuse to do this, Madison and Monroe avoided Jefferson before his running was announced, just to make sure he couldn't argue his way out of doing it. Now, as we saw in Adams's episode, the election was the first where two obvious sides had formed. Federalists and Republicans pulled few punches in this election. As we saw, Jefferson loses. Adams wins. Jefferson comes in second. Alan Burr comes in a distant fourth. The reason why I mention him now is because he comes up later. He ran as a Republican, along with Jefferson, and he felt betrayed that the Southern Republicans

had not supported him. So just remember, I remember feeling a bit bitter. We'll get back to him. So loser. But still, Jefferson is now Vice President. He attempts to skip his swearing in. Smout too much like royalty to him. Just, I know what my job is, I'll go and do my job. Yeah.

He was forced to do the signing in, however. People thought that was quite important. You've got to swear the Just, I know what my job is. I'll go and do my job. Yeah. He was forced to do the signing in, however. People thought that was quite important. You've got to swear the oath, Jefferson. And then he gets on with the job of being vice president. He only had Adams to follow. If you remember, Adams did very, very little as a vice president, say. Yeah. All he had

to do was better than that. Yeah. Yeah. Now Adams had attempted to steer the Senate's business and then got frustrated when he couldn't. He tried to make the Senate seem more like the House of Lords because he thought that's how it should seem. Jefferson, on the other hand, clearly did not like this. He saw his role as a facilitator,

so he guided the procedures of debate rather than the substance. He told a friend that being vice president was honourable and easy. He was just having a bit of a jolly to be honest. They really should have thought of a job role for vice president at the start, shouldn't they? That's what you have to do. Yeah. Well, he became the leader of the Philosophical Society, so pushing for scientific research. We need a scientific revolution in this country. It was through his patronage that the megalonyx was discovered. Now, I see a megalonyx. That seems like a name from the year 2000, doesn't it?

It means great claw. Oh. Yeah. This was the fossil of a large lion-esque creature native to North America. And the fossil was brought to him and he published his findings. A big cat, a wild big cat in North America. No one had ever discovered one before. He was very excited and he publishes his findings. Shortly afterwards, Jefferson realised that actually he wasn't the first to find such a fossil. In fact, it turned out that a Frenchman

had found a fossil very, very similar. And not only was it clearly the same fossil, came from the same creature, he didn't claim it was a massive lioness creature. He claimed that it was a sloth. He hadn't discovered a majestic new big cat. He'd discovered a sloth that had already been discovered. You can imagine that Jefferson's there thinking he's discovered a big cat that they're going to call a Thomas in the future, or something, a Tomcat maybe.

But, yeah, not to be. He discovered a sloth. He was a bit disappointed, but to his credit, he doesn't try and hide it. He publishes the new findings quickly, because that's what a scientist does. He just released the big cat one, just crossed out, including the sloth.

Yeah. At the top. A perfectly detailed drawing, reconstruction of what the cat looked like. Just a big cross for it. A stick sloth. Scrawled underneath. Just found out it's a sloth. Sloth.

Bummer. Yeah. So this is what he's getting up to whilst he's the vice president. Meanwhile, Adams was desperately trying to run the country, as we saw in his episode. He was desperately attempting to find a way to avoid war with France, while keeping the advantages of stirring up anti-French feelings. Jefferson and the Republicans assumed that Adams was all for the war, seeing as the anti-French feeling would boost the Federalists.

Yeah. They were, therefore, unsurprised when Adams announced that he was recalling the war, seeing as the anti-French feeling would boost the Federalists. Yeah. They were, therefore, unsurprised when Adams announced that he was recalling the diplomats from France. Convinced that Adams had no real reason to do this, the Republicans demand that Adams reveal why he has made such a move. And this, if you remember, is the XYZ affair, where the Republicans were horrified that they'd just scored an own goal. Yeah, it turned out that France had hugely insulted the US

by demanding bribes before they'd even talked to their diplomats. There's nothing Jefferson could do after this. Public opinion went anti-French very quickly. Federalist power surged. The feeling that they could get away with it and getting frustrated with the articles being written against him, Adams then releases his aliens and sedition acts the ones that stopped people from becoming american citizens too quickly

to suppress their votes and the other one the sedition acts arrest anyone writing anything against him okay republican editors were arrested jeffson said nothing. He's the vice president, but inside he's seethed. And he wrote to a friend, a little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over. Behind the scenes, he was furiously working on a way around the Alien and the Sedition Acts.

He drafted two resolutions that went through Kentucky. These declared that states, so individual states, could nullify federal laws. If they didn't follow the Constitution. Yeah, but the states could decide that. Cool. Yeah, this was dangerously close to embracing secession.

And only Virginia supported Kentucky. There wasn't much support for this, so that failed. The Republicans are on the ropes. Meanwhile, an editor called Canender, who was paid by Jefferson to write nasty things about Adams, was arrested. Callender's trial was so obviously bias. I mean, the judge basically spent the entire trial just tallying Callender

off and then finding him guilty, fining him and throwing him in jail. That wasn't even a pretense of a trial there. Yeah, it was very biased. So bad it became a rallying point for the Republicans. And opinion was slowly starting to shift. Alien and sedition acts were not going down too well with the public, as we saw in Adam's episode. And also this war with France didn't actually seem to be happening. So do we need to be anti-French?

Are we allowed to start eating baguettes again? Good cheese and wine? Garlic? Are we allowed this again? I don't know. I want to be a patriotic American, but... Yeah, to do what to do what to do. And then Washington dies. Ah.

Yeah. Probably not to do with the anti-French feelings. Just pining for a baguette. As we saw, the death of Washington was also the start of the end for the Federalists because Hamilton and Adams felt free to turn on each other. The Federalist Party

starts to rip itself apart. And then election time comes along. If the last one was bitter it had nothing on this. As we saw last time, there's no election day but states voted over a period of time. And during this time, political fighting, deals, underhand tactics were abound. Republicans felt they'd got an edge here. Yeah, I mean, recently the Federalists had

not really been any better than the British oppressors that they'd fought a war against. You know what? I think we can actually win this. So the Republicans organise. In order to stop the Federals from sneaking in, there was a big Republican push that people vote for both Republican candidates. Now this is before you voted for the President and his Vice President like they do today. You had to vote individually. Okay. But this is the precursor to that because the Republicans, to try and organise things, say, yes, vote for Jefferson, but also vote for Aaron Burr. Vote for those two. Let's get organised about this. I'm with you. Then whoever gets the most votes will be President and then Vice President. Yeah, exactly. But those two should secure the top two places because we're being organised.

This works too well because when the results come in, Jefferson and Burr both have an identical number of votes, because everyone who voted for them voted for both of them. Of course. Yeah. They both end up with 73 votes apiece. And this is where we get some interesting politics. Because the rules stipulate that it's down to the House to decide who wins in a situation like this.

They thought about this in advance. It was fine. However, the House was full of Federalists. Because the Federalists had won the last election. Now, they were about to be replaced with a whole bunch of Republicans, because they'd done well, but they hadn't actually swapped over yet. The votes had been taken, but the change hadn't happened. So this is a great chance for them to just, like, twist the knife a bit. Yeah, I mean, they don't...

Throw the grenade in, it'll close the door and run. Yeah, exactly. So you've got a room full of Federalists that have no commitments, essentially. And they have to choose between two Republicans who's going to become the President. Now, Burr had already announced, as was the plan all along, that if something like this happened, he'd just defer to Jefferson. That's fine. Jefferson's our clear leader. I'll defer to him, he can be the president. However, Burr had a bit of a reputation for being a bit underhand and untrustworthy.

And Jefferson's supporters simply did not believe that Burr would do this. And they openly made this very clear. This puts Burr's back up a bit. It's like, look, I've said I'd step down. He can be president when it comes for the vote. If they choose me, I'll just step aside. That's fine. Why don't you trust me? Well, they make it very clear. They just don't. So Burr then

starts to think things like, well, why shouldn't I be president? I have the same amount of votes as Jefferson. So why shouldn't I be? Soon enough, rumours start to swirl that Burr was actually planning to defect to the Federalists. Yeah. In return for their

vote, the Federalists would put him in charge and they'd have a Federalist president. This idea obviously horrifies the Republicans. But then Hamilton comes along. Hamilton shoots down the idea. He declares that Burr was unfit and dangerous.

Federalists had integrity, not like those horrible Republicans. We are the morally superior party. We would not stoop to working with such a man willing to sell his beliefs to the highest bidder i don't get on with jefferson i disagree with most of what he says but i'd rather him be president than burr hashtag caesar was best yes this shocks some people but it does cut that rumor off at its knees so if there was truth in it it's's not going to happen anymore. Still, things are tense. There's even talk about civil war breaking out if Burr somehow manages to get the top

job here. Eventually, Federalists start to think country over party. That's good. Yeah. And they reluctantly vote for Jefferson to become their president. And this is, as far as I can tell, I might be wrong here, the first time ever a republic changed from one party to another party peacefully.

Oh, interesting, isn't it? So, well done, America. You can have that little badge. Yay! You could claim Britain's been doing this for a while. Britain kind of has parties at this point. And the monarch has very little real power at this point. But Britain's got a gradual slide into democracy.

It's very hard to pinpoint a point. So I think America can have this one. Oh, well done, America. Point to you. And so it is on March the 4th, 1801. Yes, we're in the 1800s now. Jefferson awoke in a boarding house in Washington, D.C., as people were starting to call it, the Federal City. The government had moved there not long before. If you remember Adam's episode, he only moved into the presidential

mansion right at the end. So they're all in the Federal City now. But it's a building site, the whole place is. Everyone's just staying in boarding houses that are still being hastily put together. Jefferson wakes up in his boarding house. He wanders round the corner to the Capitol building that's still being built. It's a scaffolding up and everything. And he stands up and he addresses a crowd of approximately 1,000 people and delivers his inaugural address. Oh, nice. He spoke for quite a while and everyone afterwards all agreed

that it would have been really nice if they could have heard him yeah as we've seen jefferson wasn't the best public speaker and also it was just hard to be heard back then especially people still building the capital building behind it full-on building signs pots of paint being pulled up on ropes and pollies and being dropped on people people running around covered in paint people doing that thing where someone says their name and they're holding a plank of wood

and they turn around and they hit someone all that's going on behind Jefferson and two workmen carrying a massive pane of glass across the road they dodge one, one cart goes past dodge another, goes past finally get to of glass across the road. They dodge one, one cart goes past, dodge another, goes past, finally get to the end of the road, go, whew, then they chuck it into a skip.

Yeah, that happens. So it's quite hard to really focus on what Jefferson's saying, but it's fine because afterwards he publishes his speech and then everyone agreed that actually it was a very fine speech. Yeah. Yeah. New annotations on it. I'm pretty sure he didn't say that.

Yeah. Well, it has the famous line, we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. Oh, unity. Unity. Although very dangerous when people are struggling to hear you to start with, we are all Republicans. Hmm. Yeah. people are struggling to hear you to start with we are all republicans yeah so um but yeah people quite liked his speech it was it was unifying it was nice he also said he would not overstep his bounds he would reign in the government the government

had become too large it was overstepping its its boundaries And most importantly, he was going to follow the Constitution to the letter. Now, according to one source, he then finished his address and stepped down and wandered back to the boarding house and had a simple dinner. Yeah, that's pretty early. I woke up, gave a speech, went back and had dinner. Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe it's the afternoon he did his speech.

No balls, no parties. If you remember, Adams had snuck out that morning. Yes. Yeah, so there was nothing that he was doing, and Jefferson rejected the idea of celebrating, as it seemed too royal. So, yeah, it was a bit of a letdown, really. I imagine tourists turning up to the New City to see the president.

Party hats on. Yeah. Glow sticks. I heart NY on there. Yeah, yeah. No, no, DC, obviously, New City I heart NY on there. Yeah, yeah. No, no, DC, obviously. New City. Or I heart TJ.

Yeah, yeah. And with their hats and their visors. Sighing. I had the big foam hands as well. Just drooping in sadness. Oh. Yeah. Getting all flaccid.

It's not much of a party atmosphere, unfortunately. But there shouldn't be, because there's jobs to do. That's true. Yes. You need to expand the government. No, no. The other way, the other way. Jefferson gets to work and then two weeks later moves into the presidential mansion. You get the feeling that he was kind of pushed in with a broom. Go and live in the mansion, Jefferson. That's too royal. I don't like it. Look at all the gilding. I'm living in the stock oven in the boarding house at the moment. I think that that's too royal. I don't like it. Look at all the gilding. I'm living in the stock oven in the boarding house at the moment.

I think that that's too fancy, to be honest. But he's in there now. He's in the presidential mansion. And the first thing he did was release all the editors that had been put in prison by Adams. Oh, okay. Yeah. Including Callender. Remember him?

Yeah. He worked for Jefferson. He got thrown in prison. So there you go. Callender's been released. He appoints people he felt reflected his Republican ideals. Merit over who your family was. If you're good at the job, you can have the job. His Secretary of the Treasury was perhaps overwhelmed by these Republican notions.

A bit excited. Because he went crazy. He suggested that they appoint some women. What? Oh, yes. Just imagine in the cabinet meeting he says that and everyone just goes silent. Yeah.

What? Sorry? Show yourself out. Jefferson replied, and I quote, The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared. And nor am I. Yeah, his Republican ideals only went so far. Anyway, he then goes on promoting his idea of a self-sustaining country that did not rely on the outside world.

The best way to do this was to buy a massive cheese. What? Oh, yes. Now, there might be more important things going on in the history of the US at this time, but we're going to pause and look at the story of this cheese for a moment. Cheese, what? Yeah, yeah, because I think this sums up what the US is like.

Yeah. A man named Leland had brought to the capital a massive cheese over a metre in diameter to the capital in honour of Jefferson. So that's over like three and a half feet. Yeah, it's about two and a half fluid ounces tall. Okay, yeah. Four and a half parsecs. Yes. Yeah. Leland was a pastor and he convinced everyone in his congregation who owned a cow to help make a cheese. Well, almost everyone. Because he guaranteed to Jefferson that none of the 900 cows involved in this cheese were Federalist cows. Um.

Yeah, but it's a secret vote. He doesn't know that. Oh, no secret votes about them. Oh, okay. Yeah. And cows were also awful at keeping a secret. So they let everyone know who they voted for. That's true.

Yeah. Republican. Yeah, the reason why he didn't want any federalist cows helping make the cheese is because, I quote, lest it should leaven the whole lump with a distasteful saviour. That's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Now, this massive cheese was too big to be steadily transported on wheels so it was transported by sleigh

and then a barge and then a boat and then finally on a cart as it neared Washington three weeks after it set off it arrives in the new capital three weeks Leland also made the point that the cheese was made without the use of slaves a rebuke

to the South there. He was from the North. We don't need slaves making our cheese. We can make our own cheese. We just force the cows to churn it. And Jefferson was delighted with the show of American ingenuity, proof that American farmers were the best in the world.

He didn't like the idea of receiving a gift, however. It seemed a bit too royal. So he paid $200 for this cheese. A lot of money back then. Yeah. Now, the story of this cheese displays the political landscape of the time, I feel. What? Yeah.

Well, North distrusted the South. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't like the differences in slavery. There was this tension there. Federalists and Republicans were so opposed to each other they couldn't even make cheese together, Jamie. Oh no. Yeah. How are they going to cope? How are they going to build a country if they can't make cheese together?

That's true. Yeah. The cheese spends a couple of years in the executive mansion. Oh. Yeah. According to one person who tried it, it was, and I quote, far from being good. You can tell he's raining a lot at the end. Yes. It was distasteful. But it was a statement cheese. It didn't need to taste good. Look at the size of our cheese.

It's massive. In many ways, America has not changed. Yeah. The size of our cheese. It's massive. In many ways, America has not changed. Yeah. It was only replaced when someone came along with a massive loaf of bread that had been made in a barrel.

Really? Yeah. It's sort of a big food theme developed around this time. Anyway, meanwhile, Jefferson was establishing some precedence. He refused to speak in front of Congress to deliver the State of the Union Address. Again, far too royal to be talking to my subjects. I'm not going to do that. Well, don't call them subjects then. Well, instead he just wrote a message to them.

And that became the norm for the next 100 years. Going fine. Now, in an attempt to feel more at ease in the mansion, as you can imagine he hated being in that mansion, he started turning it into a sort of informal museum. I mean, once you've got the cheese in there, that people are coming to look at, well, what else can people come and see?

So he starts filling it with stuffed specimens found in North America. Like bears and raccoons and stuff? Yeah. Elk. Moose. All of them, I believe, positioned around the cheese, I'd like to think. Oh, nice. Yeah. Or maybe. Moose. All of them arguably positioned around the cheese, I'd like to think. Oh, nice. Yeah.

Or maybe some little mice. Oh, yeah. That's quite nice. Yeah. And a beaver. Yeah. He was there making little hats for them all in his spare time. That's lovely.

Yeah. Oh, I like that idea. Yeah. Nice woodland scene. Whilst he was doing this, if he was, he'd walk around the executive mansion in casual clothing and a pair of slippers. Not in an evening, but literally all the time. Even when, or perhaps especially when, he was visited by European ministers or diplomats.

Just to prove how unroyal he is. Yeah, they'd turn up in formal dress with ceremonial swords and massive hats. He'd turn up in formal dress with ceremonial swords and massive hats. Nice. He'd turn up wearing bunny rabbit slippers. The ones with funny faces on the front. Yeah. The floppy ears, yeah. A stained dressing gown.

And a slice of cheese. Yeah. Cheese? I have plenty. Used to be a kind of cheddar, but now it's more stilton, I'd say. It's aged. Well, it's aged. He also refused to seat people in social settings.

So when all these people would come round for formal gatherings, he'd refuse to have seating arrangements because that indicated there was a status, a hierarchy. And he disagreed with that. So before all his formal dinners, you'd just have this mad but polite scrum for people trying to get

the best seats at the tables. Yes! So that must have been fun. After a while, the first big event of his presidency arrived. As always, it starts in Europe. Spain was looking weak. Also, the US could not

help but notice that almost half their trade was being transported down the Mississippi River. Now, you need to understand a bit of the geography here to understand what's going on. The east coast of the modern US, the original 13 colonies, obviously were all close to the Atlantic Ocean.

So they transported all their goods across the Atlantic Ocean. Makes sense. Because they had easy access to the sea. But now there are a lot of people living on the western frontier of America. Remember when Adams negotiated in Paris, they got land all the way up to the Mississippi River. So you've got a lot of people who are closer to the Mississippi than the Atlantic Ocean. This means that people living in the new states of Kentucky and Tennessee, and also people living in the informal territories that weren't yet states,

were all hunting and producing and farming and making goods that need to be sold, would send their goods to the Mississippi, and then their goods would be transported down the Mississippi. However, there's a snag. Because, as you can see here on the map, and we'll put this up on our website, that is the current US. And this here is the Mississippi. Now, if you're listening at home, either find a map

or just imagine a river running through a country. The end of the Mississippi is there. What do you notice about where the Mississippi meets the sea? Who owns that land? Spain. Spain. Oh. Yeah.

Well, that's a problem. That is a slight problem. New Orleans is on the mouth of the Mississippi, and New Orleans is currently owned by Spain. That's weird, because it's got such a French... I'll explain that in a moment. Yeah. But this means that there is a huge population of Americans

who have to push their goods through a Spanish city in order to get out to sea. That must be awkward. Well, there was a deal with Spain. Hi, guys. Back again. I mean, there was a deal in place, and it had all been arranged in various trade treaties, but still, it wasn't ideal, this situation.

So America wanted to do something about this. Now, as you pointed out, New Orleans sounds very French. From Aurelian. Aurelian, yes. Our good mate, Emperor Aurelian. New Orleans is named after the Duke of Orléans. Right. But Orléans is named after Emperor Aurelian.

So we're just saying New Orleans is named after Emperor Aurelian. So we're just saying New Orleans is named after Emperor Aurelian. Yeah. Because I like that. Anyway, as you rightly point out, it was French originally, but then after the Seven Year War, the French gave up their land in North America, and the Spanish got it. So realising that Spain is weak, Jefferson starts exploring the rest of the continent. Let's just get our feelers out there. Let's see what we can do. Never know, we might even find the elusive Northwest Passage that would allow ships to get to the Pacific without

going round the southern tip of America. That would be useful. Generally, Jefferson was annoyed that they lived on a continent and they didn't even know what was on there. Yeah. Lots of trees. Yeah. We need to... Wild cats. And a bear. And and sloths he wants to go and explore basically yeah however before anything happened with the exploration news suddenly came through

spain had ceded new orleans and all of the louisiana territory to napoleon oh this is big news having a weak spain on your border was one thing. I mean, they weren't really doing much with it. Having France in control of a region that was the same size of all of the US, right next door, that's a problem. It's bad enough you've got the British and Canada. We don't want this. Not only that, but now the French had New Orleans back. How long would it be before those living in US land, but not a formal state, started thinking that maybe it would be better if we're part of France? I mean, after all, they control the city our trade goes through. It'll be easier and we'll probably get more money if we're just part of France.

So Jefferson started to worry that people were going to start defecting. He was therefore forced to do something that did not come naturally to him. He let Napoleon know that if the French messed about in New Orleans, the US would be forced to side with the British. Oh! He was digging his nails into his palms as he said this. That must have killed him to say. Yeah.

However, Jefferson also let it be known that if the US happened to own New Orleans, then they would not mind so much if France had the rest of the Louisiana Territory. We won't kick up a fuss. How about we buy New Orleans off you? So he sends James Monroe over with a man named Livingston and they go and negotiate with the French. Jefferson says, go over, offer $6 million for New Orleans, not a penny more.

That's their strategy. Jefferson was amazed, therefore, when he finally hears back from Monroe. You can have it for two. Not quite. Monroe had agreed to the $15 million. But that was not for the city. That was for the entire North American territory. Oh, so Louisiana as well. Yes. Napoleon running out of money for his European wars and finding nothing but headaches from the Haitian revolution that was under full swing, by this point just wanted out of North America.

Wow. Overnight, the size of the US would be doubled. Mississippi would no longer be a boundary but a river running through the middle of their country. It signified the US were a real power on the world stage, not just playing at being a country. And all Jefferson had to do was sign the document. Just so you understand how big this area is,

that there is the Louisiana Territory. Oh my goodness. It is literally doubling the size of their country. Because that's all the, that's considered the breadbasket, that's all the grasslands. Yes, exactly. The fertile land, farmland. Yeah, which they didn't really know back then, but yes.

Wow. So they called all that Louisiana? Yeah. So what have they called all that Louisiana? Yeah. So what have we got in there now? You've got Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, parts of Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, a bit of North Dakota, a bit of Minnesota, Montana, even a bit of Canada as well. Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah. Big portion of land. This was massive portion. Yeah. They were willing to spend six million on literally New Orleans, the city down there. For 15, they could Massive portion. Yeah. They were willing to spend six million on literally New Orleans, the city down there. For 15 they could have all that. Yeah. Like I say, all Jefferson has to do is sign the document. However, there's a snag here. Many Federalists hate this idea, describing the land as a wasteland. It's a waste of money. We don't need that land. What's the

point in it? We don't even know what's over there. It's probably nothing. Many New Englanders also saw this as an expansionist moved by the slave-owning South. Now, if you look at where New England is, none of the new land borders them whatsoever. So they can't expand into it. So New England aren't too happy about this. No benefits. Yeah, so you've got Federalists saying no, you've got New Englanders saying no. So much so that some of them even start talking about breaking away from the Union. There was some heated debate about this. And here was the big snag here. Jefferson had started his presidency declaring how he was a strict constitutionalist. He would not do anything that was not in the Constitution.

He made that very clear. Very clear. So where exactly did it say that the President could buy land for the country? For seven weeks he considered what to do. I mean, this deal was amazing, but it's not in the Constitution. Aha, he's got an idea. What if we change the Constitution? What if we amend it?

Well, yeah, exactly. Can we make an amendment, he starts thinking. But he knew that that was going to be messy. It would take time. It's the right thing to do, though. So he decides this is the way forward. But then word comes from Monroe. Napoleon's having second thoughts.

Does he really want to do this? That's a large portion of land he's about to sign over. Jefferson needed to decide quickly. Realising the deal was too good to pass up, Jefferson pushed his misgivings about overstepping his power aside and sent the deal to the Senate. I think this should happen. Senate, you need to ratify this.

The Senate, being Republican, agree. The House, however, was a bit harder to push through. Federalists opposed, strict Constitutionalist Republicans opposed. And despite having a three-to-one advantage in the House, the bill was only passed by two votes. Wow. Can you imagine how different

our history would look now if that bill had not passed? Yeah, gosh. If France still had all that land. They'd probably have sold it eventually. Possibly, yeah. Then again, Britain didn't sell passed. Yeah, gosh. If France still had all that land. They probably sold it eventually. Possibly, yeah. Then again, Britain didn't sell Canada. That's true. But still, the bill does pass.

They have the new land. Oh. Incorporating this new territory, not easy. Cultural differences, including the status of free black people, meant that it took a while for New Orleans to really feel a true part of the US. They have a large free black population there, which you did not find anywhere else in the US. It was also quite a bit apart from everyone else.

And yeah, it was just quite different. In fact, even into the early 1900s, New Orleans was considered quite otherworldly almost to many Americans. Well, even now it's got very much of a continental vibe to it. Yeah, yeah. It's a bit different in New Orleans. They listen to jazz for a start. Oh.

And eat Cajun food. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. It took them a while to be embraced by the rest of the US, but I'd like to think they are now. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'd love to go to New Orleans.

I'd love to go to New Orleans. Anyway, back to the narrative. Jefferson. are now. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'd love to go to New Orleans. I'd love to go to New Orleans. Anyway, back to the narrative. Jefferson. Jefferson now has all this land. And like I said, he wanted to go and explore it before. Now he's really excited about going to explore it. So we had a man named Lewis, an army veteran and natural explorer, go to Philadelphia for a crash course in mapmaking, astronomy, medicine, etc, etc.

Anything that would help him to go and explore. Bear attacks. Yes, bear attack course 101. Yes. If you see a bear and it attacks you, oh dear. Don't let that happen. They're big and scary. Yeah, so Lewis was told go and explore the region that they'd acquired,

make notes on any flora and fauna that you find, but also look into the Native American population out there. Who lives there? What are they like? Make connections. He was also told, amongst other things, see if you can find out why the Indians often seem melancholy, and why are they prone to suicide? They just seem really down and depressed, and we can't figure out why. Yeah, I came across this. I couldn't believe it. It's like, why do you think? Why do you think?

Yeah, now, we've not had too much time to discuss the policies of Washington and Adams to the Native American population, but it wasn't great. There wasn't any huge events that occurred, which is why we haven't covered it, but a lot's going on along the edges. There's Native American tribes being steadily pushed out of their land to make room for the white settlers, and it's a steady drip-drip that's going on. Oh dear. And apparently the Native Americans are not too happy. No. Jefferson wants to know why. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, Lewis selects an old friend named Clark to lead the exploration with him. Lewis and Clark. Lewis and Clark, yes. And 40-odd men head off. And this was true exploration. Jefferson himself was arguably one of the best read about

the far west in the country it became a bit of an obsession with him but even he didn't really know what was out there it was commonly held that creatures such as mammoths probably roamed the areas if you went far enough no one knew how far the continent went most assumed the pacific was much closer than it actually was now in some ways this exploration was a great success a lot was learnt about the new land and what was in it 178 new plants were discovered that were previously unknown to the us 122 species of animal which is nice nice. The black bear, the brown bear, the killer bear. The dead bear, the cooked bear. Tasty bear.

Fur trade also got a huge boost. Made lots of connections and trade went well. Dealings with the locals, less good. Translation issues were the biggest problem. Quite often dialogue was translated through a couple of Indian languages, then into French, and then into English. Oh dear. And then the reply would go back through those languages.

Oh man. The exploration group left many tribes believing that they had conveyed to the locals that the Great Father, Jefferson, was the ultimate power in the land. However, the tribal leaders mostly understood that someone in the East wanted to make some trade deals with them as an equal. Slight disconnect there. Yeah. This would lead to tensions later on. Anyway, it takes over a year for Lewis and Clark to reach the Pacific. Oh, they did it.

Oh yeah, they made it eventually. Quite a journey it was. Took another year to return. Yeah, it was close to two and a half years the whole journey took. The whole thing was hailed as the greatest exploration of their age. The story, however, has a slight sour ending when you find out that Lewis was unable to capitalise on his fame and he committed suicide a few years later.

That's a sad ending to that tale. It is. But why can he capitalise? Other people took his work. Oh, no. And made money. He was also known for drinking and gambling. So he...

So he hadn't done it for two and a half years. Yeah. So, yeah, there's a bit of a shame there. But Lewis and Clark exploration. You'd heard of it before. Yeah, I'd heard of Lewis and Clark. Anyway, all that's going on. Jefferson, however, has more pressing issues.

The Barbary War. Barbary. Yeah, now right now, I'm just going to confess, we are stealing the people, these potuses, Joker. Because they claimed that this war was full of barbers. Oh, okay. Yeah. Cutting hair, hitting each other with their red and white

poles. Oh. Yeah. And that is too good an image to pass up. So we are also saying that that's what it was. And eventually enough history podcast will jump on board and that's how it will go down in the history books. Nice. That's what I think. Another great barber war. Yeah. Now, one thing I didn't mention in Jefferson's last episode was when he was in France, he had to deal with the fact that pirates in the Mediterranean were attacking US ships. This is a downside of being independent. You no longer have the British Navy to protect your trade vessels.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So when Jefferson became president, this issue came to a head. In 1801, the head of the Barbary states in Tripoli, now if you really want to know, Barbary is an adaptation on Berber tribes. We've come across before. Do you remember Gildo? Yeah. Yeah, he was a leader in Africa. He was a Berber.

Okay. Yeah, and he was killed by his own brother if I remember correctly. But yeah, these are descendants of the people we've seen in our Roman podcast. Oh, wow. Yeah, so we're in North Africa. Okay. And Tripoli hear that there's a new US president, so they send him a demand.

Pay us this much money, we will stop attacking your ships. Jefferson is outraged that the price has gone up so much, so he refuses. Tripoli, in turn outraged, earn a spot in history for becoming the first nation slash city-state to declare war on the United States.

Oh, wow. However, the US had been planning to do something about this for a while and had been building up their navy. They'd not been doing nothing. Unfortunately for the US, however, things don't start well as their frigate, a flagship, the Philadelphia, was blockading the port of Tripoli.

And it hit a reef and it got beached. Oh no, that's embarrassing. Yeah, Tripoli gleefully nip out, kidnap all the sailors, and send ransoms back to the US, demanding more money than the entire military budget for the entire year for those meant to be returned. Embarrassing start.

Yeah. Now, in order to stop the ship from being used by the enemy, however, a 25-year-old lieutenant called Decator... Probably mispronouncing that. Decator? How do you go for that name? Decator called Decator probably mispronouncing that Decator how do you go for that name Decator Decator yeah we'll call him Decator he he slipped into the harbour with 80 men now they were all hidden in the bottom of a trading vessel that was made up to look like it was like coming from Constantinople or something and they're all hidden in the bottom bits I'm sure that has a name on boats, but I don't know what that is.

The bottom bit. The bottom bit. Where the keel is. Yeah. This trading vessel goes into the harbour and claims that it's been damaged, that we need to make repairs, and they just kind of plonk themselves down wherever they can. They're a damaged merchant vessel.

As it happens, it just so happened to be next to this beached US ship that Tripoli had recently managed to capture. Right. Then, much to the surprise of the guards on the Philadelphia, all of a sudden emerging from this trading vessel came 60 armed men. Ah. They breached the Philadelphia, realised there's no way they can move the ship, so they set it on fire.

Nice. And flee. So, well, well done there. Apart from this setback at the start, the US actually do really well in this war. They strip Tripoli from its allies, and they bombarded the city from the sea until a truce was made. Nice. Yeah. The First Bavarian War is over.

All sorted. Don't need to worry about that again. A couple of people might have questioned the name of the war, but no, it's fine. First? What's going on? It's a bit like you calling me my first wife. It's worrying me. Yeah. You're my first podcast partner. Yeah, exactly. It's just a worrying name. Anyway, another foreign policy problem had reared its head. The Haitian Revolution that I alluded to before had resulted in Haiti being now a place. Oh, Haiti.

Yeah. Jefferson, being a slave owner, obviously viewed the only successful slave uprising in history with absolute horror. What if the slaves over here start getting ideas, he thinks. Therefore, harsher slave laws were steadily introduced to the US in the South. No. Despite his claims to be anti-slavery, people were worried that feelings of uprising would spread. So they clamped down on that. Now, all this is foreign affairs that are dragging on, but also internal problems were continuing. Jefferson wanted to get more Republicans into the judiciary arm of the government. There

were too many judges who were clearly Federalists. Washington, Hamilton, and Adams had been kind of stacked to the deck there. So the plan is to get rid of some of the Federalistists. Washington, Hamilton and Adams had been kind of stacked to the deck there. So the plan is to get rid of some of the Federalist judges. Now, judges serve lifetime terms, so it's quite hard to get rid of a judge. But it's fine. You can impeach them. All we need to do is figure out a way of impeaching the judges, and then we can replace them with some Republican judges.

Yeah, it's harder to impeach than you think, though. Well, it really was, because their first target was a man named Pickering. Now, Pickering, people could not agree whether he was actually going mad or whether he was just a drunk. But I can't tell. No. He's either lost his marbles entirely or he's just hit the bottle too hard.

Either way, he's a judge. Perhaps he shouldn't be. However, there's a problem here. You can only impeach for treason, bribery, or other high crimes. Being a drunk is not a high crime. Going mad certainly isn't. So there was nothing anyone could do. Oh dear.

Or at least, in theory. However, the Republicans had the numbers, so Pickering was just impeached. Okay. People muttered about Jefferson, the strict constitutionalist, but oh well, it's happened now. And then the ball starts rolling. Next up is a judge named Chase. Let's get him out next. Now we've already met Chase. He was the one who found the newspaper editor, Calendar, guilty so quickly. Yeah. So the Republicans hated him. Chase was impeached just as quickly, but there was a problem.

The return of Aaron Burr. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Burr, remember, is not happy. Nope. It had all become a bit fraught in the election. He'd been besmirched. He had, and he's now vice president, but he's not happy about being there. He felt that the Republicans had betrayed him and the Federalists turned against him when he tried to approach them.

So he's not happy. But there's one person he hates more than anyone else in the world. Hamilton. Hamilton. Spoke out against him. Oh yes, Hamilton had personally stopped him making the deal with the Federalists during the election, if that really was going to happen. stopped him making the deal with the Federalists during the election, if that really was going to happen.

But more than that, Hamilton then stepped in and stopped him from becoming the New York governor. Yeah, the Federalists were going to back him to become governor in New York, and Hamilton came along again and went, no. Ultimately, Burr and Hamilton's disputes became so large that a duel was set. Oh, nice. Oh, nice! Oh, yes. On the 11th of July, 1804,

Burr, the vice president, shoots Hamilton, who dies the next day. Oh! Yes. I'm guessing you didn't know the ending to Hamilton. No! Spoilers to anyone who's not seen the musical. Now, Burr may have got satisfaction from the jewel,

but he'd ruined his political career. I mean, once his term was over, who's going to vote for the man who killed Hamilton? However, if he was going down, he's going to pull everyone else down with him. Or at least annoy everyone else before he does so. Now, he's still vice president, and that means he's presiding over the impeachment trials that are going on. So, he sees a way to annoy Jefferson.

Jefferson wants to impeach these judges? Really? Okay, then. Let's see if we shall. You'll be shocked to learn that Chase was very quickly acquitted. Apparently, he ran the trial very, very fairly, which obviously is not what the Republicans wanted. They wanted Chase out. What the hell? Also, I'd love to think, just to really annoy Jefferson, Burr, whilst vice president, decorated the Senate House to look like the House of Lords in England.

Oh, yes. Yeah, big leather green seats. Red seats. Red seats, yeah. Yeah, just imagine Jefferson walking into the Senate room one day. What the hell is this what are these crowns going everywhere is that a wig is that george the third where's my cheese gone so jeffson not too pleased with all this going on he's trying to get rid of these federalist

judges but it's not really working also even the things that should have been good aren't working too well remember he released released Calendar? Yeah. Calendar felt like he deserved something as a reward for going to jail for Jefferson. After all, he was writing against Adams on Jefferson's pay essentially, so I should have something in return for this. I want a government job, says Calendar.

Now, Calendar was not known for being someone you'd want in a government job. He was known for his quick temper, shall we say. Jefferson does not want him in charge of anything, so he refuses. Outraged, Callender turned his pen against his former employer. He looked for a scoop, a scandal, and he found one. Oh dear. It turned out that the great Jefferson had several illegitimate children with a slave named Sally Hemings. Oh dear. Oh yes, it all breaks out. So Callender

gleefully writes about this. He's got scandal against Jefferson. Oh dear. However, the story was too sensational and most just dismissed it as-mongering. People did not believe the great Jefferson would do this. That's interesting. Then shortly afterwards, Callender was found dead in a river. A shallow river. Now, there is nothing, I need to say this straight away, whatsoever that I have ever read that indicates anything

but the fact that Callender was, as per usual, drunk and just had an accident and drowned in a river but still i mean i mean yeah he had a note on his back held him with a knife he said i'm glad i killed you you git right i'm getting flashbacks to um stilicho finding mezcigzal's body when they went off for that walk. And, oh no, you've tripped. You've fallen in the river. Oh no. Whatever can I do?

What a shame. Yeah. Quick, grab my hand. Yeah, so if you enjoy... So if you enjoy a good conspiracy theory, I think we should start this one here. Jefferson definitely paid for the murder of someone whilst president.

I think he did it himself. Yeah, no, that's it. That's what he did. He snuck down there still wearing his bunny slippers. Yeah. It'd be too sensational for anyone to believe. Exactly. That's the beauty of it. Right, another ghost

from the past surfaces at this point. Yeah. John Walker came out of the woodwork. You remember last week when I mentioned that Jefferson tried to seduce his neighbour's wife? Oh yeah. Yeah, this is the husband. Oh, yeah. I must be thrilled. Yeah, we don't know how he found out what happened, but he comes forth and lets everyone know that Jefferson was hitting on his wife. That's not great. Now, Jefferson knows all this is coming from a hostile Federalist press, but he can't do anything about it. I mean, he'd love to bring back the Sedition Act to get them

all to shut up, but he made it very clear his position of the Sedition Act. It was against the First Amendment, so Jefferson can't do anything. And he wouldn't. And he wouldn't, obviously not. He wouldn't do anything to stop the federal powers of the federal government. However, there's nothing stopping state governments for suing for libel. However, certain newspapers turn around to Jefferson and say, libel? Really? You have to prove it. Do you really want us to go to court and for us to prove in a trial

that you did do these things that you're accused of. Because we can if you want us to. Jefferson reluctantly drops the subject. He realises that he will not win if this comes to court. So he just quietly lets that go away. So therefore, despite the

best efforts of a Federalist and then a Republican President, freedom of speech lives on to see another day. Yay. Yeah. Then his daughter dies. Oh. Which is sad.

You thought the daughter died a while ago as well, didn't you? Yeah, he's had a couple of deaths in the family, but as we've seen with others, this is relatively common for the age, unfortunately. It must have been a huge distraction, but the elections are coming up. And Jefferson is running again, this time with George Clinton. And the Republicans sweep the board.

The Federalists are still a mess, so they just cannot win this. Jefferson is sworn in for his second term. And it starts off quite well. Good news comes through. That war with Tripoli comes to an end at this point. And then Lewis and Clark come back from their exploration at this point as well. Massive bear scratches. Yeah.

Huge maps that Jefferson put up all around the executive mansion. He was very excited by the maps and this new land that they'd acquired. See, that's the trouble with the Lewis and Clark expedition. The one biggest mistake they made was making one-to-one scale maps. It was accurate, though. Very accurate. It was hugely accurate. Yeah.

But... It was an absolute pain to carry around. Got to fold it just right. Yes. Get one of those folds wrong. Oh, yeah. You'll never get the cover on. No.

It will just be flopping off somewhere. Oh, yeah. It's so annoying, yeah. So, Jefferson's feeling good. Things seem to be going all right here. However, the Republican Party was starting to feel the strain of having a leader who ran on a strict constitutionalist ticket and had by this point done several things

that were questionably above his power, i.e. pretty much everything he's done. A man named Randolph, a distant relative, remember Martha came from the Randolph family. Right. Yeah. So Randolph, a distant relative, remember Martha came from the Randolph family. Right. Yeah. So Randolph announced that he and others were going to split from the party and create a third party. However, this does soon fizzle out.

Jefferson uses his power to topple Randolph from his position as chairman to the Ways and Means Committee. So Jefferson politically fights back, wins this one, but it's a warning shot. The Republican Party aren't 100% happy. What was more concerning was Aaron Burr. Are we still around? Are we still around? But not nearby. He'd left office and he'd headed west.

He'd gone to the Mississippi Territory, this new area of land. It's not a state at this point, it's just a territory. new area of land. It's not a state at this point, it's just a territory. And Burr met a lot of people over there who thought that Burr standing up to Hamilton and killing him was brilliant. Those eastern elites, they don't know what they're talking about. All these decisions they make over there, they don't understand how it affects us here on the western frontier, and you stood up to them, Burr. We like the cut of your jib. And you hate Jefferson as well. He's no better. Jefferson was shocked and alarmed to hear that Burr was scheming to create a new nation out of the southwestern territories and parts of Spanish Mexico. Not entirely sure

what they were going to call it. Burrvania?berry. Bur's happy place. Bur's safe place. Yeah. They were working on the name. Yeah. Not sure how much to believe these rumours. It's like, seriously, is the ex-vice president going to run off, commit treason and start a new country? Is that actually going to happen? Jefferson can't risk it, however, so issues a warrant for Burr's arrest.

Burr is taken in, brought back to the Capitol. However, Burr was an attorney, and had been most of his life. He was a very good lawyer. He knew how to defend himself. At one point, he startles everyone by demanding that Jefferson appear as a witness for him, and produce government papers for his defence. Jefferson really doesn't want to do this. And those papers are going to contain a lot of government secrets and they don't really have anything in place at this moment where he can just claim executive privilege. So things look tense for a while.

After a lot of wrangling, it was decided Jefferson didn't need to appear, but he would hand over those papers. Eventually, after a long trial, Burr gets off. The verdict was, and I quote, he was not proven to be guilty under this indictment by any evidence submitted to us. In other words, we couldn't find him guilty, but he clearly is. He is so obviously committing treason here. That's why they had in brackets afterwards.

Yeah. We just can't prove it. But look at his face. It's guilty. He's got a monobrow. Yeah. Sloping forehead. Still, all this goes by.

And then finally the last major event happens towards the end of his second term. And again, it involves Britain. Now we've raged that Britain are still impress impressing u.s state sailors so britain is still pulling up alongside u.s ships boarding them and pulling off anyone who looks vaguely british and just forcing them to work on their ships you there is that a cup of tea no is that a biscuit get him telly here yeah america understandably still quite annoyed by this and also the j treaty still in effect which jefferson hates so jefferson thinks right it's time we need to do something about this so he sends monroe and a man named pinkney to go and negotiate with the british

see if we can do better than the j treaty, is essentially what he says. The result was no better than the Jay Treaty. Oh, OK. Yeah. Britain's still just going, no. You may have got your independence, but you're still a speck compared to our power. You're not telling us what to do. There's no way in the future this will come back to bite us at all. Now, fed up by this point, by generally how awful the British are,

Jefferson decides on a plan of action. He bans armed British ships from US waters. Completely. And called for the raising of 100,000 militiamen. This builds tensions. Small skirmishes between US and British ships indicate that war was on the horizon. Things are escalating quickly. However, if you actually wanted a war, just getting on our feet here,

is there anything we can do to fight Britain without actually fighting? So Jefferson comes across a brilliant idea. We will fight with our trade. And he enacts the Embargo Act. All Americans were banned from trading with any European power. Just like that. Oh. Sound good?

No. Well, the idea is that it would put strain on Britain. Britain make a lot of money from the colonies, from trade, so they won't want that to happen. Also, it would put strain on France as well, because they're not trading with France. Hopefully put pressure on both countries to cease their hostilities to each other and generally calm things down, Jefferson's thinking.

It also kept US ships away from British ships, decreasing the tension of all-out war. So there was a logic there. However, Napoleon's France just didn't care. I mean, they barely noticed. France was completely self-sufficient. Who? The US who? Yeah, I mean, Britain had to trade because they're an island nation,

but they had a massive empire, so it was fine. France just didn't need to, so they didn't care either. There was one country that really cared, however, and that was the US. Economic meltdown occurs pretty much overnight. Yeah, because that's all their stuff. Yeah. A huge percentage of the population lose their ability to make money instantly. Foreign trade had brought in roughly 108108 million a year previous to this. It fell to $22 million. Wow.

The black market explodes, understandably. People are trying to make a living. If they can't do it legally, they'll do it illegally. So Jefferson attempts to use military force to regulate the trade. That is exactly what the Revolutionary War against the British was all about. And he's now doing it. He was even violating the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment was that no one could search anywhere without a proper warrant. Jefferson just bypassed that and started searching anything that was suspected of smuggling. That didn't please

people. In fact, people were so outraged, he started receiving letters. Oh, no. I'll read one to you. Oh, go on. Dear sir, I wish you would take this embargo off as soon as you possibly can,

but damn my eyes if I can live with it as it is. I shall certainly cut my throat, and if I do, you will lose one of the best seamen that ever sailed. I have a wife and four young ones to support, and it goes damned hard with me now. If I don't cut my throat, I'll go and join the English and fight against you. I hope, honoured sir, that you'll forgive the abrupt manner in which this is written, as I am damned mad. But still, if I ever catch you over there, take care of your honoured neck.

Yours, T. Salby. Number nine, Pine Street. If you ever want to see him, you damned rascal. Oh, that's them fighting. The amount of times he's damned. Yeah. Damned. What a rascal.

Called him a rascal. Vicious word. Yeah. That was one of the more amusing matters I found. Some are just more depressing where they go into detail about how they literally watch their children starve to death because they've got no money. I mean, people are literally dying because of this. That's just sad. Therefore, on the 1st of March, Jefferson reluctantly signs the Non-Intercourse Act.

What? The nation are depressed enough at this point. You're just making it worse. What can I do next to make everyone really depressed? No, intercourse obviously being dialogue as in exchanging goods. It's essentially lifting the embargo. Okay. Yeah.

Can it be the lifting lifting the embargo wax? Imagine there's a lot of miscommunication with that. A misunderstanding. A lot of horrified people until it's explained. Why does your husband hold me? I don't think I can. It's the early 1800s. There was literally nothing else to do in the evening,

Jefferson. Yeah, the whole thing had been a complete disaster. So, thoroughly fed up with politics, Jefferson announced Yeah, the whole thing had been a complete disaster. So thoroughly fed up with politics, Jefferson announced that he would follow Washington's footsteps and only serve two terms. And I'll quote, never did a prisoner released from his chains feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. A bit insensitive. A little bit, yeah. He's a slave owner. This is now the third out of three presidents who have left office feeling nothing but misery and bitterness.

Excellent. It's going well. Yeah. Jefferson spends the next 25 years in Monticello building up the house, generally having a nice life. He keeps adding improvements to his home. He builds a mechanised door that opens at a touch, which is really cool. Like a Star Trek star.

Yeah. Yeah, he just had Star Trek doors all around Montecello. It's brilliant. Then on the 3rd of July, 1826, he became ill. It looked bad, and he asked his grandson if the 4th of July had occurred yet. His grandson replied that it soon would. And then on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,

Jefferson dies, only hours before his friend, John Adams. Oh. There you go, that's Jefferson's life. What a horrible person. Can't wait to ray him, let's do it. Statement! I think this is his rant.

He's got a lot going for him here. He wrote the Declaration of Independence. That's true. Arguably the most influential document in American history. One of the most important documents in world history. Yes. And he wrote it. Yeah.

That's pretty good. That's right. He pushed for the separation of church and state, which hugely influenced the way America was run afterwards. He helped write the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen for the French Revolution. So he's impacting world history there, not just American history.

So that's a biggie. He outlines how states should be introduced to the US, and many of his ideas are what are brought forward. So he shapes, literally shapes on a map, the way that the states are introduced to America. So he forms how America now looks.

By the borders? Well, his idea was to separate everything off in neat rectangular shapes, which is why you've got nice straight lines. Yeah, his plan idea was individual rectangular plots that could be small farms yeah which isn't necessarily how it went but you've still got his early ideas of how states should be brought into

the united states was taken forward and also this idea that everything should be nice straight neat and regulated it's like all the u.s roads are all like that as well yeah exactly so yeah a lot of that came from... Reorganised. Sensible. Go to New York, first street, guess what's the next street? Yeah, second street. Third Avenue, then Fifth Avenue, Fourth Avenue, Fifth... It makes it... No, it's brilliant. It makes sense.

Where's Fribble Street and Dodgy Alley and... Yeah, Grope Lane. Yeah. See, that's more interesting than London. It's more interesting, but... I haven't got a clue where you are. No. He also introduced the decimal currency. Yeah. That's the big one. That's the interesting than London. More interesting, but... I haven't got a clue where you are. No. He also introduced the decimal currency.

Yeah. That's a big one. That's a biggie. Yeah. For the UK. He founded a political party that would dominate for a generation. That's the Republicans. Yeah, the Democratic Republicans, as historians call them.

But yeah, they refer to themselves as Republicans. And that's a big one. I'm guessing this is not related to the new Republicans. No, we'll see how that evolves as we go along. But no, they're not really linked, which is why they're given a separate name. He doubled the size of the US. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, the Louisiana Purchase was huge.

He's doing well. Yeah. He fought pirates. Yar! And he won. Yar! Now, when we're doing our Roman Empire series, you always get bonus points for fighting pirates in the Mediterranean,

so why shouldn't Jefferson? So all that's good. I mean, that's some strong statesmanship. A couple of bads. He tightened the slavery laws, despite claiming to be anti-slavery himself. And the Embargo Act was an own goal of magnificent proportions. I mean, what was he thinking there? Yeah.

And the hypocrisy of using federal force to uphold it went against literally everything he has ever fought against his entire life. And he just did it at the end. He's always doing that. He's always going against the Constitution, isn't he? Yeah. He was a strict constitutionalist when he agreed with the Constitution. When he didn't, the rules could be bent.

It really is a shame about, especially the embargo acts, because it's really strong up until then. And then he just... But he reproved it, though. Yeah, he had the awareness to stop it. Hang on. Yeah. To be fair, he did. He had the awareness to stop it. Hang on. Yeah. Yeah.

To be fair, he did do that. But, I mean, it's a big black mark on an otherwise really good list for statesmanship. But you can see his logic behind it. Oh, yeah. It wasn't... We've got the retrospective. That's a stupid idea. Yeah.

But you could see his thinking and... It was just awful. He should have realised that it wasn't going to work. I've got to knock off at least two or three for the Embargo Act. And tightening slavery laws isn't great, is it? But the rest is so good, I've got to go high. I'm going to give him a nine. You're going to go as high as that?

I'm taking the one off for the Embargo Act, but he knew enough to get rid of it. I've got to take away a couple, I think. I'm going to go for eight. But it is hugely impressive. And this is why he is so divisive as president. Because you look at that list and, wow, that's impressive. And then you get to the next round. Disgrace, Giggits. Okay, bit to discuss here.

If slavery laws falls into the statesmanship, I think his racism falls into this category. Yes. His views come across to most modern people as awful. Yeah. Yeah. That sums it up. But let's try and debate this. One argument against judging him for this is that most people in his age thought the same thing.

So should we judge Jefferson for this? Fair point. But is that most people in his age thought the same thing. So should we judge Jefferson for this? Fair point. But is that true? Well, clearly not, because you did get a swathe of people that didn't agree with it and didn't perhaps think it was necessary. Exactly. I did some very rough calculations. The population of slaves at the time in America was 20% of the population.

Oh, wow, a fifth. So straight away, there's a fifth of the population that don't share Jefferson's views. There you go. You could argue that. Yeah. Now, it's impossible to work out how racist the country was, obviously, but around a quarter of the population lived in the North,

an area where slavery was either non-existent or very rare, making it less likely that they would have been racist. They were certainly anti-slavery, a lot of them. Now, as we've seen, being anti-slavery is not the same as being not racist. Jefferson, claimed to be anti-slavery, was a massive racist. But I would personally argue that it's quite likely that a majority, so over 50% of Americans at the time, did not share Jefferson's views. Possibly.

Now, it's almost impossible to fight me against that because it would be very hard to prove one way or the other. No, I think that's a reasonable assumption to make, so let's go with that. So, I think the argument of saying, well, most people thought that, is that technically true? I don't know if it is. So, I think that argument to defend him falls apart. Right, the next argument. He's a product of his times, which is a similar argument. But my argument against that,

it's not uncommon for people of our generation to go and visit our grandparents and wince at the words that they use whilst describing immigrants. They're not necessarily being racist, but the language they're using is outdated. Yes. Yeah. This, I would argue, is being a product of their times. Someone's using slightly dated vocabulary. They don't mean to be racist. They're just using terminology that makes you wince slightly. That's being a product of your times. But the times have changed. There's like a 300 year difference. So, well, what would have been product of their time would be different of what product of our grandparents' times would be. True, but if my grandfather, for example,

was arguing for the annihilation of an entire race of people based on their race over Christmas dinner, I wouldn't just shrug and say, oh, product of his times. Yeah. There's a line somewhere. And I personally think Jefferson crosses that line. I think Washington was a product of his times. There's a line somewhere. And I personally think Jefferson crosses that line. I think Washington was a product of his times. Adams was a product

of his times. I think Jefferson goes further than those two. And should be called out for it. Yes. Fair enough. Big racist. Still, it doesn't stop there. Because we also have his affairs with married women. Yay! He tried to chat up his friend's wife and failed, but it didn't stop him trying.

And then he does have an affair with Maria Cosway in France, whilst her husband's right there. Watching. Yeah. Single-teared attitude. Yeah. Jesson clearly doesn't think this is a problem. No. And then there's the big one.

Sally Hemings. Oh, yeah. Now for most of history everyone just assumed that Callender was lying about this affair. Everyone thought he made it up. However, since the 1960s a lot of work has been going on into what really happened here. As late as 1997, Professor Annette Garden-Reed presented a thorough analysis of all the evidence and concluded that the affair probably happened. Then inspired by this, a team of geneticists found descendants of Sally Hemmings and confirmed through

DNA that they were related to the Jefferson family. Wow. Not Jefferson, the Jefferson family, because you can't be that precise. Yeah, yeah. So there were still some people saying, well, maybe it was Jefferson's brother. Oh, come on. And then a statistician ground up some

numbers using all the information of where the male family members of the Jeffersons were at what time. And he concluded that the odds of anyone other than Thomas Jefferson being the father to Sally Heming's children was 10,000 to 1.

Ah, okay. Some still say that this didn't happen but the reason why i didn't throughout the episode i didn't even question that it happened is to my mind it obviously happened it obviously happened yeah yeah now some argue that the relationship was loving and consensual um sally was probably 15 or 16 when she was first pregnant she was in a foreign country serving under her master who literally owned her. I think you need to be distorting reality somewhat to think that Sally would have chosen this if she had complete choice over it. Again, it's sort of romanticising the early founding fathers, isn't it? Yeah.

I don't think many people try to claim that Jefferson is innocent in this still. I'm certainly not thinking he's innocent in this. Yeah, so there you go. That's his disgrace gate. Oh, that's the worst so far. Oh, it definitely is. By a country mile. So the most we can take off is 10, right?

I think I'm going to have to go as high as an 8. I was thinking the exact same number. I was thinking exactly the same. I'm going to leave a couple of points of wriggle room for some later presidents in case they get up to some awful things as well. But generally, Jefferson, in his personal life, just did not act like a nice human being. No. Unfortunately.

Professionally, as a statesman, he deserved those high points. He did some brilliant things for the US. Unfortunately, he's just lost them all. Yeah, he's literally just lost all but one because that is minus 16 for disgrace gate oh dear okay what would his life look like as a film or a miniseries he went through law school don't forget yeah that's montage yes montage at the start he really got on with his uh professors uh he played the violin lots um so you could have him playing the violin and then do a montage over the start he really got on with his uh professors uh he played the violin lots um so you could have him playing the violin and then do a montage over the top of him playing the violin

oh nice yeah every now and again getting faster and faster yeah getting better build up exactly so you've got all that that's good um him writing the declaration of independence you can you that's at least three episodes if it's a new series yeah you could definitely get some drama out of that especially the editing process him tearing his hair out franklin trying to comfort him so that could be some good drama there then he heads to france well his wife dies first don't forget oh that'd be dramatic tragic in real life yeah good on screen for a bit of drama yeah yeah gets your heartstrings tugged yeah exactly and especially when they're writing down the last thing to each other then he burns all

her letters apart from that one thing and he saves a lock of her hair and locks it away in his drawer yeah exactly that that's some good you can imagine he's in the bedroom with his wife and you know she's about to die he was saying you know i will always love you i will always death rattle then suddenly you cut to a him silhouetted against a fire yeah just tossing the letters in one by one now i wouldn't even see that just a fire he just didn't show the letters you just have to know about the history to six he's too clever for that fair enough and then he just the camera pans up to the smoke in the air heading towards the moon so you got all that that's that's dramatic that's sad it's it's hard and it's great you have that beginning the whole being in part where it plays on him being quite nice and good then him turning into an absolute git yeah where he just

is abusive he's just having intense how martha changed him as a person, and then you see it all starting to collapse. She's not there. She's the jigsaw. It's character arc. It's the opposite of Washington's character arc. Yeah. It's character arc. Then, obviously, you've got some in France,

so you've got some stuff there. You get to go and see George III, because he met George III, didn't he? So that's quite interesting. What a belution. Then you've got all the infighting with Hamilton. Apparently, the fighting between Hamilton and Jefferson is good enough to make a Broadway musical about.

What is it? Yeah, I think you could probably make some drama out of that. And obviously, the whole Sally Hemings thing, you could definitely make some drama out of that. So there's certainly stuff for making good drama. It's not a comedy, though, is it? It's not a comedy, and it's... I mean, Washington was off fighting battles,

and Adams didn't, but at least he was negotiating peace treaties. Jefferson's not quite got the same excitement, I don't think. I don't think it needs to be exciting. This is like a French noir epic. Black and white, lots of cigarette smoke cigarettes mark yes you could make it high contrast that's what it is okay fair enough less action more more the descent of human's character yes yeah okay you got a judgment um i think quite interesting not not the best um i'll i'd probably give it about a six i think that's quite quite generous. I'm going to give it a seven. Just generally how interesting his life was.

I think it was an interesting life. It was good. He travelled a bit. Yeah, seven. That's 13 for silver screen. Yeah. Let's judge his official portrait. This was during his second term as president.

Ooh, what's that? Is that a fringe? It is a bit of a fringe there, isn't it? It's a high fringe. Yeah, that's almost. I mean, it's not, but it's almost a bit of a fringe there, isn't it? It's a high fringe. Yeah, that's almost, I mean it's not, but it's almost a mullet. It's very moody. It is. The subtle brown in the background to highlight him works quite well.

It's like ethereal glow. And he looks, so far, the most presidential. Oh, definitely. Out of all of them. He's not standing next to a glow. Washington has the iconic, this is Washington, he's the first president, but if you just put them in a line,

Adams, no, not at all. Washington, yeah, not bad, but Jefferson, I'd say, looks most presidential and I'm impressed with the painting. I'm quite impressed with this. I like that. Seven. Yeah, I'm going to join you with your seven. Which gives him a score of 3.5.

Bonus! And some bonus points at the end. He served two full terms. Well done, Jefferson. Two points. No one tried to kill him. No points. Election.

The first one was a draw, but as they were both from the same party, I'm not really counting that. I'm counting the score against his political opponents. So in that case, he gets a score of 72.3, the way I worked it out, which just puts him into the two-point category. He gets two whole points for election, which gives him a score of 21.5, which considering how high his disgrace gate score was, which knocked a lot of points off him, he beats John Adams.

Well, he did so much more than John Adams. He did so much more. That was his round, wasn't it? Yeah. It's nowhere near Washington, but it does put him in second place. Hmm. Out of three.

But is he, and this is going to be hard. It is actually, yeah. Is he... American or American american my gut says yes part of my gut says that but then the other part of my gut hates the other part of my gut no i know what you mean it's tricky but i i think his statesmanship alone carries it his statesmanship is highly impressive and've punished him for his disgrace gate but he still scored more than John Adams. That's how high his statesmanship was because he did so much.

Like you say, he influenced the world. I'll give it to him if you do. I want to give it to him. Because that way I won't feel quite so guilty. Tell you what, I will give it to him only if we can bring him to modern day so he can see what America has become. Because he would despise modern America. Hamilton's

vision for future America was essentially what happened. Jefferson's future for America failed completely. So he would despise modern America. So he can come and see that and weep at what's happened. There you go. But then we give him American. Okay. Well done, Jefferson.

You just about scraped an American there that's two out of three well yeah it's not bad thank you very much for listening don't forget you can follow us on Facebook if you're not already we're also on Twitter and also if you could leave a review if you've enjoyed it on iTunes that would help us immensely

and if you want to listen to more of us but you've ran out then go and listen to our Roman podcast if you have not already and if you hate to listen to more of us but you've ran out, then go and listen to our Roman podcast if you have not already. And if you hate history, listen to our Whiskey podcast. Yes, although why have you just listened to all of this? But yeah. Okay, right. All that needs to be said then

is goodbye. Goodbye. Ah, hello there, Inspector. Welcome to my farm. Yes, I've been sent by Leland. Who? The pastor. He wants to make a big cheese. Oh, yeah. Don't ask. Anyway, I've been asked to, um, I'm just gonna have to say this Okay, are your cows federalist? Yeah, what are your cows federalists? We can't have any federalist cows

Involved in the cheesemaking process. Well, I'm a Republican. Well, that doesn't matter what the cows man. What are the cows? I'm sure they are Come over here Here she comes. All right, have a look into her eye. What can you see? Sadness? That's because she's Republican.

Right. Okay. Let's get another one. Bessie! Here she... Here. Oh, look at the others on her. Now look.

Look into her eyes. What can you see? I don't really... It's a... I don't know. This one looks slightly happier, I suppose. Exactly. Republican. We ain't got no fettest cows around here. That's for damn sure.

Okay, I am impressed. Maybe I'll just tick your thumb off and go to the next. Okay, thank you very much for... Hang on. What? Why does that cow have... Yes, it's Hamilton's face shaved into the side. No, no, no, that's not Hamilton.

That's a... Run, Betty, run! Run for your life! The damn Republicans are on to us!