Nov 30 2008
THE COMMODIFICATION OF REVOLUTION part 32 American Rev
After the conclusion of the events of the Revolutionary War and the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine continued to promote revolution. For Jefferson it was in support of the French Revolution near the end of his stay as Minister to France and for Paine it was first in England and then eventually in France. They exported a brand of revolution that was distinctly American, based on the principles, values, and the eventual Constitution that resulted from the American Revolution. Jefferson promoted a rather conservative, practical and sensible revolution. He frowned upon the violence of extremism and felt that the course of events were moving to rapidly in revolutionary France as he “was aware of the danger of pressing abstract principles too far in particular situations when circumstances were unfavorable…”* Jefferson thought very little of the revolution at its birth and was unprepared for the social upheavals that followed.**
* Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time, Volume Three: Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1962), 39.
** Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 374.
