Jefferson's Parliamentary Writings


Book Description

This volume in the Second Series of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson contains the two important parliamentary documents he prepared during his lifelong study of the subject. Jefferson compiled the first document, called the Parliamentary Pocket-Book," while he was president of the Senate by virtue of his position as Vice- President of the United States. This informal guide was the basis for the Manual of Parliamentary Practice, which Jefferson completed in its earliest form by 1800 and which he had published in 1801. The Manual was the new nation's first full parliamentary rule book and is American democracy's reliable guide to its English parliamentary tradition. Still cited on the floors of Congress. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.










Catalogue of the Library


Book Description







Thomas Jefferson's Enlightenment


Book Description

Thomas Jefferson’s Enlightenment: English, Scottish and French Influences on the Third US President retraces Jefferson’s intellectual history. His education in rural Virginia exposed him first to the Latin and Greek classics, then to the political and legal thought of opposition (‘country’) Whigs from 18th-century England. From his college days, he started to absorb the quite distinct views of the Scottish Enlightenment then the five years he spent in Paris (1784-1789), mostly as American Minister to France, broadened his horizons even more. An enthusiastic amateur scientist, he studied the latest science and liberal politics of his French circle, the most important being the Marquis de Condorcet, whose revolutionary ‘social mathematics’ was 200 years ahead of its time. The English, Scottish and French perspectives Jefferson was exposed to shaped his thinking in many ways on his return to the US, influencing his own promotion of science as president of the American Philosophical Society and agricultural improver. It shaped his unique views on religion and ethics, up to his very last published letter. However, it failed to eradicate his great blind spot in regard to slavery as the only enslaved people he freed were from his own family.