The Jefferson Bible. Percival Everett

doctrines. He in fact referred to it as a “wee little book.” I have taken liberties here because of the way we in Jefferson’s future have chosen to construct his life. Perhaps I am more sympathetic to Jefferson than I let on. I believe what Jefferson has to teach us is more profound than we realize, more subtle, more complicated.

      Before I get to the stuff of Jeffersonian “thought,” I have here to address an interesting aside, that being my notion of retrograde evolution. Two hundred years after Jefferson’s election to his first term as President (an election marred with electoral irregularities), George W. Bush was elected to the same office. I would venture to say (using reasoning very close in quality to Jefferson’s own) that during this time the necks of giraffes might have lengthened by a centimeter, the shells of tortoises might have grown slightly harder, and the speed of cheetahs might have increased, however imperceptibly. But during this same time, Presidents of the United States of America failed to achieve any kind of advance. Jefferson was digging up Indian graves for scientific reasons and rewriting the Bible . . . and George Bush plays pull-my-finger and makes up nicknames for people. Thomas Jefferson founded a school, the University of Virginia, while we all sit and wonder, all of us, how it was possible for George Bush to make it through college at all. From Jefferson we are left with, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . .” From George Bush, “Our nation must come together to unite.”

      “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That’s the line of greatest interest to me and of course to all democracy-loving Americans: black, white, conservative, liberal, neo-Nazi, post-neo-fascist. This remarkable bit of hocus-pocus is full of philosophical and moral baggage, assumptions, presumptions, and supposition. Perhaps the only nonambiguous word in the statement is we. We is the signers of the document, and supposedly by extension, the remaining population of the colonies, the largely illiterate, unmonied rest who were nothing like the signers themselves. You know, the ones who would later gloriously die for freedom and the pursuit of Happiness. It all sounds scarily familiar.

      I thought, tear apart the statement, but that would be boring. And besides, I’m not smart enough to offer any kind of compelling addition to our understanding of this remarkable assertion, statement, motto. So I decided to pay Mr. Jefferson a visit. I flew east to Monticello and found him enjoying a French wine, a merlot, I believe, in his drawing room.

      * * *

      TJ: [To his overseer] Lars, take the shackles off that boy and allow him to stand. [To me] What is your business here? Who has sent you?

      PE: [Wiping blood from the corner of my mouth] I’ve come of my own accord. I’d like to ask you a few questions, Mr. Jefferson.

       [Lars moves to strike me again, but Jefferson waves him off]

      TJ: Never mind, Lars. I’m intrigued. You shall address me as sir.

      PE: I don’t think so.

      TJ: [To Lars] Leave us. [To me] Have a seat.

      PE: Thank you.

      TJ: What would you like to ask me?

      PE: Let’s get right to it, shall we? You wrote the beautiful passage that begins, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”

      TJ: I did.

      PE: I’m interested in the bit about all men being created equal. How do you reconcile that with your practice of holding slaves?

      TJ: I would offer you some wine, but it would be wasted on your undiscerning palate.

      PE: No doubt. Tell me about slavery.

      TJ: I advance the notion, the practice of racism. We are not the same. Boy, I cannot tell you whether the blacks were originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstance, but they are inferior to the white in the endowments of both body and mind.

      PE: And because of this inferiority, they can be enslaved.

      TJ: Yes.

      PE: I passed a small shack on the outskirts of Charlottesville. There was a white man in rags out in a field planting rocks and then watering them. Is he your equal?

      TJ: I know the man of whom you speak. Yes, he is.

      PE: Tell me, in what way is he equal to you?

      TJ: God created him.

      PE: Did your God create me?

      TJ: Of course he did. But you’re a black. I have established scientific justification for the continuation of slavery. There is no hypocrisy here, if that’s what you’re suggesting.

      PE: I am suggesting just that.

      TJ: You see, the black is by nature not like other men.

      PE: How so?

      TJ: Well, you are all black, for one thing.

      PE: There is a range of color among white people as well. Is lighter inherently better?

      TJ: Don’t you think so? Consider this: The difference in color might be merely in the skin or it may emanate up to the surface from the blood, from the bile, which is no doubt black, or, and this is the notion I’m most drawn to, it may be a secretion. But whatever the reason for the color, it is fixed in nature. Nature fixes things for a reason.

      PE: Like hair color.

      TJ: But we’re talking about skin. See, that’s the kind of inferior thinking your poor mind is subject to.

      PE: Secretion?

      TJ: It makes sense, doesn’t it? That’s why you blacks have that objectionable odor. The secretion and underactive kidneys and overactive sweat glands.

      PE: You don’t think hard labor for hours in the sun might contribute to the sweating and perhaps some odor?

      TJ: To some degree, of course.

      PE: . . . Scientific? How have you determined that blacks have underactive kidneys?

      TJ: Just watch them. They stand out there for hours, slaving away . . . [pauses to chuckle] and seldom do they excuse themselves to urinate.

      PE: They’re being watched by a man with a whip.

      TJ: Blacks, you [points to me] are dumb, slothful, and bestial. Your kind respond to sensation rather than out of reflection.

      PE: Then how do you account for my remaining seated instead of attacking you?

      TJ: The slothful part.

      PE: Of course. These are things that you have been able to measure. You’ve set up experiments and used poor whites as control subjects and been able to quantify laziness and bestiality.

      TJ: Why no, but I have observed. You know, they have that Phyllis Wheatley up north. All sorts of claims were made about her ability to reason, but I believe she is merely the exception that proves the rule. Anyway, she’s just a parrot motivated by religious zealotry.

      PE: I see.

      TJ: All of that—the skin color, the broad features, the absence of flowing hair—these must lead you to admit, at least, to the greater physical beauty of the white race.

      PE: You mean like Sally