Good Day Citizens and welcome to this week's edition of the Thomas Jefferson Hour podcast

And indeed this week we're going back to sort of classical Jefferson conversation.

And this week we talk about Jefferson and foreign policy.

It's a contemporary connection.

But it's Jefferson's disappointment with the American people.

Well, it's a sad story for several reasons.

One is that Jefferson is this kind of loving idealist, small-hour Republican who wants to live in a kind of

of Virgilian, agrarian utopia.

And everything started out that way, term one.

But as soon as he becomes president, he has to face the Barbary pirates in North Africa,

and then he has to face the Napoleonic Wars, and provocations against American sailors and against American ships.

And so by the time his second term ends in 1809,

Madison tries to hang on with those principles, but Madison is drawn inevitably into the

War of 1812, the second war of our national independence.

Jefferson staved it off, but it couldn't be prevented in the end, and it just broke Jefferson's heart to think

that all we want to you know can't we all get along all we want to do is live in a

peaceful republic please just leave us alone please just leave us alone, please just leave us alone to thrive and the world wouldn't

do it.

I guess the contemporary connection is, is Jefferson went against his principles and messed

with the livelihoods of many, particularly in the Northeast.

And as the President said, I could have gone to war and I would have been very popular for doing so. He chose a higher

path and the price was paid by individuals financially and I think there's a contemporary

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