#1426 Jefferson's First Inauguration

Listening to America

Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2021

⏱️ 61 minutes

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Summary

President Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as our third President on March 4, 1801. He was dressed simply, wearing nothing that would distinguish him from the crowd gathered at noon as he entered the Capitol and then the Senate Gallery to give his speech. The theme of his speech was reconciliation after his bitterly partisan election. This week, Mister Jefferson joins us and recites that speech.

Find this episode, along with recommended reading, on the blog. Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our new merch. You can find Clay's publications on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics. Thomas Jefferson is interpreted by Clay S. Jenkinson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good day, Thomas Jefferson, our podcast listeners. As always, thank you for listening. Happy New Year.
0:07.2	Welcome to 2021. 2021. I remember, David, when the millennium came and my mother and I
0:17.8	spent it in Washington, DC, I actually got to give a Jefferson performance before President Clinton.
0:22.8	And we went to a big gala on the mall and then it was so crowded that we had to walk across
0:30.9	the Potomac bridges to get to our hotel in Arlington because there were no taxis to be had. And
0:38.4	so this is a long time ago now. It's 21 years ago. And it seemed like
0:45.4	when I had been a child, I thought, I wonder what I'll be at the millennium. That's a generation
0:52.7	to go now. So now I'm thinking, I wonder if I'll live to 2050. But boy does time pass and
0:59.5	boy have things gotten different. So we've moved from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan and Ronald
1:08.1	Reagan to George Herbert Walker Bush and Bush to Clinton and Clinton to Bush Jr. and Bush
1:15.4	Jr. to Barack Obama and Barack Obama to Donald Trump. And it's been on the whole peaceful.
1:24.8	There's been some political ranker. It's risen over the past couple of decades. We're more partisan
1:29.7	than we used to be. There's more mutual distrust. There's more distrust of our national institutions
1:36.1	than there used to be. Certainly, then there was in the 1960s. But now we've reached this point
1:42.6	where it's all feels, it all feels broken. It all feels, you know, sort of tatters and
1:52.9	like the wheels are coming off the vehicle. Oh, come on. Where's that Jeffersonian optimism?
1:57.9	I do. I'll stand up for that. I do believe that the guardrails are holding. But you have to admit
2:04.0	there's some, there's some, there are some frayed edges to our democracy.
2:08.3	Well, the reason I'm optimistic is because of the subject matter of this week's show,
2:12.2	which was Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural address. And it's hard to read that document.
2:18.5	Or as in the case this week, to listen to Jefferson recite that first inaugural address,
2:23.4	it's hard to do that and not be optimistic. His optimism in that speech is infectious. His humility,
	...

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