I finally picked up Merrill Peterson’s biography of Jefferson again after putting it aside for almost a year. I’m glad I waited to start reading it again. The words Peterson wrote about Jefferson and his colleagues in the revolution are even more relevant today:
Jefferson’s progress from Virginia burgess to American revolutionist in seven years followed the main road of the patriot cause, beginning with the protective defense of traditional rights and liberties and ending with the radical ideology that became the birth-right and creed of a new nation. … In the course of asserting their claims within the empire, the colonists became increasingly disenchanted with the home government, distrustful of its designs, and anxious for the security of their own polities. They began to think for themselves and to search out their own identity …
If there are better words out there to describe what is happening in the blogosphere today, I don’t know them.