I kept getting this quote in conversation thrown at me proving Jefferson’s “anti-war” stance on Twitter. Here is one such use of it followed by an ultimatum:
- “I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.” ~Thomas Jefferson. Now you still want to argue your thinking?
The quote comes from a letter to Elbridge Gerry, and can be read here. Here is a larger section where this comes from… I will italicize the quote used already, and after the larger quote emphasize what follows that gives the sentence context:
I have been happy, however, in believing, from the stifling of this effort, that that dose was found too strong, & excited as much repugnance there as it did horror in other parts of our country, & that whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, & that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators. Much as I abhor war, and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind, and anxiously as I wish to keep out of the broils of Europe, I would yet go with my brethren into these, rather than separate from them. But I hope we may still keep clear of them, notwithstanding our present thraldom, & that time may be given us to reflect on the awful crisis we have passed through, and to find some means of shielding ourselves in future from foreign influence, political, commercial, or in whatever other form it may be attempted. I can scarcely withhold myself from joining in the wish of Silas Deane, that there were an ocean of fire between us & the old world.
Here is the sentence in whole — again:
- Much as I abhor war, and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind, and anxiously as I wish to keep out of the broils of Europe, I would yet go with my brethren into these, rather than separate from them.
There is a lot of qualifying that the sentence ripped from it’s context does not allows a reader to better understand Jefferson’s position. Also note that the letter included the history and knowledge of the Silas Deane affair as well as what is missing from the letter… which we know because we have the rough draft:
“I shall never forget the prediction of the count de Vergennes that we shall exhibit the singular phenomenon of a fruit rotten before it is ripe, nor cease to join in the wish of Silas Deane that there were an ocean of fire between us & the old world. Indeed my dear friend I am so disgusted with this entire subjection to a foreign power that if it were in the end to appear to be the wish of the body of my countrymen to remain in that vassalege I should feel my unfitness to be an agent in their affairs, and seek in retirement that personal independence without which this world has nothing I value. I am confident you set the same store by it which I do: but perhaps your situation may not give you the same conviction of its existence.”
As an aside… Jefferson would have liked to see the French Revolution be more bloody if it succeeded in it’s aims:
My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause [the French Revolution], but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated.
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter of January 3, 1793, The Portable Thomas Jefferson, ed. Merrill D. Peterson (New York: Penguin Books, 1975), p. 465; from, Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles (New York, NY: basic Books, 2007), 29.