Tag: jefferson

Any young man who diligently searched the library at Monticello for nastiness could indeed find a few corners where it lurked, but dispassionate information on homosexuality would be hard to find. Jefferson’s personal feelings about same-sex relations were not recorded, but he did discuss briefly the legal aspects in his writings on law reform. He felt it was important that the law clarify two distinct crimes which had been conflated under the heading of buggery: sodomy and bestiality. Bestiality, he believed, should be decriminalized entirely. Because “it can never make any progress” (i.e. there was no possibility of pregnancy), bestiality could not cause any permanent injury to society and therefore should not be severely punished. Sodomy, of course, can never make any progress either, but Jefferson felt that it was enough of a threat to public welfare that it should remain a criminal offense. He did suggest, however, that the penalty be reduced from hanging to simple castration.

William Benemann, Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships

You are a complex man indeed, Mr. Jefferson.

(via publius-esquire)

He [William Maclay] found Jefferson stiff and formal, possessed of a ‘lofty gravity.’ He warmed more to the fat, easygoing Knox, who may have drunk to excess – Maclay calls him ‘Bacchanalian’ – yet managed to project an aura of dignity. The description of Hamilton is suggestive: ‘Hamilton has a very boyish, giddy manner and Scotch-Irish people could well call him a ‘skite.’ The Oxford English Dictionary defines the Scottish word skite as meaning a vain, frivolous, or wanton girl. The choice of words hints at something feminine about Hamilton beneath the military bearing, an androgynous quality noted by others.

Ron Chernow,

Alexander Hamilton

(via

publius-esquire

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‘The deplorable death of my friend Hamilton hurt me deeply,’ he [Lafayette] wrote Jefferson for solace. ‘I am sure that, regardless of the differences between your two parties, you always admired him and feel his loss as deeply as I.’

Harlow G. Unger, Lafayette

I’m going to go out on a limb and say Lafayette was probably never aware of half the terrible things Jefferson wrote about his friends (especially Washington). I’m not going to lie, though, I would have loved to see Jefferson’s response to this.

(via publius-esquire)