Tom is a hero of many on F!6, I thought about posting this there but figured it would degenerate.

While helping to write the Virginia Constitution for the new state, Jefferson proposed things that F16 would deplore today:

1. Give the vote to anyone who intended to have permanent residence in the US
2. Only landowners should vote but if a free man did not have land, 50 acres should be given to him by the state.
3. The senate was to be composed of elites who were elected for life by the House.
4. End the slave trade.
5. Abolish the death penalty, except for murder.

I'm guessing today's F16 would post "Bad Jefferson."

Jefferson also wanted these in the US Constitution but they go shot down at the state and national level.

Do we all agree that if Jefferson was alive in the present day, he'd be an academic?

He would be involved in government, especially breaking new ground, he loved that. It was in his top 3 of the many things he did.

One of the things he was for was castration for rape, incest and polygamy. Guilty women would have a no less than half inch diameter hole drilled into the nose cartilage. Other than that he opposed maiming as punishment for crimes.

BQ78 said:

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He would be involved in government, especially breaking new ground, he loved that. It was in his top 3 of the many things he did.

One of the things he was for was castration for rape, incest and polygamy. Guilty women would have a no less than half inch diameter hole drilled into the nose cartilage. Other than that he opposed maiming as punishment for crimes.

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I could see him being an advisor but he wasn't all that great at the actual work of running a government.

Agree with the latter but he got out of the Continental Congress so he could help write the Virginia Constitution, which he hoped would be the framework for the US Constitution. He was also not happy to be in France while the Constitution was drafted by Madison , who helped get Jefferson there and out of the way.

What is the story behind Madison preventing Jefferson from coming back?

Madison and Jefferson were roommates in Philadelphia as members of the Confederacy congress. Madison encouraged him to take the ambassadorship as a way of solving the access to the Mississippi outlet problem and negotiating treaties. Madison definitely stroked his ego telling him he was the only man for the task. Was it to get him out of the way? No proof but some historians make that conjecture. More likely is Madison, who hated traveling, wanted to avoid congress sending him.

Things that promote the conjecture is Madison was Jefferson's source for what was going on at the Constitutional Convention. Madison wasn't fully open with Jefferson on his pet clauses like the Bill of Rights, term limits and expiration of the Constitution every 19 years. When it was all done, Jefferson wanted to call a new convention. When that became impossible he hoped the states would reject it or enough would, that it could be amended. As it was, his protests helped inclusion of the Bill of Rights.

BQ78 said:

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Madison and Jefferson were roommates in Philadelphia as members of the Confederacy congress. Madison encouraged him to take the ambassadorship as a way of solving the access to the Mississippi outlet problem and negotiating treaties. Madison definitely stroked his ego telling him he was the only man for the task. Was it to get him out of the way? No proof but some historians make that conjecture. More likely is Madison, who hated traveling, wanted to avoid congress sending him.

Things that promote the conjecture is Madison was Jefferson's source for what was going on at the Constitutional Convention. Madison wasn't fully open with Jefferson on his pet clauses like the Bill of Rights, term limits and expiration of the Constitution every 19 years. When it was all done, Jefferson wanted to call a new convention. When that became impossible he hoped the states would reject it or enough would, that it could be amended. As it was, his protests helped inclusion of the Bill of Rights.

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Interesting. I hadn't done too much studying on this and just assumed Jefferson was sent to France because he had served there during the war. Thanks.

My dad got his PhD and became a history professor as a second career after retiring from the army. He got his PhD at William and Mary in Colonial Williamsburg. I don't know where he heard it or read it, but he always said that the Founders made sure to get Jefferson out of the country during the Constitutional Convention because he was simply too radical. J Allen Smith argued that the Constitution was a conservative reaction to the radicalness of the Declaration of Independence.