One more note about Barbra Streisand. The Jefferson quote she posted on her site was lifted from internet chatter posted on left-wing weblogs. Too bad Barbra's just passing along the quote du jour. If she'd read Jefferson's letter for herself, she might have reconsidered posting it.
The context was a bitter fight between Federalists and Republicans (of which Jefferson was one) over the direction of the country. So far, so good. And it's instructive for those of us who have just seen some of the most vicious political venom of OUR lifetimes to remember that there have been much worse seasons in American politics. At stake was freedom of speech, in particular, which the federal courts were busy trying to supress. So the quote itself, in our day of FCC regulation and Patriot Acts, might be relevant . . . although Streisand likely would have been imprisoned in that day for exercising her current freedom of speech.
But Jefferson isn't a buffet, and you can't just take the quotes you like. Here's what Barbra quoted, in a letter to John Taylor Philadelphia, June 4, 1798:
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it's true principles."
The previous sentence in Jefferson's letter describes the "witches" in the day's stereotype of Jews:
"They are circumscribed within such narrow limits, & their population so full, that their numbers will ever be the minority, and they are marked, like the Jews, with such a peculiarity of character as to constitute from that circumstance the natural division of our parties."
If I were Babs, I'd avoid this one.
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