Rice and “Jefferson’s Constitution”?

If you stay around Charlottesville long enough, you are vulnerable to catching the Thomas Jefferson “bug.” Happened to me too. As a result, I will be a Jefferson Fellow at Monticello’s International Center for Jefferson Studies this fall, aiming to discern just what “Mr. Jefferson” meant by “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind” in the opening sentence of the American Declaration of Independence. More on that in an essay for July 4th.
As such, I may be a tad sensitive to how our political leaders invoke Jeffersonian quotes, images, and presumed legacies for their own purposes. Secretary of State Rice has me especially puzzled. Consider the Jefferson references in her speech on 14 June before the Southern Baptist Convention. Speaking almost of a global American “Manifest Destiny,” the Secretary proclaimed,

If America does not serve great purposes, if we do not rally other nations to fight intolerance and to support peace and to defend freedom, and to help give all hope who suffer oppression, then our world will drift toward tragedy. The strong will do what they please. The weak will suffer most of all and inevitably, sooner or later the threats of our world will strike once again at the very heart of our nation. So together, let us continue on our present course. Let us reaffirm our belief that in the words of Thomas Jefferson “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time…”

Reportedly, the speech received multiple standing ovations from the enraptured Baptist audience. I too found parts of the speech quite interesting, especially the insights on Secretary Rice’s personal narrative, moving from being raised in a church – literally – to her present leadership role. I can also appreciate her emphasis on the ideal of religious freedom, as we have come to enjoy it – and still fight over it – here in America.
But I suspect the speech will grate on many ears around the world – including Jefferson buffs. While Secretary Rice may well invoke Jefferson to support the view that human freedom and dignity are divinely ordained and intertwined, it is far more of a stretch to imagine what Jefferson would have thought of the self-serving notion that God had somehow uniquely anointed America to spread “freedom” by force and occupation to other nations. No matter how piously couched, the strategy to impose “American exceptionalism” stands sharply in tension with the ideals of human dignity and freedom.
More inconvenient for the Secretary, the very 1774 Jefferson quote she cites about, “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time;…” was but the first half of a sentence that closed with, “the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” Put differently, the American revolution was not just about “freedom;” it was as much, if not more, about “independence” for the new nation to find its own way.
That may be too fine a point for Secretary Rice. After all, at least three times this year, Rice has erroneously referred to Jefferson as author of the American Constitution, including in her January speech introducing her strategy of “transformational diplomacy.” In last week’s Baptist Convention speech, it came up in the following context:

“America will lead the cause of freedom in our world, not because we think ourselves perfect. To the contrary, we cherish democracy and champion its ideals because we know ourselves to be imperfect. With a long history of failures and false starts that testify to our own fallibility, after all, when our Founding Fathers said “We the people”, they didn’t mean me. My ancestors in Mr. Jefferson’s Constitution were three-fifths of a man. And it’s only in my lifetime that America has guaranteed the right to vote for all our citizens. But we have made progress and we are striving toward a more perfect union.”

One wonders if Rice and her 26 year-old speechwriter skipped American History 101. Jefferson of course had little to do with writing the Constitution; he was US Ambassador to France at that time.
Ironically, Jefferson did have a few things to say about the draft American Constitution about which Secretary Rice might not wish to know. Writing on 31 July 1788 to his friend James Madison – the leading hand among many in drafting the Constitution – Ambassador Jefferson was concerned that a Bill of Rights should be adopted quickly. He also specifically objected to what became Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, which forbids Congress from suspending “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus…, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Jefferson asked,

“Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? The parties who may be arrested, may be charged instantly with a well-defined crime; of course, the judge will remand them. If the public safety requires that the government should have a man imprisoned on less probable testimony, in those than in other emergencies, let him be taken and tried, retaken and retried, while the necessity continues, only giving him redress against the government, for damages. Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law, have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treason, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual, and the -minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension

In her January speech, Secretary Rice waxed rhetorically about what Jefferson would have thought of the Bush Administration’s foreign policies. Indeed.
One wonders what Jefferson would have thought of Guantanamo Bay. Would he have been willing to suspend habeas corpus indefinitely for the mystery detainees? What would he have thought of our politicians, media, and citizenry who so quickly kow-tow to “George III” for fear of being branded terrorist sympathizers should they contend there’s something fundamentally “un-American” (un-Jeffersonian) about holding faceless prisoners captive and without charge on a foreign soil?
Would Jefferson have waited for the Supreme Court to give him a ruling permitting him to shut Guantanamo down? Or might a “decent respect for the opinions of mankind” suggest that a different course of action was urgently needed?