12 - Defining the Presidency

Summary

“His mind was great and powerful,” was Jefferson’s considered assessment of George Washington, but there was a sting in the tail. “His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, tho’ not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon or Locke.” Jefferson once flaunted the maxim of Horace, “Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur,” meaning, “Change the name, and the fable applies to you.”¹ The maxim appears apt, for neither Washington not Jefferson possessed the mind of an Isaac Newton, or composed treatises like those of Bacon or Locke. But Dumas Malone may have been overly rigorous in denying him the status of a “political philosopher,” for the Declaration of Independence, and other Jeffersonian positions, have profoundly affected the subsequent development of political philosophy, although few Americans either in 1776 or today would be able to say who drafted the Declaration of Independence.