----- Original Message ---- From: Jeffrey Fisher <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Tue, March 16, 2010 9:34:31 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Texas school board drops Jefferson, adds Calvin
Jefferson may indeed be overrated, but in the history of American politics and intellectual history (see the U), he's still a giant. What they don't like about him is his animosity for state-enforced religious uniformity, and in that they are right to dislike him. Madison's Remonstrance is a better piece of writing than anything Jefferson ever did, but it is Jefferson who has exercised the greater influence on the question, and it is Jefferson's Statute that actually sets the standard (surpassed in a very different context by the Remonstrance).