Sing Tantarara, rogues all, rogues all!
Regular readers here know this by now: I'm reading Randall's biography on Thomas Jefferson, and had a conversation with an old acquaintance via IM, where we started discussing Jefferson's opinion on Christianity.
That conversation encouraged me to pick up another book I have, a compendium of all of Jefferson's writings except his letters. In there is a letter to John Cartwright dated 5 June 1824 where he discusses the relationship of English common law to Christianity. Jefferson's findings? There are none:Here I might defy the best-read lawyer to produce another scrip of authority for this judiciary forgery; and I might go on further to show, how some of the Anglo-Saxon priests interpolated into the text of Alfred's laws, the 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd chapters of Exodus, and the 15th of the Acts of the Apostles, from 23d to the 29th verses. But this would lead my pen and your patience too far. What a conspiracy this, between Church and State! Sing Tantarara, rouges all, rouges all! Sing Tantarara, rouges all! What I find so interesting about his conclusion is how he ends his thought -- "What a conspiracy this, between Church and State! Sing Tantarara, rouges all, rouges all!" Where did Jefferson get this quote, and why did he cite it?
I found what he was quoting... an old Glorious Revolution song entitled The Cavalier:
FIFTH MONARCHY-MEN must down, boys,
With bulleys of every sect in town, boys;
We'll rally and to 't again,
Give 'em the rout again;
Fly like light about,
Face to the right-about,
Charge them home again
When they come on again;
SING TANTARA RARA, BOYS,
TANTARA RARA, BOYS,
This is the life of an Old Cavalier.
A anti-roundhead song? Against Oliver Cromwell's Parliament and in favor of the King? Doesn't sound like the Jefferson I've been taught about!
Perhaps I am looking into this too much, but I'd hate to think that Jefferson would have chosen his words carelessly. After all, Virginia Cavaliers isn't just pulled out of thin air. What did Jefferson intend?
More accurately, who or what the hell is Tantara?
Disappointingly, it seems as if it's shorthand for a trumpet call (tantara-rara!). Back to square one.
This quote by Jefferson towards the end of his life is universally quoted by antagonists of faith in the public square as sound evidence there is no correlation between the church and state, and that furthermore Christianity as a basis for law is false in American jurisprudence.
However, there's a distinction between English common law and the natural law that can be drawn, and Jefferson understood the difference between the two; the natural law (which has an divine origin) and common law (which in Jefferson's view would be a perversion of the natural law).
Granted, I understand entirely that Jefferson was anti-Catholic and hated everything that he saw in the old order. Moreover, his antagonism towards church and state was based off of the old understanding of medieval governance that England had never quite shaken off, even after the Elizabethan era and the Glorious Revolution.
What's more, Jefferson was a sound proponent of the natural law. In fact, he believed in it so mightily he based the entire foundation of the Declaration of Independence on it. Common law a cloak; an obfuscation of the natural law that clouded our understanding and prevented a true accounting or "science of law" as Jefferson so desperately wanted to realize in his earlier years.
Therefore, the quote where Jefferson attacks the conspiracy between church and state is an attack on common law. Knowing Jefferson was a minimalist when it came to governance and a proponent of self-government, what we have here is a juxtaposition between common law - the big government of Jefferson's day - and natural law.
What were Jefferson's feelings on the natural law? One needs to look no further than the Virginia Declaration of Religious Freedom. There are certain things Jefferson undoubtedly believed about human nature. "Almighty God hath created the mind free," so says the sage of Monticello.
There's a more telling quote concerning his thoughts on the natural law versus the common law, this from his Notes on the State of Virginia:By our own act of assembly of 1705, c. 30, if a person brought up in the Christian religion denies the being of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts ther are more gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offence by incapacity to hold any office or employment ecclesiastical, civil, or military; on the second by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor, or administrator, and by three years' imprisonment without bail. A father's right to the custody of this own children being founded in law on his right of guardianhip, this being taken away, they may of course be severed from him, and put by the authority of a court into more orthodox hands.
This is a summary view of that religious slavery under which a people have been willing to remain, who have lavished their lives and fortunes for the establishment of their civil freedom. The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have no authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God.
...
Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of the reformation, the corruptions of Christianity could not have been purged away. If it be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged. This above all else I would cite as evidence not of Jefferson's hatred of Christianity, or his denial of a connection between the Christian faith and the natural law. Rather, what Jefferson rejected was the common law as a parallel, coercive, and alternate form of morality that by it's very design competes and squelches the natural law of God.Subject opinion to coercion: Whom will you make your inquisitors? What a great line, and the very emphasis of Jeffersonian thought.
Jefferson is a founding father of great stature, and there are many today who seek to malign or twist his thoughts and his reputation towards whatever end is convenient at the time. Jefferson has undoubtably proven more versatile.
To my satisfaction, Jefferson's attacks on the common law and traditions of the past cannot be construed into an attack on the natural law. For those reasons, those who argue that lawmaking is an inherently amoral process and use Jefferson to hammer the point home are misguided.
Jefferson believed lawmaking to be an inherently moral process, dictated by reason endowed by God. What's more, Jefferson would balk at the degree to which we have allowed government (particularly the federal government) to expand into so many facets of our living, in effect setting up the "common law" he so despised 200 years ago.
|
 |
NotNotJayHughes 
4 Comments:
I know the post that I am commenting on is old, but I stumbled upon it when I was doing a Google search of the Tantarara saying. You are missing several different facts in your article. You failed to look back far enough into what Jefferson was talking about. Jefferson was a big fan of the Anglo-Saxons and was fascinated by them; in fact, I would go as far as to say that they influenced much of his decision making. Jefferson was well educated, probably because of his father, on the Anglo-Saxons in England. In fact he wrote an essay called Essay on Anglo-Saxon in which he describes to the reader some of the grammar of the language and how to read it. In the essay Jefferson demonstrates his commanding knowledge of the language, its people and their history.
There were two major political parties in England when he was writing the Letter to Major John Cartwright. One was the Tories who traced their political lineage to the Norman conquerors after the Battle of Hastings (1066). The other party was the Whigs who traced their political lineage, and thus their political legitimacy, to the Anglo-Saxons. Thomas Jefferson agreed with the Whig party in England and allied himself with their politics. As such he traced a lot of his own political legitimacy to this period in time. He felt that the Anglo-Saxons were the first free people and that they populated England without the drawbacks of feudalism. He also made the argument that when the Normans came and conquered they brought with them the drawbacks of feudalism. I direct you to read Jefferson’s, A Summary View of The Rights of British America where he makes these arguments.
Lets go back to the letter to Major Cartwright. Jefferson was saying that the Norman leaders of England had usurped their Christian laws into the English Constitution (Which at that time were the law codes of Alfred the Great who was an Anglo-Saxon king). He said this because he was delegitimizing the Tories, their religion and their feudalism. Jefferson, to our modern knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons, was not wrong about the usurpation of religion into the Anglo-Saxon law codes. Before Christianity was brought to the Anglo-Saxons there was no written law. The law was memorized and the earliest laws that were written down were written in a way that tells us that they were memorized. Without further explanation (see Lisi Oliver, Laws of the Earliest English Kings) we can be fairly certain that the earliest English laws were written before Christianity.
Jefferson’s argument is based in his need to delegitimize his political enemies by delegitimizing their religion as applied to the common law.
You can twist this and make it sound however you want but these are the facts. I would direct you to read Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists which gives good insight into his views about establishment. Jefferson was neither trying to be an enemy to religion or a friend of it; he was simply trying to establish religious freedom. He was just as afraid of crazy Christians attempting to establish religion as he was of people not being allowed to practice their religions.
I know the post that I am commenting on is old, but I stumbled upon it when I was doing a Google search of the Tantarara saying. You are missing several different facts in your article. You failed to look back far enough into what Jefferson was talking about. Jefferson was a big fan of the Anglo-Saxons and was fascinated by them; in fact, I would go as far as to say that they influenced much of his decision making. Jefferson was well educated, probably because of his father, on the Anglo-Saxons in England. In fact he wrote an essay called Essay on Anglo-Saxon in which he describes to the reader some of the grammar of the language and how to read it. In the essay Jefferson demonstrates his commanding knowledge of the language, its people and their history.
There were two major political parties in England when he was writing the Letter to Major John Cartwright. One was the Tories who traced their political lineage to the Norman conquerors after the Battle of Hastings (1066). The other party was the Whigs who traced their political lineage, and thus their political legitimacy, to the Anglo-Saxons. Thomas Jefferson agreed with the Whig party in England and allied himself with their politics. As such he traced a lot of his own political legitimacy to this period in time. He felt that the Anglo-Saxons were the first free people and that they populated England without the drawbacks of feudalism. He also made the argument that when the Normans came and conquered they brought with them the drawbacks of feudalism. I direct you to read Jefferson’s, A Summary View of The Rights of British America where he makes these arguments.
Lets go back to the letter to Major Cartwright. Jefferson was saying that the Norman leaders of England had usurped their Christian laws into the English Constitution (Which at that time were the law codes of Alfred the Great who was an Anglo-Saxon king). He said this because he was delegitimizing the Tories, their religion and their feudalism. Jefferson, to our modern knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons, was not wrong about the usurpation of religion into the Anglo-Saxon law codes. Before Christianity was brought to the Anglo-Saxons there was no written law. The law was memorized and the earliest laws that were written down were written in a way that tells us that they were memorized. Without further explanation (see Lisi Oliver, Laws of the Earliest English Kings) we can be fairly certain that the earliest English laws were written before Christianity.
Jefferson’s argument is based in his need to delegitimize his political enemies by delegitimizing their religion as applied to the common law.
You can twist this and make it sound however you want but these are the facts. I would direct you to read Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists which gives good insight into his views about establishment. Jefferson was neither trying to be an enemy to religion or a friend of it; he was simply trying to establish religious freedom. He was just as afraid of crazy Christians attempting to establish religion as he was of people not being allowed to practice their religions.
Post a Comment
Home