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Jefferson's position on the granting of patents [1]changed through the years. In his article "Godfather of American Invention," Silvio Bedini notes that in 1787 Jefferson's opposition to monopoly in any form led him to oppose patents.[2] But by 1789, Jefferson's firm opposition had weakened. Writing to James Madison, Jefferson said he approved the Bill of Rights as far as it went, but would like to see the addition of an article specifying that "Monopolies may be allowed to person for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding --- years, but for no longer term and for no other purpose."[3] Also in 1789, while Jefferson was still in Paris, the first patent act was introduced during the first session of Congress and enacted into law April 10, 1790. Under the new law, the Secretaries of War and State and the Attorney General constituted a three-man review board, with the Secretary of State (Jefferson), playing the leading role. Two months after the law was passed, Jefferson remarked it had "given a spring to invention beyond his conception."[4]

http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/patents

Thomas Jefferson was the first patent examiner and granted quite a few patents.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. - Thomas Jefferson

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. - Abraham Lincoln.

Speaking at the official launch, Kristian Jensen, the Library’s head of Arts and Humanities, said: “This process allows books to fulfill their original aim of being useful to as many people as possible.”

I thought that is already understood: the copyright should be extended forever, for the profit of the grand-grand-...-grand children of the author (too bad if the author sold the rights to the publisher... but it's irrelevant for the usefulness of books, isn't it?).

Besides, digitization comes with the risk of exposing these "as many" to words, facts and attitudes that are quite sensitive today. I hope that Google will take note: even more recent pieces needed a "translation" to make them politically correct.

Again: can we let the Tea Party and Michele Bachmann be hurt if indiscriminate digitized papers of the time showed that the founding fathers did own slaves (and, possibly, more than own)?

</sarcasm>

"If making more money isn't the point of a college degree, why should the taxpayers subsidize you?"

Thomas Jefferson -- "I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness...Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance." [Letter to George Wythe, 1786 August 13]

More Jefferson quotes on education: http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-education

Let's ignore the fact that there aren't always "right" and "wrong" answers, nor can you assure that the questions being asked are objective, nor could (or should) you keep federal legislation monosyllabic enough for the average Joe. The real problem with this suggestion is that expecting them to submit to testing demeans not just them but us. We must expect more from ourselves first.

We already have tests for our representatives. You can ask them questions directly and through the press and view their voting record yourself before you reelect them. The problem isn't that they aren't tested, but that we grade on a curve by being ultra-partisan, disengaged, or worse- by watching FOX News.

To get rid of stupid politicians, you'll first need smarter voters. Jefferson and Madison told us this two centuries ago.

Because the census questions violate the Bill of Rights, sections 9 and 10. The only legal question is, "How many people live at this address?" for the purpose of enumeration. Any other questions about your income, color, sex, and so on violates our 9th and 10th Amendment rights. (Rights are reserved to the People... Congress shall not exercise powers never given to it.)

The 9th and 10th ammendments? Are you serious? All those ammendments state is that rights given by the constitution shouldn't be deemed to limit other rights. The 10th ammendment makes no mention of rights, but refers to congressional powers. A "power" is, for example, the power to collect taxes, or the power to enumerate the people.

The problem with your interpretation is that it's unconstitutional. Yep, that's right. Section 8, clause 18 of the constitution says "The Congress shall have Power - To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.", which basically says that congress can specify the way, and manner of which all powers can be executed, which includes making laws that ask about pretty much anything they want that doesn't expressly violate the constitution (that is, things that are specifically denied).

You can't take any fragment of the constitution (or any law for that matter) at face value, alone in a vacuum. Everything is influenced by other laws or constitutional sections.

Oh, and the really stupid part, was that those questions you refer to.. were actually removed from the census several years before Bachman suggested boycotting the census because of them. They were moved to the American Community Survey, which is optional. But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of a good argument (or chance to get your face on TV).

But that's true. Slavery was outlawed in every State north of Maryland immediately in 1776. The first president of the Congress was a black man. And down south, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison submitted numerous bills to have slavery banned in Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, until his death. For someone that was so against it, why did he continue to own them? The answer is that he wasn't anti-slavery, he was actually anti-black. He believed that slavery should be ended, because he wanted all blacks to be sent back to africa. While he was vocal about ending slavery from about 1778 to 1785, after 1785 he never brought it up again. Ever.

See: http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/thomas-jefferson-and-slavery

This certainly does not paint a picture of someone that "worked tirelessly" to end slavery, and he was basically one of the very few founding fathers who ever did anything about it.

And the first president of the Congress was Peyton Randolph, a white plantation owner that owned slaves. Where the hell did you come up with that one? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_Continental_Congress

Also, your history of the states "north of maryland" is creative to say the least. For instance, New York did not abolish slavery until 1785, and it had nothing to do with the founding fathers. Even then, it wasn't completely abolished, as only children of slaves born after 1785 were emancipated, leaving their parents and siblings born before 1785 to continue in slavery until they died. Even worse, slavery was not ended in New Hampshire until 1857! Although it was generally considered unacceptable to own them it was still legal until then.

I'm sure you won't believe me, but here is the reference anyways http://www.slavenorth.com/ne

At the time it was written, blacks were not considered part of "We the People".

They were wrong. That doesn’t mean the Constitution was wrong or needed to be changed, only that their interpretation of it was wrong and needed to be changed.

Some of the Founding Fathers were wrong, though not all, and the Constitution was written the way it was because they wanted it that way. Thomas Jefferson wrote the "Declaration of Independence" and in early drafts he wrote how everybody enjoyed the same rights, including Blacks and women. However some of those who signed the declaration said that they had to be removed otherwise they would not sign it. But as his estate Monticello says:

"Thomas Jefferson was a consistent opponent of slavery throughout his life.[1] He considered it contrary to the laws of nature that decreed that everyone had a right to personal liberty. He called the institution an 'abominable crime,' 'a moral depravity,' a 'hideous blot,' and a 'fatal stain' that deformed 'what nature had bestowed on us of her fairest gifts.'"

Falcon

Ben Franklin was much smarter than I am and had extremely harsh and accurate things to say about patents in general. As did Thomas Jefferson about the banks that now own them all.

Thomas Jefferson started out against patents too, however his friend James Madison convinced him patents could be good.

Falcon

There's a key difference between the USA de Tocqueville wrote about and the USA that Marx and Engels wrote about: The Industrial Revolution had begun to concentrate ownership of economic output in the hands of those who had the means of owning factories.

Yea and slavery was abolished. However abolitionists were fighting to stop slavery even before de Tocqueville came to the USA. In his original drafts of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson wrote of equal rights for everyone including Blacks and Women in the drafts. These were only removed because pro-slavery and paternalistic Founding Fathers would not sign the declaration unless they were removed. Carl Marx though published his The Communist Manifesto on 21 February 1848, before slavery was ended in the US. That also makes it 20 years after "Democracy in America" (DiA) was published. That's not that much tyme. More tyme went by between Independence was declared and DiA was published.

What's less understandable is that because my great-great-grandfather was a smart guy, I got a loan-free college education when most of my peers did not, so my income is effectively a good 10-15% higher than theirs.

It's also less understood that whereas back when only the wealthy could afford college most anyone in the US can go to college now. You used yourself as an example of getting a college education, well so will I. Neither of my parents were wealthy. My dad retired from the US Air Force as an enlisted person not an officer. My mom attended a technical school while working and raising my sisters and I to become a lab technician in a hospital.

However my mom raised my sisters and I to believe we could do whatever we wanted as long as we worked for it. After high school graduation my older sister and I enlisted in the US Army and after we were discharged we both went to college. My younger sister skipped the military and started college right after high school graduation. She paid for it with scholarships and working. My older sister is now a nurse and my younger sister earned her Masters, passed the test to become a CPA or Certified Public Accountant and now runs her own accounting business. Not only that but she also owns her own home and rental property. She owns the building my apartment is in.

As for me, while in college my major was Computer Engineering. However as a student I was hit in an accident and suffered a disability which derailed my educational and professional goals. Among other things my memory is bad and I have to use compensating techniques because of it. For instance I use both a paper based daily planner, in which I try to make lots of notes, and the software calendar based in my cellphone. I almost always carry both with me and when I make an appointment I'll enter it into both the planner and the cellphone calendar right then and there, if I don't I won't recall to do so later. I still have hopes and continue to work to again become independent.

Falcon

I've never visited the home of a poor person from the early nineteenth century but I'm pretty sure it would not much resemble Monticello.

Progressivism has constantly encouraged us treat our laws as "living documents" from top to bottom which is basically a soft anarchy.

Which explains why Christian Conservatives would prefer to diminish the role of Thomas Jefferson as he seems to support this so called "soft anarchy".

"I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the same coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
-- Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1810

Google the "Jefferson Bible".

Jefferson rejected the divinity of Christ - therefor,e by definition, he was not a Christian.

http://www.monticello.org/reports/interests/religion.html

Common misquote of the great Thomas Jefferson. http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Government_big_enough_to_supply_you Please, see that link and cease to attribute that statement with him.

"We have never found such a statement in Jefferson's writings. As far as we know, this statement actually originates with Gerald R. Ford"

Let me also direct you to the use of the historical use of the army and National Guard as strike busters.

And let me direct you to Thomas Jefferson's quote on standing armies. He even warned against the "aristocracy of our moneyed corporations". Of course now that we have big government we have the corporate aristocracy as well.

Falcon

Setting free those who were convicted of non-violent drug offenses then many will become tax paying employees...

Um, and these jobs are coming from where?

Legally selling drugs for one thing. People could, and did, farm hemp aka marijuana. During World War II the US government made the movie "Hemp for Victory" to encourage farmers to grow it. Hemp was grown and or used by many of the USA's Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson was a big supporter of hemp, at one point he even said farmers should be required to grow it. Of course he never did propose such a law because he knew it would deny farmers the right to grow what they wanted. TJ made even have written the "Declaration of Independence" on hemp. An MIT study concluded an acre of hemp could produce as much paper as 3 acres of forest. Henry Ford designed and built a car that used hemp for parts such as the dash. It was also fueled with hemp, he made alcohol from hemp. One of the fuels the designer of the diesel engine, Rudolph Diesel, used to power it was hemp oil. Hemp can also be used as a feedstock for plastic, bioplastic. Actually originally plastics, such as cellophane was made from plants. It wasn't until DuPont received a patent for making plastics from petroleum before petrol was used for this.

Have you tried to find a job with a felony conviction on your record lately? We've got people with Masters degrees slinging coffee at Starbucks, and I don't mean just the MFAs.

That's because drugs are illegal. If drugs hadn't been illegal they never would have been convicted of a crime.

The sort of jobs these people could hold no longer exist in our economy.

Sure there are. People with all sorts of jobs and at all levels of education, including those with PhDs use, or would use if legal, drugs. Before hemp was made illegal via the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 when congress was debating the act Dr James Woodward, who was a lawyer as well as a doctor, testified before congress for the AMA that hemp was a medically useful plant. He said the AMA didn't find out what drug was being made illegal until just before the congressional debate, otherwise the they would have spoken out in support of hemp earlier.

But don't think that closing the War on Drugs is going to be the end of the problem.

Legalized drugs will end some of the problems we have now, unfortunately like legal alcohol there will be other problems. Those problems can be dealt with the same way alcohol problems are dealt with. Even though marijuana is legal in the Netherlands they have a lower rate of it's use than the US does. If legal it could be taxed, then if someone addicted to it wanted therapy for the addiction they could go and ask for it. The tax would pay for it.

Falcon

Below is a fitting quote from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Isaac McPherson ( http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html )

Thomas Jefferson was originally against copyrights and patents but his beliefs evolved. In correspondence on 1790 June 27 to Benjamin Vaughan he wrote:
"An act of Congress authorising the issuing patents for new discoveries has given a spring to invention beyond my conception. Being an instrument in granting the patents, I am acquainted with their discoveries. Many of them indeed are trifling, but there are some of great consequence which have been proved by practice, and others which if they stand the same proof will produce great effect."

Falcon

Below is a fitting quote from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Isaac McPherson ( http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html )

Thomas Jefferson was originally against copyrights and patents but his beliefs evolved. In correspondence on 1790 June 27 to Benjamin Vaughan he wrote:
"An act of Congress authorising the issuing patents for new discoveries has given a spring to invention beyond my conception. Being an instrument in granting the patents, I am acquainted with their discoveries. Many of them indeed are trifling, but there are some of great consequence which have been proved by practice, and others which if they stand the same proof will produce great effect."

Falcon

Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner. He cared nothing for freedom and liberty.

Thomas Jefferson cared very much about freedom and liberty. Yes, he was a slave owner however he never bought a slave. The slaves he owned he inherited from his father and father-in-law. He did free some slaves though, for instance all of Sally Hemings' children were freed. In Thomas Jefferson's drafts of the "Declaration Of Independence" he included a paragraph condemning slavery.

Falcon

Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner. He cared nothing for freedom and liberty.

Thomas Jefferson cared very much about freedom and liberty. Yes, he was a slave owner however he never bought a slave. The slaves he owned he inherited from his father and father-in-law. He did free some slaves though, for instance all of Sally Hemings' children were freed. In Thomas Jefferson's drafts of the "Declaration Of Independence" he included a paragraph condemning slavery.

Falcon

Actual quote:

And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

In other words, borrowing money (which is what banks' primary purpose were at the time here) is a Bad Thing. A slightly different spin than in the context you provided it.

Source: http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Private_Banks_(Quotation)

while marijuana was something that was first encountered as something brown-skinned people used, and therefore, exotic and scary and somehow more dangerous

Wrong, the first and third presidents of the USA, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp on their farms. The second president John Adams wanted to use hemp as a cash crop.

Falcon

What we are seeing right now is the fulfillment of Jefferson's prophecy: "If the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent that their fathers conquered."

I like that quote, but it's falsely attributed to Jefferson. The first recorded appearance of it was in a 1937 Congressional hearing.

I'm a longtime slashdot reader who's only ever posted as AC, so I know this will remain unseen and 0, but it needs to be said.

Yea, it's paper made from hemp.

Do you have a source for that? :-) I actually have an interest in traditional inks and writing, but cannot find any source for the material of the Constitution. As far as I know it was written on parchment (skin) like many legal documents of the time. I have a friend who makes paper the (really) old fashioned way out of linen rags in the style of Europe, but I know that hemp was a popular fiber here.

Perhaps I misspoke. When I answered I was thinking of the "Declaration of Independence". Thomas Jefferson wrote drafts of the DOI on hemp paper. Here's are links for that. However the Jefferson Monticello says more than likely the paper was made from flax or linen rags.

Richard Stallman has a document on his website that says the USA Constitution was written on hemp paper. Another link says the drafts of the Constitution were written on it. There's one simple way to tell what paper was used for both the DOI and the Constitution, simply test them. However I can easily imagine the government not wanting to test them because if they are written on hemp paper then that would stengthen the hands of those who want to legalize hemp.

The Jefferson Library doesn't seem to think that credit belongs to Jefferson.

Also, you might like Thoreau if you've never read him. I find, I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least," to be a much more thoughtful quotation, especially the text following that short blurb (which makes it very similar to the "fear" quote) in Civil Disobedience. And it's another quote commonly misattributed to our third President.

I don't know if John Locke or any others smoked pot but Thomas Jefferson along with other Founding Fathers grew hemp on thier farms:

Jefferson is credited with several inventions, including the swivel chair, a pedometer, a machine to make fiber from hemp, a letter-copying machine, and the lazy susan.

Cannabis was brought to America during the early colonial period. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both hemp farmers. During the early period of settlement of the New World, everyone owned or used something made of its fibers. Hemp fibers were known as the toughest durable fibers around. Hemp was even used as currency in some cases (Abel, 1982). But, Cannabis is mainly used as an illegal drug in the United States today.

The Monticello Textile Factory
Jefferson's annual goal was 1,200 yards of cloth woven from purchased cotton and wool and hemp produced on his farms. He never sought to make fine cloth; coarse cloth for the summer and winter allotments for the 130 slaves on the Monticello plantation was his only ambition.

Common Sense by Thomas Paine ...
In almost every article of defence we abound. Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage...

Ralph Waldo Emerson would be object to be categorized along with Ayn Rand.

Just as there are democrats who disagree with with each other and there are republican who do also not all libertarians agree on everything include Ayn Rand. I don't know much about Rand but some I agree with and others I disagree with. No it's my sister in my family that knows about her and she was very much a Randian. That is until she learned about Objectivism, as a Christian this turned her off. Fact is is that you don't have to be a Randian to be a libertarian.

Ooh here's something I found of John Locke's that mentions hemp:

To the Right Honorable Sir John Sommers
...
And a Swede will no more sell you his Hemp and Pitch, or a Spaniard his Oyl, for less Silver;

And with his sayings, John Locke wouldn't of liked laws outlawing hemp seeing as how he was very much a man of liberty and such a law abridges liberty.

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.
-- John Locke (1632-1704)

Falcon

Ooh and btw do you know where canvas for painters come from? It got it's name from cannabis. Here's a page listing some of the uses of hemp aka cannabis, Cannabis sativa L.

Last year, I visited Montecello, Thomas Jefferson's home, in Virginia. His birthdae on his tombstone is annotated O.S. for Old Style.

The tour guide stated that he was born under the Julian Calendar (old style) in 1743 and died under the Gregorian Calendar in 1826.

According to this Montecello web page England and her colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

So...What do you want on your tombstone?

I'm not saying we need to eliminate Capitalism, just that our present form of Capitalism is full of government interventions that benefit the rich and hurt the lower classes.

You mean like protectionist trade barriers? "Hurt the lower classes"... I guess the lower classes outside the border don't count? I'm not saying that free trade automatically ensures sudden bliss for these folks, but surely they have a right to earn a living, no?

America used to be a place that prided itself on it's small businesses, on the independence of it's craftsmen.

Ah, the good old days. That never happened. Jefferson himself was a plantation owner. That's not exactly a "small" business, especially not in those times-- especially not when you consider the number of people he had enslaved there and the aristocratic atmosphere that dominated in plantation life.

So Europe doesn't have keiretsu--they still manage to make better cell phones and cars than America.

Let me know when "Europe" actually does something consistent and non-imperialist for a whole century, then we'll talk about Europe as a useful example of anything. Certain parts of Europe might make good discussion points, especially Scandinavia, but the rest of it is a mess and has been constantly changing for much of the last century.

As Keynes showed us, in some situations an economy can collapse because it doesn't have ENOUGH wealth redistribution and government spending.

And Keynes solutions never really solved the problems they were intended to solve. The second World War interrupted all that... so we'll never really know. Personally I think the idea that an economy can collapse at all is an absurdity and related to government interference in the currency markets. Wealth doesn't go away. We still have our natural resources, our manpower, our knowledge. The relative value of the dollar does not affect these things. If there is a collapse it is because the perceived value of certain pieces of paper is not well tied to the real world and everyone is simply trying to "game the system".

I used to be a rabid capitalist

I still am. Capitalism is the only system in which the workers can achieve the Marxist ideal of truly owning the means of production. The reason labor unions are losing ground is that they were always fighting the wrong battle. What the workers need is an ownership stake and direct control of their businesses. Stock ownership makes this a real possibility.

Currently the deck is stacked against the workers in terms of control, but imagine a company where a signficant amount of stock is owned by workers, these workers truly get to elect their bosses. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. CEOs get filthy rich off stock options and stock grants. Workers, instead of quibbling over little things, should be looking to emulate the techniques of the rich, not shun them. Why haven't the unions been fighting for stock options for workers and pushing for trickle-in systems like 401k matching in company stock?

Workers further enhance their own plight when they refuse to use their own earnings wisely to help prevent the social problems they perceive. Complaining about low wages and unemployment while shopping at Wal-Mart? Whining about oil prices while driving a pickup on light errands? Carping about how much time is wasted at work, just to sit home in front of the TV for 32 hours a week, on average? The people of America are getting exactly what they're paying for with both their money and their time. If that eventually leaves them unemployed and broke, that's their own problem. The "crony capitalists" have only helped them achieve their goals.

I know we tend to use emoticons or even XML tags (okay, only the truly geeky do this) to communicate ideas that would only be communicated via body language or the inflection of a person's voice. However, one has to remember that the letter was the primary means of communication before the telephone. Many of the great thinkers also had large volumes of correspondence. Thomas Jefferson wrote so many letters, he even "invented" a device to create multiple copies (like a very crude multi-tipped pen) of his letters. Historically, has there ever been a convention for conveying body language or meta-information in letters or did these writers learn to work within the limitation of their medium?

Don't miss Monticello, home of our nation's nerdiest President. Yes, he was nerd enough to proudly proclaim "I cannot live without books." His house exhibits some of the crazy gadgets he invented (amazing for his time), definitely worth a look. Plus, they give clean, crisp $2 bills as change at the admission booth -- a great souvenir.

Forgot the link... www.monticello.org

A few years ago, my wife and I were returning home from vacation through Virginia on July 4th, so we stopped at Monticello for a little historic reflection -- you know, before the world was going to end in December? Anyway. Admission was, like $8, so if you give them a $10, they give you a $2 bill back, because Jefferson's picture is on it.

Cool, huh?