02/24/2005: "Please Don't Try To Put Words In Thomas Jefferson's Mouth"

Knowing something about the works of Thomas Jefferson, and having studied the Federalist Papers, there was something about the bumper sticker I keep encountering here in Friday Harbor that didn't seem right. "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism", reads the bumper sticker -attributed to Thomas Jefferson. Was Jefferson at the time of the founding of this Country concerned about, and championing, "dissent". While waiting in my car for coffee at Roy's I twice found myself in line behind a car bearing that message. I was compelled to look into it.

An internet search took me to the Jefferson Library at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. A response from this institution to my query revealed that neither the head research librarian, nor the Editor of the Thomas Jefferson Retirement Papers at Monticello, could attribute that statement to Jefferson. In addition it is not in the Jeffersonian Cyclopedia. Jefferson said many prescient and enlightened things, he apparently however, did not say this thing. Whatever the motivation is for claiming that he did, all I can say is:
Please don't try to put words in Thomas Jefferson's mouth.

Member of the SJ Jeffersonian Society