The Meeting
by David Dempster
Freedom@DempsterConsulting.com
Dedicated To Ron Paul, Defender of
the Constitution
4th of July 2009
He was suddenly alert,
listening for a sound that might have awakened him. Outside a storm raged, and as a fresh
thunderclap burst he relaxed and settled to go back to sleep.
Then he heard the
knocking.
It was most unusual for
his man Antonio to disturb him during the night hours. He quickly threw back the bed sheets,
wondering what emergency might await him.
When he opened the door it
was not Antonio who stood there, but a stranger. He was drenched from the storm, a puddle
of water forming on the sumptuous blue and gold carpet of the hallway.
Thomas drew in his breath
in alarm. "Who are you and how
came you here?" He looked to
see if the man carried a gun but could see none.
The stranger looked at him
solemnly. "Sir, I beg your
pardon for my intrusion, but it is most important that I talk with you. It cannot wait."
Thomas looked at the
younger man a moment, then stood back and bade him enter his private
quarters. He closed the door and
led the way to a pair of armchairs on either side of a fireplace. A fire blazed to fend off the chill of
winter, and Thomas added a log before seating himself opposite his
visitor. He turned up the oil lamp
and cast a long gaze at the man who had disturbed his sleep.
"Whoever you are, I
commend you for your initiative in giving my guards the slip and finding your
way into my chamber. Tell me who
you are and what I can do for you."
The man introduced
himself, and his host frowned in puzzlement. His name was as unusual as his
appearance.
"Sir, I have been
studying your writings. There are
things I do not understand. I wish
to engage you in dialog so I may understand better."
Thomas nodded his assent, and
the visitor continued: "You
have written, 'Most bad government
results from too much government.'
Surely a strong, powerful government is necessary for maintaining law
and order and regulating many aspects of the lives of our citizens."
His host tilted back his
head a little and looked down his noble nose at the visitor. "Do you not think a citizen capable
of regulating his own life? Who are
you or I to say how a man should spend his days, what dreams he should pursue,
how he should order his life, pursue his happiness, and enjoy his wealth? Those who colonized this land were
pioneers. They came in search of
freedom, and it is my intention to keep the land free."
His visitor looked
unconvinced.
Just then the door opened
and in came an elderly man. He
started in alarm when he saw the visitor.
"Everything is fine,
Antonio," said Thomas.
"You may go back to bed."
The man gave the visitor a
puzzled look, then made a half bow and left the room.
The visitor nodded his
thanks and went on to his next subject.
"You wrote, sir, 'Democracy will cease to exist when you
take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.' Surely as men of compassion we must care
for those in our community who are less fortunate than the wealthy among
us. When you see a beggar in the
street, how can you know that he was not the victim of circumstance rather than
an idler who would not work?"
Thomas Jefferson looked
the man in the eye.
"Throughout the ages, man has faced challenges posed by a harsh
environment, as well as by his interactions with other men. By facing his challenges he has risen to
greater heights--heights of physical endurance, of industry, of invention, of
social organization, of art. His
reward for his dogged persistence is to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Interfere with that, take away his
fruits to give to another who has not applied himself, and you strike a blow at
a man's drive to succeed. By all
means encourage a man to be compassionate to his fellows, but I will not coerce
him so to do."
His visitor's frown
deepened.
"You write 'No free man shall ever be debarred the use
of arms.' I believe this is
being misunderstood. You must mean
surely that he should be allowed to bear arms as part of an army under your command. I cannot believe you would want the
streets to be full of gun-slinging madmen wreaking destruction."
Jefferson picked up his
pipe from a side table. "Young
man," he said while he busied himself with tobacco and taper, "you
should worry more about the danger of an overbearing government than about a
crazy man in the street. If a
single man becomes a tyrant, he will be stopped by his peers provided we have
not wrested their arms from them leaving them defenseless. But what if a government becomes tyrannical,
wielding the might of its army against its own citizens? Have you not seen the brutality of
government in the history of France and of Spain? The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and
bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in
government."
"But you cannot mean
that you want the common man to rise up and overthrow your government?"
A log burning in the grate
settled with a flurry of sparks as the men debated back and forth. Jefferson was happy to talk with his
visitor, following his lifelong custom of speaking the truth wherever he would
be heard. But looking into his
visitor's eyes, he did not see much possibility of seriously changing the man's
views.
"I have one last question
sir. You wrote 'It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes.' This is all very well in times of
prosperity and peace, but there must be times when a government must borrow to
cover the cost of handling an emergency, such as a war or a famine or an
economic trouble. After all,"
he said with a smile, "it's not as if a whole country has to handle
financial matters in the same careful way as an individual man. With a country it's different."
Jefferson felt a surge of
anger. He stilled himself before
responding. "A government has
the ability to create money by minting more coin and printing more paper. But the result is devaluation and
eventual debasement of the currency.
A government can engage in great borrowing, building up a debt which may
be too great to be repaid and is passed on to the next generation. It is tempting to resort to these
measures in times of trouble. But
it is highly unwise and has consequences beyond what is envisioned."
The president stood and
led the man to a large globe standing in the corner of the study. He pointed out the locations of various
wars which had occurred in recent years. "Every generation should pay its
own debts as it goes. If this
principle were acted on it would save one-half the wars of the world."
"But sir, there must
be times when the government is right to go into debt. Imagine if one of our national
corporations were in danger of going under, would you not borrow money to keep
it afloat? Think of all the
hardship there would be if the Hudson's Bay Company were to go bankrupt. Thousands of people would lose their
livelihood and the whole country would want for furs and pelts. Surely you would intervene to prevent
this."
Jefferson stared at the
man, dumbfounded.
"Listen to me,"
said the great man, leaning forward and fixing his visitor with intense
gaze. "I see you are a man of
good intent. You want to help your
fellows. But you have very
wrong-headed ideas about how to do so.
I suggest you ask yourself where these ideas have come from. Sometimes we pick up false ideas from
things we hear and read and these ideas get lodged in our minds and prevent us
from thinking clearly. False ideas
are put about by people with vested interests who seek to influence for their
own benefit rather than the general good.
See if you can spot where these notions came from and you may be able to
free yourself from them. I do not
want to force you to adopt my views instead of some other man's, but it is my
experience that speaking the truth can create a freedom in those who hear it by
awakening in a man his own native ability to perceive and reason clearly."
The fire had burned down
to a red glow. Both men fell
silent, feeling the conversation had run its course.
"Mr President,"
said the visitor, "I thank you for your time and your wisdom. I can assure you that the work you have
done in founding our nation will be remembered for centuries to come." With that, he shook the president's hand
and turned to go. His host somehow
did not see anything strange in the way the man seemed to dissolve as he moved
away, rendering it unnecessary to open the door for him or arrange for escort
from the mansion.
Thomas Jefferson picked up
his pipe and stood by the fire, pondering the strange encounter. He tried to look into the future, tried
to envision how the Constitution would stand the test of time as it was
challenged by individuals with different ideas.
The door opened quietly
and Antonio's head appeared, a worried expression on his face.
"Come in Antonio and
sit with me a while. My visitor has
left."
The two men sat down,
Antonio taking the seat recently vacated by the stranger. As the storm thundered above the White
House, Jefferson told Antonio about the man and their conversation. "He seemed remarkably well
educated, but he had the strangest collection of mixed-up ideas you ever
heard. This is what I worry about--men
who think government needs to meddle in every part of a man's life. Frankly I don't know what to do about
it, except to keep on speaking and writing the truths I see and hope there will
always be good men with the vigor and courage to defend our ideal of
freedom."
"Well sir, all I can
say is, it's a good thing you're the president and not he."
Jefferson puffed at his
pipe. "You know, he had the
most curious name."
"What was his name
sir?"
At that moment a
thunderclap drowned out the President's response.
The two men chatted for a
while and then Antonio left. Thomas
Jefferson walked through the connecting door into his chamber and climbed back
into bed.
His visitor was also
pondering their meeting. As it
happened, he was in that same identical spot, in the same room and lying in the
same bed, separated from his host by no distance but by two centuries of time.
"Darling, have you
been having one of your dreams?" his wife asked.
"Hmm? Yes, I suppose I have. A strange and vivid dream." As the storm continued to rage outside,
he told her about his meeting with the great man.
"Well, see if you can
get back to sleep, OK? Busy day
tomorrow."
Michelle Obama turned over
and left her husband wondering if his latest trillion-dollar spending plan was
perhaps a little more than was strictly necessary.
THE END
(c) 2009 David
Dempster. Freedom@DempsterConsulting.com
This short story may be
freely distributed in full provided the author's name and email address and
this copyright notice are included.
Footnotes
Quotes of Thomas Jefferson
are shown above in bold type.
When President John F.
Kennedy welcomed forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he
said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of
human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House--with
the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."