20. The Mercurial Third President
Think of President Thomas Jefferson, and what usually comes to mind are his major accomplishments: The Declaration of Independence, the Louisiana Purchase, and the University of Virginia. When it comes to controversy, what usually comes to mind is the contrast between his soaring rhetoric about freedom, the fact that he was a major slaveholder, and that he had an enslaved concubine, Sally Hemings. Less known are his wacky beliefs, and other indicia that make Jefferson come across as a maniac. The man was a genius, but a wacky one. For example, he went from a huge dog lover at some point in his life, to a dog hater who had all his dogs – and all the dogs of his slaves – killed.
Jefferson used to be a close friend of John Adams, before he turned on and became his mortal enemy. He once got into the nineteenth century equivalent of a flame war with some Frenchmen who’d derided the size of American animals. To settle it, Jefferson shipped a putrid moose carcass across the Atlantic from America to Paris. Americans generally like dogs, and politicians who like dogs. Kissing babies aside, few things afford politicians a shorter cut to voters’ affection than to demonstrate affection towards dogs. Jefferson was a dog lover at some point. In 1789, at the end of his stint as America’s ambassador to France, Jefferson especially liked shepherd dogs, and went out of his way to get some. However, as seen below, his view of dogs underwent a radical reversal.
