A people’s President

Thomas Jefferson was not so fond of the British and particularly despised their form of government. Everything that Jefferson stood for during and after the War of Independence was in opposition to what the ruling classes of Great Britain stood for: monarchy, noble titles that passed on to the children of the titleholder, hereditary aristocracy, rule of well-fed oligarchs over the common people, etc.

Thomas Jefferson being so focused on being a president ‘of the people’ he even dressed like the ‘common people’. His ‘pell-mell’ approach when it came to clothing wouldn’t change even when he was receiving the British ambassador.

In the early 19th century, England sent to Washington DC a new ambassador, Anthony Merry.  Jefferson not only showed up late to his first meeting with Merry (something unheard of) but in order to make perfectly clear how the president of the then young United States felt about ‘His Majesty’s Ambassador’, Jefferson showed up dressed in his pajamas, robe and slippers! Unfortunately, Merry’s complaints to  President Jefferson -but also to James Madison- were met with sarcasm…