El Astroboy del 4 de julio

Este 4 de julio me gustaría recordar a uno de los partícipes de la independencia norteamericana en una etapa algo más avanzada del país. Me refiero a Thomas Jefferson y su primer discurso inaugural como presidente, el que Stephen Howard Browne caracterizó como un "call for nationhood", un llamado a constituir una nación.
En la breve alocución de elaborada retórica destellan algunas definiciones de filosofía política.
Allí sugiere el "sagrado principio" de que la mayoría debe guiarse a su vez por el principio de razonabilidad y a la minoría se le respete la igualdad:

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Acá establece un "nosotros" (el republicanismo y federalismo) y un "ellos" (los que se oponen) mientras proclama que se tolerará a los segundos, pues vencidos por la fuerza de la razón no lograrán derribar los dos pilares del sistema. Lincoln no hubiera podido aferrarse a rajatabla a este enunciado.

We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Es necesario un estado frugal para hacer feliz y próspera a la gente impidiendo que se lastimen y dejándola realizar sus proyectos económicos.

what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the
sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

A continuación enumera más principios, que han de ser el "credo de nuestra fe política, el texto de instrucción cívica, la piedra de toque con la cual juzgar los servicios de quienes confiamos" de modo de retomar, en momentos de confusión, el camino a la "paz, libertad y seguridad".

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations of our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceful remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid;the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.

No era un gran pensador y por lo que dicen sus contemporáneos tampoco un majestuoso orador, pero ¡lindo discurso!, tuvo mucho impacto en su época.