A Lesson from Thomas Jefferson

I finished reading the book Thomas Jefferson the Art of Power by Jon Meacham.  The author tells a wonderful story about Jefferson that says much about Jefferson's character and from whom all our Esperanza stakeholders can learn. 

Jefferson was insignificant debt, yet he had, as a favor to a friend, cosigned a note for $20,000 for Virginia governor Wilson Cary Nicholas in 1819.  It was the act of a gentleman and kinsman:  a Nicholas daughter had married a Jefferson grandson.

Nicholas was forced to default on the note, leaving the former president responsible for the debt.  On the granddaughter-in-law's first call at Monticello since news of the disaster, Jefferson took care to seek her out.  Abashed and horrified by the news, she was unsure how to conduct herself around Jefferson.  When he emerged from his rooms, he immediately called for her.  "She heard his voice and flew to meet him."  Henry Randall wrote, "Instead of the usual hearty hand-shake and kiss, he folded her in his arms.  His smile was radiant."  At dinner he spoke with her with great grace; the shame the young woman had felt disappeared.  "Neither then nor on any subsequent occasion," wrote Randall, "did he ever by a word or look make her aware that he was even conscious of the misfortune her father had brought upon him."

Governor Nicholas himself lived along the route Jefferson traveled to Poplar Forest, and Jefferson knew he could not fail to call on him.  "I ought not to stop; I have not time; but it would be cruel to pass him."  Jefferson said to a family member as they turned off the road to Nicholas's place.  Meeting his old friend, Jefferson behaved perfectly.  "He showed no depression, and he did not make an equal exposure of his feelings by feigning extraordinary cheerfulness," wrote Randall.  For the rest of Nicholas's life, Jefferson treated him as though nothing had happened.  A busybody lady once spoke meanly of Nicholas in Jefferson's presence at Monticello, and the former president cut her off politely but firmly.  He had, he told her, "the highest opinion of Governor Nicholas, and felt the deepest sympathy for his misfortunes."  Such was the private character of the man whose public eneemies accused him of selfishness, duplicity, inordinate ambition, and cold bloodedness.