I am struck by how much the life and mysteries of Thomas Jefferson have animated, have confounded, and may ultimately reconcile our national life. He is a kind of Rosetta Stone of the American experience, a massive, tectonic intelligence that has formed and rattled the fault lines of our history...

the thing to remember from Jefferson is the power of the word. That ideas matter. That words, beautifully shaped, reshape lives. That a person who has certain disadvantages and flaws and even crimes, like holding slaves, can transcend his imprisonment within reality by casting out words that take...