A place to muse on the words of one of the authors of the US Declaration of Independence, and perhaps its most thoughtful of Presidents.
The Jefferson Memorial sits separate from the rest of the monuments, museums and public buildings laid out across central Washington. This temple-like marble memorial to Thomas Jefferson – one of the founding fathers of the United States and its third President – lies across the Potomac River's Tidal Basin, in a pretty parkland. Pretty, and just a little cut-off.
But Washington has always been a city with a plan, and the Jefferson Memorial plays a big part in it. The McMillan plan of 1901 had the Washington Monument sitting at the centre (almost) of a cross, with one line running from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol Building and another north-south from the White House to – well, in the 1930s, deciding exactly what the problem was.
It was President Franklin D. Roosevelt who thought that a heavy-weight founding father was needed here, and suggested a monument to Thomas Jefferson. In 1938, the work started and a Greek pantheon was built to house Jefferson's 6-metre bronze statue. It was installed in 1943 – first in plaster, and only as a bronze in 1947 – and now stands proudly looking back to the Presidential residence. And who better to stare back across to the White House than its very first resident?
Jefferson is remembered best for his constitutional pen-work – he authored the draft of the Declaration of Independence – and quotes from him are inscribed in panels around his statue. “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” is a line that not just Americans, but the whole world, knows by heart. He stood for freedom of religion, was opposed to slavery, and was known as a foremost thinker in the Age of Enlightenment. And as something of a wit.
So Thomas Jefferson deserves your attention, especially if you come to Washington looking for pieces of the puzzle to the American soul. But you don't need an interest in US history or politics to come to his memorial. The parkland is a wide, green, blossom-blessed space in the heart of DC, the venue for festivals and talks. There's a golf-course, tennis courts are close by, and the Tidal Basin can be crossed in a paddle-boat. Take a glance at Thomas Jefferson as you paddle past, and you might just catch him smirking.
