…. AS AN OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE PERSONALITY
"The characters and contributions of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton are collectively sketched by historian Richard B. Morris in, Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries. Amid descriptions of Hamilton's grandiose ambitions, Washington's sullen stiffness, Adams's humble origins, and Franklin's protean diplomacy, one finds a sketch of Jefferson. Therein, Morris uses a clinical term, obsessive-compulsive personality as a framework for understanding Jefferson's character. Ultimately, this is a mischaracterization of Jefferson.
Notwithstanding Morris's misidentification, it is clear that Morris uses the clinical term quite correctly, as seen through his pointed description and subsequent discussion. Jefferson's character, however, does not comport with clinical and literary descriptions of the obsessive compulsive personality, except in certain circumscribed ways, which are insufficient to constitute the pattern at large. Understanding this requires a brief description of the obsessive compulsive personality, after which it will be apparent that Jefferson's temperamental features in some respects conform to the pattern, but in most respects differ from it substantially…."
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paints brigs for the British fleet.
