[Hannah]: Founding Fathers Not Immune to Pleasures of High Carbon-Footprint, Deficit Spending

"Despite his effusive praise for the yeoman farmer, Thomas Jefferson could hardly restrain himself when he wanted a special object for Monticello, his beloved estate. After the Revolution, for example, Jefferson served the new nation in London and Paris, and when he was not performing official duties, he indulged his almost insatiable appetite for shopping ... Betraying a side of his character that often escapes modern comment, Jefferson informed Madame de Corney that the "splendor of their [the English] shops... is all that is worth seeing in London." His consumer frenzy embarrassed his old friend the marquis de Lafayette, who on one occasion admonished Jefferson to exercise more self-control in the stores. Jefferson responded weakly, 'It is not from a love of the English, but a love of myself that I sometimes find myself obliged to buy their manufactures.'"

-T. H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence