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diff --git a/38073-h/38073-h.htm b/38073-h/38073-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc6358a --- /dev/null +++ b/38073-h/38073-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,22045 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Thomas Jefferson, by Gilbert Chinard. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .25em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1em; + margin-bottom: .25em; + } + h1,h2,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + clear: both; + } + h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + letter-spacing: .2em; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{font-size: 85%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px; width: 20em; padding-left: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} + .noidt {text-indent: 0em;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 82%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0em;} + .poem3 {margin-left:16%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0em;} + .poem4 {margin-left:18%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0em;} + .notebox {border: solid 2px; padding: 1em; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; background: #CCCCB2;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Jefferson, by Gilbert Chinard + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Thomas Jefferson + The Apostle of Americanism + +Author: Gilbert Chinard + +Release Date: November 21, 2011 [EBook #38073] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS JEFFERSON *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="notebox"> +<p class="noidt"><b>Transcriber's note:</b> The second edition is still under copyright, + but contained a few corrections. The quote attributed to Jefferson + on pages 80-82 is from Thomas Paine and has a different plate. + The text on pages 82-85 and in the introduction were significantly + revised. The last paragraph on page 375 was reworded to be less + critical of John Adams.</p> +</div> + + +<p> </p> +<h2>THOMAS JEFFERSON</h2> + +<h2><i>The Apostle of Americanism</i></h2> + + +<p> </p> + +<div class="bbox"> +<h4>Books by Gilbert Chinard</h4> + +<p class="noidt"> +<span class="smcap">Volney et L'Amérique</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Jefferson et les Idéologues</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Les Réfugiés Huguenots en Amérique</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Commonplace Book of Thomas Jefferson</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Les Amitiés Françaises de Jefferson</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Literary Bible of Jefferson</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 60%;"> +<a name="FRONTISPIECE" id="FRONTISPIECE"></a> +<img src="images/p004.jpg" width="100%" alt="BUST OF THOMAS JEFFERSON BY HOUDON" title="" /><br /> +<span class="caption">BUST OF THOMAS JEFFERSON BY HOUDON<br /> +<br /> +<i>In the possession of the New York Historical Society</i></span> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h1> +THOMAS<br /> +JEFFERSON</h1> + +<h4>THE APOSTLE OF AMERICANISM</h4> + +<p> </p> +<h3><i>By</i><br /> +GILBERT CHINARD</h3> + +<p> </p> +<h4><i>With Illustrations</i></h4> + +<p> </p> + +<h4>BOSTON<br /> +<big>LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY</big><br /> +1929</h4> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>Copyright, 1929</i>,<br /> + +<span class="smcap">By Little, Brown, and Company</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>All rights reserved</i><br /><br /> + +Published September, 1929</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h5>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</h5> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + + +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2> + + +<p>This study of Jefferson's mind is the indirect outcome of an +ambitious undertaking on which I launched about ten years ago. +My original purpose had been to determine more exactly than +had heretofore been done the contribution of the French +thinkers to the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson.</p> + +<p>The points of similarity were obvious: the parallelism between +the theory of natural rights and the <i>Déclaration des droits +de l'homme</i> is patent; the American statesman shared with the +French "doctrinaires" the same faith in the ultimate wisdom of +the people, the same belief in the necessity of a free press and +religious freedom. Many of his utterances had a sort of +French ring and countless Gallicisms could be discovered in his +letters. He spent in France the five years immediately preceding +the Revolution of 1789; he knew Madame d'Houdetot, +Madame Helvétius, Lafayette, Condorcet, Cabanis, Du Pont de +Nemours, l'Abbé Morellet and Destutt de Tracy. He was +accused of bringing back from France the "infidel doctrines" of +the philosophers and to some of his contemporaries he appeared +as the embodiment of Jacobinism. How could such a man +have failed to be influenced by the political, social and economic +theories which brought about the great upheaval of the end of +the eighteenth century?</p> + +<p>A rapid survey of the Jefferson papers in the Library of Congress +and in the Massachusetts Historical Society soon convinced +me that the subject had scarcely been touched, notwithstanding +the controversy that had been raging about the origin +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>of Jefferson's political ideas for more than a century. Hundreds +of letters written to Jefferson by French correspondents were +preserved in the precious archives, and had apparently never +been consulted. Many days were spent in the rotunda of the +Manuscript Division, turning the leaves of the two hundred +and thirty volumes of the Jefferson papers. Documents after +documents threw a new light on the mind of the great American—letters +hastily written, rough drafts corrected and recorrected, +press copies blurred and hardly decipherable, yellowed scraps +of paper crumbling to pieces but piously restored; more letters +in a regular, precise hand, the hand of a man who had been a +surveyor and who drew rather than wrote. Fifty years of the +most eventful period of American history, told by the chief +participants, rose from the old documents, and day by day was +revealed more clearly the clean-cut figure of Jefferson the +American.</p> + +<p>First of all, the tall, lanky boy, born in a frame dwelling by +the Rivanna,—not a farmer boy by any means, but the son of +an ambitious, energetic and respected surveyor, a landowner +and a colonel in the militia, and of a mother in whose veins ran +the best blood of Virginia. The stern and pious education +received in the family, the reading of the Bible and Shakespeare, +the lessons of Reverend Maury, the son of a Huguenot +who took the boy as a boarding student, the years at William +and Mary College in the brilliant, animated, but small capital +of Virginia, the conversations with Mr. Small, Mr. Wythe and +Governor Fauquier, the Apollo tavern, the first love affair, and +the long roamings in the hills surrounding Shadwell. More +years as a student of law and as a law practitioner, quickly followed +by his marriage with a Virginia "belle", and Thomas +Jefferson had settled down, a promising young man, a talented +lawyer, a respectable landowner, an omnivorous reader who +culled from hundreds of authors moral maxims, bits of poetry, +historical, legal and philosophical disquisitions and copied them +in a neat hand in his commonplace books. But curiously +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> +enough during these formative years, the direct influence of the +French philosophers was almost negligible. He knew Montesquieu's +"Esprit des Lois" and Voltaire's "Essai sur les +mœurs", but he used both books as repertories of facts rather +than as founts of ideas. His masters were the Greeks of old, +Homer and Euripides, then Cicero and Horace, finally Bolingbroke +and above all the historians of the English law in whose +works he studied the principles, development and degeneration +of free institutions.</p> + +<p>The choice of the abstracts made by this young Virginian +who was still in his twenties already reveals an extraordinary +capacity for absorbing knowledge and a most remarkable independence +of thought. As he had planned to build a house +according to his own plans, he had likewise decided to construct +for himself, with material just as carefully chosen, the intellectual +house in which he intended to live. Had not the Revolution +intervened, Thomas Jefferson would probably have spent +his years in his native colony, become a successful member of +the Virginia bar, perhaps a judge learned and respected, a +wealthy landowner adding constantly to the paternal acres. +He had no ambition and little suspected his own latent genius, +and yet, during all these years which he might have passed in +leisurely and pleasant idleness, he never ceased, unknowingly as +it were, to prepare himself for the great part he was to play.</p> + +<p>When the call came he was ready. The ideas expressed in the +Declaration of Independence were common property, but their +felicitous wording was not due to a sudden and feverish inspiration. +The young Virginian expressed only the definite +conclusions he had slowly reached in reading the historians and +the old lawyers. The principles there proclaimed were not +abstract and <i>a priori</i> principles; they were distinctly the principles +that had directed his Saxon forefathers in their "settlement" +of England. They were the legitimate inheritance +of their descendants and continuators who had brought over +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> +with them to America the rights of their ancestors to settle in +sparsely inhabited land, there to live freely and happily under +institutions chosen by themselves. To go back to a primitive +past, to the good old times, had been the dream of many political +philosophers; but Jefferson's vision of that ancestral past +was no dream, for it had originated in the only part of the +inhabited earth where it could become a reality. This was the +true background of the Declaration of Independence, the background +of Jeffersonian democracy—a curious justification of +the pioneer spirit by a student of history who cared little for +abstract reasoning and philosophical constructions.</p> + +<p>Thus far the national consciousness of Thomas Jefferson had +been somewhat hazy. Born in Virginia and intensely devoted +to the Old Dominion, he had never left his native habitat until +he was sent as a delegate to Congress. There only did he +realize the divergences of the different colonies and the imperious +necessity for them to organize their life and to agree to +some sort of a permanent compact. No dealings with foreign +nations could be transacted, no efficient measures of protection +against the common foe could be devised, unless the several +States were held together by some sort of a common bond and +had achieved some sort of a unity. While the Articles of Confederation +were being discussed, he puzzled over the essence and +meaning of these "natural rights" so often mentioned in the +different committees on which he sat, and he preserved the +result of his meditations in an unpublished document I had +the good fortune to discover in the Library of Congress. First +of all, he was led to establish a distinction between the fundamental +natural rights, which the individual can exercise by himself, +and another class of rights which cannot be safely enjoyed +unless society provides adequate protection. In forming a +society and in accepting a social compact, the first rights were +to be reserved and to remain inalienable; rights of the second +class, on the contrary, were partly given up in exchange for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> +more security. This very simple distinction enabled the young +delegate to do away with the old antinomy so perplexing to +many political philosophers and to solve the difficulty against +which Rousseau had vainly struggled in his <i>Contrat social</i>. The +individual remained in full possession of certain rights; society +was granted only part of the others, a part to be determined +strictly in forming a social compact: the citizen no longer had +to sacrifice all his rights on the altar of the country; he +remained sovereign in a sovereign society.</p> + +<p>What was true of individuals was true of the States coalescing +to form a union or confederation. Each individual State +remained sovereign and yielded only part of certain rights in +order to obtain more security against foreign aggressors. To +the right of expatriation for the individual corresponded the +right of secession for the State. But from this recognition of +the right to denounce the compact, it did not follow that Jefferson +would have encouraged either the individual or the States to +withdraw from the society thus formed in order to resume +a precarious life by themselves. Even if he had been an +anarchistic instead of being a truly "socialistic" political +thinker, a few meetings of the committees on which he sat +would have sufficed to demonstrate that, to the necessity of +society for the individuals, corresponded the necessity of a +union for the individual States. The Virginian had developed +into a true American. Jefferson was thinking nationally and +not sectionally; he was ready for the great rôle he was about to +assume.</p> + +<p>His five-year stay in Europe confirmed him in the opinion +that there existed in America the germ of something infinitely +precious, if somewhat precarious, and he realized that his +country had really become the hope of the world. He was too +fond of good music, good architecture, good dinners, good wines +and long conversations not to appreciate fully the good points of +life while in Paris. He praised the French for their achieve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>ments +in the arts and sciences, and formed with many of them +long-enduring friendships; but neither France, nor England, +and even less Italy or Spain, were countries toward which men +could turn their eyes when looking for a political "polar star." +Traditions were too deeply rooted, prejudices of too long standing, +class distinctions too sharply defined to leave room for any +hope of ever seeing them establish within a reasonable time a +tolerable form of government. On the contrary, unhampered +by such hoary traditionalism and free to shape her destinies, +America, provided she carefully avoided the dangers under +which Europe was laboring, could not only establish the best +possible form of government, but set an example to be followed +by the rest of mankind.</p> + +<p>These dangers were patent; they resulted from the existence +of privileged classes or hereditary aristocracies, of State religions, +censorship of the press and books, centralization and +concentration in a few hands of all the financial and economic +resources of the country. Anything that smacked of the +European system was to be fought with the utmost energy, not +only for the sake of America, but for the sake of the world. +Such were the real reasons that justify the fight waged by +Jefferson after his return from Europe against the tendencies +represented by Hamilton. Not out of any sympathy for the +Jacobins did he seem to favor the French Revolution; but, +since America herself had become the battlefield of two opposed +ideals, he sided with the one which, in his opinion, presented the +smaller danger for the existence of his country.</p> + +<p>Throughout the long-drawn-out battle, he remained convinced +that only by avoiding any entanglement with European +politics could America fulfill her destiny. The great obstacle +to such an isolation was foreign commerce, for Jefferson clearly +understood that economic and commercial bonds or dependence +would necessarily entail political bonds and political dependence. +America was to live in her own world, to pay her debts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> +as soon as possible, to become industrially independent of +Europe, to manufacture at home enough for her own consumption +"and no more." She was also to seize every opportunity +to eliminate dangerous neighbors, not that she really coveted +any territory or colony held by foreign powers, not that she +needed new land for a surplus of population; but she could not +keep out of European politics if Europe remained at her doors +and used her colonies as a "fulcrum for her intrigues." Spain +was so weak that nothing had to be feared directly from her, +but her colonies could be seized at any time by more powerful +enemies; France should not be permitted again to set her foot +on the American continent. As to England, she was to be +expelled from her continental dominions whenever America +would be strong enough to enforce the "<i>American jus gentium</i>", +and the sea was to be neutralized.</p> + +<p>Having removed all causes for foreign frictions and aggressions, +America would be free to develop along her own lines. +She was to remain for long years to come an agricultural nation; +she would grow towards the west by attaching to herself new +territories as their population increased. The Federal Government +was to retain a minimum of power and attributions. It +was to be carefully and constantly watched for fear of concentrating +too much power in a few hands and in one place. +Federal legislation was to be kept down, for the more laws, +the worse the republic—"<i>plurimae leges, pessima republica</i>." +There was nothing intangible, however, in the government +which had been hastily put together at the close of the Revolution. +It was desirable and necessary to preserve the main +principles embodied in the Constitution in so far as they expressed +the permanent and inalienable rights of the people and +the States, but each generation had a right to determine anew +the details of the legislation and how they chose to be governed. +The different articles adopted in 1787 were not to be considered +as sacred as the Tables of the Law, they were the work of fallible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> +and changing human beings, and the essence of the American +government did not rest on a written document but on the dispositions +of the individual citizens and on enlightened public +opinion.</p> + +<p>This being the case, it became necessary to prepare each +citizen for the part he was called upon to play in the life of the +country. The great mass of the American people had a "cool +common sense" and a certain degree of instruction which fitted +all of them to do certain things, but not everything. A farmer +could not overnight and by virtue of the popular choice become +qualified to judge of fine legal points, to settle complicated +economic problems, or to conduct difficult diplomatic negotiations +with foreign courts. All this required more than ordinary +common sense and ordinary education: the country +needed leaders and experts to be carefully trained in special +institutions—in a national university or, if this proved impossible, +in State universities. As to the great mass of the common +people, they could be trusted to judge of facts and to sit on a +jury; they were also good judges of men and properly could +choose between candidates for the different offices. A free +press would keep them informed of the conduct of the men thus +selected; primary and secondary schools would help in the +diffusion of knowledge, and enlightened self-interest would +prevent them at any time from making grievous mistakes.</p> + +<p>Such a system constituted the best form of government ever +established by man; but it did not ensue that it was immediately +to be adopted by all the nations of the earth. It embodied +certain permanent principles susceptible of general application, +for they did nothing but express the unalienable rights of man. +All men, however, were not to be intrusted at once with the full +enjoyment of their rights. There were certain countries which +for generations had been priest-ridden and king-ridden and in +which men unaccustomed to use their judgment were swayed by +emotions, hatreds and prejudices. A time might come when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span> +the sacred contagion of liberty would spread to these unfortunate +populations, but it would take many revolutions, much +bloodshed and a slow and painful process of education to enable +them to shake off their shackles and to enjoy the full benefits of +self-government. America, on the contrary, because of her +geographical remoteness from Europe, because of the quality of +the people who had settled in the English colonies, had fought, +not to destroy an old order of things, but to preserve and to +extend already existing liberties. Among the nations of the +world she stood as an example and a hope. She was the living +evidence that under a free government a large nation could +grow prosperous and powerful, simply by existing, and without +preaching any new gospel she fulfilled her duty to mankind.</p> + +<p>Whatever may be the shortcomings of this political philosophy, +it was distinctly an American doctrine; one cannot +imagine it to have originated in any European country, for +what would have been a Utopian and chimerical dream in the +Old World was within the reach of man in America. Whether +it corresponds to present conditions is still another question; it +is nevertheless true that by emphasizing the uniqueness of +America and the political superiority of his native land for more +than fifty years, Thomas Jefferson did more than any other +man of his generation to formulate the creed of Americanism. +The man who was accused of being denationalized stands as the +most integrally and truly American among his contemporaries.</p> + +<p>This does not mean, however, that Jefferson did not occasionally +depart from the policies he had thus drawn. No +man can remain in public life for half a century without ever +falling into contradictions and inconsistencies. Only "closet +politicians" and mere theorists never accept any compromise, +and Jefferson was a very practical politician with a keen sense +of possibilities and realities. Trained as a small-town lawyer, +then placed on many committees in Congress, forced to wrest war +measures out of a reluctant Assembly, even managing to hold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span> +his own with the resourceful diplomats of Europe, Thomas +Jefferson knew how to handle men and how "to take things by +their smooth handle." There was nothing quixotic about him +and he never tried to fight against windmills, nor did he break +his head against blank walls. But he was singularly apt to bide +his time, to wait for a favorable opportunity and, whenever he +saw a chance, he never failed to come back to his original line of +conduct and to his original policies.</p> + +<p>He seldom indulged in undue display of emotions and personal +feelings, but he was no mere thinking machine. In his +youth he loved and suffered; later he was perplexed by the +riddle of the world; he studied the old philosophers in order to +find the moral props which religion could no longer give him +and, in his older age, came back to the morals of Jesus. His +encyclopedic curiosity and the versatility of his mind won for +him the admiration of his contemporaries, and, in that sense—the +eighteenth-century sense—he was truly "a philosopher." +But he was too practical-minded to waste much time in mere +theorizing or in theological and metaphysical "disquisitions." +Firmly convinced that the business of life was with matter, he +considered science as an instrument and a tool to master the +blind forces of nature. He was more interested in applications +than in disinterested research, and in that respect, as in many +others, he was not only an American, but, above all, an eighteenth-century +man. Intensely nationalistic as he was when it +came to politics, he was truly cosmopolitan in the realm of +intellectual achievements, and thus was created the legend +of a denationalized Jefferson; for the popular mind, fond of +generalizations, is unable to recognize such distinctions. +Among his friends he counted all the leading scientists of the +time and through them—particularly through his French +friends of the Museum—he exerted an influence of which he +himself was perhaps not fully aware. To his European correspondents +he appeared the embodiment of what was best in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span> +the American character. His influence on the development of +liberalism and democratic ideas throughout the world can +hardly be estimated, and separate investigations will have to +be carried out before his exact contribution to the growth of +democracy can be rightly estimated. Through his letters he +encouraged his friends to keep their faith, but better still +he demonstrated that self-government and democracy, as he +understood it, were practical and workable schemes and not the +idle dreams of philosophers shut in their closets.</p> + +<p>I hardly dare mention here the names of the many friends +and colleagues who gave me most generously their assistance +and encouragement. To Doctor J. C. Fitzpatrick, untiring, +most patient and helpful in his suggestions, I owe a particular +debt. Mr. W. C. Ford afforded me all possible facilities for +consulting the letters of Jefferson in the Jefferson Coolidge +Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. I discussed +more than once with Professors Willoughby, Latané and Lovejoy +and with President Goodnow of the Johns Hopkins University +the perplexing problems that confronted me, and submitted +several hypotheses to the History of Ideas Club of the University. +Doctor L. P. Shanks gave me his time and friendly assistance in +the revision of the manuscript. But none of my counselors and +friends are to be held responsible for the ideas here expressed, +some of which they would probably refuse to indorse.</p> + +<p>In the course of this investigation I consulted too many +books to list them all. Randall is still very useful and has not +been completely superseded by more modern biographies. +I found the books of Beveridge fascinating though having somewhat +of a tendency, and could not completely agree with Mr. +Beard on the economic origins of the Jeffersonian democracy. +I naturally made use of Mr. Becker's study of the Declaration +of Independence. I read the biography of Mr. Hirst with great +interest, though our points of view were very different, and +I almost decided to abandon my undertaking when the more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span> +recent work of Mr. Nock appeared. Incomplete and unsatisfactory +as they are in some respects, the Ford Edition and the +Memorial Edition are very useful tools, the best available at +the present time. Much to my regret, I had to omit many +documents still unpublished which are preserved in the Jefferson +papers.</p> + +<p>The collections of the Library of Congress and the Massachusetts +Historical Society constitute the richest treasure house of +historical information ever left by a single man. It would take +several lives and a fortune to edit them properly; but since +Monticello has now become again a national shrine and will be +safely preserved, it may not be out of place to express the wish +that the day will soon come when a national association will +undertake to publish an integral edition of the Jefferson papers,—a +most fitting monument to the greatest political philosopher +of America and one of her greatest sons.</p> + +<p style='text-align: right'><span class="smcap">Gilbert Chinard</span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'><a href="#INTRODUCTION"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='center' colspan='3'><br /><a href="#BOOK_ONE"><small>BOOK ONE</small></a>: <i>The Virginian</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Virginia Boyhood</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An American Disciple of Greece and Old England</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Virginia Lawyer</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='center' colspan='3'><br /><a href="#BOOK_TWO"><small>BOOK TWO</small></a>: <i>Jefferson and the American Revolution</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Declaration of Independence</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Revision of the Laws of Virginia</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Governor of Virginia—The "Notes on Virginia"</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Statesman's Apprenticeship</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='center' colspan='3'><br /><a href="#BOOK_THREE"><small>BOOK THREE</small></a>: <i>An American View of Europe</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Society and Travel</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Gallo-American Commerce and the Debt Question</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Union and Isolation</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jefferson and the French Revolution</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='center' colspan='3'><br /><a href="#BOOK_FOUR"><small>BOOK FOUR</small></a>: <i>Monocrats and Republicans</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Quarrel with Hamilton</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jacobin or American?</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Monticello—Agriculture and Politics</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">"The Dictates of Reason and Pure Americanism"</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Political Leader and Strategist</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_343">343</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='center' colspan='3'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span><br /><a href="#BOOK_FIVE"><small>BOOK FIVE</small></a>: <i>The Presidency</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">"All Republicans, All Federalists"</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_379">379</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Protective Imperialism and Territorial Expansion</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_396">396</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">"Self-Preservation Is Paramount to All Law"</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_425">425</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">"Peace and Commerce with Every Nation"</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_440">440</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='center' colspan='3'><br /><a href="#BOOK_SIX"><small>BOOK SIX</small></a>: <i>The Sage of Monticello</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">"America Has a Hemisphere to Itself"</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_467">467</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Democratic America</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_489">489</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Philosophy of Old Age</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_513">513</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'><br /><a href="#INDEX"><span class="smcap">Index</span></a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_533">533</a></td></tr> + +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span></p> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="2" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Bust of Thomas Jefferson by Houdon</span> +<br /> <i>In the possession of the New York Historical Society</i></td><td align='left'><a href="#FRONTISPIECE"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Page of Jefferson's Reflections on the Articles of Confederation</span> +<br /> <i>From the manuscript in the possession of the Library of Congress</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Page from Jefferson's "Commonplace Book"</span> +<br /> <i>From the manuscript in the possession of the Library of Congress</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Lafayette</span> +<br /> <i>After a lithograph from the portrait by Grevedon</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Alexander Hamilton</span> +<br /> <i>From the painting by John Trumbull in the possession of the Essex Institute, +Salem, Mass.</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_256">256</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Thomas Jefferson</span> +<br /> <i>From the portrait by Rembrandt Peale</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_290">290</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Monticello as It Appears To-day</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Thomas Jefferson</span> +<br /> <i>From the portrait by Kosciuszko</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_468">468</a></td></tr> + +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BOOK_ONE" id="BOOK_ONE"></a>BOOK ONE</h2> + +<h1><i>The Virginian</i></h1> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h2>A VIRGINIA BOYHOOD</h2> + + +<p>The peoples of the Old World worship at the birthplaces of +their national heroes and bury their mortal remains in splendid +mausoleums, pantheons or Westminster Abbeys. By a significant +and symbolic contrast, the memories of Washington and +Jefferson are enshrined in no ancestral homes, but in the mansions +planned with loving care, in which they so expressed +themselves that their very spirit seems to haunt the deserted +rooms of Mount Vernon and Monticello. They are buried +according to their wishes on their own land, at the very center +of the acres they had themselves surveyed and reclaimed from +the wilderness, close to nature and Mother Earth. However +great may be their debt to the past and their remote ancestors, +they stand by themselves at the threshold of America's national +history,—master builders who wrestled with gigantic tasks +and first thought of their country as the future home of unborn +millions.</p> + +<p>The boy who was born on April 2, 1743, in the recently +erected farmhouse at Shadwell, on the bank of the Rivanna, +never gave much thought to his lineage in his later life. Yet +Virginians of good stock were always proud of their ancestry, +and more than once he was told by his mother that the Randolphs +could "trace their pedigree far back in England and +Scotland." Jefferson's mother and John Marshall's grandmother +were descended from William Randolph and Mary +Isham, both of the English gentry, and Jane Randolph, issued +from the best blood in the Old Dominion, had married when she +was nineteen a man without means, whose education had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +neglected, but sturdy and industrious and belonging to one of +the proudest and most aristocratic lines of old Virginians.</p> + +<p>Of his mother, Jefferson has told us very little either in his +letters or in his "Autobiography." We may surmise she had +the refined, modest, unobtrusive and yet efficient qualities so +marked in the Virginia girls of the Colonial days and so often +noticed by travelers. Sons are apt to mold their feminine +ideal on the memory of their mother, and Jefferson may have +been thinking both of her and of his wife when, many years +later, he contrasted French frivolity with Virginian virtues:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In America, the society of your husband, the fond cares for the +children, the arrangements of the house, the improvements of the +grounds, fill every moment with a useful and healthy activity.... +The intervals of leisure are filled by the society of real friends, whose +affections are not thinned to cobweb, by being spread over a thousand +objects. This is the picture, in the light it is presented to my +mind.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p></div> + +<p>The fond cares for her children would have been ample to +fill all the minutes of Jefferson's mother. Large families were +the rule in Virginia; fifteen children were born to Thomas +Marshall and Mary Keith, and Jefferson's family was no exception +to the rule. Between 1740 and 1755, Jane Randolph gave +ten children to Peter Jefferson; Thomas was the third child +and the first son.</p> + +<p>What information he gave about his father has to be completed +from other sources. The tradition in the family was +that "the first paternal ancestor came from Wales, and from +near the mountain of Snowdon, the highest in Great Britain." +Peter Jefferson, landowner, practical surveyor, of gigantic +stature and strength, had the sturdy qualities and ambition of +the pioneer. He received a colonelcy in the militia, became a +member of the House of Burgesses in 1755, and in 1749 had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +been chosen with Joshua Fry, professor of mathematics in +William and Mary College, to continue the boundary line between +Virginia and North Carolina. "He was afterwards +employed with the same Mr. Fry to make the first map of +Virginia which was ever made." Besides his association with +Fry, from whom he drew the theoretical knowledge of mathematics +in which he was lacking, Peter Jefferson improved himself +by much reading, not novels, but the serious and sound +books which constituted the ordinary family library in colonial +Virginia,—historians, essayists, and most of all Shakespeare. +For in Virginia as well as in New England, Shakespeare and the +Bible were the two books found in every household, the two +richest springs of the modern English language. Religion took +up as much of their life as in New England. Prayers were said +three and sometimes four times a day, and from his earliest +infancy, Jefferson became familiar with the liturgy of the +Church of England, and had stamped in his memory the strong +old words, vigorous phrases and noble speech of King James' +version.</p> + +<p>He was only five years old when his father, already planning +to give him the education of which he himself had been deprived, +decided to send the boy to the best school in the neighborhood. +He stayed two years at the English school; then, +when nine, he went to the school of Mr. Douglas, a Scotch +clergyman, who taught him French and the rudiments of Latin +and Greek. Most of his childhood was spent away from home, +as a boarding student, and the silence maintained by Jefferson +with reference to his parents is thus easily explained. It explains +also the lack of spontaneity and the awkwardness which +always prevented him from expressing freely his emotions and +sentiments. What may seem in him a national characteristic +was largely a matter of training and early discipline.</p> + +<p>He was fourteen when his father died, with a last recommendation +that his son be given a classical education. Still a mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +boy, Thomas Jefferson had become the oldest living male of the +family and to a certain extent its head. Whether he was at +first fully aware of his new responsibility is very doubtful. He +could not remember without a retrospective fear in his later +years how close he had come to wasting his whole life:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>When I recollect that at fourteen years of age, the whole care +and direction of myself was thrown on myself entirely, without a +relation or friend, qualified to advise or guide me, and recollect the +various sorts of bad company with which I associated from time to +time, I am astonished I did not turn off with some of them, and +become as worthless to society as they were.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p></div> + +<p>The next two years were spent as a boarding student with +Reverend Mr. Maury, "a correct classical scholar"—probably +not a very inspiring one, if we interpret rightly the adjective +used by Jefferson. We may well imagine him at sixteen, a tall, +slim boy, with auburn hair and clear eyes, fond of fowling, horse-riding +and outdoors, fond of reading also, but disposing of very +few books; for his father's library was not large and, if the +Reverend Mr. Maury followed the tradition of many old schoolmasters, +he seldom opened his library to his students. Still, +he knew his Bible, had read a few English classics, was well +grounded in Greek and Latin, and had perfected his knowledge +of French; but it is doubtful whether he was acquainted +with any French writer except the old standard authors—"Télémaque", +Berquin, perhaps "Gil Blas" and Pascal's "Pensées." +But, even at that age, Jefferson necessarily knew something +of the many duties of a landowner; for the slaves he was +the young master, and during the summer he had to become +somewhat acquainted with the management of a large estate. +The education he had received was not exactly a frontier education +with the usual connotations of that word. He had not +been brought up in a log cabin, he had never engaged in back-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>breaking +tasks of felling trees or of splitting rails; he probably +had never put his hand to the plow except as an experiment.</p> + +<p>He had heard his father tell of long journeys in the wilderness +and of treacherous Indians, but no Red Men roamed the +forests near Shadwell. The only Indians he knew were peaceful, +almost romantic characters who stopped at the house of +Colonel Jefferson on their way to Williamsburg.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I knew much—he said—of the great Ontasseré, the warrior +and orator of the Cherokees; he was always the guest of my father +on his journeys to and from Williamsburg. I was in his camp when +he made his great farewell oration to his people, the evening before +his departure for England. The moon was in full splendor, and +to her he seemed to address himself in his prayers for his own safety +on the voyage, and that of his people during his absence; his sounding +voice, distinct articulation, animated action, and the solemn +silence of his people at their several fires, filled me with awe and +admiration.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p></div> + +<p>This youthful impression left an indelible mark on his mind +and was not without some influence on the "Notes on Virginia" +as well as on the letters he wrote to Indian chiefs when he was +President.</p> + +<p>Nor was Shadwell exactly in the "howling wilderness", even +if there was no large city near it. It was located on the road to +Williamsburg, and many travelers stopped at the house on +their way to the capital. Hospitality to friends and strangers +was a sacred rite and most scrupulously observed. Much visiting +was done in Virginia, and men particularly spent considerable +time traveling from house to house; slaves were put up, +horses were sent to the stable, while the best was spread on the +table for the master. During the summer months, when roads +were not made impassable by deep mudholes, one visitor had +hardly left when another came. They had to be entertained, +sometimes at a considerable expense, always at a considerable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +loss of time. Young Jefferson soon realized, after returning to +Shadwell, that he would never amount to much and would +probably become an idler, if he stayed on the estate like so +many of his young friends. The wasting of precious moments +irritated and disturbed him when he wanted to do some +reading or some study, and he felt that the condition of the +estate hardly warranted such a generous hospitality. He +therefore decided to leave, and the letter he wrote on this occasion +to his guardian, Mr. John Hervey of Bellemont, shows +him fully aware of his responsibilities and perfectly definite in +his plans.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<p>In the spring of 1760, the young man, then exactly seventeen, +went to Williamsburg and enrolled in the College of William +and Mary. Quite possibly it was his first visit to the capital of +Virginia, his first contact with urban life. It was, for the time, +a place of very respectable size and considerable activity. Old +Professor Hugh Jones, a man much traveled and much read, +described it enthusiastically in his "Present State of Virginia", +published in London in 1724:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Williamsburg is a market town, and is governed by a mayor and +aldermen. It is a town well stocked with rich stores, all sorts of +goods, and well furnished with the best provisions and liquors. +Here dwell several good families, and more reside here in their own +houses at publick times. They live in the same neat manner, +dress after the same modes, and behave themselves exactly as +the Gentry in London; most families of note having a coach, +chariot, Berlin, or chaize.... Thus they dwell comfortably, +genteely, pleasantly, and plentifully in this delightful, healthful, +and (I hope) pleasant city of Virginia.</p></div> + +<p>Great occasions were receptions given by the Governor, +meetings of the Assembly, occasional performances by regular +companies from New York, semi-professional players and +later, by the Virginian Company of Comedians. Horse races<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +attracted every year a large concourse of people, for every true +Virginian is a lover of horseflesh. Betting was active and +large sums of money changed hands, particularly for the four-mile +heat race given each year on the course adjoining the +town.</p> + +<p>Ladies in all the glory of their imported dresses, gentlemen +in brilliantly colored knee breeches and coats, with elegantly +chased swords at their sides and the best beaver hats made in +London under their arms, attended the receptions, the dances, +the theater, and more than once adjourned to the famous Apollo +room in the Raleigh Tavern, where they indulged in much +drinking of "punch, beer, Nantes rum, brandy, Madeira and +French claret." The first time young Jefferson went to the +Raleigh he was probably shown the largest punch bowl in the +house, which had played a part in the purchase of Shadwell, +for had not Colonel Jefferson bought the site from William +Randolph of Tuckahoe, for "Henry Weatherbourne's biggest +bowl of arrack punch"?</p> + +<p>The college itself was no less an attraction than the town. +Built originally on the plans of Christopher Wren, it had unfortunately +been remodeled after a fire, "a rude, misshapen +pile, which but it had a roof would be taken for a brick-kiln", +wrote Jefferson in his "Notes on Virginia." Such as it was, +however, with the Capitol, of much better style, it was the +first large building and monument the young man had ever +seen and he probably admired it at the time as much as most +Virginians did.</p> + +<p>It was by no means a university, not even a real college. +Like most institutions of learning in the colonies, it had been +established "to the end that the church of Virginia may be +furnished with a seminary for ministers of the gospel, and that +the youth may be piously educated in good letters and manners, +and that the Christian faith may be propagated amongst +the Western Indians, to the glory of the Almighty."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<p>The lack of preparation of the students, the fact that the +sons of the wealthiest were sent to England to finish their education, +perhaps also an aristocratic scorn for specialized and +intensive learning among the gentry of Virginia, all had contributed +to keep down the standards of the institution. Much +to his disgust, Jefferson found</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... that the admission of the learners of Latin and Greek had +filled the college with children. This rendering it disagreeable and +degrading to young gentlemen, already prepared for entering on +the sciences, they were discouraged from resorting to it, and thus the +schools for mathematics and moral philosophy, which might have +been of some service, became of very little. The revenues, too, were +exhausted in accommodating those who came only to acquire the +rudiments of the sciences.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p></div> + +<p>Thus the problem of caring for the many, the danger of keeping +together in college the prepared and the unprepared students, +which is still with us, existed already in America one +hundred and fifty years ago. Evidently Jefferson considered +himself as one of those young gentlemen who were prepared +for entering upon the study of the sciences; he was certainly +more mature for his years than most of his fellow students and +looked down upon them as well, we may surmise, as upon the +teachers themselves. On the other hand, the town offered +many temptations and he probably yielded to some of them. +He was often thrown into the society of horse-racers, card-players, +fox-hunters, and at the end of his first year in college +it appeared to him that he had spent more than his share of the +income of the estate. He therefore wrote to his guardian to +charge his expenses to his share of the property: "No," Colonel +Walker is reported to have said,—"if you have sowed your +wild oats thus, the estate may well afford to pay the bill."</p> + +<p>We possess no precise information upon the amount spent +by Jefferson nor any account book for that year, but we may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +surmise that Colonel Walker would not have been so lenient if +the total sum had been spent in reprehensible dissipations. +Williamsburg boasted of a large bookstore, and in 1775 Dixon +and Hunter published a list of more than three hundred titles +in their stock. Book lovers are born and not made. Jefferson +had never been able to satisfy fully his passion for books, +and as the college library offered him only very meager +resources, he must have plunged with delight in the bookshop +of Williamsburg and bought extravagantly, an expense the +estate "could well afford to pay." But the fact remained that +what he had learned he had learned by himself, and that college +life had not furnished him the guidance and direction he was +looking for.</p> + +<p>It was at this juncture that Doctor Small, professor of mathematics, +was appointed <i>ad interim</i> professor of philosophy and +soon developed an interest in the young Virginian. Jefferson +himself paid a grateful tribute to the man who just in time +rescued him from his frivolous companions and brought back +to his mind the serious purpose he had entertained when he +entered William and Mary.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It was my good fortune and that probably fixed the destinies of +my life, that Doctor William Small of Scotland was then Professor of +Mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of +science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly +manners, and an enlarged and liberal mind. He, most +happily for me, became soon attached to me, and made me his +daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his +conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science, and of +the system of things in which we are placed. Fortunately, the +philosophical chair became vacant soon after my arrival at college, +and he was appointed to fill it <i>per interim</i>: and he was the first who +ever gave, in that college, regular lectures in Ethics, Rhetoric and +Belles-Lettres.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p>For Jefferson Doctor Small was the prime awakener and +inspirer. Through him the young man was introduced to +George Wythe who soon accepted him as a student of law, and +through him again he was received by Governor Fauquier.</p> + +<p>Such were the first really cultured men with whom Jefferson +ever came in contact: William Small, the mathematician +and philosopher, would not have been a true Scot if he had not +had that passionate love for discussion and logic which seems +the innate gift of so many sons of the Highlands. Francis Fauquier, +"the ornament and delight of Virginia", generous, liberal, +elegant in his manners and requirements, was the son of Doctor +Fauquier of Floirac, near Bordeaux, who had worked under +Newton in the mint and become a director of the Bank of England. +His early biographer Burke, the Virginia historian, has +chiefly emphasized his propensity to gaming. But Fauquier +was an economist of no mean distinction and had written an +important tract on the basis of taxation. He was interested +in physics or natural philosophy and had become a Fellow of +the Royal Society. He was a student of natural phenomena +and sent to the Society the description of a hail-storm in Virginia. +Finally, there was George Wythe, whose virtue was of +the purest tint, his integrity inflexible, and his justice exact. +Last and most important of all his qualities, perhaps, was the +characteristic peculiarity mentioned by Jefferson in the sketch +he wrote after the death of his old master: "he was firm in his +philosophy, and neither troubling, nor perhaps trusting any +one with his religion."</p> + +<p>Such were the true masters of Thomas Jefferson, and from +their conversations around the table, after bottles of port had +been brought, he learned more than any student at William +and Mary ever acquired in college. It was a rare privilege +for a young man of Jefferson's age to be admitted to the "<i>parties +carrées</i>", and he must have already given singular promise to +have been invited at all into the society of these three lumi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>naries +of Virginia. What topics were discussed among them +can easily be imagined. Fauquier would speak of old England, +the theaters of London, the monuments and works of art, of his +colleagues of the Royal Society, or discuss a problem of taxation +or a recent meteorological phenomenon. A man of the +world, a friend of Admiral Anson whom he had met after his +circumnavigation of the globe, a director of the South Sea +Company, he would speak of ships, strange lands, and reveal +to the young man the existence of a world extending far beyond +his native Virginia. Thus was born in Jefferson that ardent +desire to travel and most of all to see England which appears in +some letters written in the early sixties.</p> + +<p>Philosophical and religious subjects perhaps were introduced, +although that is rather doubtful, in my opinion. The passage +on George Wythe, already quoted, mentions his reticence on +religion. Whatever may have been the propensity of Fauquier +to gaming, he was never accused by his contemporaries of being +a religious libertine. It is also very doubtful whether any of +the group would naturally have discussed such subjects, particularly +in the presence of a young student whose education +had been deeply religious. Finally it must be remembered +that in Virginia, as well as in New England, there always existed +some "reserved questions", that it was not good form to criticize +established institutions and current beliefs. It is quite +possible that Fauquier may have lent to Jefferson certain volumes +of Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, but in spite of the contrary +opinion expressed by some biographers of Jefferson, it +seems very unlikely that any of the three older men should +have undertaken to shake the foundations of his faith. The +"<i>parties carrées</i>" could not have lasted very long, since William +Small went back to Scotland in 1762. But Jefferson's acquaintance +with Fauquier and Wythe was continued for many years +after the departure of the philosopher and, in both cases, until +the death of the older men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>The master of Shadwell had sown his wild oats; he had had +his brief flight of dissipation and had reformed; but he had by +no means become a hermit. He had not entirely given up +attending horse races and fox hunts.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Many a time—he wrote in 1808—have I asked myself, in the +enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite +horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar, or in the +great councils of the nation. Well, which of these kinds of reputation +would I prefer? That of a horse jockey? a fox hunter? an +orator? or the finest advocate of my country's rights?<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p></div> + +<p>What young man has not thus dreamed of serving his country +and devoting himself to some noble cause, what student +preparing for the bar has not pictured himself winning a difficult +case, forcing the judge's attention and swaying a reluctant +jury? The ambition to become an orator may have been +awakened in his mind by the acquaintance he had made of +the "uncultured Demosthenes" of the Old Dominion. In the +winter of 1759-1760, he had met at the house of Mr. Dandrige, +in Hanover, a tall, ascetic-looking fellow, rather disdainful of +finery and careless in his wearing apparel, but "with such +strains of native eloquence as Homer wrote in"—"I never +heard anything that deserved to be called by the same name +with what flowed from him," wrote Jefferson later, "and where +he got that torrent of language is unconceivable. I have frequently +shut my eyes while he spoke, and, when he was done, +asked myself what he had said, without being able to recollect +a word of it. He was no logician. He was truly a great man, +however—one of enlarged views."</p> + +<p>His name was Patrick Henry. Far less uncultured than +Jefferson's portrait would lead us to believe, related to very +good families, although poor and a complete failure as a merchant, +Patrick Henry had suddenly decided to enter the legal +profession, and after borrowing a "Coke upon Littleton" and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +"Digest of the Virginia Acts", he had appeared after six weeks' +preparation before the board of examiners. He won his diploma +through logic, clear presentation and common sense +rather than through his knowledge of the law, and commenced +practicing in the fall of the same year. Whenever a case appeared +before the General Court sitting at Williamsburg and +consisting of the Governor and his council, "he used to put up" +with Jefferson, borrowing books which he seldom read, always +ready with stories of the backwoods. Fame came to him soon +after, when his fiery eloquence in the "parson's case" drew +down upon him clerical hostility and public admiration. +"Instead of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked," he +cried out in the courtroom, "these religious harpies would, +were their powers equal to their will, snatch from the hearth +of their honest parishioner his last hoe-cake, from the widow +and her orphan children their last milch cow, the last bed, nay, +the last blanket, from the lying-in woman."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Not even in the +days of the Convention did the halls of Paris echo with more +vehement vituperations and more indignant denunciations. +A magnetic power, an emotional appeal to elementary passion, +to a sense of justice in the mass rather than to the letter of the +law fitted him for political life. He was soon to have his +opportunity; in the meantime he awoke in Jefferson a revolt +against clerical usurpations that was to bear its fruit in time. +Usually passed over by Jefferson's biographers, the plea made +by Patrick Henry in the "parson's case" seems to have been +the incident that called the young man's attention to the position +occupied by the established Church in its relations to the +civil power. It started in him the train of thought that culminated +in the "Bill for religious freedom."</p> + +<p>It has been sometimes said that Jefferson used to spend fourteen +hours a day in study when he was at Williamsburg; his +correspondence with John Page shows him in a very different<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +light. He was not in any sense a bookworm, even though he +read enormously, but he played as strenuously as he studied. +A good horseman, a good violin player, a good dancer, he was +a much-sought-after young man. He had a keen eye for the +ladies, and very early in 1762 he had fallen in love with Miss +Rebecca Burwell, the <i>Bell-in-day, Belinda, campana in die, +Adnileb</i> of his letters to Page. The young lady had given him +her profile cut in black paper which he carried in his watch case. +Far from her, life lost all interest: "all things appear to me to +trudge in one and the same round: we rise in the morning that +we may eat breakfast, dinner and supper, and to go to bed +again, that we may get up the next morning and do the same, +so that you never saw two peas more alike than our yesterday +and to-day." He had in mind to go back to Williamsburg, to +propose, receive his sentence and be no longer in suspense: +"but reason says, if you go, and your attempts prove unsuccessful, +you will be ten times more wretched than ever."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Spring, +then summer came, and he could not muster up enough courage +to declare himself. Madly in love as he was, he was not intending +to marry at once. He had formed great plans for traveling. +He was dreaming of hoisting his sail and visiting England, +Holland, France, Spain, Italy (where I would buy me a +good fiddle), and Egypt, and return home through the British +provinces to the northward. This would take him two or three +years. Was it fair to ask Belinda to wait so long for him? +And yet he could not leave without speaking and remain in +suspense and cruel uncertainty during the whole trip. "If I +am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the +more of life I shall have to wear if off ... If Belinda will not +accept of my service, it will never be offered to another. That +she may I pray most sincerely: but that she will, she never +gave me reason to hope."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>When college opened again at the beginning of October, he +had made up his mind to make his position clear. A dance was +to be given in the Apollo room of the Raleigh Tavern. He +dressed up in all his finery, he rehearsed in his head such +thoughts as occurred to him and made a complete fiasco. "A +few broken sentences, uttered in great disorder, and interrupted +with pauses of uncommon length were the too visible +marks of my strange confusion" (October 7, 1763). Belinda +did not say a word to relieve him in his embarrassment, did not +manifest in any way that she understood his purpose, and several +months were to elapse before Jefferson had another opportunity +to express himself. This time he had learnt his piece +perfectly, and from what we know of him already it is probable +that he made a very clear presentation of his case, too clear +and too logical even, for he concluded by saying that the decision +rested with her and that a new interview would not serve +any purpose. A strange lover indeed, apparently as madly in +love as a young man could be, and yet too respectful of the free +will of his beloved to attempt to sweep her off her feet by too +frequent interviews and too passionate pleas! Belinda listened +attentively but did not give any indication that Jefferson's +speech had convinced her and won her heart. A few +weeks later the bashful suitor heard indirectly of her answer +when she announced her marriage to Mr. B ... Whether it +was "for money, beauty, or principle will be so nice a dispute, +that no one will venture to pronounce", wrote Jefferson at the +time. To crown the joke, his happy rival, who evidently had +been kept in blissful ignorance of Jefferson's sentiments, asked +him to act as a best man at the wedding. A more ironical +trick of fate could scarcely be imagined; but, all considered, +Belinda was not altogether to blame.</p> + +<p>Thomas Jefferson did not think of committing suicide, he +did not swear revenge, nor did he curse the ungrateful one in +any of his letters. We have some reason to believe, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +that his affair with Belinda marked a decisive turn in his life. +It killed whatever romantic strains may have existed in his +heart; it matured him, and it was probably at that time that +the long-belated metaphysical crisis took place, the disappointed +lover evolving a certain philosophy of life which he was +to retain to the end of his days.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h2>AN AMERICAN DISCIPLE OF GREECE AND +OLD ENGLAND</h2> + + +<p>Until very recently the material for a study of the formative +years of Thomas Jefferson was very scanty. Many of +his earliest letters have disappeared and he always felt a strong +disinclination to analyze himself in writing. It was also contrary +to his training and to the customs of his milieu to discuss +personal matters too frankly and too openly. An American +Jean-Jacques Rousseau baring his heart to posterity would +have been as out of place as a man from the moon in New England +or Virginia. But what he did not express as his personal +feelings, he copied from the philosophers and poets he read +during his studious nights or when resting under a tree on one +of the hills surrounding Shadwell. The two commonplace +books I have recently published, written by Jefferson during +his student days and consulted by him throughout his life, +could rightly be called "Jefferson self-revealed."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> They +enable us at any rate to determine with a fair degree of +certainty the sentimental and intellectual preoccupations that +filled his mind when examining the problems of society and +the universe.</p> + +<p>It does not seem that, until 1764, that is to say until the +unfortunate ending of his love affair with Belinda, Jefferson +had ever been touched by any religious doubt. When, in July, +1763, he foresaw the possibility of being rejected, he wrote to +Page a long letter in which he appears still strongly marked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +by the Christian training he had received in his family and at +the hand of Mr. Douglas and the Reverend Mr. Maury:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to +be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has +very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, +is what I have steadfastly believed.</p> + +<p>The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently +meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; +and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and +misfortunes, should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of +our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect +resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does +happen, must happen; and that, by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent +the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after +it has fallen. These considerations, and such others as these, may +enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in +our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under this +burden of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, +till we arrive at our journey's end, when we may deliver up our +trust into the hands of him who gave it, and receive such reward as +to him shall seem proportioned to our merit. Such, dear Page, +will be the language of the man who considers his situation in life, +and such should be the language of every man who would wish +to render that situation as easy as the nature of it will admit. Few +things will disturb him at all: nothing will disturb him much.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p></div> + +<p>This note of Christian stoicism is exactly what might be expected +from a young Protestant whose mind was not particularly +perturbed by metaphysical problems. At that time +Jefferson did not even conceive that there might exist a code of +ethics resting on a different basis. If Doctor Small had helped +him to find his exact relation to "the system of things in which +we are placed", he was satisfied that complete resignation to +Divine Will was the only wisdom. It may be safely assumed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +that three years after meeting Governor Fauquier, Thomas +Jefferson had retained intact the faith of his youth.</p> + +<p>What brought a change in his attitude and disturbed his +equilibrium is certainly not the influence of the "infidel French +philosophers." The volume of extracts which I published under +the title of "The Literary Bible of Thomas Jefferson" does not +contain a single quotation from Voltaire, Diderot, or Rousseau, +and French literature is represented only by a few insignificant +lines from Racine. It is more likely that the first doubts were +injected into his mind by the reading of Bolingbroke. He did +not even need the assistance of Fauquier to lead him to the +English philosopher. The catalogues of the old libraries of +Virginia frequently mention Shaftesbury's "Characteristics" +and Bolingbroke's "Works."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>Whether it was from the town bookstore or from Fauquier's +own library, the fact remains that sometime, when still a student, +but certainly after 1764, Jefferson obtained a copy of +Bolingbroke and came to question the authenticity of the +Bible as a historical document. It may have been due to the +sentimental shock he had suffered, or simply to the critical +attitude developed in him by his study of legal texts and decisions, +but there is little doubt that he put into practice at +that time the advice he gave later to Peter Carr, when he told +him to "question with boldness the existence of a God; because, +if there be one, he must more approve of the homage +of reason, than that of blindfold fear. You will naturally +examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the +Bible, then, as you would read Livy or Tacitus."<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> He therefore +went systematically through Bolingbroke, learned from +him methods of historical criticism and scientific doubt, +weighed the evidence with a legal mind and came to very +definite conclusions. At this decisive turn in his life, Jeffer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>son +might easily have become a sceptic and a cynic, like so +many men of the eighteenth century. As a matter of fact, a +careful study of his "Literary Bible" indicates that at least +for a time he was extremely cynical in his attitude towards +women. This may have been due to the cruelty of Belinda, +but it was more than a passing mood, for as late as 1770, two +years before his marriage, he scribbled on the margin of his +account book a Latin doggerel clearly indicating his distrust +of the female kind:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Crede ratem ventis, animum ne crede puellis<br /> +Namque est foeminea tutior unda fide.<br /> +Foemina nulla bona est, sed si bona contigit ulla<br /> +Nescio quo fato mala facta bona est.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>From Euripides particularly he collected with a sort of waggish +pleasure the strongest denunciations of women in the old +poet and repeated with him "Mortals should beget children +from some other sources, and there should be no woman-kind: +thus there would be no ill for man"—and again, "O Zeus, +why hast thou established women, a curse deceiving men, in the +light of the sun?"</p> + +<p>In Milton he found an echo of Euripides' misogynism and +from "Paradise Lost" and "Samson Agonistes", he compiled +a pretty set of accusations against female usurpations. His +conclusion at that time was probably that of the old English +poet, and he affirmed his superiority over the treacherous sex +by repeating after him:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Therefore God's universal law<br /> +Gave to man despotic power<br /> +Over his female in due awe.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> +</p> + +<p>His outlook on life must have been very gloomy, if we are to +trust certain quotations from Greek and Latin authors. To +matters of mythology, descriptions of battles, and grandiose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +comparisons in Homer, Jefferson apparently paid no attention. +He saw in the old poet a repository of ancient wisdom and the +ancient philosophy of life. From him he collected verses in +which he found expressed views on human destiny,—a courageous, +stoic, yet disenchanted philosophy, summed up in two +lines from Pope's translation:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +To labour is the lot of man below<br /> +And when Jove gave us life, he gave us woe.<br /> +</p> + +<p>When he read from Cicero's "Tusculanae" he selected passages +with a view to confirm the deistic and materialistic principles +towards which he was leaning at the time: "All must +die; if only there should be an end to misery in death. What +is there agreeable in life, when we must reflect that, at some +time or other we must die." This particular piece of reasoning +seems to have struck Jefferson quite forcibly, for he repeated +it again and again fifty years later in his letters to John Adams: +"For if either the heart, or the blood, or the brains, is the soul, +then certainly the soul, being corporeal, must perish with the +rest of the body; if it is air, it will perhaps be dissolved; if it +is fire, it will be extinguished."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>It was then that he copied and evidently accepted the statement +of Bolingbroke that "it is not true that Christ revealed +an entire body of ethics, proved to be the law of nature."</p> + +<p>The "law of nature"—what was meant by the word? Was +it the Epicurean maxim of Horace,—"enjoy to-day and put as +little trust as possible in the morrow?" If such had been the +conclusion reached by Jefferson he could have followed the line +of least resistance and enjoyed the good things of life, the good +wines of the Raleigh Tavern, the pretty girls and all the social +dissipations of many of his contemporaries. Such would have +been Jefferson's destiny, had he been born in the Old World.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +Had he been made of weaker stuff he would have become one +of the fox-hunters, horse-racers and card-players of the Virginian +gentry. But he was saved by his aristocratic pride and +the stern teaching of the old Stoics.</p> + +<p>He was conscious that he was of good stock, and he had read +in Euripides that "to be of the noble born gives a peculiar distinction +clearly marked among men, and the noble name increases +in lustre in those who are worthy."<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>To be ever upright and to be worthy of one's good blood, +this was the simplest, most obvious and most imperious duty. +It would have been very difficult for Jefferson to believe any +longer that "at the end of the journey we shall deliver up our +trust into the hands of him who gave it and receive such reward +as to him shall seem proportionate to our merit", which was +his belief in 1763. There was not even much to obtain in our +life as a reward, for most societies are so organized that "whenever +a man is noble and zealous, he wins no higher prize than +baser men."<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Still the fact remained that, after the collapse +of all the religious superstructure, the foundations of morality +were left unshaken, so Jefferson undertook to rebuild his own +philosophy of life according to Bolingbroke's advice, with the +material at hand. For it was evident that "a system thus +collected from the writings of ancient heathen moralists, of +Tully and Seneca, of Epictetus, and others, would be more full, +more entire, more coherent, and more clearly deduced from +unquestionable principles of knowledge."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>But he would take nobody's word for it, he would accept the +teachings of no professor of moral philosophy; every man had +to think for himself and to formulate once for all his own philosophy. +When writing to his nephew, who he thought might +go through the same crisis, Jefferson declared some forty years +later that:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to +be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right +and wrong, merely relative to this. This sense is as much part of +his nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true +foundation of morality and not the TO KALON, truth, etc. as +fanciful writers have imagined. The moral sense, or conscience is +as much a part of man, as his leg or arm.</p></div> + +<p>But this is the Jefferson of 1808, the mature man, almost the +aged sage of Monticello. How far he was from having reached +that poise and that clear vision of the moral world, appears in +the confusion and contradictions of the abstracts collected in +the "Literary Bible." Yet when he read Homer, Euripides, +Cicero, Shakespeare, and even Buchanan, Jefferson had a clear +and single purpose. He was reading more for profit than for +pleasure, to gather material with which to build anew, by +himself and for himself, a moral shelter in which he could find +refuge for the rest of his days. He was not thinking then of +devoting his life to his country; if he had any patriotism, it +was dormant, and if he had any sense of abstract justice it is +nowhere manifest. And yet, quite in contrast with the general +run of quotations in the "Literary Bible" are some maxims +scribbled in one of his unpublished Memorandum books under +the year 1770. He had already levelled the top of the hill on +which he was to build Monticello and was digging the cellar. +But one day, after noting carefully that "4 good fellows, a lad +and two girls, of about 16 each, have dug in my cellar a place +in 8 hrs. ½, 3 feet deep, 8 feet wide and 16½ feet long," he stopped +to recapitulate the most striking maxims by which he intended +to regulate his life:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... no liberty no life—endure and abstain—<i>bonum est quod +honestum, macte virtute esto, nil desperandum, faber suae quisque +fortunae, fari quae sentiat</i>, what is, is right—<i>ex recto decus</i>—<i>ne cede +malis sed contra audientior ito</i>—long life, long health, long pleasure +and a friend—<i>non votum nobis sed patriae</i>—<i>fiat justitia ruat cœlum</i>.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>Clearly between the time he compiled his "Literary Bible" +and this entry in the Memorandum book, a considerable change +had taken place in Jefferson's mental world. What was dormant +had been awakened, what was non-existent had been +created. Let those who are looking for influences hunt for +pale reflections of these maxims in the writings of the French +philosophers. I cannot perceive any. I would even say that +there is no distinct influence of Bolingbroke, for Jefferson borrowed +from Bolingbroke methods of approaching certain problems +rather than definite ideas. The young Virginian made +use, for a short time only, of the critical reasoning employed by +the English philosopher, but when it came to building anew, +he gathered all the material, stone by stone and maxim by +maxim, from the old Greek Stoics. It was a pessimistic yet +courageous philosophy of life, far different from eighteenth-century +optimism. By a strange anomaly, the son of the pioneer, +the young man supposedly brought up under frontier +influence, felt more kinship with Greece and republican Rome +than with the philosophers of London, Paris or Geneva. During +this early period of his life and when he had rejected the +Christian system of ethics, the young Virginian found the moral +props he needed in Homer's simple code of honor and friendship; +in echoes from the Greek Stoics discovered in Cicero; +and through them also was revealed to him a conception of +patriotism and devotion to public duty which was to mold the +rest of his life.</p> + +<p>In the transformation that took place in Jefferson's attitude +towards life, it would be unjust to leave out the influence exerted +by Patrick Henry. The young student was present when +Henry delivered his famous speech in the House of Burgesses +in 1765 and ended the speech with the defiant declaration, +"If this be treason make the most of it." "He appeared to +me," wrote Jefferson, "to speak as Homer wrote; his talents +were great indeed, such as I never heard from any man." From<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +Henry he did not receive any particular political philosophy, +but from him he learned the value of those striking formulas +which remain in the memory of men, become mottoes and battle +cries of political campaigns. He liked the vehemence and +completeness of Henry's affirmation and when, in 1770, he +wrote in his memorandum that maxim of all revolutionists and +radicals of every age—<i>fiat justitia ruat cœlum</i>, let there be +justice, even if the heavens should crumble down—he was +thinking as much of the Virginia orator as of the Romans of +old.</p> + +<p>A last item in the same memorandum book of 1770 may +justify the supposition that still another influence had entered +Jefferson's life. By that time he had forgotten the fickle +Belinda who had played with his heart, but he was no longer +a woman-hater. When he quoted from Pope "the sleepy eye +that speaks to the melting soul", he was already thinking of the +young and attractive widow he was to marry two years later.</p> + +<p>In the meantime he had been pursuing assiduously his law +studies and his readings of political philosophers. Very early +after entering college, he had decided that he would not be satisfied +with the study of belles-lettres, or the life of a gentleman +managing a large country estate. The clergy and the law +were the only two professions open to a young man of distinctly +aristocratic tendencies. He chose the law and began +his training under the direction of Mr. Wythe. This training +was markedly different from the instruction he would have +received in Europe. There was no regularly organized law +school at Williamsburg; candidates for the Bar had to prepare +themselves under the direction of an old practitioner; they +attended the sessions of the court and prepared briefs for their +master; they studied by themselves and consequently were +much more familiar with the practice than with the theory +of jurisprudence. No examination was given by a regular +faculty; but a license to practice law and to hang out his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +shingle was obtained by the candidate after appearing before +a special board of examiners. In the case of Patrick +Henry, the examiners had been John Randolph, afterward +Attorney-general for the Colony, Peyton Randolph, Mr. Wythe +and perhaps Robert C. Nicholas. If Henry "got by" after +six months' study, thanks to his phenomenal fluency and +"aplomb", it took Jefferson six years before he considered +himself sufficiently prepared to appear before the examiners. +A large part of his time however was spent at Shadwell in +agricultural pursuits and independent study; but he came +regularly to Williamsburg to consult Mr. Wythe, to attend +the sessions of the Court, to buy books, and also to attend +during the winter the many functions given by the brilliant +society of the capital of Virginia. These years, the most +important of all in the formation of Jefferson's political theories, +can now be studied in the "Commonplace Book", long +thought destroyed, which even Randall had not been able +to find, but which is now safely deposited in the Library of +Congress. It is a most revealing compilation and throws +an unexpected light on the origin of Jefferson's political +doctrines.</p> + +<p>It contains first of all no less than five hundred fifty-six +articles analyzing special cases from the Reports of Cases in the +King's Bench, George Andrews, Robert Raymond, William +Salkeld and Coke's "Institutes", for in a colony where no attempt +had been made to codify the body of existing laws, and +where the common law was the supreme law of the land, the +first prerequisite to becoming a good lawyer was to assimilate an +enormous number of cases and precedents. Jefferson proceeded, +like all the law students of his time, to dig in "Coke upon Littleton" +and others, putting down in his "Commonplace Book" +decisions, discussions, definitions, matters of importance to a +country lawyer, such as wills, devises, commercial contracts, +cases on larceny, trespassing, debts, damages, bankruptcy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +leases, libels; and he did it with his customary thoroughness +and clarity. A detailed study of the "Commonplace Book" +would be most illuminating for those who, in spite of all evidence +to the contrary, still maintain that Jefferson was an impractical +philosopher, interested only in abstract principles +and in theory. On the other hand, he was not simply a country +lawyer, either. If he had not seemed to manifest any +interest in the abstract study of the principles of law, in what +he used to call "metaphysical disquisitions", he was keenly +interested in the historical development of the legal structure +on which rested modern society and particularly the colonial +society of Virginia.</p> + +<p>He carefully went through Lord Kames' "Historical Law +Tracts" and studied from him the history of criminal law, promises +and covenant, property, securities upon land, courts, briefs. +It is in Kames that he found a definition of society which he +could have written himself and which expresses his political +individualism and subordination to law:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mutual defence against a more powerful neighbor being in early +times the chief, or sole motive for joining society, individuals never +thought of surrendering any of their natural rights which could be +retained consistently with their great aim of mutual defence.</p></div> + +<p>This is elaborated upon in the passage quoted from the "History +of Property":</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Man, by his nature, is fitted for society, and society by its conveniences +is fitted for man. The perfection of human society +consists in that just degree of union among the individuals, which +to each reserves freedom and independency, as far as is consistent +with peace and good order. The bonds of society where every man +shall be bound to dedicate the whole of his industry to the common +interest would be of the strictest kind, but it would be unnatural +and uncomfortable, because destructive of liberty and independence; +so would be the enjoyment of the goods of fortune in common.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<p>I am perfectly aware of the undeniable influence of Locke +upon the theory of Kames; and it would be very unlikely that +Jefferson had not read at that date Locke's "Treatise on Civil +Government." The fact remains, however, that neither Locke, +nor so far as I know any political thinker of the period, had yet +so clearly defined that particular combination of individualism +and respect for peace and order so characteristic of American +democracy. We shall see in one of the following chapters how +Jefferson, elaborating on this statement of Kames, derived +from it all his conception of natural rights. The Scottish Lord +was for him a master and a guide.</p> + +<p>In Sir John Dalrymple, author of an "Essay Towards a General +History of Feudal Property", in Francis Stoughton Sullivan's +"An Historical Treatise of the Feudal Laws and the +Constitution of the Laws of England", Jefferson studied the +history of primogeniture and of entails and came to the conclusion +that both of them had foundation neither in nature nor +in law, and certainly did not appear in England before the Norman +Conquest. He reached to the same finding in his long +dissertation on the original common law, and thus we can trace +directly through the "Commonplace Book" the sources of the +Bill on Primogeniture, of the Bill for Religious Freedom, and of +the Law to Abolish Entails, which Jefferson considered as forming +a system "which would eradicate every fibre of ancient or +future aristocracy and lay a foundation for a government truly +republican."</p> + +<p>Some of the entries in the "Commonplace Book" were evidently +made after the period with which we are dealing in this +chapter, although most of them can be dated before 1776. We +have no means of determining whether Jefferson had undertaken +a systematic study of federative governments when he +was still a student, or at what time he copied the many +extracts and quotations from Montesquieu. Nor can we enter +here into a detailed discussion of all the articles. One or two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +facts, however, stand out even after a superficial glimpse of +this repertory of ideas on government and society. The first +is that Jefferson at that date, and indeed during most of his +life, was not interested in abstract principles or in theoretical +discussions. His was eminently the mind of a lawyer, and it is +not for a lawyer to arrive at a definition of justice but to determine +what the law says on a particular point. Yet in a country +where law is not codified and the common law is the basis of +the legal structure, it is impossible to find out what the law is +without undertaking a historical study of the cases at hand in the +different repertories. Men are either fallible or dishonest, false +interpretations creep in, texts are distorted from their original +meaning, and thus it becomes necessary to apply to legal decisions +the rules of historical evidence formulated by Bolingbroke.</p> + +<p>After undertaking such a study, Jefferson arrived at a very +curious conclusion; that at a time which was not buried in a +mythological past, the Anglo-Saxons had lived under customs +and unwritten laws based upon the natural rights of man and +permitting the individual to develop freely, normally and +happily. In the course of time, these free institutions deteriorated +through the nefarious influences of several agencies. Unwritten +law became written law and jurists succeeded in concealing +under their sophistry and verbiage the primitive intent +of natural legislation. Priests, striving to extend their domination +over a realm which primitively was foreign to them, +introduced religious prescriptions into civil laws and thus +diminished the rights of the individual. Conquerors and a long +lineage of hereditary kings further modified primitive institutions +in order to provide an apparently legal foundation for +their usurpations, until the people, no longer able to withstand +patiently the evils of tyranny, arose and recovered at least some +of their rights.</p> + +<p>Such a conspectus of the history of England was neither new +nor original; it was one of the favorite contentions of English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +jurists during the eighteenth century, and nowhere perhaps is +it more forcibly developed than in the last chapter of Blackstone's +"Commentaries", "Of the rise, progress and gradual +improvements of the laws of England." It is fundamentally +also the doctrine of Jefferson, who went much farther than any +of the English political thinkers in his revindication of the Saxon +liberties.</p> + +<p>One may see already how such a conception differs from the +theories of Rousseau and the French philosophers, and indeed +from those of the English philosophers. And this is easily +explained, even if too seldom realized. Born in the eighteenth +century, Jefferson is in some respects a man of the eighteenth +century, but no greater mistake could be made than to apply +to him the same standards that apply to European political +thinkers. The very fact that he was born and grew up in a +remote colony prevented him from joining any particular school +of political philosophy. He had comparatively few books at +his disposal, certainly fewer gazettes, and only faint echoes of +the philosophical battles raging in Europe reached the capital +of Virginia. During the long winter evenings at Shadwell, he +had ample time to think, to sift from the books he was reading, +not matter of passing interest, but matter of practical value +and principles susceptible of being applied to the society which +he knew and in which he lived. He could not have the cosmopolitan +and universal outlook of thinkers who had traveled +and met with representatives of many nationalities. His +"Literary Bible", as well as his "Commonplace Book", contains +many examples which might be used to illustrate his provincialism +or, if one prefers, his regionalism.</p> + +<p>No man can become genuinely interested in things he has +never seen and cannot imagine. He had never seen the English +countryside and so, when he copied from Thomson's description +of spring, he selected only passages that could apply +as well to the landscape of Virginia as to the scenery of old Eng<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>land. +Even when he read Horace he eliminated verses with +too much local color, unknown plants, unfamiliar dishes and +beverages, until the descriptions of a Roman farm by the old +poet would fit a typical Virginia plantation with the slaves +singing in the great courtyard after the day's work is done. +He knew Latin and Greek, French and Italian, and perhaps +even German; for the time and place his library was rich and +varied. He had read Milton, Shakespeare, Dryden, Buchanan, +Thomson, Thomas Moss; he had studied Kames, Pelloutier, +Stanyan, Eden, Baccaria, Montesquieu and possibly Voltaire's +"Essai sur les Moeurs", but from each of these he had culled +facts and definitions rather than principles and theories. He +had read some books of travel and listened with enjoyment to +Fauquier's accounts of his long voyages. He was dreaming of +visiting England, the continent and the Mediterranean, but +the only form of society he knew was the colonial society of +Virginia. No cosmopolitan tendencies would develop in such +surroundings. Superior as he was in intelligence and culture +to his fellow students and to the young gentry of Williamsburg, +Jefferson, at the age of twenty-five, was not yet an American; +he was distinctly a Virginian.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h2>A VIRGINIA LAWYER</h2> + + +<p>In 1767, Thomas Jefferson, then twenty-four years of age, +was "led into the practice of the law at the bar of the General +Court" by his friend and mentor, Mr. Wythe. He was the +owner of a substantial estate inherited from his father, and he +managed the family property of Shadwell, but he had already +formed plans for an establishment of his own and begun preparations +to build Monticello on the other side of the Rivanna. +The only future open to him seemed to be that of any young +Virginian of his social class. He occasionally joined them in +fox-hunting and attended the races, enjoyed a dance, a concert, +and a good play at the theater. The following year was particularly +brilliant at Williamsburg. The governor held stately +receptions and the Virginian Company of Comedians presented +a rich program: "The Constant Couple or a Trip to Jubilee", +a farce called "The Miller of Mansfield", "The Beggar's +Opera", "The Anatomist or Sham Doctor", besides the ordinary +plays of the repertory, were given during the spring and +summer of that year.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p>Jefferson had his share of all these social pleasures, together +with others, but there were also simpler and more austere occupations. +First of all he had to look after his plantation. +Agriculture, so long a haphazard and empirical affair, was making +great strides in Europe, particularly in England. Treatises +on the subject and special magazines were read eagerly in +Virginia; the choice of cultures, the improvement of seeds, the +introduction of new crops greatly concerned the minds of pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>gressive +planters like Colonel Washington and the young master +of Shadwell.</p> + +<p>The "Garden Books" kept by Jefferson and now published +only in part, reveal him as a forerunner of modern efficiency +engineers. Fences, walls, roads and bridges had to be built +on the 1900-acre estate left him by his father; trees had to be +planted and vegetables raised for the large family at Shadwell, +for the slaves and for the many travelers and visitors who continued +to drop in. If all the seeds planted in Jefferson's vegetable +garden and orchards did well, he must have had an extraordinary +variety of produce, considerably larger than is to +be found on the best appointed farms of to-day. For he was +not satisfied with the staple vegetables which appear on the +American table with clocklike regularity; he sowed "salsifia, +peppergrass, sorrel, salmon radishes, nasturtium, asparagus, all +sorts of lettuce, cresses, celery, strawberries, snap-beans, purple +beans, white beans, sugar beans, cucumbers, watermelons, +cherries, olive stones, raspberries, turnips", and—horrors!—garlic. +He was led into many such experiments by his neighbor +and friend Philip Mazzei, formerly of Tuscany and now of +Albemarle County, for many of the entries in the Garden Book +are in Italian and "<i>aglio de Terracina</i> (<i>vulgo</i> garlic), <i>radiocchio +di Pistoia</i> (succory or wild endive), <i>cavolo broccolo Francese +di Pisa, fragole Maggese</i> (May strawberries)" and dozens of +other imported varieties appear in his garden lists. Then there +were the horses, for, true to the Virginia tradition, Jefferson +kept no less than half a dozen blood mares of good pedigree. +Above all, the regular crops of wheat, corn and especially tobacco +had to be looked after; for tobacco was the only crop +that could be marketed for solid cash or sent to London to be +exchanged for books, furniture, fine clothes, musical instruments, +and the choice wines of Europe. As a practical farmer +Jefferson was rather successful, since during these early years +his land brought him an average return of two thousand dollars.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +This was ample for his needs. But his main resources were +procured from the practice of law.</p> + +<p>He kept a complete memorandum of all the cases in which he +appeared before the courts of Virginia and opposite each case +entered the fee received for his professional services.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> These +fees would seem very moderate to the least ambitious practitioner +of our days. In many cases no fee is mentioned at all, +and we are at liberty to suppose that Jefferson took some charity +cases, or that the defendants were not always scrupulous in +paying their bills. Yet, altogether, the total averaged close to +three thousand dollars a year, a nice fat addition to the income +from Shadwell and Monticello. Starting with one hundred +and fifteen cases in 1768, Jefferson was retained as attorney or +counsel in no less than four hundred thirty cases in 1771, and +it is no exaggeration to state that no day passed during the +twelve years he remained engaged in the practice of law without +his giving considerable time to his profession. The moderate +amount of these fees and the large number of cases indicate +the kind of practice in which Jefferson was employed. +Trespassing of cattle on a neighbor's field, destruction of fences, +robbery committed by a clerk, wills, administration of estates, +interest, quarrels between two goodwives, with a lively exchange +of actionable words, assault and battery, all the seamy, +sordid, petty side of life, constituted for these twelve years the +daily practice of Thomas Jefferson, an apprenticeship of life +and a training in the knowledge of human nature enjoyed by +very few abstract philosophers.</p> + +<p>In the old days of the bar, one of the earmarks of most lawyers +was a fluency of speech, unsurpassed except perhaps by the +ministers. But words never came easily to Jefferson, or in great +abundance. His voice, pleasant and modulated in ordinary +conversation, "sank in his throat", if raised higher, and became +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>husky. He was clearly a business lawyer, an office lawyer, +whose clear, precise, meticulous presentation of facts fitted +him particularly for appearing before a court of appeals like +the General Court, rather than for moving and emotionally +convincing a jury of twelve men good and true.</p> + +<p>His scorn for oratory, long sentences, images, apostrophes +may have been a case of sour grapes, for in his youth he admired +tremendously Patrick Henry. As we have seen, he was +wise enough not to aim higher than he could reach. Not only +did he never crave the fame of the popular orator, but, conscious +of his limitations, he always showed a real repugnance +to addressing a large assembly. Particularly brilliant in conversation, +he was destined to be a committee man, to win his +ends by the pen rather than by the silver tongue of the politician. +Yet if he had been fond of rhetoric, rhetoric would have +found its way into his writings, but no man of the period wrote +less figuratively, employed fewer artifices of style; metaphors, +comparisons were unknown to him. Ideas remained ideas and +were never clad in the flowing garments of mythology; facts +remained facts and never became allegories. Liberty never +appeared before his eyes and was never represented by him as a +goddess, and neither America nor Britannia were majestic figures +of heroic size that passed in his dreams. He was neither +emotional nor imaginative, yet his eyes were keen and quick to +note and establish distinctions between different varieties of +plants or animals. His mind was alert and always on the +lookout for new facts to add to his store of knowledge, after +proper cataloguing. Surely he was not the man to make startling +discoveries in the realm of natural history, or to propose +a new system of the universe, nor was he one to conceive, in a +moment of inspiration, a new political gospel and a new system +of society; when he took up the practice of law in Williamsburg, +the greatest future that destiny had in store for him, +promising as he was, seemed to become as upright and sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +a lawyer as Mr. Wythe, and a legal authority as good and +learned as Mr. Pendleton.</p> + +<p>He was admitted to the Bar in 1767, and two years later was +chosen as a member of the House of Burgesses and placed on the +committee appointed to draw up an answer to the Governor's +speech. His draft was rejected, however, and Colonel Nicholas' +address substituted.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> A few days later Governor Botetourt, +unable to endorse the spirited remonstrance to the King +on the subject of taxation, dissolved the Assembly.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The next day—wrote Jefferson—we met in the Apollo of the +Raleigh Tavern, formed ourselves into a voluntary convention, +drew up articles of association against the use of any merchandise +imported from Great Britain, signed and recommended them to the +people, repaired to our several counties, and were re-elected without +any other exception than of the very few who had declined to follow +our proceedings.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p></div> + +<p>A spirit of discontent was abroad and had spread throughout +the colonies, but it was neither disloyalty nor rebellion. +Easily satisfied with this gesture, which for many remained +a mere gesture, the Virginians paid little attention to public +affairs during the next two years. In the words of Jefferson +"nothing of particular excitement occurring for a considerable +time, our countrymen seemed to fall into a state of insensibility +and inaction." His private life was more eventful. The first +of February, 1770, the house at Shadwell in which he lived +with his mother, his brother and his unmarried sisters, was +burnt to the ground, and with it every paper he had and almost +every book.</p> + +<p>On reasonable estimate—he wrote to Page—I calculate the +<i>cost</i> of the books burned to have been £200 sterling. Would to God +it had been the money, then it had never cost me a sigh. To make +the loss more sensible, it fell principally on my books of Common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +law, of which I have but one left, at that time lent out. Of papers +too of every kind I am utterly destitute. All of these whether +public or private, of business or of amusement, have perished in the +flames.</p> + +<p>The disaster had not been quite so complete as Jefferson indicates. +His "Commonplace Book" was saved, his account +books, garden books and many memoranda and family papers +escaped the flames and were discovered again in 1851 at the +bottom of an old trunk.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Even as far as books were concerned, +the loss was not altogether irretrievable. Jefferson wrote at +once to Skipwith for a catalogue of books, sent orders to London, +and two years later he could proudly enter in a diary not +yet published that his library consisted on August 1, 1773, of +twelve hundred and fifty books, not including volumes of +music or "his books in Williamsburg." A very substantial +store of printed matter for the time.</p> + +<p>Another event of quite a different order took place in his life. +Jefferson had lost a home, but he was building another, soon to +be ready for occupancy, on the hill of Monticello, and he already +knew that the house would not be left long without a +mistress. On the third day of December, 1771, he filled out a +formal application for a marriage license in the court of Charles +City County and on the first of January he was married to +Martha Skelton, widow of Bathurst Skelton, and daughter of +John Wayles, then twenty-three years old. John Wayles of +"The Forest" was a lawyer with a large practice, a man of +worth if not of eminence, a boon companion welcomed in every +society, who had amassed quite a large fortune. His daughter +Martha, a true type of Virginia girl, of medium height and +well-formed figure, had been well educated and possessed all the +social accomplishments of the time. She danced gracefully, +played the harpsichord and the spinet, was well read and, above +all, was a very efficient housekeeper, for she knew how to man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>age +the slaves and care for them in their illnesses, knew how to +keep accounts and to arrange for a reception. If the family +tradition is true, she was receptive to music, for Jefferson had +won out over two rivals because of his talent on the violin and +his ability to sing duets. It was a <i>mariage de raison</i>, to be sure, +and two years later Jefferson noted with undisguised satisfaction +that, following the death of his father-in-law, the portion +that came to Martha was equal to his own patrimony and consequently +"doubled the ease of our circumstances." But it +was also a marriage of love, not without romantic color, with +a wedding trip from Charles City to Monticello through a +snowstorm, and a late arrival at night in the cold new house. +Jefferson did not take any of his friends into his confidence and +did not celebrate his connubial bliss; but at the very end of the +pages given to Milton in his "Literary Bible", as an afterthought +and a recantation from his misogynism, are found the +following lines copied, we may surmise, during his honeymoon:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles<br /> +Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems<br /> +Fair couple, linkt in happy league<br /> +Alone as they....<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> +</p> + +<p>Belinda had been forgotten, and the young woman-hater had +found his fair conqueror.</p> + +<p>But death again took its toll and cast its cloud over Monticello. +With Page, Dabney Carr, Jefferson's fellow student at +William and Mary, had been his closest friend. Carr, a frequent +visitor at Shadwell, had married in 1764 Jefferson's +sister Martha. Not a wealthy man, he was described by his +brother-in-law as living in a very small house, with a table, +half a dozen chairs, and one or two servants, but the happiest +man in the universe.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> He died when hardly thirty and Jefferson +had him buried beneath the shade of their favorite tree at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +Monticello under which they had so often read, dreamed and +discussed; and such was the origin of the little cemetery in +which Jefferson was to bury so many of his dear ones before he +joined them himself in his last sleep. For Carr he went to his +"Literary Bible", as he himself felt unable to write a fitting +tribute, and copied from Mallet's "Excursion" an inscription +to nail on the tree, by the grave of the friend "who of all men +living loved him most."</p> + +<p>Honored by the Royal Government and made by Botetourt +"Lieutenant of the County of Albemarle, and Chief Commander +of all His Majesty's Militia, Horse and Foot in the said +county of Albemarle"; honored also by his Alma Mater and +appointed by the President of William and Mary "Surveyor of +Albemarle County",<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> a member of the Assembly, one of the +richest landowners of his county, one of the most successful +lawyers of Virginia, happily married, busy with his estate, his +books, his violin, his law practice, Jefferson could look forward +to a long, quiet and moderate life, the ideal life of a farmer, a +gentleman and a scholar. For a man who took his duties seriously +it was by no means an existence of idleness, in nowise to +be compared with the life of an English gentleman farmer. +Every planter was to some extent a captain, and every plantation +was to a large extent self-sufficient and self-supporting. +In the case of Jefferson, who had recently increased his domain, +difficulties and new problems requiring inventiveness, resourcefulness +and ingenuity arose every day. Slaves had to be taught +new trades and trained, the wilderness had to be reclaimed. +Thus were developed qualities of leadership and qualities of +class pride. A young planter related to the best families of the +colony felt that he belonged to a ruling class, above which +could only exist the remote power of the British Parliament +and the majesty of the king represented by a governor who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +never really belonged, and who in spite of his exalted position, +always remained a stranger.</p> + +<p>An English tourist, Burnaby, traveling in Virginia in 1760, +had already noted signs of impatience and restlessness among +the colonists of Virginia. "They are haughty," he wrote, +"and jealous of their liberties; impatient of restraint and can +scarcely bear the thought of being controlled by superior power. +Many of them consider the Colonies as independent states, +not connected with Great Britain otherwise than by having the +same common King."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p>When the delegates from Virginia were sent to the first Continental +Congress, Silas Deane noted that "the Virginia, and +indeed all the Southern delegates appear like men of importance...they +are sociable, sensible, and spirited men. Not a milksop +among them."<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>They were aristocrats wont to give orders and resentful of +any interference; they were lords and almost supreme rulers +on their plantations; they were owners of many slaves and +they had been accustomed to call no man master; and Jefferson +was one of them.</p> + +<p>The change in the situation had come very abruptly. It is +not the purpose of this book to present an elaborate discussion +of the causes of the American Revolution, whether they were +economic or political or philosophical, or whether they were of +mixed motives, varying with each colony and in each colony +with every man, did not impel the colonies to revolt against +the mother country. I am aware of the present tendency to +attribute most of the agitation preceding the revolution to +purely economic causes; it must be remembered however, +that, if the ulterior motives of the promoters of the American +Revolution were selfish and interested, Jefferson was one of +those who were moved by entirely different considerations, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +were, as a matter of fact, most of the members of the First Continental +Congress.</p> + +<p>While life was still moving easily and happily in Virginia, +where in 1772 the theatrical season had been particularly +brilliant, things were coming to a head in New England. News +of the Bill closing the Port of Boston on the first of June, 1774, +reached the Virginia Assembly during the spring session; how +it was received had better be told in the words of Jefferson. As +so often happens in history at the decisive turn of events, the +leadership was taken by a very small group of men who made +up their minds at once, assumed responsibility and changed the +course of the ship of state. So far no strong protest had been +made by Virginia to the British Government. Dunmore was +far from being tyrannical; the order imposing duties on many +English products had been largely rescinded, except on tea, +but it may not be sacrilegious to state that the Virginia gentry +were more partial to French wines, Madeira and Nantes rum +than to the English national beverage. If Virginia had not +declared at that particular time her solidarity, if Jefferson and +his friends had not taken the right steps and found the right +words to "arouse the people from the lethargy into which they +had fallen", even New England steadfastness and stanchness +of heart would have been unequal to the task. It was on this +occasion, rather than on the Fourth of July, 1776, that the fate +of the British colonies of America was decided.</p> + +<p>According to Jefferson's own statement, leadership in these +subjects was no longer left to the old members of the Assembly, +but Patrick Henry, R. H. Lee, F. L. Lee, three or four other +members and he himself met in the library after agreeing that +they must take "an unequivocal stand in the line with Massachusetts." +They decided that the best means of calling the +seriousness of the situation to the attention of the public was +to appoint a day of general fasting and prayer, quite an unprecedented +measure in Virginia; but they rummaged in old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +books "for revolutionary precedents and forms of the Puritans", +and they finally "cooked up a resolution, somewhat +modernizing their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of June +on which the port-bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, +humiliation, and prayer, to implore Heaven to avert from us +the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of +our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King and Parliament +to moderation and justice."<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Clearly the day of fasting and +prayer did not appear to any of the members of the unofficial +committee as springing from a profound religious sentiment, +but they knew how strong over the people was the power of the +Church, and how impossible it was to unite them except by +giving a religious appearance to a purely political manifestation. +These young Virginia lawyers knew their people and +were not totally unacquainted with mass psychology; they +knew how to play the game of practical politics, despite their +high and disinterested ideal.</p> + +<p>The next day Governor Dunmore pronounced the usual +English remedy in such circumstances: the dissolution of the +Assembly. Once more the members met in the Apollo room, +and "they agreed to an association, and instructed the committee +of correspondence to propose to the corresponding committees +of the other colonies to appoint deputies to meet in +Congress at such place <i>annually</i> as would be convenient, to +direct, from time to time, the measures required by the general +interest."</p> + +<p>This passage in the "Autobiography" has led historians into +a spirited controversy as to whether the proposal to form a +Congress originated in Virginia or in Massachusetts, and +whether such a plan had not been discussed in Boston as early +as 1770. Whatever the case may be, the most important part +of the resolution passed in the Raleigh Tavern was not the establishment +of a coördinating organism; it was the declara<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>tion +recorded by Jefferson, "that an attack on any one colony +should be considered as an attack on the whole." This last +part was not a simple administrative provision, it was more +than a promise of a union; it was the constitution of a new +society, since according to Kames as quoted by Jefferson in his +"Commonplace Book" "mutual defence against a more powerful +neighbor is in early times the chief, or sole motive for joining +society."</p> + +<p>The deputies went back home and, on the first of June, met +the assemblies of the people "to perform ceremonies of the day +and to address to them discourses suited to the occasion. The +people met generally, with anxiety and alarm in their countenance, +and the effect of the day, through the whole colony was +like a shock of electricity, arousing every man and placing him +erect and solid on his centre."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> + +<p>As a result of the train of thought started by the meeting, +the freeholders of Albemarle County adopted on June 26 a +series of resolutions evidently written by Jefferson. Here for +the first time Jefferson declared that:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The inhabitants of the several States of British America are +subject to the laws which they adopted at their first settlement, and +to such others as have been since made by their respective Legislatures, +duly constituted and appointed with their own consent. +That no other Legislature whatever can rightly exercise authority +over them; and that these privileges they as the common rights +of mankind, confirmed by the political constitutions they have +respectively assumed, and also by several charters of compact from +the Crown.</p></div> + +<p>The originality of this theory cannot be determined without +comparison with the resolutions adopted a few days before by +the Assembly of Fairfax County presided over by Colonel +George Washington. These came from the pen of George +Mason and they stated with equal emphasis the contractual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +theory of the government of the British colonies. Whether +Jefferson knew them or not, the similarity with the views +expressed by the freeholders of Albemarle is most striking.</p> + +<p>The first article averred the principle also found in Jefferson's +"Commonplace Book" that "this colony and Dominion +of Virginia cannot be considered as a conquered country, and +as it was, that the present inhabitants are not of the conquered, +but of the conquerors." It added that:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Our ancestors, when they left their native land, and settled in +America, brought over with them, even if the same is not confirmed +by Charters, the civil constitution and form of Government of the +country they came from and were by the laws of nature and nations +entitled to all its privileges, immunities and advantages, which have +descended to us, their posterity, and ought of right to be as fully +enjoyed as if we had still continued with the realm of England.</p></div> + +<p>The second article enunciated the most essential and "fundamental +principle of government", that the people "could be +governed by no laws to which they had not given their consent +by Representatives freely chosen by themselves."</p> + +<p>The third article declared that the colonies had some duty +to fulfill towards the mother country and admitted that the +British Parliament might, "directed with wisdom and moderation", +take measures to regulate "American commerce", +although such action was in some degree repugnant to the +principles of the Constitution.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>Whether or not Jefferson had received the Fairfax resolutions +before writing the Albemarle declaration, this is the capital +difference between the two documents and the two doctrines. +On the one hand, George Mason accepted the theory +that the first settlers had brought over with them the civil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +constitution and form of government of the mother country, +and consequently admitted a permanent connection between +the colony and the metropolis. Jefferson, on the contrary, +asserted with great strength and clarity the complete independence +of the colonists from the British constitution. They +were subject to no laws except those they had freely adopted +when they had consented to a new compact and formed a new +society. He was perfectly justified when he declared in his +"Autobiography":</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Our other patriots, Randolph, the Lees, Nicholas, Pendleton, +stopped at the half-way house of John Dickinson, who admitted +that England had a right to regulate our commerce, and to lay +duties on it for the purpose of regulation, but not of raising revenue. +But for this ground there was no foundation in compact, in any +acknowledged principles of colonisation, nor in reason; expatriation +being a natural right, and acted on as such by all nations, in all +ages.</p></div> + +<p>This was really the core of the question. Jefferson had +reached that conclusion, not from following a certain line of +abstract reasoning, but after studying the history of the Greek +colonies in Stanyan, and the history of the Saxon settlement +of Great Britain in many authors, as may be seen in his "Commonplace +Book", and he was soon to reaffirm the doctrine of +expatriation as the fundamental principle on which rested all +the claims of the American colonies.</p> + +<p>The Virginia Convention was to meet at Williamsburg on +August 1, to select delegates to a General Congress of the colonies. +With all his books at hand, all his legal authorities, the +precious "Commonplace Book" and all the repertories he had +gathered in his library, Jefferson proceeded to draft a project +of instructions for the future delegates. He was taken ill on +his way to Williamsburg but forwarded the plan to Peyton +Randolph and Patrick Henry. Henry never mentioned it; +Randolph informed the convention that he had received such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +a paper from a member, prevented by sickness from offering it, +and laid it on the table for perusal. It was read generally by the +members, approved by many, though thought too bold for use +at that time; but they printed it in pamphlet form, under the +title of "A Summary View of the Rights of British America."</p> + +<p>In some respects it is a more original and more important +document than the Declaration of Independence itself. With +the detailed account of the grievances enumerated by Jefferson +we cannot deal here. A few points, however, deserve special +attention. The difficulties that had arisen between the colonies +and the home government had occasioned the publication of +many pamphlets dealing with the situation. Most of Jefferson's +predecessors, however, had attempted to define <i>in jure</i> +the rights of the British colonies. Thus George Mason had +made his "Extracts" from the Virginia charters, "with some +remarks on them" in 1773, and he had come to the conclusion +already given in the "Fairfax resolves", that "the ancestors of +the colonists when they had left their native land and settled +in America had brought with them, although not confirmed by +Charters, the civil government and form of government of the +country they came from."<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> But he had gone back no farther +in history and had not formulated the principles of the "constitution" +of England. Not so with Jefferson, who emphatically +denied that the colonists had anything to do with the +British constitution or with its form of government. He had +studied the history of the settlement of England in Molesworth, +in Pelloutier, in Sir William Temple, in Dalrymple, and +had come to the conclusion enunciated in the "Rights of British +America":</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>That our ancestors, before their emigration to America, were the +free inhabitants of the British Dominions in Europe, and possessed +a right which nature has given to all men of leaving the country +in which chance, not choice, had placed them, and of seeking out new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +habitations, and there establishing new societies, under such laws +and regulations as, to them, shall seem most likely to promote public +happiness.</p> + +<p>That their Saxon ancestors had, under this universal law, in like +manner, left their native wilds and woods in the North of Europe, +possessed themselves of the Island of Britain, then less charged +with inhabitants, and established there a system of laws which has +been so long the glory and protection of that country.</p></div> + +<p>On another and not less important point, Jefferson was indebted +to his "Commonplace Book." He had taken great +care to determine through historical and judicial authorities +the origin of land tenures in the kingdom of England and he +had found that in the good old Saxon times, "upon settling in +the countries which they subdued, the victorious army divided +the conquered lands. That portion which fell to every soldier +he seized as a recompense due to his valour, as a settlement acquired +by his own sword. He took possession of it as a freeman +in full property. He enjoyed it during his own life and +could dispose of it at pleasure, or transmit it as an inheritance +to his children." It was not until after the fifth century that +the king, because as general he was thought fittest to distribute +the conquered lands to each according to his merits, assumed to +himself and was quietly allowed the entire power of the partition +of lands. This abominable system however was not introduced +into England before the Norman Conquest, and thus was +spread the false notion that all lands belonged to the crown.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> +Against this last claim, which he believed to rest on a false +conception of history, Jefferson raises an emphatic protest. +Backed by his knowledge of the gradual encroachment of the +feudal system on the natural rights of his Anglo-Saxon ancestors, +he claimed for the American colonists the same rights as +belonged in the good old Anglo-Saxon days to those who had +acquired a settlement by their own sword.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is time for us to lay this matter before his Majesty, and to +declare, that he has no right to grant lands of himself. From the +nature and purpose of civil institutions, all the lands within the +limits, which any particular party has circumscribed around itself, +are assumed by that society, and subject to their allotment; this +may be done by themselves assembled collectively, or by their +legislature, to whom they may have delegated sovereign authority; +and, if they are alloted in neither of these ways, each individual of +the society, may appropriate to himself such lands as he finds vacant, +and occupancy will give him title.</p></div> + +<p>According to this theory, one of the mainstays of the doctrine +of Americanism, of which Jefferson made himself the advocate, +is the right of conquest. But here Jefferson would have +introduced a distinction borrowed from Lord Kames, for "the +northern nations who overran Europe fought not for glory or +dominion but for habitation" and invaded only countries which +were sparsely populated.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> Whether such a position was tenable +historically is quite another matter. The important point maintained +by Jefferson is that when the first settlers left Great +Britain for the shores of America, they were not colonists but +free agents. By the mere fact of expatriating themselves they +had severed all ties with the mother country, they had recovered +full possession of all their natural rights and were at liberty +to agree on a new social compact; they derived their rights of +property not from the king but from their occupancy of a new +and unsettled territory. All considered, this curious doctrine +was nothing but a sort of sublimation and legal justification of +the pioneer spirit.</p> + +<p>This historical and legal demonstration, in which Jefferson +had gone back to the very beginnings of Anglo-Saxon society, +transcended all contemporary discussions on the Rights of the +British Parliament. Jefferson was perfectly aware of its originality +and not a little proud of it. It was in his opinion</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>the only orthodox or tenable doctrine—that our emigration +from England to this country gave her no more rights over us, than +the emigration of the Danes and Saxons gave to the present authorities +of the mother country, over England. In this doctrine, however, +I have never been able to get any one to agree with me but +Mr. Wythe. He concurred in it from the first dawn of the question, +What was the political relation between us and England?</p></div> + +<p>Once the question was clearly put, Jefferson went at it with +the methods used by a lawyer to prove the title to a piece of +property. The first point to be settled was to determine who +was the legitimate owner of the territory occupied by the American +"colonists", the king or the colonists themselves; thus +presented, the question became very simple:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>For it is thought that no circumstance has occurred to distinguish +materially, the British from the Saxon emigration. America was +conquered, and her settlements made and firmly established, at the +expense of individuals, and not of the British public. Their own +blood was spilt in acquiring lands for their settlement, their own +fortunes expanded in making this settlement effectual. For themselves +they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for themselves +alone they have a right to hold.</p></div> + +<p>This was the keystone of Jefferson's social system at that +time. It is not unimportant to note that it was a doctrine that +could apply only to Anglo-Saxon colonies, more particularly +to American colonies, and not a doctrine susceptible of universal +application. Whether or not the principle might also +be advanced by other peoples or nations, Jefferson did not +state and did not care. His was not a mind to generalize and +to extend universally any given principle. For the present, at +least, he was satisfied to claim for the American settlers not +the rights of man, but the rights of their Saxon ancestors. His +position was legal and historical, not philosophical.</p> + +<p>It was also to some extent an aristocratic position. Since +the land was theirs by right of conquest, it almost necessarily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +ensued that only landowners, or to use the old colonial word, +freeholders, were entitled to the rights, privileges, and happiness +of self-government. The consequence was not expressed +but it was implied. The analogy with the doctrine of the +Physiocrats strikes one at first; but this analogy is only +superficial. True enough, only freeholders are really worth +considering and can raise a legitimate protest; but in a country +as new and as extensive as America, it is within the power of +every inhabitant to become a freeholder. For it is another +iniquity to suppose that the Crown has the right to give grants +of land:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is time for us to lay this matter before his Majesty, and to +declare, that he has no right to grant lands of himself. From the +nature and purpose of civil institutions, all the lands within the +limits, which any particular party has circumscribed around itself, +are assumed by that society, and subject to their allotment; this +may be done by themselves assembled collectively, or by their +legislature, to whom they may have delegated sovereign authority; +and, if they are alloted in neither of these ways, each individual of +the society may appropriate to himself such lands as he finds vacant, +and occupancy gives him title.</p></div> + +<p>Thus spoke the pioneer, a pioneer who had studied law and +history and could express in clear and forcible terms what the +pioneers had felt only confusedly. Unless I am much mistaken, +it is the first enunciation of one of the cardinal principles +of Americanism; but, as far as Jefferson is concerned, it did +not rest upon any political philosophy, either Hooker's or +Locke's. The American settlers resumed and resurrected on +a new soil the tradition interrupted by Parliamentary and +kingly usurpations. By a sort of curious primitivism they renounced +their immediate and degraded British forbears to claim +as their true ancestors the Saxon conquerors of the British Isles. +Can any one imagine anything farther from the theory of Rousseau +in the "Discourse on the Origin of Inequality", or in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +"Social Contract", anything farther from the universal humanitarianism +of the French philosophers? In a last analysis, +American society as it existed, and as it expressed its will to +exist through its young spokesman, rested essentially not on +an <i>a priori</i> principle but on the right of conquest, or more +exactly, of discovery.</p> + +<p>The best student of William and Mary, the young artist +who wanted to make Monticello a thing of beauty, the lover of +the literature of Greece and Rome, proclaimed loudly that +"our ancestors who migrated hither were laborers, not lawyers." +His was not a political philosophy dealing with "fictitious principles", +it was the harsh, hard-headed, practical and fierce determination +of the pioneer who stakes out a piece of land in the +wilderness, ready to hold it against all claim jumpers.</p> + +<p>The Virginia convention dominated by "Randolph, the +Lees, Nicholas, Pendleton" was not ready to go so far as the +young master of Monticello. The instructions to the delegates +finally adopted and printed in an appendix to Jefferson's own +"Autobiography" were exceedingly tame, but his declaration +was printed, widely circulated among the people, and even +reached England. It was just what was needed to set afire +the public mind, for no people will rise, fight and die for an +economic doctrine or in defense of its commercial interests. +They have to be provided with mottoes which appeal to their +imagination, they have to be raised above the ordinary trend +of things; they must have a banner, a flag and a battle cry, and +such was the object of Jefferson's peroration, which no Pendleton +and no Lee could have written:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>That these are our grievances, which we have just laid before his +Majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which +becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws +of nature, and not as the gift of their Chief Magistrate. Let those +flatter, who fear: it is not an American art. To give praise where +it is not due might be well from the venal, but it would ill beseem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know +and will, therefore, say, that Kings are the servants, not the proprietors +of the people.</p></div> + +<p>Congress assembled at Philadelphia on September 4, 1774, +under the presidency of Peyton Randolph of Virginia and adjourned +in October, not without a recommendation "to discountenance +every species of extravagance and dissipation, +especially all horse racing, all kinds of gaming, cock-fighting, +exhibitions of shows, plays and other diversions and entertainments."<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> +The colonies were girding their loins for the fight, +society life came to a standstill; the brilliant days of the little +capital of Virginia were over.</p> + +<p>When the counties organized committees of safety, Jefferson +was at the top of the list of appointees in his county. He +was again sent to the second convention of Virginia as representative +from Albemarle. The convention met in Richmond, +March 20, 1775, and it was then that Patrick Henry poured +out in a fierce outburst the famous speech ending with the war +cry of "Give me liberty or give me death." The resolution to +arm passed with a decided majority and a plan of defense was +adopted. Collisions threatened between the militia and the +regulars on several occasions. But when Lord North's "Conciliatory +Proposition" was received, Lord Dunmore convened +the House of Burgesses on the first of July to take it into consideration. +Peyton Randolph was then recalled from Congress +and Jefferson appointed to succeed him. He did not +leave, however, before an answer to the proposition had been +drafted. The Virginians did not close the door to a compromise, +but insisted that the final answer did not depend on them, +for they considered that they were "bound in honor as well as +interest, to share their general fate with their sister Colonies, +and should hold themselves base deserters of that Union to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +which they had acceeded, were they to agree to any measure +distinct and apart from them."</p> + +<p>A few days later Lord Dunmore left the city and took refuge +on board a man-of-war lying at York, declaring he had taken +this step for his safety. Jefferson departed from Williamsburg +for Philadelphia on the eleventh of June, 1775, and reached the +capital of Pennsylvania on the twentieth. The national rôle +of the young Virginia lawyer and landowner was about to begin.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BOOK_TWO" id="BOOK_TWO"></a>BOOK TWO</h2> + +<h1><i>Jefferson and the American Revolution</i></h1> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h2>THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE</h2> + + +<p>When Thomas Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia and took +lodgings with "Ben Randolph" on Chestnut Street, he was +only thirty-three years old, "the youngest member of Congress +but one." But he was already known as the author of the +"Summary View of the Rights of British America", he was +bringing with him Virginia's answer to Lord North's "Conciliatory +Proposition," and he had been appointed to succeed as +delegate the former President of Congress. Most of all he had +behind him, not only the first colony in population, but also, to +a large extent, all the Southern colonies, which were bound to +follow the course of Virginia.</p> + +<p>Unassuming and straightforward, he was at once welcomed +with open arms by the New England leaders, and years later +John Adams still remembered the first impression he made upon +him:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mr. Jefferson came into Congress in June 1775, and brought with +him a reputation for literature, science and a happy talent of composition.... +Though a silent member in Congress, he was so +prompt, frank, explicit and decisive upon committees and in conversation—not +even Samuel Adams was more so—that he soon +seized upon my heart.</p></div> + +<p>Five days later, he was placed on the committee appointed +to draw up a "Declaration of the Causes of Taking Up Arms." +Through deference for the authority of Dickinson, leader of the +conservative party, he withdrew a draft he had prepared and in +the final text he claimed as his only the last four paragraphs. +But these last paragraphs contained some of the sharply coined<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +sentences that impress themselves on the mind, the final expression +of so many ideas ever since repeated in political speeches +whenever an attempt is made to define America's ideal policies. +To a certain extent Jefferson, as well as most of his contemporaries, +may have been influenced by Thomas Paine, whose +"Common Sense", a pamphlet addressed to the inhabitants of +America, had taken the city by fire. For the first time the +colonists had been told that "the cause of America is in a great +measure the cause of all <i>Mankind</i>. Many circumstances, have +and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through +which the Principles of all lovers of mankind are affected and in +the event of which this affection is interested." It also contained +a rather vague plan for a confederation, a "Continental +charter", but Paine's pamphlet was essentially an eloquent +appeal to elemental feelings; it exalted the cause of the colonists +calling on them as the last defenders of oppressed liberty; it +had all the fire and passion of an evangelical message:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the +tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth. Every spot of the old world +is over-run with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted around +the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her.—Europe +regards her like a stranger; and England hath given her warning +to depart. O receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum +for mankind!</p></div> + +<p>But greatly as he admired Paine's eloquence, Jefferson did +not try to emulate it; impassioned as it was, his appeal to the +inhabitants of the British colonies sounded more like the summing-up +of a lawyer before the jury than an emotional sermon.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Our cause is just. Our union is perfect—our internal resources +are great.... We fight not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit +to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by +provoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of +offense. They boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet +proffer no milder condition than servitude or death.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus was the uniqueness of America's position emphasized +and called to the attention of her own people. Nor was it +forgotten that the country was particularly favored by God, +for it declared that:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instance of the Divine +towards us, that His providence would not permit us to be called +into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to our present +strength, had been previously exercised in warlike apparatus, and +possessed of the means of defending ourselves.</p></div> + +<p>Finally, Jefferson reiterated once more his favorite contention, +the theory which has become one of the fundamental +axioms of the doctrine of Americanism: that America did not +owe anything to the older civilization of Europe, and was a +self-made country:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In our native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birthright, +and which we ever enjoyed until the late violation of it; for +the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry +of our forefathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, +we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities +shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being +renewed shall be removed, and not before.</p></div> + +<p>Then came a perfunctory appeal to conciliation, and a final +religious note strictly nonsectarian; for of his religious faith +the young delegate had retained the form and the tone which +scarcely concealed his deism:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>With an humble confidence in the mercies of the supreme and +impartial Judge and Ruler of the Universe, we most devoutly implore +his divine goodness to conduct us happily through this great conflict, +to dispose our adversaries to reconciliation on reasonable terms, +and thereby to relieve the empire from the calamity of civil war.</p></div> + +<p>No wonder this "Declaration" was read amid thundering +huzzas in every market place and amid fervent prayers in +nearly every pulpit in the colonies. With an extraordinary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +"felicity of expression", with a unique sense of fitness, Jefferson +had struck every chord susceptible of response in every American +heart. He had drawn for the people an ideal picture of the +nation and themselves, he had portrayed them as they yearned +to be looked upon by posterity and the nations of the world: he +had formulated the creed of Americanism.</p> + +<p>Far more judicial in tone was the neat state paper prepared +by Jefferson to answer Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition." +The committee appointed consisted of Benjamin Franklin, +Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Richard H. Lee. The +youngest member of the committee was chosen to draw up the +document, the answer of the Virginia Assembly he had brought +with him having been approved. Not for nothing had Jefferson +attended the courts of justice of Albemarle County and Williamsburg +for more than ten years and listened to decisions from +the bench. The answer strives to be a cold, dispassionate +enumeration of facts, with its short paragraphs beginning: +"we are of opinion"—recalling the "Whereases" of legal +documents. But there is an undertone of indignation, cropping +up in every sentence, which belies the studied reserve. The +conclusion, one might call it a peroration, is a genuine specimen +of revolutionary eloquence:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>When it considers the great armaments with which they have +invaded us, and the circumstances of cruelty with which these have +commenced and prosecuted hostilities; when these things, we say, +are laid together and attentively considered, can the world be +deceived into an opinion that we are unreasonable? Or can it +hesitate to believe with us, that nothing but our own exertions may +defeat the ministerial sentence of death or abject submission?</p></div> + +<p>Truly Jefferson might have become a great orator had he +chosen to correct his handicap in speech and train his voice. +Historians who attribute much importance to racial traits and +inherited characteristics may believe that this was due to the +Welshman that reappeared in him at times; but the Welsh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +temperament was suppressed and checked by the puritanical +restraint of Mr. Small, Mr. Maury, the judicial reserve of Mr. +Wythe, the example of Mr. Peyton Randolph; and, carried +away as he was by Patrick Henry's oratory, Jefferson saw in +him impulsive and emotional qualities to be admired but to be +shunned. More than any of his contemporaries, however, he +was unconsciously influenced by reminiscences of speeches he +had read and memorized in Livy, Cicero and perhaps Demosthenes. +These sentences have a classical ring; his true models +were the Greek and Latin orators, and if a critical edition of +Jefferson's early papers were ever attempted, a careful investigation +could not fail to bring to light the classical sources of his +inspiration.</p> + +<p>The report was adopted on July 31, and Congress adjourned +the next day. Jefferson returned at once to Monticello, to +stay in Virginia until the opening of Congress. In spite of the +fiery tone of the answer to Lord North's proposition, it seems +that neither he nor any of his friends seriously entertained nor +even considered the possibility of the colonies separating entirely +from the mother country. War had already begun, but +it was a civil war. There still remained some hope that an +"everlasting avulsion from Great Britain would be avoided." +Yet it could be avoided only on one condition: that the British +Government should accept, without reservation or restriction, +the minimum terms of Congress. Jefferson then wrote to his +friend, John Randolph, who had decided to remove to +England:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I would rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly +limited, than on any nation upon earth, or than on no nation. +But I am one of those, too, who, rather than submit to the rights of +legislation for us, assumed by the British Parliament, and which late +experience has shown they will so cruelly exercise, would lend my +hand to sink the whole island in the ocean.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>The manuscript letter in the Library of Congress is not the +one that was used in the different editions of Jefferson's +"Works." It is a much corrected and written-over draft, containing +several passages which have disappeared in the published +text.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> It contained particularly a request to John +Randolph who was going to "the hub of literature", to buy +him "books of parliamentary learning." It also included a +request to Randolph to sell him his fine violin, to which +Randolph acceded, averring that "Tho we <i>may politically</i> +differ in sentiments, yet I see no reason, why <i>privately</i> we may +not cherish the same esteem for each other which formerly I +believe subsisted between us. We both of us seem to be steering +opposite courses: the success of either lies in the womb of +Time."<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> + +<p>Such letters are very significant, for they express better than +long dissertations the state of mind of the leading men of the +day. The question at issue was still a political question; it +was a question of internal politics on which men could differ +without necessarily becoming enemies or losing each other's +esteem and affection. Less than a year before the Declaration +of Independence, independence seemed to Jefferson the worst +possible solution, to be delayed and avoided if it were possible.</p> + +<p>Chosen again as delegate to Congress, but delayed by the +illness and death of his second child, Jefferson reached Philadelphia +on September 25, twenty days after the opening of the +session. He stayed only until the twenty-eighth of December, +and resumed his seat on May 13 of the following year. In the +meantime events were moving rapidly. Congress had been +advised of the king's refusal even to notice their second petition; +and Jefferson, writing a second time to John Randolph, +could declare:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Believe me, my dear sir, there is not in the British empire, a man +who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a +connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and +in this I think I speak the sentiment of America. We want neither +inducement nor power, to declare and assert a separation. It is will +alone which is wanting, and that is growing apace under the fostering +hand of our King.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p></div> + +<p>On the sixth of December, a declaration was adopted repudiating +allegiance to the king, and the British Constitution was +proclaimed "our best inheritance." Four days previously +Jefferson had drafted a declaration concerning Ethan Allen, +when news arrived of his being arrested and sent to Britain in +irons to be punished for pretended treason. For the first time +the delegate from Virginia referred to the British as "our +enemies" and called upon them to respect "the rights of +nations."</p> + +<p>At this juncture and shortly after being appointed on an +important committee, Jefferson abruptly left Congress and set +out for home. The reason for his sudden departure has never +been satisfactorily explained. It may have been due to news +of the bad health of his mother: she died on March 31, 1776, +and this is the only explanation that Randall could offer. It was +more probably due to his anxiety about the fate of his family. +Communications with Virginia were rare and difficult. He +wrote home regularly every week, but on October 31 he had not +yet received a word "from any mortal breathing", and on +November 7 he repeated:</p> + +<p>"I have never received the script of a pen from any mortal +in Virginia since I left it, nor been able by any inquiries I could +make to hear of my family. I had hoped that when Mrs. Byrd +came I could have heard something of them. The suspense +under which I am is too terrible to be endured. If anything +has happened, for God's sake let me know it!" Two weeks +later he urged his wife to keep herself "at a distance from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +Ld. Dunmore", and he was planning to meet Eppes "as +proposed."</p> + +<p>There seems to be very little doubt that he yielded to his +anxiety and to the entreaties of Eppes who seems to have urged +him to come back. He had left at Monticello a sick mother, +his sisters, a wife who had recently lost a child and had hardly +recovered from the blow, and he was in constant fear that a +raid from the British troops, who had already burnt Norfolk, +should endanger the lives of his dear ones. Furthermore he +believed that his presence in Philadelphia was not indispensable; +for he was never one who overrated himself. Finally, +a document overlooked by his biographers informs us that on +September 26, 1775, he had been appointed by the Committee +of Safety for the Colony of Virginia, Lieutenant and Commander +in chief of the Militia of the County of Albemarle.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> +In view of Lord Dunmore's impending attacks his presence was +evidently required to organize local forces. All these are +reasons enough to explain why he left Philadelphia. We do +not even know that he hesitated at all or experienced any +conflict of duties. National patriotism was still limited by +family duty, and local patriotism was stronger in him than +obligations to a country which did not yet exist.</p> + +<p>So it happened that the man who wrote the Declaration of +Independence was to miss many of the preliminary steps and +discussions that preceded it. He did not resume his seat in +Congress until May 14, 1776. Five days before, a resolution +framed by Adams and R. H. Lee had been adopted, instructing +the colonies to form governments. It was passed the +very day Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia. Not only had he +come back rather reluctantly, but he was anxious to return +to Virginia in order to participate in the work of the Colonial +Convention, as appears from his letter to Thomas Nelson, +Junior:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Should our Convention propose to establish now a form of +government, perhaps it might be agreeable to recall for a short +time their delegates. It is a work of the most interesting nature +and such as every individual would wish to have his voice in.... +But this I mention to you in confidence, as in our situation, a hint +to any other is too delicate however anxiously interesting the subject +is to our feelings.</p></div> + +<p>With all his attention turned towards the Old Dominion and +in his anxiety to participate in establishing a model form of +government for his "country", he then decided to send to +Pendleton, President of the Assembly, the draft of a proposed +constitution for Virginia, or rather, as he termed it, "A Bill for +new modelling the form of government and for establishing the +Fundamental principles of our future constitution."<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> This +is a capital document for the history of Jefferson's political +thought. For the first time he had the opportunity to develop +fully his views on society and government. How clear in his +mind were the theories of which he later became the advocate +will be easily perceived. The draft started with a recital of the +grievances of the colony against "George Guelph King of Great +Britain", which Jefferson was to utilize in the Declaration of +Independence. It declared that "The Legislative, Executive, +and Judiciary shall be forever separate" and continued with a +description of the three branches of government. For the +Legislative, Jefferson proposed a bicameral system, consisting +of a House of Representatives and a Senate. The House was +to be elected by "all male persons of full age and sane mind +having a freehold estate in (one fourth of an acre) of land in +any town or in 25 acres of land in the county and all persons +resident in the colony who shall have paid scot and lot to +government the last two years." The Senate was to be +appointed by the House of Representatives. The death +penalty was abolished for all crimes except murder and offences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +in the military service; torture was abolished in all cases whatsoever. +Some of these provisions were incorporated later in +the "Bill for Apportioning Crimes and Punishment." The +Administrator was to be appointed by the House of Representatives, +as well as the Attorney-general and the Privy Council. +Judges were to be appointed by the Administrator and Privy +Council; the High Sheriffs and Coroners of counties were to be +elected annually by the voters, but all other officers, civil and +military, to be appointed by the Administrator. The bill +proposed that "descents shall go according to the laws of +Gavelkind, save only that females shall have equal rights with +males."—"All persons shall have full and free liberty of +religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to support or +maintain any religious institution." "Printing presses shall +be free except so far as by commission of private injury cause +may be given of private action. There shall be no standing +army but in time of actual war." The introduction of slaves +into the State was forbidden. Finally provisions were made +for the revision of the Constitution.</p> + +<p>Truly most of the reforms advocated by Jefferson are already +contained in this document, not implicitly but explicitly: religious +freedom, freedom of the press, abolition of slavery, the +laws of descent and the bill to abolish entail, the "Bill for +Proportioning Crimes and Punishment" are all here. It was +a bold and radical proposal, and no wonder the young +delegate from Virginia was anxious to go home in order to +defend it before his colleagues of the Assembly. The delegates, +after much wrangling, had come to practical agreement +on the most important points. It was too late and they +were too "tired" of the subject to resume the discussion. +From Jefferson's plan they simply borrowed the long recital +of grievances which became the preamble to the Virginia +Constitution.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>As finally adopted, the Constitution was far less liberal than +the plan proposed by Jefferson, and this may explain his severe +criticism of it in his "Notes on Virginia" (Query XIII). It +embodied, however, some of the same essential principles; it +proclaimed the separation of powers and established two +Chambers. It retained the name of governor, redolent of the +English régime, instead of "administrator"; it made no mention +of slavery, entails, descents and freedom of the press, but +in some respects it was even more democratic than the Jefferson +plan since both houses were directly elected. In the meantime +things were coming to a head in Philadelphia, and on +June 7 certain resolutions concerning independence being +moved and adopted, it was</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Resolved</i>, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to +be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all +allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection +between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, +totally dissolved.</p> + +<p>That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures +for forming foreign Alliances.</p> + +<p>That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the +respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p></div> + +<p>On June 10, it was</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the consideration of the first resolution be postponed +to this day, three weeks (July 1), and in the meanwhile, that +no time be lost in case the Congress agree thereto, that a committee +be appointed to prepare a declaration to the effect of the said first +resolution.</p> + +<p>The next day it was resolved, That the committee to prepare the +declaration consist of five members: The members chosen, Mr. +[Thomas] Jefferson, Mr. J[ohn] Adams, Mr. [Benjamin] Franklin, +Mr. [Roger] Sherman, and Mr. R[obert] R. Livingston.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jefferson's biographers have indulged in a great many discussions +about the reasons which determined the selection of +the committee. Jefferson certainly did not seek the honor, and +little did he dream at the time that it would bring him such +fame. Without renewing the old controversy on the participation +of the other members of the committee in the drawing +up of the famous document, a few facts have to be considered. +First of all it was not an improvisation. The committee +appointed on June 10 reported only on June 28. A written +draft was submitted to Adams and Franklin, whose advice +could not be neglected, and they suggested several modifications, +additions and corrections. Furthermore, Jefferson was +too good a harmonizer not to discuss many points with his +colleagues of the committee, so as to ascertain their views before +writing down the first draft. Even the desirability of having +a declaration was a highly controversial question, and Jefferson +himself, in the detailed notes he took of the preliminary discussion, +indicates that when the committee was appointed +"the colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware +and South Carolina were not yet matured for falling from +the parent stem."<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p> + +<p>On June 28, the committee appointed to prepare a declaration +brought in a draft which was read and "<i>Ordered</i> to lie on +the table." On July 2, Congress resumed the consideration of +the resolution agreed to by and reported from the committee +of the whole; and the same being read, was agreed to as +follows.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Resolved</i>, That these United Colonies are, and, of right, ought to +be Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from +allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between +them, and the state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, +totally dissolved.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>Properly speaking this is, as Mr. Becker has remarked, the +real Declaration of Independence. But the principle once +adopted, it remained to proclaim and explain the action taken +by Congress not only to the people of the Free and Independent +States, but to the world at large. Congress then resolved itself +into a committee of the whole, only to decide that it was too +late in the day to take up such a momentous question. The +discussion continued on the next day but Harrison reported +that the committee, not having finished, desired leave to sit +again. On July 4, Congress resolved itself into a committee +of the whole to take into further consideration the Declaration; +and after some time, the president resumed the chair. "Mr. +(Benjamin) Harrison reported, that the committee of the +whole Congress have agreed to a Declaration, which he delivered +in. The Declaration being again read, was agreed to." Congress +then ordered that the Declaration be authenticated and +printed, and the committee appointed to prepare the Declaration +"to superintend and correct the press."</p> + +<p>Such is briefly told from the "Journals of Congress" the +story of the momentous document in its external details. It +has been too well related by Mr. Becker and Mr. Fitzpatrick to +leave any excuse for a new account. Writing many years +later, John Adams declared "there is not an idea in it but what +had been hackneyed in Congress two years before," and replying +to Adams' insinuations, Jefferson admitted that:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Pickering's observations, and Mr. Adams' in addition, that it +contained no new ideas, that it is a commonplace compilation, its +sentiments hacknied in Congress for two years before ... may be +all true. Of that I am not judge. Richard H. Lee charged it as +copied from Locke's treatise on Government ... I only know +that I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it. I did +not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether +and to offer no sentiment which had never been expressed +before.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>In another letter to Lee, written in 1825, a year before his +death, Jefferson had given, as his last and final statement on +the subject:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before +thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said +before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the +subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent.... +Neither aiming at originality of principles or sentiments, nor yet +copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended +to be an expression of the American mind.... All its authority +rests on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed +in conversation, in letters, printed essays, on the elementary books +of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.</p></div> + +<p>Two phrases in this letter deserve particular notice, "an +expression of the American mind" and "the harmonizing sentiments +of the day." This is truly what Jefferson had attempted +to express in his "felicitous language"—the confused yearnings, +the inarticulate aspirations, the indefinite ideals of the +speechless and awkward masses. He did it in words so simple +that no man could fail to understand it, in sentences so well +balanced and so rhythmic that no artist in style could improve +upon them. The Declaration of Independence is not only a +historical document, it is the first and to this day the most +outstanding monument in American literature. It does not +follow, however, that Jefferson had no model. Mr. Becker in +his masterly study has demonstrated that it was the final development +of a whole current of thought, the origins of which can +be traced back in history even farther than he has done. The +Declaration of Independence is essentially of Lockian origin, +but it does not ensue that Jefferson had memorized Locke, nor +even that he was conscious, when he wrote the document, that +he was using a Lockian phraseology. As a matter of fact, even +if he remembered Locke, it is more than probable that reminiscences +from two other more modern expressions of the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +idea haunted his mind. The first was a pamphlet of James +Wilson, written in 1770, published in Philadelphia in 1774 and +entitled "Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the +Legislative Authority of the British Parliament." Mr. Becker +has pointed out the similarity between a passage in Wilson and +the preamble. Since then I have found that, in his "Commonplace +Book", Jefferson copied passages from Wilson's pamphlet, +although for reasons which I could not determine he omitted +the very passage which presents the most striking resemblance:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>All men are, by nature, equal and free: No one has a right to +any authority over another without his consent: All lawful government +is founded on the consent of those who are subject to it: +Such consent was given with a view to ensure and to increase the +happiness of the governed above what they could enjoy in an independent +and unconnected state of nature. The consequence is, that +the happiness of the society is the First law of every government.</p></div> + +<p>A Lockian theory to be sure, but Wilson in the footnote to +this paragraph quoted Burlamaqui to the effect that "This +right of sovereignty is that of commanding finally but in order +to procure real felicity; for if this end is not obtained, sovereignty +ceases to be legitimate authority." But this is not all! +The Declaration of Rights of 1774 ("Journal of Congress", I, +373) stated in somewhat similar terms the rights of the inhabitants +of the English colonies. Finally the "Virginia Bill of +Rights" written by George Mason, adopted by the Virginia +Assembly on June 12 and necessarily forwarded to the delegates +in Congress, contained articles resembling more closely those of +the Declaration of Independence:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and +have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state +of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive their posterity; +namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring +and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness +and safety.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>II. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from +the people; that Magistrates are their trustees and servants, and +at all times amenable to them.</p> + +<p>III. That government is or ought to be, instituted for the common +benefit, protection and security of the people, nation, or +community; of all the various modes and forms of government, +that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of +happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the +danger of mal-administration; and that when any government +shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority +of the community has the undubitable, unalienable right, to reform, +alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive +to the public weal.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p></div> + +<p>This time it is no longer a question of analogy, or similarity +of thought—the very words are identical, "Unalienable +rights" is the expression which finally replaced "undeniable" +in the final form—and "pursuing and obtaining happiness" +has become the well-known "pursuit of happiness." Does it +mean that Jefferson should be accused of plagiarism? Not in +the least, since, as the French author said, "<i>l'arrangement est +nouveau</i>", and, in a work of art, "<i>l'arrangement</i>" constitutes +true originality, according to the formula of the classical +school. Furthermore, it was clearly Jefferson's rôle and +duty as a delegate from Virginia to incorporate in the +Declaration as much as he could of the "Bill of Rights" +recently adopted by his native dominion. The only fault +that could be found is that he did not more clearly acknowledge +his indebtedness to George Mason. But his contemporaries, +and particularly the Virginians, could not fail to +recognize in the national document the spirit and expression +of the State document. Jefferson had expressed the American +mind but he had above all expressed the mind of his fellow +Virginians.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>Whether the doctrine enunciated in the Declaration of Independence +is founded in fact and is beyond question "undeniable", +is a problem which cannot even be touched upon here. +We cannot dismiss it, however, without mentioning a feature +which seems to have escaped most American students of political +philosophy, probably because it has become such an integral +part of American life that it is not even noticed. I do not +believe that any other State paper in any nation had ever proclaimed +so emphatically and with such finality that one of the +essential functions of government is to make man happy, or +that one of his essential natural rights is "the pursuit of happiness." +This was more than a new principle of government, +it was a new principle of life which was thus proposed and +officially indorsed. The most that could be asked from governments +of the Old World was to promote virtue and to maintain +justice; honor, "<i>amor patriae</i>" and fear were the essential +principles on which rested the governments described by +Montesquieu. But in spite of the eternal and unquenchable +thirst for happiness in the heart of every man, what European, +what Frenchman particularly, could openly and officially maintain +that the "pursuit of happiness" was a right, and that +happiness could be reached and truly enjoyed. This quest of +happiness had been the main preoccupation of French philosophers +during the eighteenth century, but in spite of their +philosophical optimism, they were too thoroughly imbued with +pessimism ever to think that it was possible to be happy; +the most they could hope for was to become less unhappy. The +whole Christian civilization had been built on the idea that +happiness is neither desirable nor obtainable in this vale of +tears and affliction, but as a compensation Christianity offered +eternal life and eternal bliss. The Declaration of Independence, +on the contrary, placed human life on a new axis by maintaining +that happiness is a natural right of the individual and the +whole end of government. To be sure, the idea was not original<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +with Jefferson, it had been mentioned more than once in official +or semi-official documents, it was in James Wilson, as in the +Bill of Rights, but I cannot quite conceive that such a formula +could have originated in New England. I cannot conceive +either that it could have been proclaimed at that date anywhere +except in a new country where the pioneer spirit dominated, +where men felt that they could live without being +crowded or hampered by fierce competition, traditions, and +iron-bound social laws.</p> + +<p>In his plan for a <i>Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen</i>, +Lafayette some twelve years later included "<i>la recherche du +bonheur</i>", in memory of the American Declaration of Independence, +but "<i>la recherche du bonheur</i>" disappeared in the +committee and was never mentioned again in any of the three +Declarations of the French Revolution. The nearest approach +to it is found in the first article of the Declaration of June 23, +1793; but it simply states that the aim of society is common +happiness—and this is quite a different idea. Whether it was +right or not, Jefferson, when he reproduced the terms used by +George Mason in the Virginia Bill of Rights, gave currency to +an expression which was to influence deeply and even to mold +American life.</p> + +<p>In that sense, it may be said that the Declaration of Independence +represents the highest achievement of eighteenth-century +philosophy, but of one aspect of that philosophy that +could not develop fully in Europe. Trees that are transplanted +sometimes thrive better under new skies than in their native +habitat and may reach proportions wholly unforeseen.</p> + +<p>Thus the Declaration of Independence written to express +the sentiments of the day probably shaped the American mind +in an unexpected manner. It was essentially a popular document +planned to impress the masses, to place before the young +nation at its birth a certain ideal and a certain political faith, +but it was also a legal and judicial document intended to make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +more precise the reasons why the united American colonies had +finally resolved to separate from the mother country.</p> + +<p>For this part of the Declaration Jefferson drew largely from +the "Constitution" he had drafted for Virginia and sent to +Randolph by Mr. Wythe. He was his own source—the more +so as he substantially repeated many of the grievances enumerated +two years earlier in the "Rights of British America." But +here again he markedly improved the first version, which was a +monotonous recital of dry facts, starting with a legal "Whereas" +and beginning each article with a clumsy participle. "By +denying his Governor permission:... By refusing to pass +certain other laws ... By dissolving Legislative Assemblies," +became in the Declaration the dramatic presentation of facts +by a prosecuting attorney and not the summing-up of a case by +a judge. But the final renunciation of the mother country has +an unsurpassed dignity, a finality more terrible in its lofty and +dispassionate tone than any curse:</p> + +<p>"We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which +denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest +of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends." There again +one is reminded of the well-known French formula: "<i>beau +comme l'antique</i>." Twice in its history the supposedly young +and uncultured people had the rare fortune to find spokesmen +who, without effort and laborious preparation, reached the +utmost heights. The Declaration of Independence, with its +solemn renunciation of ties of consanguinity, reminds one of +the tone of the Greek tragedy; while the only parallel to the +Gettysburg address is the oration pronounced by Pericles over +the warriors who had laid down their lives during the first war +of Peloponnesus.</p> + +<p>Such heights can only be reached if the author is moved to +his innermost depths. Singularly unimaginative in ordinary +circumstances, for once in his life Jefferson was superior to +himself: the student of Greece, the refined Virginian, became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +truly the voice of the people. But great effects often have +small causes. We may wonder if he would have spoken +with that same suppressed emotion, fiercely burning and +yet controlled, if at that very time he had not been +laboring under an emotional stress that never recurred in +his life.</p> + +<p>While he was in Philadelphia, writing the first draft in which +he opened to the people of America "the road to glory and +happiness", he could well wonder whether his personal +happiness was not about to be destroyed.—His mother had +recently died, he had just lost a child and had left in Monticello +a beloved companion dangerously ill. "Every letter brings me +such an account of the state of her health, that it is with great +pain I can stay here," he wrote to Page (July 20, 1776), and for +those who knew how reserved he was in the expression of personal +feelings, the restraint in his expression hardly conceals +the anxiety and distress by which he was torn.</p> + +<p>There were also other reasons for his desiring to go home. +Jefferson had always understood that as a delegate to Congress +his duty was not so much to make a record for himself as to +voice the <i>sentiments of the people he represented and to carry out +their instructions</i>.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> He was much worried about his standing +with the Virginia Convention and suspected that some members +were trying to knife him in the back. The Convention had just +proceeded to elect delegates for the next Congress. Harrison +and Braxton had failed to be reappointed, and Jefferson was +"next to the lag."—"It is a painful situation," he wrote to +William Fleming, on July first, "to be 300 miles from one's +county, and thereby opened to secret assassination without a +possibility of self-defence."<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> + +<p>A week later, he wrote to Edmund Pendleton to decline his +new appointment as a delegate to Congress:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I am sorry that the situation of my domestic affairs, renders it +indispensably necessary that I should solicit the substitution of +some other person here in my room. The delicacy of the House will +not require me to enter minutely into the private causes which +render this necessary. I trust they will be satisfied. I would not +urge it again, were it not unavoidable.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p></div> + +<p>On July 8 he announced to R. H. Lee that he would return +to Virginia after the eleventh of August. It was not until +September 2 that, his successor having arrived, he considered +himself as free to go. His final reason, possibly not the least +important, is given by Jefferson himself in his "Autobiography":</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Our delegation had been renewed for the ensuing year, commencing +August 11; but the new government was now organized, +a meeting of the legislature was to be held in October, and I had +been elected a member by my county. I knew that our legislation, +under the regal government, had many vicious points which urgently +required reformation, and I thought I could be of more use in forwarding +that work. I therefore retired from my seat in Congress on +the 2d of September, resigned it and took my place in the Legislature +of my State, on the 7th of October.</p></div> + +<p>"My state," wrote Jefferson in 1818, but in his letters to +William Fleming he was speaking of Virginia as his "country", +and at that time constantly referred to the colonies and not +the United States.</p> + +<p>The necessity of some sort of a union or confederacy had been +keenly realized for a long time, but the ways and means were far +from receiving unanimous support. As a matter of fact, union +had been obtained just on the point of secession, or as Jefferson +had it "avulsion from Great Britain"; but the consciousness of +solidarity, the community of ideals and interests which constitute +an essential part of patriotism hardly existed at that +date. Thus the man who had just been the voice of America +probably felt himself more of a Virginian than of an American,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +for local patriotism was very strong, while national patriotism +was still in a larval stage. Curiously enough the independence +of the <i>United States</i> had been proclaimed before the Articles of +Confederation, which really constituted the United States, had +been adopted or even reported. When they were drafted the +name "colonies" was used and this was not changed to "states" +until the second printing.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> The only official bond that united +the colonies was loyalty to the Crown. That bond once severed, +each of them became a separate unit and returned to a sort of +"state of nature." For a student of government this was the +most fascinating situation that could be devised, since he was +going to witness the actual formation of a new society and the +signing of a social compact. Jefferson attended all the meetings +of Congress in which the Articles of Confederation were discussed, +without actively participating in the debates. He took +copious notes and inserted them in his "Autobiography" but +for reasons presently to be seen, he refrained from expressing his +own opinion on the matter. Only when he was back in Virginia +could he collect his ideas and formulate to his own satisfaction a +theory on the formation of society. He then sat at his table +and sent to a friend his reflections on the debates he had just +attended. I had the good fortune to discover this document +in the Library of Congress. It is of such importance that it +must be given here in full.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 60%;"> +<img src="images/pic080b.jpg" width="100%" alt="A PAGE OF JEFFERSON'S REFLECTIONS ON THE +ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION" title="" /><br /> +<span class="caption">A PAGE OF JEFFERSON'S REFLECTIONS ON THE +ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION<br /> +<br /> +<i>From the manuscript in the possession of the Library of Congress</i></span> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>After I got home, being alone and wanting amusement I sat down +to explain to myself (for there is such a thing) my Ideas of natural +and civil rights and the distinction between them—I send them to +you to see how nearly we agree.</p> + +<p>Suppose 20 persons, strangers to each other, to meet in a country +not before inhabited. Each would be a sovereign in his own natural +right. His will would be his Law,—but his power, in many cases, +inadequate to his right, and the consequence would be that each +might be exposed, not only to each other but to the other nineteen.</p></div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It would then occur to them that their condition would be much +improved, if a way could be devised to exchange that quantity of +danger into so much protection, so that each individual should +possess the strength of the whole number. As all their rights, in the +first case are natural rights, and the exercise of those rights supported +only by their own natural individual power, they would +begin by distinguishing between these rights they could individually +exercise fully and perfectly and those they could not.</p> + +<p>Of the first kind are the rights of thinking, speaking, forming and +giving opinions, and perhaps all those which can be fully exercised by +the individual without the aid of exterior assistance—or in other +words, rights of personal competency—Of the second kind are +those of personal protection of acquiring and possessing property, in +the exercise of which the individual natural power is less than the +natural right.</p> + +<p>Having drawn this line they agree to retain individually the first +Class of Rights or those of personal Competency; and to detach +from their personal possession the second Class, or those of defective +power and to accept in lieu thereof a right to the whole power +produced by a condensation of all the parts. These I conceive to +be civil rights or rights of Compact, and are distinguishable from +Natural rights, because in the one we act wholly in our own person, +in the other we agree not to do so, but act under the guarantee of +society.</p> + +<p>It therefore follows that the more of those imperfect natural +rights, or rights of imperfect power we give up and thus exchange +the more securely we possess, and as the word liberty is often +mistakenly put for security M<sup>r</sup> Wilson has confused his Argument +by confounding the terms.</p> + +<p>But it does not follow that the more natural rights of <i>every kind</i> we +resign the more securely we possess,—because if we resign those of +the first class we may suffer much by the exchange, for where the +right and the power are equal with each other in the individual +naturally they ought to rest there.</p> + +<p>M<sup>r</sup> Wilson must have some allusion to this distinction or his +position would be subject to the inference you draw from it.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>I consider the individual sovereignty of the States retained under +the Act of Confederation to be of the second Class of rights. It +becomes dangerous because it is defective in the power necessary to +support it. It answers the pride and purpose of a few men in each +state—but the State collectively is injured by it.</p></div> + +<p>Unless I am much mistaken we have here the key to the whole +democratic system of government evolved by Jefferson and the +solution of the apparent contradictions often pointed out in his +system. Starting from the hypothesis of Hobbes that in a +state of nature men are free agents and have no other law but +their own will, Jefferson attributes to the surrounding dangers +the urge to form some sort of a society, a theory also found in +Locke. But what follows is more original: in forming a social +compact, men do not abdicate all their sovereignty as in the +hypothesis of Rousseau; they do not even abdicate a certain +portion of all their rights. On the contrary, they reserve entire +a certain class of rights, all those they can exercise fully without +the aid of exterior assistance, and they exchange for more +security those they cannot exercise themselves. Thus the social +compact is no longer a <i>pactum subjectionis</i>. It is no longer +a question of deciding whether in a society the individual +or the society are sovereign, since both are sovereign in their +respective domains. How far Jefferson was from being a +demagogue is clearly indicated by the sentence in which he +refers to James Wilson. Liberty, except liberty of speech and +thought, cannot be unlimited and unrestricted in any society; +it is a matter of bargain and exchange. Thus Jefferson +proposed a definition of liberty entirely different from the +French conception as found in Rousseau and reproduced in the +"Déclaration des droits de l'homme" of May 29, 1793: "<i>La +liberté consiste à pouvoir faire tout ce qui ne nuit pas à autrui.</i>" +With him, on the contrary, liberty consists in the free enjoyment +of our will except in certain specific cases, to be enumerated +at the time we form a social compact. Hence the neces<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>sity +of a Bill of Rights, in which the individual accepts certain +limitations in order to obtain a corresponding amount of security, +and specifically denominates those of his natural rights he +means to keep integrally and wholly.</p> + +<p>This explains clearly why Jefferson, who is represented as +the champion of State rights, not only accepted the abridgment +of State sovereignty but declared that the retention by the +States of certain rights was dangerous and illogical. One of the +first cases arises when dealing with foreign nations. Here the +individual State is clearly unable to protect itself against foreign +aggressions and foreign encroachments, and foreign policies +must properly be placed in the hands of the Federal Government. +This applies not only to questions of protection, but to +questions of commerce, and for two reasons, both of them +practical and not theoretical. Commerce is one of the great +causes of war. In order to protect the confederation the government +has the right to levy taxes, and the most convenient +form is that of imposts or taxes on importations. Secondly, the +Federal Government is evidently in a better situation than the +individual States for obtaining favorable treatment of their +commerce by foreign nations. Hence the insistence of Jefferson +throughout his life on the prerogatives of the Federal Government +in all matters referring to foreign policies, and his reiterated +declarations in favor of State rights.</p> + +<p>Incidentally, this document explains two otherwise unexplainable +incidents in Jefferson's career.</p> + +<p>The Declaration on Violation of Rights adopted by the First +Continental Congress had specified the rights of the inhabitants +of the British colonies:</p> + +<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That they are entitled to life, liberty, & property, +and they have never ceded to any sovereign power whatever, a +right to dispose of either without their consent."<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> The Virginia +Bill of Rights had similarly declared that among the inhe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>rent +natural rights was the means of acquiring and possessing +property.</p> + +<p>Now, in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, +which follows so closely the Bill of Rights, the word "property" +does not appear, while the other rights are reasserted.</p> + +<p>Nor was this an unintentional omission, for when Lafayette +submitted to Jefferson his "Déclaration des droits de l'homme", +Jefferson put in brackets the words "droit à la propriété", thus +suggesting their elimination from the list of natural rights.</p> + +<p>Yet he was not in any way a communist, and it would be a +serious error to see in that systematic omission the influence of +Rousseau's "Discours sur l'Origine de l'Inégalité." The fact +is that, with his mind accustomed to draw fine legal distinctions, +he had come to the conclusion that the right of possessing and +acquiring property had to be protected by society in order to be +enjoyed securely. It is one of those rights which are at the +same time abridged and made more secure by society, since in +any society it may be found necessary to levy taxes on the +property of any citizen and even to condemn his property in +the interests of the community.</p> + +<p>Such a philosophy of natural rights had never before been +expressed by any political philosopher I have been able to refer +to, with one possible exception. While Locke had said that one +divests oneself of his liberty in assuming the bonds of civil +society—while Rousseau had declared that man sacrifices all +his natural rights on the altar of society—a Scottish jurist had +maintained that "Mutual defence against a more powerful +neighbor being in early times the chief, or sole motive for joining +in society, individuals never thought of surrendering any of +their natural rights which could be retained consistently with +their great aim of mutual defence." Not only had Jefferson +read Kames, but he had copied extensively from his "Historical +Law" tracts in his "Commonplace Book", where this very +passage is to be found. He had also seen in the tract on history<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +of property the fine distinction established by Kames between +possession and property, the two terms being coextensive +among savages, while in more refined society the relation of +property was gradually evolved and disjoined from possession.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p> + +<p>Thus if Jefferson borrowed from any one the main principles +of his philosophy, it was not from any of the eloquent and +famous thinkers of France and England. Locke he had certainly +read, he had abstracted Montesquieu, he may have +known Rousseau's theory, although this is doubtful, but he had +read and summarized the tracts of a Scottish jurist whom he +had probably discovered through Doctor Small. His conception +of the social compact is not the conception of a philosopher; +it is essentially the conception of a jurist and a lawyer. The +social compact is not a metaphysical hypothesis, nebulous and +lost in the night of ages, it is a very specific and very precise +convention to be entered into or to be denounced by men who +retain their "rights inherent and unalienable", who remain +free and yet agree to submit themselves to certain rules and +a certain discipline in order to obtain more security. And +thus was evolved and defined by Jefferson a combination of +liberty and order, individualism and discipline which lies at the +basis of American civilization, an object of wonder to most +foreigners, often discussed but never so satisfactorily elucidated +as in the document written by Jefferson when, "wanting amusement", +he sat down to explain to himself his ideas of natural +and civil rights and the distinction between them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h2>THE REVISION OF THE LAWS OF VIRGINIA</h2> + + +<p>At the meeting of July 4, 1776, Congress, after adopting the +Declaration of Independence,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, +be a committee, to bring in a device for a seal for the United States +of America."<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p></div> + +<p>Among the several suggestions made in the committee, the +one proposed by Jefferson, according to John Adams, deserves +particular attention: "Mr. Jefferson proposed, the children of +Israel in the wilderness led by a cloud by day, and a pillar by +night—and on the other side, Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon +chiefs, from whom we claim the honor of being descended, and +whose political principles and form of government we have +assumed."</p> + +<p>None of the suggestions made by the committee, or their +final report, was ever adopted, but the device proposed by +Jefferson is a significant indication that his thoughts were still +running in the same channel. "The children of Israel" would +remind one of the favorite contention of the settlers, piously +preserved by their descendants to this day, that they were a +chosen people; but the other side of the seal reminds one that +Jefferson's great ambition at that time was to promote a +renaissance of Anglo-Saxon primitive institutions on the new +continent. Thus presented, the American Revolution was +nothing but the reclamation of the Anglo-Saxon birthright of +which the colonists had been deprived by "a long trend of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +abuses." Nor does it appear that there was anything in this +theory which surprised or shocked his contemporaries; Adams +apparently did not disapprove of it, and it would be easy to +bring in many similar expressions of the same idea in documents +of the time.</p> + +<p>The principle once established, there remained to put it into +effect, and to make a beginning in Virginia. This was the +thought uppermost in Jefferson's mind when he went back to +the Old Dominion. "Are we not the better for what we have +hitherto abolished of the feudal system," he wrote to Edmund +Pendleton. "Has not every restitution of the ancient Saxon +laws had happy effects? Is it not better now that we return +at once into that happy system of our ancestors, the wisest +and most perfect ever yet devised by the wit of man, as it stood +before the 8th century?"<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> This is the true foundation of +Jefferson's political philosophy. No greater mistake could +be made than to look for his sources in Locke, Montesquieu, +or Rousseau. The Jeffersonian democracy was born under the +sign of Hengist and Horsa, not of the Goddess Reason.</p> + +<p>On September 26, 1776, Congress proceeded to the election +of commissioners to the Court of France, and the ballots being +taken, Mr. Benjamin Franklin, Mr. Silas Deane, and Mr. +Thomas Jefferson were chosen. This was a signal recognition +of the prestige of the young author of the Declaration of Independence. +An express was sent at once to Jefferson to inform +him of his appointment. For the first time he was offered +an opportunity to visit the Old World. His desire to go was +so strong that he remained undecided for three days before he +made up his mind to decline the nomination and to send his +refusal to Hancock. In the letter he then wrote, he alleged +that "circumstances very peculiar in the situation of my family, +such as neither permit me to leave nor to carry it compel me +to ask leave to decline a service so honorable and at the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +time so important to the American cause."<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> His biographer +Randall observes on this occasion that "the private causes" +were the precarious situation of his wife's health. The family +record contains the following entry: "a son born May 28th, +1777, 10 h. <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>"<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> The true reason, however, is to be found +in the "Autobiography", as given before.</p> + +<p>The very day Jefferson answered Hancock, he was put on +several committees, and the next day he obtained leave to bring +in a bill "To enable tenants in taille to convey their land in fee +simple." The Bill to Abolish Entails was reported on October +14, and after discussion and amendments passed by the House +on October 23, and approved by the Senate on November +first.</p> + +<p>The bill was no improvisation and Jefferson intended by it +"to strike at the very root of feudalism in Virginia." On +August 13, 1776, he had already written to an anonymous +correspondent, probably Edmund Pendleton:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The opinion that our lands were allodial possessions is one which +I have very long held, and had in my eye during a pretty considerable +part of my law reading which I found always strengthened it.... +This opinion I have thought and still think to prove if ever I should +have time to look into books again.... Was not the separation +of the property from the perpetual use of lands a mere fiction? +Is not it's history well known, and the purposes for which it was +introduced, to wit, the establishment of a military system of defense? +Was it not afterwards made an engine of immense oppression?... +Has it not been the practice of all other nations to hold their lands +as their personal estate in absolute dominion? Are we not the better +for what we have hitherto abolished of the feudal system?<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p></div> + +<p>It was the first great blow at the landed hereditary aristocracy +of Virginia. The abolition of patrimonial estates, rendering +them subject to all the obligations of personal property "susceptible +to be sold, conveyed, seized, exchanged and willed"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +as ordinary property, meant the rapid abolition of that refined +class of Virginia planters which constituted such a distinguished +feature of colonial life. It was a bold step to take, since it +meant the antagonism of a powerful class, the beginning of +hatred that pursued Jefferson during his whole life and long +after his death. Yet he had the courage to do it and was no +little proud of it.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> He was opposed by both Mr. Pendleton +and Patrick Henry, "but the bill passed finally for entire +abolition."</p> + +<p>With the Bill to Abolish Entails Jefferson introduced another +bill on the naturalization of foreigners, containing an expressed +recognition of the right of expatriation already defended in +the "Summary View" of 1774,—another remarkable instance +of Jefferson's persistency and relentless efforts to win his point +by legal means.</p> + +<p>Simultaneously a committee on religion had been appointed +"to meet and adjourn from day to day, and to take into their +consideration all matters and things relating to religion and +religious morality." Besides Jefferson, there were seventeen +members on the committee, including Fleming, Page, and +Nicholas. Being in a minority, Jefferson began the struggle +which was to end in the famous Bill for Religious Freedom,—a +long hard fight of which more will be said later. For the +time being, however, Jefferson had to be satisfied with a partial +success:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We prevailed so far only, as to repeal the laws which rendered +criminal the maintenance of any religious opinions, the forbearance +of repairing to church, or the exercise of any mode of worship; +and further, to exempt dissenters from contributing to the support +of the established church; and to suspend, only until next session, +levies on the members of that church for the salaries of their own +incumbents.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yet this was a very significant victory since, from the days +of Sir Walter Raleigh, there had been an express proviso that +the laws of the colony "should not be against the true Christian +faith, now professed in the Church of England." Dissenters +as well as members of the Established Church were assessed +for the support of the Anglican ministers, and although other +denominations, particularly Presbyterians, had succeeded in +gaining more than a foothold in some parishes, a majority of +dissenters were still obliged to pay for the support of the +minority.</p> + +<p>But important as they were, these constituted only minor +points. The whole structure of laws had to be remodelled to +fit new conditions; a new legal monument had to be erected. +Jefferson's practice of law had convinced him of the obscurities, +contradictions, absurdities, and iniquities of the assemblage +of English laws on top of which had been superimposed local +regulations. The Bill for a General Revision of the Laws +passed October 26. The fifth of November five revisors were +appointed by ballot in the following order: Thomas Jefferson, +Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, George Mason, Thomas +Ludwell Lee. As this is a more important contribution of Jefferson, +we may omit here the part he played on many committees +of the House, drafting and reporting on "Declaring what +shall be treason"; bills "For raising six additional battalions +of infantry", "For establishing a Court of Appeals", "For +establishing a High Court of Chancery", "For establishing a +General Court and Courts of Assize", "For establishing a Court +of Admiralty", "For better regulating the proceedings of the +County Courts." He plunged into the work of the complete +reorganization of the State judicial machinery, with all the +enthusiastic zeal of a born jurist, and his capacity for precise, +minute work was once more brought into play.</p> + +<p>The committee of revisors met at Fredericksburg to determine +on a manner of procedure and to distribute the work be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>tween +the five members. First of all a question of methods +had to be settled: "It had to be determined whether we should +propose to abolish the whole existing system of laws, and prepare +a new and complete Institute, or preserve the general system, +and only modify it to the present state of things."</p> + +<p>Pendleton and Lee stood for the former methods, Wythe, +Mason, and Jefferson for the latter, and this was the procedure +finally adopted. Rather than the account given by Jefferson +in his "Autobiography" we shall follow the contemporary +account drawn up at the time by George Mason.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Plan settled by the committee of Revisors in Fredericksburg, +January, 1777.</p> + +<p>(1) The common law not to be meddled with, except where +alterations are necessary. The statutes to be revised and digested, +alterations proper for us to be made; the diction where obsolete or +redundant, to be reformed; but otherwise to undergo as few changes +as possible. The acts of the English Commonwealth to be examined. +The statutes to be divided into periods; the acts of Assembly made +on the same subject to be incorporated into them. The laws of +other colonies to be examined, and any good ones to be adopted.</p></div> + +<p>In the margin is here written:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General rules in drawing provisions &c., which would do only +what the law would do without them, to be omitted. Bills to be +short; not to include matters of different natures; not to insert +an unnecessary word; nor omit a useful one. Laws to be made +on the spur of the present occasion, and all innovating laws to be +limited in their duration.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p></div> + +<p>Truly an admirable plan! Not the scheme of rash reformers, +of <i>a priori</i>-minded legislators, deriving a code of laws from a +certain number of abstract principles. It was not their purpose +to make a <i>tabula rasa</i> of the old structure which had slowly +grown stone by stone, statute by statute and to rebuild entirely +on new plans. The old house resting on solid Anglo-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>Saxon +foundations was still substantial and safe and it could +serve its purpose if only a few partitions were torn down, a few +useless annexes demolished, and better ventilation provided. +Nothing was farther from the mind of the committee than to +erect in Virginia a Greek or Roman temple of Themis.</p> + +<p>The statutes were divided into five parts. Jefferson was to +take "the first period in the division of statutes to end with +25th, H. 8th"; Pendleton the second period "to end at the +Revolution"; Wythe the third "to come to the present day"; +G. Mason the fourth, "to consist of the residuary part of the +Virginia laws to which is added the criminal law and land law." +The fifth, attributed to Lee, "to be the regulation of property +in slaves, and their condition; and also the examination of +the laws of the other colonies."<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> Mason soon retired, "being +no lawyer", and Lee having died, the work was redistributed +which explains the somewhat different allotment indicated by +Jefferson in the "Autobiography." On the other hand, he +seems to have claimed for himself in the "Autobiography" an +honor and an attitude that really belonged to the committee:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I thought it would be useful, also, in new draughts to reform the +style of the later British statutes, and of our own arts of Assembly; +which, from their verbosity, their endless tautologies, their involution +of case within case, and parenthesis within parenthesis, and +their multiplied efforts at certainty, by <i>saids</i> and <i>aforesaids</i>, by <i>ors</i> +and by <i>ands</i>, to make them more plain, are really rendered more +perplexed and incomprehensible, not only to common readers, but +to the lawyers themselves.</p></div> + +<p>The notes taken by G. Mason leave no doubt that this was +also the attitude of the committee and their definite policy. +It was a slow, painstaking, meticulous task, requiring common +sense, good judgment, a good sense for words and erudition. +To make laws intelligible and clear is no small achievement. +But certainly it was not the sort of work that an <i>a priori</i> philoso<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>pher, +fond of generalizations and universal principles, would +have relished, or would have been willing to submit himself to +for more than two years. If in some political matters Jefferson +differed from Mr. Pendleton, he admired him and later +paid him a handsome tribute in the "Autobiography." Pendleton—cool, +smooth and persuasive, quick, acute and resourceful—was +a remarkable debater.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>George Mason, a man of the first order of wisdom, of expansive +mind, profound judgment, cogent in argument, learned in the lore +of our former constitution, and earnest for the republican change on +democratic principles ... his virtue was of the purest tint; his +integrity inflexible, and his justice exact; of warm patriotism, and, +devoted as he was to liberty, and to the natural and equal rights of +man, he might truly be called the Cato of his country without the +avarice of the Roman.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p></div> + +<p>When the preliminary work was done, the reviewers met +at Williamsburg in February, 1779, and "day by day" they +examined critically their several parts, sentence by sentence, +scrutinizing and amending, "until they had agreed on the +whole." "The Revised Laws", comprehending one hundred +and twenty-six bills, were reported to the General Assembly +June 18, 1779; bills were taken out occasionally from time to +time, and because of Madison's efforts fifty-six out of the one +hundred and twenty-six were after amendments made laws at +the sessions of 1785, 1786. Among the bills reworded or initiated +by Jefferson several stood out conspicuously.</p> + +<p>The Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments is a +particularly good example of the methods used by Jefferson +in rewriting the old legislation. On sending it to George Wythe +he wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I wished to exhibit a sample of reformation in the barbarous style +into which our modern statutes have degenerated from their ancient<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +simplicity. In its style, I have aimed at accuracy, brevity, simplicity, +preserving however the words of the established law, wherever +their meaning had been sanctioned by judicial decision, as rendered +technical by usage.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p></div> + +<p>The transformation undergone by the old statutes can more +easily be observed because Jefferson was careful to indicate in +footnotes his authorities from the old texts, in Latin, and even +in French and Anglo-Saxon. But the very title of the bill +indicates that Jefferson's purpose went farther than a mere codification +of the old law. He could not be entirely satisfied with +the scale of punishments determined by the committee; he +regretted particularly the maintainance of the <i>Lex Talionis</i>, +"an eye for an eye and a hand for a hand" (Section XV), and +he attempted to restrict the penalty of death to a few limited +cases, for it was "the last melancholy resource against those +whose existence is become inconsistent with the safety of their +fellow citizens." His preamble reflects to a large extent the +views of Montesquieu and Beccaria which he copied in the +"Commonplace Book." But it could hardly be called humanitarian +in the modern and sometimes derogatory sense of the +word. The provisions of the code itself are far from showing +any weakness or sentimentality: the death penalty is provided +for treason against the Commonwealth and for whomsoever +committeth murder by way of duel; manslaughter, previously +"punishable at law by burning in the hands, and forfeiture +of chattels", is punished by hard labor for seven years +in the public works, and the murderer "shall forfeit one half of +his lands and goods to the next of kin of the person slain, the +other half to be sequestered during such times, in the hands, and +to the use, of the commonwealth." Rape, polygamy, or sodomy +"shall be punished if a man by castration, if a woman by boring +through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in +diameter at least." Witchcraft, conjuration, or sorcery "shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +be punished by ducking and whipping, at the discretion of a +jury, not exceeding fifteen stripes", and, most extraordinary +for modern readers, "Whenever sentences of death shall be +pronounced against any person for treason or murder, execution +thereof shall be done on the next day but one, after such +sentence, unless it be Sunday, and then on Monday following" +(Section XIII). Truly enough the law of nature is once mentioned +in a footnote to the effect that if a prisoner tries to escape +from prison he shall not be considered as a capital offender. +"The law of nature impels every one to escape from confinement; +he should not therefore be subjected to punishment. +Let the legislature restrain his criminal by walls, not by parchment." +If there is "philosophy" in this statement it is common +sense and certainly not sentimentality.</p> + +<p>The Bill for the more General Diffusion of Knowledge is far +more philosophical in its terms. There for the first time will +be found a picture of democracy as Jefferson pictured it to himself +at that date. The general statement at the beginning may +be an echo from Montesquieu; but while the French philosopher +had not indicated any remedy for such a situation, Jefferson +was interested in it only in so far as it could be amended.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Experience has shewn, that even under the best forms, those +entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted +it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual +means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, +the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give +them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth,... and +whereas it is generally true that people will be happiest whose laws +are best, and are best administered, and that laws will be wisely +formed, and honestly administered, in proportion as those who +form and administer them are wise and honest; whence it becomes +expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, +whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be +rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, +and that they should be called to that charge without regard to +wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance; but +the indigence of the greater number disabling them from so educating, +at their own expence, those of their children whom nature hath +fitly formed and disposed to become useful instruments for the +public, it is better that such should be sought for and educated +at the common expence of all, than that the happiness of all should +be confined to the weak or wicked.</p></div> + +<p>Is this a democratic view in the modern sense of the word? +At any rate it is not the democratic phraseology of a modern +politician. There is no protest at all in the name of immanent +justice against the unequality of conditions, there is no desire +to give every boy a fair chance in life, no indication that men +being born equal, all children should have equal opportunities. +We are perfectly free to believe that Jefferson entertained such +sentiments at that date. Historically, however, there is no +evidence that he did so. All we have here is a hard-headed +proposition with the corrective that, under the new system, a +child of genius or great talent was to be given an opportunity +to develop his native qualities, for it was both the duty and the +interest of society to prevent such a waste of intellectual +potentialities. Furthermore, Jefferson was manifestly of the +opinion that no man could properly participate in the government +of society unless he had been rendered worthy to receive +and able to guard the <i>sacred</i> deposit of the rights and liberties +of his fellow citizens. Neither wealth, birth, nor accidental +circumstances should determine who is fit for public office, but +education should be the criterion. As he was doing his +utmost to abolish the last privileges and prestige of the landed +hereditary aristocracy of Virginia, Jefferson was striving to +constitute and to get recognition for another aristocracy, an +aristocracy of learning and intelligence, a true ruling class, or +more exactly a governing and legislative class; for he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +persuaded that the business of the legislator cannot be learned +in a day, that it requires, besides native qualities of mind, a +certain expert knowledge of the subject.</p> + +<p>The provisions of the bill are most extraordinary for the +time. Jefferson provided for the division of the State into a +certain number of districts or hundreds; in each hundred a +schoolhouse was to be built and so located that all the children +within it might daily attend the school.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In each of the schools shall be taught reading, writing, and common +arithmetick, and the books which shall be used therein for +instructing the children to read shall be such as will at the same +time make them acquainted with Graecian, Roman, English and +American history. At these schools all the free children, male and +female, resident within the respective hundred, shall be entitled to +receive tuition gratis for the term of three years.</p></div> + +<p>In addition, the bill provided that a certain number of grammar +schools would be erected, "their situation to be as central +as possible for the inhabitants of the said counties, the +schools to be furnished with good water, convenient to plentiful +supplies of provision and fuel and above all things that it be +healthy." In all of these grammar schools, which shall receive +boarders</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>shall be taught the Latin and Greek languages, English Grammar, +geography, and the higher part of numerical arithmetick, to wit., +vulgar and decimal fractions, and the extrication of the square and +cube roots. In order to provide proper facilities for children of +particular ability, the overseer of the hundred schools (one for ten +schools) shall appoint from among the boys who shall have been +two years at the least at some one of the schools under his superintendance +and whose parents are too poor to give them farther +education some one of the best and most promising genius and +dispositions to proceed to the grammar schools.</p></div> + +<p>At the end of the first year one third of the boys shall be discontinued +as public foundations after examination; "all shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +be discontinued at the end of two years save one only, the best +in genius and disposition, who shall be at liberty to continue +there four years longer on the public foundation, and shall +thence forward be deemed a senior." Finally, "the visitors +will select one among the said seniors of the best learning and +most hopeful genius and disposition who shall be authorized +by them to proceed to William and Mary College; there to be +educated, boarded, and clothed three years: the expense of +which shall be paid by the Treasurer."</p> + +<p>This rigorous selective process looks very familiar to any one +acquainted with the modern French system of free elementary +schools, boarding <i>colléges</i> and <i>lycèes</i>, and the system of competitive +scholarships and fellowships of the French. But it +was not fully developed in France before the Third Republic +and it was not even dreamed of before the Revolution. Many +times the French have been criticized for the undemocratic +features of an educational system which reserves secondary +education to those who are able to pay and to the small number +of children who win scholarships. There is no possibility +that this scheme was ever borrowed by Jefferson from any +French theorician, and there is, on the contrary, some reason +to believe that in France it owes its beginning to the publication +of Jefferson's plan in the "Notes on Virginia" printed in +Paris and in French in 1786.</p> + +<p>The educational structure of the State would not have been +complete if Jefferson had not provided for a reorganization of +William and Mary College. Such is the purpose of the next +bill (Bill LXXX) in the Report of the Committee of Revisors. +There he was more ruthless and more radical. After a first +section which recounts the foundation of the college and its +history, Jefferson concluded that "the said college, thus amply +endowed by the public has not answered their expectation, +and there is reason to hope, that it would become more useful, +if certain articles in its constitution were altered and amended."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +By one stroke of the pen, Jefferson abolished the school of +theology, took the administration out of the hands of the former +trustees to place it in the hands of visitors appointed by +the Legislature and "not to be restrained in their legislation +by the royal prerogatives, or the laws of the kingdom of England, +or the canons of the constitution of the English Church, +as enjoined in the Charter." The president and faculty were +to be dismissed, and six professorships created; to wit, one of +moral law and police; one of history, civil and ecclesiastical; +one of anatomy and medicine; one of natural philosophy and +natural history; one of the ancient languages Oriental and +northern; and one of modern languages.—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A missionary will be appointed to the several tribes of the Indians, +whose business will be to investigate their laws, customs, religion, +traditions, and more particularly their languages, constructing +grammar thereof, as well as may be, and copious vocabularies, +and on oath to communicate, from time to time, to the said President +and Professors the material he collects.</p></div> + +<p>Thus the college was to become the training school in which +"those who are to be the future guardians of the rights and +liberties of their country may be endowed with science and +virtue, to watch and preserve the sacred deposit." It was not +a democratic institution, but the finishing school of the future +legislators and experts in the science of government.</p> + +<p>As to disinterested "researches of the learned and curious", +they were to be encouraged by the establishment at Richmond +of a Free Public Library with yearly appropriation of two +thousand pounds for the purchase of books and maps.</p> + +<p>One may state here without any fear of contradiction that +no system so complete, so logically constructed and so well +articulated had ever been proposed in any country in the world. +It already embodied the ideas for which Jefferson stood during +all his life, it preceded by more than fifteen years the plans of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +the French Convention. As the first charter of American +public education it is an astonishing document and deserves +more attention than it has hitherto received.</p> + +<p>The Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Jefferson's +opinion ranked in importance with the Declaration of Independence. +It was not intended to be a revolutionary document, +but simply a common-sense adjustment of the situation +brought about by the repeal of several provisions of the old +Virginia laws. Jefferson took care to explain the true purpose +of the bill in the "Notes on Virginia" (Query XVII). The +Virginia Bill of Rights had proclaimed "it to be a truth, and a +natural right that the exercise of religion should be free." On +the other hand, no mention of it had been made in the Convention +and no measure had been adopted to protect religious +freedom. The Assembly, however, had repealed, in 1776, "all +<i>acts</i> of Parliament which had rendered criminal the maintaining +any opinion in matters of religion", and suspended +the laws giving salaries to the clergy. This suspension was +made perpetual in October, 1779. But religious matters still +remained subject to common law and to acts passed by the +Assembly. At Common Law, heresy was a capital offence, +punishable by burning, according to the writ <i>de haeretico comburando</i>. +Furthermore, by an act of the Assembly of 1705, +"if a person brought up in the Christian religion denies the +being of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are more gods +than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the +Scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the +first offence by incapacity to hold any office or employment +ecclesiastical, civil, or military: on the second by disability +to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor, or +administrator, and by three years' imprisonment without +bail."<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> + +<p>This being the situation, the article of the Bill of Rights con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>cerning +religious freedom remained a dead letter until provisions +could be made to take religious matters out of the jurisdiction +of the Common Law.</p> + +<p>Historians seem to have been somewhat misled both by the +lofty and philosophical tone of the Bill for Religious Freedom +and the comments made by Jefferson in the "Notes on +Virginia", specially written by him, as we always must remember, +for a group of French philosophers and the French +public. A philosopher he was, but before all he was a purist +and a historian of law. For him the main question was first +to determine whether the jurisdiction of the Common Law in +matters of religion was founded in law. He had already +studied minutely the history of Common Law and made copious +extracts in his "Commonplace Book"; he had noticed in +Houard's "Coutumes Anglo-Normandes" that some pious +copyist had prefixed to the laws of Alfred four chapters of +Jewish law. "This awkward Monkish fabrication makes +the preface to Alfred's genuine laws stand in the body of the +Work; and the very words of Alfred himself form the frauds, +for he declares in that preface that he has collected these laws +from those of Ina, of Offa, Ethelbert, and his ancestors, saying +nothing of any of them being taken from the scripture." Consequently +the pretended laws of Alfred were a forgery.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Yet, palpable as it must be to a lawyer, our judges have piously +avoided lifting the veil under which it was shrouded. In truth, the +alliance between Church and State in England, has ever made their +judges accomplices in the frauds of the clergy; and even bolder +than they are: for, instead of being contented with these four surreptitious +chapters of <i>Exodus</i>, they have taken the whole leap, and +declared at once, that the whole Bible and Testament, in a lump, +make part, of the Common law.... Finally in answer to Fortescue +Aland's question why the Common law of England should not +now be a part of the Common law of England? We may say that +they are not, because they never were made so by legislative author<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>ity; +the document which imposed that doubt on him being a manifest +forgery.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 70%;"> +<img src="images/pic102b.jpg" width="100%" alt="A PAGE FROM JEFFERSON'S COMMONPLACE BOOK" title="" /><br /> +<span class="caption">A PAGE FROM JEFFERSON'S "COMMONPLACE BOOK"<br /> +<br /> +<i>From the manuscript in the possession of the Library of Congress</i></span> +</div> + +<p>Bolstered up with his texts, references, and authorities, Jefferson +could now, if need be, confute the redoubtable Mr. Pendleton +in the Committee of Revisors, but such a legal technical +presentation of the facts would evidently not appeal either to +the Assembly at large or to the public. These had to be approached +in an entirely different way; for to speak of frauds, +forgeries, and monkish fabrication would not do at all in a +public document and, on the contrary, might create a revulsion +of feeling. It became necessary to present the reform in an +entirely different light and Jefferson did so in the first section +of the bill.</p> + +<p>The phrasing of these lofty principles is well known; still +it may not be out of place to reproduce them once more:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Well aware that the opinions of belief of men depend not on +their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to +their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and +manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it +altogether susceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it +by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, +tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness ... to compel +a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of +opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical;... +that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, +any more than our opinions in physics or geometry;... that +the opinions of men are not the object of civil government.</p></div> + +<p>In Section II, after that preamble, the religious independence +of the individual was proclaimed:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall +be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, +or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, +or burthened in his body or goods, or shall otherwise suffer, on +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +account of his religious opinions or beliefs; but that all men shall +be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in +matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, +enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.</p></div> + +<p>Furthermore, in the first section, Jefferson gave the first +and final expression of his understanding of freedom of thought:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government +for its offices to interfere when principles break out into overt acts +against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and +will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient +antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless +by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free +argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is +permitted freely to contradict them.</p></div> + +<p>It is not surprising that the bill was savagely attacked in +the Assembly and did not pass until 1786. It simply shows +that the Church of England had more supporters than Jefferson +led us to believe, when he wrote in the "Notes on Virginia" +that "two-thirds of the people had become dissenters +at the commencement of the present revolution." The remaining +third, if such was the proportion, were at least well +organized and offered a strong resistance. This bill marked +the beginning of the accusations of impiety and infidelity so +often launched at Jefferson. Whatever his private sentiments +on the matter may have been, he was not the man to discriminate +against any one because of religious beliefs; and at the +very time when he was engaged in preparing his bill, he took +the initiative of starting a subscription towards the support of +the Reverend Mr. Charles Clay of Williamsburg. The document, +never before published, is entirely written in his hand +and is of such importance that I may be permitted to reproduce +it here:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Whereas, by an act of General assembly, freedom of Religious +opinion and worship is restored to all, and it is left to the members<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +of each religious society to employ such Teachers they think fit for +their own Spiritual comfort and instruction and to maintain the +same by their free and voluntary contributions. We the subscribers +(professing the most Catholic affection for other religious +sectaries who happen to differ from us in points of conscience,) yet +desirous of encouraging and supporting (a church in our opinion so +truly Apostolick as) the Protestant Episcopalian Church, and of +deriving to ourselves, through the ministry of it's teachers, the +benefits of Gospel-knowledge and Religious improvement, and at the +same time of supporting those, who, having been at considerable +expence in qualifying themselves by regular education for explaining +the holy scriptures, have dedicated their time and labor to the +service of the said church (and moreover approving highly the +conduct of the rev<sup>d</sup> Charles Clay, who early rejecting the tyrant and +tyranny of Britain, proved his religion genuine by its harmony with +the liberties of mankind and conforming his public prayers to the +spirit and the injured rights of his country, addressed the god of +battles for victory to our arms, while others impiously prayed that +our enemies might vainquish and overcome us) do hereby oblige +ourselves our heirs executors and administrators on or before the +25th day of December in this present year 1777, and likewise on or +before the 25th day of December in every year following until we +shall withdraw our subscription in open vestry, or until the legislature +shall make other provision for the support of the said clergy, to +pay to the (reverend) said Charles Clay of Albemarle his executor +or administrators the several sums affixed to our respective names: +in Consideration whereof we expect that the said Charles Clay shall +perform divine service and preach a sermon in the town of Charlottesville +on every fourth Sunday, or oftener, if a regular rotation +with the other churches that shall have put themselves under his care +will admit a more frequent attendence.</p> + +<p>And we further mutually agree with each other that we will meet +at Charlottesville on the 1<sup>st</sup> day of March in the present year, and +on the second Thursday in —— in every year following so long +as we continue our subscriptions and there make choice by ballot +of three wardens to collect our said subscriptions, to take care of such +books and vestments as shall be provided for the use of our church,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +to call meetings of our Congregation when necessary, and to transact +such other business relating to our Congregation as we shall hereafter +confide to them.</p> + +<p>Th. Jefferson, six pounds; Jno Harvie, four pounds; Randolph +Jefferson, two pounds ten schillings; Thos. Garth, fifteen schillings; +Philip Mazzei, sixteen schillings eight pence.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p></div> + +<p>Far more important than the local reception of the revised +laws, since most of them were adopted only years later, and +thanks to the efforts of Madison, during the sessions of 1785 +and 1786, is the fact that Jefferson had already formulated +at that time for himself and his fellow citizens the most essential +principles of his doctrine. He was not unaware of this, and +stated it himself in his "Autobiography" when he declared: +"I considered four of these bills, passed or reported as forming +a system by which every fibre would be eradicated of ancient +or future aristocracy; and a foundation laid for a government +truly republican."<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p> + +<p>The ideal government he had in mind at the time could perhaps +be described as a democracy, but he did not use the word +himself, not even many years later in his "Autobiography" +where he simply spoke of "a government truly republican." +He was much opposed to the perpetuation of an hereditary +landed gentry, but I do not see that he would have approved +or even conceived the possibility of a government placed entirely +under the control of unenlightened men. The Bill for +the more General Diffusion of Knowledge makes clear that +only through a liberal education can men be "rendered worthy +to receive and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and +liberties of their fellow citizens", and the Bill for Amending<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +the Charter of William and Mary proclaims even more emphatically +that the old college must "become the seminary, in +which those who are to be the future guardians of the rights of +liberty of their country may be endowed with science and virtue, +to watch and preserve the sacred deposit." Jefferson was a +friend of the people, but no admirer and no flatterer of the +"plain people", nor did he entertain any illusion about their +participation in all the forms of government. For the present +it was enough, as he wrote in the "Autobiography", if they +were qualified through elementary education "to exercise with +intelligence <i>their</i> parts in self-Government." If he rebelled +against aristocracy of wealth, he would have reacted with equal +vehemence against mob tyranny. Neither was he radical +enough to admit <i>propagandistes par le fait</i> and to forbid society +the right to intervene "when principles break out into overt +acts against peace and good order." (Bill for Religious Freedom.) +For freedom of speech does not entail freedom of action: +and the civil rights or rights of compacts are necessarily +subject to civil regulations.</p> + +<p>It is easily seen now that Jefferson so far remained perfectly +consistent, and followed in practice the distinction between +natural rights and rights of compact he had established +in order to clarify his own mind, in the meditation quoted at +the end of the preceding chapter. If this theory is accepted, +it is evident that society being founded upon a legal compact, +the ideal form of government is one in which both parties, the +individual on the one hand and society on the other, scrupulously +live up to its terms. A breach of contract can no more +be condoned in the individual than in society. On the other +hand, natural rights remain always truly "inalienable" and +apart from civil rights. When any individual comes to the +conclusion that the sacrifice he has made of certain rights in +order to enjoy more security is not compensated for by sufficient +advantages, he has the right to denounce the compact:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +hence the right of expatriation always so energetically maintained +by Jefferson. This is the very reason why Jefferson +could not and did not blame John Randolph for going to England +in August, 1775, since "the situation of the country had +rendered it not eligible to him to remain longer in it." Thus +the conflict seen by so many political philosophers between man +and society disappears entirely. The individual cannot stand +against society when he is free to break the social bond at any +time—nor can society oppress the individual without endangering +its very existence. Such a theory was more than a +"philosophical construction." It was largely based upon facts +and observation; it expressed the current political philosophy +of the colonies. It was eminently the juridistic explanation +of the pioneer spirit.</p> + +<p>Granting what is undoubtedly true, that Jefferson aroused +antagonism and enmities in the Assembly, he certainly had +also his admirers and followers. If the prophet had preached +in the desert, he would not have gained the prompt recognition +that came to him when he was chosen Governor of Virginia, +the first of June, 1779, to succeed Patrick Henry. He +was then thirty-six years old.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h2>GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA—THE "NOTES +ON VIRGINIA"</h2> + + +<p>Jefferson served two years as Governor of the Commonwealth +and when he wrote his "Autobiography" he gave only a +short paragraph to this episode of his eventful career, referring +for more details to Girardin's continuation of Burk's "History +of Virginia." The student of law, the erudite jurist, and classical +scholar was by the choice of the Assembly entrusted with +the duties and responsibilities of a war chief, and it cannot be +said that Jefferson enjoyed the experience. The duties of +governor were not only exacting but almost impossible to fulfill +satisfactorily. For more than two years, Virginia, without +money, with a poorly equipped militia reënforced with an +inadequate number of Federal troops, had been overrun by the +enemy and had known all the atrocities of the war. The +governor had to honor the continuous requests of the general +in chief for more ammunition, more equipment and provision, +and at the same time had to keep under arms, and as much as +possible in fighting condition, militiamen anxious to go back to +their farms for the harvest or the plowing, so as to protect +the territory of the State against the raids of the invader and +prevent Indian uprisings on the western border. Last, but not +least, he had to take into consideration the general attitude of +the people of the State and the measures adopted by the legislature. +Jefferson's correspondence with Lafayette during the +first months of 1781 is most illuminating in this respect. When, +after Arnold's treason, Lafayette was sent by Washington +to apprehend the traitor and give some assistance to the Old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +Dominion, he found that there were neither boats, wagons, +nor horses to carry his equipment from Head of Elk to the +siege of operations. The treasury was empty, the Assembly +most chary in granting impressment warrants, and practically +all the governor could offer in the way of help was his unlimited +good will. Lafayette had to use oxen for his artillery and to +mount cannon on barges; but even after powers of impressment +were granted to the Marquis, Jefferson had to remind him of +the necessity of not impressing stallions or brood mares, so as +not to kill the "goose with the golden eggs."<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<p>Jefferson's attitude in these critical circumstances reveal his +true character to a degree, and without entering into a detailed +account of the campaign, a few illustrations may be included +here. It may be remembered that four thousand British troops, +taken prisoners at the battle of Saratoga, had been ordered +by Congress to Charlottesville. The problem of housing and +feeding them soon became acute, and Jefferson was called upon +to assist in finding a proper solution. The life imposed upon +the captive soldiers was comparatively mild. Barracks were +erected, while the officers, well provided with money, rented +houses in the vicinity of the camp and bought some of the finest +horses in Virginia. For most of them the Charlottesville +captivity was a very pleasant <i>villégiature</i>. On the other hand, +some of the inhabitants did not view without alarm this sudden +increase in the population of the county, and application was +made to Governor Patrick Henry to have at least part of the +prisoners removed to another section of the State. This, according +to Jefferson, would have been a breach of faith, since +the articles of capitulation provided that the officers should +not be separated from their men. On this occasion he wrote a +very vehement letter to the governor, March 27, 1779, protesting +that such a measure "would suppose a possibility that +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>humanity was kicked out of doors in America, and interest only +attended to." Yet the governor could not entirely neglect +interested consideration, and Jefferson once more revealed that +curious mixture of high principles and hard, practical common +sense, to which we already called attention. He was aware that +the circulation of money was increased by the presence of these +troops "at the rate of $30,000 a week at least." The rich +planters, "being more generally sellers than buyers", were +greatly benefited by these unexpected customers, although the +poor people were much displeased by inroads made by them +upon the amount of supplies and provisions available in the +county.</p> + +<p>Never were prisoners better treated or made more welcome, +and if Jefferson reflected the feelings of his neighbors there +was no animosity against the soldiers in the field:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided +by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot +weaken national efforts. To contribute by neighbourly intercourse +and attention to make others happy is the shortest and +surest way of being happy ourselves. As these sentiments seem to +have directed your conduct, we should be as unwise as illiberal, +were we not to preserve the same temper of mind.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p></div> + +<p>Truly this was a war of philosophers and gentlemen, and the +courtly generals of Louis XV would not have expressed more +elegantly their consideration for the enemy. Jefferson's declaration +was no mere gesture, for he struck up lasting friendships +with several of the prisoners. He was particularly interested +in a young German officer, Louis de Unger, who showed a +remarkable talent for philosophy, in Baron de Geismer with +whom he kept up a correspondence for more than ten years,<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> +and in Major General Baron de Riedesel who, with his wife, +was a frequent guest at Monticello. To many of them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +Jefferson opened his house, his library, and his dining room. +He discussed philosophy and agriculture with them, played +duets on his violin, and sincerely regretted the loss of that +pleasant society when he had to leave after his appointment +as governor.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p> + +<p>Yet a sterner trait in his character was soon to be revealed. +While the British prisoners were described as "having thus +found the art of rendering captivity itself comfortable, and +carried to execution, at their own great expense and labor, +their spirits sustained by the prospect of gratifications rising +before their eyes", the American prisoners and noncombatants +were receiving harsher treatment at the hands of the British. +War had become particularly atrocious after Indian tribes had +been encouraged to attack the insurgents, and this was an +offense that Jefferson could not condone. When Governor +Hamilton of Kaskakias, with his two lieutenants, Dejean +and Lamothe, who had distinguished themselves by their +harsh policy, surrendered to Clark and were brought to Virginia, +Jefferson ordered them confined in the dungeon of the public +jail, put in irons and kept incommunicado. On General Philips' +protest Jefferson wrote to Washington to ask him for advice, +but added that in his opinion these prisoners were common +criminals and that he could "find nothing in Books usually +recurred to as testimonials of the Laws and usages of nature +and nations which convicts the opinion I have above expressed +of error."<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> To Guy Carleton, Governor of Canada, he +answered that "we think ourselves justified in Governor +Hamilton's strick confinement on the general principle of +National retaliation", and no punishment was too severe for +a man who had employed "Indian savages whose known rule +of warfare is an indiscriminate butchery of men, women and +children."<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + +<p>When a few weeks later, upon Washington's request, the irons +were taken from the prisoners and a parole offered to them, +Jefferson obeyed very reluctantly and informed the general +that "they objected to that part of it which restrained them +from <i>saying</i> anything to the prejudice of the United States" and +insisted on "freedom of speech"; they were in consequence +remanded to their confinement in the jail, "which must be considered +as a voluntary one until they can determine with themselves +to be inoffensive in words as well as deeds."<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></p> + +<p>Even when the prisoners were freed, Jefferson wrote again +to Washington:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I shall give immediate orders for having in readiness every engine +which the Enemy have contrived for the destruction of our unhappy +citizens captivated by them. The presentiment of these operations +is shocking beyond expression. I pray heaven to avert them: but +nothing in this world will do it but a proper conduct in the Enemy. +In every event I shall resign myself to the hard necessity under +which I shall act.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p></div> + +<p>Writing the same day to Colonel George Mathews, Jefferson +defined with more precision what he understood by these +"operations" when he declared that "iron will be retaliated by +iron, prison ships by prison ships, and like for like in general."<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p> + +<p>The faults of his own people did not find him any weaker, for +he declared: "I would use any powers I have for the punishment +of any officer of our own who should be guilty of excesses +injustifiable under the usages of civilized nations." He was not +slow either in punishing mutineers, in having the ringleaders +seized in their beds "singly and without noise" and in recommending +cavalry, "as men on horseback have been found the +most certain Instrument of public punishment."<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<p>This trait of Jefferson's character, hardly ever noticed, was +no passing mood. It was little apparent in ordinary circumstances, +but it was to reappear with the same stern inflexibility +during the prosecution of Aaron Burr twenty-five years later. +The dreamer, the theorist, the "philosopher" does not appear +in the letters written by Jefferson during his governorship. He +was punctual, attentive to details and careful to abide by the +measures taken by the legislature. Yet he was subjected to +bitter criticism and a sort of legend grew up about his lack of +efficiency. He was approaching the end of his second term, +which expired on June 2, 1781, and the legislature, feeling that +the present danger required desperate action, was thinking of +appointing a temporary dictator. Although most decidedly +opposed to the creation of such an office, Jefferson believed that +the appointment of a military leader was highly desirable +(Letter to Washington, May 28), and according to his wishes +General Nelson in command of the State troops was elected in +his place. But before the Assembly could come to a decision +an unexpected incident happened. It has been related at +great length, and I am afraid with some embellishments, by +Randall, who reconstructed it from Jefferson's papers and from +the family traditions. Virginia was literally overrun by the +enemy, and the raids of the British cavalry were a common +occurrence. During one of these raids Tarleton attempted to +capture the legislature and almost succeeded in taking the +governor. The account of the incident, as I found it written by +Jefferson, is far less picturesque, but probably more reliable +than the highly colored narration of the biographer:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This was the state of things when, his office having expired on the +2<sup>d</sup> June, & his successor not yet in place, Col. Tarlton, with his regiment +of horse, was detached by L. Cornwallis, to surprise him (supposed +to be still governor) & the legislature now sitting in Charlottesville, +the Speakers of the two houses, & some other members of the +legislature, were lodging with him at Monticello. Tarleton, early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +in the morning of June 4. when within 10 miles of that place, +detached a company of horse to secure him & his guests, & proceeded +himself rapidly with his main body to Charlottesville, where he +hoped to find the legislature unapprised of his movement. notice +of it however had been brought both to Monticello & Charlottesville +about sunrise, by a Mr Jouett from Louisa, who seeing them pass +his father's house in the evening of the 3.<sup>d</sup> and riding through the +night along by-ways, brought the notice. The Speakers, with their +Colleagues returned to Charlottesville, & with the other members of +the legislature, had barely time to get out of the way.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p></div> + +<p>A few days later Jefferson left Amherst and returned to +Monticello which he found practically undamaged; it was then +that, riding to Poplar Forest, he was thrown from his horse +and so seriously hurt that he could not ride horseback for several +months. Shortly afterwards he learned that some members of +the legislature, probably irked by the humiliation of having +fled before the British raiders, not once, but several times, were +not unwilling to accuse the governor of having neglected to take +proper measures of defense. As I have found nowhere any +indication to contradict Jefferson's account of the incident, it +had better be given here in his simple words:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I returned to Monticello July 26. & learning some time after that +Mr George Nicholas, than a young man, just entered into the legislature +proposed to institute some enquiry into my conduct before the +legislature, a member from my county vacated his seat, & the county +elected me, in his room, that I might vindicate myself on the floor +of the house. thro' the intervention of a friend, I obtained from +Mr. Nicholas a written note of the charges he proposed to bring +forward & I furnished him in return the heads of the answers I +should make. on the day appointed for hearing his charges he withdrew +from the house; & no other undertaking to bring them forward, +I did it myself in my place, from his paper, answering them verbatim +to the house. the members had been witnesses themselves to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +all the material facts, and passed an unanimous vote of approbation, +which may be seen on their journals. Mr. Nicholas was an honest +and honorable man, & took a conspicuous occasion, many years +after, of his own free will, & when the matter was entirely at rest, to +retract publicly the erroneous opinions he had been led into on that +occasion, and to make just reparation by a candid acknowledgment +of them.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p></div> + +<p>This unfortunate incident revealed another fundamental +trait of Jefferson's character,—his total incapacity to accept +public criticism with equanimity. It was not until December +19, 1781, that he had the opportunity of presenting his case +before the legislature and of receiving the vote of thanks intended +"to obviate and remove all unmerited censure." In +the meantime, and because he did not wish to leave a free field +to his enemies, he had to decline a new appointment from +Congress, when on the fifteenth of June he was designated to +join the four American plenipotentiaries already in Europe. +The letter was transmitted through Lafayette, and to Lafayette +alone Jefferson confided his deep mortification at having to</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>lose an opportunity, the only one I ever had and perhaps ever +shall have, of combining public service with public gratification, +of seeing countries whose improvements in science, in arts and +civilization it has been my fortune to admire at a distance but +never to see and at the same time of lending further aid to a cause +which has been handed on from it's first organization to its present +stage by every effort of which my poor faculties were capable. +These however have not been such as to give satisfaction to some +of my countrymen & it has become necessary for me to remain in the +state till a later period, in the present year than is consistent with +an acceptance of what has been offered me.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p></div> + +<p>A letter written to Edmund Randolph hints at other considerations +which "that one being removed, might prevent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +my acceptance." The family record shows that Mrs. Jefferson +was then expecting a child who was born on November, 1781, +and died in April of the following year. Jefferson himself was +far from being well and had not yet recovered from his accident; +but there is little doubt that he would have gladly seized +the opportunity to fulfill one of his earliest dreams and to visit +Europe, had he been free to go. However this may be, it was +on this occasion that he reiterated once more, but not for the +last time, his wish to return entirely and definitively to private +life:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Were it possible for me to determine again to enter into public +business there is no appointment whatever which would have been +so agreeable to me. But I have taken my final leave of everything +of that nature. I have retired to my farm, my family and books +from which I think nothing will evermore separate me. A desire +to leave public office with a reputation not more blotted than it +deserved will oblige me to emerge at the next session of our assembly +& perhaps to accept of a seat in it, but as I go with a single +object, I shall withdraw when that has been accomplished.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p></div> + +<p>I must confess that Jefferson's determination can scarcely +be understood or excused. He was not yet forty and, for a man +of that age, his achievements were unusual and many, but he +had by no means outlived his usefulness or fulfilled the tasks +he had mapped out for himself. Even supposing he had done +enough for the United States and did not feel any ambition to +return to Congress, there was much to be done in Virginia. +For one thing the war was not over and the situation of his +native State, his "country", as he still called it, was as precarious +as ever. Even supposing the war to be of short duration +and destined to end in victory, the work of reconstruction +loomed considerable upon the horizon. Not only had plantations +been burned, houses destroyed, cattle killed off, Negroes +decimated in many places, but the financial resources of Virginia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +were nil, the currency depreciated and valueless. Above all, +republican institutions were far from secure, Jefferson was not +at all satisfied with the Constitution as adopted, there remained +many bills on the Revised Laws to be presented, defended, and +approved. The laws adopted so far might have laid the foundations +of true republican government, but the task was still +enormous. Was Jefferson irritated and despondent at the +ingratitude of his fellow citizens who had not rejected at once +the charges made by Nicholas? Was he so alarmed by the +health of his wife that he did not feel that he could leave her +even for a few days? Was he not rather a victim of overwork +and overexertion? He had been severely shaken by his accident +and seems to have suffered at the time a sort of nervous +breakdown, for on October 28, 1781, when writing to Washington +to congratulate him on Cornwallis' capitulation at Yorktown +he deplores the "state of perpetual decrepitude" to which +he is unfortunately reduced and which prevents him from +greeting Washington personally.</p> + +<p>Several of his best friends were unable to understand or +condone his retirement. Madison himself wrote to Edmund +Randolph:<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Great as my partiality is to Mr. Jefferson, the mode in which he +seems determined to revenge the wrong received from his country +does not appear to me to be dictated either by philosophy or +patriotism. It argues, indeed, a keen sensibility and strong consciousness +of rectitude. But his sensibility ought to be as great +towards the relenting as the misdoings of the Legislature, not to +mention the injustice of visiting the faults of this body on their +innocent constituents.</p></div> + +<p>Monroe, ardent friend and admirer of Jefferson's, was even +more direct when writing to acquaint his "master" with the +criticism aroused by his retirement. To which Jefferson +answered with a letter in which he poured out the bitterness of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +his heart. He first recited all his different reasons for making +his choice; the fact that after scrutinizing his heart he had +found that every fiber of political ambition had been eradicated; +that he had the right to withdraw after having been engaged +thirteen years in public service; that his family required his +attention; that he had to attend to his private affairs. But +the true reasons came only in the next paragraph:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>That however I might have comforted myself under the disapprobation +of the well-meaning but uninformed people, yet that +of their representatives was a shock on which I had not calculated.... +I felt that these injuries, for such they have been since acknowledged, +had inflicted a wound on my spirit which only will be cured +by the all-healing grave.</p></div> + +<p>The man who wrote these lines had an epidermis far too +sensitive to permit him to engage in politics and least of all in +local politics. Jefferson in these particular circumstances forgot +the lesson of his old friends the Greek and Latin philosophers—truly +he was no Roman.</p> + +<p>Yet we cannot regret very deeply Jefferson's determination +to retire from public life at that time, since to his retirement +we owe his most extensive literary composition, one of the first +masterpieces of American literature. During the spring of +1781 he had received from the secretary of the French legation, +Barbé-Marbois, a long questionnaire on the present conditions +of Virginia. During his forced inactivity, he drew up a first +draft which was sent to Marbois, but extensively corrected +and enlarged during the following winter. A few manuscript +copies were distributed to close friends, but the "Notes on +Virginia" were not published until 1787 and after they had been +rather poorly translated into French by Abbé Morellet.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p> + +<p>No other document is so valuable for a complete conspectus +of Jefferson's mind and theories at that time. But two impor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>tant +observations must be made at the very outset. First of +all the "Notes" were not intended for publication, and as late +as 1785 Jefferson wrote to Chastellux that:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="noidt">the strictures on slavery and on the constitution of Virginia ... +are the parts I do not wish to have made public, at least till I know +whether their publication would do most harm or good. It is possible +that in my own country these strictures might produce an irritation +which would indispose the people towards the two great +objects I have in view, that is the emancipation of their slaves & the +settlement of their constitution on a firmer and more permanent +basis.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p></div> + +<p>The second point is that the "Notes" were written for the +use of a foreigner of distinction, in answer to certain queries +proposed by him. Jefferson, therefore, is not responsible either +for the plan of the work, or the distribution into chapters, and +he necessarily had to go into more details than if he had written +solely for his fellow countrymen.</p> + +<p>The twenty-three Queries cover such an enormous range of +information and contain such a mass of facts that it would have +been physically impossible for any one to complete the work +in so short a time, if it had been an impromptu investigation. +We can accept without hesitation the statement of the "Autobiography" +on the methods of composition employed in the +"Notes":</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I had always made a practice whenever an opportunity occurred +of obtaining any information of our country, which might be of use +in any station public or private to commit it to writing. These +memoranda were on loose papers, bundled up without order, and +difficult of recurrence when I had occasion for a particular one. I +thought this a good occasion to embody their substance, which I did +in the order of Mr. Marbois' queries, so as to answer his wish and +to arrange them for my own use.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> + +<p>The book was printed in France, in England, in Germany, +and went through many editions in America. It probably did +more than any other publication to propagate the doctrine of +Americanism, for, in his retreat of Monticello, Jefferson formulated +the creed and gave final expression to the hopes, aspirations, +and feelings that were to govern his country for several generations. +It also gives a complete picture of the mind of Jefferson +at that date, when he thought he had accomplished the +task assigned to him and felt he could stop to take stock, not +merely of his native "country", but of the whole United States +of America.</p> + +<p>Unimaginative, unpoetical, unwilling to express personal +emotions as he was, he had always been deeply moved by +certain natural scenes. His description of the Natural Bridge, +the site of which he owned, is well remembered.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet, +and peep over it. Looking down from this height about a +minute, gave me a violent head ache. If the view from the top be +painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal +extreme. It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime +to be felt beyond what they are here; so beautiful an arch, so +elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven, the rapture +of the spectator is really indescribable!</p></div> + +<p>The "passage of the Patowmac through the Blue ridge" +is even more famous, and the broad, peaceful, almost infinite +scene is painted by the hand of a master:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is a true contrast to the foreground. It is as placid and delightful +as that is wild and tremendous. For the mountain being cloven +asunder, she presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch +of small blue horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, +inviting you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to +pass through the breach to the calm below.</p></div> + +<p>Only Bartram a few years later, and Chateaubriand at the +beginning of the next century, with much longer and more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +elaborate descriptions, could equal or surpass these few strokes +of description. Jefferson was truly the first to discover and +depict to Europeans the beauty of American natural scenery, +and to proclaim with genuine American pride that "this scene +is worth a voyage across the Atlantic—and is perhaps one of +the most stupendous in nature." It matters little that he +followed Voltaire in the origin of fossils, to decide timidly in +1787 that we must be contented to acknowledge that "this +great phenomenon is as yet unsolved." I shall not even remark +on the completeness and exactness of his list of plants, "medicinal, +esculent, ornamental or useful for fabrication", of which +he gives the popular names as well as the <i>Linnæan</i>, "as the +latter might not convey precise information to a foreigner", +or on his list "of the quadrupeds of North America"; nor +shall I mention his long dissertation on "the bones of Mamoths" +found on the North American continent and his refutation of +Buffon. Far more interesting is his protest against the assertion +of the great French naturalist that "the animals common +both to the old and new world are smaller in the latter, that +those peculiar to the new are in a smaller scale, that those which +have been domesticated in both have degenerated in America." +He composed with much tabulation a complete refutation of +Buffon's error, and demonstrated that plants as well as animals +reached a development hitherto unknown under the new conditions +and the favorable circumstances of the American climate.</p> + +<p>When it came to the aborigines, he had little to say of the +South American Indians, but of North American Indians he +could speak "somewhat from his own knowledge" as well as +from the observations of others better acquainted with them +and on whose truth and judgment he could rely.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not only they are well formed in body and in mind as the <i>homo +sapiens Europaeus</i>, but from what we know of their eloquence it is +of a superior lustre.... I may challenge the whole orations of +Demosthenes and Cicero, and of many more prominent orators,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +if Europe has furnished any more eminent, to produce a single +passage, superior to the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, to Lord Dunmore +when Governor of this State.</p></div> + +<p>But his temper was thoroughly aroused when he discovered +that Abbé Raynal had undertaken to apply the theory of +Buffon to the white men who had settled in America.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If this were true and if climateric conditions were such as to +prevent mental and physical growth there would be little hope +for the newly constituted country to ever become a great nation. +Nature itself pronouncing against the Americans what chance could +they have to be able to ever come up to the level of the older nations. +Sentenced to remain forever an inferior race, this struggle to conquer +independence would have proved futile, and sooner or later, they +would fall the prey of superior people.</p></div> + +<p>Never before had Jefferson been so deeply stirred and moved, +never before had he felt so thoroughly American as in his +spirited answer to Raynal, when he claimed for the new-born +country not only unlimited potentialities, but actual superiority +over the mother country:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"America has not yet produced one good poet." When we shall +have existed as a people as long as the Greeks did before they produced +a Homer, the Romans a Virgil, the French a Racine and +Voltaire, the English a Shakespeare and Milton, should this reproach +be still true, we will inquire from what unfriendly causes it has +proceeded, that the other countries of Europe and quarters of the +earth shall not have inscribed any name in the roll of poet. But +neither has America produced "one able mathematician, one man +of genius in a single art or science." In war we have produced a +Washington, whose memory will be adored while liberty shall have +votaries, whose name will triumph over time, and will in future ages +assume its just station among the most celebrated worthies of the +world, when that wretched philosophy shall be forgotten which +would have arranged him among the degeneracies of nature. In +Physics we have produced a Franklin, than whom no one of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +present age has made more important discoveries, nor has enriched +philosophy with more, or more ingenious solutions of the phaenomena +of nature.... As in philosophy and war, so in government, +in oratory, in painting, in the plastic arts, we might show that America, +though but a child of yesterday, has already given hopeful +proofs of genius, as well as of the nobler kinds, which arouse the +best feelings of man, which call him into action, which substantiate +his freedom, and conduct him to happiness, as of the subordinate, +which serve to amuse him only. We therefore suppose that this +reproach is as unjust as it is unkind: and that, of the geniuses which +adorn the present age, America contributes her full share.... +The present war having so long cut off all communications with +Great Britain, we are not able to make a fair estimate of the state +of science in the country. The spirit in which she wages war, is +the only sample before our eyes, and that does not seem the legitimate +offspring either of science or civilization. The sun of her +glory is fast descending to the horizon. Her Philosophy has +crossed her channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herself seems passing +to that awful dissolution whose issue is not given human foresight +to scan.</p></div> + +<p>This is the fullest and most complete expression of national +consciousness and national pride yet uttered by Jefferson. The +American eagle was spreading her wing and preparing to fly by +herself. The American transcended the Virginian and looked +confidently at the future.</p> + +<p>In Query VIII, we come again to a question of national +importance. The country being what it is, it would take at +least one hundred years for Virginia to reach the present square-mile +population of Great Britain. The question then arises +whether a larger population being desirable, the State should +not encourage foreigners to settle in as large numbers as possible. +To unrestricted immigration, Jefferson, fearful for the +integrity of the racial stock, fearful also for the maintenance +of institutions so hardly won and yet so precariously established, +was unequivocally opposed. In a most remarkable passage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +he stated the very reasons that after him were to be put forth +again and again, until a policy of selective and restrictive +immigration was finally adopted. I would not say that he was +a hundred and fifty years ahead of his time, but a hundred and +fifty years ago he formulated with his usual "felicity of expression", +feelings and forebodings which existed more or less confusedly +in many minds. When he spoke thus he was more of a +spokesman than a prophet of America:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours +perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. +It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, +with others derived from natural right and natural reason. To +these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute +monarchies. Yet from such we are to expect the greatest number +of immigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the +governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able +to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, +passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be +a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate +liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit +to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share +with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp +and bias its directions, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, +distracted mass.... Is it not safer to wait with patience 27 years +and three months longer for the attainment of any degree of population +desired or expected? May not our government be more +homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable? Suppose 20 millions +of republican Americans [were] thrown all of a sudden into France, +what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more +turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition +of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce +a similar effect here.... I mean not that these doubts should +be extended to the importation of useful artificers.... Spare +no expence in obtaining them. They will after a time go to the +plough and to the hoe; but in the mean time they will teach us something +we do not know.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<p>Everything is there! That America is essentially and should +remain an Anglo-Saxon civilization; the fear that unassimilated +immigration may corrupt the institutions of the country and +bring into it uneradicable germs of absolutism; the admission +even that America needs a certain class of immigrants, of +specialists to develop new arts and new industries. In 1781, +Jefferson was not only an American, but a hundred per cent. +American, and the sentiments he expressed then were to reëcho +in the halls of Congress through the following generations +whenever the question was discussed.</p> + +<p>The government as it was presently organized was far from +perfect—it even had "very capital defects in it." First of +all, it was not a truly representative government since, owing +to the representation by counties, it happened that fourteen +thousand men living in one part of the country gave law to +upwards of thirty thousand living in another; in spite of the +theoretical separation of powers, all the powers of government, +legislature, executive, and judiciary, were vested in the legislative +body. "The concentrating these in the same hands is +precisely the definition of despotic government." Assuming +that the present legislators of Virginia were perfectly honest +and disinterested, it would not be very long before a change +might come, for "mankind soon learn to make interested uses +of every right and power which they possess, or may assume."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"With money we will get men," said Caesar, "and with men we +will get money." ... They should look forward to a time, and +that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country +from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of the +government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; +when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them +pay the price. Human nature is the same in every side of the +Atlantic and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time +to guard against corruptions and tyranny, is before they shall have +gotten hold of us.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<p>Before proceeding any further, it may be well to pause, in +order to analyze more carefully these statements of Jefferson's. +It will soon appear that they do not form a perfectly logical +construction and are not part of an <i>a priori</i> system. He had +proclaimed his faith in the ultimate recognition of truth, but he +did not believe that unaided truth should necessarily prevail, +for human nature being very imperfect, very narrow and very +selfish, the best institutions have a permanent tendency to +degenerate. Jefferson had already clearly in mind the famous +maxim "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." It is this +curious combination of unshakable faith in the ultimate triumph +of truth and healthy pessimism as to the present possibilities, +that distinguishes Jefferson from the "closet politicians" and +theoretical philosophers. It is an alliance of the contraries +which seems absurd to many Frenchmen, but is often found in +English statesmen, and is probably more common in America +than in any other nation. In this respect as in many others +Jefferson was typically American.</p> + +<p>His criticism of the legislature came clearly from two different +motives. He attempted first of all to demonstrate to himself +that the Assembly that had listened to charges against him was +not a truly representative body, not only because the attribution +of two delegates to each county, irrespective of the population, +was iniquitous, but also because, owing to emergencies, +the Assembly had come to decide themselves what number +would constitute a quorum. Thus an oligarchy or even a +monarchy could finally be substituted for a regular assembly +by almost imperceptible transitions. "<i>Omnia mala exempla +a bonis orta sunt; sed ubi imperium ad ignaros aut minus bonos +pervenit novum illud exemplum ab dignis et idoneis ad indignos et +non idoneos fertur.</i>"</p> + +<p>This is nothing but a re-affirmation of the aristocratic doctrine +of the "Literary Bible." Once more, the aristocrat of mind +revolts, for "when power is placed in the hands of men who are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +ignorant or not so good, it may be taken from those who are +deserving and truly noble to be transferred to unworthy and +ignoble men." This is the constant undercurrent which runs +through Jefferson's political theories and unexpectedly reappears +at the surface from time to time. A government of the +best minds, elected by a populace sufficiently enlightened to +select the best minds,—such is at that time Jefferson's ideal of +government.</p> + +<p>On the other hand his attitude towards dictatorship, as it +appears in the "Notes on Virginia", is no less significant for a +true estimate of his character. Unless the views expressed +there are carefully considered and kept well in mind, we might +fall into the common error of attributing to some mysterious +influence of the French Revolution and the French philosophers +the opinions expressed by Jefferson on presidential tenure, +during the debate on the Constitution and his famous quarrel +with Hamilton. As a matter of fact, he had expressed the very +same views already and even more emphatically on a previous +occasion, when George Nicholas had proposed in the Assembly +"that a Dictator be appointed in this Commonwealth who +should have the power of disposing of the lives and fortunes of +the Citizens thereof without being subject to account"; the +motion seconded by Patrick Henry "been lost only by a few +votes."<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> One may even wonder if the accusation of inefficiency +against Jefferson had not been introduced by the same George +Nicholas, in order to clear the way for the appointment of a +dictator. Hence the impassioned tone of Jefferson's refutation. +Deeply stirred and deeply hurt in his <i>amour-propre</i>, Jefferson +incorporated in the "Notes on Virginia" the speech he would +have made on the occasion had he been an orator.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>How must we find our efforts and sacrifices abused and baffled, +if we may still, by a single vote, be laid prostrate at the feet of one +man. In God's name, from whence have they derived this power?</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Is it from any principle in our new constitution expressed or implied? +Every lineament of that expressed or implied, is in full opposition +to it.... Necessities which dissolve a government, do not convey +its authority to an oligarchy or monarchy. They throw back into +the hands of the people the powers they had delegated, and leave +them as individuals to shift for themselves. A leader may offer, +but not impose himself, nor be imposed on them. Much less can +their necks be submitted to his sword, their breath be held at his +will or caprice.... The very thought alone was treason against +the people; was treason against mankind in general; as rivetting +forever the chains which bow down their necks, by giving to their +oppressors a proof which they would have trumpetted through the +universe, of the imbecillity of republican government, in times of +pressing danger, to shield them from harm. Those who assume +the right of giving away the reins of government in any case, must +be sure that the herd, whom they hand on to the rods and hatchet +of the dictator, will lay their necks on the block when he shall nod +to them. But if our assemblies supposed such a resignation in the +people, I hope they mistook their character.... Searching for +the foundations of this proposition, I can find none which may +pretend a colour of right or reason, but the defect before developed, +that there is no barrier between the legislative, executive, and judiciary +departments.... Our situation is indeed perilous, and I +hope my countrymen will be sensible of it, and will apply, at a proper +season, the proper remedy; which is a convention to fix the constitution, +to amend its defects, to bind up the several branches of +government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their +acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the +people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their +rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into +an intention to surrender those rights.</p></div> + +<p>This is much more than an occasional outburst written under +a strong emotional stress. Jefferson had discovered in his own +country the existence of a group of men stanchly opposed to +the republican form of government, ready in an emergency to +go beyond the powers that had been delegated to them—not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +necessarily dishonest men, but dangerous because they did not +have a correct conception of their rights and duties. All the +controversy with the Federalists already exists in germ, in this +declaration, and Jefferson from the very first had taken his +position. The immediate effect was to sever the last bonds +which still tied him to the aristocratic spirit of the social class +to which he belonged by birth, and to make him raise a protest +against the fact that, "the majority of men in the state, who +pay and fight for its support are unrepresented in the legislature, +the roll of freeholders entitled to vote, not including generally +the half of those on the roll of militia, or of the tax gatherers."</p> + +<p>"It has been thought that corruption is restrained by confining +the right of suffrage to a few of the wealthier people"; +but experience has shown, irrespective of any consideration of +justice or right, that a truly republican form of government is +not safe in their hands. What will be the conclusion? That +suffrage must be extended so as to become universal. The +people themselves are the only safe depositories of government. +"If every individual which composes this mass participates of +the ultimate authority, the government will be safe; because +the corruption of the whole mass will exceed any private resources +of wealth." But if the people are the ultimate +guardians of their liberties, they must also be rendered the safe +guardians of it. Hence the necessity of providing for them an +education adapted to the years, the capacity, and the conditions +of every one, and directed toward their freedom and happiness. +On this occasion Jefferson reproduced the view already expressed +in the Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, as well +as the tenor of the first section of the Bill for Religious Freedom, +but with new considerations which could scarcely be incorporated +in a statute.</p> + +<p>Then comes a conclusion unexpected and revealing, a sort of +pessimism little in accordance with the supposed democratic +faith of the writer; there is no inherent superior wisdom in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +people, but it happens that under stress they so rise as to be +superior to themselves, and it is for those who direct the course +of the State to make the best of this fugitive opportunity:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become +corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence +persecutions, and better men be his victims. It can never be too +often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a +legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. +From the conclusion of this war we shall go down hill. It will not +then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. +They will be forgotten therefore and their rights disregarded. They +will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, +and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their +rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at +the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made +heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.</p></div> + +<p>Is this a dreamer, a philosopher, a mere theorician, or a very +alert and keen politician with a high ideal and an exact realization +of the people's limitations? This pessimistic view of +human nature and human society did not make Jefferson +entirely cynical, since he kept his faith in his ideal and never +questioned the eminent superiority of the republican form of +government. But he knew men too well to have faith in their +collective intelligence and disinterestedness, the naïve faith of +so many French philosophers. If in this passage Jefferson +reminds one of any French writers, it is not Rousseau, nor +Helvétius, nor even Montesquieu, but of Montaigne, the Mayor +of Bordeaux, who after the pestilence retired to his "Library" +and composed his famous "Essais." One may well understand +why Jefferson took such care to recommend his friends not to +let the "Notes" out of their hands, and not to permit it to be +published in any circumstances. The French like to say +"<i>toutes les vérités ne sont pas bonnes à dire</i>"—these were truths<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +that should not be permitted to leak out and to circulate broadcast +among the people: at most they were good only to be disclosed +to this élite who had at heart the gradual betterment of +the "plain people."</p> + +<p>Jefferson's opposition to slavery rests on the same calculating +motives. The existence of slavery is as degrading for +the master as for the slave; it is destructive of the morals of the +people, and of industry.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have +removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the +people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to +be violated but with his wrath?... It is impossible to be temperate +and to pursue this subject through the various considerations +of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil.</p></div> + +<p>But it does not ensue that Negroes should ever be placed +on a footing of equality with the whites. To pronounce that +they are decidedly inferior would require long observation, and +we must hesitate</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="noidt">to degrade a whole race of men from the work in the scale of beings +which their Creator may <i>perhaps</i> have given them.... I advance +it therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally +a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstance, are +inferior to the whites in the endowment both of body and mind. +It is not against experience to suppose that different species of the +same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different +qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history then, one who +views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of +philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of +man as distinct as nature has formed them.</p></div> + +<p>However the case may be, the blacks cannot be incorporated +into the State, and the only solution after they are emancipated +and educated is to "colonize them to such places as the circumstances +of the time shall render most proper, sending them out +with arms, implements of household and of the handicraft arts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +seeds, pairs of the useful animals, etc., to declare them a free +and independent people, and extend to them our alliance and +protection, till they shall have acquired strength." But the +freed slave "is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture", +and the purity of the white stock must be preserved.</p> + +<p>Throughout the book Jefferson untiringly harps on the fact +that American civilization is different from any other that has +developed in Europe, and that principles of "economy" which +apply to European nations should not be transferred "without +calculating the difference of circumstance which should often +produce a difference of results." The main difference lies in +the fact that while in Europe "the lands are already cultivated, +or locked up against the cultivator, we have an immensity of +land courting the industry of the husbandman." America +is essentially agricultural, and agricultural it must remain:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if +ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar +deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which +he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from +the face of the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators +is a phaenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an +example.... While we have land to labour then, let us never +wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a +distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: +but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our work-shops +remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials +to work men there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, +and with them their manners and principles.</p></div> + +<p>This vision of an American entirely given to agricultural pursuits +may look Utopian in the extreme, and would be Utopian if +Jefferson had really believed that it was susceptible of becoming +an actual fact. But, in practice, this ideal was on the contrary +subject to many adjustments and modifications.</p> + +<p>Jefferson's relativism is even more clearly marked in the last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +chapter, which forms the real conclusion of the book. It outlines +the future policy of the United States with regard to +foreign nations; it formulates a peaceful ideal which has +remained on the whole the ideal of America. Once more it +illustrates that curious balancing of two contrary principles so +characteristic of the philosopher of Americanism as well as of +the country itself.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Young as we are, and with such a country before us to fill with +people and with happiness, we should point in that direction the +whole generative force of nature, wasting none of it in efforts of +mutual destruction. It should be our endeavour to cultivate the +peace and friendship of every nation, even of that which has injured +us most, when we shall have carried our point against her. Our +interest will be to open the doors of commerce, and to knock off all +its shackles, giving perfect freedom to all persons for the want of +whatever they may choose to bring into our ports, and asking the +same in theirs. Never was so much false arithmetic employed on +any subject, as that which has been employed to persuade nations +that it is their interest to go to war. Were the money which it has +cost to gain, at the close of a long war, a little town, or a little territory, +the right to cut wood here, to catch fish there, expended in +improving what we already possess, in making roads, opening rivers, +building ports, improving the arts and finding employment for their +idle poor, it would render them much stronger, much wealthier and +happier.</p></div> + +<p>"This," adds Jefferson, "I hope will be our wisdom." But +it is only a hope and circumstances which cannot be changed +by pious hopes exist and have to be confronted. In order to +avoid every cause of conflict it would be necessary to abandon +the ocean altogether, and "to leave to others to bring what we +shall want, and to carry what we shall spare." This unfortunately +is impossible, since a large portion of the American +people are attached to commerce and insist on following the sea. +What then is the answer?—Preparedness.—"Wars then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +must sometimes be our lot; and all the wise can do, will be to +avoid that half of them which would be produced by our own +follies, and our own acts of injustice; and to make for the +other half the best preparations one can."</p> + +<p>One would not have to search long in the speeches of Woodrow +Wilson to find the same idea expressed in almost identical +terms. Even a Republican president such as Mr. Coolidge +did not speak differently, when he simultaneously proposed +conferences of disarmament and recommended that appropriation +for the navy be enormously increased. This combination +of will to peace, these reiterations of the pacific policies of the +United States have been since the early days combined with the +fixed determination to maintain a naval force adequate to cope +with any attacking force. For such is the policy advocated by +Jefferson. One should not be deceived by his very modest +statement, "the sea is the field on which we should meet an +European enemy. On that element it is necessary that we +should possess some power." What he proposes is simply the +building in one year of a fleet of thirty ships, eighteen of which +might be ships of the line, and twelve frigates, with eighteen +hundred guns. And he significantly adds, "I state this only as +one year's possible exertion, without deciding whether more or +less than a year should be thus applied." But, so as not to +leave any potential aggressor in doubt as to the resources of +America, he mentions that this naval force should by no means +be "so great as we are able to make it."</p> + +<p>After stating categorically his principles, Jefferson did not +object to minor modifications when it came to practice. As +early as the winter of 1781 he had found and determined the +main tenets of his political philosophy. It was essentially +American and practical. The idea never entered his mind that +in order to establish an American government it was necessary +to make a <i>tabula rasa</i> of what existed before. As a matter of +fact, Americans had certain vested rights through several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +charters enumerated by Jefferson in answer to Query XIII; +they had revolted in defense of these rights, but the principles of +their government, "perhaps more peculiar than those of any +other in the universe", were simply "a composition of the freest +principles of the English constitution, with others derived from +natural right and natural reason." Essentially "founded in +common law as well as common right", it was not necessarily +the best possible form of government or the only one imaginable, +"for every species of government has its specific principle." +But despite its imperfections, it was better adapted to American +conditions than any other that could be devised. At that time, +at least, Jefferson did not seem to suspect that it could be taken +as a model by any other nations, or that its main principles +would prove so "contagious." The situation of America was +unique. Unlimited agricultural lands extended to the west, +and one could estimate that it would take at least a century to +reach a density of population comparable to that of the British +Isles. For a long time America would remain mainly agricultural, +with a population scattered in farms instead of being +concentrated in large cities, and would keep many of the virtues +inherent in country life. In addition, the country would be +practically free from any attack by land, as she had no powerful +neighbors. She was geographically isolated from the rest of +the world, and even if she were attacked by sea, it would be by a +fleet operating far from its base and therefore at a disadvantage. +No permanent army had to be maintained and a comparatively +small fleet would suffice for protection. Free from the ordinary +"sores" of civilization, not yet wealthy but prosperous, for, +says Jefferson "I never saw a native American begging in the +streets or highways", a country peaceful and with hatred +towards none, not even to "that nation which has injured us +most",—such is the ideal picture of America drawn by Jefferson +for himself and his French correspondent during the winter +of 1781-1782.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<p>Whatever faults existed would be corrected in time. If +slavery could be abolished and the last vestiges of an hereditary +aristocracy eradicated, little would be left to be desired. Yet +it would not be a complete Arcadia, for Jefferson did not believe +that a state of perfection once reached could be maintained +without effort. Several dangers would always threaten +America. The influx of foreigners might alter the character of +her institutions. In spite of her peaceful ideals, dangers from +the outside might threaten her prosperity. But on the whole, +the country, even in its "infant state", was in no wise inferior +to any European nation. In all the sciences it gave promise +of extraordinary achievements. In architecture, to be sure, it +seemed that "a genius has shed its malediction over this land", +but artists and artisans could be induced to come, and even if +America never reached the artistic proficiency of some European +nations, it was and would remain more simple, more frugal, +more virtuous than nations whose population congregate in +large cities.</p> + +<p>Such, briefly told, is the conception of Americanism reached +by Jefferson when he wrote the "Notes on Virginia." He had +not had any direct contact with Europe, but he had read enormously +and he had come to the conclusion that, reasonably +secure against foreign aggressions, keeping her commerce at a +minimum, America could develop along her own lines and, reviving +on a new land the old Anglo-Saxon principles thwarted +by kingly usurpations and church fabrications, bring about an +Anglo-Saxon millennium which no other country might ever +dream of reaching. It now remains to see to what extent and +under what influences Jefferson came to modify certain of his +conclusions, following his prolonged contact with Europe.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h2>A STATESMAN'S APPRENTICESHIP</h2> + + +<p>The year 1782 was for Jefferson a year of trial and suffering. +A child was born to Mrs. Jefferson on May 8; she never recovered +fully and soon it appeared that she was irrevocably +doomed. This tragic, touching story had better be told in +the simple words of his daughter Martha, then nine years +of age:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>As a nurse no female had ever more tenderness nor anxiety. He +nursed my poor mother in turn with aunt Carr and her own sister—sitting +up with her and administering her medicines and drink to +the last. For four months that she lingered he was never out of +calling; when not at her bed-side, he was writing in a small room +which opened immediately at the head of her bed. A moment +before the closing scene, he was led from the room in a state of +insensibility by his sister, Mrs. Carr, who with great difficulty, got +him into the library, where he fainted, and remained so long insensible +that they feared he never would revive. The scene that followed +I did not witness, but the violence of his emotion, when, almost by +stealth, I entered his room by night, to this day I dare not describe +to myself. He kept his room three weeks, and I was never a moment +from his side. He walked almost incessantly night and day, only +lying down occasionally, when nature was completely exhausted, +on a pallet that had been brought in during his long fainting fit. +My aunts remained constantly with him for some weeks—I do not +remember how many. When at last he left his room, he rode out, +and from that time he was incessantly on horseback, rambling about +the mountain, in the least frequented roads, and just as often +through the woods. In those melancholy rambles I was his constant +companion—a solitary witness to many a burst of grief, the remem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>brance +of which has consecrated particular scenes of that lost home +beyond the power to obliterate.</p></div> + +<p>In Jefferson's prayer book is found this simple entry:</p> + +<p>"Martha Wayles Jefferson died September 6, 1782, at 11 +o'clock 45 minutes <span class="smcap">A.M.</span>"</p> + +<p>She was buried in the little enclosure in which rested already +three of her children; on a simple slab of white marble her husband +had the following inscription engraved:</p> + +<p class="poem4"> +To the memory of<br /> +Martha Jefferson,<br /> +Daughter of John Wayles:<br /> +Born October 19th, 1748 O.S.<br /> +Intermarried with<br /> +Thomas Jefferson<br /> +January 1st 1772;<br /> +Torn from him by death<br /> +September 6th 1782<br /> +This monument of his love is inscribed<br /> +</p> +<p class="poem3"> +Εἰ δὲ θανόντων περ +καταλήθοντ’ εἰν +Αἵδαο,<br /> +Αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ κακεῖθι +ϕίλου μεμνήσομ’ +ἑταίρου.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a><br /> +</p> +<p class="poem"> +If in the house of Hades men forget their dead<br /> +Yet will I even there remember my dear companion. +</p> + +<p>Whether, as Tucker thought, Jefferson selected a Greek +quotation so as not to make any display of his feelings to the +casual passer-by, or whether Greek had so really become his +own habit of thought that he could not think of any better +way to express his grief, is a matter of conjecture. He was +not the man to speak of himself and his sorrows, even to his +closest friends. But it was probably at this time that he wrote +these lines found after his death in his pocketbook: "There +is a time in human suffering when exceeding sorrows are but +like snow falling on an iceberg", and in Latin, "<i>Heu quanto +minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse.</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<p>At thirty-nine he was left a widower with a house full of +children. Martha, born in 1772, Mary born in 1778, Lucy +Elizabeth, the baby just born, who was to die two years later, +and in addition the children of his friend and brother-in-law +Carr, whom he had adopted at the death of their father. As +soon as he had recovered from the first shock, Jefferson went +with the children to the house of Colonel Archibald Cary, at +Ampthill, in Chesterfield County, where he had them inoculated +for the smallpox. "While engaged as their chief nurse on the +occasion, he received notice of his appointment by Congress +as Plenipotentiary to Europe, to be associated with Dr. Franklin +and Mr. Adams in negotiating peace (November 13,1782)."<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></p> + +<p>He was just emerging from the stupor of mind which had +rendered him "as dead to the world as she whose loss occasioned +it."<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> It appeared to him that "public interest and +the state of his mind concurred in recommending the change of +scene proposed; and he accepted the appointment."<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> + +<p>The next three months were spent in preparing for the journey. +He made arrangements for his children and wrote a very +touching letter to Washington, evincing once more that reluctance +to express affectionate feeling so often found in +Americans, a result of early education and training as much as +of the national temperament: "Were I to indulge myself in +those warm effusions which this subject forever prompts, they +would wear an appearance of adulation very foreign to my +nature; for such is the prostitution of language, that sincerity +has no longer distinct terms in which to express her own +truths."<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p> + +<p>The ship that was to carry him to France was caught in the +ice at the entrance of the Chesapeake, with no prospect of +sailing before the beginning of March. When news came early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +in February that the negotiations were making satisfactory +progress, he felt some doubts about the desirability of a voyage +which entailed so much expense, and placed the matter in +the hands of Congress. It was not until April 1, however, that +he was informed that the object of his appointment was "so +far advanced as to render [it] unnecessary for him to pursue +his voyage." He left for Virginia a few days afterwards. For +the third time his plans for visiting Europe had been thwarted, +but he does not seem to have resented it so deeply as previously.</p> + +<p>The wounds inflicted to his <i>amour-propre</i> by the Virginia +Assembly were healing. He had renewed his contact with +public affairs, and when, on June 6, he was chosen as delegate +to Congress, with Samuel Hardy, John F. Mercer, Arthur +Lee, and James Monroe, he accepted without hesitation. The +two years which were to elapse between June, 1782, and July +5, 1784, the date of his final departure from France on the +<i>Ceres</i>, are not the most eventful or the most picturesque of +Jefferson's career. In many respects, however, they are the +fullest and the most important for a true understanding of his +mind and character. In the absence of Franklin and Adams he +stood out in Congress, head and shoulders above his colleagues; +he was placed on most of the important committees, he completed +his acquaintance with the internal and foreign policies +of the United States, he reported on measures of vital importance +and crystallized his opinion on fundamental problems.</p> + +<p>Before being chosen as a delegate to Congress, Jefferson had +already decided "to lend a hand to the laboring oar" and to +participate in the affairs of his State, if not as a legislator at +least as an adviser and counsellor. From the conversation he +had held in Richmond with "as many members" of the Assembly +"as he could",<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> he had concluded that Virginia was ready to +call a convention to revise the Constitution of 1776. On +June 17 he wrote again to Madison, inclosing his ideas on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +"amendments necessary." No convention was called at that +time, but Jefferson's memorandum was printed in pamphlet +form later in Paris, and he added it to his "Notes on Virginia." +First of all he reassured that the Constitution of 1776 had no +legal permanent value, being simply the result of the deliberation +of a General Assembly, in no way different from the succeeding +Assemblies. A power superior to that of the ordinary +legislature could alone have authority to decide on a constitution. +This could only be done by recommending "the good +people of the State" to choose delegates "with powers to form +a constitution of government for them, and to declare those +fundamentals to which all our laws present and future shall be +subordinate." Many of the provisions of the proposed constitution +were not original and, as indicated by Jefferson himself +in his letter to Madison, had been tried in other States. +The document, however, may serve to illustrate the progress +accomplished by Jefferson in the science of government since +he had written his first State paper, and to show how far he +still remained from his reputed views on democracy.</p> + +<p>Although still a free State, Virginia was no longer completely +independent, since she had entered a society of States, and it +was acknowledged that: "The confederation is made a part +of this constitution, subject to such future alterations as shall +be agreed to by the legislature of this State, and by all the other +confederating States."</p> + +<p>Almost universal suffrage was granted, the vote being given +to "All free male citizens of full age, and sane mind, who for +one year before shall have been resident in the country, or shall +through the whole of that time have possessed therein real property +to the value of ——, or shall for the same time have been enrolled +in the militia."</p> + +<p>This was an immediate consequence of the contractual concept +of society and it is not without some interest to remark +that this principle stood in direct contradiction to the physio<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>cratic +doctrine; for it was the contention of the Physiocrats +that, society resting essentially on real property, those who +own the land can alone participate in the government of the +country. If, on the contrary, society is considered as an +association of men who agree to live together in order to +secure fuller enjoyment of their fundamental rights, all the +signatories to the compact must have the same rights as well +as the same obligations in the government of the association +thus formed.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p> + +<p>Yet it remained understood that the voters were not to be +intrusted with all the details of government, and Jefferson +thought it desirable to establish certain safeguards against +the possible lack of knowledge of the electors. They chose +delegates and senators, but the governor was to be appointed +by joint ballot of both houses of the Assembly, and the same +procedure was to be followed in choosing a Council of State to +advise the governor, the judges of the High Court of Chancery, +the General Court and Court of Admiralty, while the judges of +inferior courts were to be appointed by the governor on recommendation +of the Council of State. The powers of the governor +were to be strictly limited and it was made clear that +although the old English title was preserved, the chief executive +of the State had "none of the powers exercised under our +former government by the Crown": "We give him those +powers only which are necessary to execute the laws (and administer +the government), and which are not in their nature +either legislative or judiciary." The governor had a sort of +suspensive veto. The military was to be subordinate to the +civil power, and the printing press to be subject to no other restraint +but liability to legal prosecution for false facts printed +and published. The plan provided also for the gradual abolition +of slavery after the year 1800.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<p>The most remarkable feature of this scheme was the strict +imitation of popular participation in the government. The +only power recognized as belonging to the people was that of +selecting delegates to both Houses, and of appointing delegates +to a constitutional convention whenever "any of the three +branches of the government, concurring in opinion each by the +voice of two-thirds of their existing number, decided that such a +convention is necessary for amending the constitution." We +are very far from government by referendum and even by +periodic elections, since none of the State officials were directly +appointed by the people. Jefferson had not at that time +departed from his fundamental idea that government must +be placed in the hands of well-qualified experts, carefully +selected and appointed. The "Constitution of Virginia" +was a "true form of Republican government", but by +no means demagogical or even truly democratic. Curiously +enough, and through mere coincidence, the essential features +of the present constitution of France closely resemble the +general outline of the plan proposed by Jefferson. This alone +should suffice to demonstrate how far he was at that time +from accepting and propounding some of the main tenets of +the so-called Jeffersonian democracy. But Virginia was not +yet ready for a change; the constitutional convention was +not called, and nothing had been done when Jefferson left the +State late in November, arriving at Annapolis on the +twenty-fourth.</p> + +<p>Much to his disgust, he found that, after a fortnight, the +delegates from only six States had appeared and that it was +impossible to transact any serious business. The Treaty of +Commerce had been received and was referred to a committee +of which Jefferson was chairman, but a bare quorum was not +assembled until December 13, and on the twenty-third, according +to the "Autobiography", it was necessary to send to several +governors a letter "stating the receipt of the definitive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +treaty; that seven States only were in attendance, while nine +were necessary to its ratification."</p> + +<p>In the meantime Washington had come to Annapolis to resign +his commission, in circumstances which can scarcely have +been as impressive as is generally related, since the whole program +carefully laid out by Jefferson took place before a bare +majority of Congress. The rest of the month was spent in +discussing whether the treaty could be ratified by less than nine +states. It soon appeared that "there now remained but scanty +sixty-seven days for the ratification, for its passage across the +Atlantic and its exchange. There was no hope of our soon +having nine States present; in fact that this was the ultimate +point of time to which we could venture to wait; that if the +ratification was not in Paris by the time stipulated, the treaty +would become void...."—On January 13, delegates from +Connecticut attended, and the next day a delegate from Carolina +having arrived, "the treaty was ratified without a dissenting +vote."</p> + +<p>This was for Jefferson a most profitable experience. As +chairman of the committee, he had to familiarize himself with +questions of foreign policies and foreign commerce. He had +also to put aside whatever remnants of sectionalism and provincialism +he unconsciously retained and he realized that +"Those United States being by their constitution consolidated +into one federal republic, they be considered in all such treaties +& in every case arising under them as one nation under the +principles of the Federal Constitution."<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p> + +<p>The same principle is reasserted more strongly in the "Draft +for proclamation announcing ratification of definitive treaties", +in which all the good citizens of the United States are enjoined +to reverence "those stipulations entered into on their behalf +under the authority of that federal (moral, political and legal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +bond) whereby they are called, by which their existence as an +independent people is bound up together, and is known and +acknowledged by the nations of the world."<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p> + +<p>On January 16, Jefferson wrote to Governor Harrison enumerating +the important objects before Congress:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. Authorizing our Foreign minister to enter into treaties of alliance +and commerce with the several nations who have deserved it; +2. Arranging the domestic administration; 3. Establishing arsenals +& ports on our frontiers; 4. Disposing of Western Territory; +5. Treaties of peace and purchase with the Indians; 6. Money.</p></div> + +<p>A full program, requiring for the adoption of any measure +the concurrence of nine States, while barely nine were present, +seven of which were represented only by two members each; +"any of these fourteen gentlemen differing from the rest would +stay the proceedings", and it seemed very doubtful whether +anything could be achieved during the session.</p> + +<p>This brought home to Jefferson the fact that the concentration +of the executive functions in Congress was an obstacle to +carrying out effectively the business of the Confederation, and +he thought it his duty to point out this defect in his "draft of +the report on a committee of the States", January 30, 1784. +It was a lengthy report, not very accurately summed up in the +"Autobiography", authorizing a permanent Committee of +the States to act as executive during the recess of Congress, +and enumerating very minutely the powers that such a committee +might exercise and those from which it would be excluded. +The plan as adopted was somewhat different and it +was resolved: "That the Committee should possess all the +powers which may be exercised by the seven States in Congress +assembled", except concerning foreign relations.</p> + +<p>Jefferson recalled in the "Autobiography" that during the +following recess the committee quarrelled, split into two parties,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +"abandoned their posts, and left the government without any +visible head, until the next meeting of Congress." He significantly +added: "We have since seen the same thing take +place in the Directory of France; and I believe it will forever +take place in any executive consisting of a plurality. Our +plan,—best, I believe,—combines wisdom and practicality; +by providing a plurality of Counsellors, but a single Arbiter +for ultimate decision." This conclusion was already reached +in 1784, not following a logical reasoning, or because of an innate +need of unity, but as a result of experience. Very early +in his life Jefferson became convinced that the country could +not be properly administered unless the executive powers were +concentrated in one responsible person, with powers strictly +defined, but left free to act and to act rapidly within that +field. This explains, among other things, not only Jefferson's +approval of the powers granted to the Executive under the +Constitution, but also his conduct during his two terms as +President.</p> + +<p>He soon had an opportunity to study the financial problems +of the Confederation, when a "grand Committee of Congress" +was appointed to take up the Federal expenses for the +current year, inclusive of articles of interest on the public debts +foreign and domestic.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> He presented on March 22 a "Report +on the Arrears of Interest", in which were carefully tabulated +not only the interest on sums due on account of the national +debts but an estimate of the expenses for the year 1784,—in +other words a budget. An outgrowth of the work assigned +to the Committee was the <i>establishment of a money unit, and of +a coinage for the United States</i>. The report of Jefferson retained +some of the essential provisions of the proposal drawn +up by the "Financier of the U.S." (Robert Morris, assisted by +Governor Morris), and Jefferson himself did not claim so much +originality for it as has been given him by some of his biog<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>raphers. +The report of the financier proposed that the new +coins "should be in decimal proportions to one another", and +this was retained. On the other hand, Morris had proposed as +a unit "the 1440th part of a dollar", after taking into consideration +the old currencies, "all of which this unit measures without +leaving a fraction." Jefferson pointed out that, although +theoretically perfect, the unit was much too complicated +and too small, and he maintained that the unit should be +the Spanish dollar "a known coin, and the most familiar +of all to the minds of the people." ... "It is already +adopted from South to North," he added, "has identified our +currency, and therefore happily offers itself as a Unit already +introduced."</p> + +<p>In spite of the financier's opposition, the plan as amended +by Jefferson was finally adopted and still constitutes the essential +foundation of the American monetary system. To the +student of psychology this incident affords another illustration +of Jefferson's practical-mindedness. Having to choose between +two solutions, one mathematically perfect, and another +one simply regulating and organizing what already existed, +he did not hesitate a minute and practical considerations prevailed +at once in his mind.</p> + +<p>In the meantime he was working on one of his most important +State papers. Randall called attention to it and P. L. Ford +maintained that "next to the Declaration of Independence (if +indeed standing second to that) this document ranks in historical +importance of all those drawn by Jefferson; and, but for +its being superseded by the 'Ordinance of 1787', would rank +among all American state papers immediately after the National +Constitution."<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> Yet it does not seem that its value is +generally recognized and it is but seldom listed as one of the +outstanding achievements of Jefferson. For reasons that will +shortly appear, Jefferson himself neglected to mention it in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +"Autobiography." It is a capital document by which to understand +the growth of the Jeffersonian doctrine.</p> + +<p>First of all, it resolved that "so much of the territory ceded +or to be ceded by individual States to the United States as is +already purchased or shall be purchased of the Indian inhabitants +& offered for sale by Congress, shall be divided into distinct +states." Which simply meant that the westward growth +of the country, instead of being left to the initiative of the individual +States, was placed under the ægis of the Confederation +and thus became a matter of national importance and significance. +It provided for a practically unlimited expansion of +the United States by the establishment of States analogous +to the already existing Confederacy. It also insisted strongly +that all such territory be connected as closely as possible with +the already existing Union. Settlers in any of the territories +thus organized, had authority to establish a temporary government, +adopting with due modification the constitution and laws +of any of the original States. A permanent government was +to be established in any State as soon as it should have acquired +a population of twenty thousand free inhabitants, provided, +and here we probably have the most important provisions:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. That they shall forever remain a part of this confederacy of +the United States of America. 2. That in their persons, property +and territory they shall be subject to the Government of the United +States in Congress assembled & to the articles of confederation.... +4. That their respective Governments shall be in republican forms +and shall admit no person to be a citizen who holds any hereditary +title. 5. That after the year 1800 of the Christian aera, there shall +be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states.</p></div> + +<p>Finally, "whenever any of the said States shall have, of free +inhabitants, as many as shall then be in any one of the least +numerous, of the thirteen original States, such State will be +admitted by it's delegates into the Congress of the United +States on an equal footing with the said United States."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>This report, submitted March 1, recommitted to the committee +March 17, was considered again by Congress on April +19, 21, 23, and adopted after amendment by every State except +one. But the amendment took the teeth out of the report, +since the clause referring to slavery was struck out, as well as +that concerning the admission of persons holding hereditary +titles. Other provisions concerning the names to be given to +the new States were also eliminated. The scholar reappeared +in these suggestions. If Jefferson's original motion had been +accepted, the present State of Michigan would wear the name +of <i>Chersonesus</i> and on the map of the United States would +appear such designations as <i>Metropotamia</i>, <i>Polypotamia</i>, and +<i>Pilisipia</i>.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p> + +<p>Finally Jefferson intended to complete the organization and +expansion of the United States with "An ordinance establishing +a Land Office" for the United States "to give sure title to +the settlers and determine the division and subdivision into +lots" which was defeated, an entirely new ordinance being +adopted April 26, 1785.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p> + +<p>The most striking feature of all these bills was the eagerness +of Jefferson to consolidate the Union and to strengthen Federal +bonds. With a common monetary unit, common interest in a +large territory just acquired by cession from Virginia, one more +thing remained to be settled: the organization of permanent +relations with foreign nations, that is to say, the conclusion +of commercial treaties.</p> + +<p>It had appeared very soon to Jefferson that if such treaties +were to be concluded it was desirable to adopt a working policy +outlined in his "Resolves on European Treaties."<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> To have +foreign plenipotentiaries come to the United States, discuss +with the badly organized body called the Continental Congress, +whose members would have to report to their legislatures and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +after interminable delays accept or reject the proposal, was an +impossible procedure. This distrust of Congress was amply +justified at the time, and one may wonder whether satisfactory +treaties could ever have been concluded under the supervision +of Congress; Jefferson therefore proposed that ministers +be sent to Europe to negotiate with the old and established +nations, who could not be expected to cross the Atlantic.</p> + +<p>On May 7, Congress agreed on <i>Instructions to the Ministers +Plenipotentiary appointed to negotiate treaties of Commerce with +the European Nations</i>. Once more it was proclaimed:</p> + +<p>"That these United Sates be considered in all such treaties, +and in every case arising under them, as one nation, upon the +principle of the Federal constitution."</p> + +<p>It was also deemed "advantageous that treaties be concluded +with Russia, the Court of Vienna, Prussia, Denmark, +Saxony, Hamburg, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Genoa, +Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Venice, Sardinia and the Ottoman +Porte. That treaties of amity and commerce be entered into +with Morocco, and the Regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. +To have supplementary treaties with France, the United +Netherlands and Sweden in order to incorporate the new policies +of the United States."</p> + +<p>The plan of treaties contained some remarkable provisions; +they were clear departures, not from the theory of international +law and <i>droit des gens</i>, as Jefferson had found it in the authorities +consulted, but from the actual policy of the European nations.</p> + +<p>Thus it was proposed that in case of war between the two +contracting parties,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The merchants of either country, then residing in the other shall +be allowed to remain nine months to collect their debts and settle +their affairs, and may depart freely, carrying off all their effects, +without molestation or hinderance, and all fishermen, all cultivators +of the earth, and all artisans or manufacturers, unarmed and inhabiting +unfortified towns, villages or places, who labor for the common +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>subsistence and benefit of mankind, and peaceably follow their +respective employments, shall be allowed to continue the same.</p></div> + +<p>That "neither of the contracting powers shall grant or issue +any commission to any private armed vessels, empowering +them to take or destroy such trading ships, or interrupt such +commerce."</p> + +<p>In case of war with another nation, "no merchandize heretofore +called contraband, such as arms, ammunition and military +stores of all kinds,... shall, on any account, be deemed +contraband, so as to induce confiscation, and a loss of property +to individuals." The right to detain vessels carrying such +goods a reasonable length of time was granted, as well as the +right not to seize, but "to purchase" military stores with a +reasonable compensation to the proprietors; in all cases the +owners of the ships delayed were to receive a compensation. +But all vessels not carrying contraband were to be entirely +free, adding that a blockade in order to be recognized had to +be effectual, but even in that case "no vessel of the party who +is not engaged in the said war, shall be stopped without a +material and well-grounded cause."</p> + +<p>Besides these general provisions, it was recommended that +"each party shall have a right to carry their own produce, +manufactures, and merchandise in their own bottoms to the +ports of the others, and thence the produce and merchandise +of the other, paying, in both cases, such duties only as are paid +by the most favored nations."</p> + +<p>A paragraph was intended specially for the commerce with +the West Indies, "desiring that a direct and similar intercourse +be admitted between the United States and possessions +of the nations holding territorial possessions in America."</p> + +<p>Finally, as Jefferson as well as his contemporaries were +already fearful of seeing any influx of foreigners settle in their +country and dominate the infant government, it was stipulated +that no right be accorded to aliens to hold real property<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +within these States, this being "utterly inadmissible by their +several laws and policy."</p> + +<p>From the European point of view many things were inadmissible +in the plan of treaties. To request the nations of the +Old World not only to abandon privateering, but to relinquish +their definitions of contraband and their commercial monopolies +with their own colonies, was something which must have appeared +as the wild dream of a people unexperienced in the +handling of foreign relations. As a matter of fact, the treaties +were never signed. But if the principles formulated by Jefferson +were not accepted by the European powers, they remained +nevertheless an essential part of the foreign policy of the United +States.</p> + +<p>On the very day the "Instructions" were adopted, Jefferson +was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to "negotiate treaties +of commerce with foreign nations in conjunction with Mr. +John Adams and Dr. Franklin." No man in Congress was +better qualified for such a mission. His work for two years on +several important committees had acquainted him with the +main problems of the Union. He had demonstrated his ability +to present clear reports on the most intricate questions. He +had completed his apprenticeship of men and things; but it +may be wondered whether the delegates who recommended +his appointment were not impelled by ulterior motives. The +stand taken by Jefferson on slavery had made him decidedly +unpopular with the Southern delegates. He had opposed the +original statutes of the Order of Cincinnati, in which he saw the +beginnings of a new aristocracy. He had made enemies as well +as friends and could write to Washington that an experience +of twenty years had taught him "that few friendships stand +this test, & that public assemblies, where everyone is free to +act & to speak, are the most powerful looseners of private +friendship." The petty discussions in Congress, the long +speeches he had to listen to, the quibbling, lack of initiative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +and lack of national spirit of the delegates had thoroughly disgusted +him. Before receiving his appointment he had already +repented of his return to public life and had signified his intention +of going back to his beloved Monticello.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have determined—he wrote to Washington—to take no +active part in this or anything else, which may lead to altercation, +or disturb that quiet & tranquillity of mind to which I consign the +remaining portion of my life. I have been thrown back by events +on a stage where I had never more thought to appear. It is but for a +time, however, & as a day laborer, free to withdraw, or be withdrawn +at will.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p></div> + +<p>He seized with eagerness the opportunity of visiting older +civilizations and enjoying a change of scenes. Having hastily +cancelled his order for printing a few copies of the "Notes on +Virginia", he at once made preparations for his departure.</p> + +<p>The new plenipotentiary decided to take with him his older +daughter Martha, then in Philadelphia at Mrs. Hopkinson's, +and to leave the two younger ones with their maternal aunt, +Mrs. Eppes, in Virginia. William Short, his "<i>élève</i>" and friend, +accompanied him as private secretary and Colonel David Humphreys +as secretary of the legation.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> From Philadelphia he +went to Boston, visiting Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the +principal towns on his way, in order to acquire "what knowledge +he could of their commerce and other circumstances." He +sailed from Boston on the <i>Ceres</i>, Captain Sainte-Barbe, bound +to Cowes.</p> + +<p>Jefferson was then forty-one years old. He knew life and +men and had no illusions; he had experienced happiness and +sorrow; he had had moments of exaltation, of hot patriotic +fever; he had occupied the front of the stage in several circumstances +never to be forgotten; he had aroused enmities and +made devoted and faithful friends, among them Monroe, Madi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>son, +and Short whom he was taking along with him. But +neither his disappointments nor his sorrows had made him a +misanthrope. Not an orator, he liked to talk, and he could +not live without society. The tall spare man in black was +no longer able to feel his heart moved by the early emotions +of his youth. Next to Washington, who remained in America, +and to Doctor Franklin, a debonair patriarch, he was the most +famous national figure of America. None was better qualified +by his former life and studies to represent America and to speak +for his country. Whatever sectionalism he may have had in +him had disappeared in these last two years of Congress, when +he had striven so strenuously to make the Union an actual +fact and to consolidate the loose Federal fabric, for only there +could men "See the affairs of the Confederacy from a high +ground; they learn the importance of the Union & befriend +federal measures when they return. Those who never come +here, see our affairs insulated, pursue a system of jealousy +and self interest, and distract the Union as much as they can."</p> + +<p>Of Europe he knew little, except what he had been able to +absorb from books. It was a country of great artistic productivity, +of enviable social life. Towards England he was +not particularly attracted; towards France he felt much more +favorably inclined. He had met many Frenchmen; some of +them already had become his close friends, two particularly, +the Chevalier de Chastellux and especially the youthful, impulsive, +and charming Lafayette, who in a parting note had +asked him to consider his house as his and to take the little +motherless girl to Madame de Lafayette. He knew he would +not be without friends, without society, that he would have +an unique chance to meet the best minds of Europe. This +practical American, so little given to the "<i>joie de vivre</i>" and +without <i>abandon</i>, wanted primarily to increase his knowledge, +to gather facts, to make comparisons. He had retained the +taste for society, the good breeding, the polite manners, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +artistic tendencies of the Virginian, but in him the American +was already fully grown. He felt also that he had a certain +mission and intended to fulfill it: it was to convey to the European +statesmen whose wiles he distrusted the impression that +the United States existed as a country, that they did not form +a loose and temporary confederation of States, but a nation to +be reckoned with and respected. His country was no longer his +native Virginia alone: he was thinking nationally and not +sectionally. For the French Jefferson was already a great +American figure; he was going to embody the best there was +in the newly constituted Union.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BOOK_THREE" id="BOOK_THREE"></a>BOOK THREE</h2> + +<h1><i>An American View of Europe</i></h1> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h2>SOCIETY AND TRAVEL</h2> + + +<p>The <i>Ceres</i> reached Portsmouth nineteen days after leaving +Boston, a remarkably swift passage, without incident, except +for three days spent in fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland, +while the ship was becalmed. Jefferson and his companions +were delayed a week in Portsmouth by Martha's slight illness, +and then went directly to Paris, where he arrived on August 6, +1784. Jefferson was to remain in France till the fall of 1789—five +years crowded with pleasures, social duties, political +duties, and hard work. His activities were so varied and his +interests so diversified that it is no longer possible to follow any +chronological order; we must establish arbitrary divisions, +though Jefferson passed at all times from one subject to another +and was incessantly busy with undertakings and plans truly +encyclopedic.</p> + +<p>First of all, he had to find quarters. He had put up at the +Hôtel d'Orléans, Rue des Petits Augustins, then he had rented +"Hôtel Tête-Bout, cul-de-sac Tête-Bout", and a year later +moved to a house belonging to M. le Comte de L'Avongeac "at +the corner of the Grande Route des Champs Elysées and Rue +Neuve de Berry", where he continued to live as long as he remained +in Paris. His secretary Short and Colonel Humphreys, +secretary to the legation, lived with him. It was "a very elegant +house, even for Paris, with an extensive garden, court and +outbuildings, in the handsomest style."</p> + +<p>Of Jefferson's first impressions after landing in France we +unfortunately know nothing. Not until a full year had elapsed +did he express his personal views in writing. Although he de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>plored +the wretched condition of the larger mass of the people, +he had already come to the conclusion, probably correct, that +life in Paris was more pleasant than anywhere else on earth: +"The roughnesses of the human mind are so thoroughly rubbed +off with them, that it seems as if one might glide through a +whole life without a jostle."<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> It was some time, however, before +he felt entirely at home in Parisian society. He was somewhat +handicapped and humiliated at first because of lack of means +at the disposal of the Minister of the United States for maintaining +his rank. In his report on the reduction of the civil list +(March 5, 1784), Jefferson, animated with a fine republican +zeal, had fixed the compensation of American representatives +abroad at ten thousand dollars. Now that he was in Paris he +found the allowance very inadequate. A proud Virginian, accustomed +to entertain generously, he considered hospitality an +imperious duty as well as a pleasure, and his letters to Congress +are filled with complaints on the niggardliness of his +resources. However, he procured a good French cook in the +person of the worthy Petit, who became quite attached to him, +and wrote for him recipes for "<i>poulet en casserole</i>" and "<i>café à +la française</i>." He informed himself concerning the best French +wines, some of which he already knew, and made a thorough +and scientific study of the different vintages, recording the +result of his observations in unpublished notes. Nor was he +so selfish as to keep all his knowledge to himself. Adams and +Washington used his good offices to keep their cellars well +stocked in champagne and sauternes. For them and for Madison +he subscribed to "L'Encyclopédie Méthodique", he bought +new French books, engravings, plaster casts, and medals, and +his willingness to oblige his friends and to go shopping for them +was so well known that Mrs. Adams asked him to buy for her +daughter "two pairs of corsets", much to his distress, since she +had omitted to send him the measure. For Mrs. Bingham he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +filled boxes with "caps and bonnets"; for Madison he bought +a pocket telescope, a walking stick, a chemical box, for poor +little Polly who had remained with her aunt at Eppington +"sashes" and Parisian dolls.</p> + +<p>Through Franklin, Jefferson was introduced to Madame +d'Houdetot, who had unlimited admiration for a man who +not only was an American and a philosopher, but who also +knew the names of American plants and trees much more +thoroughly than her dear Doctor. He obtained for her seeds, +bulbs, and trees to be planted in the park of Sannois.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> Through +Franklin also he met Madame Helvétius and her two abbés, +who always wrote jointly to Jefferson.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> At her house, he saw +Cabanis, then a very young man, Destutt de Tracy and abbé +Morellet. He attended concerts at Madame d'Houdetot's +brother's house, but above all he was attracted by Lafayette's +family and friends. It was large enough for a man of more +leisure and more worldly tendencies. There was the Marquis +himself and his charming wife, who befriended Martha and +wrote Jefferson several notes filled with that delightful eighteenth-century +"<i>sensibilité</i>" and amiability of which we have +lost the secret. There was also Madame de Tessé, Lafayette's +cousin, who was, however, considerably older than the Marquis +and whom he called "aunt." Jefferson saw her in Paris +and visited her often at Chaville, where Short stayed for weeks +at a time, perfecting himself in the French language and the +ways of French society. She loved trees, good paintings, fine +buildings, statues, and music, and did much to educate Jefferson's +taste in these matters. Not mentioned by his biographers, +Madame de Corny played a not inconsiderable part +in Jefferson's sentimental life. Young, pretty, witty, and +married to a husband much older than herself, she enjoyed +Jefferson's company, took with him many walks in the Bois de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +Boulogne and perhaps, secretly, found him too scrupulously +polite and too respectful.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> There were also several other +women, Madame de Tott, a distinguished painter, the vivacious +and charming Lucy Paradise, Comtesse Barziza, a real "<i>enfant +terrible</i>", irresponsible, outspoken, who in her letters to Jefferson +listed all the scandals of the days.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> And one must not +forget among Jefferson's feminine acquaintances the old Comtesse +de la Rochefoucauld, dignified, sarcastic, a terrible bore +at times, whom on many occasions he vainly tried to avoid.</p> + +<p>But when all is told, it does not appear that the circle of +Jefferson's friends was ever very large. During his first year +in Paris he did his best to keep in the background. To Franklin +he owed deference, because of his age and the position of the +Doctor as the only accredited representative to the Court of +Versailles. Adams, the other plenipotentiary, was older than +Jefferson, who on every occasion insisted that his colleagues +should have precedence over him. A good listener, he was +much more reserved than Franklin and always remained somewhat +self-conscious when he spoke or wrote French. If the +Doctor spoke French as badly as he wrote it, his conversation +must have been an extraordinary jargon; but Jefferson was +too sensitive and had too much <i>amour-propre</i> to venture upon +long discussions and conversations with people he did not know +intimately. Most of his French letters were written by Short, +who became rapidly a master of the language, and we may presume +that Jefferson never really felt at home in a purely French +circle.</p> + +<p>This was true at least of his first year in Paris. He had many +fits of despondency and wondered at times whether he was not +too old to accustom himself to strange people and to strange +manners. He often experienced the usual longing of the trav<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>eler +for his native land: "I am now of an age which does not +easily accommodate itself to new modes of living and new manners," +he wrote to Baron Geismer, the former prisoner of +Charlottesville; "and I am savage enough to prefer the woods, +the wilds and independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant +pleasures of this gay capital. I shall therefore, rejoin myself +to my native country with new attachments and exaggerated +esteem for its advantages."<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> It was probably on these occasions +that he took refuge in the most silent of all places, a Carthusian +monastery, a very strange abode for one who has been +accused of being a fierce anti-clerical:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>He also had rooms in the Carthusian Monastery on Mount +Calvary; the boarders, of whom I think there were forty, carried +their own servants, and took their breakfasts in their own rooms. +They assembled to dinner only. They had the privilege of walking +in the gardens, but as it was a hermitage, it was against the rules of +the house for any voices to be heard outside of their own rooms, +hence the most profound silence. The author of "Anarcharsis" +was a boarder at the time, and many others who had reasons for a +temporary retirement from the world. Whenever he had a press +of business, he was in the habit of taking his papers and going to the +hermitage, where he spent sometimes a week or more till he had +finished his work. The hermits visited him occasionally in Paris, +and the Superior made him a present of an ivory broom that was +turned by one of the brothers.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p></div> + +<p>From time to time this same mood recurred:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I am burning the candle of life without present pleasure or future +object—he wrote to Mrs. Trist in 1786.—A dozen or twenty +years ago this scene would have amused me; but I am past the age +for changing habits. I take all the fault on myself, as it is impossible +to be among a people who wish more to make one happy—a people +of the very best character it is possible for one to have. We have +no idea in America of the real French character.<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<p>Not foreign to this despondency was the bad news that came +from America. His youngest daughter Lucy died in the fall +of 1784 and he was not satisfied until he had his remaining +daughter near him in Paris, and Mary, familiarly called Polly, +had joined her sister in the best convent of the French capital.</p> + +<p>Between social duties and pleasures, dinners at the house of +Lafayette, meetings of the Committees of Commerce, interviews +with Vergennes, preparation of long letters to be sent +home to keep his Government informed of the situation in +Europe, correction of the proofs of the "Notes on Virginia", +interviews with former French volunteers clamoring for their +back pay, visits to shops and factories, Jefferson was a very +busy man indeed. But exacting as his occupations were, he +found time to escape from Paris on three different occasions +to see something of France and Europe. In 1786 he journeyed +to England, traveled in France and Italy in the spring of the +following year, and visited Holland and the Rhine shortly +before leaving for home. The diaries he kept during these trips +are both revealing and disappointing. They demonstrate how +little of European culture had penetrated his American mind, +how carefully he preserved himself from the contamination of +European manners and ways of thinking. In some respects +it must be confessed that Jefferson remained very narrow and +provincial, and almost a Philistine in his outlook.</p> + +<p>The most damning document is the outline he made for +Rutledge and Shippen on June 3, 1788, though in some respects +it shows good judgment, as when Jefferson recommends "not +to judge of the manners of the people from the people you will +naturally see the most of: tavern keepers, <i>valets de place</i>, and +postillions."—"These are the hackneyed rascals of every country. +Of course they must never be considered when we calculate +the national character." He manifested the same good +sense in recommending always to ask for the <i>vin du pays</i> when +traveling. But the worst comes in his enumeration of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +"Objects of Attention for an American." It has to be read +to be believed and should be transcribed here almost in full:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. Agriculture. Everything belonging to this art, and whatever +has a near relation to it.... 2. Mechanical arts, so far as they +respect things necessary in America, and inconvenient to be transported +thither ready-made, such as forges, stone quarries, boat +bridges, etc. 3. Lighter mechanical arts, and manufactures. Some +of these will be worth a superficial view; but circumstances rendering +it impossible that America should become a manufacturing +country during the time of any man now living, it would be a waste +of attention to examine these minutely. 4. Gardens peculiarly +worth the attention of an American, because it is the country of +all others where the noblest gardens may be made without expense.... +5. Architecture worth a great attention. As we +double our numbers every twenty years, we must double our +houses.... It is, then, among the most important arts; it is +desirable to introduce taste into an art which shows so much. +6. Painting, Statuary. Too expensive for the state of wealth +among us. It would be useless, therefore, and preposterous, for us +to make ourselves connoisseurs in those arts. They are worth +seeing, but not studying. 7. Politics of each country, well worth +studying so far as respects internal affairs. Examine their influence +on the happiness of the people. Take every possible occasion for +entering into the houses of the laborers, and especially at the moment +of their repast; see what they eat, how they are clothed, whether +they are obliged to work too hard.... 8. Courts. To be seen +as you would see the tower of London or menagerie of Versailles +with their lions, tigers, hyenas, and other beasts of prey, standing +in the same relation to their fellows.... Their manners, could +you ape them, would not make you beloved in your own country, +nor would they improve it could you introduce them there to the +exclusion of that honest simplicity now prevailing in America, and +worthy of being cherished.</p></div> + +<p>The man who wrote these lines was certainly not denationalized; +the emancipated Virginian had unconsciously retained a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> +puritanical distrust of purely æsthetic enjoyments. He seems +to have taken a sort of wicked pleasure in denying himself the +disinterested joys of the artist and philosopher and his travels +in Europe were no "sentimental journey." It cannot even be +maintained that the views expressed in the letter to Shippen +were a paradox and that he felt free to enjoy the pleasures from +which he strove to protect his fellow countrymen. Most revealing +in this respect is the following passage from a letter +written to Lafayette, when he was traveling along the Riviera:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In the great cities I go to see, what travellers think alone worthy +of being seen; but I make a job of it, and generally gulp it all down +in a day. On the other hand, I am never satisfied with rambling +through the fields and farms, examining the culture and cultivators, +with a degree of curiosity which makes some take me to be a fool, +and others to be much wiser than I am.<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></p></div> + +<p>He seems to have been dominated by the same utilitarian +preoccupations during his English journey. There he noted +carefully all the peculiarities of English gardens, visiting all +the show places with Whateley's book on gardening in his +pocket: "My inquiries," he himself said, "were directed chiefly +to such practical things as might enable me to estimate the +expense of making and maintaining a garden in that style." +This is why the only thing worth noticing at Kew was an Archimedes +screw for raising water, of which he made a sketch. His +conclusions were summed up in a letter to John Page after he +came back to Paris. England had totally disappointed him. +The "pleasure gardens", to be sure, went far beyond his ideas, +but the city of London, though handsomer than Paris, was not +so handsome as Philadelphia: "Their architecture is in the +most wretched style I ever saw, not meaning to except America, +where it is bad, not even Virginia, where it is worse than in any +other part of America which I have seen." On the other hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +the mechanical arts were carried to a wonderful perfection, +but he took no joy in visiting manufactures and shops, since +the view reminded him that the frivolity of his fellow countrymen +made them import many articles from London and thus +pay tribute to a foreign nation.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p> + +<p>When he left Paris for the South of France he was in no +more amiable mood. It was his first real contact with the +French countryside and he was shocked beyond words at the +sight of the first villages he passed through from Sens to Vermanton. +He could not understand why the French peasants +insisted on living close together in villages instead of building +their houses on the grounds they cultivated. He racked his +brains for an explanation and could find no better one than to +suppose that they were "collected by that dogma of their +religion which makes them believe, that to keep the Creator in +good humor with His own works, they must mumble a mass +every day." The people were illy clothed; the sight of women +and children carrying heavy burdens and laboring with the hoe +made the Virginian slave-owner conclude that "in a civilized +country, men never expose their wives and children to labor +above their force and sex, as long as their own labor can protect +them from it." But he nowhere expressed any emotional +distress nor heartfelt sympathy for these poor wretches and +concluded that if there were no beggars it was probably an effect +of the police.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p> + +<p>On the other hand, he noted every detail of the fabrication +of Burgundy wine, enumerated the different vintages, the +cost of casks, bottles, methods of transportation and marketing, +the price of "<i>vin ordinaire</i>", of oil, butter, cattle, the cultivation +of olive trees and fig trees and capers. Monuments are +described with a mathematical eye, many small points noted, +columns described, ornaments studied, but the only personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> +impression elicited by Arles is that "The principal monument +here, is an amphitheatre, the external portico of which is tolerably +complete."</p> + +<p>What is true of France is even more true of Italy. At Milan +the cathedral is not even mentioned, but "the salon of the Casa +Belgiosa is superior to anything I have ever seen." And he +adds immediately, "The mixture called Scaiola, of which they +make their walls and floors, is so like the finest marble as to be +scarcely distinguishable from it." Pages are given to the +fabrication of Parmesan cheese. Once, however, in walking +along the shore from Louano to Alberga, he could not resist the +enchantment of the landscape. There he noted the remarkable +coloration of the Mediterranean and was puzzled by it, but he +also added, let it be marked to his credit:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If any person wished to retire from his acquaintances, to live +absolutely unknown, and yet in the midst of physical enjoyments, +it should be in some of the little villages of this coast, where air, +water and earth concur to offer what each has most precious. Here +are nightingales, beccaficas, ortolans, pheasants, partridges, quails, +a superb climate, and the power of changing it from summer to +winter at any moment, by ascending the mountains. The earth +furnishes wine, oil, figs, oranges, and every production of the garden, +in every season. The sea yields lobsters, crabs, oysters, thunny, sardines, +anchovies etc. Ortolans sell at this time at thirty sous, +equal to one shilling sterling, the dozen.</p></div> + +<p>A queer mixture of suppressed artistic emotions and avowed +culinary preoccupations. Shades of Rousseau and Wordsworth, +to mention the nightingale and the ortolans in one +breath! But one thing at least we must be thankful for is his +lack of pretence and conventional admiration. It is, after all, +refreshing to find a traveler who does not copy from his guidebook +and does not fall into raptures and worked-up ecstasies. +He came back through "Luc, Brignolles, Avignon, Vaucluse", +simply noting that "there are fine trout in the stream of Vau<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>cluse +and the valley abounds particularly with nightingales." +He saw Nîmes, Montpellier, Frontignan, where he discussed +the manufacture and price of wine; he passed through Carcassonne +and was much interested in the canal and "the carp +caught there", but did not mention the walls; he stayed several +days at Bordeaux, measured the remains of a Roman amphitheater +and made a thorough study of the wines; "Chateau +Margau, La Tour de Ségur, Hautbrion, Chateau de la Fite, +Pontac, Sauternes, Barsac." He visited Nantes, Rennes, +Angers, Tours, and ascertained the truth of the allegations of +the famous "growth of shells unconnected with animal bodies" +mentioned by Voltaire and discussed in the "Notes on Virginia." +He saw Chanteloup and heard a nightingale there, +but was far more interested in "an ingenious contrivance to +hide the projecting steps of a stair-case."</p> + +<p>The same utilitarian preoccupation reappears most conspicuously +in his "Memorandums on a Tour from Paris to Amsterdam, +Strasburg, and back to Paris" (March, 1788). At +Amsterdam he studied the Dutch wheelbarrow, the canal to +raise ships over the Pampus, joists of houses, the aviary of +Mr. Ameshoff near Harlem; he made a sketch of the Hope's +House "of a capricious appearance yet a pleasant one"—an +architectural atrocity if ever there was one. At Düsseldorf +"the gallery of paintings is sublime", but equally interesting +is the hog of this country (Westphalia) "of which the celebrated +ham is made which sells at eight and a half pence sterling the +pound." If he saw the cathedral at Cologne he forbore to +mention it, but at Coblenz he had his first taste of the Moselle +wine. It would be cruel to reproduce his description of the +"clever ruin at Hanau, with the hermitage in which is a good +figure of a hermit in plaster, colored to the life, with a table +and a book before him, in the attitude of contemplation."</p> + +<p>And yet, when the worst is told, one may wonder whether +there would not be some unfairness in judging Jefferson merely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +from these memoranda. There he noted information for +which he foresaw some further use, interesting knowledge which +could be utilized at Monticello or for the benefit of his fellow +countrymen. How to plant and prune the vines and the olive +trees; how to make cheese and oil; how to introduce the +"St. Foin", new vegetables, new crops such as rice, new industries +such as the silkworm and mulberry tree; how to build a +house; all this required exactness and precision and could +scarcely be trusted to memory. Pleasant impressions of travel, +on the contrary, could always be evoked through the imagination +and would lose very little of their charm and value with +time. Furthermore to put down these impressions in black and +white would have required a certain process of analysis entirely +foreign to Puritan consciousness, and a Puritan Jefferson had +remained in his speech and manners far more than he himself +believed. There was in these purely æsthetic pleasures something +really too personal to be indulged in, at least in writing. +Once, however, he did away with all the restraint imposed upon +him by education and the "habits of his country"; it is in the +well-known letter written from Nîmes to Madame de Tessé. +Parts of it at least, in all fairness to Jefferson, have to be quoted +here as a contrast to the dryness and objectiveness of the notes +on travel....</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Here I am, Madam, gazing whole hours at the Maison Quarrée, +like a lover at his mistress.... This is the second time I have +been in love since I left Paris. The first was with a Diana at the +Château de Laye-Epinaye in Beaujolais, a delicious morsel of +sculpture, by M. A. Slodtz. This, you will say, was in rule, to fall +in love with a female beauty; but with a house, it is out of all precedent. +No, Madam, it is not without a precedent in my own history. +While in Paris, I was violently smitten with the Hôtel de Salm, and +used to go to the Tuileries almost daily to look at it. The loueuse +des chaises—inattentive to my passion—never had the complaisance +to place a chair there, so that sitting on the parapet, and twist<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>ing +my neck around to see the object of my admiration, I generally +left with a torti-colli.</p> + +<p>From Lyons to Nismes I have been nourished with the remains +of Roman grandeur. They have always brought you to my mind, +because I know your affection for whatever is Roman and noble. +At Vienna I thought of you. But I am glad you were not here; for +you would have seen me more angry than, I hope, you will ever see +me. The Praetorian palace, as it is called—comparable, for its +fine proportions, to the Maison Quarrée—defaced by the barbarians +who have converted it to its present purpose, its beautiful fluted +Corinthian columns cut out, in parts, to make space for Gothic +windows, and hewed down, in the residue, to the plane of the buildings, +was enough, you must admit, to disturb my composure. At +Orange too, I thought of you. I was sure you had seen with pleasure +the sublime triumphal arch of Marius at the entrance of the city. I +went then to the Arenae. Would you believe, Madam, that in this +eighteenth century, in France, under the reign of Louis XVI, they +are at this moment pulling down the circular wall of this superb +remain, to pave a road? And that too, from a hill which is itself +en entire mass of stone, just as fit, and more accessible.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p></div> + +<p>This is indeed a charming letter; but why did he not write +more often in this vein? Why did he send to Martha moralizing +and edifying letters when he was traveling in Southern +France and Italy? His latent puritanism, as already shown, +may partly account for this reticence, but this came from a +deeper feeling. He had already protested in his "Notes on +Virginia" against the claim made by Europe to intellectual +supremacy. He realized, however, how powerful was the attraction +of the great centers of European culture on young +America, and was afraid that the introduction of foreign arts, +foreign literature, foreign customs, and "mode" might corrupt +the very springs of American life. This blind admiration +of everything European constituted one of the greatest dangers +if America wished to develop on her own soil a civilization<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> +of her own. Friends in Virginia had to be convinced that an +American youth, brought up on a strictly American diet, would +in nowise be inferior to most Europeans. If one insisted upon +sending a young man to Europe, the chances were that he would +learn nothing essential, that on the contrary he would lose +many of his native qualities and at any rate his native innocence +and purity of mind. This appears most conspicuously +in a letter written to J. B. Bannister, Junior, who had manifested +the intention of sending his son to Europe. There Jefferson +proceeded to denounce the features of European civilization +as vehemently as any Puritan preacher and with the same +frankness of expression. To enumerate the disadvantages +of sending a youth to Europe "would require a volume", so +he had to select a few. England is shortly disposed of: "If +he goes to England, he learns drinking, horse racing, and boxing," +for those are the peculiarities of English education. If +he goes to the continent he will acquire a fondness for luxury +and dissipation, he will contract a partiality for aristocracy +and monarchy; he will soon be led to consider "fidelity to the +marriage bed as an ungentlemanly practice." He will become +denationalized and recollecting "the voluptuary dress and +arts of the European women, will pity and despise the chaste +affections and simplicity of those of his own country." He will +return to America "a foreigner", speaking and writing his own +tongue "like a foreigner", and therefore unqualified to obtain +those distinctions, which eloquence of the pen and tongue ensures +in a free country. There can be only one conclusion +after such a fierce denunciation of Europe:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It appears to me, then, that an American, coming to Europe for +education, loses in his knowledge, in his morals, in his health, in his +habits, and in his happiness. I had entertained only doubts on this +head before I came to Europe: what I see and hear, since I came +here proves more than I had expected. Cast your eye over America: +who are the men of most learning, of most eloquence, most beloved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +by their countrymen and most trusted and promoted by them? +They are those who have been educated among them, and whose +manners, morals, and habits, are perfectly homogeneous with those +of the country.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></p></div> + +<p>Very bold indeed would have been the American father who, +with such a frightful picture before his eyes, would have sent +his son to Europe.</p> + +<p>Thus we are led to a very unexpected conclusion. There +is little doubt that Jefferson's democratic theories were confirmed +and clarified by his prolonged stay in Europe. But this +was not due to the lessons he received from the French philosophers. +He had gone to France under the misapprehension +that he would be considered there as a "savage from the mountains +of America"; he had been dazzled at first by the splendor +of the old world, but he had soon overcome his admiration +and arrived at the conclusion that the game was not worth the +candle. Life in Paris was very pleasant, but some one had to +foot the bill, and the general fate of humanity was most deplorable +in Europe. Such are the general impressions he sent +to his friend Bellini one year after arriving in Paris:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is a true picture of that country to which they say we shall pass +hereafter; and where we are to see God and his angels in splendor, +and crowds of the damned trampled under their feet. The great +mass of the people suffer under physical and moral oppression; but +the condition of the great if more closely observed cannot compare +with the degree of happiness which is enjoyed in America. Among +them there is no family life, no conjugal love, no domestic happiness; +intrigues of love occupy the young and those of ambition, the elder +part of the great.</p></div> + +<p>Much, very much inferior, this, to the tranquil, permanent +felicity with which domestic society in America blesses most of +its inhabitants; leaving them to follow steadily those pur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>suits +which health and reason approve, and rendering truly +delicious the intervals of those pursuits!</p> + +<p>If one looks to another field, the situation is very similar. +"In science, the mass of the people are two centuries behind +ours; their literature half a dozen years before us." But that +is no serious inconvenience; books which are really good acquire +a reputation in that lapse of time and then pass over to +America, while poor books, controversial and uncertain knowledge +are naturally weeded out, so that America is not bothered +with that "swarm of nonsensical publications which issue daily +from a thousand presses, and perishes almost in issuing."</p> + +<p>On some points, however, Europeans have a decided superiority +over the Americans: they have more amiable manners, +they are more polite, more temperate, "they do not terminate +the most sociable meals by transforming themselves into +brutes. I have never seen a man drunk in France, even among +the lowest of the people."</p> + +<p>Finally in the arts there is no possible comparison:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Were I to proceed to tell you how much I enjoy their architecture, +sculpture, painting, music, I should want words. It is in these arts +they shine. The last of them particularly, is an enjoyment the +deprivation of which with us, cannot be calculated. I am almost +ready to say, it is the only thing which from my heart I envy them, +and which, in spite of all the authority of the Decalogue, I do covet.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a></p></div> + +<p>Nor are we to believe that in Jefferson's opinion this was a +small achievement. Had he been more poetically inclined +he might have repeated the apostrophe of the old poet: +"France mother of all the arts." But when all is told, the +fact remained that Europe had more to learn from America +than she could possibly give to the new nation, and thereupon +Jefferson started to "boost" his own country. Protesting +against a pseudo-discovery of an English wheelwright, he de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>clared +that the idea had been stolen from Doctor Franklin who +had observed it in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Jersey, and +the Jersey farmers might have borrowed it from Homer, "for +ours are the only farmers who can read Homer."<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> Against +the architectural feats of the Europeans it is not unfair to claim +the superiority of American scenery, particularly of the Virginia +marvels, such as the Natural Bridge, for "that kind of +pleasure surpasses much in my estimation, whatever I find +on this side of the Atlantic."<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p> + +<p>At the end of his journey in France and Italy he conceded +that there are indeed in these countries "things worth our +imitation." But he immediately added, "the accounts from +our country give me to believe that we are not in a condition +to hope of the imitation of anything good."<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> In the meantime +it is better for the Americans to stay at home, for "travelling +makes men wiser, but less happy"; and he wrote to Peter +Carr, whose education he had undertaken to direct: "There +is no place where your pursuit of knowledge will be so little +obstructed by foreign objects, as your own country, nor any, +wherein the virtues of the heart will be less exposed to be +weakened."<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h2>GALLO-AMERICAN COMMERCE AND THE +DEBT QUESTION</h2> + + +<p>After Franklin's departure from Paris, Jefferson was left +officially in charge of the diplomatic relations of the United +States with the French Court. Adams was in London and +Carmichael in Madrid, and with them he exchanged extensive +communications. But the Paris legation was really the headquarters +of American diplomacy, and the problems that came +up taxed the ingenuity and all the intellectual resources Jefferson +could command.</p> + +<p>Summing up his activities in Paris, he declared with too much +modesty in his "Autobiography":</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>My duties, at Paris, were confined to a few objects; the receipts +of our whale oils, salted fish, and salt meat, on favorable terms; the +admission of our rice on equal terms with that of Piedmont, Egypt +and the Levant; a mitigation of the monopolies of our tobacco by the +Farmers-general, and a free admission of our productions into their +islands, were the principal commercial objects which required attention; +and on these occasions, I was powerfully aided by all the influence +and the energies of the Marquis de LaFayette, who proved himself +equally zealous for the friendship and welfare of both nations.</p></div> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Jefferson's duties extended to many other +subjects, of which the most important and at any rate the most +perplexing may have been the settlement of the debt question. +This problem, as we shall presently see, haunted Jefferson's +mind and was never separated by him from the purely commercial +questions. In many respects the situation then existing +between the United States and France was very similar to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +the present situation and certainly not easier to solve. An +estimate of Jefferson's career that would leave out this particular +side of his activities when in France, would necessarily +be incomplete, if not misleading. A large part of the minister's +time was devoted, not to philosophical conversations with +Helvétius' friends but to obstinate, patient, and harassing +endeavor to obtain for his country commercial rights and even +privileges that would enable her to pay off her debt to Europe. +In spite of his affected scorn for figures and statistics, the +"philosopher" demonstrated an unusual business ability.</p> + +<p>The tobacco trade in which the Southern States and particularly +Virginia were vitally interested was at that time entirely +in the hands of the Farmers-general, whose monopoly was not +administered to the best interests of either the American growers +or the French consumers. Being closely allied with some of +the prominent economists and entirely in sympathy with their +views, Lafayette was naturally against the farming of taxes on +tobacco. But as he realized that there was very little hope of +doing away entirely with the system, he contented himself at +first with employing his best efforts to facilitate the direct +importation of tobacco into France. As early as May, 1785, +he managed to obtain a copy of a document indicating that +some London dealers were offering to the Farmers-general large +quantities of Virginia tobacco. He communicated the document +at once to Jefferson, and suggested that it was important +for both countries to eliminate the London middlemen. Direct +commercial relations should be established between France +and America, not only as a matter of patriotism, but also as a +matter of interest.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p> + +<p>This proposed change in the traditional policy of the +Farmers-general, who were accustomed to deal with British +intermediaries, met with a strong opposition from the Farmers-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>general. +For reasons which they did not state openly, they +refused either to deal with independent American growers, or +to buy from a new and strictly American company planned by +Jefferson.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p> + +<p>Unable to overcome the resistance of the Farmers-general, +Jefferson decided that the next step would be to fight the monopoly +and to persuade the Court to do away with it. It was a +logical more than a truly diplomatic procedure, since Jefferson +took upon himself to meddle in the internal affairs of the government +to which he was accredited. But Jefferson, without being +the originator of the famous "shirt-sleeve" diplomacy, was not +the man to let diplomatic proprieties stand in the way of the best +interests of his country. Furthermore, he was quite sincere in +his belief that he was acting to the greatest advantage of both +France and America. He therefore wrote to Vergennes a long +letter, in which he stated the advantages which would accrue +to the royal treasury from the abolition of the tobacco +monopoly.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p> + +<p>There is no indication that Vergennes resented in any way +Jefferson's suggestion; but there is no evidence either that he +paid any attention to it. Things remained in the same condition +to the end of the year. Up to that date, Lafayette had +fought as a free lance the commercial battle of the United States, +using his personal influence and family connections to undermine +the prestige of the Farmers-general. At the beginning +of 1786, Calonne, yielding to his solicitations, formed the +Comité du Commerce composed of Farmers-general, inspectors +of commerce, and members of the council, in order to study the +future of the commercial relations between France and the +United States. Lafayette was appointed to the committee on +February 9, 1786. He had very little training in economics +and had never displayed any particular aptitude for financial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +problems. But back of him was Jefferson, and on the committee +Lafayette was nothing but the spokesman of the American +Plenipotentiary. The account of his speeches before the +committee, given by Brissot, and reprinted in a note to the +"Memoirs of General Lafayette", is simply the résumé of a +letter sent by Jefferson to Vergennes six months earlier. Jefferson +prompted him, furnished him with figures and statistics, +and in a letter written at the eleventh hour urged him to expose +the fundamental dishonesty of the Farmers-general. Since, +according to their own figures, said Jefferson, they lose annually +over four million livres by the farming of tobacco "the king, +in favor to them, should discontinue the bail; and they cannot +ask its continuance without acknowledging they have given +in a false state of quantities and sums."<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p> + +<p>Standing alone in the committee against a strong combination +of skilled financiers, Lafayette was fighting for a lost cause without +any profit to himself or any visible hope of success.<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p> + +<p>Both Lafayette and Jefferson were outmaneuvered by the +financiers. They professed that they were willing to denounce +their contracts with the London merchants, and thus seemed to +accomplish a grand patriotic gesture, but they granted to the +American financier, Robert Morris, the exclusive privilege of +buying tobacco for them and thus defeated the main purpose +of Jefferson. The minister had to confess that he was beaten, +although he had spared no pains to strike at the root of the +monopoly. "The persons interested in it are too powerful to +be opposed, even by the interest of the whole country."<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></p> + +<p>But it was not in his character ever to give up; he soon +renewed the attack at another point. First he succeeded in +postponing for six months the effect of the new lease to Morris, +and thus permitted American importers who had accumulated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +stocks in Lorient to sell them directly to the Farmers-general. +Some time later he partially nullified the concession to Morris +by obtaining an order from the council "obliging the Farmers-general +to purchase from such other merchants as shall offer +fifteen thousand hogshead of tobacco", and to grant to the +sellers in other respects the same terms as they had granted +Robert Morris.</p> + +<p>Thus, indirectly but very effectively, Jefferson finally +achieved his purpose: to undermine an odious monopoly which +caused a great loss to the planters of his country; to enable the +American consumers to buy directly from France manufactured +products, or at least those "commodities which it is more +advantageous to us to buy here than in England, or elsewhere"; +finally "to reinforce the motives for a friendship from this +country towards ours.—This friendship we ought to cultivate +closely, considering the present dispositions of England towards +us."<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a></p> + +<p>In addition, he flattered himself that he had taught the +French some sound economic principles:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have been for some time occupied in endeavouring to destroy the +root of the evils which the tobacco trade encounters in this country, +by making the ministers sensible that merchants will not bring a +commodity to a market, where but one person is allowed to buy it; +and that so long as that single purchaser is obliged to go to foreign +markets for it, he must pay for it in coin and not in commodities. +These truths have made their way to the mind of the ministry +insomuch, as to have delayed the execution of the new lease of the +farms, six months. It is renewed, however, for three years, but so +as not to render impossible a reformation of the great evil. They +are sensible to the evil, but it is so interwoven with their fiscal system, +that they find it hazardous to disentangle. The temporary distress, +too, of the revenue, they are not prepared to meet. My hopes, +therefore, are weak, though not quite desperate.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>One might well wonder to what extent these "truths" were +as new to the French as Jefferson seemed to believe, and to what +extent he was operative in strengthening the opposition to the +Farmers-general, already very strong in France. However +that may be, the American minister learned from the French +example as much as he taught the members of the committee. +The tobacco monopoly was to him another object lesson on the +danger of farming taxes, and he did not forget it.</p> + +<p>Even greater obstacles were encountered by Jefferson and +Lafayette in their effort to develop commercial transactions +with New England. The negotiations extended over three +years and would be worth relating in detail.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> Jefferson, bent on +breaking customs barriers and obtaining free entrance for the +products of New England fisheries, brought forward every +possible argument to fight the doctrine of commercialism and +summed up his case in a letter sent to Lafayette, but evidently +intended for the committee. There for the first time he pointed +out the necessary connection existing between the tariff question +and the repayment of the French debt. The problem of +"transfers" is not a new one, and Jefferson's reasoning sounds +strangely familiar to all those who have paid any attention to +our present problems of debt settlement, reparations, and tariff. +The following passage seems particularly worth quoting:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>On running over the catalogue of American imports, France will +naturally mark out those articles which she could supply us to +advantage; and she may safely calculate, that, after a little time +shall have enabled us to get rid of our present incumbrances, and +some remains of attachment to the particular forms of manufacture +to which we have been habituated, we shall take those articles which +she can furnish, on as good terms as other nations, to whatever extent +she will enable us to pay for them. It is her interest therefore, as +well as ours, to multiply the means of payment. These must be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +found in the catalogue of our exports, and among these will be seen +neither gold nor silver. We have no mines of either of those metals. +Produce therefore is all we can offer.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a></p></div> + +<p>The conclusion was that it was imperative to obtain such +abatement of duties and even such exemptions as the +importance of the article might justify, in the hope that his +country would be enabled to build up a commercial credit of +about 275,000 louis, which would provide for the service and +amortization of the American debt to France.</p> + +<p>Thanks to the unrelenting efforts of Lafayette and also to +the sympathetic attitude of the committee, a series of <i>arrêts +du conseil</i> listed in a letter to Monroe was finally obtained.<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> +There was little hope at first that they would be countersigned, +but in October of the same year Jefferson, with evident satisfaction, +was able to inform Jay of the new regulations granting +free ports to America, abolishing export taxes on brandies, and +for a year the tax on whale oil and spermaceti, on potash, furs, +leather, timber, trees, and shrubbery, brought either in American +or French bottoms. Every effort had been made not only +to place the United States on the footing of the most favored +nation, but to encourage her infant industries and manufactures. +The new regulations approved by Calonne did much to +free America from her commercial subservience to Great Britain +and also reinforce, according to Jefferson's wishes, the motives +for a "friendship from France towards America."</p> + +<p>This was by no means the end of all difficulties; the abatement +on whale oil was only temporary and Jefferson was never +able to obtain entire satisfaction in respect to the tobacco trade, +but there is no doubt that the situation had greatly improved.</p> + +<p>Even during the last months of his stay in France he never +overlooked an opportunity to further the commercial interests +of the United States. His fear to see his fellow countrymen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +"over-trade themselves and embark into the ocean of speculation" +had not abated. He still believed that "we have no +occasion for more commerce than to take off our superfluous +produce", and tobacco was clearly in that class.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> But at that +time there arose an opportunity both to develop commercial +relations and to be of distinct service to France. The years +that immediately precede the French Revolution were marked +by a very distressing food shortage in France and particularly +in the capital. This was one of the most disquieting problems +confronting the Committee of Commerce and the city syndics. +Jefferson, because of his connections with Lafayette, Du Pont +de Nemours, and Mr. Ethis de Corny, was particularly well +informed on the situation and he turned his best efforts to +induce the government to remedy it through the importation of +American products. He thought that besides the salt fish +from New England, salt meat and corn beef would constitute +a desirable addition to the French diet and he undertook a +campaign to convert the French to the idea. One of his last +letters to Necker, on September 26, 1789, was to recommend +the importation of salted provisions from the United States, +appraising the quality of American salt meat, for "the experience +of a great part of America, which is fed almost entirely on +it, proves it to be as wholesome as fresh meat."<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></p> + +<p>In spite of all the obstacles to the development of the Gallo-American +commerce because of the deep-rooted French horror +of innovations and changes, the efforts of Jefferson and his +friends were not wholly unavailing. According to Mr. Woolery, +in 1789 importations from the United States amounted to +140,959 barrels of flour, 3,664,576 bushels of wheat and +12,340,000 pounds of rice. Vessels coming from the United +States to French ports in this year included thirteen French, +forty-three English and one hundred and sixty-three American;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +the tonnage of American vessels was 19,173 in 1788 and 24,173 +in 1789. Exports to France in 1788 were valued at $1,384,246; +to French possessions in America $3,284,656; and from them, +$155,136 and $1,913,212 respectively. In this trade the American +tonnage engaged was approximately ten times that of the +French. The philosopher had proved himself a first-class +commercial agent. He had built up trade relations which +would have consolidated the friendship between the two countries +if the Revolution had not intervened. But no real friendship +can exist between creditor and debtor; the debt problem +was no less important than the commercial problem, and Jefferson +displayed on this occasion an ingenuity and a diplomatic +skill no less worthy of commendation.</p> + +<p>When he took charge of the legation at Paris the finances of +the United States were in a deplorable condition. Loans made +by the Farmers-general, by Beaumarchais, by the King of +France, and loans contracted in Holland and in Spain, constituted +the most important outstanding liabilities of the +American Government. In 1783 the situation as reported to +Congress was as follows:</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>To the Farmers-general of France, livres </td><td align='right'>1,000,000</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>To Beaumarchais</td><td align='right'>3,000,000</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>To King of France, to the end of 1782 </td><td align='right'>28,000,000</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>To same for 1783</td><td align='right'>6,000,000</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>To this total was to be added a loan from Holland for $671,200, +and $150,000 borrowed from Spain by Jay. Interest was coming +in at the rate of four per cent. on the French loan, making it +a total of approximately $7,885,000. The domestic situation +was far worse; the States had plunged into issues of paper +money: $241,552,780 had been issued in bills of credit by +Congress, and $209,524,776 by the States.</p> + +<p>If it is remembered that private investors had bought American +paper rather recklessly, that important sums were due to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +England, and that the United States could not even meet the +interest on the debts without further borrowing, it is small +wonder that European creditors began to wonder whether they +would ever be repaid. The first task confronting the new +Minister Plenipotentiary was to convince them that the United +States as then organized had a sufficient stability to allay +all fears. Jefferson undertook at once to clarify the situation. +In a letter to the Dutch bankers, N. and J. Van Staphorst, he +asserted that no man in America had ever entertained any +doubt that "our foreign debt is to be paid fully." He significantly +added: "Were I the holder of any of them, I should not +have the least fear of their full payment." But he had to call +the attention of the bankers to the fact that some international +notes were issued for paper money debts, and those of course +would be subject to a certain depreciation, to be settled by +Congress according to carefully worked out tables. The safer +thing, therefore, for European investors was to beware of and +to avoid any speculation on American bills and "foreigners +should be sure that they are well advised, before they meddle +with them, or they may suffer."<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> He repeated the same +advice on October 25: "It is a science which bids defiance to +the powers of reason."</p> + +<p>With the particulars of the different loans obtained by Jefferson +while he was in France, and with the transactions that took +place in Holland, we cannot deal here. It would be a study well +worth undertaking separately, and one for which there is abundant +material not yet utilized in the Jefferson papers, particularly +in his correspondence with Dumas, the agent at the Hague. +We shall restrict ourselves, however, to the political aspect of +the debt settlement during Jefferson's mission.</p> + +<p>The French were at first very polite about it; without insisting +in any way on the question of payment, Vergennes simply +asked Jefferson whether "the condition of American finances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +was improving." The French minister did not even mention +the possibilities of the United States paying the arrears of the +interest; but Jefferson suffered and irked, thinking that he +was probably expected to mention it first, while he could not +do so without instructions and there were "no visible means +to pay anything for the present."<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a></p> + +<p>Curiously enough, the matter came to a head with England +during the trip made by Jefferson in the spring of 1786. He +held several conferences with the British merchants and tried +to obtain with them a sort of compromise by which American +merchants would repay in full the capital of debts contracted +before and after the war, but withdrawing payment of the +interest for the period of the war. It was then that Jefferson +put forth the principle he was to maintain persistently with the +French,—namely that the matter of commerce and the question +of the debts could not be separated, "were it only as a +means of enabling our country to pay its debts."<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p> + +<p>The chief fault of Jefferson's solution, however, was that +there was very little America could sell to England, while the +Americans themselves were eagerly buying goods manufactured +in England. There was great danger of seeing that economic +vassalage perpetuated, for "instead of a proper equilibrium, +everything at present lies all in the British scale."<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> Importations +being permitted, fashion and folly requiring English +products, the country was sinking deeper and deeper into +poverty, and all the news on the matter received by Jefferson +"filled him with despair."</p> + +<p>However, something had to be done at once in the case of +the French debt, as Jefferson knew that the French Minister of +Finance was "at his wit's end to raise supplies for the ensuing +year."<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> It does not appear that the French Court had made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +any representation on the debt to the American Plenipotentiary, +but Jefferson fully realized that he was placed in a position of +inferiority as long as the vexing question remained unsettled +and payments on the interest were overdue. This was the +more deplorable, as France was the only European nation with +which the United States could hope to develop really satisfactory +relations. It was at this juncture that a very interesting +proposition was made through Dumas by the Dutch +bankers. The French debt's most objectionable feature was +that it placed the American Government under direct obligation +to the French; in other words, as we would say now, it was +a political debt, but means might be found to change it into a +purely commercial debt. If a company of bankers were formed +to pay off France at once, the American Government would +be able to treat with them on a business basis, the greatest +advantage being that in case of delayed payments, no political +pressure could be exerted or political advantage claimed.</p> + +<p>The only objection to such a combination was that it could not +be made without the consent of both the French and American +governments, and negotiations to that effect would necessarily +take a long time. To provide for the most pressing needs, +Jefferson proposed to raise directly in Holland the four and +twenty millions due to France as accrued interest. This would +make a beginning and create a precedent. In the meantime +Adams was urged to go to Holland to acquaint himself with the +situation, so as to be able to present a definite solution to +Congress on his return to America.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> The French court +remained very considerate and did not make any formal representations; +but very harsh criticism of the failure of America +to meet her obligations were heard during the Assemblée des +Notables. The funds were so low that the American Government +could not even pay its debts to the French officers who,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +because of their influence with the Court, should have received +special consideration. Yet Congress did not seem to realize +how pressing the matter was, and Jefferson could only repeat +with real despair and disgust: "Would to heaven they would +authorize you to take measures for transferring the debt of this +country to Holland before you leave Europe."<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p> + +<p>On their side, the French Court did their best to reassure the +French creditors, and when the written report of the Assemblées +des Notables appeared it had been considerably toned down, +simply stating that:</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... the interest of the claims of His Majesty on the United +States of America, cannot be drawn out for the present, except as a +document. The recovery of these claims, as well as principal as +perhaps even interest, although they appear to rest on the most +solid security, may, nevertheless, be long delayed, and should not +consequently, be taken into account in estimating the annual +revenue.</p></div> + +<p>But even that mention seemed to Jefferson a reflection on the +national honor of his country. He was harassed by French +claimants; Beaumarchais had just placed in his hands a memorial +to Congress; French officers were writing to him and calling +on him, threatening to sell their claims to a single creditor, +or to ask the court to intervene in their favor. But all the +unfortunate American minister could answer was that Congress +"would do in that business, what justice would require, and +their means enable them."<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a></p> + +<p>At the end of the same year he learned that Congress had +rejected the proposition of the Dutch bankers, and he could not +help expressing deep disappointment. One hope was left however: +the sale of western lands then going on which would +provide Congress with important liquid assets.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I turn to this precious resource—he wrote to a friend—as that +which will, in every event, liberate us from our domestic debt, and +perhaps too, from our foreign one; and this much sooner than I had +expected. I do not think anything could have been done with them +in Europe. Individual speculators and sharpers had duped so +many with their unlocated land-warrants, that every offer would be +suspected.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a></p></div> + +<p>In the meantime something had to be done to reassure the +creditors of the United States, and Jefferson pressed Dumas to +publish a series of articles in the <i>Gazette of Leyden</i> to demonstrate +the financial stability of his country. The situation had +to be presented as follows: two sales of five million and two +million acres respectively had been made, another for four +million was in process and Jefferson considered that these sales +had absorbed seven million dollars of the domestic Federal +debt. The States had absorbed by taxation and otherwise +about ten million dollars, so "that the debt stands now at about +ten millions of dollars, and will probably be all absorbed in the +course of next year. There will remain then our foreign debt, +between ten and twelve millions, including interest. The sale +of land will then go on for payment of this."<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> But in spite of +this official optimism the Commissioners of the Treasury had +informed Willincks and Van Staphorsts that they should "not +be able to remit one shilling till the New Government gets into +action" and that consequently they were not to pay anything +towards the interest of the Dutch loan except out of the proceeds +of the last loan. To which the Dutch bankers had answered +that "there was not much prospect to raise as much on that new +loan as would cover the next June interest and that the credit +of the United States was in danger of being wiped off."<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> As +Adams was about to leave for America, Jefferson, at the request<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +of the Dutch bankers, met him at Amsterdam and for several +days the two American envoys did their best to convince close-fisted +financiers, who had speculated in American bonds +and refused to do anything until paid for the interest on the +domestic bonds they held. They finally yielded, but to avoid +further embarrassment Jefferson and Adams decided to provide +at one stroke for the years 1789 and 1790 by signing +new bonds for a million florins, subject to approval of +Congress.<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p> + +<p>The real danger, as both Adams and Jefferson saw it, came +from unwise speculation in American domestic bonds, since the +bankers had tried to use these bonds as a sort of lever; consequently +the transfer of domestic bonds to Europe was to be +discouraged by every possible means. "If the transfer of these +debts to Europe, meet with any encouragement from us, we +can no more borrow money here, let our necessities be what +they will."<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a></p> + +<p>How desperate the situation was at that date appears in two +letters written to General Washington May 2, 1788, and to +James Madison, May 3, 1788.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> Jefferson's visit at Amsterdam +had convinced him that the credit of the United States was at +its lowest ebb and in great danger of being reduced to nil. The +nation with the highest credit was Great Britain, because the +English never asked for a loan without providing by new taxes +for the repayment of it. He indicated that no doubt was +entertained by any one in Holland about the ultimate repayment +of the capital, but that repeated failures to pay the interest +on the old loans had stopped any further borrowing. As to +the French debt, the Court had carefully avoided any public +mention of it, "the government here, saying nothing about it, +the public have supposed they wished to leave us at our ease<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +as to the payment. It is now seen that they call for it, and +they will publish annually the effect of that call." The most +pressing need was an order from the Treasury to pay the arrears +for the last three years to the French officers. With much +difficulty Jefferson had prevented them from holding a meeting +to agree on concerted action on the matter, and when he came +back he prevented them from taking "desperate measures" +till July. But a solution could not be deferred much longer. +The necessary sum was comparatively small: twenty thousand +florins a year would have sufficed "to suppress these +clamors", and through diplomacy he finally succeeded in staying +the address they intended to send to Congress and to the +king, asking him to intervene on their behalf.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p> + +<p>Fortunately the loan launched in Holland to meet the payment +of the June interest had succeeded and had been finally +ratified by Congress.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> It was a beginning that brought some +respite to Jefferson, but he insisted again that the next step to +take was the funding of the foreign debt, for the French Government +expected "a very satisfactory provision for the payment +of their debt, from the first session of the new Congress."<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> He +was enclosing two tables "showing what fund will suffice to +discharge the principal and interest, as it shall become due +aided by occasional loans, which the same fund will repay." +This very detailed and technical proposal now preserved in the +Jefferson papers of the Library of Congress would repay careful +study.</p> + +<p>During the spring of the same year, however, Jefferson made +a startling discovery which added to his distress. The international +bankers of Amsterdam were not as politically disinterested +as he had thought at first. He even suspected that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +by careful manipulations, they intended to keep control of the +credit of the United States.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have observed—wrote Jefferson—that as soon as a sum of +interest is becoming due, they are able to borrow just that, and no +more; or, at least, only so much more as may pay our salaries and +keep us quiet.... I think it possible, they may choose to support +our credit to a certain point, and let it go no further, but at their +will; to keep it poised, as that it may be at their mercy. By this, +they may be sure to keep us in their own hands.<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a></p></div> + +<p>This had to be remedied at once; energetic representations +were sent to the bankers and an order of the Treasury was +obtained deciding that "money for the captives and foreign +affairs was to be furnished before any other payment of +interest."<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a></p> + +<p>In spite of these tremendous handicaps, due to the apathy of +Congress, to the "stagnation" of American affairs, Jefferson +succeeded, through sheer persistency and hard work, in gaining +at least a few points. The history of his negotiations concerning +the debt and the commerce of the United States may not +be so dramatic and picturesque as some other episodes of his +long career; but it cannot be neglected without doing injustice +to his sense of duty, to his industry and above all to his political +vision and understanding of international psychology. The +application to the present situation is so obvious that it needs +not to be elaborated upon. More fortunate than many recent +negotiators, Jefferson had been able to obtain a settlement of +the debt question satisfactory to both parties, and succeeded +in eliminating the political factor from the situation; the debt +to France was no longer an obstacle to the maintenance of +friendly relations between the two countries. He was not the +man to boast of his achievements but the legitimate pride he +felt at having done his work to the best of his ability appears in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +the letter he wrote to John Jay shortly before his departure from +France:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I am well informed that our credit is now the first at that exchange +(Amsterdam), (England not borrowing at present). Our five per +cent. bonds have risen to ninety-seven and ninety-nine. They have +been heretofore at ninety-three. There are, at this time, several +companies and individuals here, in England and Holland, negotiating +to sell large parcels of our <i>liquidated debt</i>. A bargain was concluded +by one of these the other day, for six hundred thousand dollars. +In the present state of our credit, every dollar of this debt will +probably be transferred to Europe within a short time.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a></p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h2>UNION AND ISOLATION</h2> + + +<p>Even an incomplete survey of Jefferson's activities in Paris +would convince any one that at all times the preoccupation +uppermost in his mind was to defend and further the interests +of the United States. He shared practically without any reservation +the commonly accepted theory of his time that self-interest +is the most powerful motive of human actions, and that +enlightened self-interest is the true foundation of morality. +Never a sentimentalist, he felt it his duty to put all the questions +he had to discuss on a purely practical basis, neglecting +every other consideration. He had been welcomed enthusiastically +and would have been lionized if he had permitted it. +But in the midst of the adulation showered upon him by Madame +d'Houdetot, Madame de Tessé and the friends of liberty, he +endeavored to keep a cool head; and at the end of his first year +in France, he summed up as follows his views of the situation:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The body of the people of this country love us cordially. But +ministers and merchants love nobody. The merchants here, are +endeavoring to exclude us from their islands, the ministers will be +governed in it by their political motives, and will do it or not do it, +as these shall appear to dictate, without love or hatred to anybody. +It were to be wished that they were able to combine better, the +various circumstances which prove, beyond a doubt, that all the +advantages of their colonies result in the end, to the mother country.<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p></div> + +<p>Representing a country hardly organized, without any diplomatic +traditions, and inexperienced in dealing with foreign +affairs, Jefferson had no easy task. One of his first duties was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +to convince the diplomats he was dealing with that America +was a country to be trusted, in which existed a certain permanency +and some sort of responsible organization with which +it was possible to deal. This preoccupation influenced to +such an extent his views on the American Constitution that +they can be considered to a large extent a result of his experiences +in Europe.</p> + +<p>As chairman of the committee on the ratification of the peace +treaties, as plenipotentiary entrusted with the negotiations of +the treaties of commerce, Jefferson had more than once felt +how insufficient were the Articles of Confederation. He had +repeatedly proclaimed that to all intents and purposes the +United States were to be regarded as one nation; but as long +as treaties with foreign powers had to be ratified not only by +Congress but by the different States, as long as delegates had to +refer constantly to the particular States they represented, the +Federal organization remained a very clumsy, inefficient piece +of machinery, and business could not be transacted. He never +thought for an instant that it was possible or desirable for the +former colonies to remain completely independent; they had +at least to form a society of nations in order to insure their very +existence and their development. His first months in Europe +could only confirm him in these views, and he wrote to Madison +at the end of 1786: "To make us one nation as to foreign +concerns, and keep us distinct in domestic ones, gives the outlines +of the proper division of powers between the general and +particular governments. But to enable the federal head to +exercise the powers given it to best advantage, it should be +organized as the particular ones are, into legislative, executive +and judiciary."</p> + +<p>At that date, however, he had not admitted the desirability +of appointing a single executive and came back to all his proposals +of vesting the executive powers in a committee of the +States, leaving to Congress the legislative authority.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + +<p>To Adams, who saw in Congress "not a legislative but a +diplomatic assembly", he protested that it was an opinion not +entirely correct and not likely to do good. As a matter of fact, +in forming a confederation, the individual States yielded some +parts of their sovereignty to Congress, and these parts were +both legislative and executive. The confederation was part +of the law of the land, and "superior in authority to the ordinary +laws, because it cannot be altered by the legislature of +any one State." It is not without piquancy to remark here +that the man who was to become the champion of State rights +and decentralization was advocating a strong Federal bond, +while the future Federalist was in favor of a very loose association +of States, truly a sort of League of Nations. In Jefferson's +view, on the contrary, the United States as such were endowed +with a sort of super-power, while the independent States retained +only those rights which they were able to exercise fully.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> +On the other hand, Congress should have absolutely no authority +over acts which do not concern the confederacy. In +case of conflict an appeal could be made "from a state judicature +to a Federal court", in other words to a Supreme Court, +and there again Jefferson takes the position which his enemies +were fifteen years later to defend against him, namely that +there ought to be some power above Congress to restrain it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It will be said that this court may encroach over the jurisdiction +of the State courts. It may. But there will be a power, to wit, +Congress, to watch and restrain them. But place the same authority +in Congress itself, and there will be no power above them, to +perform the same office. They will restrain within due bounds a +jurisdiction exercised by others, much more rigourously than if +exercised by themselves.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></p></div> + +<p>In a letter to Edward Carrington he summed up his views +even more clearly. Reforms are necessary, although with all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +its defects the present government of the United States is so +far superior to any monarchy that its defects must be viewed +with indulgence. If any change is to be made, the general +principle ought to be</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="noidt">to make the States one as to everything connected with foreign +nations, and several as to everything purely domestic. Then +to separate the executive from the legislative in order to avoid the +terrible delays which are bound to happen with a large assembly +and to have the most important propositions hanging over, from +week to week and month to month, till the occasions have passed +them, and the things never done.<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a></p></div> + +<p>Even if originally Jefferson had been of another opinion, the +situation in Europe would have rapidly brought him to the same +conclusion. For the credit of the United States could only be +maintained on the condition that the newly formed confederation +gave guarantees of permanency and stability. In his +letters to foreign correspondents, such as Dumas, financial +agent of the United States in Holland, he consequently affected +more confidence in the wisdom of the convention than he perhaps +felt at heart:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>No trouble of any sort is to be anticipated. Happily for us that +when we find our constitutions defective and insufficient, to secure +the happiness of our people, we can assemble with all the coolness +of philosophers, and set it to rights, while every other nation on earth +must have recourse to arms to amend or restore their constitutions.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a></p></div> + +<p>The main principle to observe is a separation of powers into +"legislative, executive and judiciary" as complete as possible, +and the rest will follow of itself.</p> + +<p>Yet as the convention approached, he favored less than ever +the possibility of trusting any individual with the executive +power for an indefinite length of time. "There are things in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +it which stagger all my dispositions to subscribe to what such +an Assembly has proposed," he wrote to Adams. His chief +objection to the Constitution was the appointment of a President +who would be a sort of Polish king. If they wanted a +President they could have it, provided they should make him +ineligible at the end of four years. He even came to wonder +whether too much ado was not made by the convention, for all +the good that was in the new Constitution "could have been +couched in three or four new articles added to the old articles +of confederation." Far from being a radical and one of these +reformers who first think of destroying the old order of things +in order to build anew, Jefferson proposed to keep as much as +possible "the good old and venerable fabric which should have +been preserved, even as a religious relic."<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p> + +<p>At that time Jefferson had not yet received the text of the +Constitution and had only vaguely heard of the discussion in +the convention. When the newspapers brought him more details, +he acquainted Carmichael with his views on the situation. +This time his objection to the proposed scheme was more +specific. It bore not only on the presidency but on the absence +of a Bill of Rights; the thirteen States could not be melted +into one government without guarantees to the people, and +particularly without the recognition of the freedom of the press. +The subordination of the laws of the States to Federal legislation +was equally objectionable and he predicted that many +States, among them Virginia, would reject several articles, +making it necessary to assemble another convention to reach +a better agreement.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p> + +<p>But it was reserved for Madison finally to become his confident +on this question, and Jefferson's letter to him is both a +capital document for the history of Jeffersonian democracy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +and a discussion of the first rank on the science of government. +The good things Jefferson saw in the Constitution were many: +the division of powers; the election of a greater House by the +people directly; the negative given to the executive by a third +of either Houses, and many others of less moment. But the +absence of a Bill of Rights could not be condoned, for it was a +sacred palladium of liberty, nor the abandonment of rotation +in office, particularly in the case of the President. He did not +despair of the Commonwealth, but he foresaw the necessity +of calling another convention to agree on an explicit Bill of +Rights and to change the objectionable features of the convention. +In a postscript, he made one of those curious proposals +which would be disconcerting if it were not remembered that +his faith in democracy and representative government was +tempered with a great deal of common sense. The people are +right most of the time, the people are right in most cases, but +the people are not right in all cases: they are apt to be swayed +by temporary interests and considerations and they are apt +also to pass contradictory laws from day to day. In order to +remedy this instability of legislation, Jefferson did not hesitate +to recommend that there should always be "a twelvemonth +between the engrossing a bill and passing it", adding that if +circumstances required a speedier passage, it should take "two +thirds of both Houses instead of a bare majority."<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p> + +<p>Having thus defined his position with regard to the Constitution, +he thought it necessary to qualify it. Despite its +imperfections, it contained many excellent points; and if it +were felt that insistence on a Bill of Rights, or on the principle +of rotation for the presidency should cause dissensions between +the States, Jefferson declared himself ready "to swallow +the two bitter pills" in order to avoid a schism in the Union. +For that would be "the incurable evil" because near friends, +falling out, never re-united cordially; "whereas, all of us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +going together, we shall be sure to cure the evils of our new +Constitution before they do great harm."<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a></p> + +<p>The unlimited confidence he had in the ultimate wisdom of +the people convinced him that if they went wrong for a time +they would soon admit their mistakes, for there was in America +a "good sense and a free spirit" which was the safest guarantee +that things will right themselves in time. First ratify and +amend afterwards, such was therefore the best procedure to +follow, and he prayed heartily that a sufficient number of +States would ratify, even Virgina and obstinate little Rhode +Island! For after all there was no immediate danger, and the +character of Washington was such that nobody could suspect +him of coveting a life tenure for himself.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a></p> + +<p>Following anxiously and almost day by day the progress +of the ratification, he declared himself perfectly satisfied with +the successful result obtained in August, 1788, and was confident +that the two main defects would be remedied, the first +one, the lack of a Bill of Rights, very soon, the other as soon +as General Washington should retire from office. Jefferson +had come gradually to this stand, to a large extent under the +influence of the <i>Federalist</i>, which had "rectified him on several +points" and which he considered the "best commentary on the +principles of government ever written."<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a></p> + +<p>The most complete expression of Jefferson's views at that +time is found in a letter to Francis Hopkinson, written at the +beginning of 1789. He had been informed that both his friends +and his enemies were trying to put a definite label on him and +protested on that occasion that he was not a Federalist, because, +he said, "I never submitted the whole system of my +opinions to the creed of any party whatever, in religion, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking +for myself. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I +would not be there at all." But he added at once, "I am even +farther from the anti-federalists." Neither a Federalist, nor +an anti-Federalist, nor "a trimmer between parties", he absolutely +refused at that date to take sides, for he would have been +sure to draw criticism from the other side and to see his name +in the papers. This was to be avoided at any cost, for "the +pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more +acute than the pleasure of much praise." As a matter of fact, +Jefferson was already preparing to become the leader of a new +party whose program would combine elements borrowed from +the Federalists as well as from their opponents, but which would +rest essentially upon principles apparently overlooked by both +sides. These principles had already been enunciated in the +document written by Jefferson concerning the Articles of Confederation; +they are really the key to his political philosophy.</p> + +<p>In forming a society of States, as well as in forming a society +of men, there are rights "which it is useless to surrender to +the government, and which governments have yet always been +found to invade." These rights which cannot be abridged or +alienated are "the rights of thinking and publishing our +thoughts by speaking or writing; the right of free commerce; +the right of personal freedom." In a similar way, there are +some instruments of government which are so trustworthy that +they ought to be placed beyond the power of any legislature to +alter; the most important of these is probably trial by jury. +Scarcely less essential to the permanency of a free government is +the absence of a standing army, for such a body of men whether +placed at the disposal of the executive or of the legislative +power, may always become an instrument of oppression. +Hence the necessity of a separate instrument, a Bill of Rights, +to secure and protect these fundamental principles of free government. +On the whole, Jefferson declared himself well pleased<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +with the Constitution "unquestionably the wisest ever yet +presented to men"; its obvious defects would be remedied +in the near future, and in the meantime it had effected its main +object, the consolidation of the thirteen States into a Union.<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a></p> + +<p>Whether Jefferson would have reached that lofty and disinterested +attitude if he had remained in America is quite +another question. He was placed in a situation entirely different +from that of his countrymen who could not help being +influenced by party politics and sectionalism. But it is a fact +worth remembering that before the Constitution was adopted, +the only men who constantly had to think of the United States +as one nation were the American ministers abroad. The very +fact that Jefferson was in Paris not only put him above all +parties, but brought home to him the fact that the United +States could not hope to face successfully external dangers or +even survive unless they gave up some of their liberty for +more security, while reserving some of their unalienable rights. +In his views on the Constitution, Jefferson remained perfectly +consistent and followed very closely the principles he had formulated +in 1776.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, he had found in Europe an opportunity +to test his principles by facts and direct observation. He was +opposed to monarchy on general grounds, but he had seen in +France monarchy and absolutism at their worst. A well-meaning +king, not by any means a tyrant, unable to prevent +the dissolution of the nation, a corrupt hereditary aristocracy, +in the main narrow and selfish, a State religion, monopolies, +a standing army, "<i>lettres de cachet</i>", no freedom of the press, +everywhere ignorance and misery; such was the picture of +France that presented itself to his eyes; and conditions were +such that they could not be remedied effectively except through +a bloody revolution, a last and desperate resort, to be dreaded +as much as monarchical oppression. In many respects the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +same situation prevailed all over Europe, demonstrating beyond +the possibility of a doubt that absolutism does not pay, that +it fails to procure the maximum of happiness to the largest +number of inhabitants, that it is wasteful, inefficient and leads +nations to follies, ruin, and war. America was free from all +these evils, but every precaution had to be used lest they should +take root there.</p> + +<p>This task naturally required constant vigilance, for everywhere +men in power have a tendency to continue in power, and +to extend the limits of their attributions; some safeguards +against these encroachments could be provided, the greatest +safeguard being the pressure of public opinion. Public opinion +could be misled temporarily; but after a time, in a country +where the citizens were reasonably educated, and knowledge +more diffused than in any other country, the chances were that +in most cases the citizens would see where their true interest +lay and correct such evils. This could be achieved only if the +citizens were in a position to collect information on the true +state of affairs, to discuss freely with their neighbors, and communicate +their opinion so as to make that pressure felt. A +free press, therefore, was one of the most essential features of +a republican government, for one might conceive a modern +nation existing without a legislature, but it was impossible even +to think of a free government existing without the control of +the men who had subscribed to the social compact. Public +opinion and a free press were not a fourth estate, they were the +true source of all three powers, and superior to all.</p> + +<p>Thus, after more than fifteen years of personal reflection +aided by direct observation, Jefferson came to formulate very +clearly in his own mind a certain number of principles founded +on reason and verified by facts. Whether he was at that time +under the influence of any particular philosopher cannot be +proved satisfactorily. It may even be said that it is very improbable, +for he was not a man "to submit the whole system<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +of his opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever." Elements +of different origins can be recognized in his political +philosophy: the theory of natural rights was perhaps Lockian +in its principle, but it had been developed by many philosophers, +incorporated in the Virginia Bill of Rights and thus +naturalized as American even before the Declaration of Independence. +The theory of the social compact, too, may have +come from Locke; certainly it did not come from Rousseau; +but Jefferson introduced into it a fundamental modification +when he distinguished between real natural rights and the +civil rights guaranteed by society but limited in order to provide +for more safety. At any rate, Jefferson's conception +of the social compact was far more rigorous, precise, and specific +than any that had been proposed before. A man who had been +trained as a lawyer knew exactly what a contract was, and how +necessary it is, in such an instrument, to write clauses safeguarding +both parties. The Bill of Rights was to serve that +very purpose: it was nothing but a document enumerating, +defining, and recognizing once for all a certain number of rights +that every individual specifically reserved in joining a new +society. The constitution on the contrary was purely an instrument +of government, susceptible of all sorts of amendments +from time to time, and certainly from generation to generation. +Public opinion was set up as a court of last resort in +all cases; for public opinion, not necessarily right in all cases, +is always right ultimately in a nation where people have +received a minimum of education and are kept informed by +a free press.</p> + +<p>Such were the essential lines of Jefferson's political philosophy +on the eve of his departure from France. It does not appear +that there was in it anything particularly English or particularly +French, although the remote source of some ideas may be +traced to English and French political thinkers. His principles, +as a matter of fact, belonged to the common fund of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +political thought drawn upon by all the liberal thinkers of the +eighteenth century, and Jefferson, calling no man his master, +simply reflected the general trend of his time. But whatever +may have been the primary origin of some of his ideas, he was +fully convinced that they corresponded to conditions existing +in America and nowhere else on earth, that in America alone +were they susceptible of immediate application and extensive +development.</p> + +<p>These views on the uniqueness of America's position among +the nations of the world contributed to the crystallization of +certain principles which Jefferson enunciated when he was sent +to Paris and endeavored to apply when Secretary of State and +President. They were to exert a tremendous influence upon +the destiny of the nation and to a certain extent are still to-day +the directing principles of America's foreign policy.</p> + +<p>If Jefferson had ever believed that it was possible for the +United States to coöperate effectively and satisfactorily with +Europe in any common undertaking, after his failure to organize +a confederacy of the European States against the Barbary +pirates, he soon came to the conclusion that such a hope +was chimerical. The question of the navigation of the Mediterranean +was not the least complicated of the puzzles that +confronted the American minister in Paris. After long hesitations +the European powers had finally adopted a <i>modus vivendi</i> +with the Barbary pirates—a solution far from satisfactory, +since it meant the paying of a regular tribute to the +Dey of Algiers, the Regency of Tunis, and the Sultan of Morocco. +Was the young republic of the United States to follow +in their steps and accept such a humiliating compromise? If +they refused, their commerce with the Near East was placed +on a very precarious foundation. On the other hand, they +could hardly maintain a sufficient fleet in the Mediterranean +to insure the safety of their merchantmen. To pay tribute, +or to give efficient protection to the merchant marine entailing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +expenditure of sums easily as large as the tribute, or else to +give up the Mediterranean trade, were the only solutions to +be considered.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50%;"> +<img src="images/pic206b.jpg" width="100%" alt="LAFAYETTE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">LAFAYETTE<br /> +<br /> +<i>After a lithograph from the portrait by Grevedon</i></span> +</div> + + +<p>The first solution was absolutely repugnant to Jefferson. +"When this idea comes across my mind, my faculties are +absolutely suspended between indignation and impatience."<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a></p> + +<p>He therefore approached Vergennes to sound him on his +intention and to determine whether it would not be possible +to establish a permanent blockade of Algiers. Although Admiral +d'Estaing was in favor of the plan and thought it perfectly +feasible, the prudent diplomat did not give Jefferson +much encouragement. But in spite of the instructions sent +by his government and the pressure exerted by Adams, who +thought it cheaper to buy peace, Jefferson's preference for war +remained entire. With his characteristic obstinacy, he tried +another approach and thought it possible to organize a confederation +of all the nations interested in the Mediterranean +trade, in order to maintain an international blockade before +the ports of the pirates and thus paralyze their operations. +He explained his plan in detail to Adams and even drew up the +articles of confederation.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a></p> + +<p>At this juncture he took Lafayette into his confidence as he +had already done so many times, and discussed the situation +with him. The Marquis saw at once another opportunity to +be of service to America. He had hardly left Jefferson's house +before the idea came to his mind that he could offer his services +as chief of the operations against the Barbary pirates, and he +wrote at once to Jefferson to that effect.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> That the project did +not come to completion was due to many causes and to a large +extent to Adams' opposition, as may be inferred from a letter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +written by Lafayette to his "Dear General" during the fall of +1786,<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> but most of all to lack of coöperation between the European +powers; and during the rest of his mission Jefferson had +to restrict himself to making arrangements in order to obtain +the release of the American captives.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, if it was evident that Europe was unwilling +to coöperate with America in the Mediterranean, it was +not so certain that France, England, and Spain had given up +their ambitious designs on the New World, and Jefferson considered +it his duty to forestall any attempt of theirs to develop +or reëstablish colonies on the American continent.</p> + +<p>As far as France was concerned, she had given up all claims +to her former colonies by the Treaty of Alliance signed on +February 6, 1778, but there always remained the possibility +that she might attempt to settle on the western coast of the +American continent and thus take possession of the back door +of the country. The preparations made for "La Peyrouse's +voyage to the South Seas" aroused strong suspicions in Jefferson's +mind. He could not be persuaded that the French were +in a position to spend so much money "merely for the improvement +of the geography of that part of the globe." They certainly +had some ulterior aims, at least that of establishing fur-trading +stations on the western coast, as a first step towards +regular colonization; and "if they should desire a colony on +the western side of America, I should not be quite satisfied +that they would refuse one which should offer itself on the eastern +side," wrote Jefferson to Jay. So, to ascertain the true +nature of the expedition, he commissioned Paul Jones to go to +Brest "to satisfy himself of the nature of the expedition; conducting +himself so as to excite no suspicion."<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> This was not a +very important incident in itself, but it is not impossible that +it attracted Jefferson's attention to the western coast fifteen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +years before he sent out the Lewis and Clarke Expedition; +and his unwillingness to permit France to obtain a footing even +in a very remote part of the continent is quite significant.</p> + +<p>His fears of the colonizing designs of France were soon +allayed, but there remained England to consider, and England +still constituted the greatest potential danger for the United +States. While in America, Jefferson never manifested any +strong animosity against the British as a people, and even +expressed the hope that a reconciliation would follow the victory +of American arms. Soon after coming to Europe, however, +he had to admit that the commercial policy of Great +Britain was so obnoxious that the American hatred "against +Great Britain having lately received from that nation new +cause and new aliment, had taken a new spring."<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> Thus, +added Jefferson, "in spite of treaties, England is still our enemy. +Her hatred is deep rooted and cordial, and nothing is wanting +with her but the power to wipe us, and the land which we live +on out of existence." The only hope of avoiding a new war +was to make Great Britain realize that her true interest lay in +some compromise, and that America had more energy than +she suspected. But all told it was "a conflict of dirty passions."<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> +Unfortunately the British were absolutely unrelenting +in their hostility:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... they keep a standing army of newswriters formally engaged +in war against America. They dwell very much on American bankruptcies—and +thus worked to such good effect that by destroying +America's credit they checked her disposition to luxury; and forcing +our merchants to buy no more than they have ready money to pay +for, they force them to go to those markets where that money will +buy most.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jefferson's tour in England only confirmed him in his views, +for</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>that nation hate us, their ministers hate us, and their King more +than all other men. They have the impudence to avow this, though +they acknowledge our trade important to them.... They say +they will pocket our carrying trade as well as their own. Our overtures +of commercial arrangements have been treated with a derision, +which shows their firm persuasion, that we shall never unite to suppress +their commerce, or even to impede it. I think their hostility +towards us is much more deeply rooted at present than during the +war.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a></p></div> + +<p>To Dumas, the financial agent at the Hague, he reiterated +his views that "the English are still our enemies." He even +predicted war, a war which would renew the scenes of Rome and +Carthage: "Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest +policy; and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it. But +the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our +choice."<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p> + +<p>Finally the Spanish colonies in America constituted another +source of danger. Jefferson was confident that Spain would +never be in a position to conduct a war of aggression against +the United States; but being a weak country and embroiled +in European affairs, her colonies might be used at any time as +mere pawns in the unscrupulous game of European politics. +In these circumstances the attitude the United States should +observe in their relations with the Spanish colonies was to be +seriously considered. A curious illustration of the fears and +schemes which passed at that time through Jefferson's mind is +found in an episode of his Southern journey during the preceding +year. The gist of his conversation with a Brazilian he met +at Montpellier was that an important group of colonists were +ready to follow the example of the United States and proclaim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +their independence of the mother country. But as Portugal +was certain to join forces with Spain in repressing such a revolution, +the Brazilian patriots had decided not to undertake +anything before securing the assistance of some other country. +The thinking part of the population had naturally +thought of the United States. "They would want cannons, +ammunition, ships, sailors, soldiers and officers, for which they +are disposed to look to the United States, it being always +understood that every service and furniture will be well paid." +The answer of Jefferson to that alluring proposition, contains +more than one interesting point:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I took care to impress on him, through the whole of our conversation, +that I had neither instructions nor authority to say a word to +anybody on this subject, and that I could only give him my own +ideas, as a single individual; which were, that we were not in a +condition at present to meddle nationally in any war; that we +wished particularly to cultivate the friendship of Portugal, with +whom we have an advantageous commerce. That yet a successful +revolution in Brazil could not be uninteresting to us. That prospects +of lucre might possibly draw numbers of individuals to their +aid, and purer motives our officers, among whom are many excellent. +That our citizens being free to leave their own country individually, +without the consent of their governments, are equally free to go to +any other.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a></p></div> + +<p>Amusingly enough, Jefferson evidently believed that he had +displayed a remarkable caution during the whole conversation. +It is doubtful that such would have been the opinion of +the Portuguese Government had his letter to Jay been intercepted, +and one may wonder what he would have said if he +had really intended to encourage a revolution in the Portuguese +colonies. With a Mexican who made a similar inquiry he was +somewhat more reserved. He had observed that the gentleman +was "intimate at the Spanish Ambassador's" and sus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>pected +that he might be a spy. He was therefore "still more +cautious with him than with the Brazilian"; mentioning +simply that "a successful revolution was still at a distance with +them": that he feared "they must begin by enlightening +and emancipating the minds of their people." He finally +recalled that the British papers had mentioned during the late +war an insurrection in Peru "which had cost two hundred thousand +lives, on both sides!"—a figure not to be taken too +literally.</p> + +<p>During the course of a year, however, Jefferson's views +underwent a remarkable change. In May, 1788, he mentioned +to Carmichael his suspicions that a Spanish squadron +had been sent to South America in order to quell an incipient +revolt started at the instigation of the British. This placed +the situation in an entirely different light. The United States +would have very little to gain if a weak neighbor were displaced +by a powerful and treacherous nation. He consequently +requested his colleagues to reassure the Spanish Court +that the United States would not favor in any way a revolt of +the Spanish colonies in the New World, for "those who look into +futurity farther than the present moment or age, and who combine +well what is, with what is to be, must see that our interests, +well understood, and our wishes are, that Spain shall +(not forever, but) very long retain her possessions in that +quarter; and that her views and ours must, in a good degree, +and for a long time concur."<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a></p> + +<p>This is the more important as it already defines the position +taken by Jefferson twelve years later during the negotiations +concerning the Louisiana Purchase. It is also a reiteration +of that desire of isolation which constituted the cardinal principle +of American foreign policies and which had been enunciated +in the Treaty of Alliance concluded with France in 1778. +Jefferson had not originated the principle, since this article of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +the Treaty of Alliance was due to Adams, but his direct and +prolonged contact with European affairs had strengthened in +him the instinctive conviction that it was the only wise course +for America to follow. If he had felt free to indulge in his own +theory, he would have gone even further than any of his contemporaries +for, as he wrote in 1785, "I should wish the United +States to practice neither commerce, nor navigation, but to +stand, with respect to Europe, precisely on the footing of +China." Unfortunately, this was only a theory and the servants +of the country were not at liberty to follow it, since +"Americans have a decided taste for navigation and commerce." +Being on a mission to protect and further the commerce +of his fellow countrymen, Jefferson consequently thought +it his duty to forget for the time being his personal preferences. +In a similar way, although he strongly believed in free trade +and would have seen no objection to "throwing open all the +doors of commerce, and knocking its shackles", he realized +that such an ideal condition could not be reached unless the +European powers granted similar treatment to American goods. +He therefore came to the conclusion that, "as this cannot be +done for others, unless they will do it for us, and there is no +great probability that Europe will do this, we shall be obliged +to adopt a system which may shackle them in our ports, as they +do in theirs."<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a></p> + +<p>We have here another striking instance of the close partitioning +established by Jefferson between theory and practice, +between his wishes as a political philosopher, and his conception +of his duties as a public servant. Far from being a single-track +mind, his was decidedly a double-track intellect, with +two lines of thought running parallel without any apparent +contradiction, for theory never seemed to have interfered +with his practice. When a month later he wrote to W. W. +Seward about the future of commercial relations between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +Ireland and America, he excellently defined his position by saying +that "the system into which the United States wishes to +go, was that of freeing commerce from every shackle. A contrary +conduct in Great Britain will occasion them to adopt a +contrary system, at least as to that island."<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p> + +<p>There is probably nothing in this to astonish the man in the +street, either in Washington or in London, for it seems to be a +curious quality of the Anglo-Saxon mind to be able to pursue +a very practical and hard-headed policy, while keeping its +belief in disinterested and idealistic principles. Yet it may +not be out of place to mention that this is the very reason why +both England and America have so often been accused of hypocrisy +by European public opinion. Without attempting +to justify all the foreign policies of the United States on that +score, it may be said that in this particular case there was no +hypocrisy. Jefferson made no attempt whatever to conceal +the difference that existed between his theory and his practice; +he even called attention to it. He did not attempt to +color unpleasant reality with idealistic camouflage, and gave +the European nations a chance to choose between two entirely +different courses. He would rather have chosen to follow the +more liberal system, but he gave due notice that if it came to +playing the game of real politics, America could be just as +practical and firm in insisting upon her rights as any nation +of the Old World.</p> + +<p>The millennium had not yet arrived; and America, in spite +of her peaceful attitude, might be caught at any time in European +"commotions." While maintaining a policy of strict +aloofness, it would have been foolish and ostrich-like for her +to ignore that danger, and it became the strict duty of those +in power to keep close watch on political developments in the +Old World. Such is the conclusion reached by Jefferson as +a result of his observations, and in a letter to E. Carrington<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +he outlined a policy of watchful waiting to which Woodrow +Wilson himself would have subscribed:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I often doubt whether I should trouble Congress or my friends +with these details of European politics. I know they do not excite +that interest in America, of which it is impossible for one to divest +himself here. I know, too, that it is a maxim with us, and I think it +is a wise one, not to entangle ourselves with the affairs of Europe. +Still I think, we should know them. The Turks have practiced +the same maxim of not meddling in the complicated wrangles of +this continent. But they have unwisely chosen to be ignorant of +them also, and it is this total ignorance of Europe, its combinations +and its movements, which exposes them to that annihilation possibly +about to take place. While there are powers in Europe which fear +our views, or have views on us, we should keep an eye on them, their +connections and opposition, that in a moment of need, we may avail +ourselves of their weakness with respect to others as well as ourselves, +and calculate their designs and movements, on all the circumstances +under which they exist. Though I am persuaded, therefore, +that these details are read by many with great indifference, yet I +think it my duty to enter into them, and to run the risk of giving too +much, rather than too little information.<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a></p></div> + +<p>Watchful waiting, no political entanglements, unofficial +observers—everything is here and this page could have been +written ten years ago or yesterday. It is sometimes said that +America, being a young and inexperienced nation, has had no +time to develop traditions, but it may be wondered whether +any other nation could be found which, after defining so clearly +the essentials of a policy, has adhered to them so persistently +for a century and a half. There is no doubt, at any rate, that +once again Jefferson, although he did not originate the theory, +formulated it with his usual felicity of expression, and thus +contributed toward giving America what Descartes would +have called her "maxims of action."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h2>JEFFERSON AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION</h2> + + +<p>Jefferson has often been represented, both by his enemies +and friends, as the American exponent of the theories of the +French Revolution. The possible influence exerted upon the +development of his political philosophy by French thought +has been the subject of lengthy discussions and probably will +never be determined with any degree of exactness. It is very +difficult to see how a man of his character could have remained +in Paris for more than five years without participating in some +manner in the great battle of theories which preceded the +French Revolution. He associated with Lafayette and his +group of "republicans", exchanged some correspondence with +Condorcet, frequently saw Abbé Morellet, was introduced by +Benjamin Franklin to Madame Helvétius and her coterie; +he worked with Du Pont de Nemours on commercial questions, +subscribed to papers and gazettes and to the "Encyclopédie +Méthodique", a continuation and systematization of Diderot's +"Encyclopédie."</p> + +<p>But when all is said, the most careful scrutiny of the letters +he wrote during that period fails to reveal any enthusiasm or +even any endorsement of the many and somewhat contradictory +political doctrines which were preached in France at the time. +I do not even see that his prolonged sojourn in France modified +to any extent the conclusions he had already reached independently +in the "Notes on Virginia." When he arrived in Paris +he was over forty and had been in public life for almost fifteen +years; he had written not only the Declaration of Independence +but many reports on vital questions; he had participated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +actively and for several years in the deliberations of the Virginia +Assembly and of the Congress of the United States and he had +been chief executive of his native State. Such a man was not +a student coming to Paris to sit at the feet of French masters; +he was considered by the French themselves, not only as a +master but as the apostle of the religion of liberty.<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> They +looked up to him for advice and help, for he had over them the +great superiority of having been more than a simple theorizer; +he had contributed to a great movement of liberation; he was +the promoter of the Bill for Religious Freedom; he had proposed +a complete plan of public education and he had proclaimed +in a national document the inviolable rights of man. +They had much to learn from Jefferson and he was not reluctant +to teach them, but he never felt that his French friends +could repay him in kind. On the other hand, it cannot be +denied that he was very happy to find enunciated in a very +clear and logical way some of his favorite ideas; it is equally +certain that France was to him a living demonstration and a +sort of horrible example of all the evils caused by aristocratic, +monarchical, and ecclesiastical oppressions. His sojourn in +France had at least the effect of making him more intensely, +more proudly American than he was before sailing, and more +convinced than ever of the unsurpassed superiority of the +civilization which had already developed on the northern continent +of the New World.</p> + +<p>This sentiment appears even during the first year of his stay +in Paris in a letter to Mrs. Trist:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is difficult to conceive how so good a people, with so good a +king, so well-disposed rulers in general, so genial a climate, so fertile +a soil, should be rendered so ineffectual for producing human happiness +by one single curse—that of a bad form of government. But +it is a fact in spite of the mildness of their governors, the people are +ground to powder by the vices of the form of government. Of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +twenty millions of people supposed to be in France, I am of opinion +there are nineteen millions more wretched, more accursed, in every +circumstance of human existence, than the most conspicuously +wretched individual of the whole United States.... Nourish +peace with their persons, but war against their manners. Every +step we take towards the adoption of their manners is a step to +perfect misery.<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a></p></div> + +<p>This was no passing mood: a few weeks earlier he had written +much more vehemently to his friend and "<i>élève</i>", James Monroe, +engaging him to come to France in order to see for himself the +extraordinary superiority of America over Europe and particularly +France.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It will make you adore your own country, it's soil, it's climate, +it's equality, liberty, laws, people & manners. My God! how +little do my country men know what precious blessings they are in +possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy. I confess +I had no idea of it myself. While we shall see multiplied instances of +Europeans going to live in America, I will venture to say no man now +living will ever see an instance of an American removing to settle in +Europe & continuing there.<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a></p></div> + +<p>But unhappy as they are, the French are lovable, for he loved +them with all his heart and thought that, "with a better religion, +a better form of government and their present Governors, their +condition and country would be most enviable." At any rate +they were to be preferred to the "rich, proud, hectoring, swearing, +squibbling, carnivorous animals who lived on the other +side of the Channel."<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a></p> + +<p>At the beginning of his stay, Jefferson paid little attention to +the internal affairs of the country; the only incident worth +comment during his first year in Paris was the imprisonment of +the chief editor of the <i>Journal de Paris</i> who was sent to the +Bastille, perhaps to end his days there:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Thus—wrote he—you see the value of energy in Government +for such a measure, which would have been wrapt in the flames of +war and desolation in America, ends without creating the slightest +disturbance. Every attempt to criticize even mildly the government +is followed immediately by stern measures, suppressing the +London papers, suppressing the <i>Leyden Gazette</i>, imprisoning Beaumarchais, +and imprisoning the editor of the <i>Journal</i>, the author +of the <i>Mercure</i>, etc.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a></p></div> + +<p>It is not until February, 1786, that he gave hints, quite +incidentally, that the situation might become critical and that +serious disturbances might be feared for the future.</p> + +<p>But he did not see anywhere any immediate danger of a +political commotion and during that year he continued to repeat +in his letters that "Europe was very quiet for the present." +As a matter of fact, he had come to the conclusion that the case +of the Old World was hopeless; they were past redemption +and, "if the Almighty had begotten a thousand sons, instead +of one, they would not have sufficed for this task. If all the +sovereigns of Europe undertook to emancipate the minds of +their subjects, a thousand years would not place them on that +high ground on which our common people are now setting out." +France has become a horrible example to place constantly +before the eyes of America, to remind her that the most important +factor for the happiness of the people is the diffusion of +common knowledge that will enable them to preserve themselves +from kings, nobles, and priests, for it is impossible to +imagine a people of more pleasant dispositions, more made for +happiness, surrounded by so many blessings of nature, and yet +"loaded with misery by kings, nobles, and priests, and by them +alone."<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a></p> + +<p>Never before had Jefferson been so vehement in his denunciations +of kingly and priestly usurpations, never had he been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +so positive of the necessity of preserving American civilization +from any foreign influences. But again this is not with him an +<i>a priori</i> view, it is the result of his observations more than of +his theories.</p> + +<p>He was confirmed in his hatred of the French régime by his +conversations with Latude, who "comes sometimes to take +family soup with me, & entertains me with anecdotes of his +five & thirty years imprisonment, all of which for having written +four lines on Madame de Pompadour."<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a></p> + +<p>In a letter to Washington already quoted, but capital for the +history of his mind, he remarked that before coming to Europe +he had not even begun to suspect the evils of monarchical +government; what he saw there brought home to him the +conviction that "as long as a single fibre of it would remain in +America, the scourge that is rendering existence a scourge to +24 out of 25 parts of the inhabitants of this country might +break out."<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a></p> + +<p>As late as 1787 he was still persuaded that under pretence of +governing, the ruling classes have divided the nations into two +classes, wolves and sheep: "But what can the sheep do against +the wolves except to submit, to suffer without any hope of ever +changing the established order."<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a></p> + +<p>His first mention of the possibility of introducing some +modification in the existing order does not occur before he +heard of the convocation of the Assembly of the Notables +"which had not been done for one hundred and sixty years"; +but this interests him only mildly at the beginning, as nothing +certain could be known about the program of the Assembly.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> +A few days later he admitted to Colonel Edward Carrington +that "this event which will hardly excite any attention in +America is deemed here the most important one which has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +taken place in their civil life during the present century." +But his only real interest in it was that Lafayette had finally +been put on the list and was the youngest of the Notables but +one.<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> He felt that it was his duty to attend the first meeting +of the Notables, and still more to pay his call to the new minister +Montmorin—the only thing that detained him in Paris, +and when he wrote to John Adams and Jay to describe the +inaugural session opened by the king, he restricted himself to +a dry recital of facts. With a prince of the blood at the head +of each committee, he did not expect great results from the +convocation and was skeptical about the efficiency of the members.<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> +Just as he was leaving Paris for his long extensive trip +to the South of France, he thought, however, of sending a last +word of advice to Lafayette whose republican ideas he evidently +feared. It was a counsel of prudence. Whatever may have +been his sympathies for the republicans, in his opinion France +was not ready for a complete change in her system of government.</p> + +<p>Least of all was she ready for a democratic experiment. +Consequently Jefferson, the American patriot, the enemy of +England, the alleged hater of aristocracies, advised his friend +"to proceed step by step, towards a good constitution, keeping +the good model of your neighboring country before your eyes. +Though that model is not perfect, yet, as it would unite more +suffrages than any new one which could be proposed, it is better +to make that the object.</p> + +<p>"You see how we Republicans are apt to preach", he said +in conclusion; but his letter was more than a sermon; it contained +also the advice of a shrewd and very practical politician +who recommended that every possible effort be made to give the +king what he wanted in the way of personal expenses. "If +every advance is to be purchased by filling the royal coffers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +with gold, it will be gold well employed. The King who means +so well, should be encouraged to repeat those Assemblies."<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a></p> + +<p>That was all he could say, and even so he had probably said +too much, for it was a risky thing for a diplomat to write about +or to discuss at all. Jefferson was certainly guilty of trespassing +on a province that constituted an essential part of the internal +politics of the kingdom. And yet the charge of plotting against +the existing government cannot be laid at his door. As long +as he remained in France, and I believe, even after he came back +to America, he carefully refrained from giving any encouragement +to those of his French friends who held radical views. +He was caught in the torrent and, as we shall see later, did +not always observe the reticence of an old-fashioned diplomat; +but whatever influence he exerted was exerted in order to +maintain rather than to overthrow the existing order of things.</p> + +<p>During his trip he observed the condition of the peasants and, +much to his surprise, found among them a smaller degree of +poverty than he had expected; but if he made observations and +entered many minute facts in his diary, he did not come to any +conclusion nor did he seem to have been interested by the state +of mind of the people. He had judged them once for all, he +knew that they were priest-ridden and lord-ridden and did +not see how any real reform might originate from them. Once, +however, but only once, did he indicate that he had paid serious +attention to the work before the Assembly. Writing to Lafayette's +aunt, Madame de Tessé, in the evident expectation that +she would communicate his ideas to the proper persons, he drew +up an almost complete plan of administrative reforms: To +have frequent meetings of the Assembly of Notables; the +Assembly to be divided into two houses—the Noblesse and +the Commons; the Commons to be taken from those chosen +by the people for provincial administrations; the number of +deputies for the Nobility to be reduced. These two Houses so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +elected "would make the King great and the people happy." +And the next sentence expresses very cleverly, too cleverly +perhaps, that this innocuous reform would in fact be a sort of +revolution, the name of which would be avoided. "They +would thus put themselves in the track of the best guide they +can follow (the king); they would soon overtake it, become its +guide in turn, and lead to the wholesome modifications wanting +in that model, and necessary to constitute a rational government." +What he had in mind at the time was a sort of government +following very closely the lines of the British, not as an +ideal but as a temporary measure; for before the eyes of his +friends he held another prospect. But for the present that +was the maximum they could wisely expect; "should they +attempt more than the established habits of the people are ripe +for, they may lose all, and retard indefinitely the ultimate +object of their aim."<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a></p> + +<p>Commerce more than politics absorbed all his attention when +he came back from his trip. He found time, however, to send +to Madison his first estimate of the king and queen, a most +unflattering portrait of poor Louis XVI.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The King loves business, economy, order, and justice, and wishes +sincerely the good of his people; but he is irascible and rude, very +limited in his understanding, and religious, bordering on bigotry. +He has no mistress, loves his queen, and is too much governed by +her. She is capricious like her brother, and governed by him: +devoted to pleasure and expense; and not remarkable for any +other vices or virtues. Unhappily the King shows a propensity for +the pleasures of the table. That for drink has increased lately, or, +at least, it has become more known.<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p></div> + +<p>It was not until August that he summed up in a letter to +Monroe the great improvements in the constitution of the +French effected by the Assemblées des Notables. He was +sur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>prised at the great explosion of joy, which he thought unwarranted; +for after all, even the unexampled boldness of the +enemies of the régime was nothing but the "follies of nations +in their dotage."<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> Yet writing to John Jay the next day he +took a more serious view of things and declared "It is evident, +I think, that a spirit of this country is advancing towards a +revolution in their constitution. There are not wanting persons +at the helm, friends to the progress of this spirit. The Provincial +Assemblies will be the most probable instrument of +effecting it."<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a></p> + +<p>But it is primarily from the American point of view that he +continues to be interested, and he becomes more and more +convinced that, "with all its defects, and with all those of our +particular governments, the inconveniences resulting from them, +are so light in comparison with those existing in every other +government on earth that our citizens may certainly be considered +as in the happiest political situation which exists."<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> +With more intimate friends he was far more violent and outspoken, +as in the letter he wrote the same day to Colonel Humphreys. +It is seldom he indulges in these outbursts of passionate +invective, so seldom that it may be wondered whether his +expression is not stronger than his thought:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>From these events, our young Republic may learn useful lessons, +never to call on foreign powers to settle their differences, to guard +against hereditary magistrates, to prevent their citizens from becoming +so established in wealth and power, as to be thought worthy +of alliance ... in short to besiege the throne of heaven with eternal +prayers, to extirpate from creation this class of human lions, tigers, +and mammoths called Kings; from whom, let him perish who does +not say, "good Lord deliver us!"<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p></div> + +<p>He had caught something of the general fever, and he drew +a vivid picture of Paris with crowds surrounding the "Parlia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>ment +House", stopping carriages in the queen's livery, indulging +in <i>bons mots</i>, caricatures, "collecting in mobs, and yet the +King, long in the habit of drowning his cares in wine, plunges +deeper and deeper. The Queen cries, but sins on", and the +only practical result one can see is that "all tongues in Paris +and in France have been let loose."<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> The same note is given +six weeks later in a letter to John Jay. "The King goes for +nothing. He hunts one half of the day, is drunk the other, and +signs whatever he is bid."<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> Even the reforms, the most important +from the point of view of the French, seem to him insignificant, +and when the edict on the Protestants appears, it is +cruelly analyzed by the American minister:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is an acknowledgement that Protestants can beget children, +and that they can die, and be offensive unless buried. It does not +give them permission to think, to speak, or to worship.... What +are we to think of the condition of the human mind in a country, +where such a wretched thing as this throws the State into convulsions, +and how must we bless our own situation in a country, the +most illiterate peasant of which is a Solon, compared with the +authors of this law.<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a></p></div> + +<p>When he wrote his "Autobiography", Jefferson used very +extensively not only the notes he had taken when in Paris but +the press copies of his correspondence, and on the whole gave an +accurate picture of the events that immediately preceded the +French Revolution—those he had witnessed before his departure +from Paris, in October, 1789. But, true as the picture may +be, it is not progressive, and here we aim not to trace again the +main episodes of the French Revolution, but the development +of Jefferson's mind, his reaction towards the events. Most of +all we must seek to find out from contemporary evidence +whether the old accusation launched by Gouverneur Morris,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> +seized upon eagerly by Jefferson's enemies, and since repeated +again and again, is in any way justified.</p> + +<p>We have already seen that, with a corrupted court, a weak +king, a selfish and ignorant queen, the only remedy he recommended +at first was for the French not to reconquer their liberties +by force and by a revolution, but gradually to buy them +from the king. Yet he foresaw that the nobility would make +a sort of alliance with the people, that is to say the <i>tiers état</i>, +in order to get money from them, and he held the rather cynical +view that "Courtiers had rather give up power than pleasures; +they will barter, therefore, the usurped prerogatives of the King, +for the money of the people. This is the agent by which modern +nations will recover their rights."<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> This is written, not to Jay +in a confidential letter, but to a French liberal of his acquaintance, +and that practical piece of advice cannot be called philosophical. +Altogether the results reached by the Assemblée +des Notables were small and the king terribly slow to see the +light. So for a long time Jefferson refused not only to encourage +but even to admit that he was witnessing the beginnings of a +true revolution. Writing to Rutledge in July, 1788, he declared +"That the struggle in this country is, as yet, of doubtful issue. +It is, in fact, between the monarchy and the parliaments. The +nation is no otherwise concerned, but as both parties may be +induced to let go some of its abuses, to court the public favor. +The danger, is that the people deceived by a false cry of liberty, +may be led to take sides with one party, and thus give the other +a pretext for crushing them still more."<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> Writing to Cutting +a few days later he was more optimistic. Most of the late innovations +had been much for the better; a convocation of the +States-General could not be avoided; "it will produce a national +assembly meeting at certain epochs, possessing at first a +negative on the laws, but which will grow into the right of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +original legislation. Much could be hoped from the States-General +and it was also to be hoped that all this will be effected +without convulsion."<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a></p> + +<p>Such was his confident expectation. He foresaw "that +within two or three years this country will be in the enjoyment +of a tolerably free constitution, and that without its having cost +them a drop of blood."<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p> + +<p>To Carmichael he described his own attitude as that of a +bystander, not otherwise interested, but entertaining a sincere +love for the nation in general and a wish to see their happiness +promoted, "keeping myself clear of the particular views and +passions of individuals."<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> Had he felt differently he would +not have taken into his confidence a man for whom he felt no +particular friendship; but, at that date at least, he could make +that statement without departing from the exact truth. As far +as contemporary evidence is concerned, it does not seem that +he ever urged his friends forward, but on the contrary he always +advised them to play a waiting game, and to keep from having +recourse to violence. About the middle of that year, 1788, he +toned down his severe estimate of the king, to whom he attributed +"no foible which will enlist him against the good of his +people."<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> Calonne had been removed and Necker called in +as Director General of finance; things were looking decidedly +better, a convocation of the States-General had been decided +upon; the issue depended largely on three possible solutions: +whether the three orders would meet separately; whether the +clergy and the nobility would form a house and the Commons +a second one; or finally whether the three orders would meet +in one house which would give the majority to the Commons. +The choice was really thought incumbent upon the king, who +thus had the power to place the people on his side if he was wise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +enough to prefer to have on his side twenty-three millions and +a half instead of the other half million.<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a></p> + +<p>At the end of 1788, with the convocation of the States-General +announced for the beginning of the following year, he +was still very optimistic, but he had not departed from his +cautious and reserved recommendations. The States could not +succeed if they asked too much, for the Commons would frighten +and shock the court and even alarm the public mind. If any +durable progress was to be accomplished, it would have to be +by degrees and successive improvements. Such probably +would be the course followed, unless an influence unaccountable, +impossible to measure, and yet powerful entirely changed +the situation: "The fact that women visit alone persons in +office, solicit in defiance of laws and regulations, is an extraordinary +obstacle to the betterment of things, unbelieveable +as it may be to the inhabitant of a country where the sex does +not endeavour to extend itself beyond the domestic line."<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a></p> + +<p>He did not even believe that any real reform could be accomplished +beyond fixing periodical meetings of the States-General +and giving them the right to participate in the legislation and +to decide on taxes. They did not seem to be unanimously in +favor of the <i>habeas corpus</i>; as for the freedom of the press,—"I +hardly think the nation itself ripe to accept it."<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> This was +his prophecy at the beginning of 1789, and during the first +month of the year he had no occasion to express new views, +since everybody was in the provinces "electioneering, choosing +or being chosen." With his experience of Assemblies, however, +he could not help wondering how any result could be accomplished +with a body which was to include some twelve hundred +persons and moreover to consist of Frenchmen, among whom +are always more speakers than listeners.<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> In a letter to Thomas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +Paine we find the first intimation that Jefferson began to be +influenced by the political thinkers of France or rather to discover +in them a certain quality of thought and presentation +that make their work of some use for the American people. +They were at any rate much preferable to the Englishman, +who "slumbering under a kind of half reformation in politics +and religion, is not excited by anything he sees or feels, to +question the remains of prejudice. The writers of this country, +now taking the field freely and unrestrained, or rather involved +by prejudice, will rouse us all from the errors in which we have +been hitherto rocked."<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> Taken in itself and without the context +this sentence would tend to indicate in Jefferson an almost +unreserved approval of the doctrines of the radical reformers and +of the very spirit of the French Revolution, but as is so often +the case with him, the real meaning is hidden in the last part. +It was not so much in their theoretical views he was interested +as in the fact that "their logical presentation, might be used in +America to overcome the last resistance to the establishment of +a true republican régime free from any vestige of monarchical +order." But that he hoped that such radical reforms could succeed +in France is not indicated. His complete thought is far better +expressed in the letter written the next day to Humphreys:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The writings published on this occasion are, some of them, very +valuable; because, unfettered by the prejudices under which +Englishmen labor, they give a full scope to reason, and strike out +truths, as yet unperceived and unacknowledged on the other side of +the channel.... In fine, I believe this nation will, in the course +of the present year, have as full a portion of liberality dealt out to +them, as the nation can bear at present, considering how uninformed +the mass of their people is.<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a></p></div> + +<p>On the other hand, to believe that they would be able to +establish a truly representative and free government was certainly +inconceivable to him at this date. To the last moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +he hoped that some sort of an agreement would be possible +between the nobility and the Commons, for he had decided very +early that no confidence should be placed in the clergy. He +was looking forward to a close coöperation between the younger +part of the nobility and the Commons, who, working together +with the king, would seek the support of the people and accomplish +important reforms. No fundamental change however +could be expected, since the French refused to show any interest +in the most vital question of trial by jury.</p> + +<p>But as soon as the States-General were opened he realized +that he had been too optimistic. Since the "<i>Noblesse</i>" would +not yield and wanted their delegates to do their dirty work +for them, the only manly stand to take for a man like Lafayette, +who although of liberal opinion had solicited and obtained a +mandate from the nobility, was to go over wholly to the <i>tiers +état</i>. The opening of the States-General was as imposing as +an opera but it was poor business,<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> and even at that time Jefferson +placed his confidence in the king who grew astonishingly +in his estimation during this year: "Happy that he is an honest, +unambitious man who desires neither money nor power for +himself; and that his most operative minister (Necker), though +he has appeared to trim a little, is still, in the main, a friend to +public liberty."<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></p> + +<p>As the deadlock continued, the three orders sitting separately +without being able to settle the "great parliamentary question +whether they would vote by orders or by persons", Jefferson +favored more and more the only solution which, in his opinion, +could prevent complete failure,—a triumph of despotism or +a sort of civil war:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This third hypothesis which I shall develop, because I like it, and +wish it, and hope it, is that as soon as it shall be manifest that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +committees of conciliation, now appointed by the three chambers, +shall be able to agree in nothing, the Tiers will invite the other two +orders to come and take their seats in the common chamber. A +majority of the Clergy will come, and the minority of the Noblesse. +The chamber thus composed, will declare that the States General +are now constituted, will notify it to the King, and propose to do +business.<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a></p></div> + +<p>At this juncture, Jefferson, in his anxiety to effect a satisfactory +compromise, broke all diplomatic precedence; he could +not and did not wish to write a French Declaration of Independence; +but he could at least propose some form of government +which would recognize the fundamental rights of the French +citizen while preserving the appearance of the old monarchy. +He therefore drew up a "Charter of Rights for the King and +Nation" and sent it, not only to Lafayette, but also to Rabaud +de Saint Etienne, a prominent defender of the newly reinstated +Protestants. In view of the developments that took place +later, Jefferson's proposal does not seem revolutionary. At +that time, however (June 3, 1789), it went much farther than +the Court was willing to go. No appeal to abstract principle +and no mention of rights was made. The main provisions consisted +of an annual meeting of the States-General, which alone +had the right to levy taxes and to appropriate money; the +abolishment of all privileges, a sort of <i>habeas corpus</i>, the subordination +of the military to the civil authority and liberty of +the press. In order to induce the king to accept these new +charters, all debts already contracted by him became the debts +of the nation, and he was to receive a sum of eighty million +livres to be raised by a loan. Thus Jefferson was attempting +to put into effect the advice he had several times given his +French friends: to buy their liberty from the king rather than +bring about a revolution. I leave it to others to judge of the +morality of the expedient. Certainly it was not in accord with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +the old battle cry of Patrick Henry. But once more Jefferson +was consistent in so much as he had always maintained that +what was good for America was not necessarily good for France. +Moreover, he knew there was no need to stir up the spirit of +the Assembly by inflammatory declarations. More than any +incitement to take radical steps they needed a dose of cool +common sense.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately the man at the helm (Necker) "had neither +skill nor courage; ambition was his first passion, virtue his +second, his judgement was not of the first order not even of the +second", and the ship continued to drift in the storm. On +June 18, 1789, Jefferson wrote a long letter to Madison, to indicate +the situation of the different parties after the Commons +had proclaimed themselves the National Assembly on the +fifteenth. His characterization even to-day seems remarkably +clear and disinterested. He sided decidedly with the Commons +who had in their chamber almost all the talents of the nation;</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>They are firm, bold, yet moderate. There is, indeed, among +them, a number of very hot-headed members; but those of most +influence are cool, temperate and sagacious.... The Noblesse +on the contrary, are absolutely out of their senses. They are so +furious, they can seldom debate at all.... The Clergy are waiting +to profit by every incident, to secure themselves, and have no other +object in view.</p></div> + +<p>Jefferson, however, paid tribute to the <i>curés</i> who, throughout +the kingdom, formed the mass of the clergy: "they are the only +part favorably known to the people, because solely charged +with the duties of baptism, burials, confession, visitation of +the sick, instruction of the children, and aiding the poor, they +are themselves of the people, and united with them."<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> The +letter to Jay of June 24 is a day-by-day recital of the succession +of events, the suspension of the meetings of the National<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> +Assembly, the <i>serment</i> of Jeu de Paume on the twentieth, the +<i>séance royale</i> of June 23 and the refusal of the <i>tiers état</i> to +deliberate separately.</p> + +<p>Jefferson could not help admiring the tenacity of the +Assemblée Nationale, but at the same time estimated that they +were going too far and had formed projects that were decidedly +too ambitious. "Instead of being dismayed with what has +passed, they seem to rise in their demands, and some of them to +consider the erasing of every vestige of a difference of order +as indispensable to the establishment and preservation of a +good constitution. I apprehend there is more courage than +calculation in this project."<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p> + +<p>A letter of Lafayette to Jefferson dated Versailles, July 4, +contains an interesting postscriptum: "Will you send me the +bill of Rights with your notes." A subsequent letter is even +more pressing: "To-morrow I propose my bill of rights about +the middle of the sitting; be pleased to consider it again +and make your observations." As Lafayette introduced his +"Déclaration Européenne des droits de l'homme et du citoyen" +on July 11, 1789, the latter may be dated July 10. I had the +good fortune to find in the Jefferson papers not one text but +two of the Declaration.</p> + +<p>One of the versions probably antedated by several months +the meeting of the National Assembly. Jefferson had it in his +hands as early as the beginning of 1799 and he even sent a copy +of it to Madison on January 12.<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> The second text, far more +important, was annotated by Jefferson in pencil. Although +the handwriting is faint, it is perfectly legible. The emendations +and corrections he suggested are quite characteristic, +and are studied more in detail in the text I have published +elsewhere.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + +<p>Some of the modifications suggested by Jefferson do not +require any comment; they are mere verbal changes such as +the substitution of "<i>tels sont</i>" for "<i>tels que</i>". But as Lafayette +had enumerated among the essential rights of man "<i>le soin de +son honneur</i>" and "<i>la propriété</i>", Jefferson put both terms in +brackets, thus indicating that they should be taken out. The +elimination of the first term is probably due to the fact that +Montesquieu had indicated that "<i>honneur</i>" is the main principle +on which rests monarchical government and is easily understandable. +The elimination of the "<i>droit de propriété</i>" can +only be explained if we refer to the document in which Jefferson +had "explained to himself" his theory of natural rights, and +established a distinction between the natural rights and the +civil rights. Lafayette accepted the first correction but not the +second; he was too much under the influence of his physiocratic +friends even to understand the much more advanced +theory of Jefferson. The project he submitted to the Assembly, +as well as the three "Déclarations des droits de l'homme", +consequently followed on this point the Virginia Bill of Rights +rather than the Declaration of Independence.</p> + +<p>In a similar way, Lafayette had listed the powers constituting +the government in the following order: "<i>exécutif, législatif +et judiciaire</i>", and refused to follow the order suggested by +Jefferson's "<i>législatif, exécutif, judiciaire</i>". This was more than +a mere question of arrangement; there was evidently in the +minds of both Jefferson and his French friend a question of +hierarchy and almost subordination; if it is a mere nuance, +the nuance was very significant. The last paragraph deserves +even more careful consideration. In the January version it +read: "<i>Et comme le progrès des lumières, et l'introduction des +abus nécessitent de temps en temps une revision de la constitution</i>...." +The second edition annotated by Jefferson expressed +the same idea in much more definite terms: "<i>Et comme le +progrès des lumières, l'introduction des abus et le droit des +géné<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>rations qui se succèdent nécessitent la révision de tout établissement +humain, il doit être indiqué des moyens constitutionnels qui assurent +dans certain cas une convocation extraordinaire de représentants +dont le seul objet soit d'examiner et modifier, s'il le faut, +la forme du Gouvernement</i>." This mention of the "<i>droit des +générations qui se succèdent</i>" seems a typically Jeffersonian idea. +The same theory will be found fully developed in a letter to +Samuel Kercheval written in 1816 and dealing with the revision +of the Constitution of Virginia. It was expressed originally in +a letter to James Madison, written from Paris on September 9, +1789. Curiously enough, Jefferson declared then that this +theory had never been proposed before: "The question whether +one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never +to have been started on this or on our side of the water. Yet +it is a question of such consequence as not only to merit +decision, but places also the fundamental principles of every +government."<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> It is true that this special point was not +retained in the "Déclaration des droits de l'homme" as finally +adopted by the Assemblée Nationale in its sessions of August, +1789, although it was proposed by Montmorency and reappeared +as the last article of the "Déclaration" of the Convention +Nationale of May 29, 1793. But one may wonder how +Jefferson could overlook the fact that the same principle was +embodied in Lafayette's "Declaration." It is very unlikely +that he would have claimed credit for the idea if it had been +originated by his friend. A more acceptable explanation would +be to admit that having suggested to Lafayette a theory which +was not retained by the committee, he felt perfectly free to state +that "the question had never been started."</p> + +<p>The American plenipotentiary was not an eye-witness of the +famous scenes of the fourteenth of July, or as he calls it "the +tumult of Paris", but he learned about it fully from M. de +Corny, and wrote to Jay a long and interesting account (July 19)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +of the capture of La Bastille, the return of the king to Paris +and the presentation of the national cockade.<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a></p> + +<p>In the meantime he was placed in a very embarrassing situation +by his French admirers. The prestige of the author of +the Declaration of Independence was such that the committee +in charge of a plan of constitution thought they could do no +better than to call into consultation the Minister of the United +States. Champion de Cicé, Archbishop of Bordeaux and chairman +of the committee, sent him an urgent appeal to attend one +of the first meetings, so that they might profit by the light of +his reason and experience.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> Jefferson, after mentioning the +invitation, relates the incident in his "Autobiography" as follows: +"I excused myself on the obvious considerations that +my mission was to the King, as chief magistrate of the nation, +that my duties were limited to the concerns of my own country, +and forbade me to intermeddle with the internal transactions of +that, in which I had been received under a specific charter." +This may be the sense he wished to convey to Champion de +Cicé but the actual letter is far less categorical. Contrary to +his custom he wrote it himself, although it is in French, alleging +that the dispatches for America took all his time and adding +that the committee would lay themselves open to criticism if +they invited to their deliberations a foreigner accredited to the +head of the nation, when the very question under discussion +was a modification and abridgement of his powers. But he +assured the archbishop of his most sincere and most passionate +wishes for the complete success of the undertaking, which was +certainly stretching diplomatic proprieties to the limit.</p> + +<p>The deliberations of the committee went on without Jefferson's +official assistance; but shortly after the project of the +constitution was presented, the deputies came to a deadlock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +on the veto power to be given to the king. After some stormy +meetings, Lafayette conceived the idea that the house of the +Minister of the United States was the only place near Versailles +where some tranquillity could be obtained. He consequently +invited eight of his friends to take dinner at the house of Jefferson, +and having no time to consult him on the matter, scribbled +a note in great hurry to ask Jefferson to make the necessary +preparations for the unexpected guests: "Those gentlemen wish +to consult with you and me; they will dine to-morrow at your +house, as mine is always full."<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a></p> + +<p>Jefferson has given a somewhat embellished account of the +memorable dinner in his "Autobiography." The mention of it +in a letter to John Jay a few weeks later is less florid and probably +more accurate.<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> The members of the committee discussed +together their points of difference for six hours, and in +the course of the discussion agreed on mutual sacrifices. Writing +from memory, at the age of seventy-seven, Jefferson added: +"I was a silent witness to a coolness and candor of argument, +unusual in the conflicts of political opinion; to a logical reasoning, +and chaste eloquence, disfigured by no gaudy tinsel of +rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being placed in +parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us +by Xenophon, by Plato and Cicero."<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a></p> + +<p>Whether Jefferson remained a silent witness during these +six hours is not so improbable as it would seem. It may well +be doubted whether his knowledge of French was sufficient +to enable him to participate in an animated discussion with +eight Frenchmen. Under the circumstances silence was as +much a necessity as a virtue. But when the American minister +woke up the next morning he realized that it was impossible +to keep the thing secret and that the French Government had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +every right to blame him for lending his house for a discussion +of French internal politics. Unpleasant as it was, the only +thing to do was to make a clean breast of it. He went at once +to Montmorin to tell him "with truth and candor how it happened +that my house had been made the scene of conferences +of such a character."—"He told me," Jefferson continued, +"that he already knew everything which had passed," which +is the stock answer of the professional diplomat, whether he +wishes to appear well-informed or wants to draw some further +information from his interlocutor. Jefferson opened his heart, +and if Montmorin did not know everything before giving audience +to the American minister, there was little he did not know +after hearing his account of the dinner.</p> + +<p>With this curious incident, Jefferson ends his account of the +French Revolution. During the year, he had complained on +several occasions that his French friends seemed unable to +realize the importance of insisting on trial by jury in criminal +cases. He finally persuaded one of the "abbés" to study the +question thoroughly and on that occasion indicated exactly +how he stood in matters of government. All told, his views +had not changed much, and at that time he would not have +accepted without reservations and qualifications the famous +principle of "government by the people." There was still in +his mind, if not in all his formulas, a tacit admission that all the +people could not unreservedly participate in all branches of +government. Nothing could be clearer than the distinctions +he established and nothing could be less demagogical.</p> + +<p>"We think, in America, that it is necessary to introduce the +people into every department of government, as far as they are +capable of exercising it; and that this is the only way to insure +a long-continued and honest administration of its power." +Then he proceeded to define, point by point, the extent to which +the people could safely be allowed to participate in the executive, +legislative, and judiciary branches of the government.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. They are not qualified to exercise themselves the executive +department, but they are qualified to name the person who shall +exercise it. With us, therefore, they choose this officer every four +years. 2. They are not qualified to legislate. With us therefore, +they only choose the legislators. 3. They are not qualified to <i>judge</i> +questions of <i>law</i>, but they are very capable of judging questions of +<i>fact</i>. In the form of juries, therefore, they determine all matters +of fact, leaving to the permanent judges to decide the law resulting +from those facts.<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a></p></div> + +<p>Thus spoke the champion of democracy at the beginning of +the French Revolution, after spending five years in Paris and +supposedly permeating his mind with the wild theories of the +French philosophers. And what he said of the people on this +occasion did not apply to the French people alone, for he made +it clear that it was the political theory applied "in America." +It was essentially the theory of government by experts which +he already had in mind when he proposed the reorganization +of the College of William and Mary. In 1778, as well as in +1789, Jefferson did not hesitate to proclaim that if the source +of all power was in the people, the people could not exercise +their power in all circumstances, that they had to delegate their +authority to men really qualified, retaining only the right to +select them. This may not be the common acceptation of the +term "Jeffersonian democracy", but I have a strong suspicion +that on the whole Jefferson never changed much in this respect. +He certainly never stood for mob rule, nor for direct +government by the masses, and he knew too much about the +delicate and complicated wheels of government to believe that +the running of such a tremendous machine could be intrusted +to untrained hands.</p> + +<p>As for the French, he trusted them even less, and never believed, +as long as he remained in France, that they were prepared +for self-government. He refused to consider that a real<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> +revolution had started before his eyes or was even in sight. +"Upon the whole," he wrote to Madison shortly before his departure +from Paris, "I do not see yet probable that any actual +commotion will take place; and if it does take place, I have +strong confidence that the patriotic party will hold together, +and their party in the nation be what I have ascribed it." Up +to the last moment he held the belief that the king, "the substantial +people of the whole country, the army, and the influential +part of the clergy, formed a firm phalanx which must +prevail."<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> The analysis of the situation sent to Jay just as he +was about to leave Paris does not indicate even the possibility +of establishing a republic, since the only parties he distinguished +were:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... the aristocrats, comprehending the higher members of the +clergy, military, nobility, and the parliaments of the whole kingdom; +the moderate royalists who wish for a constitution nearly similar to +that of England; the republicans who are willing to let their first +magistracy be hereditary, but to make it very subordinate to +the legislature, and to have that legislature consist of a single +chamber.<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a></p></div> + +<p>Jefferson was not the man to indulge in effusions even when +he was deeply moved and throughout his mission in France +he deliberately refrained from any expression of personal feelings. +But the love and friendship of the French for the United +States was so general and so genuine, it formed such a contrast +with the cold and tenacious enmity of Great Britain, that the +American minister was won and conquered by it and had to +come to the conclusion that "nothing should be spared to attach +this country to us. It is the only one on which we can +rely for support, under every event. Its inhabitants love us +more, I think, than they do any other nation on earth. This +is very much the effect of the good dispositions with which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +French officers returned."<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> Everybody is familiar with the +closing lines of Jefferson's account of his mission to France: +"So, ask the traveller inhabitant of any nation, in what country +would you rather live?—Certainly, in my own, where are +all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest +affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your +second choice? France."</p> + +<p>These lines were written at the twilight of his life, when his +memory took him back to the wonderful days he had lived in +Paris, while the old régime was shedding the last rays of its +evanescent glory. Less known, but far more revealing of his +true feelings at the time, is a passage in one of his letters to +James Madison. It is one of the very few times, and as a +matter of fact, the first time when he declared that the nations +of the world had to abandon their old code of selfishness and +that a new principle of international life had to be recognized. +For there is only one standard of morality, one code of conduct +between nations as between individuals.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is impossible—he wrote—to desire better dispositions +towards us than prevail in this Assembly. Our proceedings have +been viewed as a model for them on every occasion; and though +in the heat of debate, men are generally disposed to contradict every +authority urged by their opponents, ours has been treated like that +of the Bible, open to explanation, but not to question. I am sorry +that in the moment of such a disposition, anything should come from +us to check it. The placing them on a mere footing with the English, +will have this effect. When of two nations, the one has engaged herself +in a ruinous war for us, has spent her blood and money to save +us, has opened her bosom to us in peace, and received us almost on +the footing of her own citizens, while the other has moved heaven, +earth, and hell to exterminate us in war, has insulted us in all her +councils in peace, shut her doors to us in every part where her interests +would admit it, libelled us in foreign nations, endeavoured to +poison them against the reception of our most precious commodities;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> +to place these two nations on a footing, is to give a great deal more +to one than to the other, if the maxim be true, that to make unequal +quantities equal, you must add more to one than the other. To +say, in excuse, that gratitude is never to enter into the motives of +national conduct, is to revive a principle which has been buried +for centuries with its kindred principles of the lawfulness of assassination, +poison, perjury, etc. All of these were legitimate principles +in the dark ages which intervened between ancient and +modern civilization, but exploded and held in just horror in the +eighteenth century. I know but one code of morality for men, +whether acting singly or collectively.... Let us hope that our +government will take some other occasions to show, that they +proscribe no virtue from the canons of their conduct with other +nations.<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a></p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BOOK_FOUR" id="BOOK_FOUR"></a>BOOK FOUR</h2> + +<h1><i>Monocrats and Republicans</i></h1> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h2>THE QUARREL WITH HAMILTON</h2> + + +<p>For more than two years Jefferson had repeatedly expressed +the wish to be allowed to return to his native country, at least +for a short visit. When he finally received official notification +that his request had been granted, he departed from Paris +rather abruptly and even without taking leave of his best +friends. "Adieus are painful," he wrote to Madame de Corny, +"therefore I left Paris without bidding one to you."<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> This is +a naïve and quite significant confession of the difficulty he +experienced in maintaining his puritanical restraint and impassibility +at that time. He went with his two daughters from +Le Havre to Cowes, and waited there till October 14 for favorable +winds. After a rapid crossing on the <i>Montgomery</i> they +sighted the "Capes" on November 13, and barely escaped +being shipwrecked in the bay. Although damaged by fire +and stripped of part of her rigging, the ship was able to reach +Norfolk, and Jefferson promptly set out for Richmond and +Monticello, stopping however on the way at Eppington with +the Eppes. It was there that he received two letters from +President Washington, one dated October 13, the other November +30, asking him to accept the post of Secretary of State +in the newly formed cabinet. The President's letters were +most flattering and indicated that he had been "determined, as +well by motives of private regard, as a conviction of public +propriety" to nominate him for the office.</p> + +<p>Jefferson at first experienced the natural repugnance of a +man who had put his heart into an important undertaking and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +was asked suddenly to abandon it. He was better acquainted +with the situation in Paris than any man he could think of: it +had taken him several years of constant work and patient efforts +to bring the French officials over to his views. His best friends +were in the new government and would help him to obtain +for the United States better commercial terms and a more +satisfactory debt settlement. Let us add that for a philosophical +observer France offered the most fascinating spectacle, +and Jefferson did not feel that life in Philadelphia could bring +him the same social and intellectual pleasures as Paris. Quite +significantly he wrote to Washington: "as far as my fears, my +hopes, or my inclination enter into this question, I confess that +they would not lead me to prefer a change." On the other +hand, he did not make a categorical refusal, in case he should +be "drafted", and the President formally nominated him.</p> + +<p>Nothing else was done in the matter until Madison visited +him at Monticello and acquainted him with the situation. +But even Madison could not win his consent,<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> and the President +had to assure Jefferson that the duties of his office would +probably not be quite so complicated and hard to execute +as he might have been led at the first moment to imagine.<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> +It was not a command, but while the President left him +free to decide he expressed a strong hope and wish that +Jefferson would accept. So, on February 14 he sent his letter +of acceptance.</p> + +<p>In the meantime he had married Martha to Thomas Mann +Randolph, Junior, "a young gentleman of genius, science, and +honorable mind", who afterwards filled "a dignified station in +the General Government, and the most dignified in his own +State."<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> Although Jefferson had wished for such a marriage, +he had left Martha free to make her own choice, as he explained +in a letter to Madame de Corny: "Tho' his talents, disposi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>tion, +connections, fortune, were such as would have made him +my first choice, yet according to the usage of my country, I +scrupulously suppressed my wishes, that my daughter might +indulge in her own sentiments freely."<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> The marriage took +place on April 2, 1790, and on the next day Jefferson set out for +New York to take his place in the Cabinet. He reached Philadelphia +on the twelfth. There he stopped to pay his respects +to the man "he has succeeded but not replaced", old Doctor +Franklin then on the sick bed from which he never arose. "My +recent return from a country in which he had left so many +friends, and the perilous convulsions to which they had been +exposed, revived all his anxieties to know what part they had +taken, what had been their course, and what their fate. He +went over all in succession with a rapidity and animation +almost too much for his strength." It was on this occasion that +Franklin put in his hands a paper containing an account of his +negotiations with Lord Howe to prevent a war between the +colonies and their mother country, papers which, unfortunately, +Jefferson entrusted later to William Temple Franklin, +who "delayed the publication for more than twenty +years."<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> Jefferson arrived in New York on the twenty-first, +took his lodgings at the City Tavern, and finally rented +a small house in Maiden Lane.</p> + +<p>Congress was in session and business had accumulated on +the desk of the new secretary: he plunged at once into work. +All his colleagues had already taken charge of their respective +departments: Colonel Alexander Hamilton was in charge of +the Treasury, General Henry Knox of the War Department, +Edmund Randolph, Attorney-general. Those were the only +departments thus far created and among them the four secretaries +divided all the different attributions of the executive +power. With them he was to sit in Cabinet meetings pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>sided +over by Washington until his retirement from office, in +December, 1793.</p> + +<p>The distinction usually established between domestic and +foreign politics is obviously an arbitrary one and does not +correspond to reality. This was particularly true of an age +when the attributes of the Secretary of State were far less +specialized than in our day. Even if he had been inclined to +neglect the questions of internal administration—to give himself +entirely to foreign affairs—Jefferson would have been constantly +reminded of the existence of many other problems of +equal importance to the future of the nation by his colleagues +and the President himself. In addition, it was Washington's +ordinary practice not only to discuss all important measures +in a Cabinet council, but often to request each member of his +official family to give his opinion in writing on these questions. +Such documents as have been preserved constitute a most +precious source of information for the history of the period; +they are usefully supplemented by the notes that Jefferson +took at the time and transcribed "twenty five years or more" +afterwards for the use of posterity. The three volumes "bound +in marbled paper" in which Jefferson copied these notes, taken +on loose scraps of paper, are the famous "Anas" which he collected +to justify himself against the accusations that biographers +of Washington—such as Marshall—had already +launched against him. Although there is no reason to believe +that Jefferson deliberately altered the old records, it is certain +that they were edited, that many scraps of papers were discarded, +although not destroyed, and that a "critical" edition +of the "Anas" would not be without interest. They are preceded +by an introduction in which, more than twenty-five +years later, Jefferson gave an estimate of his former opponents, +Hamilton and John Adams. This final judgment can in no +way be used in discussing events that took place between 1790 +and 1793, and it contains no indication worth retaining about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +Jefferson's attitude at that time towards his colleagues and +the Vice President. The man who wrote this introduction in +February, 1818, was really another Jefferson. He may tell +us that he arrived in the midst of a bitter contest, "But a +stranger to the ground, a stranger to the actors on it, so long +absent as to have lost all familiarity with the subject, and as +yet unaware of its object, I took no concern in it."<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> It must +be admitted at the outset that such is not the impression one +can gather from the correspondence.</p> + +<p>That the financial structure of the Continental Congress had +collapsed and that immediate remedies were necessary Jefferson +knew as well and probably better than any other member +of the Cabinet. He had not the expert knowledge of Hamilton, +but more than once he had had to deal with financial questions, +and when in Paris had displayed considerable skill in +dealing with the members of the Committee of Commerce. +He had prepared schedules for the payment of the French and +Dutch loans and discussed finances with Dutch bankers in +Amsterdam. Furthermore, his governorship of Virginia during +the war had acquainted him with the question of State +debts. If he could be tricked and made to hold the candle, +as he said, there was no man who could resist the superior +genius and Machiavellism of the arch financier of the United +States. As a matter of fact, if he was hoodwinked, he +was not at the beginning, at least, a blind or an unwilling +victim.</p> + +<p>Following the financial reorganization defined by the Constitution +and the appointment of a Secretary of the Treasury, +according to the Act of 1789, Hamilton prepared for the period +under consideration four documents: Report on Public Credit, +January 9, 1790; Report on a National Bank, December 5, +1790; Report on the Establishment of a Mint, May 1, 1791; +Report on Manufactures, December 5, 1791.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<p>The first subject for consideration was the national debt. +The foreign debt was unquestionably a matter of national +honor and had to be paid in full, according to the terms of contract: +with the arrears of interest it amounted to $11,710,000. +The domestic debt was estimated at $27,383,000 for the principal, +$13,030,000 for accrued interest and $2,000,000 for unliquidated +debt. After some opposition it was finally decided +that holders of certificates would receive their face value with +interest. But there remained the question of States debts +which was hopelessly confused and destined to lead to a bitter +controversy. The reorganization plan proposed that repayment +could be made in a more orderly way through some sort +of a central organization rather than through the States, and +outlined the famous "Assumption" by which the Federal +Government would "assume", with a discount to be determined, +the debts incurred by the several States during the course +of the war. It naturally meant that additional revenue had to +be raised by Federal measures and consequently distributed +between all the States, whose debts varied in nature and amount +from State to State, some of which having already proceeded +to a semi-reorganization, while others, having not suffered +from the war, were financially in good condition. The opposition +came naturally from the Southern States, whose population +was smaller in comparison with the Northern States.</p> + +<p>The opponents of the measure objected very strenuously +at first, arguing that it would give an unfair advantage to +those that had contracted debts too freely during the war, and +would penalize those who had already set their financial house +in order; and also that it would be a usurpation of powers not +conferred by the Constitution to the Federal Government.</p> + +<p>First defeated in Congress, the "Assumption" was finally +adopted under circumstances now to be related. Jefferson's +unofficial representative in Congress, Madison, had already +strenuously opposed the measure proposed by the Secretary of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +the Treasury. When Jefferson arrived in New York to take +possession of his office, the battle had been going on for some +time, and four days later he wrote to T. M. Randolph that +"Congress is principally occupied with the treasury report. +The assumption of the State debts has been voted affirmatively +in the first instance, but it is not certain that it will hold its +ground through all the changes of the bill when it shall +be brought in."<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> There is little doubt that Madison had +already acquainted him with his views of the situation, but it +is also probable that Jefferson paid small heed to them for the +time being. He suffered for several weeks from severe headaches, +he had to write many letters of farewell to his French +friends, and the accumulation of reports and papers he found +on his desk required all his attention.</p> + +<p>In June, however, he expressed to George Mason his doubts +that the "Assumption" would be finally adopted. But, far +from siding with the out-and-out opponents of the measure, he +thought it would be wiser to compromise, so he added, "my +duties preventing me from mingling in these questions, I do +not pretend to be very competent to their decision. In general, +I think it necessary to give as well as take in a government +like ours."<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a></p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, it was already patent that an almost +irreconcilable difference of opinion on the matter existed between +Hamilton and the Virginians, and, a week later, Jefferson +himself invited the Secretary of the Treasury to take dinner at +his house with a few friends in order to hold an informal conference; +for he thought it impossible that "reasonable men, +consulting together coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices +of opinion to form a compromise which was to save the Union." +Jefferson has related the scene in the "Anas", but a somewhat +different account is given in his letter to James Monroe, written<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +June 20, 1790, from New York, in which he outlined the compromise. +He mentioned that two considerations had impelled +him to discuss it; first the fact that if some funding +bill were not agreed to, the credit of the United States at Amsterdam +would collapse and vanish and each State be left alone +to take care of itself. Although he was not enthusiastic about +the means to be employed and foresaw that the United States +would have difficulties in raising the necessary money by Federal +taxation instead of letting the States raise it themselves, +he accepted the solution with open eyes: "In the present instance, +I see the necessity of yielding to cries of the creditors +in certain parts of the Union; for the sake of the Union, and to +save us from the greatest of all calamities, the total extinction +of our credit in Europe." More than any member of the Cabinet +he was aware of the imminence of this danger. On the +other hand, and in order to give some satisfaction to the Southern +States, it would be agreed that Congress would be transferred +to Philadelphia for a period of twelve to fifteen years, +and thereafter, without further declaration, to Georgetown. +This was clearly a "deal", and Jefferson knew it so well that +he denied that it was one. "The Pennsylvania and Virginia +delegates have conducted themselves honorably, on the question +of residence. Without descending to talk about bargains, +they have seen that their true interests lay in not listening to +the insidious propositions made, to divide and defect them, and +we have seen them at times voting against their respective +wishes rather than separate." Whether the word bargain +had been used or not is immaterial. Gentlemen sitting around +a table after the cloth has been removed and the punch bowl +brought in can come to an understanding "<i>à demi mot</i>."<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> Nothing +official had been done yet, but writing to Dumas, the financial +agent at Amsterdam, Jefferson, in order to maintain the +credit of the country, put his best foot forward and solemnly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +declared "that there is not one single individual in the United +States, whether in or out of office, who supposes they can ever +do anything which might impair their foreign contracts." +With respect to domestic paper, Dumas could rest assured that +"justice would be done" and, although the question was terribly +complicated, it was "possible that modifications may be proposed +which may bring the measure, yet into an acceptable +form."<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a></p> + +<p>With Gilmer, he was more frank and indicated clearly that +among the possible ways in which the conflict in Congress +might yet terminate, the best probably would be "a <i>bargain</i> +between the eastern members who have it so much at heart, +and the Middle members who are indifferent about it, to adopt +these debts without modification, on condition of removing the +seat of government to Philadelphia or Baltimore." The third +solution, which Jefferson preferred, would have proposed to +divide the total sum between all the States in proportion to +their census, and to establish the national capital first and +temporarily at Philadelphia, then, and permanently at Georgetown.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> +This was not an ideal solution; it was a compromise +which would at least present the advantage of giving new life to +the agriculture and commerce of the South. The main objection, +however, still remained, for the Federal Government +would have to raise the imposts and overburden that source of +revenue, but it seemed that "some sacrifice was necessary for +the sake of peace."<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> Once again, but not for the last time, +Jefferson saw himself in a dilemma. He was too far-sighted +not to understand that the individual States would have to +abandon some of their rights and a portion of their sovereignty +in order to acquire more financial stability, and that more +power would be concentrated in the hands of the Federal Government. +On the other hand, he was no less firmly convinced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +that a secession would unavoidably result from a rejection of +the "Assumption", and he was ready to sacrifice his most +cherished preferences on the altar of the Union.</p> + +<p>On August 14, Jefferson could announce to Randolph that +Congress had separated</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>the day before yesterday, having reacquired the harmony which +always distinguished their proceedings before the two disagreeable +questions of assumption and residence were introduced.... It is +not foreseen that anything so generative of dissention can arise +again, and therefore the friends of the government hope that this +difficulty once surmounted in the States, everything will work well. +I am principally afraid that commerce will be over loaded by the +assumption, believing that it would be better that property should +be duly taxed.</p></div> + +<p>He discussed for the first time the exact ways and means in +a letter to Gouverneur Morris on November 26, 1790, and indicated +that additional funds would be provided by a tax on +spirituous liquors, foreign and homemade, that the whole interest +would be raised by taxes on consumption.... "Add +to this what may be done by throwing in the aid of western +lands and other articles as a sinking fund, and our prospect is +really a bright one."<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a></p> + +<p>It is perfectly true that the letter to Morris was to a great +extent for publicity purposes, yet we do not find in it the slightest +mark of disapproval of the tax itself, nor do we find it in a letter +written to De Moustier<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> in which, on the contrary, Jefferson +mentioned the advantages of duties on consumption, which fall +principally on the rich; for it is "a general desire to make +them contribute the whole money we want, if possible." +It was not until February that doubts began to percolate +into his mind, and he inquired from Colonel Mason "what +was said in our country (Virginia), of the fiscal arrangements<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +now going on." But he did not yet take the question really +to heart:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Whether these measures be right or wrong abstractedly, more +attention should be paid to the general opinion. However, all +will pass,—the excise will pass—the bank will pass. The only +corrective of what is corrupt in our present form of government will +be the augmentation of the numbers in the lower House, so as to get +more agricultural representation, which may put that interest above +that of the stock-jobbers.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p></div> + +<p>This is the first indication of a rift between Jefferson and +Hamilton.</p> + +<p>Yet Jefferson was willing to yield more ground in order to +avoid an open break. The Bank Bill of Hamilton had passed +the Senate without difficulty; in the House it had been opposed +on constitutional grounds by Madison but had finally obtained +a majority. When the bill was sent to the President, Washington, +unwilling to do anything unconstitutional, asked both +the Attorney-general Randolph and Jefferson to give their +opinion on the matter in writing. The report written on this +occasion by the Secretary of State is a psychological document +both interesting and revealing.</p> + +<p>Jefferson started out by enumerating the different measures +included in the Bank Bill, pointing out <i>en passant</i> that +they were intended to break down the most ancient and fundamental +laws of several States, such as those against mortmain, +the laws of alienage, the rules of descent, the acts of distribution, +the laws of escheat and forfeiture, the laws of monopoly. +He then demonstrated to his own satisfaction that power to +establish such an institution was neither specifically declared +nor implied in any article of the Constitution. The only general +statement that could be construed as authorizing it was a +mention "to make all laws <i>necessary</i> and proper for carrying +into execution the enumerated powers." Finally he under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>took +to prove that the bank might be convenient but was in +nowise necessary. The conclusion was obvious after these +very closely knitted pieces of legal reasoning: "Nothing but a +necessity inevitable by any other means can justify such a +prostitution of laws, which constitute the pillars of our whole +system of jurisprudence." The President's veto could clearly +be used in that case, since that was the buckler provided +by the Constitution to protect it against the invasions of the +legislature.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50%;"> +<img src="images/pic256b.jpg" width="100%" alt="ALEXANDER HAMILTON" title="" /> +<span class="caption">ALEXANDER HAMILTON<br /> +<br /> +<i>From the painting by John Trumbull in the possession of the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.</i></span> +</div> + + + +<p>Jefferson could and perhaps should have stopped there. +But he was far from certain that Hamilton's views would not +prevail, and in that case he would have committed himself +irrevocably. This he did not wish to do. He consequently +provided at the end a way of escape for himself as well as for +the President:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It must be added, however, that unless the President's mind +on a view of everything which is urged for and against this bill, is +tolerably clear that it is unauthorized by the Constitution; if the +pro and the con hang so even as to balance his judgment, a just +respect for the wisdom of the legislature would naturally decide the +balance in favor of their opinion. It is chiefly for cases where they +are clearly misled by error, ambition, or interest, that the Constitution +has placed a check in the negative of the President.</p></div> + +<p>This was very adroit, almost too adroit. It was the answer +of a master politician. Whether it was absolutely straightforward +is a very different question. Jefferson, who so often +accused others of being "trimmers", was undoubtedly open +to such an accusation himself.</p> + +<p>With the opinion of Randolph and Jefferson before him, the +President asked Hamilton, as sponsor of the bill, to present his +rejoinder in writing. On the twenty-third he submitted his +famous "Opinion as to the Constitutionality of the Bank of the +United States" in which he developed the doctrine of "implied +powers."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Now it appears—said Hamilton—to the Secretary of the +Treasury that this general principle is inherent in the very definition +of government and essential to every step of the progress to be made +by that of the United States, namely: That every power vested in +a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes, by force of the +term, a right to employ all the means requisite and fairly applicable +to the attainment of the ends of such power, and which are not +precluded by restrictions and exceptions specified in the Constitutions, +or not immoral, or not contrary to the essential ends of political +society.</p></div> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the question at the bottom of the controversy +was the question of State rights; but, curiously +enough, it is indicated only incidentally in Jefferson's opinion. +He was not ready to join issues on that question, much more +clearly brought forward by Madison in his speeches before the +House, when he said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this +ground: That all powers not delegated to the United States, by +the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the United States, are +reserved to the States or to the people (XIIth amendment). To +take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn +around the power of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless +field of power, no longer susceptible of definition.<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a></p></div> + +<p>This was exactly the question, for to accept Hamilton's +theory was to open the way to countless encroachments of the +Federal Government on State rights. Washington's administration +had come to its most momentous decision for the future +of the government of the United States. This was really the +parting of the ways. Jefferson knew it and saw it; it was +obvious that, with a centralized financial organization, a central +political organization would develop. All sorts of practical considerations +may be brought in and nice legal points drawn, but +the fact remains that when the representatives of the different<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> +States not only permitted but were eager to see the Federal +Government assume the responsibility of State debts, they sold +their birthright for the not unconsiderable sum of $21,500,000. +Perhaps it was the only possible solution at the time. Perhaps +Jefferson showed wisdom and political sense in not getting +up and fighting to the last ditch. He registered as strong a +protest as he could without burning his bridges. He knew from +the temper of the House that there was no hope of making +them accept any other solution. He knew that against the +strongly organized Federalists he could not muster any well-disciplined +troops. He feared the immediate dissolution of the +Union and temporized; but all the rest of his life was to be +spent in trying to recover the ground lost on that day.</p> + +<p>Jefferson was soon to realize how poorly equipped and seconded +he was when he had to take up the battle practically +single-handed.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1791 Madison had loaned him a copy of +Thomas Paine's pamphlet, "The Rights of Man", written in +answer to Burke's denunciation of the French Revolution. +When the owner of the pamphlet requested that it be returned, +for it was the only copy at his disposal and he intended to have +it reprinted in Philadelphia, Jefferson courteously returned it, +and added a short note in which he expressed his satisfaction +that such a valuable work would appear in America: "I am +extremely pleased to find it will be reprinted here, and that +something is at length to be publicly said against the political +heresies which have sprung up among us. I have no doubt our +citizens will rally a second time round the standard of 'Common +Sense.'" There is no indication whatever that Jefferson +intended the note for publication, but the printer thought it +would help the success of the pamphlet if Jefferson's letter were +printed as a preface. All the peaceful intentions of the Secretary +of State had come to naught. The word heresies could +apply only to the Federalists, and among the Federalists to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +John Adams, whose "Discourse on Davila" had been appearing +in Fenno's paper. Jefferson could declare that nothing +was further from his intentions than to appear as a contradictor +of Mr. Adams in public; very few men would believe +it and Jefferson himself realized it so well that he wrote at once +to Washington to explain his position:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mr. Adams will unquestionably take to himself the charge of +political heresy, as conscious of his own views of drawing the present +government to the form of the English constitution, and, I fear, will +consider me as meaning to injure him in the public eye. I learnt +that some Anglomen have, censured it in another point of view, as a +sanction of Paine's principles tend to give offence to the British +government. Their real fear, however, is that this popular and +republican pamphlet, taking wonderfully, is likely at a single stroke, +to wipe out all the unconstitutional doctrines which their bell wether +Davila has been preaching for a twelvemonth. I certainly never +made a secret of my being anti-monarchical, and anti-aristocratical; +but I am sincerely mortified to be thus brought forward on the +public stage, where to remain, to advance or to retire, will be equally +against my love of silence and quiet and my abhorrence of dispute.<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a></p></div> + +<p>His abhorrence of dispute was so real that, at this juncture, +he decided to leave Philadelphia for a trip north, staying two +days in New York, visiting the battlefield of Saratoga, Lake +George, Lake Champlain, and coming back through the Connecticut +valley. Madison accompanied him on the trip, and +Mr. Bowers has advanced the hypothesis that it was during +the long conversations the two friends had during a whole month +alone together that the plans were formulated for establishing +a separate party to defend the republican ideals. This may +have been the result of the journey, but I doubt very much that +such was the purpose of Jefferson when he set out from Philadelphia. +A more simple explanation is that, having written +his letter to Washington and made, as he thought, his position<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +clear, he hoped that the President would not fail to communicate +its contents to Adams if any unpleasant situation should +develop; and he simply withdrew from the battlefield in order +not to enter into a public controversy. But he counted without +Adams' temper. The Vice President considered Jefferson's +short sentence as a challenge and proceeded promptly to +have it answered. A series of articles signed "Publicola" began +to appear in the <i>Centinel</i>, denouncing not only Paine, but Jefferson +himself. "Brutus" took up the cudgels in favor of Jefferson +and the newspaper battle was on. The public, always eager +to identify anonymous writers, did not fail to attribute to Adams +the articles signed "Publicola", while to Jefferson were attributed +the answers written by Agricola, Brutus, and Philodemus. +When Jefferson came back from his trip the controversy was +raging, and soon he began to enjoy the conflict.</p> + +<p>On July 10 he sent to Colonel Monroe a bundle of papers +showing "what a dust Paine's pamphlet has kicked up here", +and he reiterated his approval of the book:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A writer under the name of Publicola, in attacking Paine's principles, +is very desirous of involving me in the same censure with the +author. I certainly merit the same, for I profess the same principles; +but it is equally certain I never meant to have entered as a +volunteer into the cause. My occupations do not permit it. Some +persons here are insinuating that I am Brutus, that I am Agricola, +that I am Philodemus, etc., etc. I am none of them, being decided +not to write a word on the subject, unless any printed imputation +should call for a printed disavowal, to which I should put +my name.</p></div> + + +<p>On the other hand he refused to take seriously the denial +that Adams "has no more concern in the publication of the +writings of Publicola, than the author of the 'Rights of Man' +himself." But he saw with satisfaction that Hamilton had +taxed Adams with imprudence in stirring up the question and +agreed that "his business was done." What was far more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +serious was the fury of gambling that had arisen at the opening +of the bank: "the land office, the federal town, certain +schemes of manufactures, are likely to be converted into aliment +for that rage."<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a></p> + +<p>In a last effort to placate Adams, however, and chiefly in +order to avoid having his name dragged into a public controversy, +he wrote to the Vice President "from the conviction +that truth, between candid minds can never do harm." He +assured him that he had not written "a line for the newspapers." +He declared "with truth in the presence of the Almighty that +nothing was further from his intention or his expectations than +to have either his own or Adams' name brought before the +public on this occasion." This was perfectly true, but at the +same time he was proposing to appoint Paine Postmaster, and +on July 29 he wrote to congratulate him, for, thanks to his little +book, the general opinion seemed to rally against a sect high +in name but small in number. "They are checked at least +by your pamphlet, and the people confirmed in their good old +faith."<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> The fact that Adams accepted Jefferson's explanation +more gracefully than was to be expected did not prevent +the fight from going on. It had already been taken out of the +hands of the leaders and the controversy was raging in the +papers. At this juncture Jefferson realized that the republicans +were very poorly armed in the capital and that they had +no paper in which their views could be expressed so as to counteract +the pernicious propaganda of Fenno's paper. Thus +the result brought about was the foundation of the <i>National +Gazette</i>, Philip Freneau's paper, in which Jefferson had a great +part. The story has never been told completely and deserves +more than passing attention, since Jefferson was soon to be +attacked by his enemies for the interest he took in the <i>Gazette</i>. +Several documents heretofore neglected allow us to reconstruct +exactly the part played by Jefferson in the undertaking, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +particularly to settle a few questions of chronology which are +not without importance.</p> + +<p>It does not appear that Jefferson had any ulterior motives +when, on February 28, 1791, he offered to Freneau, then living +miserably in New York, the clerkship for foreign languages in +the Department of State. "The salary indeed is very low," he +wrote, "being but two hundred and fifty dollars a year; but +also it gives so little to do, as not to interfere with any other +calling the person may choose.... I was told a few days ago +that it might perhaps be convenient to you to accept it. If +so, it is at your service." Freneau answered promptly, on +March 5, that, having been for some time engaged in endeavouring +to establish a Weekly Gazette in Monmouth County +and having at present a prospect of succeeding in a tolerable +subscription, he found himself under the necessity of declining +the acceptance of this "generous unsolicited proposal." +On May 15, 1791, Jefferson, writing to T. M. Randolph, expressed +his discontent at the attitude of the two leading papers +of Philadelphia and added:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We have been trying to get another weekly or half weekly paper +set up excluding advertisements so that it might go through the +States and furnish a right vehicle of intelligence. We hoped at one +time to have persuaded Freneau to set up here, but failed—in the +meantime Bache's paper, the principles of which were always republican +improve it's matter.</p></div> + +<p>Not until August 4 did Freneau write to Jefferson that, after +discussing the matter with Madison and Colonel Lee, he had +succeeded in making arrangements with a printer in Philadelphia +and would submit proposals for the publication of a +newspaper. Freneau moved to Philadelphia, was appointed +clerk for foreign languages on August 16, and took oath of +office the next day. There is consequently no doubt that +Freneau was induced to leave New York by the double pros<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>pect +of working in Jefferson's office and at the same time +establishing a republican newspaper. On November 20, Jefferson +sent some sample copies to Randolph and wrote again +on January 22 to ask his son-in-law to find subscribers to the +<i>Gazette</i>. He sent to Freneau a list of subscribers from Charlottesville +(March 23, 1792) and wrote to his friends that it was +the best paper ever published in America. On November 16, +1792, he announced to Randolph that Freneau's paper was +getting into Massachusetts under the patronage of "Hancock, +Sam. Adams, Mr. Ames, the colossus of the monocrats +and paper men will either be left out or hard run. The people +of that State are republican; but hitherto they have heard +nothing but the hymns and lauds chaunted by Fenno."</p> + +<p>When Freneau was vehemently accused by Hamilton of +attacking members of the government while in the pay of the +government, Jefferson took up his defense and wrote to the +speaker of the House to point out that Freneau received +a nominal salary and had even "to pay himself special +translators for languages with which he was unacquainted."<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> +Finally, on October 11, Freneau sent in his resignation to +date from October 1, 1793. Such are the bare facts and as +Freneau's paper was to play an important part in the quarrel +with Hamilton, it is important to state them exactly.</p> + +<p>The battle did not begin in earnest until the first months of +1792. But Jefferson's distaste for the financial structure +erected by Hamilton increased during the summer and fall of +that year. To Carmichael he grudgingly admitted that the +domestic debt "funded at six per cent., is twelve and a half per +cent. above par." "But," he added, "a spirit of gambling, +in our public paper has seized too many of our citizens, and we +fear it will check our commerce, arts, manufactures, and agriculture +unless stopped."<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> To Gouverneur Morris he declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +that the fever of gambling on government funds has seized +everybody, "has laid up our ships at the wharves, as too slow +instruments of profit, and has even disarmed the hand of the +tailor of his needle and thimble. They say the evil will cure +itself. I wish it may; but I have rarely seen a gamester cured, +even by the disasters of his vocation."<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a></p> + +<p>One may wonder at this point what course of conduct was +open to Jefferson. He might have placed his views of the +situation before Washington and tried to open his eyes to the +danger of the Republic. He might have broken completely +with Hamilton and declared to the President that he had to +decide between the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary +of State, but as a matter of fact his hands were tied since +he had accepted the "Assumption" and had not dared categorically +to decide against the Bank Bill. Apparently he had +reached an impasse. But it was not in Jefferson's temperament +to try to overcome insuperable obstacles or stay very +long in a blind alley. Since experience had shown that the +general government "tended to monarchy" and this tendency +strengthened itself from day to day, the only remedy was for +the States to erect "such barriers at the constitutional line +as cannot be surmounted either by themselves or by the +General Government."<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> An opportunity presented itself to +experiment with the idea in a proposed convocation of a +convention in Virginia to amend the Constitution. Jefferson, +consulted on this occasion, sent to Archibald Stuart his ideas +on the modifications desirable; to lengthen the term of the +representatives and diminish their number; to strengthen the +Executive by making it more independent of the legislature.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free government. Let +him feel the whole weight of it then, by taking away the shelter of +his executive council. Experience both ways has already established<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +the superiority of this measure. Render the judiciary respectable +by every possible means, to wit, firm tenure in office, competent salaries, +and reduction of their numbers.</p></div> + +<p>This was quite characteristic of Jefferson and of his extraordinary +tenacity. It was also very good strategy. Since the +strengthening of the Federal Government could not be avoided, +the only way to avoid a rapid absorption of local government +by the Federal machine was to strengthen in a parallel way +the State governments. It was an unexpected application of +Montesquieu's theory of checks and balances.<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a></p> + +<p>Soon afterwards, however, in February, 1792, Jefferson +found a favorable opportunity to reveal his ideas to Washington. +The occasion that offered itself was the post-office, +just reorganized as an independent and self-supporting branch +of the government, thus removing it from the tutelage of the +Treasury Department. Jefferson at once claimed it for the Department +of State, not out of any appetite for power, "his real +wish" being to avail the public of every occasion, during the +residue of the President's period, to place things on a safe footing. +By this he meant that the usurpations of the Treasury +Department should be brought to a stop. In a long conversation +the next morning after breakfast Jefferson opened +his heart, indicating that he would resign before long, to which +Washington answered that he could not resign when there were +certain signs of dissatisfaction among the public, and that none +could foresee what too great a change in the administration +might bring about. This was the opening awaited by Jefferson. +No wonder the public was dissatisfied, but whose +fault was it! There was only one source of discontent, the +Department of the Treasury. Then he launched forth on a +passionate indictment of the system developed by Hamilton, +contrived for deluging the States with paper money instead of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> +gold and silver, "for withdrawing our citizens from the pursuits +of commerce, manufactures, buildings, and other branches +of useful industry, to occupy themselves and their capitals in +a species of gambling, destructive of morality, and which had +introduced its poison in the government itself." He indicated +that members of Congress had been gambling in stocks and +consequently could no longer be depended upon to vote in a +disinterested way, for they had "feathered their nests with +paper." Finally Jefferson let the cat out of the bag and told +the President that the public were awaiting with anxiety his +decision with respect to a certain proposition, to find out +whether they lived under a limited or an unlimited government. +The report on manufactures which had not heretofore +drawn particular attention meant to establish the doctrine that +the power given by the Constitution to collect taxes to provide +for the "<i>general welfare</i> of the United States, permitted +Congress to take everything under their management which +<i>they</i> should deem <i>public welfare</i>, and which is susceptible of the +application of money." He added that his decision was therefore +expected with far greater anxiety than that felt over the +proposed establishment of the Bank of the United States.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a></p> + +<p>On May 23, Jefferson had found it impossible to have again +a heart-to-heart talk with the President, and we may well imagine +that Washington rather avoided giving him another +opportunity to express himself again so freely with reference to +the policy of the Treasury Department. The object of the +letter he wrote on that day was twofold; first of all it was to +persuade Washington that in spite of his so often manifested +intention to retire at the end of his first term, it was his imperious +duty to the nation to remain in office. There existed, +in Jefferson's opinion, a real emergency and he pointed out at +length the dissatisfaction of the South, the separatist tendencies +appearing in that quarter, upon seeing what they con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>sidered +an unfair share of the Federal taxes placed on their +shoulders, not only in order to pay the national debt, but also +to encourage the Northern industries with bounties. Rumors +were circulating everywhere that new measures were on foot +to increase the mass of the debts; industry was encouraged +at the expense of agriculture; the legislature itself had been +corrupted. The only hope of salvation lay in the coming election +and in an increase in the number of representatives following +the census. But everything would be in question if the +President did not run. "The confidence of the whole Union +is centered in you. Your being at the helm will be more than an +answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead +the people in any quarter, into violence and secession. North +and South will hang together if they have you to hang on."</p> + +<p>This incidentally does not sound like a man who was trying +to organize a strong political party for his own benefit, and I +cannot believe that Jefferson was as deep a politician as Mr. +Bowers has made him. He was quite sincere in his desire to +retire from office "after the first periodical renovation of the +government." He was tired and sick at heart, and his one +inclination was "bent irresistibly on the tranquil enjoyment +of his family, his farm and his books."<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> On the other hand, he +was firmly convinced that the coming elections might change +favorably the majority in Congress. They had no chance to +be held fairly, however, unless the people had an opportunity +to select as President a man who would be above all suspicion, +a really national figure enjoying the confidence of every man +in every section of the country, such as was Washington alone. +Had Washington followed his inclination at that time; had +he withdrawn at the end of his first term and left the field free +to other candidates, there is no way of surmising what the +issue of the campaign of 1792 would have been. Truly Jefferson +was right: the fate of the republic was at stake.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + +<p>Shortly after, Hamilton, who had not yet attacked Jefferson +personally, led an offensive against Freneau who was accused +by the <i>Gazette of the United States</i> of using his salary for +publications, "the design of which is to villify those to whom +the voice of the people has committed the administration of +our public affairs." But Freneau, in Hamilton's opinion, was +only the puppet whose strings were pulled by an arch plotter, +and soon the <i>Gazette</i> started direct attacks against Jefferson, +asserting that while a member of the Cabinet he had undertaken +to undermine the government. Freneau, in an affidavit, +denied that Jefferson had any connection with his paper +or had dictated or written a single line in it, and at the same +time hinted that, on the contrary, the authorship of many +articles published in Fenno's <i>Gazette</i> could clearly be attributed +to Hamilton. This denial had precisely the value of +any such statement issued during political campaigns. It was +literally true that Jefferson had never written a line in Freneau's +paper, but he had an opportunity to see Freneau every day, +since "clerk for foreign languages" had to report to him. He +was requesting all his friends to subscribe to Freneau's papers, +he was following anxiously the progress of the <i>Gazette</i> in all +parts of the Union, and one word from him would have stopped +all attacks against Hamilton. In fact, Freneau's paper was +just as much Jefferson's paper as if the Secretary of State had +written all the articles in it and had owned all the stock.</p> + +<p>Hamilton's attacks, however, had a very important and +unexpected result. Whether Jefferson had serious political +ambitions or not, he was not the man to come out in the open +and proclaim himself the leader of a new party. Of a retiring +disposition, fearful of public criticism although thirsty for +public praise, he was not ready at that time to assume the +part and the duties of a political chief. But the savage attacks +of the Federalists attracted public attention to him, he +was represented so often by them as the champion of republic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>anism, +that discontented republicans began to rally round +him and Jefferson was thus invested with the leadership of the +new party as much by his enemies as by his friends.</p> + +<p>During the summer of 1792, when he was at Monticello, he +received from Washington a letter in which the President +expressed his distress at the dissensions that had taken place +within the government, and once more attempted to bring +about a reconciliation between the two secretaries (August 23). +Jefferson answered in a long letter. This time his temper had +been thoroughly aroused. He had seen articles signed "An +American" in Fenno's <i>Gazette</i>, accusing him on three counts: +"with having written letters to his friends in Europe to oppose +the present constitution; with a desire of repudiating the +public debt; with setting up a paper to decry and slander the +government." Jefferson had no difficulty in proving the first +two accusations absolutely untrue. On the third charge he +admitted and even boasted of having given a poet a miserable +appointment at a salary of $250 a year, while Hamilton had +filled the administration with his creatures. He protested in +the name of Heaven that "I never did, by myself, or any other, +directly or indirectly, write, dictate, or procure any one sentence +of sentiment to be inserted in <i>his</i>, or any other gazette, +to which my name was not affixed or that of my office." He +confessed, however, that he had always taken it for granted, +from his knowledge of Freneau's character, "that he would +give free place to pieces written against the aristocratical and +monarchical principles these papers had inculcated." He +again protested against Hamilton's insinuation that Freneau +had received his salary before removing to Philadelphia, and +on this point he is supported by the evidence published above. +In a very dignified way he assured Washington that he would +refrain from engaging in any controversy while in office and +that he wished to concentrate all his efforts on the last of his +official tasks. He added, however, that he reserved the right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +to answer later, for, he said: "I will not suffer my retirement +to be clouded by the slanders of a man whose history, from the +moment at which history can stoop to notice him, is a tissue +of machinations against the liberty of the country which has +not only received and given him bread, but heaped honors on +his head."</p> + +<p>Jefferson has sometimes been reproached for having attacked in +the "Anas" a dead enemy, but this was no posthumous attack. +In one sentence he had expressed not only condemnation of +Hamilton's policies but all the scorn of a Virginian, of the old +stock, for the immigrant of doubtful birth, who was almost an +alien. He knew full well the weight that such a consideration +might have on the mind of Washington; it was a subtle but +potent appeal to the solidarity of the old Americans against +the newcomer. Truly, Jefferson was no mean adversary, and +the rapier may be more deadly than the battle-ax. Having +thus parried and thrust, he expressed the pious wish that the +coming elections would probably vindicate his point of view +and that it would not be necessary to make a further appeal to +public opinion. He was tired and wished to retire from office +at the earliest opportunity, and certainly no clique would +receive any support from him during the short space he had to +remain in Philadelphia. Monticello was calling him and his +most earnest hope was that he would be permitted to forget all +political strife in a bucolic retirement.<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a></p> + +<p>On his way back to Philadelphia he stopped at Mount Vernon +(October 1, 1792) and found Washington still undecided +whether he would be a candidate for a second term. The General +was not certain that the emergency was such that he must +sacrifice his personal preferences. He had consulted Lear +about opinion in the North; Jefferson could tell him something +about the South. When he was assured that he alone +could save the Republic, it was his turn to argue that Jeffer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>son +ought to remain in office as long as he himself would be +President. Washington said that until very recently he had +been unaware that such personal differences existed between +the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury. The +old General gently reminded Jefferson that the best way to +counteract the action of Hamilton was to remain in office, in +order "to keep things in their proper channel, and prevent +them from going too far." Finally the President refused to +accept wholly the pessimistic forecasts of Jefferson and declared: +"That as to the idea of transforming this Government +into a monarchy, he did not believe there were ten men in the +United States whose opinions were worth attention, who entertained +such a thought." He refused to take seriously Jefferson's +accusation that Hamilton would have said that "this +Constitution was a shilly-shally thing, of mere milk and water, +which could not last, and was only good as a step to something +better." That as far as corruption in the legislature was concerned, +the term was probably too severe; it was simply a +manifestation of "interested spirit"; it was what could not +be avoided in any government, unless we were to exclude from +all office particular descriptions of men, such as the holders of +the funds. "For the rest he only knew that before the funding +operations he had seen our affairs desperate and our credit lost, +and that this was in a sudden and extraordinary degree raised +to the highest pitch." With the common sense and poise that +were his outstanding qualities, Washington refused to inquire +into the ultimate motives of Hamilton. The Secretary of the +Treasury had rescued the finances of the country from bankruptcy; +he was a good, efficient, and personally honest administrator, +and it was Washington's hope that he would be able +to keep with him two useful collaborators whom he could not +easily replace.</p> + +<p>Shall I confess that, in my humble opinion, and in spite of the +contrary judgment of several American historians, Washington<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +was probably right. The quarrel between Hamilton and Jefferson +is undoubtedly of considerable importance in the history +of political parties in the United States. I am not so certain +that it exerted so tremendous an influence on the destinies of +the nation. Whatever may have been the ambitious schemes +of Hamilton, the theoretical preferences of John Adams, it is +difficult to see how any one could have succeeded at that time +in establishing overnight an hereditary monarchy in the United +States. Such a <i>"coup d'état"</i> is always a possibility in the old +countries of Europe, all of them more or less centralized and +controlled from a national capital; but in 1793 there was no +national capital in America, loyalty to the Federal Government +was scarcely nascent, citizens had not been accustomed to look +to Congress for bounties, assistance, and subsidies. The vastness +of the country would have offered insuperable obstacles, +even to the genius of a Bonaparte. No real danger existed +because, as Montesquieu would have said, a monarchy was not +in the nature of things, and both Hamilton and Jefferson would +have realized it, if they had not been caught in the maelstrom +of political and personal passions.</p> + +<p>When Jefferson left Mount Vernon, Washington was still +undecided whether he would accept a second term, but Jefferson +had determined that he would not stay in office any longer +than he could help; and on November 8, he wrote to Humphreys +to send all further communications not to him personally, +but to the Secretary of State, by title and not by name. News +of election was coming slowly, winter had already begun in the +northern States. But the news that did arrive was reassuring +and Jefferson was able to write on November 16, "the event +has been generally in favor of republican, and against the aristocratical +candidates." By the beginning of December, the +reëlection of Washington being conceded, it appeared that the +election of the Vice President "had been seized as a proper +one for expressing the public sense on the doctrine of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +monocrats." It was already apparent that Adams would be +reëlected in spite of a strong vote against him, but Jefferson +discounted the significance of the election and attributed it to +"the strength of his personal worth and his services, rather than +to the merits of his political creed."<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> It seemed that the anti-Federalists +had gained control of the lower House and this was +a most significant victory.</p> + +<p>Then as more news of the election came, telling of the victory +of the republicans or, as they were called by derision, the Jacobins, +other news arrived from France. The army of the Duke +of Brunswick had been forced to retreat and had failed in crushing +the republican army of France. "This news," wrote Jefferson, +"has given wry faces to our monocrats here, but sincere +joy to the great body of the citizens. It arrived only in +the afternoon of yesterday, and the bells were rung and some +illuminations took place in the evening."<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> Four days later +the conviction that a disaster had overcome Brunswick had +made great progress, although no other news had been received, +and Jefferson had anxiously awaited the arrival of ships from +France. But the tide had turned and he wrote to Mercer: +"The monocrats here still affect to disbelieve all this, while the +republicans are rejoicing and taking to themselves the name of +Jacobins which two months ago was fixed on them by way of +stigma."<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> The first victory of the republicans coincided with +the first victory of the Revolution against the coalition of kings. +The French Revolution itself had become a domestic issue and +was to inject more passion into the strife between the monocrats +and the republicans.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h2>JACOBIN OR AMERICAN?</h2> + + +<p>One of the first duties of Jefferson in taking charge of foreign +affairs was to explain to his French friends, who on the other +side of the Atlantic had been accustomed to look up to him as +a guide and counsellor, the reasons which had determined his +choice to remain in America. To Madame de Corny, the +Duchesse Danville, the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Madame +d'Houdetot, he wrote gracefully worded notes, in the best style +of the society of the time. In France, among other things, +he had learned how to turn a charming compliment. More +official but still very graceful is the letter he sent to Montmorin +to take formal leave of the French Court and at the same +time introduce himself in his new capacity. But besides the +compliments, there appears in the letter a reaffirmation that +the best foundation for international friendship lay in satisfactory +commercial relations. "May this union of interests +forever be the patriotic creed of both countries."<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> The new +Secretary of State had not forgotten that the most important +questions relative to Gallo-American commerce had not yet been +settled, and that it would be no negligible part of his duties to +carry out the principles he had always defended when in Paris.</p> + +<p>To Lafayette, closer to his heart than any other Frenchman, +he explained more fully his view of the situation and stated +once more the principles which would direct him in his policy +towards France:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Wherever I am, or ever shall be, I shall be sincere in my friendship +to you and to your nation. I think with others, that nations are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +to be governed with regard to their own interests, but I am convinced +that it is their interests, in the long run, to be grateful, faithful to +their engagements, even in the worst of circumstances, and honorable +and generous always. If I had not known that the head of our +government was in these sentiments, and that his national and +private ethics were the same, I would never have been where I am.<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a></p></div> + +<p>This was more than a banal compliment. To the homely +wisdom of Doctor Franklin that honesty is the best policy, +Jefferson had added a new element. He had combined in one +formula two principles which often seem contradictory and +which at any rate are difficult to reconcile. Not a mere idealist, +nor simply a practical politician, he was, during the rest of +his political life, to make persistent efforts to propagate that +gospel of practical idealism which remains to this day one of +the fundamental tenets of Americanism. In that respect, +party lines count little, and Lincoln was quite as much a disciple +and a continuator of Jefferson as Woodrow Wilson.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, it cannot be denied that in many circumstances +it would take more than superhuman virtue and +intelligence rightly to operate that ideal combination and +maintain an equal balance between national selfishness and +philosophical idealism. When it came to practice, Jefferson +showed himself just as canny as any European diplomat and +never neglected an opportunity to further the interests of his +country. This appeared in the very first letters he sent to +Europe after taking charge of the foreign policies of the United +States.</p> + +<p>Communications were slow at the time. Jefferson was kept +regularly informed of developments in France by Short, his +former secretary, left in charge in Paris, who sent him weekly +letters; but they averaged eleven weeks and a half in transit, +while of his answers "the quickest were of nine weeks and the +longest of near eighteen weeks coming." Information through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> +the British papers took about five or six weeks to reach America +but was not to be relied upon, and Jefferson gave definite instructions +to Short for "news from Europe is very interesting +at this moment, when it is so doubtful whether a war will take +place between our two neighbors."<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a></p> + +<p>This was indeed at the time his main preoccupation. War +between Spain and England seemed not only possible but probable, +and Jefferson saw in it an opportunity to press the claims +of the United States to the navigation of the Mississippi. The +question was not "the claims of Spain to our territory north +of the thirty first degree and east of the Mississippi (they never +merited the respect of an answer), but the navigation of the +Mississippi and that was not simply to recognize the American +rights on the river." Navigation "cannot be practiced without +a port, where the sea and river vessels may meet and exchange +loads, where those employed about them may be safe +and unmolested." The right to use a thing comprehends a +right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it +would be useless. Jefferson added that he could not answer +that "the forbearance of our western citizens would last indefinitely, +and that a moment of impatience, hazard or other +considerations might precipitate action on their part." On the +other hand, the United States were in no position to antagonize +openly even weak Spain, and in case nothing should develop +Carmichael was instructed to bide his time:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>You will be pleased to observe, that we press these matters warmly +and firmly, under this idea, that the war between Spain and Great +Britain will be begun before you receive this; and such a moment +must not be lost. But should an accommodation take place, we +retain, indeed, the same object and the same resolutions unalterably; +but your discretion will suggest, that patience and persuasion must +temper your conferences, till either of these may prevail, or some +other circumstances turn up, which may enable us to use other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> +means for the attainment of an object which we are determined, +in the end, to obtain at every risk.<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a></p></div> + +<p>Naturally this is no worse than the ordinary run of instructions +sent at that time to diplomatic agents by other foreign +secretaries, and Jefferson's policy was no more underhanded +than the policies of any other nation of the Old World. It cannot +be said, however, that it rested upon higher and nobler +moral principles. Perhaps America had no diplomatic tradition +at that time, but she was not deficient in tactics, and +neither Jefferson nor his agents were exactly innocent tools in +the hands of wily European diplomats.</p> + +<p>But this is not all. Jefferson unfolded his whole plan in a +letter to Short written a week later. In case of a war between +England and Spain, France would be called into the war as an +ally on the side of Spain. She would have a right to insist +that Spain should do everything in her power to lessen the +number of her potential enemies and to eliminate every cause +of friction with the United States. "She cannot doubt +that we shall be of that number, if she does not yield our right +to common use of the Mississippi, and the means of using and +securing it." The point made by the United States was that +"they should have a port near the mouth of the river, so well +separated from the territories of Spain and her jurisdiction, as +not to engender daily disputes and broils between us." Such a +claim was not an arbitrary one, but resulted from the configuration +of the land. "Nature has decided what shall be the +geography of that in the end, whatever it might be in the beginning, +by cutting off from the adjacent countries of Florida and +Louisiana, and enclosing between two of its channels, a long and +narrow slip of land, called the Island of New Orleans." Jefferson +conceded that the idea of ceding that territory might be +disagreeable to Spain at first, because it constituted their principal +settlement in those parts, with a population of ten thou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>sand +white inhabitants, but "reason, and events, however, may, +by little and little, familiarize them to it." The idea, however, +might seem excessive to Montmorin, particularly as it was +thought that France had not entirely given up the project of +recovering the country along the Mississippi. But fortunately +the National Assembly seemed opposed to conquest and the +subject might be broached merely in general terms at the beginning. +Furthermore, Lafayette could be used once more as an +intermediary without officially compromising the United States.<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a></p> + +<p>Finally Gouverneur Morris was told to warn England that +should they entertain any design against any Spanish colony, +the United States would contemplate a change of neighbors +with extreme uneasiness. While the United States would +remain neutral if "they execute the treaty fairly and attempt +no conquests adjoining us," Jefferson added, "it will be proper +that these ideas be conveyed in delicate and friendly terms; +but that they be conveyed, if the war takes place; for it is in +this case alone, and not till it be begun, that we should wish our +dispositions to be known."<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> That question being disposed of +satisfactorily, at least in theory, for after all, the war did not +break out, Jefferson abandoned temporarily his plans to obtain +New Orleans. How he resumed them and pushed them to a +successful conclusion ten years later is too well known to need +recalling here.</p> + +<p>It is not until February 4, 1791, that Jefferson expressed in +writing his hope to see a republican form of government established +in France. This was in direct contradiction with all the +advice and counsel he had given to his French friends when he +was in Paris, with his repeated affirmations that the French were +not ready for self-government, and with the conclusions contained +in his letter written to Jay in the summer of 1789. None +of the developments that had taken place in France was of such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> +a character as to change Jefferson's attitude on the matter. +But in the meantime, he had come to the conclusion that the +fate of the republican government in the United States depended +largely on the failure or success of the French Revolution. If +it proved impossible for the French to establish a stable form +of self-government, if they could not withstand the attacks of +their foreign enemies, the conclusion would inevitably be drawn +in America that there was an inherent defect and weakness in +all republican governments. Thus the French Revolution had +already become an international issue, for the cause of liberty +could not remain secure for any length of time in America if it +were crushed in Europe. On that particular point Jefferson +himself was very explicit:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I look with great anxiety for the firm establishment of the new +government in France, being perfectly convinced that if it takes +place there, it will spread sooner or later all over Europe. On the +contrary, a check there would retard the revival of liberty in other +countries. I consider the establishment and success of their government +as necessary to stay up our own, and to prevent it from falling +back to that kind of half-way house, the English constitution. It +cannot be denied that we have among us a sect who believe that to +contain whatever is perfect in human institutions; that the members +of this sect have, many of them, names and offices which stand high +in the estimation of our countrymen. I still rely that the great +mass of our community is untainted with these heresies, as is its +head. On this I build my hope that we have not labored in vain, +and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed +by reason.<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a></p></div> + +<p>On receiving the news that the National Assembly of France +had gone into mourning over the death of Franklin, Jefferson +sent to its President one of those letters worded in the "felicitous +style" which he had perfected in France. His feelings were +sincere, he had great respect and affection for the Doctor, but he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +knew what was expected of him, and with great skill, without +promising anything, or using any expression that might be +taken as a definite promise and turned against him later, he +made a vague but satisfactory appeal to a sort of international +friendship, praising the Assembly for having set the first example +and brought "into our fraternity the good and the great wherever +they have lived or died." He ended with a reaffirmation +of the good dispositions of his government towards France: +"That these separations may disappear between us in all times +and circumstances, and that the union of sentiment which +mingles our sorrows on this occasion, may continue long to +cement the friendship and interests of our two nations, is our +constant prayer."<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a></p> + +<p>This openly declared sympathy for France and his hopes for a +new form of government did not in the least obscure his views +on the commercial difficulties between the two countries. The +bone of contention was still the question of commerce with the +West Indies. The National Assembly, on ratifying the consular +conventions, had showed little disposition to admit the right +of the United States to send consular agents to the West Indies. +In his opinion the word <i>"États du roi"</i> did not mean merely +France, but all colonial possessions of France as indicated in the +translation "French dominions." He was not ready officially +to press the matter so as to cause difficulties between the two +nations and was willing to have the two agents already +appointed, "Skipwith at Martinique and Bourne at St. Dominique", +ask for a regular exequatur.<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a></p> + +<p>He elaborated on his policy with reference to the West Indies +in another letter to Short, written three months later. In it +will be found expressed more discreetly, but no less firmly, the +philosophy outlined already with reference to Spain and the +Mississippi. He maintained first of all that the United States<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> +had no design whatever on the West Indies, for "If there be one +principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every +American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest." +This principle once established, he proceeded to examine +the situation from a practical point of view. The regulations +imposed by the French on their colonies are such that they +cannot trade directly with their neighbors; for the supplies +necessary to relieve their mutual wants have to be carried first +to France in order to be exported either to the colonies or to +the American continent. This is contrary to the natural order +of things: "An exchange of surplusses and wants between +neighbor nations, is both a right and a duty under the moral +law, and measures against right should be mollified in their +exercise, if it be wished to lengthen them to the greatest term +possible." It seemed to Jefferson that such a right ought to be +recognized by any unprejudiced mind; but, unfortunately, +"Europeans in general have been too long in the habit of confounding +force with right with respect to America." Circumstances +are such that these rights cannot be pressed very strongly +and "can be advanced only with delicacy", but what the United +States cannot do themselves, Lafayette perhaps can present +informally to his friends. He alone can make them understand +that, while they are establishing a new régime for their colonial +possessions of the West Indies, "in policy, if not in justice, they +should be disposed to avoid oppression, which, falling on us, +as well as on their colonies, might tempt us to act together."<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a></p> + +<p>Was this a veiled threat? Not exactly. It was an extension +of Montesquieu's theory of laws to international relations, an +application of the theories of the French economists on free +trade. But even supposing that the theory itself had some +remote French origin, to a large extent it was new and typically +American. Only former colonies which had won their complete<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> +independence could maintain that, in matters of trade, the colonies +were completely independent of the metropolis, and that +commercial and geographical considerations should outweigh +political regulations. The United States were strongly inclined +to use every favorable opportunity to make this principle obtain +in their relations with their neighbors, and what was a far +more dangerous thing, they considered this policy both "a right +and a duty under the moral law." It was not political imperialism +to be sure, but in our days it certainly would be called commercial +imperialism under a moral disguise. At that time, it +was really a theory far in advance of both the theory and practice +of any European nation, and it is very doubtful whether +Jefferson would have found justification for it in any of the +authorities on the law of nations he had consulted with reference +to the navigation of the Mississippi.<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a></p> + +<p>There is no doubt that Jefferson fully realized all the implications +of his doctrine, for he submitted it to the President before +sending it to Short in cipher; but he insisted that, if the contents +of his letter were permitted to leak out at a favorable +opportunity, "the National Assembly might see the impolicy +of insisting on particular conditions, which, operating as +grievances on us, as well as on their colonists, might produce a +concert of action."<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a></p> + +<p>The news of the flight of the king was for him another evidence +of the "fruits of that form of government, which heaps +importance on idiots, and which the Tories of the present day +are trying to preach into our favor." Then he added significantly: +"I still hope the French revolution will issue happily. +I feel that the permanence of our own leans in some degree +on that; and that a failure there would be a powerful argument +to prove there would be a failure here."<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + +<p>Meanwhile his actions were far more cautious than his theories +would lead one to believe. When the Santo Domingo Assembly +placed their situation before the Government of the United +States, asking for ammunition, arms, and provisions to be charged +against the money owed France by the United States, Jefferson +answered that although the United States had with them "some +common points of union in matters of commerce" he could not +do anything without the approbation of Ternant. When the +colonists asked him what would be the attitude of the United +States in case they became independent, Jefferson did not conceal +the fact that they would lay themselves open to any attack +by a strong nation and that their interest, as well as the interests +of the United States, was to see them retain their connection +with their mother country; and he finally decided to give +them such small supplies from time to time "as will keep them +from real distress, and to wait with patience for what would +be a surplus, till M. Ternant can receive instructions from +France.... It would be unwise in the highest degree, that +the colonists should be disgusted with either France or us."<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a></p> + +<p>He was soon to be deprived, however, of direct news from +France, for Short was transferred from Paris to the Hague and +Gouverneur Morris appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to +France.<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> He had to explain his policy to the new minister, +which he did on March 10, 1792, this time insisting that nothing +in the conduct or the views of the United States should cause +any apprehension to the French Government and that he +should allay all fears on that score.<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> But with Lafayette he +still insisted that if he did not mention the point again, it was +largely because he considered that it had been won:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We have been less zealous in aiding them, lest your government +should feel any jealousy on our account. But, in truth, we as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> +sincerely wish their restoration and connection with you, as you do +yourselves. We are satisfied that neither your justice nor their +distresses will ever again permit their being forced to seek at dear +and distant markets those first necessaries of life which they may +have at cheaper markets, placed by nature at their door, and formed +by her for their support.<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a></p></div> + +<p>It was not until the latter part of 1792 that reiterated letters +from Morris, describing the situation and asking for instructions, +forced Jefferson to make a very important declaration on +relations that could be transacted with revolutionary governments. +There again he displayed the resourcefulness of a good +lawyer combined with the idealism of a political philosopher. +Having no hint of the form of government that the French were +to adopt, he thought it necessary to lay down certain principles +to direct the conduct of the American plenipotentiary in Paris. +They were substantially as follows: The permanent principle +of the United States was to recognize any government "which is +formed by the will of the nation substantially declared." If +the government to be formed by the French presented such a +character, there was no reason to doubt that the United States +would grant recognition, and Morris could proceed without +further ado to transact with them "every kind of business." +On the other hand, the government established might present +an entirely different complexion and in that case the recognition +might be more doubtful; but even then it was to be considered +as a <i>de facto</i>, if not a <i>de jure</i> government, and it was the +duty of the American minister to discuss some matters with +them in order to obtain concessions "reforming the unfriendly +restrictions on our commerce and navigation."<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> The question +as to Morris' safety was left entirely to him to determine and +could not very well be the object of precise instructions.</p> + +<p>Two weeks later, Jefferson himself had an opportunity to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +make a practical application of his policy. Although they had +received no formal authority from the National Assembly, +the United States were willing to contribute aids from time to +time to Santo Domingo, and were placing at their disposal for +December the sum of forty thousand dollars. But Jefferson +insisted that such moneys as were thus obtained were to be +spent in America where supplies could be had cheapest, "and +where the same sum would consequently effect the greatest +measure of relief to the colony." Incidentally, it was spent +also for the greatest benefit of the American merchants, and +strengthened the commercial connection between the islands +and the American continent, a point not to be mentioned to the +French envoy, but well worth keeping in mind.<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a></p> + +<p>At the beginning of 1793, Jefferson was not only inclined to +treat favorably the new French Government but resented +strongly any criticism of it. When he discovered that in several +letters his friend and disciple Short had censured the proceedings +of the French Jacobins, Jefferson, fearing that he had been +corrupted by aristocratic friendships, undertook to set him right +on the matter. He took the following view of the situation:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The contest had been between the Feuillant patriots favoring a +free constitution with an hereditary executive and the Jacobins who +thought that expunging that office was an absolute necessity. The +Feuillants had their day and their experiment had failed miserably. +The nation was with them in opinion and had finally won. Certainly +in the struggle many guilty persons fell without the forms of +trial and innocents with them. But altogether they are to be considered +as soldiers who have fallen during a battle; their memory +will be embalmed by truth and time.</p></div> + +<p>Meanwhile the only thing to consider was that the liberty of +the whole world depended on the issue of the contest:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? My own +affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +cause, but rather than it should have failed I would have seen half +the earth desolated; were there but an Adam and an Eve left in +every country, and left free, it would be better than as it is now.</p></div> + +<p>Short was then severely rebuked for having expressed in +conversations sentiments offensive to the French patriots. He +was reminded that there were in the United States "some characters +of opposite principles hostile to France, and fondly looking +to England as the staff of their hopes. Their prospects have +certainly not brightened.... The successes of republicanism +in France have given the <i>coup de grace</i> to their prospects, and +I hope to their projects." This was to be kept in mind by +Short, and, as Jefferson intended to retire at an early date, +he called his attention to the fact that not knowing who his +successor would be and into whose hands his further communications +would fall, he had better be prudent and not let his +"too great sensibility to the misfortunes of some dear friends +obscure his republicanism."<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a></p> + +<p>In a communication to Gouverneur Morris, Jefferson was +more reserved but no less insistent upon the principle that the +French Government was a government <i>de jure</i> as well as <i>de +facto</i>:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We surely cannot deny to any nation that right whereon our own +government is founded, that every one may govern itself according +to whatever form it pleases, and change these forms at its own will; +and that it may transact its business with foreign nations through +whatever organ it thinks proper, whether King, Convention, +Assembly, Committee, President, or anything else it may choose. +The will of the nation is the only essential thing to be regarded. +Such being the case, the United States not only should continue to +pay the installment on the debt but use their utmost endeavors to +make punctual payments. Urged by the strongest attachment to +that country, and thinking it is even providential that moneys lent +to us in distress could be repaid under like circumstances, we had no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +hesitation to comply with the application, and arrangements are +accordingly taken, for furnishing this sum at epochs accommodated +to the demands and our means of paying it.</p></div> + +<p>This was the doctrine of national gratitude reaffirmed and +illustrated, but naturally relations could not be placed on +an entirely sentimental basis. Morris was instructed at the +same time "to use and improve every possible opportunity +which may occur in the changeable scenes which are passing, +and to seize them as they occur, for placing our commerce with +that nation and its dependencies, on the freest and most encouraging +footing possible."<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a></p> + +<p>A week later news of the execution of the king arrived at +Philadelphia. For the fate of Louis XVI, Jefferson felt and +expressed little personal regret. He never held the monarch +in high esteem: furthermore, the example set by France might +teach a good lesson to other autocrats and "soften the monarchical +governments, by rendering monarchs amenable to punishment +like other criminals, and doing away with that rage of insolence +and oppression, the inviolability of the King's person."<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> +Here again it is evident that domestic considerations were +uppermost in Jefferson's mind. Never could one correct too +vigorously those who wished to establish a monarchy in the +United States. Whether he was justified or not, Jefferson sincerely +believed that the American republic was in danger, and +his attitude at that time reflects his fear of the monocrats +more than any real sympathy for the French Terrorists.</p> + +<p>Thus spoke Jefferson, the party man, and he made no mystery +of his sentiments either in his conversations or in his private +letters. The Secretary of State, however, could not easily afford +to adopt publicly the same attitude. Early in February +Colonel W. S. Smith had brought the intelligence that the +French Minister Ternant, whose royalist opinions shocked the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +French sympathizers in Philadelphia, would be recalled and +Citizen Genet would be sent in his place by the Republic. It +was already known that Genet would bring very advantageous +propositions to the United States, for he would come</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>with full powers to give us all the privileges we can desire in their +countries, and particularly in the West Indies; that they even contemplate +to set them free the next summer; that they proposed to +emancipate South America, and will send forty-five ships of the +line there next spring, and Miranda at the head of the expedition; +that they desire our debt to be paid them in provisions, and have +authorized him to negotiate this.<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a></p></div> + +<p>On the other hand it was to be feared that Genet would +remind the American Government of the existence of the +Treaty of 1778, by which the United States agreed to give distinct +advantages to French privateers and to guarantee the +integrity of the French West Indies. It was not until April +that it was known war had been declared between France and +England. Were the United States going to be dragged into the +European convulsions and would they have to side openly with +their former ally? Acting on the information received from +Colonel Smith, Jefferson quickly wrote to Carmichael and +Short, asking them to refrain from mentioning the Louisiana +question to Spain, and chiefly to be very careful not to "bind us +to guarantee any of the Spanish colonies against their own +independence, nor indeed against any other nation." Jefferson +believed that there was a possibility of seeing France encourage +the Spanish colonies to revolt and would not have objected "to +the receiving those on the east side into our confederation." +This was an eventuality not to be lightly dismissed, and once +more Jefferson's uppermost preoccupation was not to please +the French Revolutionists but to further the interests of his +country.<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> But before deciding upon any course of action it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> +advisable to temporize and to find out from what quarter the +wind was about to blow. The only thing to do for the present +was to wait and to avoid any unpleasant complications with +the powers at war; and first of all to see to it that the United +States should enjoy the rights and privileges of a complete +neutrality. Jefferson began sending instructions to that effect +to Samuel Shaw, consul at Canton, China.<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> Two days later +he wrote even more explicitly to Dumas: "We wish not to +meddle with the internal affairs of any country, nor with the +general affairs of Europe. Peace with all nations, and the +right which that gives us with all nations are our objects. It +will be necessary for all our public agents to exert themselves +with vigilance for securing to our vessels all the rights of neutrality, +and from preventing the vessels of other nations from +usurping our flags."<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a></p> + +<p>As the cabinet met only one month later (April 18) at the +request of Washington to discuss the proclamation of neutrality, +it is not without importance to call attention to the +date and the text of that letter. Winning Jefferson over +to the position finally adopted by the American Government +could not present insuperable difficulties since he had already +outlined the same policy even before consulting with the +President, and on his own initiative had sent instructions to +the agents.</p> + +<p>When the Cabinet met to consider the emergency, and the +several secretaries were invited by Washington to submit their +opinions in writing, the course to be followed was officially +agreed upon and Washington issued the famous Proclamation +of Neutrality on April 22,—the very same day the new minister +from France landed at Charleston. Jefferson did not lose any +time notifying the American agents abroad of the policy of the +United States, repeating substantially the instructions already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +sent to Dumas one month before.<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> At the same time Ternant +was officially notified that credits opened in favor of the West +Indies had to be stopped;<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> as the emergency had passed and +a regular government had been established in France, money +could be appropriated from the regular installments paid on +the debt.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50%;"> +<img src="images/pic290b.jpg" width="100%" alt="THOMAS JEFFERSON" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THOMAS JEFFERSON<br /> +<br /> +<i>From the portrait by Rembrandt Peale</i></span> +</div> + + +<p>According to a letter written to Monroe,<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> Jefferson saw with +a secret pleasure, the monocrat papers publish the most furious +philippics against England, and the old spirit of 1776 rekindled +from Charleston to Boston. He expressed the pious wish that +"we may be able to repress the spirit of the people within the +limits of fair neutrality." But he revolted against what he +considered a subservient attitude to England on the part of +Hamilton. It is one of the few occasions in which he departed in +a letter (I do not count the "Anas") from his judicial attitude: +"In the meantime," he said, "Hamilton is panick struck, if we +refuse our breech to every kick which Great Britain may choose +to give it. In order to preserve even a sneaking neutrality a +fight is necessary in every council for our votes are generally two +and a half against one and a half."</p> + +<p>Jefferson's private opinion might have favored the French +Revolution, as it undoubtedly did. I do not see, however, +that in any important circumstance he departed from the +strict line of neutrality which he had traced for the country.</p> + +<p>He sent instructions to Thomas Pinckney<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> to the effect that, +in order to avoid any violation of neutrality, passports could be +issued to vessels only in American ports; that "in other lands +American citizens were free to purchase and use any foreign +built vessels, as those were entitled to the same protection as +home built vessels." That all vessels belonging to citizens of +the United States loaded with grain to the port of one of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> +belligerents could not be stopped by the other belligerent if +going to an unblockaded port.</p> + +<p>Then Genet, still at Charleston and before being regularly +accredited, took upon himself to outfit privateers and to commission +them. "The British ship <i>Grange</i>, while lying at +anchor in the bay of Delaware, within the territory and jurisdiction +of the United States, was taken possession of by the +<i>Embuscade</i>, a frigate of the French Republic, brought to port +where she was detained as a prize and the crew kept prisoners."<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> +Ternant was asked to detain the vessel, waiting for a decision to +be taken concerning the representations of the British minister, +Hammond. But it will be seen in Jefferson's letter to Hammond<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> +that he did not hesitate to grant that the capture of the +<i>Grange</i> was not "warranted by the usage of nations, nor by the +existing treaties between the United States and France", nor, +Jefferson added, "by any law of the land." On the other hand +he maintained that agents of the French Government were free +to purchase "arms and military accoutrements" with an intent +to export them to France, and that citizens of the United States +could sell such articles, being duly warned, however, that they +were subject to confiscation should they fall into the hands of +a belligerent.</p> + +<p>Indeed, it took all the calamitous blunders of Genet to turn +Jefferson against him. From Charleston, where he had landed, +to Philadelphia, his march had been a triumph. The citizens of +Philadelphia, hearing that the President might refuse to receive +him, had even decided to give him an ovation and to meet him +at Gray's Ferry. He delivered his credentials on May 18, and +at once communicated the object of his mission in a style which +now appears grandiloquent, but simply reflected that enthusiasm +for America which was running so high in France at the +time. "In short," wrote Jefferson to Madison, "he offers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> +everything, and asks nothing."<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> This was too good to be +true, and too wonderful to last long.</p> + +<p>Less than three weeks later (June 5) Jefferson had to send to +Genet strong representations on his attitude and pointed out +several breaches of neutrality, particularly in the arming of +French privateers in American ports, stating rather stiffly that +it was "the <i>right</i> of every nation to prohibit acts of sovereignty +from being exercised by any other nation within its limits and +the duty of a neutral nation to prohibit such as would injure +one of the warring powers."</p> + +<p>But in a letter to Hammond he stated that the measures could +not be retrospective. In the first days of the war, French +citizens, duly commissioned by the authorities of their country, +had captured British vessels. It was impossible for the United +States to rescue those vessels from the captors. All that could +be done was to prevent the repetition of such an incident and +to order the departure of all French privateers from the ports +of the United States. It was fine legal reasoning, not without +some of that hairsplitting for which Jefferson reproached +Randolph. Whether Randolph had a hand or not in the reaching +of that decision is another question. Jefferson indorsed it +in transmitting it both to Hammond and Genet.</p> + +<p>Another proposition of Genet did not meet with more favorable +approval. The Republic was hard pressed for money, and +the new plenipotentiary had been requested to make every +possible effort "to obtain payment in one lump sum of all the +annuities coming to France, taking the debt in produce if necessary, +or changing it into bonds to be sold to the public." To +this Jefferson was unequivocally opposed, although he referred +the President to Hamilton. He recommended payment in +advance of the installments due for the year, but strongly +objected to changing the form of the debt.<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> He wrote, further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>more, +to Gouverneur Morris to acquaint him with the situation +and to request him "to prevent any such proposition in the +future from being brought forward."<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a></p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, although Jefferson expressed pious and +fervent wishes for the success of the French, I cannot see that +he officially did much to further their cause. He was not even +pleased by the agitation and propaganda in their behalf carried +on in America by enthusiastic patriots. This appears very +clearly in a letter to his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph, +which, better than any official document, indicates his state of +mind at the end of June, 1793:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The French have been guilty of great errors in their conduct +towards other nations, not only in insulting uselessly all crowned +heads, but endeavoring to force liberty on their neighbors in their +own form. They seem to be correcting themselves on the latter +point; the war between them and England embarrasses our government +daily and immensely. The predilection of our citizens for +France renders it very difficult to suppress their attempts to cruise +against the English on the ocean, and to do justice to the latter in +cases where they are entitled to it.<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a></p></div> + +<p>Monroe had sent him a long dissertation on the proclamation +of neutrality which he judged both "unpolitick and unconstitutional"; +for, if the President "possesses the right to say we shall +be neutral, he might say we should not be."<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a></p> + +<p>To this Jefferson answered that his friends' apprehensions +were somewhat exaggerated, for the United States being at +peace with England, the so-called proclamation of neutrality—which, +by the way, did not contain the word neutrality—did +nothing but maintain a <i>status quo</i>. This was a fine legal distinction, +not very convincing, but very characteristic of Jefferson's +state of mind at that time and of his reluctance to favor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> +the French side. Had he ever wished to do it, the attitude of +the French envoy would have soon forced him to adopt a +different policy.</p> + +<p>The case of Citizen Genet is too well known to require +elaborate treatment. Less than six weeks after his arrival in +Philadelphia, Jefferson had given him up as hopeless and +dangerous:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Never in my opinion, was so calamitous an appointment made, as +that of the present minister of France here. Hot headed, all +imagination, no judgment, passionate, disrespectful & even indecent +towards the President in his written as well as verbal communications, +talking of appeals from him to Congress, from them to the +people, urging the most unreasonable & groundless propositions, & +in the most dictatorial style.<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a></p></div> + +<p>The case of the <i>Little Sarah</i>, a British prize, taken to Philadelphia +and refitted as a privateer by Genet's orders, brought the +matter to a head. Genet was warned that the vessel could not +sail; he refused to give definite assurances that it would not be +ordered to sea. Washington was away at the time, and Knox +and Hamilton proposed mounting a battery of cannon to prevent +the sailing of the vessel, a measure strongly opposed by +Jefferson, determined to avoid at all cost measures tantamount +to a declaration of war. The <i>Little Sarah</i> and the <i>Democrat</i> +escaped, and Washington in vehement words manifested his +disapproval of the weakness shown on this occasion. The +least the American Government could do was to ask that Genet +be recalled, and it was so decided at a meeting of the Cabinet on +August 3. In a long letter intended for the French Government, +but sent to Gouverneur Morris and communicated to Genet +himself, Jefferson drew up a terrible indictment of the French +minister. Hamilton and Knox were decidedly in favor of +stronger measures and of deciding then and there upon the +"<i>renvoi</i>" of Genet. Jefferson, following his constant policy, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> +against a measure that could be construed as the recognition +that a state of war existed between the two countries. This +has been sometimes interpreted as evincing partiality to France +on his part, but entries in the "Anas" under August 20 and +August 23 demonstrate beyond any doubt that he was also +guided by his uppermost desire to promote the interests of his +country.</p> + +<p>There was at least some reason to believe that Genet's conduct +would not receive the support of his Government, and on +the other hand he had brought over with him certain proposals +worth considering for a treaty referring to the commerce with +the West Indies. Although the Cabinet had never considered the +question formally, Jefferson estimated the matter of such importance +that he had taken it upon himself to discuss it with Genet +in several conversations. To leave the friendly overtures of the +French Republic without any answer would not only be insulting +but highly unpolitic, since the Executive might be accused "of +neglecting the interests of the United States." Under these +circumstances some means had to be found of sparing the +feelings of the French Government, so as not to lose entirely the +chances of concluding a treaty so advantageous to the United +States. As Secretary of State, Jefferson had to find a satisfactory +formula. This was to ask the French Government to recall +Genet, but at the same time to appoint his successor and to +renew to this successor the powers granted originally to Genet. +Such was the tenor of his letter to Morris, a very clever solution +to a very difficult situation. As for Genet himself, he was to be +tolerated until the arrival of his successor.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately the "citizen" did not know how to keep quiet +or when to quit. Not a dishonest man in ordinary life, not +even an unintelligent man, he was the greatest bungler ever sent +by a friendly nation to another. When he arrived in May, +1793, he had public opinion largely in his favor. Members of +Congress and of the government, except possibly Hamilton,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +were not hostile to France; the French envoy could have +obtained distinct advantages for his country if he had proceeded +slowly and with ordinary caution. Two months later he had +succeeded in turning against himself and against the country he +represented the whole of public opinion, in sowing germs of distrust +never to be eradicated, in fixing and crystallizing all sorts +of prejudices and unfavorable generalizations about France.</p> + +<p>Jefferson had made all possible efforts to keep the disaffection +of the American Government toward the French minister as +much under cover as possible. But Citizen Genet threw down +the gauntlet by publishing part of his official correspondence, +thus forcing an appeal to the people and running the risk of +arousing the "disgusts" Jefferson had so much wished to avoid.<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> +A week later, he had to admit to Madison that Genet's conduct +"has given room to the enemies of France to come forward in a +style of acrimony against that nation which they never dared to +have done. The disapprobation of the agent mingles with the +reprehension of his nation and gives a toleration to that which +it never had before."<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a></p> + +<p>By a strange irony of fate, one of the last acts of Jefferson as +Secretary of State was a final protest against Genet's attitude. +Six months before he had been notified that he could not be +received by the Executive and that all communications from +him had to be made in writing. Deciding to appeal to Congress +over the head of the President, Genet had copies of his instructions +printed, demanding that they should be laid before both +houses. A more stupid and childish step could hardly be +imagined. Jefferson, requested by the President to draw up an +answer to Genet, wrote at first a scathing denunciation of the +French minister which was probably thought too strong, for it +is marked "not inserted" on the manuscript:<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The terms in which you permit yourself in this and some other of +your letters to speak of the President of the U. S., and the influence +and impressions you venture to ascribe to him, are calculated to +excite sentiments which need no explanation. On what grounds of +truth they are hazarded, how to reconcile them to decorum, to the +respect due to the person and character of our chief magistrate, +and to the nation over which he presides and that too from the +representative of a friendly people, are questions left to your mature +reflection.</p></div> + +<p>The letter which was finally sent, more moderate in its terms, +was nevertheless a formal reminder of diplomatic proprieties:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Your functions as the missionary of a foreign mission here, are +confined to the transactions of the affairs of your nation with the +Executive of the United States; that the communications, which +are to pass between the Executive and Legislative branches, cannot +be a subject for your interference, and that the President must be +left to judge for himself what matters his duty or the public good +may require him to propose to the deliberations of Congress. I have +therefore the honor of returning you the copies sent for distribution.<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a></p></div> + +<p>That very same day Jefferson resigned his office into the +hands of Washington, assuring him that in his retirement he +was taking with him "a lively sense of the President's goodness, +and would continue gratefully to remember it."<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h2>MONTICELLO—AGRICULTURE AND POLITICS</h2> + + +<p>When Jefferson left Philadelphia for what he sincerely +believed would be definite retirement from the field of politics, +he felt weary, tired, and already old. He had transacted all +the business of his office with a minimum of clerical assistance, +attending himself to all the details not only of foreign but also +of domestic affairs, sometimes translating documents which he +did not trust Freneau with, preparing reports for the President, +digging in his manuals of international law, Wolfe, Puffendorff, +Vatel, and Grotius. The actual labor was enormous, the +variety of subjects amazing; many times during the course of +a day he had to shift from one subject to another. Under fire +all the time, harassed by the Federalist papers, consulted by +the leaders of the party which was beginning to form, he had not +broken down under the strain, but was in urgent need of complete +rest and agricultural quietude. He had packed books and +furniture in advance and sent everything to Monticello; his +letter to Genet written, he set out for Virginia without even +waiting for the justification that would result from the order to +publish his correspondence with the French minister.</p> + +<p>At that time a vague idea that he could turn a new leaf and +start a new life may fugitively have crossed his mind. He +had respectfully but profoundly admired Madame de Corny +when he was in Paris. News from her had come through +Mrs. Church; Mr. de Corny had died; Madame de Corny left +a widow in very limited circumstances had retired to Rouen.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> +It seems that he entertained the hope that she might decide to +move to America and in that case he would have liked to see her +at Monticello: "Madame de Cosway is in a convent ... that +she would have rather sought the mountain-top. How happy +should I be that it were <i>mine</i>, that you, she, and Madame de +Corny would seek." But he had seen too many of these brilliant +French women in Philadelphia to believe that a Parisian +could ever become accustomed to the simplicity of Monticello +and to its lack of entertainments, and he made the suggestion +very timidly: "I know of no country where the remains of a +fortune could place her so much at her ease as this, and where +public esteem is so much attached to worth, regardless of +wealth; our manners & the state of society here are so different +from those to which her habits have been formed, that she +would lose more perhaps in that scale." After all, he had not +changed so much since he had declared his flame to Belinda, +almost in the same terms, twenty years earlier. This was the +typical Jeffersonian way of presenting his own wishes, of letting +the others decide after he had stated the pros and cons; clearly +he was not made to win personal triumphs, either in love or +in politics.</p> + +<p>Of politics he was utterly sick. He pictured himself spending +the rest of his days in bucolic occupations. "The length of my +tether is now fixed for life from Monticello to Richmond," he +wrote to Gates. "My private business can never call me elsewhere, +and certainly politics will not, which I have ever hated +both in theory and practice."<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a></p> + +<p>Writing to Mrs. Church, he had gone into more details.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I am to be liberated from the hated occupations of politics retire +into the bosom of my family, my farm, & my books. I have my +house to build, my family to form, and to watch for the happiness of +those who labor for mine. I have one daughter married to a man of +science, sense, virtue and competence; in whom indeed I have noth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>ing +more to wish. They live with me. If the other shall be as +fortunate in the process of time, I shall imagine myself as blessed as +the most blessed of the patriarchs.<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a></p></div> + +<p>At Monticello he found Martha and her husband, Thomas +Mann Randolph, and induced the young couple to stay with +him. Maria was now a tall girl, vivacious and witty, who +would soon find a suitor. Devoting himself entirely to his +family and domestic cares, Jefferson plunged into the reorganization +of his estate left to an overseer for more than ten years, +and granted so little attention to politics that he did not even +subscribe to any newspaper, being quite content with those +published at Richmond. "I think it is Montaigne who has +said that ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can +rest his head," he wrote to Edmund Randolph. "I am sure it +is true as to everything political, and shall endeavor to estrange +myself to everything of that character."<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> Since that time +there have been in American politics many instances of politicians +who left for a hunting party, or retired to their farms in +order to avoid responsibility. This was not the attitude of +Jefferson; his was no temporary retirement while waiting for +the storm to blow itself over. Had he chosen to remain in +Philadelphia, as he had been asked to do by Washington, he +would have at least checked Hamilton's personal influence and +counterbalanced in Washington's mind the advice and counsels +of his enemy. His party had been reorganized and the republicans +had just obtained a majority in the new Congress, but his +principles were far from being secure. He indicated it himself +in the same letter to Randolph when he wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I indulge myself on one political topic only, that is, in declaring +to my countrymen the shameless corruption of a portion of the +Representatives to the first and second Congresses, and their implicit +devotion to the Treasury. I think I do good in this, because it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> +may produce exertions to reform the evil on the success of which the +form of the government is to depend.</p></div> + +<p>Shortly after coming back to Monticello, he discovered, +somewhat to his dismay, that the rank and file of the good +people of the country did not pay much attention to the political +battle which was still raging in Philadelphia. He went to +"court" at Charlottesville at the beginning of February and +was amazed to find that his neighbors had not heard of +Madison's speeches in Congress or even of the recall of Genet.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I could not have supposed—he wrote to Madison—when at +Philadelphia that so little of what was passing there could be known +even at Kentucky as is the case here. Judging from this of the rest +of the Union, it is evident to me that the people are not in a condition +either to approve or disapprove of their government, nor consequently +to influence it.<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a></p></div> + +<p>This would tend to give confirmation to the supposition I +timidly ventured in the last chapter. Neither the inflammatory +speeches made in Congress, nor the foundation of democratic +clubs, nor the newspaper battle between different editors had +been able to rouse the people of the country. In America, as +in every other country, the rural population, at that time the +majority of the population, remained passive and took little +interest in discussions that did not immediately affect their +interests. Then, too, as in our days, the press was able to +modify and to influence to some extent public opinion, but did +not express it. Editors were years in advance of the slow-moving +masses in their prognostications. It takes a national +emergency, a violent crisis or a well-organized political machine +to coalesce the great majority of a people and force them to see +beyond the limited horizon of their village, their county or +their State. This is so even now, and it was certainly so a century +and a half ago, when the parochial and provincial spirit was +still stronger than the national spirit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p> + +<p>Since this was realized by Jefferson, it is difficult to understand +how he did not come to the conclusion that his clear duty +was to go back to Philadelphia and do his utmost to educate an +apathetic people. But he was not the man to enjoy strife and +struggle; he was too sensitive of personal criticism and attacks, +too timid also to care to exchange blows with an opponent. He +was the type of man who likes to play chess by correspondence, +to suggest solutions, but not the one "to knead the dough", +as the French say, and to take an active part in the daily +game of politics.</p> + +<p>From his retirement he found time to answer letters from +Madison and Monroe. Before leaving Philadelphia, he had +transmitted to the House of Representatives a Report on the +Privileges and Restrictions of the Commerce of the United +States.<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> It was incumbent upon Madison to draw from it +specific recommendations. Jefferson pointed out in a dispassionate +way the obstacles put by Great Britain to the growth +of American commerce, her lack of reciprocal treatment, her +prohibitions and restrictions. He ended by indicating that +France had, of her own accord, proposed negotiations for +improving the commercial relations between the two countries +by a new treaty on fair and equal principles; that her internal +disturbances alone had prevented her from doing it, though +the government had repeatedly manifested reassuring dispositions. +On the contrary, "in spite of friendly advances and +arrangements proposed to Great Britain, they being already on +as good a footing in law, and a better in fact, than the most +favored nation, they have not, as yet, discovered any disposition +to have it meddled with." As a remedy, pending the +conclusion of treaties, Jefferson laid down five principles to +protect American commerce and retaliate in so far as would +not hurt the interests of the American people, although at the +beginning trade might suffer from it. A storm broke out in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> +Congress, and once more Jefferson became the target of the +Federalists.</p> + +<p>He was not uninformed of these developments, for Madison +and Monroe sent him several letters at short intervals at the +beginning of March; nor did he leave his lieutenants without +directions. He still hoped that a war could be avoided; but he +could not conceive that it would be possible in any event to let +Great Britain seize the French West Indies: "I have no doubt +that we ought to interpose at a proper time, and declare both +to France and England that these islands are to rest with +France, and that we will make a common cause with the latter +for that object." Having thus outlined these policies, he +relapsed into his ataraxy, affirming that he had not seen a +Philadelphia paper until he had received those inclosed by +Madison. The patience of Monroe must have been taxed to +the breaking point when, after sending to his chief a long letter +full of detailed information, he received in answer an equally +long letter replete with agricultural disquisitions—"on such +things as you are too little of a farmer to take much interest +in."<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a></p> + +<p>The supposed leader of the Republicans was not more encouraging +in his letters to Madison when he wrote a month later: +"I feel myself so thoroughly weaned from the interest I took in +the proceedings there, while there, that I have never a wish to +see one [a newspaper], and believe that I shall never take +another paper of any sort. I find my mind totally absorbed +by my rural occupation."<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> Yet the old fame flared up occasionally, +as when he learned that Hamilton was being considered +to succeed Pinckney who would be recalled from England: "a +more degrading measure could not have been proposed," he +wrote to Monroe. In regard to Hamilton, he foresaw an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +investigation on the Treasury and had wanted to withdraw +before it took place.<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a></p> + +<p>But he fell back into the same detached attitude of mind, +when he wrote to Washington the next day: "I return to farming +with an ardor which I scarcely knew in my youth, and which +has got the better entirely of my love of study. Instead of +writing ten or twelve letters a day, which I have been in the +habit of doing as a thing of course, I put off answering my letters +now, farmer-like, till a rainy day."</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, I doubt very much whether he had +reached any such equanimity. For if he was unwilling to +reënter public life, he was not averse to giving his opinion and +advice in critical circumstances. While Madison's resolutions +were still before Congress, news arrived in Philadelphia of the +seizure of American ships in the Caribbean, under the Order in +Council of November 6. Indignation was running high and +democratic societies held patriotic meetings throughout the +country. War seemed imminent, and although Jefferson preferred +to contemplate the tranquil growth "of his lucern and +potatoes", he still felt indignant when thinking "of these +scoundrels" (the British). Yet he believed that war should be +avoided and wrote to that effect to Tench Coxe:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We are alarmed here with the apprehension of war; and sincerely +anxious that it may be avoided; but not at the expense either of our +faith or honour.... As to myself I love peace, and I am anxious +that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by showing +to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war, which is as +much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferers.<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a></p></div> + +<p>To Washington he wrote two weeks later a most amusing +letter, starting with a dissertation on crop rotation and "a +certain essence of dung, one pint of which would manure an acre +according to Lord Kaims", but not forgetting, in a negligent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> +way, to slip in at the end a piece of political advice: "to try +to extricate ourselves from the event of a war; at the same time +to try to rouse public opinion in Great Britain and the only way +to do it being to distress their commerce." But he added once +more, "I cherish tranquillity too much to suffer political things +to enter my mind at all."<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> This was nothing but the non-intercourse +policy then debated by the government and of which +Jefferson had evidently heard. When his letter reached the +President, a solution had already been adopted and Jay had +sailed for England on the mission which was to end with his +signing the famous or infamous treaty. The summer went on +without any new letter from Jefferson. A letter of the Secretary +of State, asking him whether he would not consider lending +a hand to the President in the present emergency, found him in +bed "under a paroxysm of rheumatism which had kept him for +ten days in constant torment." Then he emphatically added,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>No circumstance will evermore tempt me to engage in any thing +public.... It is a great pleasure to me to retain the esteem and +approbation of the President, and this forms the only ground of any +reluctance at being unable to comply with every wish of his. Pray +convey these sentiments, and a thousand more to him, which my +situation does not permit me to go into.<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a></p></div> + +<p>This was the very time when the Whisky Boys of Eastern +Pennsylvania revolted against the excise laws of Hamilton +which fell on them harder than on any other part of the rural +population, for they could not market their grain for lack of +transportation facilities and their only means of living was +distilling it into whisky. Individual acts of resistance to the +agents of the excise culminated in August, 1794, in an armed +convention denouncing the law and defying the government +on Braddock field, under the leadership of the chief expert of +the Jeffersonians, Albert Gallatin. Not only was the militia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> +called but the President and Hamilton went to visit the camp +at Carlisle. The insurrection ended without bloodshed, but the +side of the insurrectionists was taken up in the large cities by the +Democratic societies in which the Irish element was largely +represented—hot-headed people, recently come from an +oppressed land, who felt an ingrained spirit of revolt against +soldiers and men in uniform,—until dressed in a uniform +themselves. The immediate effect of the Hamiltonian policy +was to amalgamate rural population and urban groups of +mechanics and small operatives in a hostile attitude towards the +aristocratic government. Hamilton thought the time had come +to crush the vanguard of the Jeffersonian troops, and Washington, +who had an inveterate hatred of anything smacking of disorder +and mob rule, lent a favorable ear. He wrote a stinging +denunciation of the Democratic societies in his yearly message +to Congress.</p> + +<p>This time Jefferson was aroused, although personally he had +never had anything to do with Tammany in New York nor +any of the Democratic societies in Philadelphia. He fairly +exploded in a letter to James Madison: the denunciation of the +Democratic societies was "one of the extraordinary acts of boldness +of which we have seen so many from the faction of monocrats." +How could one condemn the Democratic societies +and let alone the Society of the Cincinnati, "a self-created one, +carving out for itself hereditary distinctions, lowering over our +Constitution eternally." It was an inexcusable aggression. +With regard to the transactions against the excise law, he +refused to take seriously the "meeting of Braddock field", and +ridiculed the mobilizing of an army against men who were not +thinking seriously of separating, "simply consulting about it."—"But +to consult on a question does not amount to a determination +of that question in the affirmative, still less to the +acting <i>on such determination</i>," he advised. A fine legal distinction +which Jefferson forgot at the time of the Burr con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>spiracy! +But "the first and only cause of the whole trouble +was the infernal excise law." The first error was "to admit it by +the Constitution"; the second, to act on that admission; the +third and last will be to "make it the instrument of dismembering +the Union." In conclusion he advised Madison to stay at +his post, "to take the front of the battle" for Jefferson's own +security, and once again he reaffirmed that he would not give up +his retirement for the empire of the universe.<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a></p> + +<p>On April 23, 1795, he wrote to James Madison to refuse categorically +any resumption of office high or low. That was +already his firm resolution when he had left Philadelphia and +it was even stronger then, since his health had broken down +during the last eight months: "My age requires that I should +place my affairs in a clear state. The question is forever closed +with me." To propose his name would only mean a division +of votes in the party and that was to be avoided before everything.<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> +To Giles he repeated that his days "were busy with +now and then a pious ejaculation for the French and Dutch, +returning with due despatch to my clover, potatoes, wheat, +etc."<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> In the meantime Jay had returned with the treaty +surrendering practically all the claims of the United States, +placing the country in a position of constant inferiority with +reference to England, opening the Mississippi to the British +trade and forbidding American vessels to carry molasses, +sugar, and cotton to any ports except their own. It was laid +in special session before the Senate on June 8, ratified on June +24, and sent to the President without the contents being known +to any one. It would have remained secret if Thomson Mason +of Virginia had not taken a copy of it to Bache, who published it +the next day in the <i>Aurora</i>. It was a most humiliating and +scarcely defensible transaction: Jay had been outgeneraled +at every step by Grenville and, in a way, betrayed by Hamilton.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +But although it was distinctly a Federalist victory, it offered +good campaign material for the Republicans.<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a></p> + +<p>On August 30, Jefferson sent to Thomas Mann a sort of +apologia, telling him how, "while all hands were below deck, +every one at his own business and the captain in his cabin +attending to the log book a rogue of a pilot had run the ship +into an enemy's port." Not that he wanted to express any +opinion of his own but, "metaphor apart, there is much dissatisfaction +with Mr. Jay and his treaty.... For my part, I +consider myself now but as a passenger leaving the world and +its government to those who are likely to live longer in it."<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a></p> + +<p>With H. Tazewell he was more outspoken: a glance at the +treaty had been enough to convince him that the United States +would be much better without any treaty than with a treaty of +that sort. "Acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape +war," and he could only hope that the Executive's sense of +public honor and spirit would be awakened. To Madison he +gave the benefit of his advice. There was no leader in the camp +of the Republicans to take advantage of the situation; rioting +in the streets could not influence favorably the judgment of +Washington, who had not yet signed, and there was always +Hamilton, who had retired to be sure, but was "a host in himself"; +the Federalists were in a defile, but "too much security +will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate +them." He ended with an appeal to Madison: "We have had +only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth, when +he comes forward, there is nobody but yourself who can meet +him.... For God's sake take your pen, and give a fundamental +reply to Curtius and Camillus."<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a></p> + +<p>With real perspicacity Jefferson had put his finger on the +fundamental weakness of the Republicans. They were only the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> +yeomanry; they counted a number of very honest and distinguished +men; some of them were even brilliant in debates and +could flatter themselves that they were victorious, as long as the +Federalist chieftain did not appear in person on the battlefield. +When he did, however, they had no outstanding man with the +same capacity for work, the same ability to marshal facts, to +present cogent arguments and to use biting sarcasm. Jefferson +alone, with his great felicity of expression and his mastery of +style, could have opposed successfully the Federalist leader, but, +as he wrote to Rutledge: "after five and twenty years' continual +employment (in the service of our country), I trust it +will be thought I have fulfilled my tour, like a punctual soldier +and may claim my discharge."<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a></p> + +<p>That he would have been a redoubtable opponent, had he +chosen to be so, appears in a letter he sent at the time to William +B. Giles. The treaty once ratified by the Senate and signed +by the President, it was thought that the House, on which +fell the duty of making the necessary appropriations for +the enforcement of the different articles, might possibly +pass in their turn on the merits of the document. Randolph +had been requested by the President to give his opinion on the +subject and did it in one of those written consultations which +Jefferson had so often been asked to prepare himself, when +in the official family of Washington. To Giles, who was to +attack the treaty in the House with Gallatin and Madison, +Jefferson sent an elaborate and cruel dissection of Randolph's +opinion:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The fact is that he has generally given his principles to one party, +and his practice to the other, the oyster to one, the shell to the +other.... On the precedent now to be set will depend the future +construction of our Constitution, and whether the powers of legislation +shall be transferred from the President, Senate, and House of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> +Representatives to the President and Senate, and Piamingo or any +other Indian, Algerine, or other chief.<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a></p></div> + +<p>Clearly he was getting back into his stride and when thoroughly +aroused, as he had been once or twice in his career, he +could also hit back or rather pierce with rapid thrust of the +rapier. And yet he was not really thinking of reëntering the +arena, for at the same time he was offering to George Wythe to +superintend an edition of the laws of Virginia, of which he had +made as complete a collection as he could, "either the manuscripts +crumbling into dust or printed."<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> Yet he had an eye +upon the budding geniuses of the Democratic party. Soon he +realized the value of Albert Gallatin, who had undertaken a +thorough analysis and demolition of Hamilton's administration:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Hamilton's object from the beginning was to throw them into +forms which would be utterly undecypherable.... If Mr. +Gallatin would undertake to reduce this chaos to order, present us +with a clear view of our finances, and put them in a form as simple +as they will admit, he will merit an immortal honor. The accounts +of the United States ought to be, and may be made as simple as those +of a common farmer, and capable of being understood by common +farmers.<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a></p></div> + +<p>With such sentences, simple and easily remembered, such +felicity of expression and of thought, one can make a lasting +impression on the people, without addressing directly the +Indians of Tammany Hall or participating in whisky riots. +One can also throw suspicion of intentional dishonesty on +one's adversaries, coin mottoes which, repeated in a political +campaign, fix themselves easily in the unsophisticated minds of +the common people. But it does not ensue necessarily that +Jefferson was an arch plotter, pulling the strings and laying plots +to explode years later. He was quite sincere in his dislike of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> +Hamilton's budgets, for the simple reason that he did not understand +them himself. The master financier and expert was +beyond Jefferson's comprehension; in many respects he was +even far ahead of his own time, while Jefferson, in matters of +finance at least, remained all his life an eighteenth-century man. +But the young Swiss-American who had made his mark in the +whisky insurrection must have felt himself elated at Jefferson's +approval. By such appropriate compliments and encouragements, +great tacticians create and foster party and personal +loyalty, and Jefferson was a past master in this difficult art.</p> + +<p>As he had encouraged Gallatin, he encouraged Giles, kept in +touch with him and through him sent a word of congratulation +to a new Republican recruit, Doctor Leib: "I know not when +I have received greater satisfaction than on reading the speech +of Doctor Leib in the Pennsylvania Assembly. He calls himself +a new member. I congratulate honest republicanism on such +an acquisition, and promise myself much from a career which +begins on such elevated ground."<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a> He reminded him that +Democratic societies were proscribed in England and that it +would be interesting to know the terms of the bill proposed by +Pitt against them. Gallatin again called for his commendation +for a speech printed in Bache's <i>Aurora</i>, the sole organ of the +Republicans since Freneau had discontinued his <i>Gazette</i>: "It is +worthy of being printed at the end of the <i>Federalist</i>, as the only +rational commentary on the part of the law to which it +relates."<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> Then Jefferson raved over the indignities heaped +upon the country by the treaty, over the point made by the +Federalists that the House had nothing to say in the matter, +and in his fury he even went so far as to treat Washington more +severely than he had ever done before. "Curse on his virtues," +he exclaimed; "they have undone his country." This political +advice was naturally buried under rural news: "Mercury at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> +twenty degrees in the morning. Corn fallen at Richmond to +twenty shillings." But this bucolic note stopped short and the +political thermometer was consulted again and indicated that +"Nicholas was sure of his election, R. Joue and Jo. Monroe, in +competition for the other vote of the county."</p> + +<p>Three weeks later Jefferson dug in his files to send Madison +more ammunition, showing clearly that, at least in one case, +Washington himself had recognized formerly the authority of +the legislature, that is to say both branches of the House, when +it came to ratifying the treaty with the new Emperor of Morocco.<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> +Then he wrote to his former neighbor, Philip Mazzei, a +letter which was to cause him more difficulties than any of the +previous acts of his career. He thought that he could and +should give news of the country to this curious character, who +had come to Virginia as a vine-grower to engage in agricultural +experiments but who was also the former agent of the Duke of +Tuscany and of Stanislas of Poland, a Grimm "<i>au petit pied</i>", +a literary correspondent and a philosopher. In all fairness to +Jefferson a preliminary remark is here necessary. He was apt +in conversation to take his cue from his interlocutors rather +than to force on them any topic, and he was apt also to speak +in the same tone and same diapason. In his letters he instinctively +yielded to the same tendency, changing his tone and style +according to his correspondent. Writing to an Italian he +adopted a flowery, metaphoric, and emphatic manner not often +found in his letters, and in his desire to flatter the Tuscan ear +of his friend, he overshot the mark and overemphasized what +he would have stated much more moderately to an American:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Against us are the Executive, the Judiciary, two out of three +branches of the Legislature, all the officers of the government, all +who want to be officers, all timed men who prefer the calm of despotism +to the boisterous sea of liberty.... It would give you a fever +were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> +heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the +council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot +England....</p></div> + +<p>But these men had not realized the great strength of the +party then coming into being: "We have only to awake and +snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling +us during the first sleep which succeeded our labors." Then +came the customary mention of his health, even more mournful +than usual: "I begin to feel the effects of age. My health has +suddenly broken down, with symptoms which give me to +believe that I shall not have much to encounter of the <i>tedium +vitae</i>."<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> Little did he believe when he indulged in this rhetorical +outburst that Mazzei would give the letter to an Italian +paper, that it would be translated from the Italian into French, +from French into English and finally appear in America.</p> + +<p>For Jefferson was eager to remain on good personal terms +with Washington, even if he strongly disapproved of his policies, +and this appeared when a few months later he denied having +communicated to Bache's <i>Aurora</i> the questionnaire on the <i>Little +Sarah</i>, and he seized the occasion to assure Washington once +again of his affectionate sentiments. But he was already +thinking of protecting himself, for in the same letter he asked +the President to send him copies of the opinions presented by +Hamilton and Randolph as "they had his opinion and he never +had been able to obtain copy of theirs." And significantly +he added, "Though I do not know that it will ever be of the +least importance to me, yet one loves to possess arms, though +they hope never to have occasion for them."<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a></p> + +<p>The summer was apparently entirely occupied in agricultural +and scientific pursuits. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, the +former president of the National Assembly, at whose house +Jefferson used to visit when in Paris to meet the "<i>républicains</i>",<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> +was then traveling through the United States and +stopped at Monticello for a week. The Duke has left us a +most valuable description of Jefferson's establishment and the +country around it. He praised the house "which will deserve +when completed to be ranked with the most pleasant mansions +in France and in Europe." He admired the view from the hill: +for "Mr. Jefferson's house commands one of the most extensive +prospects you can meet with." But his eye was that of a refined +and overcivilized Frenchman of the eighteenth century accustomed +to limited horizons, limited forests, to a certain balance +between the woods, the rivers and the lands inclosed with +hedges, to a nature stamped, modified, remolded by centuries +of human labor. The contrast between the "moderate French +landscapes" and the unlimited vistas in which plowed fields +occupied a negligible space, impressed him almost painfully.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 90%;"> +<img src="images/pic314b.jpg" width="100%" alt="MONTICELLO AS IT APPEARS TO-DAY" title="" /> +<p style='text-align: right'><i>Copyright Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.</i></p> +<span class="caption">MONTICELLO AS IT APPEARS TO-DAY</span> +</div> + + +<p>It was a magnificent view, but too vast; and rather than +look at the scene as it presented itself, he preferred to call on +fancy "to picture to us those plains and mountains such as +population and culture will render them in a greater or smaller +number of years." He looked with some suspicion at the +numerous agricultural experiments of Jefferson, who seemed +"to have derived his knowledge from books." He was not +alone in this opinion. In any farming country, innovations +are looked upon askance and we are not surprised to learn that +"his system is entirely confined to himself; it is censured by +some of his neighbours, who are also employed in improving +their culture with ability and skill, but he adheres to it, and +thinks it founded on just observation." Finally came the picture +of the master himself and life at Monticello, worth preserving +and reproducing.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In private life, Mr. Jefferson displays a mild, easy and obliging +temper, though he is somewhat cold and reserved. His conversation +is the most agreeable kind, and he possesses a stock of information +not inferior to that of any other man. In Europe he would hold a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> +distinguished rank among men of letters, and as such he has already +appeared there; at present he is employed with activity and perseverance +in the management of his farms and buildings; and he +orders, directs and pursues in the minutest detail every branch of +business relative to them. I found him in the midst of the harvest, +from which the scorching heat of the sun does not prevent his attendance. +His negroes are clothed, and treated as well as white servants +could be. As he cannot expect any assistance from the two small +neighboring towns, every article is made on his farm; his negroes are +cabinet-makers, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, etc. The +children he employs in a nail factory, which yields already a considerable +profit. The young and old negresses spin for the clothing +of the rest. He animates them by rewards and distinctions; in +fine, his superior mind directs the management of his domestic concerns +with the same abilities, activity, and regularity which he +evinced in the conduct of public affairs, and which he is calculated +to display in every situation of life. In the superintendence of the +household he is assisted by his two daughters, Mrs. Randolph and +Miss Maria, who are handsome, modest, and amiable women. They +have been educated in France.</p></div> + +<p>It is pleasant to have the direct testimony of a foreigner and +a philosopher on the way Jefferson treated his slaves. But how +can we believe that a man who could supervise all the details of +the agricultural and industrial life around Monticello and endure +the harvest sun was absolutely broken down in health? If +he had ever been, Jefferson certainly was picking up. It seems +probable that he did not discuss politics with the noble traveler. +Perhaps he heard another recital of the excesses of the French +Revolution,—a painful subject and one that did not serve any +purpose; far better was it to exchange views on crop rotation, +sheep raising, dung and manure, clover and potatoes and to +demonstrate the new plow he had invented with a mold board +of least resistance, which was to bring him some years later +the "<i>grande médaille</i>" of the Agricultural Society of Paris.<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p> + +<p>The first mention of the coming presidential election occurs +in a letter to Monroe of July 10, 1796. The treaty had finally +passed, but the party of the monocrats was shaken to its very +foundation, "Mr. Jay and his advocates are treaty-foundered." +The result was not doubtful. Even if a monocrat were elected, +he would be overborne by the republican sense of his constituents. +"If a republican, he will, of course, give fair play to that +sense and lead things into the channel of harmony between the +governors and the governed. In the meantime, patience!" +He mentions that in order to operate a division and to split +the Virginia vote, <i>they</i> had unsuccessfully endeavored to run +Patrick Henry for vice president and would probably fall back +on Pinckney, "in which they regard his southern position rather +than his principles." But curiously enough the presidential +nominees or preferences are not even mentioned. Could +Monroe really believe that <i>Hamlet</i> was going to be played without +Hamlet, and that the election of a vice president was the +only thing that mattered? This omission was far more significant +than any expressed preference. If Jefferson mentioned no +candidates, it was simply because he already knew at that date +that his faithful lieutenants in Congress were thinking of him +as the only logical candidate, the only one who had not participated +actively in the last three years' fierce debates in Congress, +the only one who had not officially and openly taken a definite +position, and consequently would be entirely free to make +whatever concessions were necessary to reëstablish harmony in +the divided camps of the voters. The result of the election +was certainly in doubt; but at a time when foreign affairs +were the dominant question, when in spite of the Jay treaty +England was multiplying almost unbearable insults, when the +nation was deeply humiliated, and even the Federalists resented +the terms of the treaty, there were only two men of the first +rank in America who had maintained the prestige of the United +States before foreign nations and had shown themselves to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> +able negotiators: the man who with Franklin had put his signature +to the Treaty of Peace, and the man who had concluded +treaties of commerce with the nations of Europe; Adams and +Jefferson.</p> + +<p>A strange campaign it was, in which the champion of the +Republicans seemed to remain completely silent. The middle +of December came, and Jefferson had not yet manifested any +desire to run, nor had he made any declaration concerning his +program. He had to come out however when, on the night +of the sixteenth, he received a letter from Madison informing +him that there was no longer any doubt about the logical choice +of the Republicans and that Madison would decline to be candidate. +Jefferson took up his pen at once to define his position +to his friend. He hoped that Adams would be elected; and +in that case he would be satisfied with the second place +although he would prefer the third, that is, his rejection, since +he would be free to remain at home. It was desirable, however, +in case of a tie, that Madison be instructed to request on his +behalf that Mr. Adams should be preferred. Some of the +reasons he gave were highly honorable, the best being that Mr. +Adams was his senior and had always "ranked" him in public +life, either in France or in America. Other reasons he did not +indicate: one was evidently that the situation had never worn +so gloomy an aspect since the year 1783 and that Jefferson did +not believe he could steer clear of the present difficulties.<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a></p> + +<p>Ten days later he wrote more at length to Rutledge. No news +had come from Philadelphia, but he protested that he had no +political ambition: "Before my God, I shall from the bottom of +my heart, rejoice at escaping." Scrutinizing himself, he found +that the unmerited abuse he had been subjected to still rankled; +he was convinced that "no man will ever bring out of that +office the reputation which carries him into it." The honeymoon +would be as short in that case as in any other, and its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> +moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and +hatred. Frankly he had no heart for the job. Nor was this a +declaration of philosophical principles, but another instance of +his political foresight, and a simple admission of facts, for not +only had Franklin been bitterly attacked after his death, but +Washington himself was not immune from public abuse, and +such would be the fate of Adams.</p> + +<p>Jefferson was quite sincere when he declared: "I have no +ambition to govern men; no passion which would lead me to +delight to ride in a storm." In advance, he repeated the <i>suave +mari magno</i> of the old poet and hoped that he would not be +elected, his only wish was that the newspapers would permit +him "to plant his corn, beans, peas, etc. in hills or drills as he +pleased, while our eastern friend will be struggling with the +storm which is gathering over us, perhaps be shipwrecked in it! +This is certainly not a moment to covet the helm." If this was +not a sincere and true statement, then language certainly has +been given to man to conceal his thought. If Jefferson was +thirsty for power at that time he was more Machiavellian than +Machiavelli himself. But in spite of the inferences of ill-intentioned +historians, I do not see that there is the slightest ground +to doubt Jefferson's sincerity ... except that he accepted +finally the vice presidency, as he clearly hinted he would if it +were offered to him.<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> He ended with a picturesque and energetic +phrase and said in French what he could not say in +English. He had not forgotten the words he had heard in the +streets of Paris and perhaps in some salons after dinner, but +certainly not in the mouth of Madame de Tessé or Madame +de Corny: "<i>Au diable les bougres!</i>"</p> + +<p>The next day he started writing to John Adams: he had not +received any direct news of the election, but from his own +calculations he had every reason to believe that barring a "trick +worthy of your arch-friend of New York, Hamilton", Adams<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> +would be elected. In that eventuality he wished to send his +best wishes, and had only one hope to express, that Adams +would be able to avoid the war. A friendly, sincere letter which +Adams never saw. As Jefferson was going to send it, came +Madison's letter of the seventeenth, announcing the complete +results of the election.</p> + +<p>It caused a certain amount of surprise to Jefferson; the vote +had come much nearer an equality than he had expected, and, +as he wrote a week later to Volney, "the difference between +sixty-eight and seventy-one votes is little sensible." The +presidency would have been decidedly distasteful to him; the +vice presidency was something different and he could not in his +own mind decide whether he "had rather have it or not have it." +Then he went into a curious piece of philosophizing which +marks him as very different from eighteenth-century philosophers +and eighteenth-century optimists. More of a realist in +politics than he is given credit for, he showed himself once more +a disciple of Hobbes in his vision of society:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I do not recollect in all the animal kingdom a single species but +man which is eternally and systematically engaged in the destruction +of its own species. What is called civilization seems to have no +other effect than to teach him to pursue the principle of <i>bellum +omnium in omnia</i> on a larger scale, and in place of the little contests +of tribe against tribe, to engage all quarters of the earth in the same +work of destruction. When we add to this that as to the other +species of animals, the lions and tigers are mere lambs compared +with men alone, that nature has been able to find a sufficient +barrier against the too great multiplication of other animals and +of man himself, an equilibrating power against the fecundity of +generation. My situation points my views chiefly to his wars in +the physical world: yours perhaps exhibit him as equally warring +in the moral one. We both, I believe, join in wishing to see him +softened.<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p> + +<p>For the first time Jefferson was going to occupy a position +of prestige in the American Government and to become President +of the Senate, second only to the President, the "heir +apparent", as Adams had termed himself during the preceding +administration. Far from rejoicing over the honor, he +expressed his reluctance to attend elaborate ceremonies for +the inauguration, and he did his best to wriggle out of them. +He asked whether it would not be possible for him to be +notified of his election by mail instead of being waited upon +by a special delegation from the Senate; then he looked up +the Constitution and decided that he could just as well take +oath of office in Charlottesville as in Philadelphia, and that it +was hardly worth the trouble, since Congress was to adjourn +at once, to undertake the long journey over muddy roads for +such an ordeal. Finally he set out for Philadelphia. He had +reëntered public life for twelve more years and little suspected +that it would be so long before he could come back to +dear Monticello and resume his agricultural experiments.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h2>"THE DICTATES OF REASON AND PURE +AMERICANISM"</h2> + + +<p>When Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia to attend the inauguration +of the new President, he had not seen Adams for four +years and only insignificant communications had passed between +them, since Madison had thought it proper to suppress +the letter written by Jefferson at the end of December, not +knowing "whether the rather difficult temper of Mr. Adams +would not construe certain passages as a personal criticism."<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> +With Adams, however, the first impulse was often the best. +At the time he felt in a very conciliating mood; he even indulged +in the hope that it would be possible to announce a sort +of political armistice and to bring about a union of the different +parties.</p> + +<p>The two old friends had a cordial interview. Both of them, +years later, wrote accounts of this historical meeting; though +differing in a few details they agreed as to Adams' intention of +burying the hatchet and beginning anew. He offered to send +Jefferson to Paris as special envoy, insisting that he alone had +the confidence of the French and would be able to bring about +an arrangement. Jefferson being both unwilling and unavailable, +Madison's name was mentioned, but nothing was decided +as both knew that Madison had refused such an offer when tendered +by Washington.</p> + +<p>In his inaugural address Adams discreetly sounded a note of +reconciliation. He praised the Constitution, declared that it +was "better adapted to the genius, character, situation and rela<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>tions +of this nation and country than any which had ever been +proposed or suggested"; he added, much to the disgust of the +Federalists, that he did not think of "promoting any alteration +in it but such as the people themselves in the course of their +experience should see and feel to be necessary or expedient"; +finally, he seemed to desert the Federalist camp when he +averred that, since he had seen the Constitution for the first +time, "it was not then, nor had been since, any objection to +it in his mind that the Executive and Senate were not more +permanent."</p> + +<p>Not without good reason had Hamilton failed to show any +enthusiasm over the candidacy of Adams, and the Hamiltonians +had some ground for declaring that the speech "was temporizing" +and "was a lure for the favor of his opponents at the +expense of his sincerity." Two days later Jefferson and Adams +attended a dinner offered by Washington to the new administration. +When they left the house they started walking home +together and the name of Madison being mentioned, Adams +declared that objections to the nomination had been raised. +The President and the Vice President had come to Fifth Street, +where their roads separated; they took leave of each other +and the subject was never mentioned again. It was really the +parting of the ways after a timid effort toward reconciliation. +Adams in the meantime had called together his Cabinet and the +Cabinet, as he himself admitted afterwards, had proposed to +resign <i>en bloc</i> if he insisted on Madison's nomination.</p> + +<p>For the "incongruous portrait gallery" that constituted the +Cabinet inherited by Adams from Washington, we may refer +to the vivid picture of Mr. Bowers: "Ali Baba among his Forty +Thieves is no more deserving of sympathy than John Adams +shut up within the seclusion of his Cabinet room with his +official family of secret enemies" may seem to some a rather +severe characterization. The least that can be said, however, +is that it was a Cabinet hand-picked by Hamilton and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> +neither Pickering, Wolcott nor McHenry were the best minds +Adams could have chosen in his party. But there again the +term party is inaccurate; if Adams had, in some respect, +Federalist tendencies, he was not a party man or a party leader. +The irritable, impulsive, patriotic, peevish old New Englander +was too individualistic to belong to any party; he was not the +man either to rally the hesitating, to uphold the vacillating, or +to encourage and educate the blind. Curiously enough, he has +found very few defenders. Severely treated by the friends of +Jefferson, he has not been spared by the admirers of Hamilton. +He stands alone, one of the most complicated and contradictory +figures in American history—a pure patriot, whose patriotic +work is almost forgotten, a catholic spirit who loved to play +with ideas and paradoxes, a contrary mind, but in my opinion +more widely read than any of his American contemporaries, not +excepting Jefferson. A man who spent his life by the side of +the severe and haughty "New England Juno", but who had +more ideas in his brain than any sultan of the Arabian Nights +had favorites in his harem.</p> + +<p>He had taken the helm at the climax of external difficulties. +Complicated and delicate as were the problems of domestic +administration, they were overshadowed by the difficulties with +France. The misunderstandings, the incidents repeated on both +sides, had accumulated with such an effect that, at the beginning +of 1797, war with France seemed to be almost unavoidable. +Though Jefferson had very little to do with it, it is not out of +place to recall the main facts.</p> + +<p>Genet had unfortunately his American parallel in Gouverneur +Morris. As witty and devoid of ordinary morals and honesty +as Talleyrand himself, elegant, refined, and corrupt, Gouverneur +Morris had been, since his arrival in Paris, the toast of French +aristocrats. His activities in favor of the king and his partisans +were not unknown to the French, and when Genet was sent to +America he had been requested to present discreetly the situa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>tion +to the American Government. Genet had made no +official representation, but he discussed Morris' attitude in a +private conversation with Jefferson, and Washington, apprised +of the facts, had seen the necessity of acting.</p> + +<p>Monroe, on the contrary, had attempted to resume the +Jeffersonian tradition. A disciple of the former minister, a +true Liberal, and friendly to the French Revolution, he had been +enthusiastically received at once, in spite of the many difficult +problems he had to present to the government. But the Jay +treaty had proved a bitter pill to swallow, and the Directory +had made strong representations to the American minister: +America was accused of having violated the treaties of Alliance +and Commerce, and when Monroe was recalled, the Directory +not only refused to receive the successor that had been +appointed but even ordered him to leave the French territory +at once.</p> + +<p>Without entering into the merits of the question, we may say +that Jefferson was still decidedly for peace, although somewhat +doubtful of Adams' intentions. Shortly after the inauguration +he analyzed his position as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I sincerely deplore the situation of our affairs with France. War +with them, and consequent alliance with Great Britain, will completely +compass the object of the Executive Council, from the +commencement of the war between France and England; taken +up by some of them from that moment, by others more latterly. I +still, however, hope it will be avoided. I do not believe Mr. Adams +wishes war with France; nor do I believe he will truckle to England +as servilely as has been done. If he assumes this front at once, +and shows that he means to attend to self-respect and national +dignity with both the nations, perhaps the depredations of both on +our commerce may be amicably arrested. I think we should begin +first with those who first began with us, and, by an example on them, +acquire a right to re-demand the respect from which the other party +has departed.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + +<p>An ideal policy, but hardly enforceable with a man of Adams' +temperament and with the Cabinet he had inherited. Immediately +after taking oath of office, Jefferson had repaired to +Monticello and was getting acquainted with his duties as presiding +officer of the Senate; in January he asked his old master +George Wythe to send him all possible information on parliamentary +procedure "whether in books or scraps of paper",<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> +and he was working on his "Parliamentary Manual." Early +in April news of the refusal of the Directory to receive Pinckney +arrived in Philadelphia, Adams proclaimed at once a day of fasting +and prayer and called an extraordinary session of Congress +for May 15. It was to be feared that a declaration of war would +be the order of the day, for "the President did not need the +assistance of Congress to continue in peace."<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a></p> + +<p>As soon as he reached Philadelphia, Jefferson studied the +situation and summed it up in a letter to Elbridge Gerry even +before the opening of Congress. He had already come to the +conclusion that a rapprochement between Adams and himself +would prove impossible. There was really no way to convince +Adams that Jefferson had not coveted the first place and did +not nourish some rancor at his alleged failure to obtain it. +Furthermore, it was quite certain that the Hamiltonians +would do everything in their power to poison the mind of the +President. This was most unpleasant but of little import to +politics. Jefferson considered himself part of the legislative and +not of the executive, and he had not even the right to be heard +in consultation. It was his duty as well as his inclination to sit +back, without trying to meddle in any way with the conduct of +government.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, he had not given up the right of expressing +an opinion as a private citizen on matters of importance to the +nation, and after stating that he had no concern in the present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> +situation, he launched out on a long <i>exposé</i> of the political +situation as he saw it on the eve of the special session. With +reference to foreign relations his wish and hope was that "we +should take our stand on a ground perfectly neutral and independent +towards all nations." This was particularly true with +respect to the English and the French, but more easily said than +done, since the English, not satisfied with equal treatment, +wanted special privileges. Then Jefferson drew up a very +impressive picture of the hold on the United States maintained +by Great Britain through her commerce. Without domestic +industries the United States had to go to England; she was +the workshop of America. Goods were largely transported in +English bottoms; British merchants, some of them fictitiously +naturalized, were in every American port and in all the cities +and towns of the interior, occupying strategic positions. The +British also were dominating American banks and American +finance and, through finance, could exert a powerful influence on +American political life. Finally, they were accused of attempting +to break the Union by advocating in their subsidized press +a scission between the North and the South. If difficulties +came to such a point that the only way to avoid a secession was +to go to war with Europe, Jefferson, much as he abhorred war, +was willing to become embroiled with Europe. He still hoped, +however, that it would be possible to find some means to keep +out of European quarrels and in the meantime gradually to free +America from all foreign influence, "political, commercial, or +in whatever form it may be attempted."</p> + +<p>One might say that this was no original point of view to +develop. It was to a certain extent the policy advocated by +Washington in his Farewell Address. Curiously enough, it was +not absolutely remote from Hamilton's theory, for these two +men who, temperamentally, could never come together, held +about the same view of the situation. That England had the +larger share of American commerce and that English manufac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>tures +had a sort of monopoly of the American market had been +repeatedly pointed out by Hamilton. And on this Jefferson +agreed completely. If one objected to that condition, the +obvious remedy according to the Hamiltonian doctrine was, +not to take measures to exclude English goods from the market, +but to encourage American manufactures so as to enable them +to compete with imported products. In this Jefferson differed +from Hamilton, but while complaining of the situation, he did +not propose any remedy, except perhaps to protect American +inventors and thus stimulate them to establish new manufacturing +plants. One must admit that at this point he let his +"philosophy" interfere with realities.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, he was thoroughly opposed to the +development of manufacturing plants, to the creation of large +industrial cities housing thousands of salaried workers. As we +have said, his vision of America was a sort of Arcadia where +every man would live on his own farm, off the products of his +own land. In some respects it may seem perfectly absurd, and +yet it was very natural and to a certain extent quite logical. It +was purely and simply the extension of the Monticello type +of organization to the whole country. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt +had been struck by the fact that Monticello was +practically a self-supporting economic unit. Jefferson was +raising his own horses and just enough sheep to provide the wool +spun by the women slaves to clothe the workers and sometimes +the masters. On the plantation lived smiths, carpenters, cabinet +makers, brick makers, and layers; some grain was sold, some +nails were manufactured and sold to the neighbors. Selling +comparatively little, buying practically nothing, Jefferson's +estate came as close to being a sort of Robinson Crusoe island as +was possible in a modern country. Thus the Virginia planter +had come to develop a philosophy of society not unlike the +ideal society described by Rousseau in the "Nouvelle Héloise" +and more feudal than he himself realized, since, after all, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> +serfdom had been abolished, it rested essentially on slavery. +He was unequivocally against great agglomerations, although +he had not visited any of the large industrial cities of England +except London; but at least he knew London and Paris, he had +lived in Philadelphia and New York, and he felt that it was not +good for men to herd too closely together. Work in factories +was both unhealthy and immoral, for in congested centers of +population there developed a spirit of discontent aggravated by +the fact that industrial workers, who generally did not own +a particle of land, were footloose, unattached, and free to move +from one city to another at any time; they constituted a restless +and dangerous element. It mattered little that, for the +present, they gave their support to the Republicans and had +joined the Democratic clubs; Jefferson knew too well that +they would be easily influenced in their views by a good orator, +by passions of the moment, and could not be relied upon in an +emergency.</p> + +<p>It would be easy to point out the close resemblance of certain +features of this ideal of Jefferson with the theories of the Physiocrats. +Such a parallelism, however, can be easily exaggerated +and to a great extent is very misleading. Whether all riches +came from the soil, or were the product of labor in any form, +or both, Jefferson did not know and did not care. He was no +more a disciple of Quesnay than of Adam Smith, simply because +he was not an economist but a sociologist. Hamilton, who was +an economist of the first rank, was primarily interested in the +development of production and in the circulation of wealth, and +paid little attention to the social modification that an industrialization +of the country would probably bring about. Jefferson, +on the contrary, was solely interested in protecting and preserving +a certain pattern of civilization which was essentially an +agricultural pattern—the only safe foundation for the political +and private virtues of vital importance in a democracy. Manufactures +meant surplus production, which meant, in turn, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> +necessity of exporting. If America became a great industrial +nation, she would have, sooner or later, to export her surplus +production and in turn to import many products from Europe. +But if the country maintained extensive trade connections +with Europe she would be necessarily caught in the maze +of international politics. Her commercial interests would +clash with the interests of Europe, and this would ultimately +result in wars or at least in a constant threat of war. It would +also mean the building of a strong navy to protect American +commerce, perhaps the establishment of a permanent army; +at any rate, the immediate consequence would be an enormous +increase in taxes, the necessity of resorting to internal taxation, +the burden of which would fall on the backs of the farmers. +Numerous tax collectors would have to be appointed; Federal +employees and officials ready to act at the beck and call of the +Government would swarm all over the country. State rights +and individual rights would be restricted and invaded, and +liberty would exist only in name. On the other hand, foreign +commerce was not to be entirely suppressed. Commerce was a +natural and desirable thing with one's neighbors. Geographically +the West Indies had closer connections with America than +with Europe, and it was in that direction that the United States +could develop their trade. This was a natural law and a natural +right, and any obstacle put to the natural flow of trade between +the islands and the American continent was unjust and to be +fought persistently.</p> + +<p>Such seems to have been at that time the political and social +dream of Jefferson. Like most dreams of the sort it was perfectly +logical, even if impossible to realize. But, as a matter +of fact, it was far more admissible than the ideal he was to +propose four years later in his inaugural address, following the +lead of Washington: "peace, commerce with all nations, entangling +alliances with none." He was far more clear-sighted +when he came to the conclusion that America could not com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>bine +political aloofness and commercial and economic relationship. +This formula was a desperate and none too successful +attempt to coalesce two contradictory principles and ideals, +and for the last hundred and thirty years America has been +striving to achieve this impossible program. Such a position +has always seemed most absurd and unintelligible to Europeans, +with the result that America has often been accused of hypocritical +conduct in her foreign affairs, and more indulgent historians +have repeatedly confessed their puzzlement and inability +to understand her. The consequences of this incestuous union +of Jeffersonian political aloofness and Hamiltonian industrial +and commercial development are still apparent to-day. They +were conspicuous in the position taken by President Wilson +during his first administration; they reappear again and again +in all American declarations referring to the League of Nations, +mandates, and reparations. One of the first results was necessarily +to embroil America in all European wars and to raise +again and again the question of neutrality.</p> + +<p>It is doubtful however whether, even in 1797, Jefferson would +have consented to carry to an extreme the realization of his +bucolic dreams. He knew full well that America had commercial +aspirations that could not be suppressed; all one could do +was not to encourage them as Hamilton wanted to do and, in +the meantime, to reduce political connections to a minimum.</p> + +<p>At the end of the short session of Congress in which measures +relative to Europe had been debated, Jefferson wrote to Rutledge: +"as to everything except commerce, we ought to divorce +ourselves from them all." But this system would require +"time, temper, wisdom, and occasional sacrifice of interests; +and how far all of these will be ours, our children may see, but +we shall not."<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a> Such has been the hope and the endeavor of +America ever since that time; with what success it is for others +to judge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> + +<p>Adams' speech had been a warlike one. That the Government +of the United States had been insulted by the French +Directory was no "matter of doubt." Pinckney, sent as successor +to Monroe, had not been received by the Government, +and Monroe had been informed that the Directory "would no +longer recognize nor receive a minister plenipotentiary from the +United States, until after a reparation of the grievances +demanded of the American Government, and which the French +Republic had a right to expect." Pinckney himself had been +notified that his presence in Paris was illegal and that he could +not stay in the country. No wonder that Adams declared +that: "Such attempts ought to be repelled with a decision +which shall convince France and the world that we are not a +degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and +sense of inferiority, fitted to be the miserable instruments of +foreign influence, and regardless of national honor, character +and interest."</p> + +<p>On May 23 the Senate sent an address to the President, +indorsing his views by a vote of seventeen to eleven. The +fight was to take place in the House and in the newspapers. +"Foreign influence is the present and just object of public hue +and cry", wrote Jefferson to Thomas Pinckney.<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> As always +happens when the cry of wolf is raised, "the most guilty and +foremost and loudest in the cry", those who were denouncing +French influence, were to a large extent English propagandists +and not of the best type. But news from France was infrequent +and slight and, at the beginning of June, Jefferson waited +anxiously for the daily arrival of Paine and Monroe from whom +he expected a true account of the situation. Then came the +news of Bonaparte's latest victories and the announcement that +the preliminaries of peace were signed between France and +Austria. This was the only thing which could and did cool +the fury of the British faction. "The victories of the Rhine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> +and Italy, peace with Austria, bankruptcy of England, mutiny +in her fleet, and the King's writing letters recommending peace"—all +that constituted a string of events nothing less than +miraculous.<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a></p> + +<p>At this juncture Jefferson made a momentous political move. +He wrote a long letter to Colonel Aaron Burr to take him into +his confidence. The Vice President was beginning to gather up +the loose threads: "Some general view of our situation and +prospects, since you left us, may not be unacceptable. At any +rate, it will give me an opportunity of recalling myself to your +memory, and of evidencing my esteem for you." What could +this mean in ordinary language if not that he counted on him +to counterbalance Hamilton's influence in New York and +present the views of the chief to the leaders of the party. First +of all he called his attention to the fact that the Republican +party was losing ground in the House as well as in the Senate, +and that the majority was in the hands of "five or six individuals +of no fixed system at all, governed by the panic or the +prowess of the moment, who flap as the breeze blows against +the Republican or the aristocratic bodies."</p> + +<p>For the present, the danger of going to war was less disquieting. +Bonaparte's victories had brought many to their senses +and some were complaining that Congress had been called together +to do nothing. "The truth is, there is nothing to do, the +idea of war being scouted by the events of Europe; but this only +proves that war was the object for which we were called." It +had been a close call, and France might have declared war +against the United States if the Ancients had not pronounced +against it. "Thus we see two nations who love one another +affectionately, brought by the ill temper of their executive +administrations, to the very brink of a necessity to imbue their +hands in the blood of each other."</p> + +<p>But leaving aside all sentimental considerations, Jefferson<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> +undertook to demonstrate that such a war would have, as a +result, the immediate occupation of Louisiana by France, and +with Louisiana again a Gallo-American colony, the danger +would indeed be great. Such were "some of the truths that +ought to penetrate into the Eastern States", and Burr was no +doubt intrusted with the mission to preach the true doctrine of +republicanism in his district.<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a></p> + +<p>Four days later Jefferson announced with infinite joy to +Elbridge Gerry that he had been appointed to go as envoy +extraordinary, jointly with General Pinckney and Mr. Marshall, +to the French Republic. Once more he insisted upon the necessity +of coming to some sort of an arrangement with Europe. +War against England or France could only result in civil war +in America and probably secession. The fate of the United +States was at stake.<a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a></p> + +<p>Congress was to adjourn on the twenty-eighth of June and +Jefferson was already looking forward to the rural quiet of +Monticello, where he could "exchange the roar and tumult of +bulls and bears for the prattle of his grandchildren and senile +rest." His quiet however was disturbed by an unexpected incident. +Early in August he sent an urgent call to Madison to +come to Monticello with Monroe in order to consult with them +on an urgent matter. The letter written to Mazzei the preceding +year had come back, translated from the French, and was +used as a political weapon against Jefferson and the Republicans. +Public repudiation of the letter was impossible, since he +had really written it, although the translation had garbled the +meaning of some important sentences. To remain silent under +fire and accept as true the accusations hurled against him was +equally difficult. His friends alone could help him out of the +difficulty. He finally decided to ignore the whole matter as he +had already been advised to do by his Philadelphia friends, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> +the letter preyed on his mind and this was not an incident to be +easily forgotten. It was during the summer and fall of that +year that certain principles were definitely crystallized in his +mind.</p> + +<p>Deploring the fact that both factions had been incensed by +political considerations and political hatred rather than by a +true judgment of the situation and what he had called in a +letter to Rutledge "the dictates of reason and pure Americanism", +he then reached for himself certain conclusions which +were to direct his political conduct during the rest of his career. +He was thoroughly sickened by the insults passing in the press. +Men of his own party he could not severely condemn for this, +nor could he take from their hands the weapons used to defeat +the enemy, but he was also loath to approve of their tactics. In +Democratic societies, established in large cities, he placed very +little confidence; they were fighting on his side, at least for the +present, and were vociferous enough; but to a large extent they +were made up of office hunters. They did not and could not +constitute a trustworthy bulwark for Republican institutions. +Fortunately events had proved that there existed in the country +a large body of people sincerely attached to republican principles; +these had been slumbering and their leaders had almost +steered the ship into a foreign port, but they could be enlightened +and made to manifest their true sentiments; for all +reforms "must be brought about by the people using their +elective rights with prudence and self-possession, and not suffering +themselves to be duped by treacherous emissaries." "It is +the sober sense of our citizens that we are safely and steadily +conducting from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the +same agency alone that we can be kept from falling back."<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> +As to foreign questions, the fact that their intrusion into American +life had divided the nation against itself proved conclusively +that the only safe course to follow was to sever the last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> +bonds that connected America with Europe and "to place our +foreign connections under a new and different arrangement."<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a> +The time had come for America to proclaim her independence +in all foreign matters, for "we owe gratitude to France, justice +to England, subservience to none."</p> + +<p>It was in coining these fine political maxims that Jefferson +was at his best. As had happened so often during his life, +he refused to be carried away by popular passions raging in +Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. From the "mountain +top" of Monticello he was able to judge dispassionately +the sordid struggles of party politics. He was no party +boss, not even a party leader; if he had any ambition at +that time, it was to become a national leader and the exponent +of what he himself had called in his letter to Rutledge "pure +Americanism."</p> + +<p>Congress had been called for November 13, but the Vice +President felt no inclination to hurry back to Philadelphia and +reënter the scene of strife. He did not leave until December +4 and found, as he had expected, that Congress was marking +time, waiting for news from Paris. Madison he kept informed +minutely of all the changes that had taken place during the +summer, of the progress of republicanism in Vermont and New +York, and of all the small talk of politics, interesting only as +showing how eagerly Jefferson kept his finger on the pulse of +the country. He had an ulterior motive in sending to Madison +papers and pamphlets recently published in Philadelphia; it +was that "the paragraphs in some of these abominable papers +may draw from you now and then a squib." Matters seemed +to be on the mend; the latest official intelligence from Paris +was that the envoys "would find every disposition on the part +of the Government to accommodate with us."<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> The session +dragged on. Jefferson's melancholy statement that the Senate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> +was divided "twenty-two and ten and will probably forever +be", was not helped by Adams' declaration that:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>No republic can ever be of any duration, without a Senate, and a +Senate deeply and strongly rooted, strong enough to bear up against +all popular storms and passions. The only fault in the Constitution +of our Senate is, that their term of office is not durable enough. +Hitherto they have done well, but probably they will be forced to +give way in time.<a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a></p></div> + +<p>The only important proposition before Congress was "the +bill of foreign intercourse and the proposition to arm our +foreign vessels"; but both parties seemed to be afraid to press +the matter. Everything was in suspense "as the ensuing +month will probably be the most eventful ever yet seen in +modern Europe." If Bonaparte's projected invasion of England +succeeded the tables would turn; in the meantime the +official ball given on Washington's birthday offered to Philadelphia +society a pretext for engaging in hot controversies. +Business was bad and bankruptcies multiplying. Congress was +thinking of appropriating some money for national defense so +as to furnish convoys to vessels going to Europe and to provide +for the protection of smaller vessels of the coast trade. Adams +had decided to reorganize his Cabinet. Wolcott would remain +in office, but it seemed that McHenry was to go and Pickering +was very doubtful whether he would stay.<a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a></p> + +<p>Meanwhile dispatches from the American envoys had +arrived; they were being deciphered and the President hesitated +upon the advisability of communicating them in full to +Congress. Then, on the nineteenth, came Adams' message +declaring that "it was incumbent on him to declare that he +perceived no ground of expectation that the objects of their +mission could be accomplished on terms compatible with the +safety, honor, or the essential interest of the Nation."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p> + +<p>On the twenty-first Jefferson wrote to Madison that "a great +change has taken place in the appearance of our political atmosphere"; +the "insane message" had had great effect but there +was still a possibility that, if all members were present, the war +measures would be defeated by one voice in the House. What +was to be done in that case? The only possible solution was to +make a bid for time and wait for the results of Bonaparte's +expedition against Great Britain. Jefferson's plan therefore +was to propose an adjournment of Congress "in order to go +home and consult their constituents on the great crisis of American +affairs now existing." "To gain time is everything with +us." In this letter Jefferson made one of his few material +errors, so strange on the part of a man in his position, and hardly +to be explained unless we suppose that the wish was father to the +thought. "We relied," he said, "with great security on that +provision which requires two-thirds of the Legislature to declare +war. But this is completely eluded by a majority's taking such +measures as will be sure to produce war." Certainly there was +no such article in the Constitution, unless Jefferson in his +excitement interpreted the ratification of treaties by two-thirds +of the Senate to imply also that a declaration of war should +have such a majority.<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> A week later he was convinced that "the +question of war and peace depends now on a toss of cross and +pile. If we could gain but one season we should be saved."<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a> +It was to these Fabian tactics that the Republicans were to bend +all their efforts in order to avoid a formal declaration of war.</p> + +<p>In the meantime the dispatches of the envoys were made +public and the famous X.Y.Z. case came to light. Debate was +hot in Congress on the Sprigg resolution declaring that "under +existing conditions it is not expedient for the United States to +resort to war against the French republic."<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a> Adams then +decided to communicate the letters from Paris.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p> + +<p>No more terrible blow could have been inflicted upon the +friends of peace. Jefferson heard the news on April 3, but as it +was still undecided whether they could be made public, he refrained +from discussing them with Madison until the sixth. His +first impressions were "very disagreeable and very confused." +Yet he tried, as was his wont, to see both sides of the question. +With the story of the abortive negotiations was interwoven</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... some base propositions on the part of Talleyrand, through +one of his agents, to sell his interest and influence with the Directory +towards soothing difficulties with them, in consideration of a large +sum (fifty thousand pounds sterling); the arguments to which his +agent resorted to induce compliance with this demand were unworthy +of a great nation (could they be imputed to them), and +calculated to excite disgust and indignation in the Republicans particularly, +whom they so far mistake, as to presume an attachment +to France and hatred to the Federal party and not to the love of their +country, to be their first passion.</p></div> + +<p>In the papers, as communicated, Adams had substituted for +the names given by the envoys—Hottinger, Bellamy, and +Hauteval—the initials X. Y. Z., hence the name given at once +to the incident.</p> + +<p>Whether the French bankers really represented Talleyrand is +absolutely immaterial; the result on American public opinion +alone is to be considered here. According to Jefferson, the +public's first reaction was one of astonishment;<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> furious +indignation followed very quickly. Sprigg's resolution was +naturally discarded as not appropriate; war seemed the order +of the day. The last resort left to the remaining Republicans +was to avoid open hostilities with the French Republic and, +not being able to prevent a vote of credits for armaments, to +insist that they should be granted specially for internal defense +and preparation.<a name="FNanchor_356_356" id="FNanchor_356_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a> A more mature consideration of the letters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> +convinced Jefferson that the door to negotiation was not +absolutely closed.<a name="FNanchor_357_357" id="FNanchor_357_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a> But popular indignation was too strong; +riotous scenes took place in the streets of Philadelphia, addresses +from all parts of the country came to Adams, urging him to +stand for national honor and the Federalist press fanned the +flames. The few faithful Republicans grew discouraged and +one by one drifted out of Philadelphia. "Giles, Clopton, +Cabell, and Nicholas have gone," wrote Jefferson on April 26, +"and Clay goes to-morrow. Parker has completely gone over +to the war party. In this state of things they will carry what +they please. One of the war party, in a fit of unguarded passion, +declared sometime ago they would pass a Citizen Bill, an +Alien Bill, and a Sedition Bill."<a name="FNanchor_358_358" id="FNanchor_358_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> Madison, although urged to +take up his pen "for heaven's sake and not desert the public +cause altogether", remained silent in Virginia. Jefferson felt +that the first and second measures were directed against his +close friend Volney,<a name="FNanchor_359_359" id="FNanchor_359_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> who had been somewhat imprudent. That +the republican press would be muzzled for "the war hawks talk +of septembrizing, deportation and the examples for quelling +sedition set by the French executives. All the firmness of +the human mind is now in a state of requisition."<a name="FNanchor_360_360" id="FNanchor_360_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a></p> + +<p>It is remarkable, and not the smallest achievement of Jefferson, +that he kept a cool head in the midst of this turmoil. +Insulted every day in the press and in public meetings, lampooned +and caricatured, he had to remain silent because of his +official position and could not protest to the government. No +stranger political situation could be imagined than this,—a +man recognized as the head of a party opposed to the government, +yet next to the President in rank, without power to defend +himself and to enter into polemics, ostracized, and, as he +admitted himself, "insulated in every society", forced to listen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> +to the reading of the most detestable things such as the Alien +Bill, and still not indulging in bitterness. A comparison of his +letters with those written by Adams and Hamilton at the same +time would constitute the most extraordinary tribute to his +self-mastery. He persisted in seeing some faint hope and +refused to give up the ship.</p> + +<p>First there was a possibility that when the merchants would +see that actual war meant War Tax, Land Tax, and Stamp Tax, +these measures would constitute sedatives to cool their ardor. +The present session had already cost two hundred thousand +dollars and that was only a beginning. Furthermore, there was +also a possibility that, if an actual declaration of war could be +prevented during the summer, the coming election would reënforce +the republican party. Volney had decided to go back to +France with a few other aliens who had chartered a boat, +without waiting for the enactment of the Alien Bill. Many of +them were much irritated, but Volney at least was "thoroughly +impressed with the importance of preventing war, whether +considered with reference to the interests of the two countries, +of the cause of Republicanism, or of man on a broad scale."<a name="FNanchor_361_361" id="FNanchor_361_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a></p> + +<p>Isolated though he was in Philadelphia, from his room in the +Philosophical Society of which he was president, Jefferson +persisted in hoping against hope. One thing however was to +be avoided at all cost. If the situation became such that the +Northern States, Connecticut and Massachusetts particularly, +clearly dominated the situation, it was far better to submit +temporarily and endure even detestable measures than to break +the Union. The beginning of the disaggregation could not be +stopped; a realignment of States conducing to new secessions +would finally be the result. Men must quarrel, and "seeing, +therefore, that an association of men who will not quarrel with +one another is a thing which never yet existed, from the +greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> +vestry; seeing that we must have somebody to quarrel with, I +had rather keep our New England associates for that purpose, +than to see our bickerings transferred to others."<a name="FNanchor_362_362" id="FNanchor_362_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a></p> + +<p>This was a most important declaration and shows to what +length Jefferson was willing to go in order to avoid the only +irremediable catastrophe. Whatever may have been his weaknesses +and shortcomings, his inconsistencies and contradictions, +the man who, in the hectic atmosphere of Philadelphia, +was able to put aside his own interests, the interests of his +party, his social and political ideals to think nationally, +was indeed a great American. We may even venture to +say that he was at the time the only great American in the +country.</p> + +<p>When Marshall came back from France—much to his surprise, +as a war hero and as an avenger of national honor—the +Republicans began to take a less pessimistic view of the situation. +After all, the situation was not so desperate as they had +been led to believe; Gerry had remained in Paris, and negotiations +could be resumed. The show of honesty made by the +envoys in Paris was most gratifying to national honor and gave +the public a feeling of triumph over the corrupt practices of +European diplomacy. But with the return of Marshall a new +campaign broke out against Jefferson. Doctor Logan on his +own initiative had gone to Europe in the interest of peace, but +had gone mysteriously and without telling any one of his intentions. +It was soon assumed that he had been sent on an unauthorized +and unofficial but highly objectionable mission by the +Jacobins "to solicit an army from France, instruct them as to +their landing, etc.", and Jefferson was again accused of being +the arch plotter. Nothing could be more ridiculous, for the +poor doctor was simply one of those idealistic pacifists who +sometimes do more harm than good, but whose intentions are +not open to suspicion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p> + +<p>But popular passions once aroused cannot be silenced in a day +and the efforts of the friends of peace were weak and inefficient. +On April 14 a bill was passed on second reading by the Senate, +declaring the treaties with France void and nonexistent. +Adams made it known that he would refuse Gerry's request that +other envoys be sent. If Congress remained in session in a city +where war hysteria had reached a paroxysm, extreme measures +were unavoidable. The only remedy was to adjourn as soon +as possible, for "to separate Congress now, will be withdrawing +the fire from under a boiling pot."<a name="FNanchor_363_363" id="FNanchor_363_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> Congress did not separate, +however, without authorizing the President to increase the navy, +to expend two hundred fifty thousand dollars for fortifications, +to purchase eight hundred thousand dollars' worth of arms and +ammunition, to raise an army of ten thousand troops and to +equip vessels to seize and bring to port any armed vessels +which had attacked American vessels or might be found "hovering +on the coast of the United States for the purpose of +committing depredations on the vessels belonging to the +citizens thereof." On July 6 were passed the famous Alien +Bills, and on the fourteenth, as a sort of defiance to the principles +of the French Revolution, Congress adopted the "Sedition +Law", giving power to the government "to prosecute +persons or to prevent the circulating or saying of any utterance +against the Government of the United States, or either House +of the Congress of the United States, or the President of +the United States."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h2>POLITICAL LEADER AND STRATEGIST</h2> + + +<p>When Jefferson went home after the adjournment of Congress +he remained completely silent for two months. But the newspaper +war went on in Philadelphia with more virulence than +ever: attacks against the arch plotter and the defender of the +French Jacobins were multiplied, prosecutions were begun in +Massachusetts under the Sedition Act and for a time Jefferson +himself seems to have feared for his own safety. To Samuel +Smith, who had sent him a clipping in which he was vehemently +accused, he answered that he had "contemplated every event +which the Maratists of the day can perpetrate, and I am prepared +to meet every one in such a way, as shall not be derogatory +to the public liberty or my own personal honor." He +naturally denied that he had in any way plotted with Bache, +the editor of the <i>Aurora</i>, or Doctor Leib; then he went on to +define once more his position. He had acted on the same principles +from the year 1775 to that day, and he was convinced +that these principles were those of the great body of the American +people. He was for peace certainly, not only with France +but also with England. He was aware that both of them "have +given and are daily giving, sufficient cause of war; that in +defiance of the laws of nations, they are every day trampling +on the rights of the neutral powers, whenever they can thereby +do the least injury, either to the other." But he still maintained +that the best policy was and would have been "to bear +from France for one more summer what we have been bearing +from both of them these four years." With England the +United States had chosen peace; with France they had chosen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> +war; to what extent the Government was supported by the +majority of the people was a thing to be seen in the coming +elections. He ended with a note of Christian forgiveness for +Fenno and Porcupine, who "covered him with their implacable +hatred." "The only return I will ever make them, will be +to do them all the good I can, in spite of their teeth."<a name="FNanchor_364_364" id="FNanchor_364_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a></p> + +<p>This was almost too godly to be true; but if we remember +that his letters were intercepted and read by Adams' police, as +he repeatedly complained, and that letters sent to him were +opened on their way to Monticello, we may wonder whether he +did not write these lines for the eye of the censor, and with his +tongue in his cheek. That he really believed at the time in the +existence of a monarchical conspiracy appears from a letter +to Stephens Thompson Mason.<a name="FNanchor_365_365" id="FNanchor_365_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a></p> + +<p>The Alien and Sedition bills were just a beginning. If the +people did not revolt against them, the next step would be to +persuade Congress that the President should continue in office +for life, reserving to another time the transfer of the succession +to his heirs and the establishment of the Senate for life.</p> + +<p>This was a very accurate prophecy of the course that events +were to follow, not in America, but in France, and this shows at +least that Jefferson had an exact understanding of the gradual +steps through which a republican government might become +an empire. But France had Bonaparte, while neither Adams +nor Washington ever had the inclination or the power to bring +about such a change in America. Yet when one thinks of the +military ambitions of Hamilton, of his real opposition and +scorn for republican government, it would perhaps be unfair to +dismiss these apprehensions as absolutely groundless. Whatever +the case may have been, Jefferson thought the time had +come to erect a strong barrier against the encroachments of the +Federal Government. Towards the end of the same month, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> +two Nicholas brothers, George and Wilson C., discussed with +Jefferson at Monticello a plan to put to work the Republicans, +who, finding themselves useless in Congress, had retired from +the field. A plan was finally adopted to arouse the State +legislatures; during these meetings were drawn up the famous +"Resolutions" that George Nicholas was to present to the +legislature of Kentucky, and which Madison was to bring before +the Virginia Assembly.<a name="FNanchor_366_366" id="FNanchor_366_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a></p> + +<p>The exact authorship of the "Resolutions" remained a +matter of doubt until Jefferson more than twenty years later +acknowledged his participation in a letter to the son of George +Nicholas.<a name="FNanchor_367_367" id="FNanchor_367_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> It was well for Jefferson's peace of mind that he +remained behind the scenes on this occasion and let Madison +take the responsibility of the recommendation, which he did +not allow to pass without modifying the original text to a considerable +degree. The Kentucky resolutions have been the +subject of many discussions, and Madison himself used a great +deal of ink and time to explain the true import of the measures +he had sponsored before the Virginia Assembly. They will +become much more intelligible when studied in the light of the +theory developed by Jefferson in the document in which he +stated his views on the social compact, considered as a <i>pactum +foederis</i> and not a <i>pactum subjectionis</i>.<a name="FNanchor_368_368" id="FNanchor_368_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> It was simply the +reaffirmation that in forming a society neither men nor States +abdicate entirely their sovereignty but reserve a specified +part of their natural rights set forth in a Bill of Rights—an +essential foundation on which to build a constitution. Such +is clearly the meaning of the first resolution;</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. <i>Resolved.</i> That the several States composing the United +States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited +submission to their general Government; but that, by a compact +under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> +and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general Government +for special purposes—delegated to that Government certain definite +powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right +to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general +Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, +void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded +as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, +the other party: that the Government created by this compact was +not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers +delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and +not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but, that, as in all +other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each +party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as +of the mode and measure of redress.</p></div> + +<p>Not only was Jefferson perfectly consistent in repeating +almost word for word in this Resolution the doctrine of natural +rights and State rights already enunciated in 1776, but the last +lines foretold the theory he was to defend against Marshall +during his presidency. By denying that the parties to the +Federal compact had a common judge, he refused in advance +to consider the Supreme Court as the guardian, interpreter, and +defender of the Constitution. This principle once asserted, +Jefferson endeavored to prove that the Sedition Bill, the Alien +Bill and other measures adopted by Congress at the instigation +of the Federalists constituted an infringement of State rights, +since they did not deal with matters specifically reserved to +Congress and since it was provided that "the powers not delegated +to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited +by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively or to +the people." This was at the same time an attempt to prove +the unconstitutionality of the recent legislation and an endeavor +to define more exactly the powers of the Federal Government. +The Eighth Resolution, the longest, proposed the establishment +of a committee of correspondence to communicate the resolutions +to the different legislatures and enunciated the doctrine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> +of nullification, namely that the State had the right to consider +as nonexistent such laws as might be passed in defiance of the +Constitution. Naturally the Law of Sedition and the Alien +Bill came under that category.</p> + +<p>Strong as the language of the Resolutions may have been, it +was not Jefferson's intention to promote a rebellion of certain +States against the Federal Government and to provoke a +secession. They contained a strong affirmation that the +subscribers to the Resolutions were sincerely anxious for the +preservation of the Union. As a matter of fact, in Jefferson's +intention they were a piece of political strategy and he had no +desire to push the matter too far. A letter he wrote to Madison +on the subject is particularly significant on that score: "I +think we should distinctly affirm all the important principles +they contain, so as to hold to that ground in future, and leave +the matter in such a train as that we may not be committed +absolutely to push the matter to extremities, and yet may be +free to push as far as events will render prudent."<a name="FNanchor_369_369" id="FNanchor_369_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a></p> + +<p>In other words, it was what the French call a gesture, the act +of a lawyer reserving certain points in a trial before a tribunal +and the right to present conclusions. It was not the act of a +revolutionist and for the time being at least, although adopted +in a modified form both by Kentucky and Virginia, it remained +a gesture and a simple protest against Federalist usurpations.</p> + +<p>The end of the fall came, and Jefferson relapsed once more +into his cautious silence. One letter only, written from Monticello +to John Taylor, is found in the files for that period.<a name="FNanchor_370_370" id="FNanchor_370_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> This +time Jefferson was more optimistic; the ardor of the Federalists +for war seemed to have cooled down and the people began to +realize that national pride was a very expensive article, that +wars had to be paid for: "the Doctor is now on his way to cure +it, in the guise of the tax gatherer."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p> + +<p>At the end of the month, the Vice President set out for +Philadelphia to attend the opening of the third session of the +Fifth Congress. Adams' address was anxiously awaited. +Much to the surprise and disgust of the war party, if it could +not be called conciliatory, it was far less provocative than the +address of the twenty-first of June preceding. He protested +against the decree of the Directory constituting "an unequivocal +act of war" and maintained that "to invigorate measures +of defence" was the true policy of the United States. But +while he thus reiterated some of his previous statements, the +tone was far less truculent. President Adams, while frowning +threateningly, held behind his back the olive branch and was +ready to extend it. The conclusion was one of these milk-and-water +statements, that curious balancing of two positions so +often found in American State papers relating to foreign affairs:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>But in demonstrating by our conduct that we do not fear war in +the necessary protection of our rights and honor, we shall give no +room to infer that we abandon the desire of peace.... An efficient +preparation for war can alone insure peace. It is peace that we +have uniformly and perseveringly cultivated, and harmony between +us and France may be restored at her option.</p></div> + +<p>Then came the really important part: "The United States +Government could not think of sending another minister ... +unless given positive assurances that he would be received. It +must therefore be left with France (if she is indeed desirous of +accommodation) to take the requisite steps."</p> + +<p>Apparently an innocuous statement, but yet it was a new +note; as it was known that Adams had received some communications +from Gerry and was to make these communications +known, it was supposed that a real change and a change for the +better was about to take place in the relations between the two +countries. Therefore Jefferson could mention in the speech "a +moderation unlike the President", and he also knew that Vans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> +Murray, the American minister at the Hague, had informed +his Government "that the French Government is sincere in +their overtures for reconciliation and have agreed, if these fail, +to admit the mediation offered by the British Government."<a name="FNanchor_371_371" id="FNanchor_371_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a></p> + +<p>In the meantime the fight in Congress was merrily going on, +with that peculiar circumstance that both leaders remained +behind the scenes. To the Kentucky Resolutions, followed by +much milder representations from other State legislatures, +Hamilton opposed his instructions sent to Dayton, and since +published in his "Works." If they had fallen into Jefferson's +hands he would have found in them ample grounds for his fears. +The Federalist leader was of the opinion that his party was +losing ground, and the late attempt of Virginia and Kentucky +to unite the State legislatures in a direct resistance to certain +laws of the Union, could be considered in no other light than as +an attempt to change the Government. Under the circumstances, +and considering that "the enemies of the Government +were resolved, if it shall be practicable, to make its existence a +question of force", Hamilton had devised a certain plan to be +executed by the Federalist troops in Congress. The measures +came under four heads: establishments which will extend the +influence and promote the popularity of the Government; provision +for augmenting the means and consolidating the strength +of the Government; arrangements for confirming and enlarging +the legal powers of the Government; laws for restraining and +punishing incendiary and seditious practices. The detail of +the recommendations showed a perfectly well-concerted plan +to concentrate all powers in the hands of the Federal +Government.</p> + +<p>One of the most remarkable proposals was perhaps the project +of subdividing the larger States into several small States +containing no less than a hundred thousand persons each, as +these new units would be "better adapted to the purposes of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> +local regulations and to the preservation of the Republican +spirit." It is not without interest here to note that the Federalist +leader proposed the very measures which had been adopted +in France when the old provinces were divided into <i>départements</i>. +In the case of the Federalists, as in the case of the Constituents, +the purpose was the same: a concentration of all powers into +the hand of a central authority and the suppression of local +government. Other recommendations were an extension of +the judiciary with a Federal judge at the head of each district; +the appointment of conservators or justices of peace, who were +to supervise the energetic execution of the laws and to promote +"salutary patronage"; a stronger army; improvement of +roads; powers given to the Government to call out the militia +to suppress unlawful combinations and insurrections; power +given to Congress to build canals through the territory of two or +more States, that "all seditious writings levelled against any +officers whatever of the U. S. shall be cognizable in the courts +of the United States."</p> + +<p>If the administrative reorganization advocated by Hamilton +had been effected, it would have made the United States not +far different from the France of Napoleon and, such being the +plans of the Federalists, it cannot be said that Jefferson's fear +was entirely exaggerated.</p> + +<p>One of the first victories of the Federalists was to pass the +famous Logan Law (January 30) forbidding any citizen of the +United States to commence or carry on any verbal or written +correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government, or +any officer thereof in relation to any disputes or controversies +with the United States. Doctor Logan's intentions had been +of the best. He had seen members of the French Directory in +Paris and had brought with him "non-equivocal proofs of the +pacific dispositions of the French Government towards the +United States" and particularly the Statement of Merlin that +"<i>la liberté des États-Unis nous a coûté trop de sang pour qu'elle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> +ne nous soit pas chère.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_372_372" id="FNanchor_372_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a> None of these activities could be +called treacherous, and in normal times would not have been +noticed. But behind Logan, Jefferson was aimed at, and he +was perfectly aware, as he wrote to Madison, that "the real +views in the importance they have given to Logan's enterprise +are mistaken by nobody."<a name="FNanchor_373_373" id="FNanchor_373_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> Yet he thought he had to justify +himself to his friends, and sent a long letter on the subject to +Gerry. Far more important than his defense was a declaration +of the principles he did not fear to avow. "They are unquestionably," +he said, "the principles of the great body of our +fellow-citizens." It was really the program of the Democratic +Party and the most luminous exposition of the Jeffersonian +doctrine ever made.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I do then, with sincere zeal, wish an inviolable preservation of +our present federal Constitution, according to the true sense in +which it was adopted by the States ... and I am opposed to the +monarchising its features by the forms of its administration, with a +view to conciliate a first transition to a President and Senate for life, +and from that to an hereditary tenure of these offices.... I am for +preserving to the States the powers not yielded by them to the +Union, and to the legislature of the Union its constitutional share +in the division of powers; and I am not for transferring all the +powers of the States to the General Government, and all those of +that Government to the executive branch. I am for a government +rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the +public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a +multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans.... +I am for relying, for internal defence, on our militia solely, till actual +invasion ... and not for a standing army in time of peace, which +may overawe the public sentiment; nor for a navy, which by its +own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us, will +grind us with public burthens, and sink us under them. I am for +free commerce with all nations; political connections with none;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> +and little or no diplomatic establishment ... I am for freedom of +religion, and against all manoeuvres to bring about a legal ascendency +of one sect over another: for freedom of the press, and against +all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by +reason the complaints of criticism, just or unjust, of our citizens +against the conduct of their agents. And I am for encouraging the +progress of science in all its branches; and not for raising a hue and +cry against the sacred name of philosophy....<a name="FNanchor_374_374" id="FNanchor_374_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a></p></div> + +<p>Jefferson ended with a paragraph in which he solemnly proclaimed +the integrity of his American nationalism, although he +admitted that he was a well wisher to the success of the French +Revolution and still hoped that it would succeed; but he added +at once: "The first object of my heart is my own country. In +that is embarked my family, my fortune, my own existence. +I have not one farthing of interest, nor preference of any one +nation to another, but in proportion as they are more or less +friendly to us."</p> + +<p>The man who drew up that program in the midst of an +unprecedented political strife and the riotous scenes of the +streets of Philadelphia was a political leader of the first rank. +The letter to Gerry is more than a letter from one individual to +another; it transcends the circumstances of the moment. It +is the result of mature reflection; the conclusions reached by +Jefferson after almost thirty years of political life. It is really +the first program of his party and the first complete definition +of Government and of Americanism; for it was distinctly +American. I fail to perceive in it the influence of any foreign +political thinker except in so far as such principles as freedom of +the press, separation of the Church and the State may have been +ideas common to a great majority of political thinkers of the +eighteenth century. Even if Jefferson's request to Gerry to +keep the communication absolutely secret was obeyed, there +is little doubt that we have here the gist of the communication<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> +made orally by Jefferson to his friends and to the leaders of the +Republicans in Congress.</p> + +<p>For the moment the letter contained a strong appeal to Gerry +to place every evidence at his disposal before the public, since +the Government refused to do it, and to publish in full the +report on his mission. He alone could save the situation by +coming forward independently. But even if Gerry acceded to +this wish, some one else would have to present a brief synopsis +of the evidence and draw up a judicial arraignment of the +administration. At this juncture Jefferson thought of his old +master Pendleton, at whose feet he had sat in Williamsburg, +and with whom he had worked in the revision of the statutes of +Virginia. He alone could give the "<i>coup de grâce</i>" to the ruinous +principles and doctrines; he alone could recapitulate all the +vexations and disgusting details of the Stamp Act and the +Direct Tax. A small handbill would be printed and they could +"disperse ten or twelve thousand copies under letter covers, +through all the United States, by the members of Congress +when they return home."<a name="FNanchor_375_375" id="FNanchor_375_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a> To make Pendleton's coöperation +more certain, Jefferson even drew up the plan of the indictment +and inclosed all the necessary documents.</p> + +<p>February was for Jefferson a period of hectic activity. During +all the first part of the month he multiplied his entreaties +to Pendleton to gird up his loins and enter the fight. If he still +refused to write for the press he was not averse to communicating +to the editors papers written by his friends, and he begged +these for expressions of opinion to be sent to the press.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The engine is the press. Every man must lay his purse and his +pen under contribution. As to the former it is possible I may be +obliged to assume something for you. As to the latter, let me pray +and beseech you to set apart a certain portion of every post day to +write what may be proper for the public. Send it to me while here,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> +and when I go away I will let you know to whom you may send, so +that your name shall be sacredly secret.<a name="FNanchor_376_376" id="FNanchor_376_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a></p></div> + +<p>The propaganda was beginning to bear its fruits. John +Ogden was writing from Litchfield that "many publications +in the <i>Aurora</i> have reached Connecticut, within four weeks, +which have opened the eyes of the dispassionate" and he was +asking for more pamphlets.<a name="FNanchor_377_377" id="FNanchor_377_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a> But a week later Ogden was +arrested and to Jefferson he sent a letter "From Lichtfield Goal +(sic) at the suit of Oliver Wolcott Esq", to affirm that "prison +has no horror to the oppressed, inspired and persecuted." To +Aaron Burr in New York Jefferson wrote very affectionately +and very familiarly to acquaint him with the state of public +affairs.<a name="FNanchor_378_378" id="FNanchor_378_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> To Monroe he was sending pamphlets, asking him +to distribute them where they would do most good, adding as +usual "Do not let my name be connected in the business." +He never tired of repeating that the proper argument to strike +the voters was the enormous increase in the budget of the +United States: a loan authorized for five millions at eight per +cent., another of two millions to follow and that was just a +beginning. All these measures were accepted by Congress in +the teeth of Gerry's communications with Talleyrand, showing +the French Government willing to continue the negotiations.</p> + +<p>Then on February 18 came "the event of events." While all +the war measures were going on, while the Government of the +United States was blockading the French West Indies and +French vessels were captured, while there were in several +instances cases of actual warfare, the President had had in his +hand for several weeks letters exchanged between Pichon, the +French chargé at the Hague, and Vans Murray, declaring that +the French Government was ready to receive "whatever +plenipotentiary the Government of the United States should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> +send to France to end our differences and that he would be +received with the respect due to the representative of a <i>free, +independent, and powerful nation</i>." Adams, almost on the eve +of the adjournment of Congress, had decided, as it seems, +against the advice and without the knowledge of his Cabinet, +not only to communicate the Vans Murray-Pichon papers, but +to recommend that Murray be appointed as plenipotentiary to +France. The Federalists in the Senate were appalled and at +first did not know what to do.<a name="FNanchor_379_379" id="FNanchor_379_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> But they were not lacking in +strategy; not daring to come out openly, they appointed on the +President's recommendation, not only Murray but Oliver +Ellsworth and Patrick Henry, the last two "not to sail from +America before they should receive from the French Directory +assurances that they should be received with the respect due to +the law of nations, to their character, etc."</p> + +<p>This, as Jefferson noticed at once, was a last effort to postpone +the patching-up of difficulties and also a last effort to provoke +the French, since they had already given such an assurance to +Murray.<a name="FNanchor_380_380" id="FNanchor_380_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a> "The whole artillery of the phalanx was played +secretly on the P. and he was obliged himself to take a step +which should parry the overture while it wears the face of +acceding to it," he wrote to Madison.<a name="FNanchor_381_381" id="FNanchor_381_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a> But the war party was +defeated, the Federalists had received a fatal blow; victory +already was in sight when Congress adjourned at the beginning +of March.</p> + +<p>Then Jefferson repaired to Monticello, while in the back +counties assessors clashed with farmers, troopers with small-town +editors, while Duane was flogged in the street after being +dragged from his office by militiamen. But he was not idle, +although for some mysterious reason several of the letters he +published during the summer have never been printed. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> +received many visitors, wrote to friends, proclaimed his faith +in ultimate victory for "the body of the American people is +substantially Republican, but their virtuous feelings have been +played on by some fact with more fiction. They have been the +dupes of artful manoeuvres and made for a moment to be willing +instruments in forging chains for themselves."<a name="FNanchor_382_382" id="FNanchor_382_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a> He encouraged +Bache and Venable to publish a gazette, for unfortunately +"the people of Virginia were not incorruptible and offices there +as elsewhere were acceptable", so that the situation was neither +safe nor satisfactory. To William Greene he wrote a truly +splendid letter on "progress" in which he expressed his belief +"with Condorcet, that man's mind is perfectible to a degree of +which we cannot as yet form any conception", and predicted +limitless discoveries in the field of science. The present convulsions +could only be temporary, for it was impossible, he +maintained, that "the enthusiasm characterizing America +should lift its parricidal hand against freedom and science. +This would be such a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot +place among possible things in this age and in this +country."</p> + +<p>At the same time he was not unmindful of keeping in complete +harmony the heterogeneous elements of the party just +being formed. He strove to placate Callender who, jealous of +Bache, was writing epileptic letters to complain of the whole +universe, and asking at the same time that Jefferson should +send him some money, as he was short of funds.<a name="FNanchor_383_383" id="FNanchor_383_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a> John Taylor, +who was planning to declare void and unconstitutional laws +adopted by Congress, and to call together a convention to +appoint a dictator, had to be told to "forbear to push on to this +ultimate effort."<a name="FNanchor_384_384" id="FNanchor_384_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> Much preferable was the work undertaken +by Randolph in presenting a legal refutation of the Federalist<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> +attitude towards the foundation of law, and the similar document +on which Wilson Nicholas was working.<a name="FNanchor_385_385" id="FNanchor_385_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a></p> + +<p>All this time Jefferson was haunted by the fear that his letters +would fall into the hands of his enemies. To the few communications +he wrote during the later part of the summer, he did not +even dare to put his signature, "the omission of which has been +rendered almost habitual with me by the necessity of the post +office; indeed the period is now approaching during which I +shall discontinue writing letters as much as possible, knowing +that every snare will be used to get hold of what may be perverted."<a name="FNanchor_386_386" id="FNanchor_386_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a> +He came to the point that on Monroe's advice he +had to refuse to see Madison in order to "avoid the appearance +of a collusion between them."<a name="FNanchor_387_387" id="FNanchor_387_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a></p> + +<p>At the beginning of December he was back in Philadelphia +for the session of Congress and soon after was able to send +reassuring news to Monroe who had become one of his "grand +electors." Those who persist in thinking him a dreamy idealist +must read the letters he wrote between January and May, 1800; +not only did he keep his hand on the pulse of the country, but he +calculated the changes of the Republicans in every State and +figured out to a unit the possible number of votes they would +receive in the coming election. He knew the situation too well +not to admit that he was the natural choice of the Republicans +even before any census was held, and very early in January +acknowledged it to Monroe:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Perhaps it will be thought I ought in delicacy to be silent on the +subject. But you, who know me, know that my private gratification +would be most indulged by that issue, which should leave me most +at home. If anything supersedes this propensity, it is merely the +desire to see this government brought back to its republican principles. +Consider this as written to Mr. Madison as much as yourself;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> +and communicate it, if you think it will do any good, to those +possessing our joint confidence, or any others where it may be useful +and safe.<a name="FNanchor_388_388" id="FNanchor_388_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a></p></div> + +<p>He was undoubtedly sincere in disclaiming any ambition, but +under the circumstances he was bound to observe a certain +reticence, being the President of the Senate, next to Adams in +the Government and yet Adams' adversary in the next election. +But in his letters he made no pretense of false modesty and +frankly mentioned time and again what he called "our ticket." +Yet he was not the man who could ever give all his energy to a +single task, and absorbing as were his political preoccupations +he showed during the summer of 1800 as much versatility as +ever. He took up again the transformation of William and +Mary College, this time to make a real university of the old +institution. He wrote to Priestley to send him a good plan of +reorganization and a few weeks later to Du Pont de Nemours +who composed for him his "Plan of a National Education."<a name="FNanchor_389_389" id="FNanchor_389_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> +With Colonel Benjamin Hawkins he discussed the desirability +of studying the language and customs of the Indians, while +there was still time.<a name="FNanchor_390_390" id="FNanchor_390_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a> He was thinking of compiling a volume +on the "Morals of Jesus" and discussed religion with Bishop +Madison who intended to write a book to prove that the Christian +religion, "rightly understood and carried into full effect, +would establish a pure Democracy over the world. Its main +pillars are—Equality, Fraternity, Justice, Universal +Benevolence."<a name="FNanchor_391_391" id="FNanchor_391_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a></p> + +<p>At the same time he was keeping close watch on the news +coming from France and on political developments in Congress. +Rumors circulated that a new revolution had taken place in +Paris and that Bonaparte was at the head of it. This was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> +wonderful opportunity to test out by actual experience the +disadvantage of a directory or executive committee as compared +with a single executive in a republic.<a name="FNanchor_392_392" id="FNanchor_392_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> From what he knew of +the French character, he did not believe that a monarchy could +be reëstablished in France, for "If Bonaparte declares for +Royalty, either in his own person, or that of Louis XVIII, he +has but a few days to live. In a nation of so much enthusiasm, +there must be a million Brutuses who will devote themselves +to death to destroy him." But a few days later he had come +to the conclusion that it was probably what Bonaparte had +done, and what had been done in France could probably be +done in America when our Bonaparte, surrounded by his comrades +in arms, may step in to give us political salvation in his +way. One thing was certain, however: Bonaparte had +clearly demonstrated that he had no brains, no creative and +constructive mind; and, with the pride of a man who was +engaged in a stupendous experiment, Jefferson pitilessly criticized +the Napoleonic reconstruction of France: "Whenever he +has meddled we have seen nothing but fragments of the old +Roman government stuck into materials with which they can +form no cohesion; we see the bigotry of an Italian to the ancient +splendor of his country, but nothing which bespeaks a luminous +view of rational government."<a name="FNanchor_393_393" id="FNanchor_393_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a></p> + +<p>To his friend Samuel Adams, who had written him at the +end of January, he repeated the same judgment in less striking +but perhaps even harsher terms:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I fear our friends on the other side of the water, laboring in the +same cause, have yet a great deal of crime and misery to wade +through. My confidence has been placed in the head not in the +heart of Bonaparte. I hoped he would calculate truly the difference +between the fame of a Washington and a Cromwell. Whatever +the views may be, he has at least transferred the destinies of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> +republic from the civil to the military arm. Some will use this as +a lesson against the practicability of republican government. I +read in it a lesson against the danger of standing armies.<a name="FNanchor_394_394" id="FNanchor_394_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a></p></div> + +<p>No more patent demonstration could be desired of the fact +that in his judgments of the French Revolution, Jefferson was +at all times influenced by the possible effects that European +examples might have on the American crisis. The precedent +established by Bonaparte was a very dangerous one and might +put similar ambitions into the head of an unscrupulous schemer. +Whether he really believed or not that there was such an immediate +danger for America, and that Hamilton had really such +intentions, is an entirely different question. Probably he did +not himself know. He only felt that a permanent army would +constitute a permanent temptation and consequently a permanent +danger, for he had only limited faith in the virtue of +individual man, although he continued to believe in the wisdom +of the collectivity.</p> + +<p>Domestic matters and other more immediate preoccupations +were no less worthy of attention. He followed very closely every +measure proposed in the House on the coming elections, on the +voting procedure to be adopted, and anxiously studied the +political forecasts. The situation was decidedly on the mend. +This appears clearly in the attitude of the Federalists towards +him, not only in public but also in private. For Madison he +wrote a very elaborate review of the comparative strength of +the two parties in all the States of the Union; he saw that the +key States were Pennsylvania, Jersey and New York, the other +States being equally divided, and he concluded that "Upon the +whole the issue was still very doubtful." But officially one had +to maintain a confident attitude.<a name="FNanchor_395_395" id="FNanchor_395_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a></p> + +<p>When April came, he thought that it would be desirable for +the Republicans to come out with a public declaration, stating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> +their program and their ideals. "As soon as it can be depended +on," he said, "we must have a Declaration of the principles of +the Constitution, in the nature of a Declaration of Rights, in +all points in which it has been violated."<a name="FNanchor_396_396" id="FNanchor_396_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a></p> + +<p>If the plan had been put to execution we would have had the +first presidential "platform" as early as 1800, and Jefferson +would thus have hastened the formation of distinct political +parties. But more commonplace measures were not to be +neglected. Discussing the situation in North Carolina, still a +very doubtful State, he advised that "the medicine for that +State must be very mild and secretly administered. But nothing +should be spared to give them true information." We +would like Jefferson better if he had shown more discrimination +in the choice of the men selected to disseminate this true information. +For at that time, at least, he was still employing Callender +in Richmond—an amusing scoundrel not much better +than Cobbet, the Peter Porcupine of the Federalists. But +Callender was a useful tool, who was doing his utmost to publish +the second volume of the <i>Prospect</i> and to catch up with +Federalist propaganda. One could condone much in a man +then writing: "I had entertained the romantic hope of being +able to overtake the Federal Government in its career of iniquity. +But I am now satisfied that they can <i>act</i> much faster +than I <i>can write</i> after them."<a name="FNanchor_397_397" id="FNanchor_397_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a></p> + +<p>Fortunately he had the approval and indorsement of much +more respectable characters. Samuel Adams had already +written him; then it was John Dickinson, the Revolutionary +hero, who wrote, when sending his thanks for a copy of the late +"Resolutions of the Legislature of Virginia": "It is an inestimable +contribution to the cause of Liberty.... How incredible +was it once, and how astonishing is it now, that every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> +measure and every pretense of the stupid and selfish Stuarts, +should be adopted by the posterity of those who fled from this +madness and tyranny to the distant wilds of America."<a name="FNanchor_398_398" id="FNanchor_398_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a></p> + +<p>Such letters, the congratulations of George Wythe, who +urged him to publish the "Manual of Parliamentary Practice", +those of Pendleton, who consented to revise the final text and +to "freely cast his mite into the treasury", were indeed balm on +the wounds made by the fierce attacks of the Federalist press.<a name="FNanchor_399_399" id="FNanchor_399_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a></p> + +<p>The end of the session was approaching and the most earnest +desire of the Federalists was to adjourn as soon as possible, for +fear that the envoys to France should announce the conclusion +of a treaty. Their power seemed on the wane, but Jefferson +was still very doubtful of ultimate victory. To Livingston he +wrote that his knowledge of the art, industry, and resources of +the other party did not permit him to be prematurely confident. +The tide had turned, to be sure, and the Federalists were losing +ground constantly, but the main question whether "that would +insure a Republican victory was still undecided and it might +take one or two elections more."<a name="FNanchor_400_400" id="FNanchor_400_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a></p> + +<p>Congress adjourned on May 14. During the session congressional +caucuses had nominated for the Federalists John +Adams, and General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South +Carolina; the choice of the Republicans could only be Jefferson, +and for candidate to the vice presidency they selected Aaron +Burr of New York.</p> + +<p>In the course of the summer, Adams and his wife moved to +the new Federal City laid out by Major Lenfant, which boasted +of one tavern, the Capitol, the President's house, and a few +boarding houses,—a capital in the midst of the woods, in a +veritable wilderness of trees, with impassable paths,—a town +unable to lodge Congress except at Georgetown, which was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> +connected with the new city by a clay road. Jefferson, according +to his custom, had hurried back to his "farm" and was +apparently absorbed by his domestic occupations, his children, +and grandchildren.</p> + +<p>During the whole campaign he remained almost absolutely +silent, not daring to write, because his letters might have been +intercepted and used against him, receiving few visitors and +reading without comment the newspapers filled with the insults +and abuse of the Federalists. He broke his silence on few +occasions, but these occasions are worth studying in some detail. +In a letter to Monroe, written from Eppington, he discussed +the best plans for assisting Callender, then jailed under the +Sedition Act, who "should be substantially defended whether +privately or publicly" and whose case should be laid before the +legislature.<a name="FNanchor_401_401" id="FNanchor_401_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a> These efforts did not avail since in August the +publicist wrote from his Richmond jail that he was in very bad +health "owing to the stink of the place."<a name="FNanchor_402_402" id="FNanchor_402_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a> There is not much +that can be said for Callender, and Jefferson might have better +chosen his friends; but when one reflects on the accusations +commonly circulated against Jefferson at the time, the interest +taken by the Republican leader in the pamphleteer seems less +astonishing. If Callender had certainly insulted Adams and +Hamilton, had not the Reverend Cotton Mather Smith accused +Jefferson of "having robbed a widow and fatherless children of +an estate of which he was executor?" To Gideon Granger, +who had called his attention to the attacks of the clergyman, +Jefferson easily justified himself and seized the opportunity to +discuss with his friend a problem of general politics of far greater +importance. It had very little to do with the details of the +election and for his remarkable capacity to rise above contingencies +Jefferson truly deserves the title of "political philosopher." +To incidents which he deemed without permanent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> +significance he paid little attention, but when dealing with a +phenomenon which seemed to him to indicate an important +change in the orientation of national policies, he always tried +to penetrate beyond the surface and reach the core of the +question.</p> + +<p>The thing that now disturbed him more than the possible +victory of Adams and Pinckney was the fact that political +divisions seemed to correspond to a geographical division. Not +without reason had he written to Colonel Benjamin Hawkins: +"those who knew us only from 1775 to 1793 can form no better +idea of us than of the inhabitants of the moon."<a name="FNanchor_403_403" id="FNanchor_403_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> The North +and the South had never been in complete harmony; economically +they were different and had different interests, but something +new had developed during the seven or eight years just +passed. There was evidently a rift in the Union; on several +occasions talks of secession had been heard. These rumors did +not correspond to any real danger, but if the elections proved +that the Union was formed of two solid blocks of States, if the +North remained Federalist and the South were Republican, the +very existence of the nation would be put in question. Yet this +seemed to be a probable eventuality. In these circumstances, a +victory of the South would mean a defeat of the North, the +country would be divided against itself and the Union would +be destroyed. This was particularly to be feared if the powers +of the Federal Government were enlarged. Leaving aside all +question of principle as to the moral merit of the questions under +dispute, Jefferson tried to show, on the one hand, that it was +impossible ever to organize a centralized form of government +for the simple reason that the United States were too big and +covered a territory much too large. If a centralized government +were established on paper, it would be necessary to have +many agents of the Federal Government with extensive powers +distributed over all the States, and because of their very remote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>ness +they would be beyond the possibility of continuous control. +This could only mean corruption, plunder, and waste. On the +other hand, since on fundamental questions it was impossible +to bring into accord the North and the South, the true and only +remedy was to minimize the chances of conflict and to reduce +to a minimum the powers and attributes of the Federal Government. +"The true theory of our Constitution is surely the +wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything +within themselves, and united as to everything respecting +foreign nations." Once more, therefore, he came back to the +original theory of 1776 that, in forming a social compact, liberty +is exchanged for security and only those rights are given up +which the members of the new society have not full power to +enforce. Thus his theory of State rights was not only well +founded in theory but proved by practice and experience. +Any other system would almost necessarily conduce to a secession. +The man who wrote these lines in the summer of 1800, +more than half a century before the Civil War, was certainly +not an ordinary politician; his was the clear farsightedness of +a great statesman and true political philosopher.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, in the controversy which had been going on +since 1793, Jefferson had been submitted to fierce criticism on +every possible ground: as he wrote to McGregory, "the floodgates +of calumny had been opened upon him." It had been +particularly distressing to him to see that the religious issue +had been injected into politics. There is no doubt that his +Bill for Religious Freedom proceeded, not from hostility to +religion, but from a deep and sincere conviction, reached after +careful study of the evidence available that "in law" there +ought to be no connection between the Church and the State +and that if any had ever been established, it was due to monkish +fabrications and usurpations. That he had turned against +himself some of the Episcopalian clergy of Virginia was quite +natural, but before he went to France these attacks were neces<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>sarily +limited and did not extend beyond the borders of the +State or take the aspect of a national question.</p> + +<p>When, on the contrary, he began to be criticized for his supposed +foible for the French Revolution, such attacks became +far more pressing. The excesses of the Revolution were attributed +to the infidel doctrines of the French philosophers; and, +being "contaminated" by French political philosophy, Jefferson +was naturally accused of having brought back from France +its atheism. These views received confirmation when he +befriended Volney and Priestley, one a confirmed atheist, as +Priestley himself had demonstrated, the other a Unitarian—which +in the eyes of the orthodox clergy was possibly worse. +The attacks from the pulpit became more numerous, and a +clergyman of New York, a close friend of Hamilton, even published +a pamphlet entitled "The voice of Warning to Christians +on ensuing election", in which Jefferson was accused of having +answered to a certain Doctor Smith, who expressed his surprise +at the condition of a church: "It is good enough for Him who +was born in a manger."</p> + +<p>Considering, on the other hand, that a large portion of the +clergy were enrolled under the Federalist banner, Jefferson had +come to the conclusion that the clergy had "a very favorite hope +of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity +through the United States; and as every sect believes its +own form the true one, every one perhaps hopes for his own, +especially the Episcopalians and the Congregationalists." +Whether this was so absolutely untrue or impossible, as some +historians seem to believe, is a question far too difficult to +answer and one which probably cannot be solved. On the face +of things it does seem that there was in it a grain of truth, for +no human organization, whether ecclesiastical or civil, ever relinquishes +voluntarily the smallest particle of power or prestige.</p> + +<p>One thing, however, is certain: if Jefferson had said the word, +the religious issue would have been injected into the campaign;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> +and some of his friends, believing that "Christianity was the +strong ground of Republicanism", were urging him to give his +consent, for it was only necessary for "Republicanism to ally +itself to the Christian religion, to overturn all the corrupted +political and religious institutions in the world."<a name="FNanchor_404_404" id="FNanchor_404_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a> But this +was for Jefferson a forbidden subject. He had "sworn upon +the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny +over the mind of man"; he had formed "a view of the subject +which ought to displease neither the rational Christian nor the +Deists and would reconcile many to a character they have +too hastily rejected"; but this was not the time or the place +to discuss matters that ought to be reserved for a calm and dispassionate +discussion between friends, so he refused to authorize +the publication of any statement referring to his religious +views.<a name="FNanchor_405_405" id="FNanchor_405_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a></p> + +<p>In the meantime the political campaign was going on and the +Federalists' affairs were assuming a decidedly unhealthy complexion. +How this happened is a story of extraordinary intrigue +and machination, already told several times and still a delight +to historians fond of studying political deals. To a large extent +the victory of the Republicans was due to divisions in the Federalist +camp and it came to pass that no other man did more +than Hamilton to assure Jefferson's success. From the beginning, +the former leader of the Federalists had set himself against +Adams, employing every effort to have Pinckney receive the +first place in the nomination. The first sign of a Federalist +defeat appeared in New York State, where Burr had his headquarters +and had so cleverly maneuvered things that the State +went Republican at the April election. This was a personal +defeat for Hamilton and also a terrible blow to the Federalists. +Then Adams went into one of those fits of anger which make +him such a picturesque figure; he decided that he had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> +betrayed by his Cabinet, summarily dismissed his Secretary of +War, McHenry, and offered Pickering an opportunity to resign, +which the Secretary of State did not choose to take. Thereupon +the President informed him that he "discharged him from +further service in the Cabinet." He then called into the +Cabinet John Marshall of Virginia as Secretary of State and +Samuel Dexter of Massachusetts as Secretary of War. From +that time on, the political campaign reads as if the leaders of +the Federalists had really lost their heads. Hamilton bent all +his efforts towards holding another election in New York and, +failing in that, towards preventing Adams from obtaining a +majority. The affair culminated in the publication of a pamphlet, +entitled "The true conduct and character of John Adams, +Esq. President of the United States", pointing out the weakness +of Adams' character. The pamphlet was intended for private +distribution, but it found its way into the hands of the Republicans; +Aaron Burr had parts of it printed in the <i>New London +Bee</i> and the whole was soon to be given to the public. When +the whole pamphlet came out, it added more fuel to the raging +controversy. This is only one incident, but not the least significant, +among the many so vividly related by Mr. Bowers.</p> + +<p>The electoral colleges met in each State on December 4. +Returns came in slowly to Washington but by the thirteenth +it was known, in so far as could be, that the Federalists were +defeated; it also appeared that there was a tie between the two +Republican candidates. At this juncture Jefferson, who had +remained perfectly silent, took the matter in hand and calmly +assumed that he would be elected. To Robert R. Livingston, +brother of Edward Livingston who was a member of Congress +from New York, Jefferson wrote a letter congratulating him on +his communications to the American Philosophical Society and +discussing quite seriously the discovery "of some large bones +supposed to be of the mammoth" in the vicinity of New York. +Then, as in an afterthought, he mentioned the political situ<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>ation. +The matter of the election was as good as settled: "We +may, therefore, venture to hazard propositions on that hypothesis +without being justly subjected to raillery or ridicule." +"To put the vessel on a Republican tack", they would require +the entire coöperation of "men who could at once inspire the +nation with perfect confidence in their honesty and talents", +and Jefferson asked Livingston whether he would not assume +the Secretaryship of the Navy. That in his own mind he +considered the election well over appears in the sentence in +which he speaks, not as a candidate but as the leader of his +party, and as if no other hypothesis could enter his mind: +"Though I have been too honorably placed in front of those +who are to enter the breach so happily made, yet the energies of +every individual are necessary, and in the very place where his +energies can most serve the enterprise."<a name="FNanchor_406_406" id="FNanchor_406_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a></p> + +<p>The next day he wrote in the same vein to Aaron Burr to +congratulate him in no uncertain terms on his election as Vice +President, expressing his regrets that this distinction would +prevent him from availing himself of the services of Burr in the +Cabinet. He based his conclusion on the assurance he had +received that South Carolina would withdraw one vote from +Burr, that Smith of Tennessee would give its second vote to +Gallatin. It was also surmised that the vote of Georgia would +not be entire. This would leave Burr well ahead of Adams but +decidedly in the second place. Jefferson indicated that several +of the Federalists had expressed the hope that "the two Republican +tickets may be equal" and in that case they expected to +prevent a choice by the House and "let the Government devolve +on a President of the Senate." Then came a gently insinuating +sentence: "Decency required that I should be so entirely passive +during the late contest that I have never once asked whether +arrangements had been made to prevent so many from dropping +votes intentionally, as might frustrate half the Republican<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> +wish; nor did I doubt till lately that such had been made." +In the last paragraph, Jefferson, refusing even to consider that +Burr might aspire to the presidency, indicated that he considered +the matter as settled and firmly put Burr where he +belonged:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>While I must congratulate you, my dear Sir, on the issue of this +contest, because it is more honorable, and doubtless more grateful to +you than any station within the competence of the chief magistrate, +yet for myself, and for the substantial service of the public, I feel +most sensibly the loss we sustain of your aid in the new administration. +It leaves a chasm in my arrangements, which cannot be +adequately filled up.</p></div> + +<p>If we put things together, the letter of Jefferson certainly +meant first that the time had come to make some "arrangements" +to thwart the schemes of the Federalists; second, that a +tie was almost certain, and finally that it was up to Burr to +declare that he was not running for the presidency.</p> + +<p>This conclusion is all the more probable because three days +later, writing to John Breckenridge, Jefferson did not mention +again Georgia and Tennessee, but declared that "we are brought +into a dilemma by the probable equality of the two Republican +candidates." Then he added: "The Federalists in Congress +mean to take advantage of this, and either to prevent an election +altogether, or reverse what has been understood to have +been the wishes of the people, as to the President and Vice-President; +wishes which the Constitution did not permit them +specially to designate."<a name="FNanchor_407_407" id="FNanchor_407_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a> Nothing could be clearer; it was to +some extent the situation of 1796, but reversed as to the candidates, +and Jefferson expected that Burr would do the right +thing by him.</p> + +<p>This, however, was not so obvious to Burr himself. The +letter he sent in reply to Jefferson must have been most disappointing +in this respect. The colonel side-stepped the issue,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> +refused to come out frankly and did not write a single line that +could be constructed as an acceptance of Jefferson's point of +view. On December 31, Jefferson wrote to Tench Coxe to +express his opinion that an agreement between the two higher +candidates was their only hope "to prevent the dissolution of +the Government and a danger of anarchy, by an operation, +bungling indeed and imperfect, but better than letting the +Legislature take the nomination of the Executive entirely from +the people."<a name="FNanchor_408_408" id="FNanchor_408_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a></p> + +<p>This could have been construed as a hint to Burr to give up +his unavowed hopes of becoming President. But Burr, who was +in New York, could not easily be communicated with and kept +his sphinxlike silence. January passed without Jefferson's +finding any necessity of writing any political letters. With +Hugh Williamson he discussed the range of temperature in +Louisiana and whether the turkey was a native bird:<a name="FNanchor_409_409" id="FNanchor_409_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> with +William Dunbar the temperature, Indian vocabularies and the +origin of the rainbow.</p> + +<p>In February, however, he again wrote to Burr. He had +been informed that certain individuals were attempting "to +sow tares between us that might divide us and our friends." +He assured Burr that he had never written anything that could +be regarded as injurious by his running mate; the only time +that he had discussed his conduct was in a letter to Breckenridge +written on December 18, in which he had expressed the +conviction that the wishes of the people were that he and not +Burr be President. That was a pure statement of fact at which +no man could take offense. This time, Burr apparently did +not answer at all, and while the House was preparing for the +balloting, Jefferson discussed with Caspar Wistar the bones +found in the State of New York, "the vertebra, part of the jaw, +with two grinders, the tusks, which some have called the horns,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> +the sternum, the scapula, the tibia and fibula, the tarsus and +metatarsus, and even the phalanges and innominata."<a name="FNanchor_410_410" id="FNanchor_410_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a></p> + +<p>On the morning of the election and before going to the Capitol +he wrote to Tench Coxe: "Which of the two will be elected, +and whether either, I deem perfectly problematical: and my +mind has long been equally made up for either of the three +events." This was on a Wednesday. After the result of the +election had been officially announced, the House retired to +proceed to the election of the President. Ballots were taken, +Jefferson receiving eight States, Burr six, nine being necessary +to a choice. The House stayed in continuous session till eight +o'clock the next morning, taking twenty-seven ballots without +any change in the results; members of the House dozing between +ballots, snatching a bit of sleep whenever they could, +all of them admiring the fortitude of Joseph N. Nicholson who, +although sick in bed, had been brought to the House and rested +in a committee room, voting at each ballot. The House +adjourned until eleven o'clock on Friday and then took two +successive ballots without being able to break the deadlock. +On Saturday three ballots were taken without any change in the +alignment, and they adjourned until Monday. In the meantime +passions were raging. The Federalists had been told in no +equivocal terms that, should they attempt to have the Government +devolve to some member of the present administration, +"the day such an act would pass, the Middle States would +arm" and that "no such usurpation would be tolerated even +for a single day."</p> + +<p>On the other hand, Jefferson had been approached by the +more sensible heads of the Federalists, and apparently by +Gouverneur Morris, who stopped him as he was coming out +from the Senate Chamber, and had offered to influence one +member of Vermont, provided he would declare: "1. that he +would not turn all the Federalists out of office; 2. that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> +would not reduce the navy; and 3. would not wipe off the +public debt." To which Jefferson answered that he would +not become President by capitulation and would not make any +declaration. Then he went to see Adams, who seemed ready to +approve of the choice of Jefferson as President and who told him +that he could have himself elected by subscribing to conditions +analogous to those indicated by Morris. Finally he was visited +in his room by Dwight Foster, senator from Massachusetts, who +also reiterated the same offer. These are, undoubtedly, some +of the maneuvers he mentioned on Sunday, the day of rest, in +a letter he wrote to Monroe: "Many attempts have been made +to obtain terms and promises from me, I have declared to them +unequivocally, that I would not receive the government on +capitulation, that I would not go into it with my hands tied."<a name="FNanchor_411_411" id="FNanchor_411_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a></p> + +<p>On Sunday and Monday parleyings went on, caucuses were +held, and no change was yet apparent. But on Tuesday morning +an agreement was reached. It was described by Jefferson +himself as follows:</p> + +<p>"Morris of Vermont withdrew, which made Lyon's vote +that of his State. The Maryland Federalists put in four +blanks, which made the positive ticket of their colleagues the +vote of the State. South Carolina and Delaware put in six +blanks, so there were ten states for one candidate, four for +another, and two blanks." And the speaker of the House, +Theodore Sedgwick, one of Jefferson's bitterest enemies, was +forced to announce his election.</p> + +<p>The letter he wrote to Monroe the same day is not a pæan +of triumph. The long-disputed victory, the irreducibility of a +large portion of the Federalists, made him fearful lest the fight +would soon renew. Furthermore, Adams had at once started +making new appointments, naturally without consulting his +successor; Bayard was nominated plenipotentiary to the +French Republic, "Theophilus Parsons, Attorney General of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> +United States in the room of C. Lee, who, with Keith Taylor +<i>cum multis aliis</i> are appointed judges under the new system. +H. G. Otis is nominated a District Attorney."<a name="FNanchor_412_412" id="FNanchor_412_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a></p> + +<p>On his side, Jefferson wrote at once to Henry Dearborn to +offer him the Secretaryship of War in his Cabinet and courteously +communicated with Dexter, Secretary of the Treasury, +and Stoddart, Secretary of the Navy, to thank them for their +offer to conduct the affairs of their departments pending the +arrival of their successors. To a certain Major William Jackson +whom he did not know and who had written him to express +the fear that he would discriminate against commerce, he +answered that he "might appeal to evidences of his attention +to the commerce and navigation of our country in different +stations connected with them."</p> + +<p>This was an evident allusion to his mission to France and to +the activity he had displayed in defending the commercial +interests of the United States. He resented particularly the +fact that he had been represented as a friend to agriculture +and an enemy to commerce, "the only means of disposing of its +products."<a name="FNanchor_413_413" id="FNanchor_413_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> The true position of Jefferson on this matter +has already been pointed out in a preceding chapter; but the +fact that the letter was written the very day he was notified +of his election is proof enough that he already intended to conciliate +both the agricultural and the commercial interests of +the country. To the smoothing over of old differences of +opinion he bent all his efforts during the three weeks that separated +him from his inauguration. Bayard having refused his +appointment to France, he approached at once Robert R. +Livingston, intending to give the nomination to the Senate at +the first opportunity. At the same time he repeated that the +great body of the Federalist troops was discouraged and truly +repentant, or disposed to come back into the fold. Those who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> +were so inclined should be received with open arms for "If we +can once more get social intercourse restored to its pristine +harmony, I shall believe we have not lived in vain; and that it +may, by rallying them to true Republican principles, which few +of them had thrown off, I sanguinely hope."<a name="FNanchor_414_414" id="FNanchor_414_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a></p> + +<p>He resigned from the Chair of the Senate on the twenty-eighth, +and made the necessary preparations for the inauguration. +The ceremonies were to be very simple but dignified. +John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was asked +by Jefferson himself to administer the oath, and on March 4, +1801, the new President was inaugurated, while John Adams, +who had refused to welcome his successor, was starting on his +way to New England.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="BOOK_FIVE" id="BOOK_FIVE"></a>BOOK FIVE</h2> + +<h1><i>The Presidency</i></h1> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h2>"ALL REPUBLICANS, ALL FEDERALISTS"</h2> + + +<p>The battle over, Jefferson's first and only desire seems to +have been to bring about a reunion of the former political opponents. +He had hardly been elected when he declared that he +was not the choice of one party, but that the analysis of the last +ballot showed clearly that "the former federalists have found +themselves aggregated with us and that they are in a state of +mind to be aggregated with us."<a name="FNanchor_415_415" id="FNanchor_415_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a></p> + +<p>And this, much to the surprise and disappointment of the +militants who had fought the hard battle with him and for him, +was the keynote of his inaugural speech. Throwing overboard +his former defense of the French Revolution, he did not hesitate +to attribute the political storm which the ship had just weathered +to the baneful influence of European disturbances:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during +the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and +slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation +of the billows would reach even this distant and peaceful shore; +that this should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every +difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called +by different names brethren of the same principles.</p></div> + +<p>Then came the final and definitive formula: "We are all +republicans—we are all federalists."</p> + +<p>In more than one sense this was the most characteristic and +the most masterly of Jefferson's political utterances. The battle +of Capitol Hill was ended, the last streamers of smoke had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> +floated away and America had found herself: "a rising nation, +spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas +with the rich productions of her industry, engaged in commerce +with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly +to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eyes."</p> + +<p>This was not written simply for effect and for the public eye. +To Monroe, Jefferson had declared that the policy of the new +administration would not be a policy of reprisals. The victory +had been won partly through the repentance of former Federalists +who had seen their error, and during the awful suspense of +the week of the eleventh to the seventeenth of February, had +feared that the country would become a prey to anarchy. +These he welcomed back into the fold; the leaders, of course, +were irreconcilable, but the majority were to be forgiven, and +few removals from office were to be made on the ground of +political divergences of opinion. "Some, I know, must be made. +They must be as few as possible, done gradually, and bottomed +on some malversation or inherent disqualification."<a name="FNanchor_416_416" id="FNanchor_416_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a></p> + +<p>Of the thousands of Federal officers in the United States, the +President estimated that not twenty would have to be removed, +while in two or three instances, officers removed by Mr. Adams +for refusing to sign addresses were to be restored. Jefferson +realized that by so acting and "stopping thus short in the +career of removal" he would give offense to many of his friends, +and he added with some melancholy: "That torrent has been +pressing me heavily, and will require all my force to bear up +against; but my maxim is "fiat justitia, ruat cælum."<a name="FNanchor_417_417" id="FNanchor_417_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a></p> + +<p>All this sounds perfectly sincere and true. Even the most +superficial consideration of Jefferson's life would convince any +one that he was not a man of vindictive character. By nature a +pacifier and a harmonizer, nothing would have been farther from +his program than to revive the old fires and to prolong party<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> +strifes. But if it takes only one to declare war, it takes two to +make peace, and the defeated party was in no peaceful mood. +Hamilton was removed from the scene, and the form of government +was apparently definitively settled by the election of +Jefferson, but the Federalists had not given up every hope; they +were still strongly intrenched and the battle went on during all +of Jefferson's administration. It was not so spectacular as the +fight with Hamilton, for the chief protagonist, John Marshall, +lacked the dramatic qualities of the former leader of the Federalists; +but it was no less momentous and no less important for +the destinies of the United States.</p> + +<p>When it came to actual removals, however, difficulties arose +immediately. Whether in all cases Jefferson was rightly +advised or inspired is open to question. The wisdom of +appointing Samuel Bishop, a man of "sound understanding, +pure integrity and unstained character", as collector of New +Haven may be doubted, and there was something undeniably +worth considering in the protest of New Haven merchants, +that a man seventy-seven years old was unfit for such an office. +The incident in itself was paltry, but the letter written by +the President in answer to the protest put once again into light +that curious mixture of theoretical idealism and practical +political sense so remarkable in Jefferson. After all, the +Federalists had begun with filling every office with their +partisans and it was necessary to reëstablish a just balance, +even if some individuals had to suffer. If the rights of the +minority could not be ignored, the majority had its rights also +and could not submit to the monopoly claimed by the Federalists: +"Total exclusions," concluded the President, "call +for prompt corrections. I shall correct the procedure; but +that done, return with joy to that state of things, when only +questions concerning a candidate shall be, is he honest? Is +he capable? Is he faithful to the Constitution?"<a name="FNanchor_418_418" id="FNanchor_418_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> In other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> +words, Jefferson was not ready to proclaim the principle so +frankly avowed later "to the victor belong the spoils." His +principle was and remained absolutely different. But he +considered that he was confronted by a situation which had to +be remedied without any delay, and in his behavior he reminds +one in some way of the French publicist who, although theoretically +opposed to the death penalty, declared, "<i>Que messieurs +les assassins commencent</i>!" Certainly this is not the +pure and exalted morality of the political philosopher, but +neither is it the cynical attitude of the political "boss", and +one may wonder how many men who have occupied high +offices would stand better than Jefferson in this respect if +documents were available and could be subjected to the +same scrutiny.</p> + +<p>The fact remains, however, that during the battle from +which he had come out victorious, Jefferson had to employ and +sometimes associate with men whose character was not absolutely +spotless. The presence of Aaron Burr in the government +was already a thorn in his side. It was also particularly unfortunate +that he had given aid and assistance to Callender, whose +scurrilous attacks against Adams went far beyond a legitimate +discussion of public utterances and actions of a man at the head +of the government. Callender had been sentenced under the +Sedition Act to a term in jail and liberated by Jefferson with all +the other victims of the act when he took office. It was even +more unfortunate that the pamphlet of Callender, "The Prospect +Before Us", was reprinted under a modified title as the +"History of the Administration of John Adams" more than a +year after the new administration had taken hold of things. +It was also regrettable that the son of John Adams should +have been removed from office after the election. Soon after +the death of Jefferson's younger daughter, Mrs. Adams, who +had befriended the little girl when she arrived in London all +alone in 1787, wrote to the bereaved father to express her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> +sympathy. Jefferson took the opportunity to reassert his +personal friendship for John Adams. He could not help +mentioning, however, that one act of Adams' administration +he had to consider as personally unkind, his last appointment to +office of Jefferson's most ardent political enemies.<a name="FNanchor_419_419" id="FNanchor_419_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> This letter +called for an answer, and Mrs. Adams was not a woman to miss +an opportunity to express her husband's views and her own on +the removal of Federal judges and particularly of John Quincy. +Thus Jefferson was led to write a final letter in which he expressed +more clearly than he had done anywhere else his opinion +on the judiciary and on the place it should occupy in the general +scheme of government. To understand this letter fully +it is necessary to go back to the beginnings of Jefferson's +administration.</p> + +<p>The original draft of Jefferson's message to Congress, +December 8, 1801, contained a paragraph which, after more +mature reflection, the President decided to omit "as capable +of being chicaned, and furnishing something to the opposition +to make a handle of."<a name="FNanchor_420_420" id="FNanchor_420_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> In it Jefferson held the theory +that the three powers existing in any government had been +distributed among three equal authorities, constituting each +a check on one or both the others. The President asserted +that each of these three branches of the government had a +right "to decide on the validity of an act according to its +own judgment and uncontrouled by the opinions of any other +department." According to this theory, even if opposition +developed among different departments, no permanent ill +could ensue, since at the next election the people were at +liberty to refuse to reëlect those whose interpretation seemed +erroneous.</p> + +<p>Jefferson's disapproval of the Sedition Act had been known +for a long time; he had a right to assume that his election meant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> +that the people approved of his position and to make this +declaration:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>On mature deliberation, in the presence of the nation, and under +the tie of the solemn oath which binds me to them and to my duty, +I do declare that I hold that act in palpable and unqualified contradiction +to the constitution, considering it then as a nullity, I have +relieved from oppression under it those of my fellow citizens who +were within the reach of the functions confided to me.</p></div> + +<p>In its final form the message was far less provocative. It +simply contained the statement that "the judiciary system ... and +especially that portion of it recently enacted, will, of course, +present itself to the contemplation of Congress." But the +Federalists and particularly Marshall were not placated by this +apparent moderation; they knew that the assault against the +judiciary was about to begin. The debate between Federalists +and Republicans had already been transferred to another +ground.</p> + +<p>No better account of it can be found than the chapters +written on the subject by Albert J. Beveridge in his "Life of +Marshall." It must be remembered, however, that Beveridge's +account was necessarily colored by his own political views, as +were the views of most historians of the subject.<a name="FNanchor_421_421" id="FNanchor_421_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a> One of the +first episodes of the battle was the repeal of the Judiciary Act +passed in 1801 by the Federalists, in order to reorganize the +Supreme Court and to increase the number of Federal judges. +This was immediately followed by the impeachment of Judge +Pickering, the deposition of Judge Addison by the Senate of +Pennsylvania, and the famous decision given by Marshall on +"Marbury versus Madison." These incidents were of unequal +importance and significance. It was recognized by Pickering's +friends and family that the judge was half-demented and for +several years had been unable to fulfill his duties. But since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> +the Act of 1801 had been repealed, no one seemed to have +authority at the time to remove the judge from office. The +Pickering case simply provided the Republicans with an opportunity +to test out their favorite contention, that impeachment +was unrestricted and could be enforced against any officer of +the government deemed undesirable by two thirds of the +Senate.</p> + +<p>Of far greater importance was the decision of Marshall in +"Marbury versus Madison." The senior member of the +Supreme Court formulated on this occasion a doctrine on the +powers of the Court which, although never written in the Constitution, +was to obtain final recognition and which to this day +had remained one of the many unwritten laws of the land. +Another most curious situation this, so disconcerting to historians +and observers trained in the principles of Roman law, +but often recurring in American politics and administrative life. +The case itself was of no importance. Marbury was one of the +"midnight judges" whose commission, signed by Adams, had +been withheld by Madison, on the theory that the powers of the +former President to make appointments had really expired, +not on the third of March, 1801, at midnight, but on the day his +successor was elected. It was maintained by the administration +that the commission not having been delivered Marbury +had no right to take office and to sit on the bench. Marbury +had appealed to the Supreme Court, but the sessions of the +Court being suspended for fourteen months by Congress, +Marshall had at first no opportunity to declare himself publicly +on the matter.</p> + +<p>When he finally passed on the case, the Chief Justice saw at +once that his hour had come, and gave his definition of the +powers of the Court in its relation to the executive and the +legislative. Curiously enough, as Beveridge remarked, the +matter had never before come up and would have remained +undecided for a long time, if this particular juncture had not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> +made it a question of paramount importance for the destinies +of the country. Briefly summed up, the theory of Marshall, +shorn of its legal phraseology, was this: The happiness of the +American people rested on certain principles embodied in the +Constitution. These principles could not be altered by legislation; +if, however, the legislative passed a law evidently contrary +to the Constitution, there must be for the individual some +recourse, some means of asserting his rights. In cases where +Congress adopts laws contrary to the Constitution, these laws +must be void. On this principle Jefferson and Marshall were +in complete agreement. But from that point on they differed +widely. The next question was to determine where does the +power rest to declare a law unconstitutional? With the Executive +and even with the States, Jefferson had first declared in his +draft of 1801. With the Supreme Court, answered Marshall; +for this is essentially a judicial function. Under this construction, +the Constitution remains the supreme law of the land, but +it is within the powers attributed by the Constitution to the +judiciary, for the Supreme Court to decide on the constitutionality +of an act passed by the legislature. Thus the Court +is not placed above the Constitution, but its judges stand as +the keepers and interpreters of the superior law of the country.</p> + +<p>Jefferson did not engage directly in a controversy with +Marshall and held his peace. But, as he was wont, he seized +another opportunity to express his views on the subject, and he +did it in his letter written to Mrs. Adams on September 11, 1804. +In this, he maintained that "nothing in the Constitution has +given the judges a right to decide for the Executive, more than +to the Executive to decide for them. Both magistrates are +equally independent in the sphere of action assigned to them." +Judges believing a law to be constitutional have a right to pass +sentences. But "the Executive believing the law to be unconstitutional +were bound to remit the execution of it; because +that power has been confided to them by the Constitution."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> +What he did not say on this occasion, but repeated on many +others, was that, the ultimate source of authority resting in the +people, it was for the people to decide at the next election in +case a conflict of interpretation should arise between any of +the three branches of the government. In case of a conflict +between the judiciary and the legislative, however, impeachment +proceedings could be initiated and judges removed in a +regular and, according to him, perfectly constitutional way.</p> + +<p>It must be recognized here that the position taken by +Jefferson was perfectly logical, far more logical than the interpretation +given out by Marshall. Whether Jefferson's theory +would have worked out satisfactorily is quite another matter. +It is only too evident that perfectly logical constructions do not +always fit the complexity and contradictions of human affairs. +The system of democracy which was Jefferson's ideal at that +time might have worked in the case of a New England town +meeting; it would have been more difficult to apply to the +government of a State. In the case of a large and growing +federation of States, it would have injected into presidential +and congressional elections constant elements of discord and +bitterness. Thus the cost of liberty would not have been +eternal vigilance, but eternal strife and political dissensions.</p> + +<p>It may even be doubted whether Jefferson would ever have +entertained such an extreme theory if at that time he had not +been moved by immediate considerations. He had come to +see in the judiciary, as it was constituted after the appointments +made by Adams, an institution endangering the very life of the +Republic. As for Marshall, who had hurled a challenge at +the executive and the legislative branches of the government, +it had to be ascertained whether some means could not be found +to remove him from office.</p> + +<p>That such was the ultimate intent of the Republican leaders +was understood generally when proceedings were started to +impeach Judge Chase of the Supreme Court. As in the case of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> +Pickering, the Republicans had carefully selected the card they +intended to play. Was he not the very man who had sentenced +Fries to the gallows and Callender to jail, who had been relentless +in his application of the Sedition Act and in the prosecution +of Republicans? He had finally, and this was the immediate +ground for his impeachment, bitterly criticized from the bench +the repeal of the Federal judiciary act, and predicted that the +country would be enslaved by mob tyranny and that soon +"they would all establish the worst kind of government known +to man."</p> + +<p>The impeachment proceedings took place in the Senate room +elaborately decorated for the occasion with a display of crimson, +green, and blue cloth draping the rows of benches and the sections +reserved for the heads of departments, foreign ministers, +members of the House, and the general public. The Senate convened +to hear the case on February 4, 1805, and for almost a +month all other business was practically suspended. But it +was far more than the fate of a single judge which was going +to be decided. On the decision of the Senate hung not only the +future of the Constitution but probably the fate of the Union. +For New England had already on several occasions threatened +secession; the North resented what was already termed "Virginia +tyranny", and it was to be feared that these feelings of +disaffection might be strengthened. It was also the most +exciting ceremony the new capital had yet witnessed, and the +formalities of the proceedings, the effort to clothe them with +dignity and solemnity, presented a strange contrast with the +uncouth appearance of the city itself, with its ramshackle boarding +houses, its muddy streets, and surrounding wilderness.</p> + +<p>The debates provided a rare occasion for an extraordinary +display of American eloquence. This is not one of the least +surprises to a student of American civilization, to discover the +taste of the people as a whole for oratory and the remarkable +gift of American orators for long speeches, even in the early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> +days. Scarcely less surprising was the capacity of American +audiences to listen patiently for long hours and with apparent +interest to discussions and debates. It seems as if the gift +attributed by Cæsar to the Gauls of old had been transferred to +the new continent and to a people racially much different. +Oratory was to a certain extent a new art, for few occasions +were offered in the colonial times for long political speeches; +but even in the early days of the Revolution, born orators +appeared and since that time have filled the legislative halls +with an inexhaustible flow of eloquence. This is said without +the least irony and merely as another illustration of the danger +of generalizing when discussing national characteristics. To +the point these speeches were, perhaps, but they were not short +by any means. A careful study of the development of the +American school of oratory would certainly repay a specialist in +the history of public speaking.</p> + +<p>During the session, the oratorical stars were Luther Martin +of Maryland, who spoke for Chase, and John Randolph, who +summed up the case for the administration. It appeared, +however, when the final vote was taken, that Jefferson had not +been able to keep his party in hand. There were thirty-four +senators, of whom nine were Federalists and twenty-five Republicans. +Twenty-two votes were necessary to convict, but the +administration was able to muster only sixteen for impeachment, +and on one count Chase was proved unanimously "not +guilty." For the time being John Marshall was safe, and the +acquittal of Chase was undoubtedly a personal defeat for the +President.</p> + +<p>This wound to his <i>amour-propre</i> was compensated by the +success of the last election. Jefferson had been reëlected without +opposition; the strength of the Federalists as a separate +party had dwindled to the vanishing point, and only three days +separated him from the beginning of his second term. But +everybody understood that the matter at issue had not been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> +settled and that another test would have to be made. The very +day Chase was acquitted, John Randolph introduced a resolution +proposing an amendment to the Constitution, to the +effect that "The judges of the Supreme Court, and of all other +courts of the United States, shall be removed by the President +on the joint addresses of both Houses of Congress requesting the +same, anything in the Constitution of the United States notwithstanding." +This was referred to a committee and, as +Congress had only three more days to sit, it was decided by +sixty-eight votes against thirty-three that the motion would +be made the order of the day for the first Monday in December.</p> + +<p>The assault against the judiciary constitutes one of the most +striking episodes of Jefferson's first administration and has +received its due share at the hands of American historians. It +must not be forgotten, however, that even in other respects the +President had no easy sailing. The friend of Priestley, Thomas +Cooper, Volney, and Thomas Paine continued to be represented +in the press and in the public as the champion of infidelity. +The President could not engage in any controversy in order to +justify himself but, according to his favorite methods, he +encouraged his friends to hit back, and he became more and +more convinced that the intrusion of the churches into politics +was one of the worst evils that could befall any country. He +soon came to the conclusion that many members of the clergy +were unworthy to speak in the name of the great teacher; that +the Christian doctrine had degenerated in their hands, and that +no true religion could long exist when it was intrusted to the +priests. Hence the many expressions of his preference for the +Quakers so often found in his correspondence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The mild and simple principles of the Christian philosophy would +produce too much calm; too much regularity of good, to extract from +its disciples a support from a numerous priesthood, were they not to +sophisticate it, split it into hairs, and twist its texts till they cover +the divine morality of its author with mysteries, and require the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> +priesthood to explain them. The Quakers seem to have discovered +this. They have no priests, therefore no schisms. They judge of +the text by the dictates of common sense and common morality.<a name="FNanchor_422_422" id="FNanchor_422_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a></p></div> + +<p>The indignation of the Federalists and the clergy reached a +paroxysm when it was discovered that the President had not +only invited Paine to come to America but had even promised +him passage on a public vessel. For Paine was no longer +remembered as the eloquent political writer who in prophetic +accents had celebrated the uniqueness of America's position in +the world. He was the detestable atheist who had participated +in the bloody excesses of the French Revolution—a wretch +unworthy of being thus honored by a Christian nation. Once +more religion was injected into politics. The President was +bitterly reproved by the New England clergy for having refused +to proclaim days of fasting and thanksgivings as his predecessors +had done, and Jefferson, who would have preferred +to let sleeping dogs lie, had to come out and explain his position +on an alliance between "Church and State, under the +authority of the Constitution."<a name="FNanchor_423_423" id="FNanchor_423_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a></p> + +<p>That Jefferson, who was so restive under public criticism, +suffered even more than he dared admit appears in many +passages of his letters. "Every word of mine," he wrote to +Mazzei, "which they can get hold of, however innocent, however +orthodox, is twisted, tormented, perverted, and like the +words of holy writ, are made to mean everything but what they +were intended to mean."<a name="FNanchor_424_424" id="FNanchor_424_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a> The whole subject is not an easy +one to treat and cannot be discussed here; but it would be +very difficult to reach a fair estimate of internal politics during +Jefferson's first administration if that element of hostility were +entirely left out. We can only express the hope that some day +it will receive due attention. An investigation of the New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> +England papers and Church publications of the time would +undoubtedly bring to light many hidden currents of hostility.</p> + +<p>But, in spite of these difficulties, the new administration went +ahead with a program of political reforms of great moment. No +tradition for the respective duties of the Cabinet members and +their relation to the President had yet been established. Under +Washington's administration letters sent to the President were +referred by him to the departments concerned to be acted upon, +and letters sent to the department heads were submitted to the +President with a proposed answer. Generally they were sent +back with his approbation; sometimes an alteration was suggested, +and when the subject was particularly important it was +reserved for a conference. In this manner Washington always +was in accurate possession of all facts and proceedings in all +parts of the Union. This procedure had been impossible to follow +during Adams' administration, owing to the long and habitual +absences of the President from the seat of government, +and little by little the department heads had assumed more +and more responsibility, with the result that the government +had four different heads "drawing sometimes in different directions." +This usurpation of powers and this maladministration +Jefferson meant to end. In a very courteous, but very firm +manner, he reminded the members of the Cabinet that the +President had been intrusted with a certain set of duties incumbent +upon him and for which he was responsible before +the public, and that he considered it necessary to return to +the procedure followed by Washington. What had been an +informal custom was to become a regular and official routine; +it entailed an enormous expenditure of time on the part of the +President, a great flexibility of mind, and a necessity of adapting +himself to many different problems in the course of one day. +To a large extent, Jefferson is responsible for placing on the +shoulders of the chief executive the enormous load under which +several Presidents have broken down.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p> + +<p>This was not the most conspicuous reform introduced by +Jefferson in the plan of government, yet it was one of the most +important. Of no less consequence was the reform of the +financial system of the United States. The privilege of the +bank had still several years to run, but many other modifications +could be introduced at once. Hamilton had multiplied +the number of internal taxes and at the same time the number +of Federal office-holders in order to strengthen his hold on the +government. These had to be done away with, as well as the +abominable excise taxes which had created so many difficulties +under the preceding administrations. They were at best a +temporary expedient, to be resorted to only in case of war, and +the Federal Government had to make an effort to return to the +more orthodox system of bringing its expenditures within the +limits of revenue raised by taxes on importations. This was +perfectly consistent with Jefferson's theory of the State rights +and the general functions of the Federal Government. To substitute +economy for taxation, to reduce the debt as rapidly as +possible, to keep down the expenses for the navy and the army,—such +was the policy of the new administration, and in his +second annual message on December 15, 1802, Jefferson could +point out with pleasure that "in the department of finance the +receipts of external duties for the last twelve months have +exceeded those of any former year." To care for the Louisiana +Purchase, Gallatin recommended a loan of $11,250,000, running +for fifteen years and carrying a six per cent. interest. But in his +fourth message the President declared that "the state of our +finances continues to fulfill our expectations. Eleven million +and a half dollars received in the course of the year ending on +the thirtieth of September last, have enabled us, after meeting +all the ordinary expenses of the year, to pay upward of +$3,600,000 of the public debt, exclusive of interest." Thus it +was amply demonstrated that the financial structure of the Federal +Government had not been endangered by a departure from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> +Hamilton's policies. It is worth noting also that Jefferson's +party, at that time, stood for a strong tariff, while the last +Federalists advocated internal taxes. In that respect, at least, +it is hardly possible to say that the present-day Democrats continue +the Jeffersonian policies.</p> + +<p>This system, however, presented many advantages in the +eyes of Jefferson. In his first message he had made one of those +many declarations, so often found in official documents of the +sort, by which men in public life are wont to define their policies +in almost sibylline terms, so as to express their own aspirations +and satisfy the members of their party without arousing undue +antagonism in an influential minority. "Agriculture," he had +written, "manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four +pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most +free to individual enterprise." But at once he had added: +"Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may sometimes +be reasonably interposed. If in the course of your +observations or inquiries they should appear to need any aid +within the limits of our constitutional powers, your sense of their +importance is a sufficient assurance they will occupy your attention." +This second statement could only mean one thing, that +the President was not ready to depart entirely and radically from +Hamilton's policy of giving encouragement to manufactures. +But there is no doubt that in his opinion America was to +remain essentially an agricultural nation. He still had before +him the vision of a large country in which every citizen would +live on his own land and from this land derive most of his subsistence +instead of congregating in large cities. It was a +Vergilian vision magnified a million times; it was based also +to a large extent on his own experience at Monticello where he +had proved that it was possible to manufacture tools, to bake +bricks, to make furniture, and to maintain a comparatively +large family on the products of the soil. He was not ready to +antagonize openly those who dreamed of another future for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> +America, and he did not believe that he had a right to do so, +since his duty was to carry out the wishes of the people.</p> + +<p>Jefferson was not the man to take the lead in these matters, +but he was not the man either to oppose any measure to encourage +manufactures and commerce that Congress would deem +proper to adopt. On this point he had not varied since the +letter he had written from Paris to Hogendorp. His preference +for "an agricultural condition" remained largely theoretical, +sentimental, and personal. He may be considered as the +leader of an agrarian party, he may have felt in sympathy with +the French Physiocrats, but when it came to practice he acted +very much like Du Pont de Nemours himself who, in spite of +his theories, spent all he had to establish a tannery and a +powder mill near Wilmington, and at the end of his days proposed +to the American Government a "Plan for the Encouragement +of Manufactures in America." If it is true that during +Jefferson's administration industrial and agricultural interests +clashed for the first time in America, I fail to see that the +President made any effort to favor agriculture at the expense of +industry.</p> + +<p>When the end of his first term approached, Jefferson did not +need any coercion to remain in the saddle for another period +of four years. It had already been decided that Aaron Burr +would not and could not again be a candidate, and George +Clinton was chosen as running mate of Jefferson. Never in the +history of the United States was an election so little contested: +Jefferson obtained one hundred sixty-two electoral votes while +his opponent could only muster fourteen. The Republican +Party had really become the National party and the President +had been able to achieve political unity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h2>PROTECTIVE IMPERIALISM AND TERRITORIAL +EXPANSION</h2> + + +<p>The famous Inaugural Message of Jefferson gave more +space to questions of domestic politics than to foreign problems, +but it contained a clear definition of America's attitude towards +Europe—a short and terse statement in which the President +reiterated the principles which had guided him when Secretary +of State. These were the same principles that underlay the +foreign policies of the United States from the early days of the +Revolution. They had already appeared in the Plan of Treaties +drawn up by Adams in 1776; they had been solemnly proclaimed +by Washington in his Farewell Address; and they still +direct to a large extent America's attitude in her dealings with +foreign nations on the American continent as well as abroad.</p> + +<p>These principles were presented by Jefferson as being essentially +the result of natural conditions for which the Americans +themselves were not responsible: "Kindly separated by nature +and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter +of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of +others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for +our descendants to the hundredth and thousandth generation", +there was only one course for the American people to follow: +"commerce and honest friendship with all nations—entangling +alliances with none."</p> + +<p>Thanks to the Republican victory, America no longer had to +pay any attention to the political convulsions which were tearing +the vitals of the Old World. The American experiment no +longer depended on the issue of the French Revolution. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> +Argosy had weathered the storm; America had become the +sole arbiter of her destinies, she had become, Jefferson proclaimed, +"a standing monument and example for the aim and +imitation of the people of other countries; and I join with you +in the hope and belief that they will see, from our example, that +a free government is of all others the most energetic; that the +inquiry which has been excited among the mass of mankind +by our revolution and its consequences, will ameliorate the +condition of man over a great portion of the globe."</p> + +<p>Such a declaration should not be mistaken for a manifestation +of a missionary spirit by which Jefferson was never moved and +which was absolutely abhorrent to his nature. America was +not to engage in any crusade. She was not to preach a new +gospel of liberty to the oppressed peoples of the earth. She +had proclaimed no <i>Déclaration européenne des droits de l'homme +et du citoyen</i>, as the French Revolution had ambitiously done. +She was not sending overseas to the shackled nations a call to +throw off the yoke and liberate themselves. Such declarations +would have seemed to Jefferson idle and dangerous. Every +people had to work out their own salvation; any attempt by +America to help and encourage them would only embroil her in +difficulties which would retard her own development. She +could best serve the cause of humanity by standing aloof and +simply existing as an example which others, if they had eyes to +see, could not fail sooner or later to imitate. It was essentially +the doctrine which has been so often expounded by the non-interventionists +every time America has been invited to coöperate +with Europe.</p> + +<p>This doctrine therefore was not the expression of a passing +mood; it constituted one of the fundamental principles of +Americanism and had a permanent value, because, as Montesquieu +would have said, it was the result of "the nature of +things", and not a deduction drawn from an <i>a priori</i> principle. +On the other hand, it contained a new and interesting affirma<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>tion +of the unquestionable superiority of the American people +over all the peoples of the earth, not only morally but intellectually; +and this was not forgotten either, for the "high-mindedness" +of Jefferson was echoed and reflected more than a hundred +years later in the "too proud to fight" of Woodrow Wilson. +Taken in itself, this statement was no worse than so many statements +made in political speeches; all peoples like to be told and +to believe that they are a chosen people. But it must be confessed +that Jefferson drew very dangerous conclusions from that +uniqueness of America's position.</p> + +<p>One of the earliest and frankest expressions of that naïve and +almost unconscious imperialism appears in an unpublished letter +to Doctor Mitchell. After discussing every possible subject +under heaven, from frosts to mammoth bones and electricity, +Jefferson concluded with this disquieting statement: "Nor +is it in physics alone that we shall be found to differ from the +other hemisphere. I strongly suspect that our geographical +peculiarities may call for a different code of natural law to +govern relations with other nations from that which the conditions +of Europe have given rise to there."<a name="FNanchor_425_425" id="FNanchor_425_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a></p> + +<p>This idea was reiterated in a letter written to Short more +than a year later. In it Jefferson laid down the principle, the +moral foundation of American imperialism—a curious mixture +of common sense, practical idealism, and moralizing not to be +found perhaps in any other people, but more permanently +American than typically Jeffersonian. To any sort of arrangement +with Europe he was irreducibly opposed: "We have a +perfect horror at everything connecting ourselves with the +politics of Europe." In order to protect America from the +wiles of the European diplomats, the best course was "in the +meantime, to wish to let every treaty we have drop off without +renewal. We call in our diplomatic missions, barely keeping +up those to the most important nations. There is a strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> +disposition in our countrymen to discontinue even these; and +very possibly it may be done." Jefferson admitted that the +neutral rights of the United States might suffer; they would +undoubtedly suffer temporarily, and one had to accept this as +an unavoidable evil. But it would be only temporary: "We +feel ourselves strong and daily growing stronger ... If we can +delay but for a few years the necessity of vindicating the laws +of nature on the ocean, we shall be the more sure of doing it +with effect. The day is within my time as well as yours; when +we may say by what laws other nations shall treat us on the sea. +And we will say it."<a name="FNanchor_426_426" id="FNanchor_426_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a></p> + +<p>Nor was this imperialism purely theoretical. It was susceptible +of immediate applications and it manifested itself openly +in a letter written to James Monroe a few weeks later. The +people of Virginia were most anxious to get rid of a band of malefactors +guilty of insurgency, conspiracy, and rebellion. Had +they been whites, the solution would have been easy enough, but +it happened that they were colored people and they could not +reasonably be sent to the northern boundary, or be provided +with land in the Western Territory. Could these undesirables +be pushed into the Spanish sphere of influence? To this +solution Jefferson was unequivocally opposed and for reasons +worth considering: "However our present situation may +restrain us within our own limits," he wrote to Monroe, "it +is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our +rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits, and +cover the whole northern, if not the southern continent, with a +people speaking the same language, governed in similar forms, +and by similar laws; nor can we contemplate either blot or +mixture on that surface."<a name="FNanchor_427_427" id="FNanchor_427_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a></p> + +<p>Truly enough, Jefferson said at the beginning of the letter +that publication of his views might have an ill effect in more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> +than one quarter. I shall not even advance the theory that +Jefferson's foreign policies constituted a systematic effort to +put such a program into effect. But that such aspirations and +ambitions existed in his mind and influenced him to a certain +extent cannot be denied, and they should not be overlooked in +any discussion of his attitude during the negotiations that led +to the purchase of Louisiana.</p> + +<p>Many of Jefferson's contemporaries, and not a few American +historians, have harshly criticized him for buying Louisiana +from France, when no clause in the Constitution authorized +the acquisition of new territory. On the French side, not only +historians but even Bonaparte's brother considered that the +cession, without the previous consultation of the Chambers, of +a colony recently recovered by France was an act arbitrary and +unconstitutional. Both principals have been condemned and +praised by posterity, but there is no doubt that the full responsibility +for the transaction rests not upon the peoples of France +and America, but on the President of the United States and the +Premier Consul. It was remarkable that two great minds, so +divergent in their views and principles, should meet on a common +ground instead of clashing. On neither side was it a +triumph of idealism, but of that enlightened self-interest which, +according to Jefferson, directs the actions of men as well as of +nations.</p> + +<p>Nor were they entirely unsupported by the public opinion of +their respective countries. I have already indicated in a preceding +book<a name="FNanchor_428_428" id="FNanchor_428_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> that a friendly conspiracy seems to have been +organized in France in order to induce the First Consul, and +chiefly Talleyrand, to acquiesce in the cession. At any rate, it +appears from several letters of Volney that the Ideologists were +anxious to avoid an open conflict with the United States and, +at the same time, to promote a measure which, in their opinion, +would insure the growth and prosperity of the Republican<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> +Promised Land. Volney, himself one of the "<i>voyageurs</i>" of +the Directory, had made a trip to the West and come back fully +convinced that France could never hope to develop an empire +in the Mississippi Valley. The few scattered French colonists +who remained isolated in the Middle West were condemned to +be gradually absorbed by the influx of American pioneers and +to disappear before the rising flood of American colonization. +The question of the lower valley of the Mississippi was different, +to be sure, but if the United States were thwarted in their +development, if they were hemmed in on every side by powerful +neighbors, the theory of Montesquieu that only small nations +could adopt the republican system of government would +seem vindicated. It was not only the fate of the United States +which was at stake, but the fate of the doctrine of popular +government, and it was the duty of all liberals to bend every +effort to make more secure the prosperity of America.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, as we have already seen in previous +chapters, while Jefferson was satisfied to leave Louisiana in the +hands of Spain, at least temporarily, he had always watched for +a favorable opportunity to unite the Spanish colonies to the +main body of the United States. It was not so much desire of +expansion and imperialism as the conviction that colonies were +only pawns in the game of European politics; that they could +change hands at any time according to the fortunes of war; that +there existed consequently a permanent danger of seeing France +recover some day her former colonies or, still worse, to have +them fall into the hands of the British. With England, or +possibly France, on the northern border, in the Floridas, on +the Gulf, and in the valley of the Mississippi, the old dream +of European domination of the North American continent +would revive. The United States would be placed in the +same position as the old colonies with reference to France. +A clash could not be avoided; the issue would have to be +fought out, until one of the adversaries should remain in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> +full and undisputed possession of the whole northern part of the +New World.</p> + +<p>Although the Treaty of San Ildefonso, by which France was +to recover and occupy Louisiana at the first favorable opportunity, +was intended to remain secret, rumors that some deal +had been concluded greatly disturbed the American Government. +As early as March, 1801, Rufus King had been informed +in London that such a cession was contemplated and learned +that General Collot intended to leave for Louisiana with a +considerable number of followers. On June 1, King called his +Government's attention to the fact that the cession of Louisiana +"might enable France to extend her influence, and perhaps her +dominion, up the Mississippi; and through the Lakes even up +to Canada." The information caused great concern to the +British Government, and Lord Hawkesbury had acquainted +the American minister with the rumors. At that time, King, +who was evidently familiar with the views of Jefferson on the +matter, had answered by quoting Montesquieu that "it is +happy for trading powers, that God has permitted Turks and +Spaniards to be in the world, since of all nations they are the +most proper to possess a great empire with insignificance." +The purport of this quotation being, he wrote, that, "we are +contented that the Floridas remain in the hands of Spain, but +should not be willing to see them transferred, except to ourselves." +It was a double-edged answer, since it set at nil any +hope the British might have had of occupying Louisiana and +the Floridas; and at the same time it constituted a very +accurate statement of the position maintained by Jefferson +when Secretary of State in all his dealings pertaining to the +Spanish colonies.</p> + +<p>This policy was clearly defined in the general observations +communicated by the President to Charles Pinckney, minister +in Madrid (June 9, 1801) and in the instructions given to +Livingston, hastening his departure for France (September 28,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> +1801). Jefferson did not know yet what part of the Spanish +colonies was to be ceded to France and was more preoccupied +with the eventuality of the cession of the Floridas. The solution +preferred for the present was clearly the <i>status quo</i>. Should +the cession have irrevocably taken place, the rights to the +navigation of the Mississippi were to be safeguarded, and if +possible France should be induced "to make over to the United +States the Floridas, if included in the cession to her from Spain, +or at least West Florida, through which several of our rivers +(particularly the important river Mobile) empty themselves +into the sea." Finally, if the cession had never been contemplated, +Livingston was instructed to induce France "to +favor experiments on the part of the United States, for obtaining +from Spain the cession in view."</p> + +<p>The die was cast; for the first time the United States took +the position that the time had come for them to control the +territory extending between their States and the Gulf of Mexico, +and to insure the peaceful and unquestioned rights of navigation +on the Mississippi. From the point of view of international +law or <i>droit des gens</i>, Madison reiterated the doctrine of +Jefferson, that it was a natural law that the States should have +access to the sea; and in this particular instance he hinted at +another principle—the application of which to the old territories +of Europe would be far-reaching—namely that the +nation possessing a certain river was entitled also to the mouth +of the river. But this again was probably in his opinion one of +these "natural laws" which applied to America only. At the +end of November, Rufus King sent to Madison a copy of the +treaty between the Prince of Parma and Lucien Bonaparte, +signed at Madrid, March 31, 1801, and in December he had +the opportunity of mentioning the possibility of France paying +her debts by ceding Louisiana back to the United States, which +only brought the curt answer that "none but spendthrifts +satisfy their debts by selling their lands."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span></p> + +<p>Livingston, in a letter to Rufus King, took the view that the +cession would be disastrous not only to the United States but +to Spain and England, since the French would not fail to contract +alliance with the Indians and to renew relations with "the +peasantry of Canada", rendering the possessions of Britain +very precarious. He could only hope that King would do his +utmost to "induce the British ministry to throw all the obstacles +in their power in the way of a final settlement of this business, +if it is not already too late."</p> + +<p>The British ministry refused to take the hint. Unwelcome +as the passing of Louisiana into French hands might be considered +they were not disposed to endanger the success of the +negotiations shortly to be begun at Amiens, and Rufus King +was told that the subject would not even be mentioned by +Lord Hawkesbury.<a name="FNanchor_429_429" id="FNanchor_429_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a> Evidently England never intended to +draw the chestnuts out of the fire for the sole benefit of the +United States, and Livingston alone was left to face the situation. +The letter he wrote on his own initiative, unable as he +was to consult the home government, was somewhat blunt in +tone. He called attention to the fact that the arrival in Louisiana +or Florida of a large body of French troops could not fail +to alarm the people of the Western Territory. He conceded +that no protest could be made under the sixth article of the +Treaty of 1778, since it had been superseded by the agreement +of September 30, 1800; but he maintained that even in the +absence of a formal treaty the clause expressed a very desirable +policy, that at least the United States wished to know exactly +the boundaries of the territory ceded by Spain. At the same +time, he discreetly added that "the government of the United +States desired to be informed how far it would be practicable +to make such arrangements between their respective governments +as would, at the same time, aid the financial operations +of France, and remove, by a strong and natural boundary,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> +all future causes of discontent between her and the United +States."</p> + +<p>These different reports, and particularly Livingston's letter +to King, of December 30, created some perturbation in the +mind of Jefferson, and on March 16, Madison wrote the American +minister in Paris "that too much circumspection could not +be employed." The great danger was that any sort of a combination +with Great Britain would have to be paid later in kind +or in territory. While Madison sent recommendations to +Pinckney and to Livingston, the clear wish of Jefferson was to +keep out England as much as possible. It was at that time that +the President decided to take a hand directly in the negotiations. +At the beginning of April, 1802, Du Pont de Nemours +had written Jefferson that political as well as commercial considerations +made it imperative for him to go to France for a +short visit. Jefferson saw at once a possibility to use Du Pont +as in the past he had employed Lafayette, and asked him to +come to Washington to become acquainted "with certain +matters that could not be committed to paper."<a name="FNanchor_430_430" id="FNanchor_430_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a></p> + +<p>Very significantly he added: "I believe that the destinies of +great countries depend upon it, such is the crisis now existing." +As Du Pont answered that he could not possibly see the President +before sailing, Jefferson decided to explain his point of view +fully in a long letter and at the same time he expressed himself +even more forcibly in a letter to Livingston which he asked Du +Pont to read before sealing it.</p> + +<p>The two letters complete and explain each other. First of +all, Jefferson rejected as a very imperfect solution the granting +free access to the sea to the territories situated on the left bank +of the Mississippi. He bluntly declared that although America +had a more natural and instinctive friendship for France than +for any other nation, it was quite certain that the national +characteristics of the two peoples were so divergent that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> +could not live peacefully side by side for any length of time. +Even the cession by France of the Floridas and New Orleans +would be only a palliative which might delay but not suppress +the unavoidable conflict.<a name="FNanchor_431_431" id="FNanchor_431_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> The only solution was for France +to give up entirely the rights she had acquired under the Treaty +of San Ildefonso and to return to the <i>status quo</i>. Any attempt +by Bonaparte to send soldiers to Louisiana would be considered +as a <i>casus belli</i>, and the President wrote significantly: "Peace +and abstinence from European interference are our objects, and +so will continue while the present order of things in America +remains uninterrupted." If, on the other hand, France insisted +upon taking possession of Louisiana, it was the declared intention +of Jefferson to come to an agreement with England, then to +launch an expedition against New Orleans, to occupy the +territory claimed by France, so as to prevent any new European +nation from setting foot on the continent. That this policy +of non-colonization should apply to South America as well as +to the northern continent was evidently in the mind of the +President, since he declared that after the annihilation of the +French fleet, two nations—America and Great Britain—would +rule the sea, and the two continents would be practically +"appropriated by them."</p> + +<p>The threat was so formidable that Du Pont refused to believe +that it was seriously meant. He saw at once that if such +representations were made to the First Consul, even with +proper diplomatic precautions, they would be looked upon by +him as a challenge that could not be ignored. "Give up that +country, or we shall take it", is not at all persuasive. "We +will defend it", is the answer that comes naturally to any man. +Furthermore, the old Physiocrat predicted that if the United +States ever followed such a policy, they would lose their prestige +as a democratic and peaceful nation. Jefferson would thus +play into the hands of the militaristic faction which ambitioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> +the conquest of Mexico; if, on the contrary, Mexico were to be +emancipated, it might become a dangerous neighbor for the +United States. He consequently urged Jefferson to accept what +he considered as a much more sensible program, namely a +compromise which would insure free access to the sea to "the +territories of the Cumberland, the Wabash and both banks of +the Ohio." Finally he warned the President against entering +into such an alliance with England, since England would never +permit the United States to become a naval power of first +importance. If, however, the United States insisted on having +a free hand in the South, was it not possible, in view of the +impending war between France and England, to permit France +to recover Canada instead of Louisiana, and to tell Bonaparte: +"Give us Louisiana and at the first opportunity we shall restore +Canada to you"?</p> + +<p>Even if that were refused, if nothing could remove Jefferson's +objection to the establishment of a French colony on the northern +continent, there was still a possibility of giving satisfaction +to both parties concerned without unduly irritating the national +pride of either. This was simply for America to buy +from France her claim on the Southern territory. True to his +training and doctrine, Du Pont had devised a commercial solution +to a political problem. The question of Louisiana was to +be treated as a business, with a political background to be sure, +but essentially on business terms.</p> + +<p>The answer of Jefferson has unfortunately disappeared and +was probably destroyed by Du Pont; but another letter of +the old Physiocrat permits us to reconstruct its contents. +Jefferson contended that the United States had no money and +could not afford to pay any important amount for such a purchase. +To which Du Pont answered that purchasing would be +infinitely more economical than going to war:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The sum offered and accepted will not exclude any compensation +for all or part of the sum which might be paid to you under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> +treaty. To agree on the price is the important thing. To arrange +for the forms of payment, to charge against it legitimate reductions +is only a secondary matter, which will take care of itself. All the +rest of your instructions is easy to follow, and I shall follow them +exactly.</p></div> + +<p>Then proving himself to be as good a prophet as a philosopher +Du Pont added that Bonaparte would be more attracted by a +frank and complete proposal than by a compromise: "I hope +it will succeed because Bonaparte is a man of genius, and his +character is much above ordinary ideas."<a name="FNanchor_432_432" id="FNanchor_432_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a></p> + +<p>It is not entirely to the credit of Jefferson that, when he was +thus declaring to Du Pont that the United States could not +afford to negotiate on such a basis, Madison, on May 1, 1802, +was writing to Livingston, asking him to ascertain precisely +the price at which the Floridas, "if included in the cession would +be yielded to the United States."</p> + +<p>The whole story of the negotiations as it appears in the +Jefferson papers and in the documents published in the Annals +of Congress would be worth retelling in detail. The evasions of +the French minister Talleyrand, the reticences of the Spanish +ambassador as to the true extent of the cession, the attempts of +Rufus King to determine the British Government to throw their +influence on the side of the United States, the blundering efforts +of Livingston to place the case of his Government before the eyes +of Bonaparte, form one of the most complicated and fascinating +diplomatic mazes in which the inexperienced and not highly +skillful agents of the United States tried to find their way. +Livingston, who thought himself very adroit, was particularly +unfelicitous in his tone. The conclusion of the memoir he +wrote on August 10 and had printed for distribution to the +French Government may give an idea of his style:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In reasoning upon this subject, I have confined myself to such +observations as obviously presented themselves, without seeking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> +any of those subtleties which may serve to mislead the judgment. +I have candidly exposed the plainest facts, in the simplest language. +If ever they are opposed, it will be by a contrary course. Eloquence +and sophistry may reply to them and may obscure them; but time +and experience will evince their truth.</p></div> + +<p>Such a language may have seemed to the American minister +candid and honest, but addressed to Bonaparte and Talleyrand +it was very undiplomatic, to say the least. One cannot help +feeling, on reading the documents, that had Livingston wished +to break off negotiations he would not have expressed himself +otherwise, and it is difficult to share the opinion of Henry +Adams, who claimed for the American minister most of the +credit for bringing the negotiations to a successful conclusion.</p> + +<p>By the end of the summer 1802, it appeared that, before going +any further, France intended to take possession of Louisiana, +and Du Pont knew only too well that such a step would cause +an irresistible outburst of public opinion in the United States. +He kept in constant touch with Livingston, giving counsels of +moderation and patience. He even proposed the project of a +treaty which in his opinion would give temporary satisfaction +to the United States while being acceptable to France. This +plan included the cession of New Orleans and the Floridas, +reserving for French vessels the same treatment as for American +shipping; France to keep all the territories on the right bank of +the Mississippi, but the navigation of the river to be free to +both nations. Finally the United States were to pay the sum +of six million dollars for the territories described in the first +article.<a name="FNanchor_433_433" id="FNanchor_433_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a></p> + +<p>In the meantime things were moving fast in America. The +suspension of the right of deposit by the Spanish authorities +was taxing the none too strong endurance of the inhabitants +of the western territory, and the war party was making great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> +progress. Madison wrote on November 27, 1802, that should +the Spanish intendant prove as obstinate as he has been +ignorant or wicked, nothing can temperate the irritation and +indignation of the Western country, but a persuasion that the +energy of their own government will obtain from the justice of +that of Spain the most ample redress.<a name="FNanchor_434_434" id="FNanchor_434_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a></p> + +<p>In his message to Congress read on December 15, the President +included a short paragraph pregnant with significance:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The cession of the Spanish province of Louisiana to France, which +took place in the course of the late war, if carried into effect, makes a +change in the aspect of our foreign relations which will doubtless +have just weight in any deliberation of the Legislature connected +with that subject.</p></div> + +<p>This sentence could have only one meaning: that if France +took possession of Louisiana, appropriations would be in order +to prevent her from establishing herself permanently in the +territory. It was a direct threat of war. The President had +apparently given up any hope of reaching an agreement and +was yielding to the war party.</p> + +<p>On December 17 it was, on motion of Randolph:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the President of the United States be requested +to cause to be laid before this house such papers as are in the possession +of the Department of State as relate to the violation on the part +of Spain, of the Treaty of Friendship, Limits, and Navigation, +between the United States and the King of Spain.</p></div> + +<p>Jefferson complied with this request on December 22, averring +that he "was aware of the obligation to maintain, in all +cases, the rights of the nation, and to employ, for that purpose, +those just and honorable means which belong to the character +of the United States."<a name="FNanchor_435_435" id="FNanchor_435_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a></p> + +<p>There is no doubt that the President himself had lost patience +and that the United States were rapidly drifting towards overt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> +acts that could only have war as a consequence. On January +4 it was moved in the House that the President be requested +to communicate all the information at his disposal on the +reported cession of Louisiana. Then quite unexpectedly, on +January 11, Jefferson sent to the Senate a message recommending +that James Monroe be appointed special envoy to +France with full powers, "jointly with Mr. Livingston to enter +into a treaty or convention with the First Consul of France, for +the purpose of enlarging and more effectually securing, our +rights and interests in the river Mississippi, and in the territories +eastward thereof." The next day, the House, on recommendation +of a committee which presented a lengthy report, voted +an appropriation of "two million dollars to defray the expenses +which may be incurred in relation to the intercourse between +the United States and foreign nations."</p> + +<p>The sudden change in Jefferson's attitude can largely be +attributed to the fact that, between December 15 and January +11, he had received a letter sent from Paris by Du Pont de +Nemours on October 4,<a name="FNanchor_436_436" id="FNanchor_436_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a> submitting a tentative plan for a treaty +and discounting the pessimistic reports of Livingston. There is +not the slightest doubt that the President was much impressed +by Du Pont's letter. On January 18, Madison wrote to +Pinckney:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In order to draw the French government into the measure, a sum +of money will be made part of our propositions.... From a letter +received by the President from a respectable person, it is inferred, +with probability that the French government is not averse to treat +on those grounds; and that such a disposition must be strengthened +by circumstances of the present moment.<a name="FNanchor_437_437" id="FNanchor_437_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a></p></div> + +<p>Finally Jefferson himself wrote to Du Pont that his letter had +been received with particular satisfaction, because while it +held up terms that could not be entirely yielded, "it proposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> +such as a mutual spirit of accommodation and sacrifice may +bring to some point of union."<a name="FNanchor_438_438" id="FNanchor_438_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_438_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a></p> + +<p>The President indicated, however, that the action of Spain +in suspending the rights of deposit had rendered imperative an +immediate settlement: "Our circumstances are so imperious +as to admit of no delay as to our course; and the use of the +Mississippi so indispensable, that we cannot hesitate one +moment to hazard our existence for its maintainance." Despite +this more conciliatory tone, the President did not recede from +the position he had taken previously with Du Pont. He +repeated that the country was in no position to offer such a sum +as mentioned by Mr. Du Pont (six million dollars) in order to +insure the purchase of the said territory.</p> + +<p>In this, Jefferson was to some extent guilty of double-dealing +with his friend, or at least of not laying all his cards on the table. +The instructions given to Monroe and Livingston on March 2, +1803, specified that "should a greater sum (than two million +dollars) be made an ultimatum on the part of France, the +President has made up his mind to go as far as fifty millions of +<i>livres tournois</i>, rather than to lose the main object." Incidentally, +this passage explains how Monroe and Livingston could +feel authorized to accept the proposal to purchase the whole +territory for sixty million francs. They were not so bold as is +commonly supposed, since they were empowered by the President +to go as far as fifty million for part only of Louisiana. +Whether Jefferson had the constitutional right to promise such +a sum without formal approval of Congress is quite another +matter. It is only fair, however, to recall here that, due to +the difficulty of communicating between Washington and Paris +and the urgency of the situation, it was an absolute necessity +to give considerable leeway to the plenipotentiaries and to +provide for every possible emergency. But it must also be +remembered that had not Jefferson taken at that precise time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> +the responsibility of engaging the resources of the United States, +neither Livingston nor Monroe would have felt authorized to +sign a transaction involving six times the sum voted by the +House of Representatives. The blame or praise, whatever it +may be, must in final analysis fall entirely on Jefferson.</p> + +<p>It is not without some interest to notice here that Livingston +was entirely unaware of the value of Du Pont de Nemours' +plan. Unable to pin down Talleyrand or Lebrun, he soon came +to the conclusion that it was impossible to treat and that he +might as well leave Paris. "I see very little use for a minister +here, where there is but one will; and that will governed by no +object but personal security and personal ambition; were it +left to my discretion, I should bring matters to some positive +issue, or leave them, which would be the only means of bringing +them to an issue."<a name="FNanchor_439_439" id="FNanchor_439_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_439_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a> He maintained to the last minute that +Du Pont de Nemours had given the French government "with +the best intentions, ideas that we shall find hard to eradicate, +and impossible to yield to",<a name="FNanchor_440_440" id="FNanchor_440_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_440_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a> and on hearing that Monroe had +been appointed, following receipt of Du Pont's letter, he +answered that he was much surprised that Du Pont should +talk "of the designs of this court, the price, &c., because he +must have derived these from his imagination only, as he had +no means of seeing anybody here that could give him the least +information."<a name="FNanchor_441_441" id="FNanchor_441_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_441_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a></p> + +<p>Who was the better informed of the two it is not easy +to decide. But by a curious coincidence, while Livingston was +writing this in Paris, the ink was hardly dry on the instructions +to Monroe which contained this striking paragraph: "It is +to be added that the overtures committed to you coincide in +great measure with the ideas of the person through whom the +letter of the President of April 30, 1802, was conveyed to Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> +Livingston, and who is presumed to have gained some insight +into the present sentiments of the French Cabinet."<a name="FNanchor_442_442" id="FNanchor_442_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_442_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a></p> + +<p>The very same day Du Pont was able to write Jefferson that +he had several times seen Talleyrand and Lebrun and that the +French Government had decided to give every possible satisfaction +to the United States. On April 6, he added, without +giving any detail, that good progress had been made; but that +he had not told everything to Livingston.</p> + +<p>There is little doubt that the letter of Du Pont made Jefferson +delay any strong measure in the Mississippi Valley affair +and stayed the hand of the God of War. If negotiations had +been broken off at that point, it was the intention of the British +government "to send an expedition to occupy New Orleans."<a name="FNanchor_443_443" id="FNanchor_443_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_443_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> +What the consequences of such an action would have been can +easily be surmised.</p> + +<p>The rest of the story lies outside of our province, since Jefferson +had nothing to do directly with it. Barbé-Marbois has told +the dramatic scene of Easter Sunday, April 10, 1803, when +Bonaparte called in two ministers and gave the first indication +that he considered the whole colony lost and that it might be +better to give it up entirely. The next morning the First +Consul requested Marbois to act as plenipotentiary and to see +Livingston at once. When Monroe arrived, a preliminary +understanding had been reached. The treaty was concluded +on May 4 and signed four days later, although it was antedated +and marked April 30.</p> + +<p>The question of deciding whether Jefferson had foreseen the +possibility of acquiring the whole territory of Louisiana and had +given to Monroe instructions to that effect has provided his +biographers, whether friendly or unfriendly, with a nice bone +to pick. It seems here that a distinction must be established +between the wishes of the President and what he considered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> +within the range of actual possibilities. From his letters to +Lafayette and Du Pont de Nemours, it is easily perceived that +he was unequivocally opposed to the reinstatement of France +on any part of the continent. On this point he never varied. +On the other hand, he had soon become convinced that France +would never relinquish such an enormous territory without a +compensation that the United States could not afford to pay. +He limited his plans very soon to the acquisition of the two +Floridas, which he supposed had been made part of the transaction, +so as to give the United States access to the Gulf, while +taking a strong position on the Mississippi River. In his letter +to Du Pont de Nemours dated February 1, 1803, he reiterated +that the United States wanted and needed the Floridas, that +"whatever power, other than ourselves, holds the country east +of the Mississippi, becomes our natural enemy." But further +he did not go. On February 27, 1803, he wrote to Governor +Harrison a letter which seems to settle the question: "We +bend our whole views to the purchase and settlement of the +country on the Mississippi, from its mouth to its northern regions, +that we may be able to present as strong a front on our +western as on our eastern border, and plant on the Mississippi +itself the means of its own defence." As for the Indians, they +were either "to be incorporated with us as citizens of the United +States, or removed beyond the Mississippi." Finally the letter +written on July 29 to Livingston and Monroe is as definite a +statement as can be desired and ought to set the controversy +at rest:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>When these (your instructions and commission) were made out, +the object of the most sanguine was limited to the establishment +of the Mississippi as our boundary. It was not presumed, that more +could be sought by the United States, either with a chance of success, +or perhaps without being suspected of a greedy ambition, than the +island of New Orleans and the two Floridas.... Nor was it to +be supposed that in case the French government should be willing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> +part with more than the territory on our side of the Mississippi, an +arrangement with Spain for restoring the territory on the other side, +would not be preferred to a sale of it to the United States.... The +effect of such considerations was diminished by no information, or +just presumptions whatever.<a name="FNanchor_444_444" id="FNanchor_444_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_444_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a></p></div> + +<p>Whatever may have been Jefferson's satisfaction on hearing +the news, he did not write himself to the commissioners to congratulate +and thank them in the name of the nation. He was +not the man to make grand gestures. The Virginian could be as +self-restrained as any New Englander, as appears from a letter +to Horatio Gates in which the two envoys are mentioned: "I +find our opposition very willing to pluck feathers from Monroe, +although not fond of sticking them into Livingston's coat. The +truth is, both have a just proportion of merit; and were it +necessary or proper, it would be shown that each has rendered +peculiar services and of important value."<a name="FNanchor_445_445" id="FNanchor_445_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_445_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a> More than that +he did not say, and probably said very little more to Monroe, +his friend and "<i>élève</i>" when he came back from France.</p> + +<p>Congress had been called for October 17, to ratify the treaty; +but before that date, Jefferson sent letters and questionnaires +all around in order to gather any possible information on the +limits, geography, resources and condition of the inhabitants +of the newly acquired territory. In a letter to Breckenridge +(August 12, 1803), he expressed himself more freely than to any +other correspondent. First of all he admitted that he was +somewhat disappointed at having being unable to secure the +Floridas. But it was only a delayed opportunity; sooner +or later Spain would engage in some war, and the realistic +politician added: "If we push them strongly with one hand, +holding out a price in the other, we shall certainly obtain the +Floridas, and all in good time." For the present, the United +States, without claiming possession of the Spanish territories, +would act pretty freely: "In the meantime, without waiting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> +for permission, we shall enter into the exercise of the natural +right we have always insisted on with having a right of innocent +passage through them to the ocean. We shall prepare her +to see us practice on this, and she will not oppose it by +force."</p> + +<p>He had already heard many objections to the treaty; of all +of them he disposed summarily. He did not take seriously the +danger mentioned by the Federalists of seeing a fringe of States, +different in interest from the original States, form along the +Mississippi and threaten the homogeneity of the Union. If it +came to the worst, it would be better for the United States +to have as neighbors along the western border a Federation of +States inhabited by a people of the same blood than a Spanish +or French dominion. Then Jefferson prophetically outlined the +development of the West as he foresaw it. The inhabited part +of Louisiana was to become a new State as soon as possible. +Above Pointe Coupée, the best procedure was probably to move +the Indians across the river and to fill the vacant territories +with white colonists. "When we shall be full on this side, we +may lay off a range of States on the western bank from the head +to the mouth, and so, range after range, advancing compactly +as we multiply."</p> + +<p>As to the constitutionality of the purchase, he admitted there +was no article of the Constitution authorizing the holding of +foreign territory, and still less contemplating the incorporation +of foreign nations into the Union. "The executives, in seizing +the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their +country, have done an act beyond the Constitution." They +were justified in doing it, however, just as much as a guardian +has the right to invest money for his ward in purchasing an +adjacent territory and saying to him when of age: "I did this +for your good; I pretend to no right to bind you; you may +disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape as I can: I thought +it my duty to risk myself for you." This is another instance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> +when Jefferson the lawyer discarded what he called "metaphysical +subtleties" to look squarely at the facts and to do his +duty as he saw it, "as a faithful servant."</p> + +<p>The third annual message of the President was read before +Congress on October 17. Written in simple language like all +the State papers of Jefferson, it contained a graceful word for +"the enlightened government of France", and pointed out +soberly the advantages that would accrue to the United States +from the purchase:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>While the property and sovereignty of the Mississippi and its +waters secure an independent outlet for the produce of the western +States, and an uncontrolled navigation through their whole course, +free from collision with other powers and the dangers to our peace +from that source, the fertility of the country, its climate and extent, +promise in due season important aids to our treasury, an ample +provision for our posterity, and a wide-spread field for the blessings +of freedom and equal laws.</p></div> + +<p>The President avoided any specific recommendation on the +measures to be adopted to incorporate into the Union the +recently acquired territories, resting on the wisdom of Congress +to determine the "measures which may be necessary for the +immediate occupation and temporary government of the +country; for rendering the change of government a blessing +to our newly adopted brethren; for securing to them the rights +of conscience and of property; for confirming to the Indian +inhabitants their occupancy and self-government." The +Senate ratified the treaty after a two-day discussion, the members +voting strictly on party lines. It came before the House +on the twenty-second. The discussion was hot and more prolonged; +doubts as to the French title to the purchase were +raised; doubts as to the constitutionality of the measure. +The treaty proper was ratified on October 25, and on November +3 acts were passed authorizing the issue of bonds in order to +pay France.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></p> + +<p>A letter of Jefferson to Livingston contains the epilogue of +the negotiations. It is another very interesting instance of the +way Jefferson knew how to handle men. Pichon, the French +minister, had been instructed by his Government to secure a +clause to the ratification providing "against any failure in time +or other circumstances of execution on the part of the United +States." Jefferson took the matter in hand himself and demonstrated +to Pichon that in case the French Government insisted +upon such a proviso, the United States would insert a similar +clause of protestation "leaving the matter where it stood +before." He insisted that it was to throw on the good faith of +both nations a doubt most unpleasant to an honest man to +entertain, and concluded that he had "more confidence in the +word of the First Consul than in all the parchment we could +sign." What could the Frenchman do except to bow politely +and acquiesce, and "like an able and honest minister (which he +is in the highest degree) he undertook to do what he knew his +employers would do themselves, were they spectators of all +existing circumstances, and exchange the ratifications purely +and simply." "So," concluded Jefferson, "this instrument +goes to the world as an evidence of the candor and confidence +of the nations in each other, which will have the best effects."</p> + +<p>A last point remained to be settled. It was suspected that +Spain had entered a formal protest against the whole transaction, +"since the First Consul had broken a solemn promise +not to alienate the country to any nation." On that point +Jefferson refused to express any opinion: "We answered that +these were questions between France and Spain which they +must settle together; that we derived our title from the First +Consul and did not doubt his guarantee of it." Meanwhile +measures were provided to take formal possession from Laussat +after he should have received the territory from Spain. "If he +is not so disposed <i>we</i> shall take possession and it will rest with +the Government of France, by adopting the act as their own,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> +then to settle the latter with Spain."<a name="FNanchor_446_446" id="FNanchor_446_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_446_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> In order to provide +for any eventuality, the governor of the Mississippi was ordered +to move down with General Wilkinson all his troops at hand +to take formal possession.</p> + +<p>Thus the transaction fraught with so many dangers came to +what Jefferson called in a letter to Priestley (January 29, 1804) +"a happy denouement", thanks "to a friendly and frank +development of causes and effects in our part and good sense +enough in Bonaparte to see that the train was unavoidable +and would change the face of the world."</p> + +<p>If Jefferson took liberties with the Constitution in the matter +of the purchase, he was equally broad-minded in his construction +of the treaty. One of the articles provided that the inhabitants +of the territories ceded by France "will be incorporated +into the Union and admitted as soon as possible according to the +principles of the Federal Constitution to the enjoyment of all +the advantages and immunities of the citizens of the United +States" (Article III). This was precisely what Jefferson was +firmly resolved not to do. Theoretically, and according to his +often expressed views on self-government, he should have taken +steps to admit immediately the newly acquired territory into +the Union and to allow the inhabitants to decide on a constitution. +Practically, he considered that they were unfitted for +self-government and, although he did not formally declare it at +the time, he was convinced that self-government could not +succeed with a population mainly French and Spanish. The +letter he wrote on the subject to Du Pont de Nemours is almost +disarming in its naïveté:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We are preparing a form of government for the Territory of +Louisiana. We shall make it as mild and free, as they are able to +bear, all persons residing there concurring in the information that +they were neither gratified, nor willing to exercise the rights of an +elective government. The immense swarm flocking thither of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> +Americans used to that exercise, will soon prepare them to receive +the necessary change.<a name="FNanchor_447_447" id="FNanchor_447_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_447_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a></p></div> + +<p>It was impossible to state more clearly that representative +government could not be granted to Louisiana as long as the +inhabitants remained essentially French. Only when checked +and controlled by the "immense swarm" of American pioneers +and colonists spreading all over the territory could they be +admitted to the immunities and advantages of American +citizens. This attitude of Jefferson, which seems in flagrant +contradiction with his theories, can astonish only those who see +in him a world prophet of the democratic faith; while his only +ambition was to build an American democracy, on strictly +American principles, for the sole benefit of American citizens, +true heirs and continuators of the old Anglo-Saxon principles.</p> + +<p>But his vision of a greater America extended even beyond +the limits of the Louisiana Purchase. In January, 1803, just +one week before Monroe's appointment as special envoy to +Paris, he had sent a message to Congress to recommend that +a sum of twenty-five hundred dollars be appropriated to send +"an intelligent officer with a party of 10 or 12 men to explore +even to the Western Ocean and to bring back all possible information +on the Indian tribes, the fauna and flora of the region." +The intelligent officer was Merriwether Lewis, private secretary +to the President, who was to engage in this "literary pursuit" +in a region claimed by Spain. It was calmly assumed, however, +that "the expiring state of Spain's interests there" would render +such a voyage a matter of indifference to this nation. Jefferson +made the expedition his own concern; he drew up the most +detailed instructions for the mission. He even wrote for Lewis +"a letter of general credit" in his own hand and signed with +his name, by which the captain was authorized to draw on +"the Secretaries of State, the Treasury of War, and of the Navy +of the United States according as he might find his draughts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> +would be most negotiable, for the purpose of obtaining money +or necessaries for himself and men."<a name="FNanchor_448_448" id="FNanchor_448_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_448_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a> Practically unlimited +resources were placed at the disposal of the expedition. Jefferson +kept his former secretary minutely informed of the new +possibilities opened up by the negotiations with France, writing +him on July 4, 11, 15, November 16 and January 13. On +January 22, he sent new instructions: the United States had +"now become sovereigns of the country" Lewis was going to +explore; it was no longer necessary to keep up the pretense of +a "literary pursuit", and the President felt authorized in proposing +to the Indians the establishment of official connections, +and in declaring frankly to them that "they will find in us +faithful friends and protectors." So Jefferson was no longer +thinking of the Mississippi as the ultimate frontier of the +United States. He already foresaw the time when the Empire +would extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific.</p> + +<p>Besides providing the United States with almost unlimited +possibilities of growth, the Louisiana Purchase had eliminated +the immediate danger of a conflict with France, and the chances +of remaining at peace with Europe had considerably increased. +"I now see nothing which need interrupt the friendship between +France and this country," wrote Jefferson to Cabanis. "We +do not despair of being always a peaceable nation. We think +that peaceable means may be devised of keeping nations in the +path of justice towards us, by making justice their interest, and +injuries to react on themselves. Our distance enables us to +pursue a course which the crowded situation of Europe renders +perhaps impracticable there."<a name="FNanchor_449_449" id="FNanchor_449_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_449_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a></p> + +<p>There remained, however, a danger point in the policies of +the British navy with regard to contraband. The United +States had now to make a strenuous effort to bring the British +to abandon their "right" to search neutral vessels on the high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> +seas in order to impress British sailors found on those vessels, +and to use American ports as cruising stations. Not only was +this attitude of Great Britain contrary to justice but it was also +contrary to these natural laws on which rested Jefferson's system +of Americanism; above all, they were most obnoxious and +detrimental to American commerce, for "Thornton says they +watch our trade to prevent contraband. We say it is to plunder +under pretext of contraband."<a name="FNanchor_450_450" id="FNanchor_450_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_450_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a></p> + +<p>Meanwhile the President was receiving the most pessimistic +accounts from Monroe, lost in the maze of European intrigues, +and almost losing faith in the future security of the United +States. One of his letters of the spring of 1804 had mentioned +the possibility of a dark plot against America. France and +England might forget their old differences and operate a reconciliation +at the expense of the United States; they would form +a combination to divide between them the North American +continent, France repossessing Louisiana, while England would +reannex the United States to the British dominions. A mad +scheme if ever there was one, and it is very much to be doubted +that it was ever contemplated by any responsible Frenchman. +Jefferson's confidence in the remoteness of the American continent +was not disturbed for a minute by these alarming reports. +He excused Monroe on the ground that a person placed in +Europe was very apt to believe the old nations endowed with +limitless resources and power. Everything was possible, even +a return of the Bourbons; but "that they and England joined, +could recover us to British dominion, is impossible. If things are +not so, then human reason is of no aid in conjecturing the conduct +of nations." Still the policy of watchful waiting was more +than ever in order. Every point of friction was to be eliminated, +one of the first measures being to accept the "Louisianais" +to full citizenship and thus bring to an end the patronage of +France. Another step was to enforce strictly the rule against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> +British cruisers in American harbors, so that "each may see unequivocally +what is unquestionably true, that we may be very +possibly driven into her scale by unjust conduct in the other."<a name="FNanchor_451_451" id="FNanchor_451_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_451_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a></p> + +<p>Thus was fixed not in theory but in practice a policy of +neutrality fraught with risks. The most apparent danger +was that both belligerents might turn against the United +States. But of that Jefferson was not afraid, as an alliance +between the two hereditary enemies seemed inconceivable. In +the meantime proper preparations were to be made to insure +the security of the American flag.</p> + +<p>The message of October 17, 1803, contained an earnest appeal +to "complete neutrality." Neutrality of fact the Government +was decided to observe, and most of all to view in a disinterested +way the carnage in Europe.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>How desirable it must be, in a government like ours, to see its +citizens adopt individually the views, the interests and the conduct +which their country should pursue, divesting themselves of those +passions and partialities which tend to lessen useful friendships +and to embarrass and embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe.</p></div> + +<p>Then came a passage which sounds strangely familiar to +those of us who have lived through the last fourteen years:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Confident, fellow citizens, that you will duly estimate the importance +of neutral dispositions toward the observance of neutral conduct, +that you will be sensible how much it is our duty to look on the bloody +arena spread before us with commiseration indeed, but with no other +wish than to see it closed, I am persuaded you will cordially cherish +these dispositions in all communications with your constituents.</p></div> + +<p>A nation neutral in speech and neutral in thought, willing to +intervene only to help the victims of the war or as an arbiter +between the belligerents, such was at that time the ideal of +Jefferson as it was to be for several years the ideal of Woodrow +Wilson, and to a large degree the permanent ideal of the United +States during their whole history.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h2>"SELF-PRESERVATION IS PARAMOUNT TO ALL LAW"</h2> + + +<p>When, on the fourth of March, 1805, Jefferson began his +second term, he had a right to review with some complacency +the achievements of his first administration. To foreign +affairs he scarcely granted a short paragraph, but he pointed +out with great details the suppression of unnecessary offices, +the reduction of taxes, the fact that the Federal Government +was almost entirely supported by duties levied on importations, +so that "it may be the pleasure and pride of an American to ask, +what farmer, what mechanic, what laborer, ever sees a tax-gatherer +of the United States?" The Louisiana Purchase had +increased enormously the potential riches of the country and +removed a very dangerous source of conflict. The right bank +of the Mississippi was to be settled by "our own brethren and +children" and not by "strangers of another family."</p> + +<p>Of great interest was the long passage given to Indian affairs. +Jefferson's sympathy for the red men dated from the early days +of his youth, when he had seen the chiefs stop at the house of +his father on their way to Williamsburg. He had handsomely +stood in defense of them in the "Notes on Virginia." Now he +was regarding them with the commiseration their history began +to inspire:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Endowed with the faculties and the rights of men, breathing an +ardent love of liberty and independence, and occupying a country +which left them no desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing +population directed itself on these shores, without power +to divert, or habits to contend against, they have been overwhelmed +by the current, or driven before it.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span></p> + +<p>This was certainly a very regrettable situation, but the idea of +questioning the right of an overflowing population to occupy +scarcely populated territories did not for a moment enter Jefferson's +mind. To deny such a right would have been not only +detrimental to the very existence of the United States, but also +a denial of the "right" of "our Saxons ancestors" to settle in +England. Furthermore, the President was confronted with a +certain set of facts and not with a theory. The territory of +which the Indians had so long enjoyed undisturbed possession +was growing narrower every day. With the recent acquisition +of Louisiana, it was to be foreseen that they would not be able +to roam freely much longer in the vast territories extending +west of the Mississippi. They were now "reduced within +limits too narrow for the hunter's state." The only thing they +could do was to submit to new economic conditions, to settle +down and become farmers, and it was the duty of the government +"to encourage them to that industry which alone can +enable them to maintain their place in existence, and to prepare +them in time for that state of society, which to bodily comforts +adds the improvement of mind and morals."</p> + +<p>The President had no patience with</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... the interested and crafty individuals among them who +inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; +that whatsoever they did, must be done through all time; +that reason is a false guide, and to advance under its counsel, in +their physical, moral, or political condition, is a perilous innovation; +that their duty is to remain as their Creator made them.</p></div> + +<p>The attitude of these reactionaries among the Indians gave +Jefferson an opportunity to hit at one stroke the medicine men +and the clergymen who were attacking him fiercely.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In short, my friends, among them is seen the action and counter-action +of good sense and bigotry; they, too, have their anti-philosophers, +who find an interest in keeping things in their present state, +who dread reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> +ascendency of habit over the duty of improving our reason, and +obeying its mandates.</p></div> + +<p>The New England and New York clergymen who had stood +with the Federalists knew exactly where they belonged.</p> + +<p>But if the President was unwilling to let the attacks to which +he had been subjected pass entirely unnoticed, he maintained +at the same time that no official steps must be taken to repress +in any way freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In +more emphatic terms than ever before, he reasserted the fundamental +doctrine he had defended against all comers for more +than twenty-five years:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, +the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with +whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses +of an institution so important to freedom and science, are deeply to +be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness, and to +sap its safety; they might, indeed, have been corrected by the +wholesome punishments reserved and provided by the laws of the +several States against falsehood and defamation; but public duties, +more urgent press on the time of public servants, and the offenders +have therefore been left to find their punishment in the public +indignation.</p></div> + +<p>Thus were the Callender and the Federalist pamphleteers +handed over to the public to be dealt with, according to the +merits of their cases.</p> + +<p>The address ended with a new appeal to harmony, with the +hope that truth, reason and well-understood self-interest might +enlighten the last opponents of true republicanism. It ended +also with a sort of prayer which may or may not have expressed +the religious beliefs of Jefferson at the time:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I shall need the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who +led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land, and +planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts +of life; who has covered our infancy with his providence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> +and our riper years with his wisdom and power, and to whose goodness +I ask you to join me in supplications.</p></div> + +<p>Jefferson had not forgotten that twenty years before he had +proposed that the seal of the United States should represent +the Children of Israel led by a pillar of light. As much as the +Puritans he was convinced that the American people was a +chosen people, that they have been gifted with superior wisdom +and strength, and this belief was just as much part of his creed +of Americanism as it was the more openly expressed doctrine of +more recent presidents of the United States.</p> + +<p>With these brilliant and reassuring prospects before his eyes, +Jefferson entered his second term. Little did he believe at +that time that the four years before him were to be the most +agitated and most distressing of his long career. The man +whose fondest hope was to "secure peace, friendship and approbation +of all nations" was to begin a series of police operations +against the Barbary pirates of the Mediterranean and was +confronted, at a time, with the possibility of a war with Spain, +a war with England and a war with France. His philosophical +toga was torn to shreds by the thorns strewn along the tortuous +paths of international relations. At home he had to use all his +ingenuity and resourcefulness to keep together disaffected elements +in the Republican Party, to withstand the attacks +launched in Congress by John Randolph of Roanoke, the +impulsive, erratic and dangerous leader of the discontented +Republicans. The man who had framed the Kentucky +resolutions and had stood as the advocate of States rights was +reproached with using his influence with Congress to pass the +Embargo Act, "more arbitrary, more confiscatory" than any +measure ever proposed by the Federalists. The man who had +protested against the sedition bills had to repress the seditious +attempts of the former Vice President of the United States. +It seemed as if an evil genius had taken a malicious pleasure in +making every effort to test the President in every possible way,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> +and to confront him with the necessity of renouncing his most +cherished principles. Jefferson did not come out of the ordeal +without scars and deep wounds; but whatever may have been +his deficiencies and his faults, whatever sins he may have committed, +he kept his faith in the ultimate wisdom of public +opinion and never tried to suppress by coercion the criticism to +which he was subjected.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the roseate view of the situation presented +by Jefferson in his second Inaugural Address was hardly +warranted by facts. Even before the close of the first term, +Randolph, who had been the standard bearer of the Republicans +in the House, had shown signs of discontent. He had supported +the "Remonstrance of the people of Louisiana", protesting +that one of the essential provisions had been violated +and that they should be admitted at once to "all the rights, +advantages and immunities of citizens." On the other hand, +Aaron Burr, even while remaining in office, had already paved +the way for the dark and romantic machinations which were to +culminate with his trial before Marshall at Richmond.</p> + +<p>The story of Burr's conspiracy deserves a special place among +American "<i>causes célèbres</i>." It has been told many times, and +very vividly, but only the pen of Alexandre Dumas could do +justice to it. Many efforts have been made to whitewash the +memory of the chief conspirator, to throw most of the odium on +Wilkinson and on Jefferson who, according to his enemies, +would have gone out of his way to obtain the condemnation of a +man who could not be proved guilty of any overt act, although +there is no doubt that he had originated some of the most +reprehensible schemes against the safety of his country. But +Americans always had a foible for soldiers of fortune, for +adventurers who dreamed of conquering new empires; for in +them they see the magnification of the frontier spirit +which for so long constituted one of the "pillars" of American +civilization.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span></p> + +<p>By an extraordinary trick of heredity, this adventurer, who +should have been a Spanish conquistador, this arch plotter who +had the insinuating ways of the Florentine, the tortuous and +complicated mind so often considered as a privilege of the +Europeans, was the great-grandson of Jonathan Edwards and +of pure New England descent. He had fought bravely and +enthusiastically in the Revolutionary War, he was a lawyer of +no mean achievement; but his thirst for popularity, applause +and success was beyond imagination, and this Machiavellic +politician lacked in an extraordinary degree common sense and +political vision. Had he withdrawn from the run for the +presidency in time, had he gracefully accepted the second +rank in December, 1800, he would have had a great political +career before him. But to the last minute he refused to say the +word that was expected from him; he accepted without protest +the votes of the Federalists and was considered as a traitor to +his party even before he took office. As early as January, +1804, he had gone to Jefferson and, after complaining that the +President did not show him the same friendship as before, he +had offered to resign at once if he were appointed to some +foreign embassy. After Burr had left without obtaining any +definite answer, Jefferson put down on paper a complete account +of the conversation and dryly concluded:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I should here notice, that Colonel Burr must have thought that I +could swallow strong things in my own favor, when he founded his +acquiescence in the nomination as Vice-President, to his desire of +promoting my honor, the being with me; whose company and conversation +had always been fascinating with him etc.<a name="FNanchor_452_452" id="FNanchor_452_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_452_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a></p></div> + +<p>Disappointed in this respect, Aaron Burr turned his eyes +towards New York, where he had worked so successfully during +the preceding election. The post of governor happened to be +vacant, and in February Burr was chosen by the discontented<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> +Republicans of the State to run for governor. It seems quite +certain that, if he had been elected, the movement for secession +already strong in New England would have received a new +impetus and that a desperate effort would have been made to +shake off "the rule of Virginia." When, after a savage campaign +marked by invectives, brawls and riots, Burr was finally +defeated, he could and did rightly attribute his failure to +Hamilton who, from the very beginning, opposed his candidacy. +A personal encounter was decided and the two adversaries +met on the bank of the Hudson, pistol in hand, in a duel to +the death. It has always been said that Hamilton did not take +aim and fired first. Burr fired deliberately and Hamilton, +fatally wounded, fell to the ground, to die the next day.</p> + +<p>Found guilty of murder by a grand jury, and in fact already +a fugitive from justice, Burr hid at first in Georgia and there +concocted the most extraordinary plan to effect a separation +of the western part of the United States with the help and +financial assistance of England. Although evidence was not +procurable at the time of his trial, there is no doubt that he +thought the scheme feasible; that back in Washington, and +when he was presiding over the impeachment proceedings of +Judge Chase, the Vice President of the United States was +prudently sounding the delegates of the western States, ingratiating +himself to them and that the wildest dreams of empire +were haunting his feverish imagination.</p> + +<p>As soon as the session was over, Colonel Burr started out for a +tour of the western States and, on an island of the Ohio, met by +chance the philosopher-planter Blennerhasset, the innocent +victim of his plots. Leaving Blennerhasset, Burr went to +Cincinnati, Frankfort, Nashville. He met Andrew Jackson, +the uncouth son of the frontier, and Wilkinson, the general in +charge of the western territory. After a visit to New Orleans, +where he was greatly elated by the discontent of the population, +he went back to Saint Louis to discuss the situation with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> +Wilkinson. Whether he still adhered to the original plan of +separating the western from the eastern States is to a considerable +degree doubtful. His immediate object seems rather to +have been to lead an expedition of adventurers against Mexico, +in case the war that was threatening between the United States +and Spain should break out. It must be admitted that the plan +in itself was not particularly objectionable to the Government, +but it soon appeared that this scheme too had to be given up. +After vainly attempting to secure assistance from the British +Government, Burr, changing from conqueror to farmer, undertook +to buy, with Blennerhasset, a grant of several hundred +thousand acres on the Washita River, in Northern Louisiana, in +order to establish there a model colony.</p> + +<p>The rest of the story is well known. Rumors of a conspiracy +grew in the West without disturbing at first the security of the +Federal Government. Burr, summoned to appear before the +district attorney of Frankfort, surrendered himself, but was +twice discharged and continued his preparations for the settlement +of Washita. Jefferson did not move until he received +from Wilkinson a confidential message purporting to be the +transcription of a ciphered letter sent by Burr. The President +was so alarmed that he issued at once a proclamation, warning +the people that a conspiracy had been discovered and directing +the arrests of the conspirators and the seizure of "all vessels, +arms and military stores." Wilkinson, eager to show his +loyalty to the Government, arrested "without warrant" +several emissaries of Burr. One of them was released, but two, +Bollman and Swartwout, were sent out by sea to Baltimore +and thence to Washington, where they were kept in the military +barracks. In a special message to Congress, Jefferson apprised +the Senate and the House of the facts "touching an illegal +combination of private individuals against the peace and +safety of the Union, and a military expedition planned by them +against the territories of a power in amity with the United<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> +States, with the measures pursued for suppressing the same." +(January 22, 1807)</p> + +<p>Shortly after Marshall, in Washington, had refused to indict +Bollman and Swartwout on the count of "levying war" against +the United States, Burr was finally arrested and taken under +military escort to Richmond, there to be delivered to the +civil authorities after Marshall had signed a special warrant +(March 26, 1807). After long skirmishes between the prosecution +and the defense, legal moves and countermoves, Burr was +indicted under two counts,—treason and high misdemeanor. +On the first charge the jury rendered a verdict to the effect that +"We of the jury say that Aaron Burr is not proved guilty under +this indictment by any evidence submitted to us; we therefore +find him not guilty."</p> + +<p>This was a most unusual and illegal form of rendering a +verdict and the jury evidently intended to emphasize the fact +that the evidence submitted did not warrant a conviction, +although they reserved their opinion as to the real guilt of +Colonel Burr. Marshall overruled objections to the form of +the verdict which threatened a reopening of the case and +decided that it would be recorded as "not guilty." Burr was +soon recommitted on the second count and declared not guilty +by a second jury. Upon which a third charge was brought in by +the prosecution and Burr summoned to appear at the session of +the Circuit Court of the United States to be held at Chillicothe +in January, 1808. He never appeared and his bond was forfeited; +it is more than doubtful that he would have been convicted.</p> + +<p>A serious discussion of the merits of the case would necessitate +a minute analysis of all the evidence placed before the jury +and cannot be undertaken here. Several attempts have been +made to rehabilitate Aaron Burr's memory, although certain +facts are so patent that they cannot be overlooked by the most +indulgent biographers. It is a curious bend of the popular +mind that the greatness of the conspiracy seems an excuse and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> +attenuation of the most evident guilt. There was something +apparently heroic in the ambition of that man who wanted to +carve for himself an empire in the wilderness and to plunder the +treasures of the mysterious Southwest. Then, by contrast, the +obstinacy of Jefferson in using every means in his power and in +the power of the Federal Government in order to obtain a conviction, +has been represented as a display of pettiness unworthy +of the chief of a great nation. Nor is this tendency restricted +to the impulsive and emotional masses; it creeps into the +accounts of the trial given by the most judicial historians, and +I am not certain that it is entirely absent from Beveridge's +treatment of the Richmond proceedings.</p> + +<p>Legally speaking, it is difficult to find fault with the findings +of Marshall, with the definitions he gave of "treason" and +"overt act", with his sifting of the evidence and, except in one +or two cases, with his behavior during the trial. On the other +hand, Jefferson has been accused of having unduly interfered +by sending detailed instructions to the district attorney, by +coaching him on several occasions, and by attempting directly +and indirectly to arouse public opinion against a man who was +on trial for his life, but who finally could not be convicted on +any count. After such an interval of time, it is easy to find +fault with the conduct of the Executive, and it cannot be denied +that he acted in a very high-handed manner, condoned acts +which were technically illegal and maintained without sufficient +proofs of Burr's guilt that there was not "a candid man in the +United States who did not believe some one, if not all, of these +overt acts to have taken place."<a name="FNanchor_453_453" id="FNanchor_453_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_453_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a></p> + +<p>On the other hand, if we try to place ourselves in the atmosphere +of the time, it is equally easy to find explanations that to +a large extent justify Jefferson's attitude. It must be remembered +that the President was not unaware of Burr's intention +"to form a coalition of the five eastern States, with New York<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> +and New Jersey, under the new appellation of the Seven +Eastern States."<a name="FNanchor_454_454" id="FNanchor_454_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_454_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> If Burr's machination with the English +minister to effect a separation of the western States were still +unknown, there was little doubt about his plans. All of Burr's +ambitious schemes failed miserably, but it is perfectly natural +that the Government should have been seriously alarmed at +the time. They did not know of Wilkinson's shameful deals +with Spain, but they had every reason to believe that a man +who had already plotted a secession of the western territory +and happened to be in charge of that territory and in command +of the Federal army was scarcely to be depended upon in an +emergency. For years the West had been very restive, New +Orleans was full of discontented Creoles, and if war had not been +officially declared with both England and Spain, it was felt that +it could break out at any time. None of these considerations +could be brought out before the jury, but they amply warranted +some action of the Executive. The first step taken by Jefferson +was to warn the people of the existence of a conspiracy. If we +remember again that Aaron Burr was at that time roaming at +will in a part of the country sparsely settled, where he counted +many friends, where communications with Washington were +slow and rare, it is difficult to see how the President could have +done less.</p> + +<p>After the conspirators were arrested the situation changed +entirely. They had been delivered to the civil authorities, +they were to appear before a regular court and given trial by +jury; they no longer constituted a public danger. It must be +admitted that Jefferson himself declared to his French friends, +Lafayette and Du Pont de Nemours, that Burr never had a +chance to succeed and "that the man who could expect to +effect this, with American material must be a fit subject for +Bedlam."<a name="FNanchor_455_455" id="FNanchor_455_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_455_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a> This is hard to reconcile with the statement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> +which comes immediately after, that "the seriousness of the +crime demands more serious punishment", and particularly +with the instructions sent to George Hay. One may suspect +that Jefferson saw in the trial of Burr an opportunity to test +the loyalty of the Chief Justice to the Constitution and to +the Government and allowed himself to be carried away by +political preoccupations which had nothing to do with Colonel +Burr. This appears clearly in one of the letters to Giles:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If there has ever been an instance in this or the preceding administrations, +of federal judges so applying principles of law as to condemn +a federal or acquit a republican offender, I should have judged them +in the present case with some charity. All this, however, will work +well. The nation will judge both the offender and judges for +themselves.<a name="FNanchor_456_456" id="FNanchor_456_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_456_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a></p></div> + +<p>This was reiterated in the instructions sent to George Hay +after the first acquittal of Burr, that no witness should be +permitted to depart</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... until his testimony has been committed to writing, either as +delivered in court, or as taken by yourself in the presence of Burr's +counsel.... These whole proceedings will be laid before Congress, +that they may decide, whether the defect has been in the evidence +of guilt, or in the law, or in the application of the law, and that they +may provide the proper remedy for the past and the future.</p></div> + +<p>The intention to scrutinize the documents to uncover any +bias of Marshall and use any such evidence against the Chief +Justice is even openly admitted: "I must pray you also to have +an authentic copy of the record made out (without saying for +what) and to send it to me; if the Judge's opinions make out +a part of it, then I must ask a copy of them, either under his +hand, if he delivers one signed, or duly proved by affidavit."<a name="FNanchor_457_457" id="FNanchor_457_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_457_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a> +Who could deny after reading this that Jefferson's intention +was to push vigorously the attack against the judiciary, and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> +institute impeachment proceedings against Marshall on the +slightest justification? Thus the trial of Burr became a test +of strength between the executive and the judiciary, between +the President and the Chief Justice; it was fought out in the +courtroom the more fiercely as the two antagonists were kinsmen +and brought into it the obstinacy and animosity of Southern +feudists.</p> + +<p>Marshall came out as the stanch and unshakable champion of +legality, and Jefferson did not refrain from using the arguments +and reasonings resorted to by the Federalists when the Sedition +Act was passed. There was little excuse for a man of his legal +training in believing that Burr could be convicted and punished +for his "intentions" to commit a crime, and the prosecution +failed to bring in sufficient proof of Aaron Burr's guilt. It +would have been more dignified and more consistent with +Jefferson's theories if, after the conspirator was made powerless, +the President had remained silent. That, however, he could +not do. Early in October, he called back Attorney-general +Robert Smith in order to prepare a selection and digestion of +the documents respecting Burr's treason and, in his message to +Congress, on October 27, if he did not use the word treason, he +still accused Burr of "enterprise against the public peace." +He assumed responsibility and claimed credit for the measures +that had permitted "to dissipate before their explosion plots +engendering on the Mississippi." He laid before Congress the +proceedings and evidence exhibited on the arraignment of the +principal offenders. Finally, he concluded that Burr's acquittal +was evidence that there was something wrong somewhere, and +that the nation could not remain defenceless against such +dangers. "The framers of our constitution certainly supposed +they had guarded, as well their government against destruction +by treason, as their citizens against oppression, under pretence +of it; and if these ends are not attained, it is of importance to +inquire by what means more effectual they may be secured."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span></p> + +<p>A year later, writing to Doctor James Brown about the +measures of repression taken by Wilkinson in New Orleans, +Jefferson presented what he considered a full justification of his +conduct:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I do wish to see these people get what they deserved; and under +the maxim of the law itself, that <i>inter arma silent leges</i>, that in an +encampment expecting daily attack from a powerful enemy, self +preservation is paramount to all law. I expected that instead of +invoking the forms of the law, to cover traitors, all good citizens +would have concurred in securing them. Should we have ever +gained our Revolution, if we had bound our hands by manacles of the +law, not only in the beginning, but in any part of the revolutionary +conflict?<a name="FNanchor_458_458" id="FNanchor_458_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_458_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a></p></div> + +<p>This was exactly the sort of reasoning that Jefferson had +opposed so strenuously when advanced by his political opponents. +Apparently he had completely reversed his position +after getting in the saddle, which was very illogical and perhaps +very damnable, but also very human. He was now, to use the +vivid expression of a French statesman, "on the other side of +the barricade", and he saw things in a different light. But if +this episode can serve to illustrate the inconsistency of the +philosopher, it constitutes also a most striking refutation of the +accusations of Jacobinism so often launched against Jefferson; +for only the Jacobin is perfectly consistent in all circumstances. +More than thirty years had elapsed since Jefferson had copied +the old maxim <i>fiat justifia ruat cœlum</i> in his "Memorandum +book" and he was still wont to repeat it, but it had taken him +less than eight years of executive responsibility to make him +admit that democracy does not work in times of emergency. It +was a most dangerous admission, but one to be expected from a +man in whom still lived the ruthless spirit of the frontier. +Pioneer communities in which unrestricted and unlimited +democracy prevails are pitiless for the outlaw who endangers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> +the life of the group, and are not stopped by "legal subtleties." +In Jefferson there was more of the pioneer than he himself +believed. For this very reason he was probably more completely +and intensely an average American than if he had +"acted up" to the letter of the law in every circumstance.</p> + +<p>This was by far the most dramatic of the internal difficulties +that Jefferson had to face during his second term. Burr's +conspiracy obscured the attacks against Madison led by the +former spokesman of Jefferson's party, John Randolph of +Roanoke. But already, when Burr's trial was held in Richmond, +"circumstances which seriously threatened the peace of +the country" had made it a duty to convene Congress at an +earlier date than usual. Once again, as under the administrations +of Washington and Adams, foreign policies were to dominate +and direct domestic policies, and once again America was to +bear the penalty of all neutrals who try to keep out of the war +in a world conflagration.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h2>"PEACE AND COMMERCE WITH EVERY NATION"</h2> + + +<p>War is not always an unmixed curse, at least for nations who +manage to remain neutral while the rest of the world is torn by +calamitous conflicts. Europe's misfortune had been to some +extent America's good fortune. With comparatively short +intermissions, France and England were engaged in a death +struggle from 1793 to 1815, and although Britannia ruled the +sea, the belligerents had to resort to neutral shipping. The +exports of the United States, which were valued at only nineteen +millions in 1791, reached ninety-four millions in 1802, and one +hundred eight millions in 1807. The imports followed approximately +the same curve for the corresponding dates, jumping from +nineteen millions to seventy-five millions in 1802 and reaching +over one hundred thirty-eight millions in 1807. If the United +States had been permitted to pursue the policy outlined by +Jefferson in his messages, "to cultivate the friendship of the +belligerent nations by every act of justice and of incessant +kindness" (October 17, 1803), "to carry a commercial intercourse +with every part of the dominions of a belligerent" +(January 17, 1806), a sort of commercial millennium would have +been attained and the prosperity of the United States would +have been boundless. But, at least at the beginning of the nineteenth +century, neither the rights of neutrals nor international +law were observed by the belligerents, and neutrals were bound +to suffer as well as to profit by their privileged situation.</p> + +<p>For his conduct of foreign affairs Jefferson has been severely +taken to task, not only by many of his contemporaries but by +several historians, one of the most formidable critics being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> +Henry Adams. During his second administration, America +suffered deep humiliations which aroused the national spirit. +In many occasions war could have and perhaps should have +been declared; the navy, which had been reduced to a minimum +under Gallatin's policy of economy, could have been expanded +so as to enable the country to protect herself against foreign +insults. On matters concerning national honor and national +pride Americans alone are qualified to pass, and I can hold no +brief for Jefferson in the matter. Perhaps it would have +soothed the wounds inflicted to the <i>amour-propre</i> of the nation +if war had been declared against France, or England, or both, +and if America had taken part in the "bloody conflicts" of +Europe. It must be said, however, that one fails to see what +material advantages would have resulted for the country; in +this case, as in many others, Jefferson's conduct seems to have +been directed by enlightened self-interest. He was most +unwilling to favor and help in any way Napoleon's ambitious +schemes by declaring war against England; on the other hand, +the prospect of forming a <i>de facto</i> alliance with a country which +on so many occasions had deliberately insulted the United +States and manifestly entertained feelings of scorn and distrust +toward the young republic was equally abhorrent to him. +Finally, it must not be forgotten that by keeping out of the +deadly conflict in which Europe was engaged, the United States +were able to lay the solid foundations of an unparalleled +prosperity. While the young manhood of Europe perished on +the battlefields of Napoleon, the population of America grew by +leaps and bounds, passing from 5,300,000 in 1800 to 7,250,000 +in 1810. While the farms and the factories of the Old World +were left abandoned, immense territories were put under +cultivation and new industries were developed to satisfy the +demands of consumers who could no longer import manufactured +products from England. The whole life of the nation was +quickened and the industrial revolution hastened.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span></p> + +<p>When, after Waterloo, Europe resumed her peaceful pursuits, +America had freed herself of economic and financial dependence +from the Old World. She had become a rich, powerful and +self-supporting nation. She appeared to the impoverished +peoples of the earth as an economic as well as a political +Eldorado. Whether the price she paid for it was too high is +a question which I may be permitted to leave for others to +decide.</p> + +<p>In his second inaugural address, the President found it unnecessary +to state again the directing principles of his policies, +simply declaring that he had "acted up" to the declaration contained +in his first inaugural. Of foreign affairs he had little to +say, except to reiterate his conviction that "with nations, as well +as with individuals, our interests soundly calculated, will ever +be found inseparable from our moral duties." Yet there was a +passing reference to possible difficulties. War sometimes could +not be avoided: "it might be procured by injustice by ourselves, +or by others"; and provision ought to be made in +advance for such emergencies, so as "to meet all the expenses +of any given year, without encroaching on the rights of future +generations, by burdening them with the debts of the past." +The President foresaw that, with the rapid growth of the population +and the corresponding increase in revenue raised from +import taxes, it would be possible</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>To extinguish the native right of soil within our limits, to extend +those limits, and to apply such a surplus to our public debts, as +places at a short day their final redemption, and that redemption +once effected, the revenue thereby liberated may, by a just repartition +among the states, and a corresponding amendement of the constitution, +be applied, <i>in time of peace</i>, to rivers, canals, roads, arts, +manufactures, education, and other great objects within each +State.</p></div> + +<p>One may wonder whether at that time Jefferson realized the +possible consequences of such a system. We have not to seek<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> +very far for the exact "source" of these ideas; they were taken +bodily from Hamilton's report of manufactures. It was the +same proposal to distribute subsidies and bounties from the +Federal treasury, to encourage commerce and manufactures. +Apparently what was damnable and criminal under a Federalist +administration became praiseworthy under a Republican +régime.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, even during Jefferson's first term, some of +the resources of the Federal treasury had to be spent in warlike +activities. Jefferson had never been able to forget the deep +humiliation he had felt when, as a minister to the Court of +France, he had been forced to negotiate with the Barbary +pirates for the redemption of American prisoners. He had been +less than six months in office when he decided to answer the new +demands of the Barbary States by sending an American fleet to +protect American commerce in the Mediterranean. To this +incident he gave a large part of his first message (December 8, +1801), and the activities of the small squadron kept in Europe +for several years, in order to blockade the pirates in their harbors, +was regularly mentioned in his subsequent messages. +The tone of some passages is well worth studying. His hope +to reduce "the Barbarians of Tripoli to the desire of peace on +proper terms by the sufferings of war" (November 8, 1804); his +determination to send to Europe additional forces, "to make +Tripoli sensible that they mistake their interest in choosing war +with us; and Tunis also, should she have declared war as +we expect and almost wish" (July 18, 1804)—all this reveals +a warlike Jefferson very different from the pacifist philosopher +he is supposed to have been in all circumstances.</p> + +<p>It was irritating enough to bear the insults of British and +French vessels to the American flag in order to keep the United +States out of a European war. To yield to the demands of a +band of pirates who could be cowed by energetic action with a +minimum of bloodshed and expenditure, would have been an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> +insufferable disgrace. The Barbarians had to be beaten into +submission, and the European powers who did not seem to be +willing to emancipate themselves from that degrading tribute +could perhaps understand at the same time that there were +limits to the forbearance of the United States.</p> + +<p>With reference to England the situation was entirely different. +The United States had no fleet able to cope with the +English fleet. The American coasts were unprotected and +the American harbors could be bombarded from the sea without +even being able to make a pretense of resisting. A large navy +could not be built in a day, and even if one had been improvised, +the odds would have been so uneven that many American +vessels would have gone down and many lives would have been +lost under the fire of the British frigates. Thus for practical +reasons as well as from philanthropic motives, Jefferson bent all +his efforts to the preservation of peace with the great countries +of Europe.</p> + +<p>Hardly three weeks after the signature of the treaty through +which he gave up Louisiana, Bonaparte declared war against +England. When he received the news, Jefferson wrote a long +letter to Lord Buchan in which he defined his policy:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>My hope of preserving peace for our country is not founded in the +greater principle of non-resistance under every wrong, but in the +belief that a just and friendly conduct on our part will procure +justice and friendship from others. In the existing contest, each +of the combatants will find an interest in our friendship. I cannot +say we shall be unconcerned spectators of this combat. We feel +for human sufferings, and we wish the good of all. We shall look +on, therefore, with the sensations which these dispositions and the +events of the war will produce.<a name="FNanchor_459_459" id="FNanchor_459_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_459_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a></p></div> + +<p>Thus spoke Jefferson in July, 1803, and Woodrow Wilson, +who borrowed more than one page from the book of his predecessor, +expressed himself in almost the same words one hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> +and eleven years later. Thus, also, would probably speak any +President of the United States should a new conflagration break +out to-morrow. This, to be sure, was no proclamation of +neutrality and none was needed at the time; but had Jefferson +written one, he could scarcely have expressed himself more +forcibly than he did in a letter sent two days later to General +Horatio Gates: "We are friendly, cordially and conscientiously +friendly to England. We are not hostile to France. We will +be rigorously just and sincerely friendly to both."</p> + +<p>But this fine declaration did not make Jefferson forget the +immediate interests of the United States, for the preoccupation +uppermost in his mind at that time was to find out how the +European situation could be used to the best advantage of his +own country.</p> + +<p>In signing the treaty France had refused to give any guarantee +as to the extent of the territory ceded under the Louisiana +Purchase. Whether the cession included West Florida, on the +occupation of which Jefferson had been so intent, was a matter +of doubt. This particular point had not been pressed during +the negotiations, France, according to the old maxim <i>caveat +emptor</i>, taking the position that the question lay between the +United States and Spain, while the United States had never +abandoned the hope that they would be able to induce Bonaparte +to exert pressure on Madrid so as to enable the American +Government to make the most of the transaction. Soon after +the treaty was signed, the United States found themselves +enmeshed in one of the most complicated intrigues of European +diplomacy.</p> + +<p>While Madison and Jefferson were negotiating in Washington +with the Spanish minister Yrujo, Pinkney and later Monroe +negotiated in Madrid, sometimes at cross purposes but without +ever losing sight of the main object. Jefferson had renewed his +old contention that the United States were entitled to "all the +navigable waters, rivers, creeks, bays, and inlets lying within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> +the United States, which empty into the Gulf of Mexico east of +the River Mississippi." As Henry Adams remarked, this was +a most remarkable provision, as "no creeks, bays, or inlets lying +within the United States emptied into the Gulf."<a name="FNanchor_460_460" id="FNanchor_460_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_460_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a> But if +Jefferson's geography was faulty, his intent was perfectly clear, +and every opportunity was to be used to round out the perimeter +of the United States. When in October, 1804, Monroe +reached Paris to push negotiations more vigorously, the plans +of the United States had crystallized. They had a beautiful +simplicity: to make Spain pay the claims resulting from the +shutting-up of the Mississippi by Morales, to take immediate +possession of Western Florida and to obtain the cession of +Eastern Florida.</p> + +<p>With the details of the diplomatic maneuvers we are not +concerned here, but rather with the remarkable proposal made +by Jefferson to Madison during the summer of 1805. Spain +having declared war against England, the President, fearful of +being "left without an ally", thought immediately of proposing +"a provisional alliance with England" (August 7, 1805). This +alliance was to be conditional and would become effective only +in case the United States should have to declare war against +France or Spain. "In that event," wrote Jefferson, "we should +make common cause, and England should stipulate not to +make peace without our obtaining the objects for which we go +to war, to wit, the acknowledgment by Spain of the rightful +boundaries of Louisiana (which we should reduce to a minimum +by a secret article) and 2, indemnification for spoliation, for +which purpose we should be allowed to make reprisal on the +Floridas and <i>retain them</i> as an indemnification." Jefferson +added that "as it was the wish of every Englishman's heart +to see the United States fighting by their sides against France", +the king and his ministers could do no better than to enter into +an alliance and the nation would consider it "as the price and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> +pledge of an indissoluble friendship."<a name="FNanchor_461_461" id="FNanchor_461_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_461_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a> There is little doubt +that if, at this juncture, Monroe had maneuvered more skillfully, +if England had showed less arrogance in her treatment of +the United States, she could have secured at least the benevolent +neutrality of America. But apparently England did not +care for a benevolent neutrality. After Trafalgar, she was left +undisputed mistress of the ocean, she could enforce her own +regulations as she pleased, and she proceeded to do so.</p> + +<p>The presidential message of December 3, 1805, had to present +very "unpleasant views of violence and wrong." The coasts +of America were infested by "private armed vessels, some of +them with commissions, others without commissions", all of +them committing enormities, sinking American merchantmen, +"maltreating the crews, abandoning them in boats in the open +seas or on desert shores." The same policy of "hovering on the +coast" was carried on by "public armed vessels." New principles, +too, had been "interloped into the law of nations, +founded neither in justice nor in the usage or acknowledgment of +nations"; this was an allusion to the decision of Judge Scott +in the Essex case. With Spain negotiations had not had a +satisfactory issue, propositions for adjusting amicably the +boundaries of Louisiana had not been acceded to, and spoliation +claims formerly acknowledged had again been denied.</p> + +<p>The President concluded that, although peace was still the +ultimate ideal of the United States, there were circumstances +which admitted of no peaceful remedy. Some evils were "of +a nature to be met by force only, and all of them may lead +to it." Finally specific recommendations were made to organize +the national defense: furnishing the seaports with +heavy cannon, increasing the number of gunboats, classifying +the militia so as to have ready a competent number of men +"for offence or defence in any point where they may be +wanted", prohibition of the exportations of arms and am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>munition,—such +were the chief measures contemplated by +the President.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1806, he wrote a long letter to Alexander of +Russia, who had manifested a desire to have a copy of the +Constitution of the United States. This was an appeal to the +Czar, insisting that special articles defining the rights of neutrals +in time of war be inserted in the definitive treaty of peace sooner +or later to be concluded between the European belligerents. +Having taken no part in the troubles of Europe, "the United +States would have no part in its pacification", but it was to be +hoped that some one would be found "who, looking beyond the +narrow bounds of an individual nation, will take under the +cover of his equity the rights of the absent and unrepresented."<a name="FNanchor_462_462" id="FNanchor_462_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_462_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a> +Unfortunately, more than ten years were to elapse before that +pacification of Europe so earnestly hoped for by Jefferson came +about, and only a week before the British ministry had again +aggravated regulations against the neutrals by issuing orders +blockading the coast of the continent (April 8, 1806).</p> + +<p>A few weeks later, Jefferson who, yielding to the pressure of +Congress, had agreed to appoint a special envoy to help Monroe +negotiate a commercial treaty with England, sent William +Pinkney of Maryland to London. "He has a just view of +things, so far as known to him," wrote Jefferson to Monroe, +but he did not deem it desirable to trust him with special +instructions. For Monroe alone he reserved the complete +exposition of the plans then brooding in his mind. The death +of Pitt would probably mark a change in the attitude of Great +Britain; the President had more confidence in Mr. Fox than +in any other man in England and relied entirely on "his honesty +and good sense." Then came an outline of the reasoning to +be put forward by Monroe: "No two countries upon earth +have so many points of common interests and friendship; and +their rulers must be great bunglers indeed, if, with such disposi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span>tions, +they break them asunder." England might check the +United States a little on the ocean; but she should realize that +nothing but her financial limitations prevented America from +having a strong navy. If France provided the money, so as to +equip an American fleet, the state of the ocean would be no +longer problematical. If England, on the contrary, made such +a proposition, an alliance of the two largest fleets "would make +the world out of the continent of Europe our joint monopoly." +Then Jefferson added: "we wish for neither of these scenes—We +ask for peace and justice from all nations; and we will +remain uprightly neutral in fact, though leaning in belief to the +opinion that an English ascendency on the ocean is safer for us +than that of France."</p> + +<p>Finally, at the end of the letter, came the most extraordinarily +imperialistic proposition ever made by any nation; it was the +extension of a pet theory of Jefferson to the Atlantic Ocean. +As he had claimed for the United States the free navigation of +all the streams originating on the territory of the United States, +he was ready to claim that the great current originating from +the Gulf should not be considered differently, and he wrote: +"We begin to broach the idea that we consider the whole Gulf +Stream as of our waters, in which hostilities and cruising are +to be frowned on for the present, and prohibited so soon as +either consent or force will permit us."<a name="FNanchor_463_463" id="FNanchor_463_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_463_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a></p> + +<p>This might be thought a visionary scheme and merely a +flight of imagination, if Jefferson had not expressed the same +idea in identical terms in a conversation with the French +minister concerning the treaty negotiated in London by Monroe +and Pinkney: "Perhaps we shall obtain the right to extend our +maritime jurisdiction, and to carry it as far as the effect of the +Gulph Stream makes itself felt,—which would be very advantageous +both to belligerents and neutrals."<a name="FNanchor_464_464" id="FNanchor_464_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_464_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span></p> + +<p>These being Jefferson's views, it would have taken a far more +successful negotiator than Monroe to make the British Government +accept them. The treaty finally signed by the American +envoys on December 1, 1806, was far from satisfactory. As a +matter of fact, the American envoys had been caught between +the hammer and the anvil. To the Fox blockade of April, 1806, +Napoleon had answered by the Berlin Decree at the end of +November, placing the British islands in a state of blockade, +declaring all merchandise coming from England subject to +confiscation and refusing admission into any French port to any +vessel coming either from England or her colonies. Forbidden +by England to trade with France, by France to trade with +England, the neutrals were placed in a sorry plight. Yet not +only did Monroe in his treaty recognize the right of visit and of +impressing British seamen found on board American vessels, +but he gave up the American claims to indemnity for outrages +committed on American commerce in 1805, and accepted the +most humiliating conditions concerning American trade with +the French and Spanish colonies. Finally, before Monroe +could obtain the signature of the British negotiators, he had +to agree to an additional article by which he promised not +to recognize the decree of Berlin. In less than three weeks +Jefferson received Napoleon's decree, the text of the Pinkney-Monroe +treaty, and the news of Lord Howick's retaliatory +order requesting that no goods should be carried to France +unless they first touched at an English port and paid a certain +duty.</p> + +<p>In spite of the pressing request of the Senate, Jefferson refused +to communicate the text of the treaty. The explanation +publicly given by the President was that Monroe had concluded +the treaty before receiving information as to the points to be +insisted upon, and that a new effort would be made to obtain +the modification of some particularly objectionable features. +"This is the statement we have given out," he wrote to Monroe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> +"and nothing more of the treaty has ever been made known. +But depend on it, my dear Sir, that it will be considered as a +hard treaty when it is known." If it appeared to Monroe that +no amendment was to be hoped for, he was authorized to come +home, leaving behind him Pinkney, who by procrastination +would let it die and thus would give America more time "the +most precious of all things to us."<a name="FNanchor_465_465" id="FNanchor_465_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_465_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a></p> + +<p>New instructions were sent accordingly to the American +envoys at the end of May, but the problem of the relations +with England became suddenly more acute during Aaron +Burr's trial.</p> + +<p>On June 22, the <i>Chesapeake</i> of the American navy, bound for +the Mediterranean, was hauled up in view of Cape Henry by +the <i>Leopard</i> of the British squadron, and summons were sent +to Commodore Barron to deliver some British deserters he was +supposed to have on board. Upon Barron's refusal, the +<i>Leopard</i> opened fire and for fifteen minutes sent broadsides into +the American ship, so unprepared and unready that only one +shot could be fired in answer. The American flag was hauled +down, British officers boarded the ship and took four deserters; +after which Captain Humphreys of the <i>Leopard</i> declared to +Barron that he could proceed on his way. The <i>Chesapeake</i> +limped back into port, and on the twenty-fifth, Jefferson called +back to Washington Dearborn and Gallatin to consider the +emergency in a meeting of the Cabinet.</p> + +<p>What his indignation over the outrage may have been is a +matter of surmise. He did not express it either privately or +publicly. To Governor William H. Cabell, who had sent him a +special message and report, he answered diplomatically that, +after consulting the Cabinet he would determine "the course +which exigency and our constitutional powers call for.—Whether +the outrage is a proper cause of war, belonging exclusively +to Congress, it is our duty not to commit them by doing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> +anything which would have to be retracted." But it is certain +that, even at that time, he was not ready to recommend any +radical step, for he added:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This will leave Congress free to decide whether war is the most +efficacious mode of redress in our case, or whether, having taught so +many other useful lessons to Europe, we may not add that of showing +them that there are peaceable means of repressing injustice by making +it the interest of the aggressor to do what is just and abstain +from future wrong.<a name="FNanchor_466_466" id="FNanchor_466_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_466_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a></p></div> + +<p>It was scarcely necessary to call the Cabinet together; three +days before the special meeting the President had already +decided on a policy of forbearance and watchful waiting. The +proclamation which was issued was moderate in tone, but +Jefferson expressed more clearly in a letter to the Vice President, +George Clinton, the reasons for his moderation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The usage of nations requires that we shall give the offender an +opportunity of making reparation and avoiding war. That we +would give time to our merchants to get in their property and vessels +and our seamen now afloat; That the power of declaring war being +with the Legislature, the executive could do nothing necessarily +committing them to decide for war in preference of non-intercourse, +which will be preferred by a great many.<a name="FNanchor_467_467" id="FNanchor_467_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_467_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a></p></div> + +<p>In order to make even more certain that no precipitate step +would be taken, it was decided to issue, on August 24, a proclamation +calling Congress together, but not until the fourth +Monday in October. It was the manifest hope of the President +that by that date some satisfaction would be obtained from +England with regard to the most flagrant violations of the +"<i>droit des gens</i>", and that extreme measures could be avoided.</p> + +<p>In the meantime new instructions had been sent to Monroe. +"Reparation for the past, and security for the future is our +motto," wrote the President to Du Pont de Nemours. Repara<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span>tion +for the past, at least as far as the attack on the <i>Chesapeake</i> +was concerned, would have been easy to obtain, but Canning +refused persistently to make any promise for the future, or to +alter the policy of Great Britain with regard to visit and +impressment. For his firmness in refusing to settle the case of +the <i>Chesapeake</i> independently, Jefferson has been most severely +criticized by Henry Adams, whose admiration for Perceval's and +Canning's superior minds is unbounded. Shall I confess that +on this particular point, at least, I should rather agree with the +English biographer of Jefferson, Mr. Hirst, who declares that +"no second-rate lawyer was ever more obtuse than Perceval, +and the wit of Canning, his foreign secretary, seldom issued +in wisdom." On this occasion Great Britain was even more +stupid than she had been in 1776; she missed her great opportunity +to operate a reconciliation with the United States and to +turn them against France, without other compensation than the +pleasure of outwitting the American envoys and once more +treating scornfully the younger country. The real answer of +England was given in the Orders in Council of November 11, +1807, prohibiting all neutral trade with the whole European +seacoast from Copenhagen to Trieste. No American vessel +was to be allowed to enter any port of Europe from which +British vessels were excluded without first going to England +and abiding by regulations to be determined later.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, Jefferson was pushing fast his preparations +for defence. A detailed examination of his correspondence +during the summer and fall of that year would justify him amply +from the criticism of several American historians.<a name="FNanchor_468_468" id="FNanchor_468_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_468_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a> He still +hoped for peace, or more exactly peace remained his ideal, +although he had very little hope that Monroe would succeed +in his negotiations. But nothing could be done as long as +American ships and sailors, "at least twenty thousand men",<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> +were on the seas, an easy prey to British vessels in case war +should be declared at once. "The loss of these," wrote Jefferson +quite correctly, "would be worth to Great Britain many +victories on the Nile and Trafalgar."<a name="FNanchor_469_469" id="FNanchor_469_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_469_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a></p> + +<p>To judge of Jefferson's conduct at that time from our modern +point of view would be most unfair and dangerous. He could +neither cable, nor send radiograms, nor even steamships to +warn American citizens in distant ports, nor give instructions +to agents of the United States all over the world. It took +months for news to cross the ocean and sometimes a year or +more to receive an answer to a letter. The geographical isolation +of the United States, their remoteness from Europe and the +slowness of communications were obvious factors of the situation, +yet they are too often neglected in judging the policy then +followed by the President. As the year advanced, Jefferson's +hope of being able to maintain peace grew fainter. There is a +spirit of helplessness in a letter he wrote to James Maury at the +end of November:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The world as you justly observe, is truly in an awful state. Two +nations of overgrown power are endeavoring to establish, the one +an universal dominion by sea, the other by land.... We are +now in hourly expectation of hearing from our ministers in London +by the return of the "Revenge." Whether she will bring us war or +peace, or the middle state of non-intercourse, seems suspended +in equal balance.<a name="FNanchor_470_470" id="FNanchor_470_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_470_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a></p></div> + +<p>The message to Congress, of October 27, contained no +specific recommendation. It was a dispassionate recital of the +circumstances which had necessitated new instructions to +Monroe, a promise that Congress would be informed of the +result of the negotiations, news of which was expected hourly, +and an enumeration of the measures taken towards the defense +of the country. When the first news finally came, the President<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> +had already decided upon the course to follow. On December +18, 1807, he sent to Congress one of his shortest messages:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The communications now made, showing the great and increasing +dangers with which our vessels, our seamen, and merchandise, are +threatened on the high seas and elsewhere, from the belligerent +powers of Europe, and it being of great importance to keep in safety +these essential resources, I deem it my duty to recommend the subject +to the consideration of Congress, who will doubtless perceive all +the advantages which may be expected from an inhibition of the +departure of our vessels from the ports of the United States. Their +wisdom will also see the necessity of making every preparation for +whatever events may grow out of the present crisis.</p></div> + +<p>The situation was much more clearly described in a letter to +General John Mason written approximately at the same time.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The sum of these mutual enterprises on our national rights—wrote +the President—is that France, and her allies, reserving for +further consideration the prohibiting our carrying anything to the +British territories, have virtually done it, by restraining our bringing +a return cargo from them; and that Great Britain, after prohibiting +a great proportion of our commerce with France and her +allies, is now believed to have prohibited the whole. The whole world +is thus laid under interdict by these two nations, and our vessels, +their cargoes and crews, are to be taken by the one or the other, for +whatever place they may be destined out of our own limits. If +therefore, on leaving our harbors we are certain to lose them, is it +not better, as to vessels, cargoes and seamen, to keep them at home? +This is submitted to the wisdom of Congress, who alone are competent +to provide a remedy.<a name="FNanchor_471_471" id="FNanchor_471_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_471_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a></p></div> + +<p>As in so many other instances the temptation is great to +draw a parallel between Jefferson's policies and the neutrality +advocated by Woodrow Wilson during his first term, and to +repeat the worn-out and dangerous adage "history repeats<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> +itself." As a matter of fact, the situation faced by Jefferson in +1808 was entirely different from that which confronted President +Wilson from 1914 to 1917. America was not then a rich +and powerful country with unlimited resources. The people +had just emerged from a long and distressing financial crisis, +for it took more than one generation to heal the wounds of a +war which had lasted six years. The Federal Government was +far from being as strong as it was destined to become. The +navy was ridiculously inadequate, not only to go out and give +battle to the English fleet, but even, to use Jefferson's expression, +to keep the seaports "<i>hors d'insulte</i>".</p> + +<p>These facts must be kept in mind if one wishes to form a true +estimate of Jefferson's conduct and character during the calamitous +years of his second term. To criticize his policies is an +easy feat for a modern historian, for it is natural that an +American of to-day should resent Jefferson's attitude as +unworthy of a great self-respecting nation. Undoubtedly the +President might have sent a warlike message to Congress and +war would have immediately followed, but on the whole the +issue had been taken out of his hands in December, 1807. The +embargo, as he justly pointed out, was no new policy and no +new measure; it was simply a recognition of a situation created +by both France and Great Britain. The only way out would +have been a formal declaration of war, and one does not quite +see what this grand gesture would have accomplished. Certainly +the United States were no more in position to march into +Canada in 1807 than they were in 1812, and if they had succeeded +in taking possession of the British colony, it is unlikely +that Great Britain would have accepted such a loss with +equanimity. Furthermore, even if a formal alliance had been +concluded with France, the French fleet would have been +powerless to prevent the British navy from cruising on the +American coast and repeating, if they had wished, the outrages +that had befallen Copenhagen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another solution, favored by such a liberal historian of +Jefferson as Mr. A. J. Nock, would have been frankly to recognize +the existing situation and to leave the New England merchants +free to send out their vessels at their own risk. This +would have relieved to a certain extent the economic distress of +the northern States, but whether it would have been more +honest or more dignified than the embargo is a matter of +opinion. Such a policy would have been neutral only in appearance; +it would have amounted to a tacit recognition of a +British monopoly of the American trade, since England was +really the only country to which American ships would have +been permitted to go. Granting that the embargo was "the +most arbitrary, inquisitorial, and confiscatory measure formulated +in American legislation up to the period of the Civil +War",<a name="FNanchor_472_472" id="FNanchor_472_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_472_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a> I fail to see that the prestige of the United States would +have gained much by allowing their citizens to submit to the +humiliating Orders in Council of November 11, 1807. Of all +policies this would have been the most evasive, most vacillating +and least dignified.</p> + +<p>It must be furthermore remembered that though he was +gifted with remarkable foresight, Jefferson was in no position to +guess that the conflict between England and France would +last for seven more years. He believed, on the contrary, that +the Titanic struggle would come, if not to a definite close, at +least to a pause, within a comparatively short time: "Time +may produce peace in Europe; peace in Europe removes all +causes of difference, till another European war; and by that +time our debt may be paid, our revenue clear, and our strength +increased."<a name="FNanchor_473_473" id="FNanchor_473_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_473_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a> This reasoning reappears in many letters written +by Jefferson during the last year of his administration. His +correspondence during the months that separated him from rest +and philosophical meditation may be devoid of dramatic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> +interest, but a thorough perusal of it would demonstrate that +at no time during his long political career were his motives +less interested, less partisan and more truly patriotic.</p> + +<p>At no time, either, was he more bitterly attacked. He +suffered from "the peltings of the storm" and cried out pathetically +to Benjamin Rush: "Oh! for the day when I shall be +withdrawn from it; when I shall have leisure to enjoy my +family, my friends, my farm and books." But the defection +of the Republicans in Congress, the divergence of opinions in +his Cabinet, the threats of secession, the anonymous letters and +the press campaign launched against him had no power to shake +his strong negative resolution. Yet in all justice to him it may +be seen that his policy was not entirely negative.</p> + +<p>First of all his letters show that he never considered the +embargo as a permanent cure. As early as March, 1808, +writing to Charles Pinckney, the former envoy to Spain, he +declared that the effect of the embargo would be "to postpone +for this year the immediate danger of a rupture with England." +He admitted that a time would come "when war would be +preferable to a continuance of the embargo and that the +question would have to be decided at the next meeting of +Congress unless peace intervened in the meantime."<a name="FNanchor_474_474" id="FNanchor_474_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_474_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a> Under +these circumstances the repeal of the embargo voted by Congress +to take effect after Jefferson's retirement cannot be considered +as a rebuke to the President. Moreover, it appears +that Jefferson had given some thought to three and not two +alternatives: 1, embargo; 2, war; 3, submission and tribute,—the +third being exactly that advocated by Mr. Nock. In +Jefferson's opinion this third solution was at once "to be put +out by every American and the two first considered."<a name="FNanchor_475_475" id="FNanchor_475_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_475_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a> Writing +to Thomas Leib, earlier in the year, he had already defined +his position with regard to this solution, recommended by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> +mercantile interests: "It is true, the time will come when we +must abandon it (the embargo). But if this is before the repeal +of the orders of council, we must abandon it only for a state of +war. The day is not distant, when that will be preferable to a +longer continuance of the embargo. But we can never remove +that, and let our vessels go out and be taken under these orders +without making reprisal." This is itself evidence, but it has +apparently escaped many historians as well as many contemporaries +of Jefferson. If the embargo is considered not as a +permanent policy but as a political expedient and a political +experiment, the greater part of Henry Adams' arraignment of +Jefferson's political philosophy falls flat.<a name="FNanchor_476_476" id="FNanchor_476_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_476_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a> When, on the other +hand, the same writer admits that "the result was that the +embargo saved perhaps twenty millions of dollars a year and +some thousands of lives which the war would have consumed", +we may be permitted to add that Jefferson would not have +granted the principle that "the strongest objection to war +was not its waste of money or even of life; for money and +life in political economy were worth no more than they could +be made to produce." If this is economic history, Heaven +preserve us from economic policies! As to the accusation +that "Jefferson's system was preaching the fear of war, of +self-sacrifice, making many smugglers and traitors, but not +a single hero", I must humbly confess that one does not +see that America would have been much richer for engaging +without adequate preparation or even a fair chance to defend +herself in a useless and, in last analysis, probably inglorious war.</p> + +<p>It is claimed, however, that the embargo caused an economic +catastrophe:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>As the order was carried along the seacoast, every artisan dropped +his tools, every merchant closed his doors, every ship was dismantled. +American produce—wheat, timber, cotton, tobacco, rice—dropped +in value or became unsalable; every imported article rose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> +in price; wages stopped, swarms of debtors became bankrupt; thousands +of sailors hung idle around the wharves.... A reign of idleness +began; and the men who were not already ruined felt that +their ruin was only a matter of time.<a name="FNanchor_477_477" id="FNanchor_477_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_477_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a></p></div> + +<p>A very pathetic picture this, made even more pitiful by the +classic quotation from the British traveler, Lambert, who +visited New York in 1808 and described it as a place ravaged +by pestilence. But why not quote also from another traveler, +John Mellish, who spoke of the impetus given to manufactures +and home industries?<a name="FNanchor_478_478" id="FNanchor_478_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_478_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a> Why forget to mention Gallatin's +report of 1810, pointing out that some basic industries had +been firmly established in the United States, such as iron, +cotton, flax, hats, paper, printing type, gunpowder, window +glass, clocks, etc. Who could deny, at any rate, that manufactures +made enormous progress, thanks to the embargo, and +that goods formerly imported from England began to be made +in America? Even supposing that the picture drawn by +H. Adams were true, it would be necessary to admit that there +was another side to it and that a few artisans, at least, remained +working steadily at their benches.</p> + +<p>The last annual message of Jefferson to Congress was noncommittal +on the measures to be taken. It presented first a +dispassionate recital of the negotiations carried on with France +and England to bring them to rescind the most offensive features +of their orders and decrees. It recognized that "this +candid and liberal experiment had failed." It was left to Congress +to determine what course to follow:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Under a continuance of the belligerent measures which, in defiance +of laws which consecrate the rights of neutrals, overspread the ocean +with danger, it will rest with the wisdom of Congress to decide on the +course best adapted to such a state of things; and bringing with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> +them, as they do, from every part of the Union, the sentiments of +our constituants, my confidence is strengthened, that in forming +this decision they will, with an unerring regard to the essential +rights and interests of the nation weigh and compare the painful +alternatives out of which a choice is to be made.</p></div> + +<p>This reserved attitude Jefferson intended to maintain during +the rest of his term. "I have thought it right to take no part +myself in proposing measures, the execution of which will +devolve on my successor. I am therefore chiefly an unmedling +listener to what others say."<a name="FNanchor_479_479" id="FNanchor_479_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_479_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a> But to Doctor William Eustis +he protested that "while thus endeavoring to secure, and preparing +to vindicate that commerce, the absurd opinion has been +propagated, that this temporary and necessary arrangement +was to be a permanent system and was intended for its destruction."<a name="FNanchor_480_480" id="FNanchor_480_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_480_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a> +And this seems to indicate that he was quite definite +in his own mind, even if he refrained from expressing his opinion +officially.</p> + +<p>After more than a month's deliberation in Congress, Jefferson +had come to believe that "Congress had taken their ground +firmly for continuing the embargo till June, and then war." +Quite suddenly, however, the majority, frightened by threats +of secession openly made by the New England members, and +fearful of the famous Essex Junto, rallied to a compromise. +Neither the people nor Congress were for war, and that fact +had been clearly realized very early both by the French and +the British ministers; at the same time it was felt that something +must be done to relieve to some extent the financial +distress of the Virginia planters and New England merchants. +The result was that Congress decided to remove the embargo +on March 4, "non intercourse with France and Great Britain, +trade everywhere else, and continuing war preparations."<a name="FNanchor_481_481" id="FNanchor_481_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_481_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span></p> + +<p>On the first of March, three days before the inauguration of +his successor, Jefferson signed the bill, but not without serious +misgivings. The letters he wrote at that time contain even +more convincing evidence that he did not expect the embargo +to last much longer. To General Armstrong, the American +representative in Paris, he declared on March 5 that "War must +follow if the edicts are not repealed before the meeting of Congress +in May." With Short, whom he had tried without success +to have appointed Minister to Russia, he was more explicit +if no less emphatic: "We have substituted for it (the embargo), +a non-intercourse with France and England and their dependencies, +and a trade to all other places. It is probable that the +belligerents will take our vessels under their edicts, in which +case we shall probably declare war against them."<a name="FNanchor_482_482" id="FNanchor_482_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_482_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a> Finally, +to Madison himself, he wrote after reaching Monticello:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is to be desired that war may be avoided, if circumstances will +admit. Nor in the present maniac state of Europe, should I +estimate the point of honor by the ordinary scale. I believe we +shall, on the contrary, have credit with the world, for having made +the avoidance of being engaged in the present unexampled war, our +first object. War, however, may become a less losing business than +unresisted depredation.<a name="FNanchor_483_483" id="FNanchor_483_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_483_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a></p></div> + +<p>Whatever may have been the opposition to the embargo +and the opposition to Jefferson of disaffected Republicans, it +is remarkable that he was able to keep his party in hand to the +last minute and to choose his successor. Early at the beginning +of his second term, he had expressed his irrevocable +intention not to become a candidate for a third term. He was +longing for his farm, his books, for the comforts of family life +and he was not in the best of health.</p> + +<p>Not only had he been troubled by rheumatism, but "periodical +headaches" recurring at frequent intervals left him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> +for days unable to write and hardly able "to compose his +thoughts."</p> + +<p>The Republicans had to make a choice between three possible +candidates: George Clinton, Monroe, and Madison. The +strongest argument that could be advanced in favor of the +first was that, according to a precedent already apparently +established, the Vice President was the logical successor, the +"heir apparent", as Adams had termed it, to a retiring President. +Moreover, Clinton could count on the support of the +New York Republicans and had aroused no strong antagonism +against himself. It soon became obvious, however, that the +contest lay between the two Virginians and that the Virginia +dynasty would not be broken as yet. Monroe was not without +support in his native State and his candidacy had been upheld +by a Republican caucus held by Randolph and his friends at +Richmond; but another caucus of the Assembly had given a +decisive majority to Madison. On January 23, 1808, a congressional +caucus held in Washington pronounced decisively for +Madison as President and George Clinton as Vice President. +But Randolph held aloof and with his friends published a protest +against the candidacy of Madison, who had "moderation +when energy was needed", whose theories of government were +tainted with federalism, "when the country was asking for +consistency and loathing and abhorrence from any compromise." +The danger of a split in the Republican Party was indeed serious, +and while Jefferson reasserted his wish not to participate in any +way in the campaign, he wrote to Monroe a long letter, deploring +the situation and making an obvious appeal to his party +loyalty. He warned him particularly against the passions +that could not fail to be aroused in such a contest, and conjured +him to keep clear "of the toils in which his friends would +endeavor to interlace him."</p> + +<p>That Monroe's <i>amour-propre</i> was deeply wounded appears +in the letter he wrote in answer to his "chief." He complained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span> +lengthily and bitterly of having been handicapped by the sending +of Pinkney and of the criticism to which he had been subjected +on account of the treaty. Once again Jefferson had to +soothe the discontent of his friend and "<i>élève</i>", which to a +certain extent he succeeded in doing. It soon appeared, however, +that the question would solve itself, that neither Monroe +nor Clinton was strong enough to control the Republican +majority. When the results came in, the Republicans had +suffered the loss of all New England except Vermont, but +Madison carried the election by one hundred and twenty-two +votes, against forty-seven to C. C. Pinckney and six for Clinton. +True enough, in several states the electors had been selected +before the full pressure of the embargo was felt, but with such a +substantial majority it is difficult to accept unreservedly Henry +Adams' view that "no one could fail to see that if nine months +of embargo had so shattered Jefferson's power, another such +year would shake the Union itself."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BOOK_SIX" id="BOOK_SIX"></a>BOOK SIX</h2> + +<h1><i>The Sage of Monticello</i></h1> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h2>"AMERICA HAS A HEMISPHERE TO ITSELF"</h2> + + +<p>When, after a long and fatiguing journey, Thomas Jefferson +reached Monticello in the spring of 1809, he was in his sixty-third +year and had well earned his "quadragena stipendia." But +the Republic did not serve any pension to retired Presidents. +For more than twelve years he had perforce neglected his +domain, and his son-in-law, who had been in charge of the +estate for some time, was scarcely a man to be intrusted with +the administration of complicated financial interests. A large +part of Jefferson's time was necessarily spent in setting things +to rights; but the times were against him, and the embargo +had proved more detrimental to the great landowners of the +South than to the New England manufacturers. A planter +whose sole revenue consisted in his crops had the utmost difficulty +in providing for a large family of dependants, and a considerable +number of slaves who had to be fed and clad, and +most of all in keeping up appearances. Jefferson was hardly +freed from public responsibilities when he had to labor under +domestic difficulties which worried him even to his death bed.</p> + +<p>Under his direction, however, Monticello became more than +ever a self-supporting community; the slaves were taught all +the necessary trades and when, thanks to the merino sheep +brought over by Du Pont de Nemours, woolen goods of fine +quality were made at Monticello, the master of the house was +proud to wear clothes of homespun which, in his opinion, could +rival the best produce of the English manufactures. Whole +books could be written, and several have been written, on +Jefferson the agriculturist, the surveyor, the civil engineer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> +the inventor and the architect. There is, however, another +aspect of his last years which deserves more attention than +it usually receives.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50%;"> +<img src="images/pic468b.jpg" width="100%" alt="THOMAS JEFFERSON" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THOMAS JEFFERSON<br /> +<br /> +<i>From the portrait by Kosciuszko</i></span> +</div> + +<p>For thirty years Jefferson had lived almost constantly under +the scrutiny of the public. His utterances had been pounced +upon by eager enemies of the "cannibal press"; letters intended +solely for friends had been printed, several times in a garbled +form, and during his presidency he had been unable to communicate +freely with his European friends for fear of having his +letters intercepted. At last, he could express himself freely. +He was no longer the spokesman of the country who had to +ascertain the state of public opinion before writing a message +or sending a communication to a foreign government. He +could speak for himself, without being hindered by the ever-present +danger of political repercussions, and if he did not +speak much, he wrote several thousand letters, many of which +are still unpublished—an overwhelming treasure for historians +of the period. His physical strength was somewhat impaired, +but his intellectual powers were in no way diminished; never +had his mind been keener, his perception of realities clearer +and his extraordinary gift of political prophecy more accurate +than during the last fifteen years of his life. This is the period +to study in order to understand more fully his conception of +Americanism, his vision of democracy and the practical wisdom +which permeated his philosophy of old age.</p> + +<p>His valedictory letter to Madison, written from Monticello +on March 17, 1809, contained a very curious admission of the +inability of the United States to carry out war successfully with +their present organization; "I know of no Government," he +wrote, "which would be so embarrassing in war as ours. This +would proceed very much from the lying and licentious character +of our papers; but also, from the wonderful credulity +of the members of Congress in the floating lies of the day."<a name="FNanchor_484_484" id="FNanchor_484_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_484_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span></p> + +<p>This was no passing whim of his, but a very definite and categorical +understanding of the functions devolving upon the +Executive in times of emergency. He had not forgotten his +experience as Governor of Virginia, when he had to coax necessary +measures from a reluctant Assembly; his eight years +as Chief Executive of the country had only strengthened him +in the opinion that "In times of peace, the people look most +to their representatives, but in war to the Executive solely." +He found a confirmation of this theory in the state of public +opinion, when he wrote to Rodney, early in 1810: "It is visible +that their confidence is now veering in that direction: that they +are looking to the executive to give the proper direction to their +affairs, with a confidence as auspicious as it is well founded."<a name="FNanchor_485_485" id="FNanchor_485_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_485_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a></p> + +<p>A few months later, writing to J. B. Colvin, he took up again +the same question: "In what circumstances is it permitted for +the man in charge to assume authority beyond the law?" +That he was personally interested in the matter was evident, +since he had exceeded his constitutional powers very recently, +during the Burr conspiracy. It is nevertheless remarkable to +see the champion of legality and democracy declare that:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A strict observance of the written law is doubtless <i>one</i> of the high +duties of a good citizen, but it is not the <i>highest</i>. The laws of +necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger +are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous +adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, +liberty, property and all those enjoying them with us; thus absurdly +sacrificing the end to the means.<a name="FNanchor_486_486" id="FNanchor_486_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_486_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a></p></div> + +<p>To a certain extent this was a plea <i>pro domo sua</i>. If we +remember that, during the World War, the motto of America +was, for more than two years, "Stand by the President", it +will be seen that Jefferson was as good a prophet as an intel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span>ligent +observer. This admission of his may seem undemocratic, +but it simply shows that the former President had a clear +perception of the permanent tendencies that direct American +consciousness; for no people are more disciplined and more +ready to follow their chosen executive than the Americans, at +least on critical occasions, and more particularly when confronted +with foreign aggression.</p> + +<p>War was still to be avoided and considered only as the <i>ultima +ratio rei publicae</i>. On this point also, Jefferson was perfectly +consistent, and, having shed the responsibility, he did not +suddenly change his attitude. The "point of honor" was not +to be estimated by the ordinary scale in the present maniac +state of Europe. But America must realize at the same time +that no ordinary treaty could insure her safety. A treaty with +England could not even be thought of; for "the British never +made an equal treaty with any nation."</p> + +<p>With regard to France the situation was somewhat different. +Some compensation was due to America for forcing Great +Britain to revoke her orders in council. But what compensation? +The acquiescence of Bonaparte to the annexation of the +Floridas? That was no price; for "they are ours in the first +moment of the first war; and until a war they are of no particular +necessity." The only territory that the United States might +covet was Cuba. "That would be a price, and I would immediately +erect a column on the southernmost limit of Cuba, and +inscribe on it a <i>ne plus ultra</i> to us in that direction.... +Cuba can be defended by us without a navy, and this develops +the principle which ought to limit our views. Nothing should +ever be accepted which would require a navy to defend it."<a name="FNanchor_487_487" id="FNanchor_487_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_487_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a></p> + +<p>In the meantime, Jefferson did not miss any opportunity to +justify the embargo. Even after its repeal, he insisted that +"enough of the non-importation laws should be preserved 1st, +to pinch them into a relinquishment of impressments, and 2nd,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> +to support those manufacturing establishments, which their +orders, and our interests, forced us to make."<a name="FNanchor_488_488" id="FNanchor_488_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_488_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a></p> + +<p>To Du Pont de Nemours he wrote a long letter, stating in +detail the advantages accrued to America from the embargo, +and this point is well worth keeping in mind by those who +insist on considering Jefferson as a hundred per cent. agrarian:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The barefaced attempts of England to make us accessories and +tributaries to her usurpations on the high seas—he wrote to the old +Physiocrat—have generated in this country an universal spirit +for manufacturing for ourselves, and of reducing to a minimum the +number of articles for which we are dependent on her. The advantages +too, of lessening the occasions of risking our peace on the +ocean, and of planting the consumer on our own soil by the side of +the grower of produce, are so palpable, that no temporary suspension +of injuries on her part, or agreements founded on that, will now +prevent our continuing in what we have begun.<a name="FNanchor_489_489" id="FNanchor_489_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_489_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a></p></div> + +<p>So wrote the supposed agrarian to the founder of physiocracy, +and this is a <i>prima facie</i> evidence that Jefferson was not a Physiocrat +of the first water. As a matter of fact, on this point as on +so many others, he had strong negative principles. As we have +already pointed out on several occasions, Jefferson was not so +much opposed to manufactures and industries as to mercantilism, +and particularly to English mercantilism. This corrective +ought to be taken into consideration in any estimate of the Jeffersonian +democracy, and one may wonder whether some continuators +of Mr. Beard are sufficiently aware of this capital +distinction.</p> + +<p>It soon appeared to Jefferson that there was no possible way +out except war. Contrary to all expectations, the convulsions +of Europe continued and no hope of a permanent peace was in +sight. The death of Bonaparte "would remove the first and +chiefest apostle of the desolation of men and morals and might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> +withdraw the scourge of the land. But what is to restore order +and safety on the ocean. The death of George III? Not at +all.... The principle that force is right, is become the principle +of the nation itself."<a name="FNanchor_490_490" id="FNanchor_490_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_490_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a></p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Bonaparte was little to be feared. He +still had the whole world to conquer before turning his eyes +towards America.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>England on the contrary is an ever-present danger not to be +relied upon as an ally for she would make a separate peace and leave +us in the lurch. Her good faith? The faith of a nation of merchants. +The <i>Punica fides</i> of modern Carthage. Of the friend of +the protectress of Copenhagen. Of the nation who never admitted +a chapter of morality into her political code.</p></div> + +<p>Then follows a formidable indictment of the treacherous +policies of England with a curious and most interesting discrimination +at the end, for Jefferson observes that "it presents +the singular phenomenon of a nation, the individuals of which +are as faithful to their private engagements and duties, as +honorable, as worthy, as those of any nation on earth, and +whose government is yet the most unprincipled at this day +known."<a name="FNanchor_491_491" id="FNanchor_491_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_491_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a></p> + +<p>All told, both nations could be tarred with the same brush +"for," said Jefferson, "I should respect just as much the rules +of conduct which governed Cartouche or Blackbeard as those +now acted on by France or England."<a name="FNanchor_492_492" id="FNanchor_492_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_492_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a> The only difference +was that France was not in a position to cause as much damage +to American interests as her hereditary enemy whose claim to +"dominion of the ocean and to levy tribute on every flag traversing +that, as lately attempted and not relinquished, every nation +must contest, even <i>ad internecionem</i>."<a name="FNanchor_493_493" id="FNanchor_493_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_493_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span></p> + +<p>This detestation of English policies and English rulers did +not, however, extend to individuals. Even when war was to be +declared Jefferson took care to establish what he considered as +a very necessary distinction in a fine letter sent to James Maury, +his "dear and ancient friend and classmate":</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Our two countries are at war, but not you and I. And why +should our two countries be at war, when by peace we can be so +much more useful to one another. Surely the world will acquit our +government from having sought it.... We consider the overwhelming +power of England on the ocean, and of France on the land, +as destructive of the prosperity and happiness of the world, and +wish both to be reduced only to the necessity of observing moral +duties. I believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the +liberty of the seas, than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of +mankind.... We resist the enterprises of England first, because +they first come vitally home to us. And our feelings repel the logic +of bearing the lash of George III, for fear of that of Bonaparte at +some future day. When the wrongs of France shall reach us with +equal effect, we shall resist them also. But one at a time is enough; +and having offered a choice to the champions, England first takes up +the gauntlet.<a name="FNanchor_494_494" id="FNanchor_494_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_494_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a></p></div> + +<p>Since war was declared, the only thing to keep in mind was +to make it as advantageous as possible to the United States. +Thanks to the Louisiana Purchase, France had been eliminated +forever from the American continent, but the existence of a large +British province on the northern border constituted an ever-present +source of anxiety and danger for the Union. The +first war aim of the United States was consequently to expel +Great Britain from the North American continent, for as long +as England could use her continental dominion as "a fulcrum +for her Machiavellian levers" there would be no safety for the +United States. On the other hand, the war could not be +carried out to a successful conclusion if during the hostilities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> +America were kept unable to export the surplus of her produce. +Jefferson therefore recommended that neutral vessels be used +"and even enemy vessels under neutral flag, which I should +wink at", wrote Jefferson to the President.<a name="FNanchor_495_495" id="FNanchor_495_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_495_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a></p> + +<p>This last recommendation may seem surprising and almost +treasonable, but Jefferson lived in close contact with farmers +and planters, and he still remembered their attitude during +the Revolutionary War and knew that "to keep the war popular +we must keep open the markets. As long as good prices +can be had, the people will support the war cheerfully."</p> + +<p>Later in the year he was able to report to the President:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Our farmers are cheerful in the expectation of a good price for +wheat in Autumn. Their pulse will be regulated by this, and not +by the successes or disasters of the war. To keep open sufficient +markets is the very first object towards maintaining the popularity +of the war, which is as great at present as could be desired.<a name="FNanchor_496_496" id="FNanchor_496_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_496_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a></p></div> + +<p>To be correctly understood, this attitude of Jefferson advocating +trade with the enemy requires some further elucidation. +As a matter of fact, the issue was not so clear-cut as it would +seem. While England was to be considered as America's +enemy on the continent, she was "fighting America's battles" +in Europe, for the ultimate triumph of Bonaparte would have +been pregnant with dangers for the Union. He consequently +advocated the exportation of grain to Great Britain:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If she is to be fed at all events, why may not we have the benefit +of it as well as others. I would not indeed, feed her armies landed +on our territory, because the difficulty of inland communication +subsistence is what will prevent their ever penetrating far into the +country.... But this would be my only exception, and as to feeding +her armies in the Peninsular, she is fighting our battles there, as +Bonaparte is on the Baltic.<a name="FNanchor_497_497" id="FNanchor_497_497"></a><a href="#Footnote_497_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span></p> + +<p>But it must also be admitted that Jefferson considered that +in war all is fair. He had not changed much since the remote +days of the Revolution when he urged Washington to permit him +to use measures of retaliation on the British prisoners. Once +again he did not scruple to recommend measures sometimes +used but seldom so frankly advocated. He would not have +hesitated to bring the war home to Great Britain and to resort +to retaliation. "Perhaps they will burn New York or Boston," +he wrote to Duane. "If they do, we must burn the city of +London, not by expensive fleets or congreve rockets, but by +employing an hundred or two Jack-the-painters, whom nakedness, +famine, desperation and hardened vice, will abundantly +furnish among themselves."<a name="FNanchor_498_498" id="FNanchor_498_498"></a><a href="#Footnote_498_498" class="fnanchor">[498]</a></p> + +<p>But the thing never to be lost sight of was the conquest of +Canada and "the final expulsion of England from the American +continent." It was to be a very simple expedition, "a mere +matter of marching", and the weakness of the enemy was to +make "our errors innocent." All these sanguine expectations +were blasted to dust by the Hull disaster. Three frigates +taken by "our gallant little navy" could not balance "three +armies lost by treachery, cowardice, or incapacity of those to +whom they were entrusted." The mediation of Russia was +the only hope left, but the enemies were to remain "bedecked +with the laurels of the land"—the reverse of what was to be +expected and perhaps what was to be wished.<a name="FNanchor_499_499" id="FNanchor_499_499"></a><a href="#Footnote_499_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a></p> + +<p>Throughout the whole campaign Jefferson was unable to +choose between France and England, or rather between Bonaparte +and England's corrupted government. Strong as were his +denunciations of English policies and crimes, he almost foamed +at the mouth when he mentioned the abominable Corsican:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>That Bonaparte is an unprincipled tyrant who is deluging the +continent of Europe with blood, there is not a human being, not even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> +the wife of his bosom, who does not see. There is no doubt as to +the line we ought to wish drawn between his successes and those of +Alexander. Surely none of us wish to see Bonaparte conquer Russia, +and lay thus at his feet the whole continent of Europe. This done, +England would be just a breakfast.<a name="FNanchor_500_500" id="FNanchor_500_500"></a><a href="#Footnote_500_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a></p></div> + +<p>The "true line of interest" of the United States was consequently +that Bonaparte should be able to effect the complete +exclusion of England from the whole continent of Europe, in +order to make her renounce her views of dominion over the +ocean. As there was no longer any hope of expelling England +completely from the American continent, it remained "the +interest of the U. S. to wish Bonaparte a moderate success so as +to curb the ambition of Great Britain."<a name="FNanchor_501_501" id="FNanchor_501_501"></a><a href="#Footnote_501_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a></p> + +<p>From this and many other similar passages it would follow +that Jefferson was one of the first exponents of the famous +policy of the balance of power. Although at war with England, +America could not wish for a complete defeat of her enemy +which would enable the monster to pursue his dreams of world +domination. But hateful as the Corsican was, no one could +wish for an English victory which would leave Great Britain +the undisputed ruler of the ocean. Incidents of the war did +wring from Jefferson impassioned outbursts which expressed a +temporary anger, but whenever he took time to weigh the different +factors in his mind, the realistic politician emerged every +time.</p> + +<p>This appears clearly in his correspondence with Madame de +Staël, who had urged him on several occasions to make every +effort to decide his fellow countrymen to join in the battle +against the oppressors of liberty. It appears also quite significantly +in his correspondence with Madison, following the +burning of the White House and the destruction by the English +soldiers of the first Congressional Library. His indignation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> +ran high when he learned "through the paper" that "the vandalism +of our enemy has triumphed at Washington over science +as well as the arts, with the destruction of the public library +with the noble edifice in which it was deposited." "Of that +transaction, as that of Copenhagen, the world will entertain +but one sentiment," he wrote to Samuel H. Smith.<a name="FNanchor_502_502" id="FNanchor_502_502"></a><a href="#Footnote_502_502" class="fnanchor">[502]</a> But it +was characteristic of the man that he thought at once of the +means of restoring the library. Books could not be procured +easily from abroad and there was no other private library in +the country comparable to the collection of books he had +systematically accumulated for over forty years. He placed +his books at the disposal of Congress "to be valued by persons +named by the Library Committee, and the payment made +convenient to the public." This was not a piece of business +in order to retrieve his fortune, nor a disguised request for +financial help, but simply the act of a public-spirited citizen +unable to make an outright gift and yet unwilling to make any +profit on the public treasury.</p> + +<p>The end of the war was in sight—a war which could be +considered as a draw, in which both sides had lost heavily and +neither had gained anything:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is a deplorable misfortune to us. It has arrested the course of +the most remarkable tide of prosperity any nation ever experienced, +and has closed such prospects of future improvements as were never +before in the view of any people. Farewell all hopes of extinguishing +public debt! Farewell all visions of applying surpluses of +revenue to the improvement of peace, rather than the ravages of +war. Our enemy has indeed the consolation of Satan on removing +our first parents from Paradise; from a peaceable and agricultural +nation, he makes us a military and manufacturing one....<a name="FNanchor_503_503" id="FNanchor_503_503"></a><a href="#Footnote_503_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a></p></div> + +<p>It could truly be said that the war had failed. The best +that could be expected was the <i>status ante bellum</i>. "Indemnity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> +for the past and security for the future which was our motto +at the beginning of this war, must be adjourned to another, +when, disarmed and bankrupt our enemy shall be less able to +insult and plunder the world with impunity."<a name="FNanchor_504_504" id="FNanchor_504_504"></a><a href="#Footnote_504_504" class="fnanchor">[504]</a></p> + +<p>The news that peace had been signed did not cause him any +elation, it was "in fact but an armistice", and even when he +wrote again to his dear and ancient friend James Maury, +Jefferson was careful to note that America would never peacefully +accept again England's practice of impressment on the +high seas. "On that point," he wrote, "we have thrown away +the scabbard and the moment an European war brings her +back to this practice, adds us again to her enemies."<a name="FNanchor_505_505" id="FNanchor_505_505"></a><a href="#Footnote_505_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a></p> + +<p>This was repeated in a letter to his old friend Du Pont de +Nemours who had asked him for his influence in order to send +his grandson to the Naval Academy:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>For twenty years to come we should consider peace as the <i>summum +bonum</i> of our country. At the end of that period we shall be twenty +millions in number, and forty in energy, when encountering the +starved and rickety paupers and dwarfs of English workshops. By +that time your grandson will have become one of our High-Admirals, +and bear distinguished part in retorting the wrongs of both his +countries on the most implacable and cruel of their enemies.<a name="FNanchor_506_506" id="FNanchor_506_506"></a><a href="#Footnote_506_506" class="fnanchor">[506]</a></p></div> + +<p>Yet one would be mistaken in believing that Jefferson felt +against England any deep-seated animosity, and his resentment, +however justifiable, did not last long after the close of hostilities. +The fine friendly letters he wrote to Thomas Law and +James Maury at the eve of the war were more than mere gestures. +He had many friends in England, he was imbued with +English philosophy, English ideas, English law and, if he +detested the rulers and the régime, he always maintained the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> +same sentimental and quite natural feelings of so many Americans +for the mother country as a whole:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Were they once under a government which should treat us with +justice and equity—he wrote to John Adams—I should myself +feel with great strength the ties that bind us together, of origin, +language, laws and manners; and I am persuaded the two people +would become in future as it was with the ancient Greeks, among +whom it was reproachful for Greek to be found fighting against +Greek in a foreign army.<a name="FNanchor_507_507" id="FNanchor_507_507"></a><a href="#Footnote_507_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a></p></div> + +<p>On the same day he wrote to the Secretary of State, James +Monroe, about the proposed inscription to be engraved in a +conspicuous place on the restored Capitol, and he had suggested +that if any inscription was considered as necessary, it should +simply state the bare facts, such as:</p> + +<p class="center">FOUNDED 1791. BURNT BY A BRITISH ARMY +1814. RESTORED BY CONGRESS 1817.</p> + +<p>But a question of more importance was whether there should be +any inscription at all. "The barbarism of the conflagration +will immortalize that of the nation.... We have more reason +to hate her than any nation in earth. But she is not now an +object of hatred.... It is for the interest of all that she +should be maintained nearly on a par with other members +of the republic of nations."<a name="FNanchor_508_508" id="FNanchor_508_508"></a><a href="#Footnote_508_508" class="fnanchor">[508]</a></p> + +<p>With regard to France, his correspondence with Du Pont de +Nemours and Lafayette offers precious and significant testimony. +Much as he loathed Bonaparte, he deplored the return +of the Bourbons and the reactionary measures of the <i>Restauration</i>. +His indignation ran high when he received</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... the new treaty of the allied powers, declaring that the +French nation shall not have Bonaparte and shall have Louis XVIII +as their ruler. They are all then as great rascals as Bonaparte him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span>self. +While he was in the wrong, I wished him exactly as much +success as would answer our purpose, and no more. Now that they +are wrong and he in the right, he shall have all my prayers for +success, and that he may dethrone every man of them.<a name="FNanchor_509_509" id="FNanchor_509_509"></a><a href="#Footnote_509_509" class="fnanchor">[509]</a></p></div> + +<p>Writing to Albert Gallatin he indulged in a "poetical effusion" +which shows how deeply his feelings were stirred:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I grieve for France ... and I trust they will finally establish for +themselves a government of rational and well tempered liberty. So +much science cannot be lost; so much light shed over them can never +fail to produce to them some good in the end. Till then, we may +ourselves fervently pray, with the liturgy a little parodied; Give +peace till that time, oh Lord, because there is none other that will +fight for us but only thee, oh God.<a name="FNanchor_510_510" id="FNanchor_510_510"></a><a href="#Footnote_510_510" class="fnanchor">[510]</a></p></div> + +<p>When all was told, and it was realized that "the cannibals of +Europe were going to eating one another again and the pugnacious +humor of mankind seemed to be the law of his nature", +the only course for the United States to follow was to keep out +of the fray as much as possible and so to direct their policy as +to give no pretext for the European powers to intervene in the +New World.</p> + +<p>Already, in 1812, Jefferson had formulated his views in the +most unequivocal manner, when he wrote to Doctor John +Crawford:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We specially ought to pray that the powers of Europe may be so +poised and counterpoised among themselves, that their own safety +may require the presence of all their force at home, leaving the other +quarters of the globe in undisturbed tranquillity. When our strength +will permit us to give the law to our hemisphere, it should be that the +meridian of the mid-Atlantic should be the line of demarkation between +war and peace, on this side of which no act of hostility should +be committed, and the lion and the lamb lie down in peace together.<a name="FNanchor_511_511" id="FNanchor_511_511"></a><a href="#Footnote_511_511" class="fnanchor">[511]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span></p> + +<p>The progress of the revolt of the Spanish colonies was at +first to strengthen him in the position he had already taken.</p> + +<p>Jefferson received the news without any elation. For a long +time he had known that the link between the Spanish and +Portuguese colonies was growing weaker. He doubted very +much, however, that the colonies were ready for self-government. +There might have been some hope for Mexico, because +of her proximity to the United States: "But the others, I fear," +he wrote to Baron Alexander von Humboldt, "will end in military +despotisms. The different castes of their inhabitants, +their mutual hatred and jealousies, their profound ignorance +and bigotry, will be played off by cunning leaders, and each be +made the instrument of enslaving the others." The important +point he made was in what followed, and Jefferson here indulged +in one of his curious political prophecies, in which +he so often hit the mark:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>But in whatever government they will end, they will be <i>American</i> +governments, no longer to be involved in the never-ceasing broils +of Europe. The European nations constitute a separate division +of the globe; their localities make them part of a distinct system; +they have a set of interests of their own in which it is our business +never to engage ourselves. America has a hemisphere to itself. It +must have its separate system of interests; which must not be +subordinated to those of Europe. The insulated state in which +nature has placed the American continent, should so far avail it +that no spark of war kindled in the other quarters of the globe +should be wafted across the wide oceans which separate us +from them and it will be so. In fifty years more the United States +alone will contain fifty millions of inhabitants, and fifty years are +soon gone over.... And you will live to see the period ahead of +us; and the numbers which will then be spread over the other +parts of the American hemisphere, catching long before that the +principles of our portion of it, and concurring with us in the maintainance +of the same system.<a name="FNanchor_512_512" id="FNanchor_512_512"></a><a href="#Footnote_512_512" class="fnanchor">[512]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span></p> + +<p>For the present the situation was entirely different—and as +he had done during the Revolution with regard to France, he +advocated prudence and slowness. It was one thing for the +American colonies to engage in a war with the mother country +in order to preserve the liberties they had hitherto enjoyed, +and again it was another entirely different thing for people +who had not the faintest experience of self-government to declare +their independence and suddenly to sever all connections +with the past. In addition he was fully aware that the new +republics would be in no condition to fight off foreign aggressors +and thus would become an easy prey for the unscrupulous and +greedy nations of Europe. Unable to stand on their own feet, +the most natural course for South America was to fall back on +Spain. Jefferson did not visualize the "<i>foris familiation</i>" of +the colonies without a sort of moral protectorate of the mother +country: "if she extends to them her affection, her aid, her +patronage in every court and country, it will weave a bond of +union indissoluble by time."<a name="FNanchor_513_513" id="FNanchor_513_513"></a><a href="#Footnote_513_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a> At the time Jefferson did not go +further, and as a matter of fact he long held that this would have +been the best solution for South America. As late as January, +1821, he still maintained this opinion in a letter to John Adams:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The safest road would be an accomodation to the mother country +which shall hold them together by the single link of the same chief +magistrate, leaving to him power enough to keep them in peace +with one another, and to themselves the essential power of self-government +and self-improvement, until they will be sufficiently +trained by education and habits of freedom to walk safely by themselves. +Representative government, native functionaries, a qualified +negative on their laws, with a previous security by compact for +freedom of commerce, freedom of the press, habeas corpus, and trial +by jury, would make a good beginning. This last would be the +school in which their people might begin to learn the exercise of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> +civic duties as well as rights. For freedom of religion they are not +yet prepared.<a name="FNanchor_514_514" id="FNanchor_514_514"></a><a href="#Footnote_514_514" class="fnanchor">[514]</a></p></div> + +<p>This was the ideal solution, but "the question was not what +we wish, but what is practicable." If consequently the new +republics refused such a compromise, another alternative could +be offered:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>As their sincere friend and brother, I do believe the best thing for +them, would be for themselves to come to an accord with Spain, +under the guarantee of France, Russia, Holland, and the United +States, allowing to Spain a nominal supremacy, with authority only +to keep the peace among them, leaving them otherwise all the powers +of self-government, until their experience in them, their emancipation +from their priests, and advancement in information shall prepare +them for complete independence. I exclude England from this confederacy, +because her selfish principles render her incapable of +honorable patronage or disinterested co-operation; unless indeed, +what seems now probable, a revolution should restore to her an +honest government, one which will permit the world to live in peace.<a name="FNanchor_515_515" id="FNanchor_515_515"></a><a href="#Footnote_515_515" class="fnanchor">[515]</a></p></div> + +<p>This is a capital passage for it contains in germ much more +than the so-called Monroe Doctrine. What Jefferson had in +mind at the time was evidently a society of nations, which the +United States would have joined in order to guarantee the +territorial integrity of the South American republics under a +Spanish mandate. For Brazil alone he contemplated a real +and immediate independence, for "Brazil is more populous, +more wealthy, and as wise as Portugal."</p> + +<p>But in Jefferson's mind this plan was only a temporary solution. +He was firmly convinced that a time would necessarily +come when all the American republics would be drawn together +by their community of interests and institutions and coalescing +in an American system, independent from and unconnected +with that of Europe, would form a world by themselves:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The principles of society there and here, then, are radically +different and I hope no American patriot will ever lose sight of +the essential policy of interdicting in the seas and territories of +both Americas the ferocious and sanguinary contests of Europe. +I wish to see this coalition begun."<a name="FNanchor_516_516" id="FNanchor_516_516"></a><a href="#Footnote_516_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a></p></div> + +<p>Such, according to Jefferson, was to be the cardinal principle +of American policies for all times to come; for, as he wrote +to his friend Correa who had come back to the United States as +Minister from Portugal:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Nothing is so important as that America shall separate herself +from the system of Europe, and establish one of her own—Our +circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct, the principles +of our policy should be so also. All entanglements with that quarter +of the globe should be avoided that peace and justice shall be the +polar stars of American societies.<a name="FNanchor_517_517" id="FNanchor_517_517"></a><a href="#Footnote_517_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a></p></div> + +<p>On the other hand, it was not advisable for the United States +to intervene directly in South America or to help the colonies +to sever their bonds from the metropolis. There is little doubt +that the Spanish colonies would never have thought of revolting +if they had not had constantly before their eyes the example of +their northern neighbors. Ill-conducted as they were, the +revolutions of South America could trace their origin directly +to the American revolution and the Declaration of Independence. +It was so plain that Jefferson's French friends, Lafayette, +Du Pont de Nemours, and Destutt de Tracy expected him to +declare enthusiastically in favor of the South American republics +and to use whatever influence he still had to bring about an +open intervention of the United States in their favor. Their +optimism only shows how little they knew their American friend +and how little they understood his policy. To Destutt de +Tracy he answered at the end of 1820:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We go with you all lengths in friendly affections to the independence +of S. America, but an immediate acknowledgement of it calls +up other considerations. We view Europe as covering at present a +smothered fire, which may shortly burst forth and produce general +conflagration. From this it is our duty to keep aloof. A formal +acknowledgement of the independence of her colonies, would involve +us with Spain certainly, and perhaps too with England, if she thinks +that a war would divert her internal troubles. Such a war would +hurt us more than it would help our brethren of the South; and our +right may be doubted of mortgaging posterity for the expenses of a +war in which they will have a right to say their interest was not +concerned.... In the meantime we receive and protect the flag of +S. America in it's commercial intercourse with us, on the acknowledged +principles of neutrality between two belligerent parties in a civil +war; and if we should not be the first, we shall certainly be the second +nation in acknowledging the entire independence of our new friends.<a name="FNanchor_518_518" id="FNanchor_518_518"></a><a href="#Footnote_518_518" class="fnanchor">[518]</a></p></div> + +<p>This Jefferson pressed again even more tersely in a letter +written to Monroe almost four years later. "We feel strongly +for them, but our first care must be for ourselves."<a name="FNanchor_519_519" id="FNanchor_519_519"></a><a href="#Footnote_519_519" class="fnanchor">[519]</a></p> + +<p>Surveying the whole situation from the "mountain-top" +of Monticello, the philosopher wondered at times "whether all +nations do not owe to one another a bold declaration of their +sympathy with the one party and their detestation of the conduct +of the other?" But he soon concluded: "Farther than +this we are not bound to go; and indeed, for the sake of the +world, we ought not to increase the jealousies or draw on ourselves +the power of this formidable confederacy." After the +treaty of Ghent, at the beginning of the "era of good feeling", +the United States could reasonably count on a long period of +peace; all their difficulties with Europe had been settled, and +only one possible point of friction could be discovered. "Cuba +alone seems at present to hold up a speck of war to us. Its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span> +possession by Great Britain would indeed be a great calamity +to the United States; but such calamity could only be temporary, +for in case of war on any account, Cuba would be naturally +taken by the United States, or the island would give itself to us +when able to do so."</p> + +<p>Thus Jefferson, once again, reasserted the cardinal principle +of his policy—the policy of the United States since the early +days of the Union:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States, never +to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political +interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, +their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and +principles of government are all foreign to us. They are nations of +eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of +the labor, property, and lives of their peoples ... on our part, never +had a people so favorable a chance of trying the opposite system, of +peace and fraternity with mankind, and the direction of our means +and faculties to the purposes of improvement instead of destruction.<a name="FNanchor_520_520" id="FNanchor_520_520"></a><a href="#Footnote_520_520" class="fnanchor">[520]</a></p></div> + +<p>Thus, little by little, the famous doctrine took its final shape +in the minds of both Jefferson and Monroe. Jefferson contributed +to it its historical background, the weight of his experience +and authority, and the long conversations he had with +Monroe on the matter gave him an opportunity not only to +get "his political compass rectified" but to map out for the +President the course to follow. The often quoted letter written +by Jefferson to Monroe on October 24, 1823, contained little +more than what had passed between them when Monroe visited +his estate in Virginia. It was simply a reaffirmation of the +fundamental maxims of the Jeffersonian policies:—"never to +entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe—never to suffer +Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs."</p> + +<p>After making a survey of all the circumstances, Jefferson +could write in conclusion:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I could honestly, therefore, join in the declaration proposed, that +we aim not at the acquisition of any of those possessions, that we +will not stand in the way of any amicable arrangement between them +and the Mother country; but that we will oppose, with all our +means, the forcible interposition of any other form or pretext, and +most especially, their transfer to any power by conquest, cession, or +acquisition in any other way.</p></div> + +<p>Finally, although the letters to be exchanged between the +British and American governments did not properly constitute +a treaty, Jefferson advised Monroe to lay the case before Congress +at the first opportunity, since this doctrine might lead +to war, "the declaration of which requires an act of Congress."</p> + +<p>Whatever use has been made of the Monroe Doctrine and +whether or not the "mandate" assumed by the United States +has proved irksome to several South American republics, there +is no doubt that it was not proclaimed without long hesitation +and that its promoters did not take up this new responsibility +with "<i>un cœur léger</i>." There is no doubt, either, that it was +not considered as an instrument of imperialism. It was primarily +the extension of the doctrine of self-protection already +advanced by John Adams in 1776 and since then maintained +by Washington and Jefferson himself. It was also a corollary +of the theory of the balance of power which Jefferson always +kept in mind. In this he was not only followed but urged on +by all his liberal friends in Europe.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I would not be sorry—wrote Lafayette in 1817—to see the +American government invested by the follies of Spain, with the opportunity +to take the lead in the affairs of her independent colonies. +Unless that is the case or great changes happen in the European +policies, the miseries of those fine countries will be long protracted. +Could you establish there a representative system, a free trade, and +a free press, how many channels of information and improvement +should be open at once.<a name="FNanchor_521_521" id="FNanchor_521_521"></a><a href="#Footnote_521_521" class="fnanchor">[521]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jefferson himself was too respectful of self-government ever +to think of interfering with the internal affairs of the new +republics. On the other hand, he was too firmly convinced of +the moral, intellectual and political superiority of his own +country not to believe that a time would come when the contagion +of liberty would extend to the near and remote neighbors +of the United States. The unavoidable result of the +Monroe Doctrine and the moral mandate of America would be +ultimately to form a "Holy American Alliance" of the free +peoples of the Western Hemisphere, to counterbalance the +conspiracy of Kings and Lords "called the European Holy +Alliance."</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h2>DEMOCRATIC AMERICA</h2> + + +<p>Protected against foreign entanglements and having survived +the convulsions that had shattered the old structures of +Europe, America was at last free to pursue her development +along her own lines. The philosopher of Monticello could sit +back, take a more disinterested view of the situation and make +a forecast of the future of his country. He could also advise, +not only his immediate successors, but the generations to come +and take up again the part of "counsellor" which had always +suited him better than the part of the executive. He believed +too much in the right of successive generations to determine +their own form of government, to attempt to dictate in any way +the course to follow. But he was none the less convinced that +certain principles embodied in the Constitution had a permanent +and universal value, and during the years at Monticello +he formulated the gospel of American democracy.</p> + +<p>As it finally emerged from the several crises that threatened +its existence, the American Government was, if not the best +possible government, at least the best government then on the +surface of the earth. It was at the same time the hope and the +model of all the nations of the world.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We exist and are quoted—wrote Jefferson to Richard Rush—as +standing proofs that a government, so modelled as to rest continuously +on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government. +Were we to break to pieces, it would damp the hopes and efforts of +the good, and give triumph to those of the bad through the whole +enslaved world. As members, therefore, of the universal society of +mankind, and standing high in responsible relation with them, it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> +our sacred duty to suppress passion among ourselves and not to +blast the confidence we have inspired of proof that a government of +reason is better than a government of force.<a name="FNanchor_522_522" id="FNanchor_522_522"></a><a href="#Footnote_522_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a></p></div> + +<p>Some dangers, however, were threatening to disturb the +equilibrium of the country. The most pressing was perhaps +the extraordinary and unwholesome development of State and +local banks, which suspended payment in great majority in +September, 1814. The deluge of paper money and the depreciation +of the currency became, for Jefferson, a real obsession and +strengthened him in his abhorrence of commercialism. He did +not cease to preach the necessity of curbing the fever of speculation +that had accumulated ruins upon ruins and the return +to more sound regulations of the banks. "Till then," he wrote +to John Adams, "we must be content to return, <i>quoad hoc</i>, to the +savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange of our property, +for want of a stable, common measure of value, that now in use +being less fixed than the beads and wampum of the Indians."<a name="FNanchor_523_523" id="FNanchor_523_523"></a><a href="#Footnote_523_523" class="fnanchor">[523]</a></p> + +<p>His banking theories, however, had scarcely any influence +upon his contemporaries, and even Gallatin was little impressed +by them. But the evident danger of inflation turned his mind +back to the days when he had fought the Hamiltonian system +and gave him once more an opportunity to pass judgment upon +his opponent of the old days:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This most heteregeneous system was transplanted into ours from +the British system, by a man whose mind was really powerful, but +chained by native partialities to everything English; who had +formed exaggerated ideas of the superior wisdom of their government, +and sincerely believed it for the good of the country to make +them their model in everything, without considering that what +might be wise and good for a nation essentially commercial and +entangled in complicated intercourse with numerous and powerful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> +neighbors, might not be so for one essentially agricultural, and insulated +by nature, from the abusive governments of the old world.<a name="FNanchor_524_524" id="FNanchor_524_524"></a><a href="#Footnote_524_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a></p></div> + +<p>From this and many other passages it might be surmised +that Jefferson still held to the old antimercantile theories +that had crystallized in his mind when he was in Europe. If +this were true, the contradiction between his conduct as President +and his personal convictions would be so obvious that his +sincerity might be questioned. As a matter of fact, on this +point as on many others, he had undergone a slow evolution. +He was certainly sincere when, shortly after leaving office, he +wrote to Governor John Jay in order to make his position +clearer:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>An equilibrium of agriculture, manufacture, and commerce, is +certainly become essential to our independence. Manufactures, +sufficient for our own consumption (and no more). Commerce +sufficient to carry the surplus produce of agriculture, beyond our own +consumption, to a market for exchanging it for articles we cannot +raise (and no more). These are the true limits of manufacture and +commerce. To go beyond is to increase our dependence on foreign +nations, and our liability to war.<a name="FNanchor_525_525" id="FNanchor_525_525"></a><a href="#Footnote_525_525" class="fnanchor">[525]</a></p></div> + +<p>This can be taken as the final view of Jefferson on a subject +on which he is often misquoted and misunderstood. That he +was fully aware of the change that had taken place in his own +mind can be seen in a declaration to Benjamin Austin, written +in January, 1816. Between 1787 and that date, and even +earlier, Jefferson had seen the light and realized that to discourage +home manufactures was "to keep us in eternal vassalage +to a foreign and unfriendly people." He had no patience +with politicians who brought forth his old and now obsolete +utterances to promote their unpatriotic designs:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>You tell me I am quoted by those who wish to continue our +dependance on England for manufactures. There was a time when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> +I might have been so quoted with more candor, but within the thirty +years which have elapsed, how circumstances changed.... Experience +since has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary +to our independence as to our comfort; and if those who quote me +as of different opinion will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing +foreign where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, +without regard to the difference of price, it will not be our fault if we +do not soon have a supply at home equivalent to our demand.<a name="FNanchor_526_526" id="FNanchor_526_526"></a><a href="#Footnote_526_526" class="fnanchor">[526]</a></p></div> + +<p>Desirable as it was to promote the industrial development of +the United States, it was no less desirable not to encourage it +beyond a certain point. Jefferson saw quite clearly that, under +existing conditions, a great industrial growth of the country +would have as an unavoidable result the perpetuation of slavery +in the South and the even more undesirable creation of a proletariat +in the North. He had always held that slavery was a +national sore and a shameful condition to be remedied as soon +as conditions would permit. He was looking forward to the +time when this could be done without bringing about an economic +upheaval; but all hope would have to be abandoned if +slavery were industrialized and if slave labor became more +productive. As to the other danger of industrialism, it was no +vague apprehension; one had only to consider England to see +"the pauperism of the lowest class, the abject oppression of the +laboring, and the luxury, the riot, the domination and the +vicious happiness of the aristocracy." This being the "happiness +of scientific England", he wrote to Thomas Cooper, +"now let us see the American side of the medal":</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>And, first, we have no paupers, the old and crippled among us, +who possess nothing and have no families to take care of them, being +too few to merit notice as a separate section of society, or to affect a +general estimate. The great mass of our population is of laborers; +our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional, +being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span> +possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from +the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and +the competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, +clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their +families. They are not driven to the ultimate resources of dexterity +and skill, because their wares will sell although not quite so nice as +those of England. The wealthy, on the other hand, and those at +their ease, know nothing of what the Europeans call luxury. They +have only somewhat more of the comforts and decencies of life than +those who furnish them. Can any condition of society be more +desirable than this?<a name="FNanchor_527_527" id="FNanchor_527_527"></a><a href="#Footnote_527_527" class="fnanchor">[527]</a></p></div> + +<p>Once more Jefferson appears as a true disciple and continuator +of the Physiocrats and one might be tempted at first to agree +entirely with Mr. Beard on this point. But this is only an +appearance. To understand Jefferson's true meaning, it is +necessary to turn to his unpublished correspondence with Du +Pont de Nemours, and particularly to those letters written +after Jefferson's retirement from public life.</p> + +<p>The rapid industrialization of the United States had greatly +alarmed the old Physiocrat. In his opinion there was a real +danger lest the national character of the people be completely +altered and the foundation of government deeply shaken. +Considering the situation from the "economist's" point of view, +Du Pont came to the conclusion that the development of home +industries in America would necessarily bring about a permanent +reduction in the Federal income, largely derived from +import duties. The government could not be run without +levying new taxes and the question was to determine what +methods should be followed in the establishment of these new +taxes. If the United States decided to resort to indirect taxation, +that is to say, excise, the unavoidable result would be +the creation of an army of new functionaries, as in France under +the old régime, and the use of vexatory procedure for the en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span>forcement +of the new system. Furthermore, according to the +theories of the Physiocrats, indirect taxation was an economic +heresy, since it was a tax on labor, which is not a source but only +a transformation of wealth. The same criticism applied <i>a +fortiori</i> to the English income tax which constituted the worst +possible form of taxation.</p> + +<p>In the controversy which arose between Jefferson and his old +friend, the Sage of Monticello again took a middle course. +First of all, he refused to concede that the development of +industries could ever change the fundamental characteristics +of the United States. They were essentially an agricultural +nation, and an agricultural nation they would remain, in spite +of all predictions to the contrary. Furthermore, the question +was not to determine theoretically what was the best possible +form of taxation, but to find out what form the inhabitants of +the country would most easily bear. That in itself was a big +enough problem and could not be solved in the abstract, since, +according to Jefferson: "In most of the middle and Southern +States some land tax is now paid into the State treasury, and +for this purpose the lands have been classed and valued and the +tax assessed according to valuation. In these an excise is most +odious. In the Eastern States, land taxes are odious, excises +less unpopular."<a name="FNanchor_528_528" id="FNanchor_528_528"></a><a href="#Footnote_528_528" class="fnanchor">[528]</a></p> + +<p>Finally, Jefferson pointed out that his friend had neglected +several important factors, one of them being "the continuous +growth in population of the United States, which for a long time +would maintain the quantum of exports and imports at the +present level at least." Consequently, for several generations, +the Government would be able to support itself with a tax on +importations, "the best agrarian law in fact, since the poor +man in the country who uses nothing but what is made within +his own farm or family, or within the United States, pays not +a farthing of tax to the general government." With the char<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span>acteristic +optimism of the citizen of a young, strong and energetic +country, Jefferson then added:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Our revenue once liberated by the discharge of public debt and +its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., and the farmer will +see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of +his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone +without being called on to spare a cent from his earnings. The +path we are now pursuing leads directly to this end, which we cannot +fail to attain unless our administration should fall into unwise hands.<a name="FNanchor_529_529" id="FNanchor_529_529"></a><a href="#Footnote_529_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a></p></div> + +<p>This point alone should suffice to differentiate Jefferson's +system from physiocracy, since the Physiocrats had adopted +as their motto the famous <i>laissez faire laissez passer</i> and were +certainly in favor of free trade. How far from Du Pont Jefferson +remained in other particulars may be gathered from his +"Introduction" and notes to the "Political Economy" of +Destutt de Tracy, the translation and publication of which he +supervised and directed. In it he paid homage to the founders +of the science of political economy, and particularly to Gournay, +Le Trosne and Du Pont de Nemours, "the enlightened, +philanthropic and venerable citizen, now of the United States." +But he pointed out that the several principles they had discussed +and established had not been able to prevail, "not on +account of their correctness, but because not acceptable to the +people whose will must be the supreme law. Taxation is, in +fact, the most difficult function of the government, and that +against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory. The +general aim is, therefore, to adopt the mode most consonant +with the circumstances and sentiments of the country."</p> + +<p>This is Jefferson's final judgment on the Economists. +Another confirmation of his lack of interest in principles and +theories not susceptible of immediate application may be seen +in it. In matters of government, the important question, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> +deciding what should be done, was to determine how much +could be done under the circumstances, and if a particular +piece of legislation was turned down by the public will or only +reluctantly accepted, to bide one's time and wait for a more +favorable occasion. Even when doubting the wisdom of a +popular verdict, it was the duty of the public servant to do the +public will. Thus in this correspondence are revealed the +two sides of Jefferson's character, or to speak more exactly, +the two parallel tracks in which his mind ran at different times.</p> + +<p>At the bottom of his heart, he believed that many of the +economic doctrines of Du Pont were fundamentally sound; +but he also knew that the citizens of the United States were not +ready to accept the truth of these principles, and he did not +feel that, as an executive, he had the right to attempt to shape +the destinies of his country according to his own preferences. +Thus he laid himself open to the reproach of insincerity, or at +least of inconsistency, for on many occasions one may find a +flagrant contradiction between his public utterances and the +private letters he wrote to his friends. For this reason, Du +Pont de Nemours was never fully able to understand his American +friend. This difference between the French theorician and +the American statesman will appear even more clearly in the +letters in which they exchanged views on democracy and discussed +the conditions requisite for the establishment of a representative +government.</p> + +<p>Jefferson's opinion of the French people with regard to the +form of government they should adopt had never varied since +the earliest days of the Revolution. Every time he was consulted +by his friends on the matter, he invariably answered +that they could do no better than to follow as closely as possible +the system of their neighbors and hereditary enemies, the +British. This answer, which recurred periodically in his correspondence, +was made particularly emphatic in 1801, when he +again warned Lafayette that France was not ready to enjoy a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span> +truly republican government. He went on by categorically +stating that what was good for America might be very harmful +to another country and that even in America it was neither +desirable nor possible to enforce at once all the provisions of +the Constitution. Thus, in a few lines, he defined his policies +more clearly than any historian has ever done; he analyzed +that curious combination of unwavering principles and practical +expediency so puzzling to those once called by Jefferson +himself "the closet politicians."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>What is practicable—he said—must often control what is purely +theory and the habits of the governed determine in a great degree +what is practicable. The same original principles, modified in practice +to the different habits of the different nations, present governments +of very different aspects. The same principles reduced to +form of practice, accommodated to our habits, and put into forms +accommodated to the habits of the French nation would present +governments very unlike each other.<a name="FNanchor_530_530" id="FNanchor_530_530"></a><a href="#Footnote_530_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a></p></div> + +<p>Thirteen years later his opinion had not varied one iota. +Reviewing the situation in France after the return of the Bourbons, +he wrote to Du Pont de Nemours:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have to congratulate you, which I do sincerely, on having got +back from Robespierre and Bonaparte, to your ante-revolutionary +condition. You are now nearly where you were at the Jeu de +Paume, on the 20th of June 1789. The King would then have +yielded by convention freedom of religion, freedom of the press, +trial by jury, habeas corpus and a representative legislation. These +I consider as the essentials constituting free government, and that +the organization of the executive is interesting, as it may ensure wisdom +and integrity in the first place, but next as it may favor +or endanger the preservation of these fundamentals.<a name="FNanchor_531_531" id="FNanchor_531_531"></a><a href="#Footnote_531_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a></p></div> + +<p>The same note reappears constantly in the letters written by +Jefferson to his French friends, but a rapid survey of his corre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span>spondence +with Du Pont de Nemours may serve to make his +position even more definite.</p> + +<p>When, in December, 1815, Du Pont was invited by "the +republics of New Grenada, Carthagenes and Caracas" to give +his views on the constitution they intended to adopt, he drew +up a plan of government for the "Equinoctial republics" and +sent it for approval to the Sage of Monticello. Faithful to the +principles of the Physiocrats, he had divided the population +into two classes: the real citizens or landowners and the "inhabitants", +those who work for a salary, possess nothing but personal +property, can go any day from one place to another, and +make with their employers contracts which they can break at +any time. These were entitled to protection, peaceful enjoyment +of their personal property, free speech, freedom of religion, +habeas corpus, and such natural rights, but Du Pont refused +them any participation in the government; for only those who +"owned the country" should have the right to decide how it +was to be administered. To give the ballot to a floating population +of industrial workers, unattached to the soil, who had +nothing to sell except their labor, was "to brew a revolution, to +pave the way for the Pisistrates, the Marius, the Caesars, who +represent themselves as more democratic than they really are +and than is just and reasonable, in order to become tyrants, to +violate all rights, to substitute for law their arbitrary will, to +offend morality and to debase humanity."<a name="FNanchor_532_532" id="FNanchor_532_532"></a><a href="#Footnote_532_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a></p> + +<p>This was a doctrine which Jefferson could not accept, for it +was in direct contradiction to the tenets he had formulated +early in his life and held to during all his career. Because he had +read Locke, and more probably because he was trained as a +lawyer, he opposed the contractual theory of society to this +economic organization. He maintained that society was a +compact, that all those who had become signatories to the +compact were entitled to the same rights, and consequently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> +should have the same privilege to share equally in the government, +except, and this proviso was important, when they +freely agreed to delegate part of their powers to elected magistrates +and representatives.</p> + +<p>This was the theory, the inalienable principle to be proclaimed +in a bill of rights, the necessary preamble to any constitution. +In practice, however, various limitations to universal +suffrage were to be recognized. One could not even think of +granting the ballot to minors, to emancipated slaves or to +women. It did not follow either that, all citizens being +endowed with the same rights, they were equally ready to +exercise the same functions in the government. Men are +created equal in rights but differ in intelligence, learning, +clear-sightedness and general ability. In other words, there +are some natural <i>aristoi</i>, and John Adams brought Jefferson to +this admission without any difficulty. If this fact be accepted, +the next step is to recognize that "that form of government is +the best, which provided the most effectually for a pure selection +of these natural <i>aristoi</i> into offices of the government." +It was the good fortune of America that all her constitutions +were so worded as "to leave the citizens the free election and +separation of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of the +wheat from the chaff. In general, they will elect the really +good and wise. In some instances, wealth may corrupt, +and birth blind; but not in a sufficient degree to endanger +society."<a name="FNanchor_533_533" id="FNanchor_533_533"></a><a href="#Footnote_533_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a></p> + +<p>According to this theory, the real function of the people is not +to participate directly in all governmental activities, but to +select from among themselves the most qualified citizens and +the best prepared to administer the country. In a letter to +Doctor Walter Jones, who had sent him a paper on democracy, +Jefferson made his position even more definite by establishing +a very important distinction which gives more than any other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> +statement his true idea of a progressive democracy—an ideal +to be striven for, not a condition already reached:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I would say that the people, being the only safe depository of +power, should exercise in person every function which their qualifications +enable them to exercise, consistently with the order and +security of society; that we now find them equal to the election of +those who shall be invested with their executive powers, and to act +themselves in the judiciary, as judges in questions of fact; that +the range of their powers ought to be enlarged....<a name="FNanchor_534_534" id="FNanchor_534_534"></a><a href="#Footnote_534_534" class="fnanchor">[534]</a></p></div> + +<p>In these circumstances, Jefferson's reluctance to encourage +both his French and Spanish friends to establish at once a +government modeled on the American government in their +respective countries, is perfectly intelligible. Of all the nations +of the earth, England alone could "borrow wholesale the American +system."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>They will probably turn their eyes to us, and be disposed to tread +in the footsteps, seeing how safely these have led us into port. +There is no part of or model to which they seem unequal, unless +perhaps the elective presidency, and even that might possibly be +rescued from the tumult of the elections, by subdividing the electoral +assemblage into very small parts, such as of wards or townships, +and making them simultaneous.<a name="FNanchor_535_535" id="FNanchor_535_535"></a><a href="#Footnote_535_535" class="fnanchor">[535]</a></p></div> + +<p>As for the other nations, they were no more qualified to +exercise the duties of a truly representative government than +were the inhabitants of New Orleans at the time of the purchase. +The French, in particular, had proved in several +instances that they could not be intrusted with the administration +of their own affairs.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>More than a generation will be requisite—he wrote to Lafayette—under +the administration of reasonable laws favoring the progress +of knowledge in the general mass of the people, and their habituation +to an independent security of person and property, before they will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> +be capable of estimating the value of freedom, and the necessity of +sacred adherence to the principles on which it rests for preservation. +Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress +of reason, if recovered by mere accident or force, it becomes, with an +unprepared people, a tyranny still, of the many, the few, or one.<a name="FNanchor_536_536" id="FNanchor_536_536"></a><a href="#Footnote_536_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a></p></div> + +<p>From these declarations, to which many other similar passages +could be added, a capital difference between the idealism of +Jefferson and the idealism of the French philosophers becomes +quite obvious. The author of the Declaration of Independence +had proclaimed that all men are born free and equal, but he +never thought that women, Indians and newly enfranchized +slaves should be admitted to the same rights and privileges as +the other citizens. In like fashion, although representative +government remains the best possible form of government, he +found it desirable that some people, who are still children, +should not be granted at once the full enjoyment of their natural +rights. Thus self-government, which had become a well +established fact and a reality in America, should remain for +other peoples a reward to be obtained after a long and painful +process of education. It could be hoped that some day, after +many disastrous experiments and much suffering, the peoples +of Europe and South America might deserve the blessings +enjoyed by the American people. But nothing was further +from the character of Jefferson than to preach the gospel of +Americanism to all the nations of the world. Instead of considering +as desirable a close imitation of the American Constitution +by the newly liberated nations, he maintained that +each people should mold their institutions according to their +own habits and traditions. Far from being a Jacobin, a wild +radical, or a "closet philosopher", this practical politician had +come to the conclusion that each people have the government +they deserve, and that durable improvements can come only +as a result of the improvement of the moral qualities of every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> +citizen—from within and not from without. Such a moderate +conclusion may surprise those who are accustomed to damn or +praise Jefferson on a few sentences or axioms detached from +their context; but, after careful scrutiny of the evidence, it +seems difficult to accept any other interpretation.</p> + +<p>Comparatively perfect as it was, the government of the +United States presented certain germs of weakness, corruption +and degeneracy. The Sage of Monticello did not fail to call his +friends' attention to some of the dangers looming up on the +horizon. As he had warned them against inflation, he opposed +the formation of societies which might become so strong as "to +obstruct the operation of the government and undertake to +regulate the foreign, fiscal, and military as well as domestic +affairs." This might be taken already as a warning against +lobbying. He was fully aware that a time might come when +the speeches of the Senators and Representatives "would cease +to be read at all" and when the Legislature would not enjoy the +full confidence of the people. He deplored the law vacating +nearly all the offices of government nearly every four years, for +"it will keep in constant excitement all the hungry cormorants +for office, render them as well as those in place sycophants to +their Senators, engage in eternal intrigue to turn out and put in +another, in cabale to swap work, and make of them what all +executive directories become, mere sinks of corruption and +faction."<a name="FNanchor_537_537" id="FNanchor_537_537"></a><a href="#Footnote_537_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a></p> + +<p>Serious and pressing as these dangers were, they could be +left to future generations to avoid, but at the very moment he +wrote another fear obsessed his mind:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The banks, bankrupt laws, manufactures, Spanish treaty are +nothing. These are occurrences which, like waves in a storm, will +pass under the ship. But the Missouri question is a breaker on +which we lose the Missouri country by revolt, and what more God +only knows. From the Battle of Bunker's Hill to the treaty of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span> +Paris, we never had so ominous a question.... I thank God that I +shall not live to witness its issue.<a name="FNanchor_538_538" id="FNanchor_538_538"></a><a href="#Footnote_538_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a></p></div> + +<p>No New Englander had done more to promote the cause of +abolition than Jefferson; on two occasions he had proposed +legislative measures to put an end to the scourge of slavery and +he had never ceased to look for a solution that would permit +the emancipation of the slaves without endangering the racial +integrity of the United States. But this was no longer a question +of humanity. What mattered most was not whether +slavery would be recognized in Missouri or not. Slavery had +become a political question; it had created a geographical +division between the States, and the very existence of the Union +was at stake. As on so many other occasions, the old statesman +had a truly prophetic vision of the future when he wrote to +John Adams early in 1820:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If Congress has the power to regulate the conditions of the inhabitants +of the States, within the States, it will be but another exercise +of that power to declare that all shall be free. Are we then to see +again Athenian and Lacedemonian confederacies? To wage another +Peloponesian war to settle the ascendency between them? Or is +this the tocsin of merely a servile war? That remains to be seen; +but not, I hope, by you or me.<a name="FNanchor_539_539" id="FNanchor_539_539"></a><a href="#Footnote_539_539" class="fnanchor">[539]</a></p></div> + +<p>The whole question was fraught with such difficulties that +Jefferson refused to discuss the abolition of slavery with +Lafayette when the Marquis paid him a last visit at Monticello. +With his American friends he was less reserved. When, as +early as 1811, James Ogilvie asked him to suggest an important +and interesting subject for a series of lectures he intended to +deliver in the Southern States, Jefferson could think of nothing +more momentous than a discourse "on the benefit of the union, +and miseries which would follow a separation of the States, +to be exemplified in the eternal and wasting wars of Europe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> +in the pillage and profligacy to which these lead, and the +abject oppression and degradation to which they reduce its +inhabitants."<a name="FNanchor_540_540" id="FNanchor_540_540"></a><a href="#Footnote_540_540" class="fnanchor">[540]</a></p> + +<p>Jefferson has so long been represented as the champion of +State rights, he stood so vigorously against all possible encroachments +of the States' sovereignty by the Federal Government, +that we have a natural tendency to forget this aspect of his +policies and to see in him only the man who inspired the Kentucky +resolutions. It must be remembered, however, that he +never ceased to preach the necessity of the union to his fellow +countrymen, that when President he lived in a constant fear of +secession by the New England States, that he stopped all his +efforts in favor of abolition lest he should inject into the life of +the country a political issue which might disrupt national unity. +While he claimed that theoretically the States had a right to +secede, he could no more consider actual secession than he would +have approved of any man breaking the social compact in order +to live the precarious life of the savage.</p> + +<p>From these dangers nothing could preserve the United States +except what Du Pont de Nemours called once "the cool common +sense" of their citizens. It was the only foundation on +which to rest all hopes for the future, for American democracy +is not a thing which exists on paper, it is not a thing which can +be created overnight by law, decree or constitution, it is not +to be looked for in any document. "Where is our republicanism +to be found," wrote Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval. "Not +in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our +people. Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our +constitution all things have gone well."<a name="FNanchor_541_541" id="FNanchor_541_541"></a><a href="#Footnote_541_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a></p> + +<p>One of the most reassuring manifestations of this spirit was +seen in the willingness of the people to choose the best qualified +persons as their representatives, executives and magistrates.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> +But if the Republic was to endure, it was necessary to enlighten +and cultivate the disposition of the people, and it was no less +important to provide a group of men qualified through their +natural ability and training, to discuss and conduct the affairs +of the community. Thus Jefferson was induced to take up +again in his old days one of his pet schemes, the famous bill for +the diffusion of knowledge.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, he had never abandoned it completely, +and its very purpose had been explained already in the "Notes +on Virginia":</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In every government on earth there is some trace of human weakness, +some germ of corruption and degeneracy.... Each government +degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. +The people themselves are therefore its only safe depositories. And +to render even them safer, their minds must be improved to a certain +degree. This is not all that is necessary, though it be essentially +necessary.</p></div> + +<p>During his stay in Europe, Jefferson had become acquainted +with great universities, particularly those of Edinburgh and +Geneva, and after coming back to America he shifted somewhat +the emphasis. It was not so immediately necessary to +improve the minds of all the citizens as to form an <i>élite</i>, a body +of specialists who might become the true leaders of the nation. +This seems to have been the object of his plan, to bring over to +America the whole faculty of the University of Geneva to establish +a national university at Richmond or in the vicinity of +Federal City. This scheme was only defeated because of the +opposition of Washington who, with great common sense, realized +how incongruous it would be to call National University +an institution where the teaching would be conducted entirely +in a foreign language and by foreigners.</p> + +<p>Even after this plan had failed, Jefferson did not give up his +ambition to establish somewhere in America and preferably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> +in Virginia, an institution of higher learning. On January 18, +1800, he wrote to Joseph Priestley to ask him to draw up the +program of a university "on a plan so broad, so liberal, and +modern, as to be worth patronizing with the public support. +The first thing is to obtain a good plan."</p> + +<p>Priestley sent him, in answer, some "Hints Concerning Public +Education" which have never been published and probably +did not arouse any enthusiasm in Jefferson. The English +philosopher had simply taken the main features of the English +system, placing the emphasis on the ancient languages and +excluding the modern: "For the knowledge of them as well +as skill in fencing, dancing and riding is proper for gentlemen +liberally educated, and instruction in them may be procured +on reasonable terms without burdening the funds of the seminary +with them." He ended with a very sensible piece of advice:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Three things must be attended to in the education of youth. They +must be <i>taught</i>, <i>fed</i>, and <i>governed</i>, and each of these requires different +qualifications. In the English universities all these offices are +perfectly distinct. The <i>tutors</i> only teach, the <i>proctors</i> superintend +the discipline, and the <i>cooks</i> provide the victuals.<a name="FNanchor_542_542" id="FNanchor_542_542"></a><a href="#Footnote_542_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a></p></div> + +<p>At the same time Jefferson had sent a similar request to Du +Pont de Nemours. Curiously enough, the Frenchman manifested +little enthusiasm for the proposal of his friend. To +establish a university was all very well, but first of all one had +to provide solid foundations and to place educational facilities +within the reach of the great mass of citizens—the university +being only the apex of the pyramid. On this occasion Du Pont +reminded Jefferson that he had expressed himself to such an +intent some fifteen years earlier in his "Notes on Virginia", +which developed the excellent view that colleges and universities +are not the most important part of the educational system +of the State:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>All knowledge readily and daily usable, all practical sciences, all +laborious activities, all the common sense, all the correct ideas, all +the morality, all the virtue, all the courage, all the prosperity, all the +happiness of a nation and particularly of a Republic must spring from +the primary schools or Petites Ecoles.<a name="FNanchor_543_543" id="FNanchor_543_543"></a><a href="#Footnote_543_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a></p></div> + +<p>By July, 1800, Du Pont de Nemours, who had already +proposed a similar scheme to the French Government, had +completed his manuscript and sent it to Jefferson at the +end of August. This was more speed than Jefferson had +expected, and Du Pont's plan was far too elaborate and +too comprehensive to be of immediate value. "There is +no occasion to incommode yourself by pressing it," wrote +Jefferson, "as when received it will be some time before we +shall probably find a good occasion of bringing forward the +subject."<a name="FNanchor_544_544" id="FNanchor_544_544"></a><a href="#Footnote_544_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a></p> + +<p>During his presidency, Jefferson had had to lay aside all his +plans and postpone any action for the organization of public +education in his native State until after his retirement. In +the meantime, he read and studied the project of Du Pont de +Nemours and corresponded with Pictet of Geneva; he had +in his hands several memoirs of Julien on the French schools, +and he looked everywhere for precedents and suggestions. +His views were finally formulated in a "Plan for Elementary +Schools" sent to Joseph C. Cabell from Polar Forest, on September +9, 1817. The act to be submitted to the Assembly of +Virginia was far more comprehensive than the title indicates. +It provided for the establishment in each county of a certain +number of elementary schools, supported by the county and +placed under the supervision of visitors; the counties of the +commonwealth were to be distributed into nine collegiate +districts, and as many colleges, or rather secondary schools, +instituted at the expense of the literary fund, "to be supported<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> +from it, and to be placed under the supervision of the Board of +Public Instruction."</p> + +<p>"In the said colleges," proposed Jefferson, "shall be taught +the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian and German languages, +English grammar, geography, ancient and modern, the +higher branches in numeral arithmetic, the mensuration of land, +the use of the globes, and the ordinary elements of navigation."</p> + +<p>A third part of the act provided for</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... establishing in a central and healthy part of the State an +University wherein all the branches of useful sciences may be taught +... such as history and geography, ancient and modern; natural +philosophy, agriculture, chemistry, and the theories of medicine; +anatomy, zoölogy, botany, mineralogy and geology; mathematics, +pure and mixed, military and naval science; ideology, ethics, the law +of nature and of nations; law, municipal, and foreign; the science of +civil government and political economy; languages, rhetoric, belles-lettres, +and the fine arts generally; which branches of science will +be so distributed and under so many professorships, not exceeding +ten as the Visitors shall think most proper.</p></div> + +<p>Finally, in order "to avail the commonwealth of those talents +and virtues which nature has sown as liberally among the poor +as among the rich, and which are lost to their country by the +want of means of their cultivation", the visitors would select +every year a certain number of promising scholars from the ward +schools to be sent to the colleges and from the colleges to be sent +to the University at the public expense.</p> + +<p>This was essentially the Bill for the Diffusion of Knowledge +proposed to the Assembly in 1779. Jefferson had incorporated +in it such modifications as he may have borrowed from Du +Pont de Nemours, but essentially the plan was his own. That +Jefferson himself was perfectly aware of it appears in a short +mention of the fact that "the general idea was suggested in +the 'Notes on Virginia.' Quer. 14."<a name="FNanchor_545_545" id="FNanchor_545_545"></a><a href="#Footnote_545_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was soon realized that neither the Assembly nor the public +were ready for such a comprehensive scheme. Part of the +plan had to be sacrificed, if a beginning was to be made at all. +Jefferson did not hesitate long; the elementary schools could +be organized at any time without much preparation or expense; +secondary education was taken care of after a fashion in private +schools supported from fees; but nothing existed in the way of +an institution of higher learning. Young Virginians had to be +sent to the northern seminaries, there "imbibing opinions and +principles in discord with those of our own country." The +university was the thing, and, in order to provide sufficient +funds to start it, Jefferson proposed that subsidies from the +literary fund to the primary schools be suspended for one or +two years. In his opinion this measure did not imply any +disregard of primary education, and Jefferson vehemently protested +to Breckenridge that he had "never proposed a sacrifice +of the primary to the ultimate grade of instruction"; but, "if +we cannot do everything at once, let us do one at a time."<a name="FNanchor_546_546" id="FNanchor_546_546"></a><a href="#Footnote_546_546" class="fnanchor">[546]</a></p> + +<p>The fight in which Jefferson engaged to obtain recognition for +his project, to have Central College or, as it was finally to be +called, the University of Virginia, located near Monticello, +where he could watch its progress and supervise the construction +of its buildings, has been told many times and does not need to +be recounted here.<a name="FNanchor_547_547" id="FNanchor_547_547"></a><a href="#Footnote_547_547" class="fnanchor">[547]</a></p> + +<p>On the board of visitors with Jefferson were placed James +Madison, James Monroe, Joseph C. Cabell, James Breckenridge, +David Watson and J. H. Cocke. Jefferson was appointed +Rector of the University at a meeting held on March 29, 1819, +at a time when the university had no buildings, no faculty, no +students and very small means. Everything had to be done<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span> +and provided for. It would have been possible to put up some +sort of temporary shelter, a few ramshackle frame houses, but +Jefferson wanted the university to endure and he remembered +that he was an architect as well as a statesman. It was not +until the spring of 1824 that he could announce that the buildings +were ready for occupancy—the formal opening was to be +held at the beginning of the following year—but the master +builder could be proud of his work. The university was his in +every sense of the word: not only had he succeeded in arousing +the interest of the public and the Assembly in his undertaking, +but he had drawn the plans himself with the painstaking care +and the precision he owed to his training as a surveyor. He had +selected the material, engaged the stone carvers, the brick layers +and the carpenters, and supervised every bit of their work. +After his death he would need no other monument.</p> + +<p>Then, as everything seemed to be ready, a new difficulty +arose. Ever since 1819, the visitors had been looking for a +faculty. Ticknor, with whom Jefferson had gotten acquainted +through Mrs. Adams, had refused to leave Cambridge although +disgusted with the petty bickerings of his colleagues. Thomas +Cooper had proved inacceptable, and the very mention of his +name had aroused such a storm among the clergy that the +appointment had to be withdrawn. After a long and fruitless +search for the necessary talents at home, Jefferson and his fellow +members on the board of the university decided to procure the +professors from abroad. This time, however, they were not +to repeat the mistake of the proposed transplantation of the +University of Geneva. Several prominent Frenchmen suggested +by Lafayette were turned down as too ignorant of the +ways of American youth and the language of the country. There +remained only one place from which satisfactory instructors +could be obtained; this was England. Their nationality did +not raise any serious objection, for, to the resentment of the +War of 1812 had succeeded the "era of good feeling", and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span> +Francis Walker Gilmer was commissioned to go to England in +order to consult with Dugald Stewart and to recruit a faculty +from Great Britain, "the land of our own language, habits +and manners."<a name="FNanchor_548_548" id="FNanchor_548_548"></a><a href="#Footnote_548_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a></p> + +<p>Eighteen months later, the Rector declared the experiment +highly successful, and the example likely to be followed by other +institutions of learning.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It cannot fail—wrote Jefferson—to be one of the efficacious +means of promoting that cordial good will, which it is so much the +interest of both nations to cherish. These teachers can never utter +an unfriendly sentiment towards their native country; and those +into whom their instruction will be infused, are not of ordinary +significance only; they are exactly the persons who are to succeed +to the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its +friendships and fortunes.<a name="FNanchor_549_549" id="FNanchor_549_549"></a><a href="#Footnote_549_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a></p></div> + +<p>Thus after fifty years, Jefferson was able to make real his +educational dream of the Revolutionary period, to endow his +native State with an institution of higher learning in which the +future leaders of the nation would be instructed. They would +no longer have to be sent abroad to obtain the required knowledge +in some subjects; nor would they have to study in "the +Northern seminaries", there to be infected with pernicious +doctrines; above all, they would be preserved from any sectarian +influence during their formative years; for no particular +creed was to be taught at the university, although the majority +of the faculty belonged to the Episcopal Church.</p> + +<p>The University of Virginia was the last great task to which +Jefferson put his hand, an achievement of which he was no less +proud than of having written the Declaration of Independence. +To bring it to a successful conclusion this septuagenarian displayed +an admirable tenacity, a resourcefulness, a practical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span> +wisdom, a sense of the immediate possibilities and an idealistic +vision, the combination of which typifies the best there is in +the national character of the American people. It would take +many pages to study in detail Jefferson's educational ideas, +as he expressed them in the minutes of the board and in his +many letters to John Adams, Thomas Cooper and Joseph +Cabell. The most remarkable feature of the new institution +was that, for the first time in the history of the country, higher +education was made independent of the Church, and to a large +extent the foundation of the University of Virginia marks the +beginning of the secularization of scientific research in America. +Its "father" certainly gave some thought to the possible extension +of the educational system that had finally won recognition +in his native Virginia, to all the States in the country; but he +was too fully aware of the difficulties to follow his old friend +Du Pont de Nemours and to propose a Plan for a National +Education. At least he "had made a beginning", he "had +set an example", and he built even better than he knew. The +man who wished to be remembered as the "father of the University +of Virginia" was also, in more than one sense, the father of +the State universities which play such an important part in the +education of the American democracy.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span></p> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h2>THE PHILOSOPHY OF OLD AGE</h2> + + +<p>Old people are often accused of being too conservative, and +even reactionary. They seem out of step with the younger +generations, and very few preserve enough resiliency to keep in +touch with the ceaseless changes taking place around them. +But a few men who, born in the second half of the eighteenth +century, lived well up into the nineteenth, were able to escape +this apparently unavoidable law of nature. After witnessing +political convulsions, commotions and revolutions, they clung +tenaciously to the faith of their younger days. They refused +to accept the view that the world was going from bad to worse; +they looked untiringly for every symptom of improvement and +thought they could distinguish everywhere signs foretelling the +dawn of a new era. The growing infirmities of their bodies did +not leave them any illusion about their inevitable disappearance +from the stage and they were not upheld by any strong +belief in personal immortality. But however uncertain and +hazy may have been their religious tenets, they had a stanch +faith in the unlimited capacity of human nature for improvement +and development. They believed in the irresistible +power of truth, in the ultimate recognition of natural principles +and natural laws, in the religion of progress as it had been +formulated by the eighteenth-century philosophers. Thus, +rather than follow the precept of the ancient poet and unhitch +their aging horses, they had anticipated the advice of the +American philosopher by hitching their wagon to a star.</p> + +<p>Du Pont de Nemours, experimenting with his sons to develop +American industries in order to make America economically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span> +independent from Europe; Destutt de Tracy, almost completely +blind, dictating his treatise on political economy and +appearing in the streets of Paris during the glorious days of +1830; Lafayette, yearning and hoping for the recognition of his +ideal of liberty during the Empire and the <i>Restauration</i>—all of +these were more than survivors of a forgotten age. Even to the +younger generations they represented the living embodiment of +the political faith of the nineteenth century. It is not a mere +coincidence that most of them were friends and admirers of the +Sage of Monticello, whose letters they read "as the letters of the +Apostles were read in the circle of the early Christians."</p> + +<p>Jefferson could complain that "the decays of age had enfeebled +the useful energies of the mind",<a name="FNanchor_550_550" id="FNanchor_550_550"></a><a href="#Footnote_550_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a> but he kept, practically +to his last day, his alertness, his encyclopædic curiosity and +an extraordinary capacity for work. A large part of his time +was taken by his correspondence. Turning to his letter list +for 1820 he found that he had received no less than "one thousand +two hundred and sixty-seven communications, many of +them requiring answers of elaborate research, and all of them +to be answered with due attention and consideration."<a name="FNanchor_551_551" id="FNanchor_551_551"></a><a href="#Footnote_551_551" class="fnanchor">[551]</a> I may +be permitted to add that a large part of the letters he received +as well as those he wrote deserve publication and would greatly +contribute to our knowledge of the period.</p> + +<p>Among them essays and short treatises on every possible +subject under heaven will be found. With Du Pont de +Nemours, Jefferson discussed not only questions of political +economy, education and government, but the acclimation of the +merino sheep, the manufacturing of woolen goods and nails, +the construction of gunboats and the organization of the militia. +With Madame de Tessé, Lafayette's aged cousin, he resumed the +exchange of botanical views, interrupted by his presidency and +the continental blockade. He undertook to put together the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span> +scraps of paper on which he had scribbled notes during Washington's +and Adams' administrations and compiled his famous +"Anas"; he wrote his "Autobiography", furnished documents +to Girardin for his continuation of Burke's "History of Virginia"; +he answered queries on the circumstances under which +he had written the Declaration of Independence, the Kentucky +Resolution, on his attitude towards France when Secretary of +State and President; he criticized quite extensively Marshall's +"History of Washington" and one of his last letters, written on +May 15, 1826, was to inform one of his friends of the facts concerning +"Arnold's invasion and surprise of Richmond, in the +winter of 1780-81."<a name="FNanchor_552_552" id="FNanchor_552_552"></a><a href="#Footnote_552_552" class="fnanchor">[552]</a></p> + +<p>His interest in books was greater than ever; he had scarcely +sold his library to Congress when he undertook to collect +another, going systematically through the publishers' catalogues, +writing to booksellers in Richmond, Philadelphia, New +York and even abroad, requesting his European friends to +send him the latest publications and asking young Ticknor to +procure for him, in France or Germany, the best editions of +the Greek and Latin classics. He drew up the plans for the +University of Virginia and supervised the construction of the +building. Between times he took upon himself the task of +rewriting entirely the translation of Destutt de Tracy's "Review +of Montesquieu" and directed the printing of his treatise on +"Political Economy." After writing letters, regulating the +work of the farm, he spent several hours on horseback every +day and during the balance of the afternoon read new and old +books, played with his grandchildren, walked in the garden to +look at his favorite trees, listened to music and, during the +fine weather, received the visitors who flocked to Monticello +by the dozens. Some were simply idlers coming out of curiosity, +many were old friends who stayed for days or weeks; but +all were welcomed with the same affable courtesy and the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span> +generous hospitality, according to the best traditions of old +Virginia.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>They came from all nations, at all times—wrote Doctor Dunglison—and +paid longer or shorter visits. I have known a New +England judge bring a letter of introduction and stay three weeks. +The learned abbé Correa, always a welcome guest, passed some +weeks of each year with us during the whole time of his stay in the +country. We had persons from abroad, from all the States of the +Union, from every part of the State—men, women, and children.... +People of wealth, fashion, men in office, Protestant clergymen, +Catholic priests, members of Congress, foreign ministers, missionaries, +Indian agents, tourists, travellers, artists, strangers, friends.<a name="FNanchor_553_553" id="FNanchor_553_553"></a><a href="#Footnote_553_553" class="fnanchor">[553]</a></p></div> + +<p>No sound estimate of the extraordinary influence exerted by +Jefferson upon the growth of liberalism can be made at the +present time. It would require separate studies, careful investigation +and the publication of many letters, safely preserved but +too little used, which rest in the Jefferson Papers of the Library +of Congress, and with the Massachusetts Historical Society. I +have already printed Jefferson's correspondence with Volney, +Destutt de Tracy, Lafayette and Du Pont de Nemours; many +other letters, no less significant, remain practically unknown. +He encouraged his European friends, Correa de Serra, Kosciusko, +the Greek Coray, to keep up their courage, to hope +against hope. To all of them he preached the same gospel of +faith in the ultimate and inevitable recognition throughout the +world of the principles of American democracy. This was not +done for propaganda's sake, for no man would deserve less than +Jefferson the dubious qualification of propagandist. The many +letters written to his American friends on the same subject +clearly show that this was his profound conviction and almost +his only <i>raison d'être</i>. His was not an over-optimistic temperament; +he did not fail to notice all "the specks of hurricane on +the horizon of the world." Yet, all considered, and in spite of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span> +temporary fits of despondency, his conclusion on the future +of democracy can be summed up in the words he wrote to +John Adams at the end of 1821:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a +hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance. We have seen +indeed, once within the record of history, the complete eclipse of the +human mind continuing for centuries ... even should the cloud of +barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of +Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty +to them. In short, the flames kindled on the 4th of July +1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by +the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume +these engines and all who work them.<a name="FNanchor_554_554" id="FNanchor_554_554"></a><a href="#Footnote_554_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a></p></div> + +<p>Jefferson felt such a dislike for unnecessary controversies +that he was apt to adopt the tone and the style of his correspondents +and apparently to accept their ideas, so that many +contradictions can be found in these letters. To a chosen few +only he fully revealed his intimate thoughts and without reticence, +without fear of being betrayed, communicated his doubts, +his hopes and his hatred. The letters he wrote to Short, +Priestley, and Thomas Cooper are most remarkable in this +respect. But with none of them did he communicate so freely +as with his old friend John Adams. The correspondence that +passed between them during the last fifteen years of their lives +constitutes one of the most striking and illuminating human +documents a student of psychology may ever hope to discover. +To those who have had the privilege of using the manuscripts +to follow month by month the palsied hand of Adams until he +had to cease writing himself and dictated his letters to a "female +member of his household", it seems unthinkable that the wish +expressed by Wirt in 1826,—to see the correspondence between +the two great men published in its entirety,—should not have +received its fulfillment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span></p> + +<p>They had been estranged for a long time, and no word had +passed between them for more than ten years after Adams' +sulky departure from Washington on the morning of March 4, +1801. At the beginning of 1811, Doctor Benjamin Rush +made bold to deplore "the discontinuance of friendly correspondence +between Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson." Jefferson +answered quite lengthily, giving a long account of his difficulties +with Adams, including the letter written by Abigail Adams +in 1802, but adding that he would second with pleasure every +effort made to bring about a reconciliation. However, he did +not entertain much hope that Doctor Rush would succeed, for +he knew it was "part of Mr. Adams' character to suspect foul +play in those of whom he is jealous, and not easily to relinquish +his suspicions."<a name="FNanchor_555_555" id="FNanchor_555_555"></a><a href="#Footnote_555_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a></p> + +<p>It was not until the end of the same year that Jefferson took +up the subject again, having heard that during a conversation +Adams had mentioned his name, adding: "I always loved +Jefferson, and still love him." This was enough, and it only +remained to create an opportunity to resume the correspondence +without too much awkwardness; but "from this fusion of +sentiments" Mrs. Adams was "of course to be separated", for +Jefferson could not believe that the woman wounded in her +motherly pride had forgotten anything. This was no insuperable +obstacle, however: "It will only be necessary that I never +name her" wrote Jefferson.<a name="FNanchor_556_556" id="FNanchor_556_556"></a><a href="#Footnote_556_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a></p> + +<p>Adams took the first step, and, knowing how much Jefferson +was interested in domestic manufactures, sent him a fine +specimen of homespun made in Massachusetts. Jefferson +could but acknowledge the peace offering, which he did most +gracefully, without mentioning Mrs. Adams.<a name="FNanchor_557_557" id="FNanchor_557_557"></a><a href="#Footnote_557_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a> But he was too +much of a Southern gentleman to hold a resentment long even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span> +against a woman of such a jealous disposition. Two months +later he sent for the first time the homage of his respects to +Mrs. Adams, after which he never forgot to mention her. On +two occasions he even wrote her charming letters, in the same +friendly tone as he had used with her twenty-five years earlier, +when he used to do shopping for her in Paris. On hearing of +her death on November 13, 1818, he sent to his stricken old +friend a touching expression of his sympathy:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Will I say more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort +to us both, that the term is not very distant, at which we are to +deposit in the same cerement our sorrows and suffering bodies, and +to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have +loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again.<a name="FNanchor_558_558" id="FNanchor_558_558"></a><a href="#Footnote_558_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a></p></div> + +<p>Quite naturally, as the circle of his friends grew narrower +and one after the other were called by death, Jefferson's +thoughts turned to the hereafter. In his youth he had apparently +settled the problem once for all; but the solution then +found was scarcely more than a temporary expedient. It may +behove a young man full of vigor, with a long stretch of years +before him, to declare that "the business of life is with matter" +and that it serves no purpose to break our heads against a +blank wall. There are very few men, if they are thinking at +all, who can entirely dismiss from their minds the perplexing +and torturing riddle, as the term grows nearer every day. Such +an ataraxia may have been obtained by a few sages of old, but +it is hardly human, and Jefferson, like Adams, was very human. +This is a subject, however, which I cannot approach without +some reluctance. Jefferson himself would have highly disapproved +of such a discussion. After submitting silently to so +many fierce criticisms, after being accused of atheism, materialism, +impiety and philosophism by his contemporaries, he hoped +that the question would never be broached to him again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> +With those who tried to revive it, he had absolutely no +patience.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>One of our fan-coloring biographers—he wrote once—who +paint small men as very great, inquired of me lately, with real affection +too, whether he might consider as authentic, the change in my +religion much spoken of in some circles. Now this supposed that +they knew what had been my religion before, taking for it the word +of their priests, whom I certainly never made the confidants of my +creed. My answer was: "Say nothing of my religion. It is known +to my God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to +be sought in my life; if that has been <i>honest and dutiful</i> to society, +the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one."<a name="FNanchor_559_559" id="FNanchor_559_559"></a><a href="#Footnote_559_559" class="fnanchor">[559]</a></p></div> + +<p>Unfortunately the controversy is still going on and at least a +few points must be indicated here. The simplest and to some +extent the most acceptable treatment of the matter was given a +few years after his death by the physician who attended him +up to the last minutes:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is due, also, to that illustrious individual to say, that, in all my +intercourse with him, I never heard an observation that savored, +in the slightest degree, of impiety. His religious belief harmonized +more closely with that of the Unitarians than of any other denomination, +but it was liberal, and untrammelled by sectarian feelings +and prejudices.<a name="FNanchor_560_560" id="FNanchor_560_560"></a><a href="#Footnote_560_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a></p></div> + +<p>But Doctor Dunglison's declaration is somewhat unsatisfactory +and misleading, for Jefferson once gave his own definition +of Unitarianism. From a letter he wrote to James Smith +in 1822 it appears he was not ready to join the Unitarian +Church any more than any other:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>About Unitarianism, the doctrine of the early ages of Christianity +... the pure and simple unity of the Creator of the universe, is now +all but ascendant in the Eastern States; it is dawning in the West,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span> +and advancing towards the South; and I confidently expect that the +present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion +of the United States.... I write with freedom, because, while +I claim a right to believe in one God, if so my reason tells me, I yield +as freely to others that of believing in three.<a name="FNanchor_561_561" id="FNanchor_561_561"></a><a href="#Footnote_561_561" class="fnanchor">[561]</a></p></div> + +<p>On the other hand, one might easily be misled by some +declarations of Jefferson to his more intimate friends. "I am +a materialist—I am an Epicurian," he wrote on several +instances to John Adams, Thomas Cooper and Short, with +whom he felt that he could discuss religious questions more +freely than with any others. Rejecting the famous <i>Cogito +ergo sum</i> of Descartes, he fell back when in doubt on his "habitual +anodyne": "I feel therefore I exist." This in his opinion +did not imply the sole existence of matter, but simply that he +could not "conceive <i>thought</i> to be an action of a particular +organisation of matter, formed for the purpose by its Creator, +as well as that attraction is an action of matter, or magnetism +of loadstone." Then he added: "I am supported in my creed +of materialism by the Lockes, the Tracys and the Stewarts. +At what age of the Christian Church this heresy of immaterialism +or masked atheism, crept in, I do not exactly know. But a +heresy it certainly is. Jesus taught nothing of it."<a name="FNanchor_562_562" id="FNanchor_562_562"></a><a href="#Footnote_562_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a></p> + +<p>In the same sense he could write to Judge Augustus S. +Woodward: "Jesus himself, the Founder of our religion, was +unquestionably a Materialist as to man. In all His doctrines +of the resurrection, he teaches expressly that the body is to +rise in substances."<a name="FNanchor_563_563" id="FNanchor_563_563"></a><a href="#Footnote_563_563" class="fnanchor">[563]</a></p> + +<p>His definition of Epicurism would seem equally remote from +the popular acceptation, and certainly Jefferson was never +of those who could deserve the old appellation of <i>Epicuri de +grege porcus</i>; for his Epicurus is the philosopher "whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span> +doctrines contain everything rational in moral philosophy which +Greece and Rome have left us."<a name="FNanchor_564_564" id="FNanchor_564_564"></a><a href="#Footnote_564_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a></p> + +<p>All through the year 1813 and on many occasions after that +date, Adams tried to draw him out on the question of religion. +"For," as he said, "these things are to me, at present, the +marbles and nine-pins of old age; I will not say beads and +prayer books." But Jefferson could not have declared, as did +his old friend: "For more than sixty years I have been attentive +to this great subject. Controversies between Calvinists +and Arminians, Trinitarians and Unitarians, Deists and +Christians, Atheists and both, have attracted my attention, +whenever the singular life I have led would admit, to all these +questions."<a name="FNanchor_565_565" id="FNanchor_565_565"></a><a href="#Footnote_565_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a></p> + +<p>Not so with Jefferson, who felt a real abhorrence for theological +discussions and considered them as a sheer waste of time. +They belonged to a past age and were to be buried in oblivion +lest they create again an atmosphere of fanaticism and intolerance; +at best, they could be left to the clergy. But tolerant +as he was, there were certain doctrines against which Jefferson +revolted even in later life, as he probably did when a student +at William and Mary:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I can never join Calvin in addressing <i>his God</i>. He was indeed an +atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was dæmonism. +If ever man worshipped a false God, he did. The God described +in his five points, is not the God whom you acknowledge and adore, +the Creator and benevolent Governor of the world; but a dæmon +of malignant spirit.</p></div> + +<p>But right after this virulent denunciation comes a most +interesting admission. If Jefferson's God was not the God of +Calvin, he was just as remote from the mechanistic materialism +of D'Holbach and La Mettrie as he was from Calvinism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> +and predestination. Leaving aside all questions of dogmas +and revelation he held that:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>When we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or +particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and +feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power +in every atom of its composition. So irresistible are these evidences +of an intelligent and powerful Agent, that of the infinite numbers +of men who have existed through all time, they have believed, in the +proportion of a million at least to a unit, in the hypothesis of an +eternal pre-existence of a Creator, rather than in that of a self +existing universe.<a name="FNanchor_566_566" id="FNanchor_566_566"></a><a href="#Footnote_566_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a></p></div> + +<p>From this passage, it would seem that Jefferson founded his +belief in the existence of God on the two well-known arguments: +the order of the Universe and the general consensus of opinion. +If it were so, he would follow close on the steps of the English +deists of the school of Pope. But religion to him was something +more than the mere "acknowledgement" and "adoration of the +benevolent Governor of the world";</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is more than an inner conviction of the existence of the +Creator; true religion is morality. If by <i>religion</i> we are to understand +<i>sectarian dogmas</i>, in which no two of them agree, then your +exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best +possible of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." But +if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical +constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines +of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in +which we all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this +would be, as you again say, "something not fit to be named even, +indeed, a hell."<a name="FNanchor_567_567" id="FNanchor_567_567"></a><a href="#Footnote_567_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a></p></div> + +<p>On this point as on so many others Jefferson is distinctly an +eighteenth-century man. One of the pet schemes of the philosophers +was to prove that there is no necessary connection +between religion and morality. It was an essential article<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span> +of the philosophical creed from Pierre Bayle to Jefferson, and +long before them, Montaigne had filled his "Essays" with +countless anecdotes and examples tending to prove this point. +But Jefferson went one step farther than most of the French +philosophers, with the exception of Rousseau. Morality is +not founded on a religious basis; religion is morality. This +being accepted, it remains to determine the foundation of +morality. In a letter written to Thomas Law during the summer +of 1814, Jefferson examined the different solutions proposed +by theologians and philosophers and clearly indicated his +preference.</p> + +<p>"It was vain to say that it was truth; for truth is elusive, unattainable, +and there is no certain criticism of it." It is not +either the "love of God", for an atheist may have morality, and +"Diderot, d'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been the +most virtuous of men." It is not either the <i>to kalon</i>, for many +men are deprived of any æsthetic sense. Self-interest is more +satisfactory, but even the demonstration given by Helvétius is +not perfectly convincing. All these explanations are one step +short of the ultimate question.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The truth of the matter is, that Nature has implanted in our +breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, +in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and succour their +distresses. It is true that these social dispositions are not implanted +in every man, because there is no rule without exceptions; +but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general +rule. Some men are born without the organs of sight, or of hearing, +or without hands. Yet it would be wrong to say that man is born +without these faculties. When the moral sense is wanting, we +endeavor to supply the defect by education; by appeals to reason +and calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed +other motives to do good. But nature has constituted utility to +man the social test of virtue. The same act may be useful and +consequently virtuous in a country which is injurious and vicious in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span> +another differently circumstanced. I sincerely then believe, with +you, in the general existence of a moral instinct. I think it is the +brightest gem with which the human character is studded, and the +want of it is more degrading than the most hideous of the bodily +deformities.<a name="FNanchor_568_568" id="FNanchor_568_568"></a><a href="#Footnote_568_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a></p></div> + +<p>The test of morality then becomes, not self-interest, as +Helvétius had maintained (and Jefferson reproved Destutt de +Tracy for having accepted this theory), but general interest and +social utility. This is almost the criterium of Kant and one +would be tempted to press this parallelism, if there was any +reason to believe that the Philosopher of Monticello had ever +heard the name of the author of "Practical Reason." On this +point, as on so many others, Jefferson differs radically from +Rousseau, who admitted also a benevolent governor of the world +and the existence of a moral instinct, but who would have +strenuously denied that this moral instinct was nothing but +the social instinct. Jefferson, on the contrary, is led to recognize +the existence of morality, chiefly because, man being a social +being, society cannot be organized and subsist if it is not +composed of moral beings.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests +of society require the observation of those moral precepts in which +all religions agree, (for all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder or bear +false witness,) and that we should not intermeddle with the particular +dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected +with morality. In all of them we see good men, and as many +in one as another. The varieties of structures of action of the human +mind as in those in the body, are the work of our Creator, against +which it cannot be a religious duty to erect the standard of uniformity. +The practice of morality being necessary for the well-being +of society, he has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on +our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our +brain.<a name="FNanchor_569_569" id="FNanchor_569_569"></a><a href="#Footnote_569_569" class="fnanchor">[569]</a></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span></p> + +<p>This was stated more humorously by John Adams after they +had treated the subject exhaustively in a series of letters: +"Vain man, mind your own business. Do no wrong—; do all +the good you can. Eat your canvasback ducks, drink your +Burgundy. Sleep your siesta when necessary, and <span class="smcap">TRUST IN +GOD.</span>"<a name="FNanchor_570_570" id="FNanchor_570_570"></a><a href="#Footnote_570_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a></p> + +<p>This being the case, it remained to determine whether man +could not find somewhere a code of morality that would express +the precepts impressed in our hearts. In his youth, Jefferson +had copied and accepted as a matter of course the statement of +Bolingbroke that:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is not true that Christ revealed an entire body of ethics, proved +to be the law of nature from principles of reason and reaching all +duties of life.... A system thus collected from the writings of +the ancient heathen moralists, of Tully, of Seneca, of Epictetus, +and others, would be more full, more entire, more coherent, and +more clearly deduced from unquestionable principles of knowledge.<a name="FNanchor_571_571" id="FNanchor_571_571"></a><a href="#Footnote_571_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a></p></div> + +<p>In order to realize how far away Jefferson had drawn from his +radicalism, it is only necessary to go back to his "Syllabus of an +Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, compared with +those of others", written for Benjamin Rush, in 1803, after +reading Doctor Priestley's little treatise "Of Socrates and +Jesus compared."<a name="FNanchor_572_572" id="FNanchor_572_572"></a><a href="#Footnote_572_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a> There he had declared that</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>His moral doctrines relating to kindred and friends, were more +pure and perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers, +and ... they went far in inculcating universal philanthropy, not +only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to +all mankind, gathering all into one family, under the bonds of love, +charity, peace, common wants and common aids. A development +of this head will evince the peculiar superiority of the system of +Jesus over all others.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jefferson had been won over to Christianity by the superior +social value of the morals of Jesus. In that sense, he could +already say, "I am a Christian, in the only sense in which He +wished any one to be, sincerely attached to His doctrines, in +preference to all others."</p> + +<p>This profession of faith made publicly might have assuaged +some of the fierce attacks directed against Jefferson on the +ground of his "infidelity", and yet even at that time he emphatically +begged Doctor Rush not to make it public, for "it behoves +every man who values liberty of conscience for himself ... to +give no example of concession, betraying the common right of +independent opinion, by answering questions of faith, which +the laws have left between God and himself." To a certain +extent, however, his famous "Life and Morals of Jesus", +compiled during the last ten years of his life<a name="FNanchor_573_573" id="FNanchor_573_573"></a><a href="#Footnote_573_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a> may well be +considered an indirect and yet categorical recantation of +Bolingbroke's haughty dogmatism. Age, experience, observation +had mellowed the Stoic. He was not yet ready to accept +as a whole the dogmas of Christianity, but the superiority of +the morals of Jesus over the tenets of the "heathen moralists" +did not any longer leave any doubt in his mind.</p> + +<p>Whether after the death of the body something of man survived, +was an entirely different question—one that human +reason could not answer satisfactorily. It cannot even be +stated with certainty that he would have agreed with John +Adams when the latter wrote: "<i>Il faut trancher le mot.</i> What is +there in life to attach us to it but the hope of a future and a +better? It is a cracker, a rocket, a fire-work at best."<a name="FNanchor_574_574" id="FNanchor_574_574"></a><a href="#Footnote_574_574" class="fnanchor">[574]</a></p> + +<p>He never denied categorically the existence of a future life, +but this life was a thing in itself, and after all, it was worth +living. Altogether this world was a pretty good place, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span> +when John Adams asked him whether he would agree to live his +seventy-three years over again, he answered energetically: +"Yea.—I think with you," he added, "that it is a good world +on the whole; that it has been framed on a principle of benevolence, +and more pleasure than pain dealt to us.... My +temperament is sanguine. I steer my bark with Hope in the +head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail, +but not oftener than the foreboding of the gloomy."<a name="FNanchor_575_575" id="FNanchor_575_575"></a><a href="#Footnote_575_575" class="fnanchor">[575]</a> His +old friend was far from attaining such an equanimity and could +not help envying the Sage of Monticello sailing his bark +"Hope with her gay ensigns displayed at the prow, Fear with +her hobgoblins behind the stern. Hope springs eternal and all +is that endures...." But Jefferson was bolstered up in his +confident attitude by the intimate conviction that he had done +good work, that he had contributed his best to the most worthy +cause and that he had not labored in vain.</p> + +<p>This was not only a good world, but it was already much +better than when he had entered it. He had</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... observed the march of civilization advancing from the sea +coast, passing over us like a cloud of light, increasing our knowledge +and improving our condition, insomuch as that we are at that time +more advanced in civilization here than the seaports were when I +was a boy. And where this progress will stop no one can say. +Barbarism has, in the meantime, been receding before the steady +step of amelioration; and will in time, I trust, disappear from the +earth.<a name="FNanchor_576_576" id="FNanchor_576_576"></a><a href="#Footnote_576_576" class="fnanchor">[576]</a></p></div> + +<p>Scarcely two weeks before he died—and this is practically +his last important utterance—he recalled in a letter to the +citizens of the city of Washington who had invited him to +attend the celebration held for the fiftieth anniversary of the +Declaration of Independence, how proud he was that his fellow +citizens, after fifty years, continued to approve the choice made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span> +when the Declaration was adopted. "May it be to the world," +he added, "what I believe it will (to some parts sooner, to others +later, but finally to all) the signal of arousing men to burst the +chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had +persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings +and security of self-government."<a name="FNanchor_577_577" id="FNanchor_577_577"></a><a href="#Footnote_577_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a></p> + +<p>This faith in the ultimate recognition of the ideals, which he +had defined with such a felicity of expression half a century earlier, +was, even more than any belief in personal immortality, "the +rocket" that John Adams thought so necessary to attach us to +this life. It was a real religion, the religion of progress, of the +eighteenth century which had its devotees and with Condorcet +its martyr. Strengthened by the intimate conviction that he +would be judged from his acts and not "from his words", he +saw the approach of Death without any qualms, and he turned +back to his old friends of Greece and Rome, for "the classic +pages fill up the vacuum of <i>ennui</i>, and become sweet composers +to that rest of the grave into which we are sooner or later to +descend."<a name="FNanchor_578_578" id="FNanchor_578_578"></a><a href="#Footnote_578_578" class="fnanchor">[578]</a> On many occasions he expressed his readiness to +depart: "I enjoy good health," he wrote once to John Adams; +"I am happy in what is around me, yet I assure you I am ripe +for leaving all, this year, this day, this hour."<a name="FNanchor_579_579" id="FNanchor_579_579"></a><a href="#Footnote_579_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a> It took almost +ten years after these lines were written for the call to come. +Most of his biographers have dealt extensively with the remarkable +vigor preserved by Jefferson even to his last day. For +several years after his retirement he remained a hale and robust +old man. But he felt none the less the approaching dissolution +and watched anxiously the slow progress of his physical limitations. +His letters do not completely bear out on this point the +statement made by Mrs. Sarah Randolph in her "Domestic +Life of Thomas Jefferson."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span></p> + +<p>At seventy-three he was still remarkably robust and, with the +minuteness of a physician, described his case in a letter to his +old friend Charles Thomson:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I retain good health, am rather feeble to walk much, but ride +with ease, passing two or three hours a day on horseback.... My +eyes need the aid of glasses by night, and with small print in the day +also; my hearing is not quite so sensible as it used to be; no tooth +shaking yet, but shivering and shrinking in body from the cold we +now experience; my thermometer having been as low as 12° this +morning. My greatest oppression is a correspondence afflictingly +laborious, the extent of which I have been long endeavoring to curtail. +Could I reduce this epistolary corvée within the limits of my +friends and affairs ... my life would be as happy as the infirmities +of age would admit, and I should look on its consummation with the +composure of one "<i>qui summum nec metuit diem nec optat</i>."<a name="FNanchor_580_580" id="FNanchor_580_580"></a><a href="#Footnote_580_580" class="fnanchor">[580]</a></p></div> + +<p>This remarkable preservation of his faculties he attributed +largely to his abstemious diet. For years he had eaten little +animal food, and that "not as an aliment so much as a condiment +for the vegetables", which constituted his principal diet. +"I double however the Doctor's glass and a half of wine, and +even treble it with a friend, but halve its effects by drinking the +weak wines only. The ardent wines I cannot drink, nor do I +use ardent spirits in any form."<a name="FNanchor_581_581" id="FNanchor_581_581"></a><a href="#Footnote_581_581" class="fnanchor">[581]</a></p> + +<p>Yet he had to admit to Mrs. Trist in 1814 that he was only +"an old half-strung fiddle",<a name="FNanchor_582_582" id="FNanchor_582_582"></a><a href="#Footnote_582_582" class="fnanchor">[582]</a> and as he advanced in age the +"machine" gave evident signs of wearing out. The recurrence +of the suffering caused by his broken wrist, badly set in Paris +by the famous Louis,<a name="FNanchor_583_583" id="FNanchor_583_583"></a><a href="#Footnote_583_583" class="fnanchor">[583]</a> and still worse the very painful "disury" +with which he was afflicted<a name="FNanchor_584_584" id="FNanchor_584_584"></a><a href="#Footnote_584_584" class="fnanchor">[584]</a> gave him many unhappy hours. +To die was nothing, for as he wrote then in his old "Common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span>place +Book", "I do not worry about the hereafter, even if now +the doom of death stands at my feet, for we are men and cannot +live forever. To all of us death must happen."<a name="FNanchor_585_585" id="FNanchor_585_585"></a><a href="#Footnote_585_585" class="fnanchor">[585]</a> But "bodily +decay" was "gloomy in prospect, for of all human contemplation +the most abhorrent is a body without mind. To be a +doting old man, to repeat four times over the same story in one +hour", if this was life, it was "at most the life of a cabbage."<a name="FNanchor_586_586" id="FNanchor_586_586"></a><a href="#Footnote_586_586" class="fnanchor">[586]</a> +He was spared this affliction he dreaded so much, and when +Lafayette visited him in November, 1824, the Marquis found +him "much aged without doubt, after a separation of thirty-five +years, but bearing marvelously well under his eighty-one years +of age, in full possession of all the vigor of his mind and heart."<a name="FNanchor_587_587" id="FNanchor_587_587"></a><a href="#Footnote_587_587" class="fnanchor">[587]</a> +Six months later, when Lafayette took his final leave, Jefferson +was weaker and confined to his house, suffering much "with +one foot in the grave and the other one uplifted to follow it."</p> + +<p>Death was slowly approaching, without any particular +disease being noticeable; after running for eighty-three years +"the machine" was about to "surcease motion." The end has +been told by several contemporaries and friends. No account +is more simple and more touching in its simplicity than the +relation written by his attending physician, Doctor Dunglison:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Until the 2d. and 3d. of July he spoke freely of his approaching +death; made all arrangements with his grandson, Mr. Randolph, in +regard to his private affairs; and expressed his anxiety for the +prosperity of the University and his confidence in the exertion in +its behalf of Mr. Madison and the other visitors. He repeatedly, +too, mentioned his obligation to me for my attention to him. During +the last week of his existence I remained at Monticello; and +one of the last remarks he made was to me. In the course of the day +and night of the 2d of July he was affected with stupor, with intervals +of wakefulness and consciousness; but on the 3d the stupor became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> +almost permanent. About seven o'clock of the evening of that day +he awoke and, seeing me staying at his bedside, exclaimed, "Ah, +Doctor, are you still there?" in a voice, however, that was husky +and indistinct. He then asked, "Is it the Fourth?" to which I +replied, "It will soon be." These were the last words I heard him +utter.</p> + +<p>Until towards the middle of the day—the 4th—he remained in +the same state, or nearly so, wholly unconscious to everything that +was passing around him. His circulation, however, was gradually +becoming more languid; and for some time prior to dissolution the +pulse at the wrist was imperceptible. About one o'clock he ceased +to exist.<a name="FNanchor_588_588" id="FNanchor_588_588"></a><a href="#Footnote_588_588" class="fnanchor">[588]</a></p></div> + +<p>A few days before he had taken his final dispositions and seen +all the members of his family. He was not a man to indulge in +a painful display of emotions, but he told his dear daughter +Martha that "in a certain drawer in an old pocket book she +would find something for her." It was a piece of paper on +which he had written eight lines "A death bed adieu from Th. J. +to M. R." There was no philosophism nor classical reminiscence +in it; it was the simple expression of his last hope that on +the shore</p> + +<p>"<i>Which crowns all my hopes, or which buries my care</i>" he +would find awaiting him "two seraphs long shrouded in death", +his beloved wife and his young daughter Maria.</p> + +<p>He was buried by their side in the family plot of Monticello. +According to his wishes no invitations were issued and no notice +of the hour given. "His body was borne privately from his +dwelling by his family and servants, but his neighbors and +friends, anxious to pay the last tribute of respect to one they +had loved and honored, waited for it in crowds at the grave." +A typically American scene, without parade, without speeches +and long ceremonies—almost a pioneer burial in a piece of +land reclaimed from the wilderness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + +<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> To Mrs. Bingham, Paris, February 7, 1787, Memorial Edition, VI, 81.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> To Jefferson Randolph, November 24, 1808, Memorial Edition, XII, 197.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> To John Adams, June 11, 1812. Memorial Edition, XIII, 160.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> "Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson", by S. N. Randolph. New York, 1857, p. 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> "Notes on Virginia." Query XV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> "Autobiography." Memorial Edition, I., 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> November 24, 1808. Memorial Edition, XII, 197.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> William Wirt Henry: "Life of Patrick Henry." New York, 1891, vol. I, p. 41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> January 20, 1763. Memorial Edition, IV, 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> July 15, 1763. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> "The Commonplace Book of Thomas Jefferson." Paris, Baltimore, 1927. "The +Literary Bible of Thomas Jefferson." Paris, Baltimore, 1928.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> To John Page, Shadwell, July 15, 1763. Memorial Edition, IV, 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Mary Newton Stanard: "Colonial Virginia." Philadelphia, 1917, p. 306.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> To Peter Carr. Memorial Edition, VI, 258.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> "Samson Agonistes", v, 1025.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> See also "Commonplace Book", p. 330, and "Writings." Memorial Edition, XV, +239, March 14, 1820.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> "Hecuba", 592, in "Literary Bible of Thomas Jefferson."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> "Hecuba", 306.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Bolingbroke, in "Literary Bible."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Stanard, p. 240.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> These memoranda are in the Jefferson Coolidge Collection of the Massachusetts +Historical Society.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> To Wirt, August 5, 1815. Memorial Edition, XIV, 335.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> "Autobiography." <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Randall, "Life of Jefferson", I, 16, <i>n.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> "Paradise Lost", 1. 4, v., 337.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> To John Page, February 21, 1770. Memorial Edition, IV, 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> June 9, 1770, and June 6, 1773. The diplomas are preserved in the Jefferson papers +of the Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Quoted by Stanard, p. 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Quoted by T. N. Page, p. 147.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> "Autobiography", p. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> "Autobiography." Memorial Edition, I, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> This passage has been overlooked by Randall, and naturally by Mr. Hirst, who +follows Randall very closely here as elsewhere. Hirst, p. 69. The Fairfax resolutions +did not recognize the right of the British Parliament to regulate the commerce of the +colony; they admitted the <i>expediency</i> but denied the <i>right</i> of such a procedure.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> George Mason, I, 393.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> See "Commonplace Book", 229-257.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> "Commonplace Book", p. 135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Stanard, p. 250.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> To John Randolph, Attorney-general, August 25, 1775. Memorial Edition, IV, 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> August 31, 1775.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> November 29, 1775. Memorial Edition, IV, 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> The full text will be found in the Ford Edition, II, 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> See "Life of G. Mason", I, Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> "Journals of Congress", V, 425.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 431.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> "Autobiography." Memorial Edition, I, 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> "Life and Correspondence of G. Mason", I, 438.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> To Thomas Nelson, May 16, 1776. Memorial Edition, IV, 253.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> "Writings", Ford, II, 41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Ford, II, 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> "Journals of Congress", July 12, V, 546 and August 20, V, 674.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> "Journals of Congress", October 14, 1774, I, 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> See "Commonplace Book", 107, 111 <i>et ff.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> "Journals of Congress", V., 517.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> August 13, 1776. Ford, II, 78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Ford, II, 91, October 11, 1776.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Randall, I, 196.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Ford, II, 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Concerning the opposition he encountered, see "Autobiography." Ford, I, 54.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> "Autobiography", <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 58.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> "Life and Correspondence of George Mason", I, 276.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> "Life and Correspondence of George Mason", I, 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Note for the biography of John Saunderson, Esq., August 31, 1820. "Autobiography", +Appendix A. Ford, I, 107.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Monticello, November 1, 1778. Memorial Edition, I, 216.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> "Notes on Virginia", Query XVII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> "Commonplace Book", p. 362.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> This seems to be the first draft of the document; another copy in the Jefferson +Coolidge Collection presents few variants, the most important being found in the second +sentence which reads, "Yet desirous of encouraging and supporting the Calvinistical +Reformed Church, and of deriving" etc. The list of names appended to that second +version is considerably longer and besides the original signers includes fourteen other +supporters of the Reverend Charles Clay.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> "Autobiography." Memorial Edition, I, 73.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> See my edition of the Jefferson-Lafayette Correspondence, Paris and Baltimore, +1929.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Jefferson to General Philips. Quoted by Randall, I, 235.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> See his letter dated from Paris, November 20, 1789.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> To Baron de Riedesel, July 4, 1779. Ford, II, 245.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> July 17, 1779. <i>Ibid.</i>, II, 247.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> July 22, 1779. <i>Ibid.</i>, II, 249.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> October 1, 1779. Ford, II, 258.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> October 8, 1779. <i>Ibid.</i>, II, 261.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, II, 263.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> To The Virginia Delegation in Congress, October 27, 1780. To Colonel Vanmeter, +April 27, 1781. <i>Ibid.</i>, III, 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> "A Diary kept by Th: J. from Dec. 31. 1780 to Jan. 11. 1781 and more general +Notes of subsequent transactions during the British invasion." Jefferson Papers. +Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Lafayette transmitted the letter on June 26, 1781, but Jefferson did not receive it +until the beginning of August. <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> To E. Randolph, September 16, 1781. Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> June 11, 1782. Randall, I, 376.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> The story of the publication has been told by P. L. Ford in a most scholarly edition +of the "Notes on Virginia" in the "Writings" of Jefferson.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> June 7, 1785. Memorial Edition, V, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> To Arch. Stuart, September 8, 1818. Ford, III, 231, <i>n.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Iliad XXII, 389.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> "Domestic Life", p. 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> To Chastellux, November 26, 1782, in Randall, I, 1782.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> "Autobiography", Memorial Edition, I, 76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> January 22, 1783. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 215.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> To Madison, May 7, 1783. Ford, III, 329.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> This point appears even more clearly in Jefferson correspondence with Du Pont de +Nemours, to appear shortly.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> "Report on letters from the Ministers in Paris." December 20, 1783. Ford, III, +355.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Ford, III, 377.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> February 1, 1784. Ford, III, 393.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Ford, III, p. 430.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> See Ford, III, 407 and 429.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, III, 476.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> March, 1784. <i>Ibid</i>, III, p. 428.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> To George Washington, April 16, 1784. Ford, III, 466 and 470.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> To James Madison, February 20, 1784. <i>Ibid.</i>, III, 403.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> To Mrs. Trist, Paris, August 18, 1785. "Domestic Life", 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> See G. Chinard, "Les Amitiés américaines de Madame d'Houdetot." Paris, 1923.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> May 24, 1785, November 12, 1785, etc. Massachusetts Historical Society.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> Chinard, "Trois Amitiés Françaises de Jefferson." Paris, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Most of her letters to Jefferson are in the Jefferson Coolidge Collection of the +Massachusetts Historical Society.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> April 6, 1785. "Domestic Life", p. 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Diary of Martha. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 74.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 84.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> April 11, 1787. Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> May 4, 1786. Memorial Edition, V, 303.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, XVII, 153.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Nismes, March 20, 1787.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> To J. Bannister, Junior, October 15, 1785. Memorial Edition, V, 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> To Bellini, September 30, 1785. Memorial Edition, V, 153.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> To Crevecoeur, January 15, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> To Carmichael, December 26, 1786.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> To Skipwith, July 28, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 187.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> August 10, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 262.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> Jefferson to the Governor of Maryland. June 16, 1785. Memorial Edition, +V, 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> To Messrs. French and Nephew. July 13, 1785. Memorial Edition, V, 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> August 15, 1785. <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, Feb. 20, 1786.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Lafayette's letter. March 18, 1786. <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> To the Governor of Virginia, January 24, 1786. Memorial Edition, V, 253.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> To James Ross, May 8, 1786. Memorial Edition, V, 321.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> To James Ross, May 8, 1786. <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 329.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> For a brief but satisfactory treatment see W. K. Woolery. "The Relation of +Thomas Jefferson to American Foreign Policy, 1783-1793." Baltimore, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> Letter to Lafayette, July 17, 1786. Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> July 9, 1786. Memorial Edition, V, 357.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> To Washington, August 14, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 478.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> July 30, 1785. Memorial Edition, V, 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> To Jay, August 14,1785. Memorial Edition, V, 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> To John Jay, April 23, 1786. <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 300.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> To T. Pleasants, May 8, 1786. <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 324.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> To Jay, September 26, 1786. <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 426.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> To Jay, September 26, 1786. Memorial Edition, V, 426; to Adams, July 17, +1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 173; to James Madison, August 2, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 215.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> To J. Adams, July 17, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> To John Jay, August 6, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 248.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> December 21, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 394.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> To Dumas, February 12, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 429.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> To Adams, February 6, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 419. To The Commissioners of the +Treasury, Feb. 7, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 421.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> March 16, 1788. Memorial Edition, VI, 438.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> To the Commissioners of the Treasury, March 29, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 433.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 447 and 445.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> To the Honorable, The Board of the Treasury, May 16, 1788. Memorial Edition, +VII, 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> To John Jay, May 23, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 22; To the Commissioners of the Treasury, +September 6, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 136.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> To James Madison, November 18, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 186.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> To John Jay, March 12, 1788. Memorial Edition, VII, 296.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> To John Jay, May 9, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 345.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> To John Jay, September 19, 1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 471.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> To John Langdon, September 11, 1785. Memorial Edition, V, 129.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> To John Adams, February 23, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 97.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> To James Madison, June 20, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 132.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> August 4, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 227.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> September 10, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 295.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> To John Adams, November 13, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 370. See also +letter to Colonel Smith, written the same day. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 372.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> December 11, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 380.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> December 20, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 393.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> To Donald, February 7, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 425.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> To Carmichael and to Colonel Carrington, May 27, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 27, 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> To Carmichael, August 12, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 124; to James Madison, November +18, 1788, <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 183; to General Washington, December 4, 1788, <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, +223.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> To Colonel Humphreys, March 18, 1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 324.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> Jefferson to Monroe, May 10, 1786. Memorial Edition, V, 327.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> To Major General Greene, January 12, 1786. <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 246.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> "Autobiography", <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 97 and July 11, 1786, <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 364.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> See my edition of the Jefferson Lafayette correspondence, chapter II. Paris, +Baltimore, 1929.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> "Memoirs", II, 148.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> To John Jay, August 14, 1785. Memorial Edition, V, 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> To Baron Geismer, September 6, 1785. Memorial Edition, V, 128.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> To John Langdon, September 11, 1785. <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 131.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> To Count Hogendorp, October 13, 1785. <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 182.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> To John Page, May 4, 1786. Memorial Edition, V, 306.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> To Dumas, May 6, 1786. <i>Ibid.</i>, V, 309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> To John Jay, May 4, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 119.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> To Carmichael, May 27, 1788. Memorial Edition, VII, 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> To Count Hagendorf, October 13, 1785. Memorial Edition, V, 181.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> November 12, 1785. Memorial Edition, V, 202.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> December 21, 1787, Memorial Edition, VI, 396; see also letter to John Jay, May 4, +1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> See "Les Amitiés Françaises de Madame d'Houdetot." Paris, 1925.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> To Mrs. Trist. Paris, August 18, 1785. "Domestic Life", p. 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> To James Monroe, April 15, 1785. Ford, IV, 59.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> To Abigail Adams, June 21, 1785. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 59.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> To Mrs. Adams, July 7, 1785. Ford, IV, 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> To George Wythe, August 13, 1786. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 268-269.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> To Mrs. Maria Cosway, October 12, 1786. Ford, IV, 323.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> November, 1786. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 328.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> To Edward Carrington. January 16, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 357.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> To J. Jay, January 9, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> January 16, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> February 23, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 99.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> February 28, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 101.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> March 20, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 105.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> To James Madison, June 20, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 134.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> August 5, 1787, Memorial Edition. VI, 235.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 247.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> To Washington, August 14, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 276.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> August 14, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 279.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> To John Adams, August 30, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 287.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> October 8, 1787. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 338.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> To William Rutledge, February 2, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI. 417.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> To De Moustier, May 17, 1788. Memorial Edition, VII, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> July 18, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 81.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> July 24, 1788. Memorial Edition, VII, 87.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> To Colonel Monroe, August 9, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 113.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> August 12, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> To Cutting, August 23, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 131.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> To Short, November 2, 1788. Memorial Edition, VII, 159.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> To Washington, December 4, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 228.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> To Doctor Currie, December 20, 1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 259.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> To Shippen, March 11, 1789. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 291.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> March 17, 1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 317.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 321.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> To Lafayette, May 6, 1788. Memorial Edition, VII, 334. To Carmichael, May 8, +1788. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 337.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> To John Jay, May 9, 1789. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 345.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> To Crevecœur, May 20, 1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 368.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> To Madison, June 18,1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 386.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> To John Jay, June 24-25, 1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 395.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 268.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> "Letters of Lafayette and Jefferson." Paris, Baltimore, 1929.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> Memorial Edition, VIII, 454.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> To J. Jay, July 19, 1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 409 and to James Madison +July 22. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 424.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> Manuscript. Library of Congress, July 20, 1789.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, probably August, 1789.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> September 20, 1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 474.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> "Autobiography", I, 156.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> To M. l'Abbé Arnoud, Paris, July 19, 1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 422.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> To Madison, August 28, 1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 448.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> To John Jay, September 19, 1789. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII, 467.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> To James Madison, January 30, 1787. Memorial Edition, VI, 70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> To James Madison, August 28, 1789. Memorial Edition, VII, 448.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> "Trois amitiés françaises de Jefferson", p. 188.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> Madison to Washington. January 4, 1790.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> Washington to Jefferson. January 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> "Autobiography", p. 161.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> "Trois amitiés françaises de Jefferson", p. 195. February 28, 1790.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> "Autobiography." Memorial Edition, I, 103.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> Memorial Edition, I, 274.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> March 28, 1790. Memorial Edition, VIII, 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> June 13, 1790. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> June 20, 1790. Memorial Edition, VIII, 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> June 23, 1790. Memorial Edition, VIII, 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> To Gilmer, June 27, 1790. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> November 26, 1790. Memorial Edition, VIII, 107.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> December 3, 1790. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 109.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> February 4, 1791. Memorial Edition, VIII, 123.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> "Writings", VI, 19-43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> To the President of the United States. Memorial Edition, VIII, 192. May 8, 1791.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> Memorial Edition, VIII, 208.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 223.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, January 2, 1793.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> August 24, 1791. Memorial Edition, VIII, 229.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> August 30, 1791. Memorial Edition, VIII, 241.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> To John Adams, August 30, 1791. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 245.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> December 23, 1791. Memorial Edition, VIII, 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> March 1, 1792. Memorial Edition, I, 292, "Anas."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> May 23, 1792. Memorial Edition, VIII, 341.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> September 9, 1792. Memorial Edition, VIII, 408.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> To Thomas Pinckney, December 3, 1792. Memorial Edition, VIII, 443.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> To Doctor George Gilmer, December 15, 1792. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 444.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 445.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> April 6, 1790. Memorial Edition, VIII, 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> April 2. Memorial Edition, VIII, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> July 26, 1790. Memorial Edition, VIII, 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> To Carmichael, August 2, 1790. Memorial Edition, VIII, 70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> To Short, August 10, 1790. Memorial Edition, VIII, 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> To Gouverneur Morris, August 12, 1790. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 85.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> To Colonel Mason, February 4, 1791. Memorial Edition, VIII, 123.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> To the President of the National Assembly, March 8, 1791. Memorial Edition, +VIII, 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> To W. Short, April 25, 1791. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> See also my edition of the "Letters of Lafayette and Jefferson", chapter III. Paris, +Baltimore, 1929.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> To W. Short, July 28, 1791. Memorial Edition, VIII, 217.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> July 30, 1791. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 225.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> To Edward Rutledge, August 25, 1791. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> To Short, November 24, 1791. Memorial Edition, VIII, 261.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> To Short, January 28, 1792. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 297.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> March 10, 1792. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 311.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> To Lafayette, June 16, 1792. Memorial Edition, VIII, 381.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> November 7, 1792. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII, 437.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> November 20, 1792. Memorial Edition, VIII, 441.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> January 3, 1793. Memorial Edition, IX, 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> To G. Morris, March 12, 1793. Memorial Edition, IX, 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> To ——, March 18, 1793. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> "Anas", February 20, 1793.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> To Messrs. Carmichael and Short, March 23, 1793. Memorial Edition, IX, 55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> March 21, 1793. Memorial Edition, IX, 49.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> To C. W. Dumas, March 23, 1793. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> To E. P. Van Berckel, April 23, 1793. To Morris, Pinckney and Short, April 26, +1793. Memorial Edition, IX, 68-69.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> April 27, 1793. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> May 5, 1793. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 75.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> May 7, 1793. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> To Ternant, May 3, 1793. Memorial Edition, IX, 74.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> May 15, 1793. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> May 19, 1793. Memorial Edition, IX, 98.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> June 6, 1789. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 115.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> June 13, 1789. Memorial Edition, IX, 123.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, June 24, 1793.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> Library of Congress, June 27, 1793 and Writings of J. Monroe, I, 261.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> To J. Madison, July 7, 1793. Ford, VII, 436.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> To James Madison, August 25, 1793. Memorial Edition, IX, 211.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> To Madison, September 1, 1793. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 211.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, 15832.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> December 31, 1793. Memorial Edition, IX, 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> December 13, 1793. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 279.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> Angelica Church to Jefferson, August 19, 1793. Chinard, "Trois Amitiés Françaises", +p. 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, February, 1794.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> "Amitiés françaises", p. 161.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> February 3, 1794. Memorial Edition, IX, 279.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, February 15, 1794.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> December 16, 1793. Memorial Edition, III, 261-283.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, March 3, and March 11, 1794.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> April 3, 1794. Memorial Edition, IX, 281 and Manuscript Library of Congress, +March 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> April 24, 1794. Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> May 1, 1794. Memorial Edition, IX, 285.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> May 14, 1794. Memorial Edition, IX, 287.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> September 7, 1794. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 291.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> December 28, 1794. Memorial Edition, IX, 293.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> April 27, 1795. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 301.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> April 27. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 305.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> See S. F. Bemis. "Jay's Treaty." New York, 1923.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> August 30, 1795. Memorial Edition, IX, 307.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> September 21, 1795. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> November 30, 1795. Memorial Edition, IX, 313.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> March 21, 1796. Memorial Edition, IX, 329.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> January 16, 1796. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 319.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> To James Madison, March 6, 1796. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 323.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> March 19, 1796. Memorial Edition, IX, 326.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> To James Madison, March 27, 1796. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 330.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> April 9, 1790. Memorial Edition, IX, 334.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> April 24, 1796. Memorial Edition, IX, 335.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> June 19, 1796. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 339.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> To Jonathan Williams, July 3, 1796. Memorial Edition, IX, 347.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> December 17, 1796. Memorial Edition, IX, 351.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> To Rutledge, December 27, 1796. Memorial Edition, IX, 353.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> To Madison, January 1, 1797. Memorial Edition, IX, 357.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> James Madison to Jefferson, January 15, 1797. "Works", VI, 303.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> January 22, 1797. Memorial Edition, IX, 370.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> April 9, 1797. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 380.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> June 24, 1797. Memorial Edition, IX, 408.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> May 29, 1797. Memorial Edition, IX, 389.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> June 15, 1797. To James Madison, Memorial Edition, IX, 397.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> June 17, 1797. Memorial Edition, IX, 400.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a> June 21, 1797. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 405.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> To Colonel A. Campbell, September 1, 1797. Memorial Edition, IX, 419.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> June 24, 1797. Memorial Edition, IX, 409.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> January 3, 1798. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 431.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> February 22, 1798. Memorial Edition, IX, 444.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> March 15, 1798. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> March 21, 1798. Memorial Edition, X, 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> To Madison, March 29, 1798. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a> March 27, 1798.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> To Madison, April 12, 1798. Memorial Edition, X, 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_356_356" id="Footnote_356_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_356"><span class="label">[356]</span></a> April 12, 1798. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_357_357" id="Footnote_357_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_357"><span class="label">[357]</span></a> April 12, 1798. Memorial Edition, X, 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_358_358" id="Footnote_358_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_358"><span class="label">[358]</span></a> To Madison, April 26, 1798. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_359_359" id="Footnote_359_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_359"><span class="label">[359]</span></a> See Chinard, "Volney et l'Amérique." Paris, Baltimore, 1923.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360_360" id="Footnote_360_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_360"><span class="label">[360]</span></a> To Madison, April 26, 1798. Memorial Edition, X, 33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_361_361" id="Footnote_361_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_361"><span class="label">[361]</span></a> To Madison, May 31, 1798. Memorial Edition, X, 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_362_362" id="Footnote_362_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_362"><span class="label">[362]</span></a> To John Taylor, June 1, 1798. Memorial Edition, X, 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_363_363" id="Footnote_363_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_363"><span class="label">[363]</span></a> To Madison, June 21, 1798. Memorial Edition, X, 49-53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364_364" id="Footnote_364_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_364"><span class="label">[364]</span></a> August 22, 1798. Memorial Edition, X, 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_365_365" id="Footnote_365_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_365"><span class="label">[365]</span></a> October 11, 1798. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 62.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366_366" id="Footnote_366_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_366"><span class="label">[366]</span></a> To Madison, November 17, 1798. Memorial Edition, X, 62.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_367_367" id="Footnote_367_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_367"><span class="label">[367]</span></a> December 11, 1821. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 351.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_368_368" id="Footnote_368_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_368"><span class="label">[368]</span></a> See pp. 80-82.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_369_369" id="Footnote_369_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_369"><span class="label">[369]</span></a> November 17. Memorial Edition, X, 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370_370" id="Footnote_370_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_370"><span class="label">[370]</span></a> November 26, 1798. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371_371" id="Footnote_371_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_371"><span class="label">[371]</span></a> To James Madison, January 3, 1799. Memorial Edition, X, 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_372_372" id="Footnote_372_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_372"><span class="label">[372]</span></a> Madison to Jefferson, June 26, 1799. Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373_373" id="Footnote_373_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_373"><span class="label">[373]</span></a> January 16, 1799. Memorial Edition, X, 69.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_374_374" id="Footnote_374_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_374"><span class="label">[374]</span></a> To Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799. Memorial Edition, X, 77-78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_375_375" id="Footnote_375_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_375"><span class="label">[375]</span></a> January 29, 1799, Memorial Edition, X, 87 and Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, +February 14, 1799.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_376_376" id="Footnote_376_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_376"><span class="label">[376]</span></a> To Madison, February 5, 1799. Memorial Edition, X, 95.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_377_377" id="Footnote_377_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_377"><span class="label">[377]</span></a> John Ogden to Jefferson, February 7, 1799. Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378_378" id="Footnote_378_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_378"><span class="label">[378]</span></a> February 11, 1799. <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_379_379" id="Footnote_379_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_379"><span class="label">[379]</span></a> To Madison, February 19, 1799. Memorial Edition, X, 111.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_380_380" id="Footnote_380_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_380"><span class="label">[380]</span></a> To Bishop James Madison, February 27, 1799. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_381_381" id="Footnote_381_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_381"><span class="label">[381]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, February 26, 1799.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_382_382" id="Footnote_382_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_382"><span class="label">[382]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. To Bishop Madison, March 12, 1799.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_383_383" id="Footnote_383_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_383"><span class="label">[383]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> Callender to Jefferson, August 10, 1799. From Richmond.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_384_384" id="Footnote_384_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_384"><span class="label">[384]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> Marked received December 11, undated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385_385" id="Footnote_385_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_385"><span class="label">[385]</span></a> August 18, 1799. Memorial Edition, X, 125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_386_386" id="Footnote_386_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_386"><span class="label">[386]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. To Callender, undated, unsigned.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387_387" id="Footnote_387_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_387"><span class="label">[387]</span></a> To Madison, November 22, 1799. Memorial Edition, X, 133.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_388_388" id="Footnote_388_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_388"><span class="label">[388]</span></a> January 12, 1800. Memorial Edition, X, 136.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389_389" id="Footnote_389_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_389"><span class="label">[389]</span></a> Priestley's answer, never hitherto published, will be found in my volume on "Jefferson +and the Physiocrats."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390_390" id="Footnote_390_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_390"><span class="label">[390]</span></a> March 14, 1800. Memorial Edition, X, 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_391_391" id="Footnote_391_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_391"><span class="label">[391]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, February 11, 1800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_392_392" id="Footnote_392_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_392"><span class="label">[392]</span></a> To Henry Innis, January 23. Memorial Edition, X, 143.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_393_393" id="Footnote_393_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_393"><span class="label">[393]</span></a> To T. M. Randolph, February 2, 1800. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_394_394" id="Footnote_394_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_394"><span class="label">[394]</span></a> February 26, 1800. Memorial Edition, X, 153.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_395_395" id="Footnote_395_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_395"><span class="label">[395]</span></a> To Madison, March 8, 1800. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 157-159.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396_396" id="Footnote_396_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_396"><span class="label">[396]</span></a> To P. N. Nicholas, April 7, 1800. Memorial Edition, X, 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397_397" id="Footnote_397_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_397"><span class="label">[397]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. Callender to Jefferson, February 10 and +March 15, 1800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_398_398" id="Footnote_398_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_398"><span class="label">[398]</span></a> March 18, 1800. Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_399_399" id="Footnote_399_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_399"><span class="label">[399]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_400_400" id="Footnote_400_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_400"><span class="label">[400]</span></a> April 30, 1800. Memorial Edition, X, 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_401_401" id="Footnote_401_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_401"><span class="label">[401]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, May 26, 1800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_402_402" id="Footnote_402_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_402"><span class="label">[402]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, August 14, 1800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_403_403" id="Footnote_403_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_403"><span class="label">[403]</span></a> March 14, 1800. Memorial Edition, X, 160.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404_404" id="Footnote_404_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_404"><span class="label">[404]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, Benjamin Rush to Jefferson, August 22, +1800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_405_405" id="Footnote_405_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_405"><span class="label">[405]</span></a> September 23, 1800. Memorial Edition, X, 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406_406" id="Footnote_406_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_406"><span class="label">[406]</span></a> December 14, 1800. Memorial Edition, X, 176.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407_407" id="Footnote_407_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_407"><span class="label">[407]</span></a> December 18, 1800. Memorial Edition, X, 183.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408_408" id="Footnote_408_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_408"><span class="label">[408]</span></a> Memorial Edition, X, 188.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_409_409" id="Footnote_409_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_409"><span class="label">[409]</span></a> January 10, 1800. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 188.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410_410" id="Footnote_410_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_410"><span class="label">[410]</span></a> February 3. Memorial Edition, X, 197.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_411_411" id="Footnote_411_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_411"><span class="label">[411]</span></a> February 15, 1801. Memorial Edition, X, 201.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_412_412" id="Footnote_412_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_412"><span class="label">[412]</span></a> February 18, 1801. Memorial Edition, X, 203.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_413_413" id="Footnote_413_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_413"><span class="label">[413]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 206.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414_414" id="Footnote_414_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_414"><span class="label">[414]</span></a> To Thomas Lomax, February 25, 1801. Memorial Edition, X, 211.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_415_415" id="Footnote_415_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_415"><span class="label">[415]</span></a> To Thomas Lomax, February 25, 1801. Memorial Edition, X, 210.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416_416" id="Footnote_416_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_416"><span class="label">[416]</span></a> March 7, 1801. Memorial Edition, X, 218.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_417_417" id="Footnote_417_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_417"><span class="label">[417]</span></a> To Doctor Benjamin Rush, March 24, 1801. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 241.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418_418" id="Footnote_418_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_418"><span class="label">[418]</span></a> To Elias Shipman and others, July 12, 1801.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_419_419" id="Footnote_419_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_419"><span class="label">[419]</span></a> June 13, 1804. Memorial Edition, XI, 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_420_420" id="Footnote_420_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_420"><span class="label">[420]</span></a> A. J. Beveridge: "Life of Marshall", II, 51-53 and Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_421_421" id="Footnote_421_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_421"><span class="label">[421]</span></a> "Life of Marshall", II, 51-222; McMaster, "History of the People of the United +States", Vol. III.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_422_422" id="Footnote_422_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_422"><span class="label">[422]</span></a> To Elbridge Gerry, March 20, 1801. Memorial Edition, X, 251.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_423_423" id="Footnote_423_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_423"><span class="label">[423]</span></a> To the Attorney-general, January 1, 1802. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 305.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_424_424" id="Footnote_424_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_424"><span class="label">[424]</span></a> July 18, 1804. <i>Ibid.</i>, XI, 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_425_425" id="Footnote_425_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_425"><span class="label">[425]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, June 13, 1800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_426_426" id="Footnote_426_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_426"><span class="label">[426]</span></a> To W. Short, October 3, 1801. Memorial Edition, X, 288.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_427_427" id="Footnote_427_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_427"><span class="label">[427]</span></a> November 24, 1801. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 294.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_428_428" id="Footnote_428_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_428"><span class="label">[428]</span></a> "Volney et L'Amérique." Paris and Baltimore, 1923.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_429_429" id="Footnote_429_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_429"><span class="label">[429]</span></a> King to the Secretary of State, January 1, 1802.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_430_430" id="Footnote_430_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_430"><span class="label">[430]</span></a> Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, April 21, 1802.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_431_431" id="Footnote_431_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_431"><span class="label">[431]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, April 25, 1802.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_432_432" id="Footnote_432_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_432"><span class="label">[432]</span></a> May 12, 1802. Manuscript, Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_433_433" id="Footnote_433_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_433"><span class="label">[433]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. Du Pont de Nemours to Jefferson, October +4, 1802.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_434_434" id="Footnote_434_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_434"><span class="label">[434]</span></a> Annals of Congress, p. 1059.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_435_435" id="Footnote_435_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_435"><span class="label">[435]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 286.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_436_436" id="Footnote_436_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_436"><span class="label">[436]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, marked received December 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_437_437" id="Footnote_437_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_437"><span class="label">[437]</span></a> Annals of Congress. Appendix, p. 1065.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_438_438" id="Footnote_438_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438_438"><span class="label">[438]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, February 1, 1803.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_439_439" id="Footnote_439_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439_439"><span class="label">[439]</span></a> To James Madison, January 24, 1803. Annals of Congress, p. 1066.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_440_440" id="Footnote_440_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440_440"><span class="label">[440]</span></a> To the Secretary of State, March 24, 1803. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 1083.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_441_441" id="Footnote_441_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441_441"><span class="label">[441]</span></a> To Madison, March 3, 1803. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 1083.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_442_442" id="Footnote_442_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442_442"><span class="label">[442]</span></a> March 2, 1803. Annals of Congress, p. 1098.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_443_443" id="Footnote_443_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443_443"><span class="label">[443]</span></a> King to Livingston, May 7, 1803. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 1803.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_444_444" id="Footnote_444_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444_444"><span class="label">[444]</span></a> Annals of Congress, p. 1167.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_445_445" id="Footnote_445_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445_445"><span class="label">[445]</span></a> July 11, 1803. Memorial Edition, X, 402.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_446_446" id="Footnote_446_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446_446"><span class="label">[446]</span></a> Memorial Edition, X, 424.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_447_447" id="Footnote_447_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447_447"><span class="label">[447]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, January 19, 1804.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_448_448" id="Footnote_448_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448_448"><span class="label">[448]</span></a> July 4, 1803. Memorial Edition, X, 398.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_449_449" id="Footnote_449_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449_449"><span class="label">[449]</span></a> July 12, 1803. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 404.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_450_450" id="Footnote_450_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450_450"><span class="label">[450]</span></a> To Madison, August 25, 1803. Memorial Edition, X, 412.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_451_451" id="Footnote_451_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451_451"><span class="label">[451]</span></a> To James Madison, August 15, 1804. Memorial Edition, XI, 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_452_452" id="Footnote_452_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452_452"><span class="label">[452]</span></a> "Anas", January 26, 1804.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_453_453" id="Footnote_453_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453_453"><span class="label">[453]</span></a> To W. B. Giles, April 20, 1807. Memorial Edition, XI, 187.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_454_454" id="Footnote_454_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454_454"><span class="label">[454]</span></a> To Gideon Granger, March 9, 1814. Memorial Edition, XIV, 113.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_455_455" id="Footnote_455_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455_455"><span class="label">[455]</span></a> To Lafayette, July 14, 1807. <i>Ibid.</i>, XI, 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_456_456" id="Footnote_456_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456_456"><span class="label">[456]</span></a> To William B. Giles, April 20, 1807. Memorial Edition, XI, 187.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_457_457" id="Footnote_457_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457_457"><span class="label">[457]</span></a> To George Hay, September 4, 1807. <i>Ibid.</i>, XI, 360.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_458_458" id="Footnote_458_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458_458"><span class="label">[458]</span></a> October 27, 1808. Memorial Edition, XII, 183.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_459_459" id="Footnote_459_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459_459"><span class="label">[459]</span></a> Memorial Edition, X, 399.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_460_460" id="Footnote_460_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460_460"><span class="label">[460]</span></a> H. Adams, II, 257.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_461_461" id="Footnote_461_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461_461"><span class="label">[461]</span></a> To James Madison, August 27, 1805. Memorial Edition, XI, 86.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_462_462" id="Footnote_462_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462_462"><span class="label">[462]</span></a> April 19, 1806. Memorial Edition, XI, 103.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_463_463" id="Footnote_463_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463_463"><span class="label">[463]</span></a> To Colonel James Monroe, May 4, 1806. Memorial Edition, XI, 106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_464_464" id="Footnote_464_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464_464"><span class="label">[464]</span></a> Turreau to Talleyrand, December 12, 1806, in H. Adams, III, 424.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_465_465" id="Footnote_465_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465_465"><span class="label">[465]</span></a> To Monroe, March 21, 1807. Memorial Edition, XI, 167.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_466_466" id="Footnote_466_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466_466"><span class="label">[466]</span></a> June 29, 1807. Memorial Edition, XI, 256.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_467_467" id="Footnote_467_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467_467"><span class="label">[467]</span></a> July 6, 1807. <i>Ibid.</i>, XI, 258.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_468_468" id="Footnote_468_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468_468"><span class="label">[468]</span></a> See particularly his letters to Cabell, August 11, 1807, and to Dearborn, August +28. Memorial Edition, XI, 318, 342.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_469_469" id="Footnote_469_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469_469"><span class="label">[469]</span></a> To John Page, July 17, 1807. Memorial Edition, XI, 285.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_470_470" id="Footnote_470_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470_470"><span class="label">[470]</span></a> November 22, 1807. <i>Ibid.</i>, XI, 397.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_471_471" id="Footnote_471_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471_471"><span class="label">[471]</span></a> Memorial Edition, XI, 401. This may be simply a draft of the message written +on a sheet of paper which happened to bear the name of General Mason. See Henry +Adams, IV, 168.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_472_472" id="Footnote_472_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472_472"><span class="label">[472]</span></a> A. J. Nock, "Jefferson", p. 266. New York, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_473_473" id="Footnote_473_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473_473"><span class="label">[473]</span></a> To John Taylor, January 6, 1808. Memorial Edition, XI, 413.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_474_474" id="Footnote_474_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474_474"><span class="label">[474]</span></a> March 30, 1808. Memorial Edition, XI, 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_475_475" id="Footnote_475_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475_475"><span class="label">[475]</span></a> To Governor Charles Pinckney. November 8, 1808. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 190.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_476_476" id="Footnote_476_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476_476"><span class="label">[476]</span></a> Henry Adams, IV, chapter XII, "The Cost of Embargo."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_477_477" id="Footnote_477_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477_477"><span class="label">[477]</span></a> Henry Adams, IV, 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_478_478" id="Footnote_478_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478_478"><span class="label">[478]</span></a> Walter W. Jennings, "A History of economic progress in the United States", +p. 160, New York, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_479_479" id="Footnote_479_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479_479"><span class="label">[479]</span></a> To Doctor George Logan, December 27, 1808. Memorial Edition, XII, 219.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_480_480" id="Footnote_480_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480_480"><span class="label">[480]</span></a> January 14, 1809. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 227.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_481_481" id="Footnote_481_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481_481"><span class="label">[481]</span></a> To Thomas Mann Randolph, February 7, 1809. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 248.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_482_482" id="Footnote_482_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482_482"><span class="label">[482]</span></a> March 8, 1809. Memorial Edition, XII, 264.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_483_483" id="Footnote_483_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483_483"><span class="label">[483]</span></a> March 17, 1809. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 266.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_484_484" id="Footnote_484_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484_484"><span class="label">[484]</span></a> Memorial Edition, XII, 267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_485_485" id="Footnote_485_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485_485"><span class="label">[485]</span></a> February 10, 1810. Memorial Edition, XII, 357.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_486_486" id="Footnote_486_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486_486"><span class="label">[486]</span></a> To J. B. Colvin. September 20, 1810. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 422; see also letter to Cæsar +Rodney, September 25. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 426.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_487_487" id="Footnote_487_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487_487"><span class="label">[487]</span></a> To Madison, April 27, 1809. Memorial Edition, XII, 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_488_488" id="Footnote_488_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488_488"><span class="label">[488]</span></a> To Madison, April 19, 1809. Memorial Edition, XII, 271.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_489_489" id="Footnote_489_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489_489"><span class="label">[489]</span></a> June 28, 1809. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 293.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_490_490" id="Footnote_490_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490_490"><span class="label">[490]</span></a> To Rodney, February 10, 1810. Memorial Edition, XII, 357.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_491_491" id="Footnote_491_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491_491"><span class="label">[491]</span></a> To Governor John Langdon, March 5, 1810. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 373.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_492_492" id="Footnote_492_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492_492"><span class="label">[492]</span></a> To Thomas Cooper, August 6, 1810. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 401.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_493_493" id="Footnote_493_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493_493"><span class="label">[493]</span></a> To Thomas Law, January 15, 1810. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 439.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_494_494" id="Footnote_494_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494_494"><span class="label">[494]</span></a> April 25, 1812. Memorial Edition, XIII, 145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_495_495" id="Footnote_495_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495_495"><span class="label">[495]</span></a> June 29, 1812. Memorial Edition, XIII, 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_496_496" id="Footnote_496_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496_496"><span class="label">[496]</span></a> August 5, 1812. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIII, 183.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_497_497" id="Footnote_497_497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_497_497"><span class="label">[497]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, XIII, 206.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_498_498" id="Footnote_498_498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_498_498"><span class="label">[498]</span></a> October 1, 1812. Memorial Edition, XIII, 187.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_499_499" id="Footnote_499_499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_499_499"><span class="label">[499]</span></a> To William Duane, April 4, 1813. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIII, 231.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_500_500" id="Footnote_500_500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_500_500"><span class="label">[500]</span></a> To Thomas Leiper, January 1, 1814. Memorial Edition, XIV, 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_501_501" id="Footnote_501_501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_501_501"><span class="label">[501]</span></a> To John Clark, January 27, 1814. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIV, 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_502_502" id="Footnote_502_502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_502_502"><span class="label">[502]</span></a> September 21, 1814. Memorial Edition, XIV, 191.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_503_503" id="Footnote_503_503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_503_503"><span class="label">[503]</span></a> To William Short, November 28, 1814. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIV, 214.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_504_504" id="Footnote_504_504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_504_504"><span class="label">[504]</span></a> To Correa de Serra, December 27, 1814. Memorial Edition, XIV, 221.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_505_505" id="Footnote_505_505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_505_505"><span class="label">[505]</span></a> To William H. Crawford, February 25, 1815. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIV, 243, and June 15, 1815. +<i>Ibid.</i>, XIV, 312.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_506_506" id="Footnote_506_506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_506_506"><span class="label">[506]</span></a> December 1, 1815. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIV, 369.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_507_507" id="Footnote_507_507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_507_507"><span class="label">[507]</span></a> October 16, 1816. Memorial Edition, XIV, 85.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_508_508" id="Footnote_508_508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_508_508"><span class="label">[508]</span></a> October 16, 1816. <i>Ibid.</i>, XVI, 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_509_509" id="Footnote_509_509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_509_509"><span class="label">[509]</span></a> To Thomas Leiper, June 14, 1815. Memorial Edition, XIV, 311; and to John +Adams, August 10, 1815. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIV, 343.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_510_510" id="Footnote_510_510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_510_510"><span class="label">[510]</span></a> October 16, 1815. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIV, 355.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_511_511" id="Footnote_511_511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_511_511"><span class="label">[511]</span></a> January 2, 1812. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIII, 117.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_512_512" id="Footnote_512_512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_512_512"><span class="label">[512]</span></a> December 6, 1813. Memorial Edition, XIV, 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_513_513" id="Footnote_513_513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_513_513"><span class="label">[513]</span></a> To Don Valentino de Torunda Corunda, December 14, 1813. Memorial Edition, +XIV, 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_514_514" id="Footnote_514_514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_514_514"><span class="label">[514]</span></a> To John Adams, January 22, 1812. Memorial Edition, XV, 309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_515_515" id="Footnote_515_515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_515_515"><span class="label">[515]</span></a> To Lafayette, May 14, 1817. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 117.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_516_516" id="Footnote_516_516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_516_516"><span class="label">[516]</span></a> To W. Short, August 4, 1820. Memorial Edition, XV, 263.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_517_517" id="Footnote_517_517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_517_517"><span class="label">[517]</span></a> October 24, 1820. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 285.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_518_518" id="Footnote_518_518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_518_518"><span class="label">[518]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. December 26, 1820, and Chinard, "Jefferson +et les Idéologues." Paris, Baltimore, 1925, p. 203.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_519_519" id="Footnote_519_519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_519_519"><span class="label">[519]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress, July 18, 1824.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_520_520" id="Footnote_520_520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_520_520"><span class="label">[520]</span></a> To Monroe, June 11, 1823. Memorial Edition, XV, 455.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_521_521" id="Footnote_521_521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_521_521"><span class="label">[521]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. December 10, 1817.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_522_522" id="Footnote_522_522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_522_522"><span class="label">[522]</span></a> October 20, 1820. Memorial Edition, XV, 284.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_523_523" id="Footnote_523_523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_523_523"><span class="label">[523]</span></a> About the economic and banking theories of Jefferson, I can only indicate here +some points more fully treated in my book on "Jefferson et les Idéologues." Paris, +Baltimore, 1925.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_524_524" id="Footnote_524_524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_524_524"><span class="label">[524]</span></a> To William H. Crawford, June 20, 1816. Memorial Edition, XV, 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_525_525" id="Footnote_525_525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_525_525"><span class="label">[525]</span></a> April 7, 1809. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 271.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_526_526" id="Footnote_526_526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_526_526"><span class="label">[526]</span></a> January 9, 1816. Memorial Edition, XIV, 387.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_527_527" id="Footnote_527_527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_527_527"><span class="label">[527]</span></a> To Thomas Cooper, September 10, 1814. Memorial Edition, XIV, 179.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_528_528" id="Footnote_528_528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_528_528"><span class="label">[528]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. April 15, 1811.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_529_529" id="Footnote_529_529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_529_529"><span class="label">[529]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. April 15, 1811.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_530_530" id="Footnote_530_530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_530_530"><span class="label">[530]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. January 18, 1802.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_531_531" id="Footnote_531_531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_531_531"><span class="label">[531]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> February 28, 1815.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_532_532" id="Footnote_532_532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_532_532"><span class="label">[532]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. December 12, 1815.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_533_533" id="Footnote_533_533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_533_533"><span class="label">[533]</span></a> October 28, 1813. Memorial Edition, XIII, 396.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_534_534" id="Footnote_534_534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_534_534"><span class="label">[534]</span></a> January 2, 1814. Memorial Edition, XIV, 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_535_535" id="Footnote_535_535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_535_535"><span class="label">[535]</span></a> To John Adams, October 16, 1816. <i>Ibid.</i>, XVI, 85.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_536_536" id="Footnote_536_536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_536_536"><span class="label">[536]</span></a> To Lafayette, February 14, 1815. Memorial Edition, XIV, 245.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_537_537" id="Footnote_537_537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_537_537"><span class="label">[537]</span></a> To James Madison, November 29, 1820. Memorial Edition, XV, 295.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_538_538" id="Footnote_538_538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_538_538"><span class="label">[538]</span></a> December 10, 1819. Memorial Edition, XV, 233.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_539_539" id="Footnote_539_539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_539_539"><span class="label">[539]</span></a> To John Adams, January 22, 1821. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_540_540" id="Footnote_540_540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_540_540"><span class="label">[540]</span></a> August 4, 1811. Memorial Edition, XIII, 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_541_541" id="Footnote_541_541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_541_541"><span class="label">[541]</span></a> July 12, 1816. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 32.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_542_542" id="Footnote_542_542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_542_542"><span class="label">[542]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. May 8, 1800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_543_543" id="Footnote_543_543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_543_543"><span class="label">[543]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. April 21, 1800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_544_544" id="Footnote_544_544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_544_544"><span class="label">[544]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, July 26, 1800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_545_545" id="Footnote_545_545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_545_545"><span class="label">[545]</span></a> To Thomas Cooper, January 16, 1814. Memorial Edition, XIV, 60.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_546_546" id="Footnote_546_546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_546_546"><span class="label">[546]</span></a> February 15, 1821, Memorial Edition, XV, 315.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_547_547" id="Footnote_547_547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_547_547"><span class="label">[547]</span></a> The latest account is the monumental "History of the University of Virginia" +by Professor Philip Alexander Bruce, New York, 4 vols., 1920. See also the excellent +study of Herbert B. Adams, "Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia", United +States Bureau of Education. Circular of information No. 1, 1888.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_548_548" id="Footnote_548_548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_548_548"><span class="label">[548]</span></a> To Richard Rush, April 26, 1824. Memorial Edition, XVI, 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_549_549" id="Footnote_549_549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_549_549"><span class="label">[549]</span></a> To the Honorable J. Evelyn Denison, M. P., November 9, 1825. <i>Ibid.</i>, XVI, 129.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_550_550" id="Footnote_550_550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_550_550"><span class="label">[550]</span></a> To John Brazier, August 24, 1814. Memorial Edition, XV, 207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_551_551" id="Footnote_551_551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_551_551"><span class="label">[551]</span></a> June 27, 1822. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 387.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_552_552" id="Footnote_552_552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_552_552"><span class="label">[552]</span></a> Memorial Edition, XVI, 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_553_553" id="Footnote_553_553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_553_553"><span class="label">[553]</span></a> Doctor Dunglison's Memorandum, in "Domestic Life", p. 402.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_554_554" id="Footnote_554_554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_554_554"><span class="label">[554]</span></a> September 12, 1821. Memorial Edition, XV, 334.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_555_555" id="Footnote_555_555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_555_555"><span class="label">[555]</span></a> January 16, 1811. Memorial Edition, XIII, 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_556_556" id="Footnote_556_556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_556_556"><span class="label">[556]</span></a> December 5, 1811. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIII, 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_557_557" id="Footnote_557_557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_557_557"><span class="label">[557]</span></a> January 21, 1812. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIII, 123.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_558_558" id="Footnote_558_558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_558_558"><span class="label">[558]</span></a> Memorial Edition, XV, 174.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_559_559" id="Footnote_559_559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_559_559"><span class="label">[559]</span></a> January 11, 1817. Memorial Edition, XV, 97.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_560_560" id="Footnote_560_560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_560_560"><span class="label">[560]</span></a> February 21, 1825. "Domestic Life", p. 423.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_561_561" id="Footnote_561_561"></a><a href="#FNanchor_561_561"><span class="label">[561]</span></a> To James Smith, December 8, 1822. Memorial Edition, XV, 410.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_562_562" id="Footnote_562_562"></a><a href="#FNanchor_562_562"><span class="label">[562]</span></a> To John Adams, August 15, 1820. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 269-276.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_563_563" id="Footnote_563_563"></a><a href="#FNanchor_563_563"><span class="label">[563]</span></a> March 24, 1824. <i>Ibid.</i>, XVI, 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_564_564" id="Footnote_564_564"></a><a href="#FNanchor_564_564"><span class="label">[564]</span></a> October 31, 1819. Memorial Edition, XV, 219.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_565_565" id="Footnote_565_565"></a><a href="#FNanchor_565_565"><span class="label">[565]</span></a> July 13, 1813. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIII, 319.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_566_566" id="Footnote_566_566"></a><a href="#FNanchor_566_566"><span class="label">[566]</span></a> To John Adams, April 11, 1820. Memorial Edition, XV, 427.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_567_567" id="Footnote_567_567"></a><a href="#FNanchor_567_567"><span class="label">[567]</span></a> To John Adams, May 5, 1817. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 109.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_568_568" id="Footnote_568_568"></a><a href="#FNanchor_568_568"><span class="label">[568]</span></a> June 13, 1814. Memorial Edition, XIV, 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_569_569" id="Footnote_569_569"></a><a href="#FNanchor_569_569"><span class="label">[569]</span></a> To James Fishback, September 27, 1809. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII, 315.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_570_570" id="Footnote_570_570"></a><a href="#FNanchor_570_570"><span class="label">[570]</span></a> May 26, 1817. Memorial Edition, XV, 122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_571_571" id="Footnote_571_571"></a><a href="#FNanchor_571_571"><span class="label">[571]</span></a> See my edition of "The Literary Bible of Thomas Jefferson." Paris, Baltimore, +1928, p. 58.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_572_572" id="Footnote_572_572"></a><a href="#FNanchor_572_572"><span class="label">[572]</span></a> April 21, 1803. Memorial Edition, X, 379.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_573_573" id="Footnote_573_573"></a><a href="#FNanchor_573_573"><span class="label">[573]</span></a> See the introduction of Doctor Cyrus Adler, in the Congressional Edition reproduced +in the Memorial Edition, XX.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_574_574" id="Footnote_574_574"></a><a href="#FNanchor_574_574"><span class="label">[574]</span></a> May 3, 1816. Memorial Edition, XV, 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_575_575" id="Footnote_575_575"></a><a href="#FNanchor_575_575"><span class="label">[575]</span></a> April 6, 1816. Memorial Edition, XIV, 467.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_576_576" id="Footnote_576_576"></a><a href="#FNanchor_576_576"><span class="label">[576]</span></a> To William Ludlow, September 6, 1824. <i>Ibid.</i>, XVI, 75.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_577_577" id="Footnote_577_577"></a><a href="#FNanchor_577_577"><span class="label">[577]</span></a> June 24, 1826. Memorial Edition, XVI, 181.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_578_578" id="Footnote_578_578"></a><a href="#FNanchor_578_578"><span class="label">[578]</span></a> To John Brazier, August 24, 1819. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_579_579" id="Footnote_579_579"></a><a href="#FNanchor_579_579"><span class="label">[579]</span></a> August 1, 1816. <i>Ibid.</i>, XVI, 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_580_580" id="Footnote_580_580"></a><a href="#FNanchor_580_580"><span class="label">[580]</span></a> January 9, 1816. Memorial Edition, XIV, 385.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_581_581" id="Footnote_581_581"></a><a href="#FNanchor_581_581"><span class="label">[581]</span></a> To Doctor Vine Ulley, March 21, 1819. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 187.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_582_582" id="Footnote_582_582"></a><a href="#FNanchor_582_582"><span class="label">[582]</span></a> Jefferson Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society, March 5, 1814.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_583_583" id="Footnote_583_583"></a><a href="#FNanchor_583_583"><span class="label">[583]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, To Short, December 17, 1822.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_584_584" id="Footnote_584_584"></a><a href="#FNanchor_584_584"><span class="label">[584]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, To Samuel Smith, October 22, 1825.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_585_585" id="Footnote_585_585"></a><a href="#FNanchor_585_585"><span class="label">[585]</span></a> "Literary Bible", p. 36. Paris, Baltimore, 1928.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_586_586" id="Footnote_586_586"></a><a href="#FNanchor_586_586"><span class="label">[586]</span></a> To John Adams—August 1, 1816. Memorial Edition, XV, 56, and June 1, 1822. +<i>Ibid.</i>, XV, 371.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_587_587" id="Footnote_587_587"></a><a href="#FNanchor_587_587"><span class="label">[587]</span></a> November 8, 1824, "Mémoires", VI, 183.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_588_588" id="Footnote_588_588"></a><a href="#FNanchor_588_588"><span class="label">[588]</span></a> "Domestic Life", p. 425.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span></p> +<h3>INDEX</h3> + + +<p class="blockquot"><br /> +Absolutism, evils of, <a href="#Page_203">203</a><br /> +<br /> +Adams, Abigail, Jefferson shops for, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the "New England Juno", <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and Jefferson, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_518">518</a>, <a href="#Page_519">519</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Adams, Henry, his criticism of Jefferson's conduct of foreign affairs, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>, <a href="#Page_464">464</a><br /> +<br /> +Adams, John, Jefferson's correspondence with, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_482">482</a>, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>, <a href="#Page_521">521</a>, <a href="#Page_526">526</a>, <a href="#Page_529">529</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his first impression of Jefferson, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on committee of Continental Congress appointed to answer Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition", <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">assists in framing resolution instructing colonies to form governments, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his part in Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on committee to suggest United States seal, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate treaties of Commerce with foreign nations, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his wines, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in favor of loose association of States, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Barbary pirates, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson gives estimate of, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his quarrel with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_259">259-261</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reëlection of, as Vice-President, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected President, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attempts reconciliation with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inaugural address, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">not a party man or party leader, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a complicated and contradictory figure, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">action in XYZ case, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336-338</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Presidency in 1800, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">changes in his Cabinet, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in election of 1800, <a href="#Page_367">367-369</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"midnight" appointments, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">refuses to welcome successor, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reconciliation with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_518">518</a>, <a href="#Page_519">519</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his study of religious controversies, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on life, <a href="#Page_527">527</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Adams, John Quincy, removed from office by Jefferson, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a><br /> +<br /> +Adams, Samuel, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a><br /> +<br /> +Addison, Judge, deposition of, by Senate of Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_384">384</a><br /> +<br /> +Albemarle resolutions, <a href="#Page_45">45-47</a><br /> +<br /> +Alexander I of Russia, <a href="#Page_448">448</a><br /> +<br /> +Algiers, <a href="#Page_206">206</a><br /> +<br /> +Alien Bills, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342-347</a><br /> +<br /> +Aliens, their right to hold real property denied, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br /> +<br /> +Allen, Ethan, declaration concerning, drafted by Jefferson, <a href="#Page_65">65</a><br /> +<br /> +American civilization, underlying ideas of, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br /> +<br /> +American imperialism, <a href="#Page_398">398-400</a><br /> +<br /> +American public education, first charter of, <a href="#Page_95">95-100</a><br /> +<br /> +American Revolution, remonstrance in House of Burgesses, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">articles of association directed against British merchandise, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as to causes of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of passage of Boston Port Bill, in Virginia, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposal to form Congress, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">declaration of mutual defence, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resolutions adopted by freeholders of Albemarle County, Va., <a href="#Page_45">45-47</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resolutions adopted by Assembly of Fairfax County, <a href="#Page_45">45-47</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">regulation of American commerce, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">doctrine of expatriation, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first Continental Congress, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second Continental Congress, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition" answered, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">independence not at first aimed at, <a href="#Page_63">63-65</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">colonies instructed to form governments, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_69">69-71</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">treatment of prisoners in, <a href="#Page_109">109-112</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> British colonies</span><br /> +<br /> +Americanism, cardinal principles of, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">creed of, formulated by Jefferson, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's conception of, when he wrote "Notes on Virginia", <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">practical idealism a tenet of, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pure, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">definition of, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's system of, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_468">468</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span><br /> +Armstrong, Gen. John, American representative in Paris, <a href="#Page_462">462</a><br /> +<br /> +Arnold, Benedict, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br /> +<br /> +"Arrears of Interest, Report on", Jefferson, <a href="#Page_146">146</a><br /> +<br /> +Articles of Confederation, discussion of, in Congress, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defects in, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></span><br /> +<br /> +"Assumption" of the State debts, <a href="#Page_250">250-255</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Aurora</i>, journal, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a><br /> +<br /> +Austin, Benjamin, <a href="#Page_491">491</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Bache's <i>Aurora</i>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a><br /> +<br /> +Balance of power, <a href="#Page_476">476</a><br /> +<br /> +Bank Bill, Hamilton's, <a href="#Page_255">255-258</a><br /> +<br /> +Bannister, J. B., Jr., letter to, <a href="#Page_172">172</a><br /> +<br /> +Barbary pirates, <a href="#Page_205">205-207</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a><br /> +<br /> +Barbé-Marbois, secretary of French legation in United States, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a><br /> +<br /> +Bastille, capture of, <a href="#Page_235">235</a><br /> +<br /> +Bayard, James A., nominated plenipotentiary to French Republic, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a><br /> +<br /> +Bellini, letter to, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +Berlin Decree, <a href="#Page_450">450</a><br /> +<br /> +Beveridge, Albert J., his "Life of Marshall", <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a><br /> +<br /> +Bill for a General Revision of the Laws, Virginia, <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br /> +<br /> +Bill for Amending the Charter for William and Mary, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a><br /> +<br /> +Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments, Virginia, <a href="#Page_93">93-95</a><br /> +<br /> +Bill for Religious Freedom, Virginia, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100-103</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br /> +<br /> +Bill for the more General Diffusion of Knowledge, Virginia, <a href="#Page_95">95-99</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>, <a href="#Page_508">508</a><br /> +<br /> +Bill of Rights, <a href="#Page_198">198-201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a><br /> +<br /> +Bill on the Naturalization of Foreigners, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br /> +<br /> +Bill to Abolish Entails, Virginia, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br /> +<br /> +Bingham, Mrs., <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br /> +<br /> +Bishop, Samuel, appointed collector of New Haven, <a href="#Page_381">381</a><br /> +<br /> +Blennerhasset, Harman, and the Burr conspiracy, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>, <a href="#Page_432">432</a><br /> +<br /> +Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, his influence on Jefferson, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a><br /> +<br /> +Bollman, and the Burr conspiracy, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>, <a href="#Page_433">433</a><br /> +<br /> +Bonaparte, his projected invasion of England, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's opinion of, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">precedent established by, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Boston Port Bill, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br /> +<br /> +Brazil, <a href="#Page_483">483</a><br /> +<br /> +Breckenridge, James, on board of visitors of University of Virginia, <a href="#Page_509">509</a><br /> +<br /> +Breckenridge, John, letters to, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a><br /> +<br /> +British colonies, contractual theory of government of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">regulation of commerce of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rights of, <a href="#Page_48">48-53</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> American Revolution</span><br /> +<br /> +Brunswick, Duke of, defeat, <a href="#Page_273">273</a><br /> +<br /> +Buchan, Lord, letter to, <a href="#Page_444">444</a><br /> +<br /> +Budget, presented by Jefferson, <a href="#Page_146">146</a><br /> +<br /> +Buffon, G. L. L. de, theory of, concerning<br /> +animals in America, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a><br /> +<br /> +Burke, "History of Virginia", <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_515">515</a><br /> +<br /> +Burlamaqui, Jean Jacques, quotation from, <a href="#Page_73">73</a><br /> +<br /> +Burnaby, English tourist, quoted on Virginia colonists, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br /> +<br /> +Burr, Col. Aaron, letters to, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Vice-Presidency (1800), <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the 1800-election, <a href="#Page_369">369-373</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his presence in government an annoyance to Jefferson, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conspiracy, <a href="#Page_429">429-439</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">duel with Hamilton, <a href="#Page_431">431</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Burwell, Rebecca, and Jefferson, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Cabanis, P. J. G., <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_422">422</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Cabell, Joseph C., <a href="#Page_507">507</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on board of visitors of University of Virginia, <a href="#Page_509">509</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, <a href="#Page_512">512</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Cabell, Gov. William H., <a href="#Page_451">451</a><br /> +<br /> +Cabinet, the President's, in Washington's time, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Adams's, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relation to President, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Callender, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">employed by Jefferson, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's interest in, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his pamphlet, "The Prospect Before Us" ("History of the Administration of John Adams"), <a href="#Page_382">382</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Calonne, Charles Alexandre de, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br /> +<br /> +Calvinism, <a href="#Page_522">522</a><br /> +<br /> +Canning, George, <a href="#Page_453">453</a><br /> +<br /> +Capital, of United States, seat of, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a><br /> +<br /> +Capitol, at Washington, the new, question of putting inscription on, <a href="#Page_479">479</a><br /> +<br /> +Caracas, constitution of, <a href="#Page_498">498</a><br /> +<br /> +Carleton, Guy, governor of Canada, <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br /> +<br /> +Carmichael, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span><br /> +Carr, Dabney, death, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a><br /> +<br /> +Carr, Peter, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br /> +<br /> +Carrington, Edward, letters to, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a><br /> +<br /> +Carthagenes, constitution of, <a href="#Page_498">498</a><br /> +<br /> +Cary, Col. Archibald, <a href="#Page_139">139</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Ceres</i>, sailing-vessel, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a><br /> +<br /> +Champion de Cicé, Archbishop of Bordeaux, <a href="#Page_235">235</a><br /> +<br /> +Charlottesville, Va., war prisoners at, <a href="#Page_109">109</a><br /> +<br /> +Chase, Judge Samuel, impeachment of, <a href="#Page_387">387-389</a><br /> +<br /> +Chastellux, Chevalier de, friend of Jefferson, <a href="#Page_154">154</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Chesapeake-Leopard</i> affair, <a href="#Page_451">451-453</a><br /> +<br /> +Church, Mrs., <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br /> +<br /> +Church of England, in Virginia, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a><br /> +<br /> +Cincinnati, Society of the, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a><br /> +<br /> +Clay, Rev. Mr. Charles, subscription for support of, <a href="#Page_103">103-105</a><br /> +<br /> +Clinton, George, Vice-President, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>, <a href="#Page_464">464</a><br /> +<br /> +Cocke, J. H., on board of visitors of University of Virginia, <a href="#Page_509">509</a><br /> +<br /> +Collot, Gen., <a href="#Page_402">402</a><br /> +<br /> +Colvin, J. B., letter to, <a href="#Page_469">469</a><br /> +<br /> +Comité du Commerce, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br /> +<br /> +Commerce, one of the great causes of war, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Treaty of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gallo-American, <a href="#Page_181">181-184</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Report of Jefferson on Privileges and Restrictions of, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Commercial monopolies, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br /> +<br /> +Commercial treaties, <a href="#Page_149">149-152</a><br /> +<br /> +Committees of safety, <a href="#Page_54">54</a><br /> +<br /> +Confederation, Treaty of Commerce, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defects in, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">monetary system, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">new States, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">slavery, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">hereditary titles, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commercial treaties, <a href="#Page_149">149-152</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> Articles of Confederation; United States</span><br /> +<br /> +Congress, first proposal for, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>See also</i> Continental Congress</span><br /> +<br /> +Congressional election, <i>see</i> Election<br /> +<br /> +Congressional Library, destroyed by English, <a href="#Page_476">476</a><br /> +<br /> +Constitution of United States, <a href="#Page_195">195-202</a><br /> +<br /> +Continental Congress, First, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Second, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the Confederation, <a href="#Page_143">143-152</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Contraband, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a><br /> +<br /> +Cooper, Thomas, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>, <a href="#Page_521">521</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Coray, Mr., <a href="#Page_516">516</a><br /> +<br /> +Corny, M. de, <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br /> +<br /> +Corny, Madame de, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br /> +<br /> +Correa de Serra, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>, <a href="#Page_516">516</a><br /> +<br /> +Coxe, Tench, letters to, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a><br /> +<br /> +Crawford, Dr. John, letter to, <a href="#Page_480">480</a><br /> +<br /> +Crimes and punishments, in Virginia, <a href="#Page_93">93-95</a><br /> +<br /> +Cuba, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>, <a href="#Page_485">485</a><br /> +<br /> +Cutting, letter to, <a href="#Page_225">225</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Dalrymple, Sir John, his "Essay Towards a General History of Feudal Property", <a href="#Page_30">30</a><br /> +<br /> +Dandridge, Mr., <a href="#Page_14">14</a><br /> +<br /> +Danville, Duchesse, <a href="#Page_274">274</a><br /> +<br /> +Deane, Silas, quoted on Southern delegates to first Continental Congress, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected commissioner to France, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Dearborn, Henry, Secretary of War in Jefferson's Cabinet, <a href="#Page_374">374</a><br /> +<br /> +Debts of United States, foreign, domestic, and State, <a href="#Page_250">250-255</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br /> +<br /> +"Déclaration Européenne des droits de l'homme et du citoyen", Lafayette, <a href="#Page_232">232-234</a><br /> +<br /> +Declaration of Independence, the story of, <a href="#Page_69">69-71</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">origin of, <a href="#Page_71">71-74</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as literature, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"the pursuit of happiness" in, <a href="#Page_75">75-76</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">highest achievement of eighteenth-century philosophy, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggests tone of Greek tragedy, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Declaration of Rights of 1774, <a href="#Page_73">73</a><br /> +<br /> +Declaration on Violation of Rights, adopted by First Continental Congress, <a href="#Page_83">83</a><br /> +<br /> +Dejean, Lieut., <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Democrat</i>, sailing-vessel, <a href="#Page_294">294</a><br /> +<br /> +Democratic societies, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a><br /> +<br /> +De Moustier, letter to, <a href="#Page_254">254</a><br /> +<br /> +Destutt de Tracy, A. L. C., meeting with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "Political Economy", <a href="#Page_495">495</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">living embodiment of political faith of nineteenth century, <a href="#Page_514">514</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Dexter, Samuel, Secretary of War in Adams's Cabinet, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Secretary of the Treasury in Adams's Cabinet, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Dickinson, John, in Continental Congress, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter of, <a href="#Page_361">361</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span><br /> +Dictator, proposition for appointment of, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a><br /> +<br /> +Douglas, Dr., clergyman, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a><br /> +<br /> +Duane, William, flogged, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_475">475</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Dumas, financial agent of the United States at the Hague, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a><br /> +<br /> +Dunbar, William, discussions with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_371">371</a><br /> +<br /> +Dunglison, Dr., on visitors at Monticello, <a href="#Page_516">516</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Jefferson's religious belief, <a href="#Page_520">520</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his account of Jefferson's death, <a href="#Page_531">531</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Dunmore, John Murray, Earl of, governor of Virginia, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a><br /> +<br /> +Du Pont de Nemours, Pierre S., Jefferson's association with, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "Plan of a National Education", <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">theories and practice of, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">correspondence with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_405">405-409</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>, <a href="#Page_514">514</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Louisiana problem, <a href="#Page_407">407-409</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412-415</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">never fully understood Jefferson, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">draws up plan of government for the "Equinoctial republics", <a href="#Page_498">498</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">living embodiment of political faith of nineteenth century, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>, <a href="#Page_514">514</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Edwards, Jonathan, <a href="#Page_430">430</a><br /> +<br /> +Election, of 1792, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of 1796, <a href="#Page_316">316-319</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of 1800, <a href="#Page_363">363-373</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of 1804, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Ellsworth, Oliver, appointed Plenipotentiary to France, <a href="#Page_355">355</a><br /> +<br /> +Embargo of 1807, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_456">456-462</a>, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>, <a href="#Page_471">471</a><br /> +<br /> +"Encyclopédie Méthodique", <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a><br /> +<br /> +English, their monopoly of the American market, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a><br /> +<br /> +Entails, abolished in Virginia, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br /> +<br /> +Epicurism, <a href="#Page_521">521</a><br /> +<br /> +Eppes, Mrs., sister of Mrs. Jefferson, <a href="#Page_153">153</a><br /> +<br /> +Equinoctial republics, <a href="#Page_498">498</a><br /> +<br /> +Essex case, <a href="#Page_447">447</a><br /> +<br /> +Estaing, Admiral d', <a href="#Page_206">206</a><br /> +<br /> +Euripides, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br /> +<br /> +Eustis, Dr. William, letter to, <a href="#Page_461">461</a><br /> +<br /> +Excise tax, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">revolt against (Whisky Insurrection), <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's bitterness against, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Expatriation, doctrine of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Fairfax resolutions, <a href="#Page_45">45-48</a><br /> +<br /> +Farmers-general, <a href="#Page_177">177-181</a><br /> +<br /> +Farming taxes, <a href="#Page_177">177-181</a><br /> +<br /> +Fauquier, Dr., of Floirac, <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br /> +<br /> +Fauquier, Gov. Francis, his intimacy with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br /> +<br /> +Federal Government, prerogatives of, <a href="#Page_83">83</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Federalist</i>, the, <a href="#Page_200">200</a><br /> +<br /> +Federalists, their power broken, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in election of 1800, <a href="#Page_367">367-373</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Jefferson's administration, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Feudal system, abolishment of, in Virginia, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br /> +<br /> +Fleming, William, letters to, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on committee on religion, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Florida, Western and Eastern, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a><br /> +<br /> +Foster, Dwight, Senator, makes offer to Jefferson, <a href="#Page_373">373</a><br /> +<br /> +Fox blockade, <a href="#Page_450">450</a><br /> +<br /> +France, educational system of, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">colonizing designs of, feared, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">difficulties with, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323-325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331-342</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447-462</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> French Revolution</span><br /> +<br /> +Franklin, Benjamin, on committee of Continental Congress appointed to answer Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition", <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his part in Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on committee to suggest United States seal, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected commissioner to France, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's view of, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate treaties of commerce, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">interview with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Franklin, William Temple, papers entrusted to, by Benjamin Franklin, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Free ports, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br /> +<br /> +Freedom of speech, <a href="#Page_427">427</a><br /> +<br /> +Freedom of the press, importance of, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a><br /> +<br /> +Freedom of thought, Jefferson's understanding of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a><br /> +<br /> +Freeholders, rights of, <a href="#Page_52">52</a><br /> +<br /> +French constitution, <a href="#Page_143">143</a><br /> +<br /> +French debt, of United States, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184-193</a><br /> +<br /> +French Revolution, Declaration of June 23, 1793, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Declaration of May 29, 1793, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Assembly of the Notables, <a href="#Page_219">219-222</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">convocation of States-General, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">National Assembly, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">capture of the Bastille, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeat of Duke of Brunswick, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">becomes international issue, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">flight of king, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">execution of king, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Freneau, Philip, his paper, the <i>National Gazette</i>, <a href="#Page_261">261-263</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a><br /> +<br /> +Fry, Joshua, professor in William and Mary College, <a href="#Page_5">5</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Gallatin, Albert, defies excise law, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">speech of, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_480">480</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Gates, Horatio, letters to, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_445">445</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gazette of the United States</i>, attacks Jefferson, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a><br /> +<br /> +Geismer, Baron de, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a><br /> +<br /> +Generations of men, rights of, <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br /> +<br /> +Genêt, Citizen Edmond C., the case of, <a href="#Page_288">288-297</a><br /> +<br /> +Gerry, Elbridge, letters to, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351-353</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed envoy extraordinary to France, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Ghent, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_485">485</a><br /> +<br /> +Giles, William B., and Jefferson, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Gilmer, Francis Walker, and Jefferson, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sent to England to recruit faculty for University of Virginia, <a href="#Page_511">511</a></span><br /> +<br /> +"Government by the people", <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br /> +<br /> +Granger, Gideon, letter to, <a href="#Page_363">363</a><br /> +<br /> +Great Britain, United States debt to, <a href="#Page_186">186-193</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her hatred of United States, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and France, war between, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447-462</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her navy, policies of, in regard to contraband and impressment, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Greene, William, letter to, <a href="#Page_356">356</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Hamilton, Alexander, quarrel with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255-258</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268-271</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Secretary of the Treasury, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson gives estimate of, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reports of, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his Bank Bill, <a href="#Page_255">255-257</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his actions supported by Washington, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attitude toward England, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and Whisky Insurrection, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">would encourage American manufactures, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his plans of administrative reorganization, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in election campaign of 1800, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">duel with Burr, <a href="#Page_431">431</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Hamilton, Gov., of Kaskakias, <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br /> +<br /> +Hammond, George, British minister to United States, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a><br /> +<br /> +Hardy, Samuel, delegate to Congress from Virginia, <a href="#Page_140">140</a><br /> +<br /> +Harrison, Gov., letters to, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a><br /> +<br /> +Hawkesbury, Lord, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a><br /> +<br /> +Hawkins, Col. Benjamin, discussions with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_364">364</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Hay, George, <a href="#Page_436">436</a><br /> +<br /> +Helvétius, Madame, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a><br /> +<br /> +Henry, Patrick, and Jefferson, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his study of the law, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">after passage of Boston Port Bill, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and Jefferson's "Summary View", <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">speech at second Virginia Convention, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes Bill to Abolish Entails, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">seconds motion for appointment of dictator, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed Plenipotentiary to France, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Hereditary titles, in the Confederation, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br /> +<br /> +Hervey, John, guardian of Jefferson, <a href="#Page_8">8</a><br /> +<br /> +Hobbes, Thomas, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Holland, United States debt to, <a href="#Page_187">187-193</a><br /> +<br /> +Hopkinson, Francis, <a href="#Page_200">200</a><br /> +<br /> +Hopkinson, Mrs., <a href="#Page_153">153</a><br /> +<br /> +Houdetot, Madame d', <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a><br /> +<br /> +Howe, Lord, negotiations of Franklin with, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Howick, Lord, <a href="#Page_450">450</a><br /> +<br /> +Humboldt, Baron Alexander von, letter to, <a href="#Page_481">481</a><br /> +<br /> +Humphreys, Col. David, secretary of legation in Paris, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Immigration, Jefferson's views of, <a href="#Page_123">123-125</a><br /> +<br /> +Impeachment, the Republican understanding of, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a><br /> +<br /> +"Implied powers", doctrine of, <a href="#Page_256">256</a><br /> +<br /> +Impressment, of British sailors on neutral vessels, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">an issue of the War of 1812, <a href="#Page_478">478</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Income tax, <a href="#Page_494">494</a><br /> +<br /> +Indians, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">study of customs and languages of, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">atrocities of, in American Revolution, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">eloquence of, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">affairs of, treated in Jefferson's second inaugural, <a href="#Page_425">425-427</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Industrialism, dangers of, <a href="#Page_492">492</a><br /> +<br /> +Isham, Mary, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Jackson, Andrew, <a href="#Page_431">431</a><br /> +<br /> +Jacobins, <i>see</i> Republicans<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span><br /> +Jay, John, letters to, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> Jay treaty</span><br /> +<br /> +Jay, Gov. John, letter to, <a href="#Page_491">491</a><br /> +<br /> +Jay treaty, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a><br /> +<br /> +Jefferson, Lucy Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Jefferson, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Jefferson, Martha, daughter of Thomas Jefferson, her account of Mrs. Jefferson's death, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of birth, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accompanies father to Europe, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marriage, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Monticello, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's farewell message to, <a href="#Page_532">532</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Jefferson, Mary, daughter of Thomas Jefferson, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joins father in Paris, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Jefferson, Peter, father of Thomas Jefferson, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a><br /> +<br /> +Jefferson, Mrs. Peter, <i>see</i> Randolph, Jane<br /> +<br /> +Jefferson, Thomas, birth, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ancestry and parentage, <a href="#Page_3">3-5</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Autobiography", <i>see</i> below;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">schooling, <a href="#Page_5">5-7</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">early reading, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">life at Shadwell, <a href="#Page_6">6-8</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at William and Mary College, <a href="#Page_8">8-17</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">oratorical ambitions, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence of Patrick Henry upon, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">love episode with Rebecca Burwell, <a href="#Page_16">16-18</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commonplace books, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <i>see also</i> below;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">change in religious belief, <a href="#Page_19">19-24</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">distrust of women, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his system of morality, <a href="#Page_24">24-26</a>, <i>see also</i> Morality;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence of Greek Stoics upon, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">studies law, <a href="#Page_27">27-31</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his revindication of the Saxon liberties, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his acquaintance with languages and books, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">practices law, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">life as farmer at Shadwell, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "Garden Books", <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his scorn of rhetoric, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">character of his mind, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in House of Burgesses, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his library, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marriage, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">life at Monticello, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">after passing of Boston Port Bill, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his declaration of mutual defence, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes Albemarle resolutions, <a href="#Page_45">45-47</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his doctrine of expatriation, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">drafts instructions to Virginia delegates to first Continental Congress, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "A Summary View of the Rights of British America", <a href="#Page_48">48-53</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his discussion of land tenures, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">speaks as pioneer, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in second Virginia Convention, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delegate to second Continental Congress, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his part of "Declaration of the Cause of Taking Up Arms", <a href="#Page_59">59-62</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his answer to Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition", <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence of Greek and Latin orators on his style, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his view of independence, <a href="#Page_63">63-65</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his absence from Congress during preliminary steps to Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed Lieutenant and Commander in chief of the Militia of the County of Albemarle, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">drafts constitution for Virginia, <a href="#Page_66">66-69</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_69">69-78</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resigns from Congress and enters Virginia Legislature, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his view of the social compact and liberty, <a href="#Page_80">80-82</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his philosophy of natural and civil rights, <a href="#Page_80">80-85</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his conception of state sovereignty, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his views on property, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his suggestion for United States seal, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the source of his political philosophy, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">refuses post of commissioner to France, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth of son, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his part in revision of laws of Virginia, <a href="#Page_88">88-103</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">starts subscription for Rev. Charles Clay, <a href="#Page_103">103-105</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his doctrine of government, <a href="#Page_105">105-107</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as Governor of Virginia, <a href="#Page_107">107-114</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attitude toward British prisoners, <a href="#Page_109">109-112</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a stern, but little observed, trait in his character, <a href="#Page_111">111-113</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nearly taken by the British, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">charges against his conduct as governor, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">impatient at public criticism, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">refuses new appointment to European post, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his determination to return to private life, <a href="#Page_116">116-118</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his description of natural scenery, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his studies in natural history, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his answer to Abbé Raynal, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his views on immigration, <a href="#Page_123">123-125</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his combination of faith and pessimism in reference to government, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his view of the best government, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his opposition to dictator, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his belief in efficacy of universal suffrage, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his pessimism as regards human nature and human society, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his views of slavery and the Negro, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <i>see also</i> Slavery;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">his view of American civilization as agricultural, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advises peace and preparedness, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his ideal picture of America, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of his wife, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed Plenipotentiary to Europe, but appointment canceled, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delegate to Congress (June, 1782 to July 5, 1784), <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143-152</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">founds American monetary system, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate treaties of commerce with foreign nations, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his qualifications for European task, <a href="#Page_153">153-155</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his quarters in Paris, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his views of Paris, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his friends and acquaintances at Paris, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rooms in Carthusian Monastery, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his travels in Europe, <a href="#Page_164">164-171</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advises against sending youth to Europe, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">compares Europe with America, <a href="#Page_173">173-175</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his duties at Paris, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and foreign debts, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181-193</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the tobacco trade, <a href="#Page_177">177-181</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his efforts to promote Gallo-American commerce, <a href="#Page_181">181-184</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">puts all questions on a practical basis, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his views on the American Constitution, <a href="#Page_195">195-202</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his political philosophy, <a href="#Page_203">203-205</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his management of the problem of the Barbary pirates, <a href="#Page_205">205-207</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his fear of French, English, and Spanish designs in New World, <a href="#Page_207">207-211</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his belief in policy of isolation for United States, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">originates policy of watchful waiting, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attitude toward French Revolution, <a href="#Page_215">215-237</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">draws up "Charter of Rights for the King and Nation", <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his emendations and corrections to Lafayette's "Déclaration Européenne des droits de l'homme et du citoyen", <a href="#Page_232">232-234</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his house made the scene of French committee meeting, <a href="#Page_235">235-237</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">how far he believed in "government by the people", <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on the French people, <a href="#Page_238">238-240</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">asserts one standard of morality for nations and individuals, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accepts post of Secretary of State, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pays respects to Franklin, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the "Anas", <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attitude toward United States debts, <a href="#Page_250">250-255</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quarrel with Hamilton, <a href="#Page_255">255-258</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268-271</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his opposition to Bank Bill, <a href="#Page_255">255-258</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his theory of State rights, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his quarrel with Adams, <a href="#Page_258">258-261</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reaches an impasse, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his proposed changes in Virginia Constitution, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his indictment of Hamilton's system, <a href="#Page_265">265-267</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">urges Washington to run a second time for Presidency, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attacked by <i>Gazette of the United States</i>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">becomes leader of new party, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his fears of a monarchy, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to French friends, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his practical idealism, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">efforts to obtain New Orleans, <a href="#Page_276">276-278</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">becomes sympathetic with republican government in France, <a href="#Page_278">278-280</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285-287</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his efforts to obtain commercial privileges with West Indies, <a href="#Page_280">280-282</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cautious in action, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his principles as to recognition of foreign governments, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the war between England and France, and Citizen Genêt, <a href="#Page_287">287-297</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resigns Secretaryship, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in retirement at Monticello, <a href="#Page_298">298-320</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his admiration for Madame de Corny, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">avoids politics, <a href="#Page_299">299-303</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his Report on the Privileges and Restrictions of the Commerce of the United States, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">hopes for avoidance of war with Great Britain, <a href="#Page_303">303-305</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">views on current political events, <a href="#Page_308">308-313</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes indiscreet letter to Mazzei, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pen-portrait of, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chosen Vice-President, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attempted reconciliation with Adams, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">desires peace with Europe, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "Parliamentary Manual", <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his view of manufactures, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">forms certain political conclusions, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his self-mastery, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposed to break in the Union, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">newspaper war against, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his share in Kentucky and Virginia nullification resolutions, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">luminous exposition of his doctrine (program of the Democratic party), <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as political leader, <a href="#Page_352">352-362</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Presidency (1800), <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the campaign, <a href="#Page_363">363-368</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the election, <a href="#Page_368">368-373</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inauguration, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inaugural address, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">his removals from office, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attack on the judiciary, <a href="#Page_383">383-390</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reëlected (1804), <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">convinced of the evil of the intrusion of churches into politics, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">hostility to, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his relation to Cabinet members, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his reform in financial system of United States, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attitude toward agriculture and manufactures, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his imperialist views, <a href="#Page_398">398-400</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and Louisiana Purchase, <a href="#Page_405">405-421</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sends Lewis on Western exploring expedition, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his policy in war between England and France, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447-462</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his second inaugural address, <a href="#Page_425">425-428</a>, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the ordeal of his second term, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inconsistency of his conduct in Burr case, <a href="#Page_437">437-439</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tries to obtain the Floridas, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">offers alliance with England, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes to Alexander of Russia concerning rights of neutrals, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imperialistic proposition of, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his letters, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>, <a href="#Page_514">514</a>, <a href="#Page_516">516</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his views of Executive and Congress, <a href="#Page_468">468-470</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposed to English mercantilism, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his detestation of English policies and rulers, <a href="#Page_470">470-473</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his ideas on War of 1812, <a href="#Page_473">473-478</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">offers library to Congress, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his feeling for England as distinguished from English government, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinions on affairs of Europe and South America, <a href="#Page_479">479-486</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Monroe Doctrine, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>, <a href="#Page_486">486-488</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">formulates the gospel of American democracy, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">economic and banking theories of, <a href="#Page_490">490-496</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his view of best government for France, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his theory of the function of the people in a democracy, <a href="#Page_499">499-502</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sees germs of national weakness in United States government, <a href="#Page_502">502-505</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his services to education (University of Virginia), <a href="#Page_505">505-512</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his interests, <a href="#Page_514">514-516</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his conclusion on the future of democracy, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reconciliation with Adams, <a href="#Page_518">518</a>, <a href="#Page_519">519</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his later religious views, <a href="#Page_519">519-528</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his faith in ultimate recognition of ideals, <a href="#Page_528">528</a>, <a href="#Page_529">529</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his last years and death, <a href="#Page_529">529-532</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Autobiography", references to, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">quoted on proposal for Congress, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on expatriation, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on Jefferson's retirement from Congress, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on simplification of statutes, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on self-government of the people, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on method of composition used in "Notes on Virginia", <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on attendance at Congress, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on Committee of Congress, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on Jefferson's duties in Paris, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">picture of events preceding French Revolution in, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on refusal of invitation to attend meeting of French committee, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the writing of, <a href="#Page_515">515</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Commonplace Book", <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">law matters in, <a href="#Page_28">28-30</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provincialism in, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Kames quoted in, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on rights of Dominion of Virginia, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">passages from James Wilson in, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Montesquieu and Beccaria copied in, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">extracts on history of Common Law in, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on death, <a href="#Page_530">530</a>, <a href="#Page_531">531</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">other references to, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Literary Bible", <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provincialism in, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Milton in, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Notes on Virginia", references to, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>, <a href="#Page_508">508</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">publication of, <a href="#Page_118">118-120</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">contents of, <a href="#Page_120">120-136</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">memorandum on new constitution for Virginia in, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on value of education, <a href="#Page_505">505</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Jones, Prof. Hugh, his description of Williamsburg, <a href="#Page_8">8</a><br /> +<br /> +Jones, Paul, <a href="#Page_207">207</a><br /> +<br /> +Jones, Dr. Walter, letter to, <a href="#Page_499">499</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Journal de Paris</i>, imprisonment of chief editor of, <a href="#Page_217">217</a><br /> +<br /> +Judiciary, assault on, under Jefferson, <a href="#Page_383">383-390</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a><br /> +<br /> +Judiciary Act of 1801, repeal of, <a href="#Page_384">384</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Kaims (Kames), Henry Home, Lord, his "Historical Law Tracts", <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on mutual defence, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his distinction of "property" and "possession", <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">referred to, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Kant, Immanuel, criterium of, <a href="#Page_525">525</a><br /> +<br /> +Keith, Mary, wife of Thomas Marshall, <a href="#Page_4">4</a><br /> +<br /> +Kentucky nullification resolutions, <a href="#Page_345">345-347</a><br /> +<br /> +Kercheval, Samuel, letter to, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_504">504</a><br /> +<br /> +King, Rufus, <a href="#Page_402">402-405</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span><br /> +Knox, Gen. Henry, Secretary of War under Washington, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Kosciusko, <a href="#Page_516">516</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Lafayette, Marquis de, his plan for a "declaration of the rights of man and the citizen", <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent to arrest Arnold, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friend of Jefferson, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his family and friends, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the tobacco monopoly, <a href="#Page_177">177-179</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">efforts of, in commercial transactions, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Barbary pirates, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advice of Jefferson to, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson sends "Charter of Rights for the King and Nation" to, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters of, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "Déclaration Européenne des droits de l'homme et du citoyen", <a href="#Page_232">232-234</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">brings about committee meeting in Jefferson's house, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">living embodiment of political faith of nineteenth century, <a href="#Page_514">514</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his final leave-taking of Jefferson, <a href="#Page_531">531</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Lambert, British traveler, <a href="#Page_460">460</a><br /> +<br /> +Lamothe, Lieut., <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br /> +<br /> +Land Office, ordinance concerning establishment of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br /> +<br /> +Land tenures, origin of, <a href="#Page_49">49</a><br /> +<br /> +"La Peyrouse's voyage to the South Seas", <a href="#Page_207">207</a><br /> +<br /> +La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, visits Monticello, <a href="#Page_313">313-315</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a><br /> +<br /> +Latude, Jean Henri de, <a href="#Page_219">219</a><br /> +<br /> +Law, Thomas, letters to, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>, <a href="#Page_524">524</a><br /> +<br /> +Law, and free institutions, in Saxon society, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a><br /> +<br /> +"Law of nature", <a href="#Page_23">23</a><br /> +<br /> +League of Nations, <a href="#Page_330">330</a><br /> +<br /> +Lee, Arthur, delegate to Congress from Virginia, <a href="#Page_140">140</a><br /> +<br /> +Lee, C., appointed judge by Adams, <a href="#Page_374">374</a><br /> +<br /> +Lee, F. L., of Virginia Assembly, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br /> +<br /> +Lee, Richard H., of Virginia Assembly, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on committee of continental Congress appointed to answer Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition", <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">assists in framing resolution instructing colonies to form governments, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mentioned, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Lee, Thomas Ludwell, appointed reviser of laws of Virginia, <a href="#Page_90">90-92</a><br /> +<br /> +Leib, Dr., <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_458">458</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Lewis (Merriwether) and Clark (William) Expedition, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>, <a href="#Page_422">422</a><br /> +<br /> +Liberty, Jefferson's definition of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Lincoln, Abraham, Gettysburg address, <a href="#Page_77">77</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Little Sarah</i>, British prize, <a href="#Page_294">294</a><br /> +<br /> +Livingston, Edward, member of Congress from New York, <a href="#Page_368">368</a><br /> +<br /> +Livingston, Robert R., on committee to prepare Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">United States Minister to France, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and Louisiana, <a href="#Page_402">402-416</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Lobbying, <a href="#Page_502">502</a><br /> +<br /> +Locke, John, his "Treatise on Civil Government", <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his hypothesis of society, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Logan, Dr., idealistic pacifist, <a href="#Page_341">341</a><br /> +<br /> +Logan Law, <a href="#Page_350">350</a><br /> +<br /> +Louis XVI, Jefferson's pen-portrait of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">flight of, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">execution of, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Louisiana Purchase, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400-421</a><br /> +<br /> +"Louisianais", acceptance of, to citizenship, <a href="#Page_423">423</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +McGregory, letter to, <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br /> +<br /> +McHenry, James, Secretary of War in Cabinets of Washington and Adams, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dismissed by Adams, <a href="#Page_368">368</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Madison, Bishop, discusses religion with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_358">358</a><br /> +<br /> +Madison, James, disapproves of Jefferson's determination to withdraw from public life, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delegate to Congress, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's correspondence with, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">urges Jefferson to accept post of Secretary of State, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's unofficial representative in Congress, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bank Bill opposed by, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">speeches, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his copy of "The Rights of Man", <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accompanies Jefferson on trip, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">objections to, as Minister to France, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">envoy to France, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">silent on French dispute, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recommends Virginia nullification resolutions, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter of, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">election of, to Presidency, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on board of visitors to University of Virginia, <a href="#Page_509">509</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span><br /> +Madrid, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_403">403</a><br /> +<br /> +Mann, Thomas, letter to, <a href="#Page_308">308</a><br /> +<br /> +Manufactures, Hamilton's Report on, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hamilton's view of, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's view of, <a href="#Page_327">327-329</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">change in Jefferson's view of, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>, <a href="#Page_492">492</a></span><br /> +<br /> +"Marbury versus Madison", <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a><br /> +<br /> +Marshall, John, ancestry, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed envoy extraordinary to France, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">returns from France, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Secretary of State in Adams's Cabinet, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">administers oath to Jefferson, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">head of Federalists, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his decision in "Marbury versus Madison", <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">asserts power of Supreme Court to declare law unconstitutional, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">findings of, in Burr conspiracy case, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "History of Washington", <a href="#Page_515">515</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Marshall, Thomas, family of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a><br /> +<br /> +Martin, Luther, in Chase impeachment case, <a href="#Page_389">389</a><br /> +<br /> +Mason, George, resolutions written by, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Virginia Bill of Rights" written by, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed reviser of laws of Virginia, <a href="#Page_90">90-93</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mentioned, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Mason, John, letter to, <a href="#Page_455">455</a><br /> +<br /> +Mason, Stephens Thompson, letter to, <a href="#Page_344">344</a><br /> +<br /> +Mason, Thomas, <a href="#Page_307">307</a><br /> +<br /> +Mathews, Col. George, <a href="#Page_112">112</a><br /> +<br /> +Maury, James, letters to, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>, <a href="#Page_478">478</a><br /> +<br /> +Maury, Rev. Dr., schoolmaster, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a><br /> +<br /> +Mazzei, Philip, neighbor and friend of Jefferson, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Mellish, John, traveler, <a href="#Page_460">460</a><br /> +<br /> +Mercer, John F., delegate to Congress from Virginia, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a><br /> +<br /> +Mexico, <a href="#Page_481">481</a><br /> +<br /> +Middlemen, in tobacco trade, <a href="#Page_177">177-181</a><br /> +<br /> +"Midnight judges", <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a><br /> +<br /> +Milton, John, his accusations against female usurpations, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quotation from, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Mint, Hamilton's Report on Establishment of, <a href="#Page_249">249</a><br /> +<br /> +Mississippi, navigation of, <a href="#Page_276">276</a><br /> +<br /> +Missouri question, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>, <a href="#Page_503">503</a><br /> +<br /> +Mitchell, Dr., unpublished letter to, <a href="#Page_390">390</a><br /> +<br /> +Monocrats, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a><br /> +<br /> +Monroe, James, disapproves of Jefferson's determination to withdraw from public life, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delegate to Congress from Virginia, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's correspondence with, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301-303</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Washington's proclamation of neutrality, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent as special envoy to France to negotiate for Louisiana, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his fear of alliance of Great Britain and France against United States, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">negotiates, with Pinkney, treaty with England, <a href="#Page_448">448-450</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">considered for Presidency in 1808, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on board of visitors to University of Virginia, <a href="#Page_509">509</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Monroe Doctrine, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>, <a href="#Page_486">486-488</a><br /> +<br /> +Montaigne, M. E. de, <a href="#Page_130">130</a><br /> +<br /> +Montesquieu, Baron de, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br /> +<br /> +Monticello, the building of, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">life at, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson in retirement at, <a href="#Page_298">298-320</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a self-supporting economic unit, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visitors to, <a href="#Page_515">515</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Montmorency, <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br /> +<br /> +Montmorin, Minister, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a><br /> +<br /> +Morality, and religion, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_523">523-525</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">test of, <a href="#Page_525">525</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">code of, <a href="#Page_526">526</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Morellet, Abbé, translator of "Notes on Virginia", <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meets Jefferson, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Morocco, Emperor, treaty with, <a href="#Page_312">312</a><br /> +<br /> +Morris, Gouverneur, his accusation against Jefferson, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Minister to France, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conduct as Minister to France, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">offers to use political influence for Jefferson, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Morris, Robert, Financier of U. S., <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a><br /> +<br /> +Mutual defence, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>National Gazette</i>, foundation of, <a href="#Page_261">261-263</a><br /> +<br /> +Natural Bridge, description of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br /> +<br /> +Necker, Jacques, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a><br /> +<br /> +Negro, Jefferson's view of status of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br /> +<br /> +Nelson, Gen., elected governor of Virginia, <a href="#Page_113">113</a><br /> +<br /> +Nelson, Thomas, Jr., letter to, <a href="#Page_66">66</a><br /> +<br /> +Neutrality, Washington's proclamation of, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's policy of, <a href="#Page_424">424</a></span><br /> +<br /> +New Granada, constitution of, <a href="#Page_498">498</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>New London Bee</i>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a><br /> +<br /> +New Orleans, Jefferson's efforts to obtain, <a href="#Page_276">276-278</a><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span><br /> +Nicholas, George, his charges against Jefferson, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposes dictator 127;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his share in Kentucky and Virginia nullification resolutions, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Nicholas, Robert C., <a href="#Page_28">28</a><br /> +<br /> +Nicholas, Wilson C., his share in Kentucky and Virginia nullification resolutions, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">refutes Federalists, <a href="#Page_357">357</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Nicholson, Joseph N., member of Congress, <a href="#Page_372">372</a><br /> +<br /> +Nock, A. J., historian of Jefferson, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>, <a href="#Page_458">458</a><br /> +<br /> +Non-Intercourse Act, <a href="#Page_461">461</a><br /> +<br /> +North, Lord, his "Conciliatory Proposition", <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's answer to his "Conciliatory Proposition", <a href="#Page_62">62</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Nullification resolutions, <a href="#Page_345">345-347</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Ogden, John, arrest of, <a href="#Page_354">354</a><br /> +<br /> +Ogilvie, James, <a href="#Page_502">502</a><br /> +<br /> +Oratory, American school of, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a><br /> +<br /> +Orders in Council (Nov. 11, 1807), <a href="#Page_453">453</a>, <a href="#Page_457">457</a><br /> +<br /> +Otis, H. G., nominated District Attorney by Adams, <a href="#Page_374">374</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Page, John, Jefferson's correspondence with, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on committee on religion, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Paine, Thomas, his "Common Sense", influence of, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "The Rights of Man", <a href="#Page_258">258-261</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's regard for, resented, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Paradise, Comtesse Barziza, Lucy, <a href="#Page_162">162</a><br /> +<br /> +Parsons, Theophilus, nominated Attorney-General, <a href="#Page_373">373</a><br /> +<br /> +"Parson's Case", <a href="#Page_15">15</a><br /> +<br /> +Patowmac River, <a href="#Page_120">120</a><br /> +<br /> +Pendleton, Edmund, letters to, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes Bill to Abolish Entails, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed reviser of laws of Virginia, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appeal of Jefferson to, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">congratulates Jefferson, <a href="#Page_362">362</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Physiocrats, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>, <a href="#Page_493">493-495</a>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a><br /> +<br /> +Pichon, French chargé at The Hague, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Minister in Washington, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Pickering, Judge, impeachment of, <a href="#Page_384">384</a><br /> +<br /> +Pickering, Timothy, in Cabinets of Washington and Adams, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dismissed by Adams, <a href="#Page_368">368</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Picket, F. J., of Geneva, <a href="#Page_507">507</a><br /> +<br /> +Pinckney, Charles, Minister to Spain, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_458">458</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, his treatment by the French Directory, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed envoy extraordinary to France, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Vice-Presidency (1800), <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">candidate for President (1808), <a href="#Page_464">464</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Pinckney, Thomas, Minister to Great Britain, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Pinkney, William, and Monroe, negotiate treaty with England, <a href="#Page_448">448-450</a><br /> +<br /> +Politics, foreign and domestic, <a href="#Page_248">248</a><br /> +<br /> +Presidential election, <i>see</i> Election<br /> +<br /> +Priestley, Joseph, letters to, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">befriended by Jefferson, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "Hints Concerning Public Education", <a href="#Page_506">506</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his treatise, "Of Socrates and Jesus compared", <a href="#Page_526">526</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Privateering, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br /> +<br /> +Privateers, outfitted and commissioned by Genêt, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a><br /> +<br /> +"Proclamation announcing ratification of definitive treaties, Draft for", <a href="#Page_144">144</a><br /> +<br /> +Property, the right to, <a href="#Page_83">83-85</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and possession, distinction between, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Prospect</i>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a><br /> +<br /> +Protestants, edict on, <a href="#Page_224">224</a><br /> +<br /> +Public opinion, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a><br /> +<br /> +"Pursuit of happiness", as a right, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Va., <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a><br /> +<br /> +Randolph, Edmund, letters to, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Attorney-General under Washington, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion of, attacked by Jefferson, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Randolph, Jane, mother of Thomas Jefferson, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Randolph, John, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">removes to England, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Randolph, John, of Roanoke, refutes Federalists, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Chase impeachment case, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Resolution" of, on judiciary, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leader of discontented Republicans, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "Remonstrance of the people of Louisiana", <a href="#Page_429">429</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attacks on Madison, <a href="#Page_439">439</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Randolph, Peyton, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">president of first Continental Congress, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recalled from Congress, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span><br /> +Randolph, Mrs. Sarah, her "Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson", <a href="#Page_529">529</a><br /> +<br /> +Randolph, Thomas Mann, Jr., marries Martha Jefferson, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Monticello, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Randolph, William, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br /> +<br /> +Raynal, Abbé, his application of theory of Buffon to American settlers, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">answer of Jefferson to, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Religion, and morality, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_523">523</a>, <a href="#Page_527">527</a><br /> +<br /> +Religious freedom, in Virginia, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100-103</a><br /> +<br /> +Republicans, in election of 1792, <a href="#Page_273">273</a><br /> +<br /> +Richmond, Va., establishment of Free Public Library at, <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br /> +<br /> +Riedesel, Maj.-Gen. Baron de, <a href="#Page_110">110</a><br /> +<br /> +Rights, natural and civil, <a href="#Page_80">80-85</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a><br /> +<br /> +Rochefoucauld, Comtesse de la, <a href="#Page_162">162</a><br /> +<br /> +Rochefoucauld, Duc de La, <a href="#Page_274">274</a><br /> +<br /> +Rodney, Caesar A., letter to, <a href="#Page_469">469</a><br /> +<br /> +Rotation in office, <a href="#Page_502">502</a><br /> +<br /> +Rousseau, Jean Jacques, his hypothesis of society, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on morality, <a href="#Page_525">525</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Rush, Benjamin, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deplores estrangement of Jefferson and Adams, <a href="#Page_518">518</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson writes "Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, compared with those of others" for, <a href="#Page_526">526</a>, <a href="#Page_527">527</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Rush, Richard, letter to, <a href="#Page_489">489</a><br /> +<br /> +Rutledge, letters to, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Saint Étienne, Rabaud de, Jefferson sends "Charter of Rights for the King and Nation" to, <a href="#Page_230">230</a><br /> +<br /> +San Ildefonso, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_402">402</a><br /> +<br /> +Santo Domingo, and Government of the United States, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a><br /> +<br /> +Sedgwick, Theodore, speaker of the House, <a href="#Page_373">373</a><br /> +<br /> +Sedition Law, <a href="#Page_342">342-347</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a><br /> +<br /> +Seward, W. W., letter to, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br /> +<br /> +Shadwell, Jefferson estate, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">burning of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Shaw, Samuel, consul at Canton, <a href="#Page_289">289</a><br /> +<br /> +Sherman, Roger, on committee to prepare Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_69">69</a><br /> +<br /> +"Shirt-sleeve" diplomacy, <a href="#Page_178">178</a><br /> +<br /> +Short, William, private secretary of Jefferson, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">studies French, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">correspondence with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_275">275-277</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>, <a href="#Page_521">521</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">transferred to the Hague, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rebuked by Jefferson, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Skelton, Bathurst, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br /> +<br /> +Skelton, Martha, married to Jefferson, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">grave and inscription, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Slavery, Jefferson's attitude toward, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the Confederation, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Small, Dr. William, professor in William and Mary College, his intimacy with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_11">11-13</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a><br /> +<br /> +Smith, Rev. Cotton Mather, his accusation against Jefferson, <a href="#Page_363">363</a><br /> +<br /> +Smith, James, letter to, <a href="#Page_520">520</a><br /> +<br /> +Smith, Robert, Attorney-General, <a href="#Page_437">437</a><br /> +<br /> +Smith, Samuel H., letters to, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_477">477</a><br /> +<br /> +Smith, Col. W. S., <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br /> +<br /> +Social compact, Jefferson's view of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80-82</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_498">498</a><br /> +<br /> +Society, man and, conflict between, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">contractual and physiocratic doctrines of, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></span><br /> +<br /> +South America, <i>see</i> Spanish colonies<br /> +<br /> +Spanish colonies in America, <a href="#Page_209">209-211</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">revolt of, <a href="#Page_481">481-485</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Sprigg resolution, against war with France, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a><br /> +<br /> +Staël, Madame de, Jefferson's correspondence with, <a href="#Page_476">476</a><br /> +<br /> +State rights, Jefferson's theory of, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br /> +<br /> +State sovereignty, Jefferson's conception of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a><br /> +<br /> +State universities, <a href="#Page_512">512</a><br /> +<br /> +States, provision for new, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br /> +<br /> +Stewart, Dugald, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br /> +<br /> +Stoddart, Benjamin, Secretary of the Navy in Adams's Cabinet, <a href="#Page_374">374</a><br /> +<br /> +Stuart, Archibald, <a href="#Page_264">264</a><br /> +<br /> +Suffrage, universal, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">limitation of, <a href="#Page_499">499</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Sullivan, Francis Stoughton, his "An Historical Treatise of the Feudal Laws and the Constitution of the Laws of England", <a href="#Page_30">30</a><br /> +<br /> +Supreme Court, Jefferson's attitude toward, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Marshall's doctrine of the powers of, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Swartwout, and the Burr conspiracy, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>, <a href="#Page_433">433</a><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Tariff, and the French debt, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">belief and practice in, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advocated by Jefferson's party, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Tarleton, Col. Sir Bannastre, attempts to capture Legislature and Governor of Virginia, <a href="#Page_113">113</a><br /> +<br /> +Taxation, forms of, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>, <a href="#Page_494">494</a><br /> +<br /> +Taylor, John, letter to, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">efforts to secure appointment of dictator, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Taylor, Keith, appointed judge by Adams, <a href="#Page_374">374</a><br /> +<br /> +Tazewell, H., letter to, <a href="#Page_308">308</a><br /> +<br /> +Ternant, French Minister to United States, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a><br /> +<br /> +Tessé, Madame de, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">correspondence with, <a href="#Page_514">514</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Thomson, Charles, letter to, <a href="#Page_530">530</a><br /> +<br /> +Ticknor, George, <a href="#Page_510">510</a><br /> +<br /> +Tobacco monopoly, <a href="#Page_177">177-181</a><br /> +<br /> +Tott, Madame de, <a href="#Page_162">162</a><br /> +<br /> +"Transfers", problem of, <a href="#Page_181">181</a><br /> +<br /> +Treaties, <i>see</i> Commercial treaties<br /> +<br /> +Treaty of Alliance with France (1778), <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br /> +<br /> +Treaty of Commerce, with Great Britain, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a><br /> +<br /> +Trial by jury, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br /> +<br /> +Tripoli, war with, <a href="#Page_443">443</a><br /> +<br /> +Trist, Mrs., <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_530">530</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Unger, Louis de, German officer, <a href="#Page_110">110</a><br /> +<br /> +Unitarianism, <a href="#Page_520">520</a><br /> +<br /> +United States, suggestions for seal of, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proclaimed as one nation, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">establishment of monetary system of, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">provision for new States, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">foreign debts, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184-193</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">western lands, sale of, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Constitution, <a href="#Page_195">195-202</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">desire of isolation, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">often accused of hypocrisy in foreign dealings, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">has tried to combine political aloofness and industrial and commercial development, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relation to foreign nations, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">neutrality of, in war between England and France, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports and exports of, at beginning of nineteenth century, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">population of, at beginning of nineteenth century, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> American Revolution; Articles of Confederation; Declaration of Independence; Louisiana Purchase</span><br /> +<br /> +University of Geneva, <a href="#Page_505">505</a><br /> +<br /> +University of Virginia, <a href="#Page_509">509-512</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Vans Murray, American Minister at The Hague, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a><br /> +<br /> +Vans Murray-Pichon papers, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a><br /> +<br /> +Venable, <a href="#Page_356">356</a><br /> +<br /> +Vergennes, Charles G., Count de, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a><br /> +<br /> +Virginia, family life in, before the Revolution, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">books in, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">religion in, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">plantation life in, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">House of Burgesses, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">temper of colonists of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Constitution (1776), drafted by Jefferson, <a href="#Page_67">67-69</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">revision of laws of, <a href="#Page_88">88-107</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ideas on new constitution for, <a href="#Page_140">140-143</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson proposes changes in constitution, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> American Revolution; Shadwell; Williamsburg</span><br /> +<br /> +Virginia Bill of Rights, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a><br /> +<br /> +Virginia Convention, first, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Virginia nullification resolutions, <a href="#Page_345">345-347</a><br /> +<br /> +Virginia Company of Comedians, <a href="#Page_34">34</a><br /> +<br /> +Volney, Constantin F. C. B., Count de, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Walker, Col., guardian of Jefferson, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br /> +<br /> +War of 1812, <a href="#Page_473">473-478</a><br /> +<br /> +Washington, D. C., in 1800, <a href="#Page_362">362</a><br /> +<br /> +Washington, George, presides over Assembly of Fairfax County, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and Jefferson, differ as regards treatment of British prisoners, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson's view of, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his wines, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his Cabinet, <a href="#Page_245">245-247</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">urged by Jefferson to run a second time for Presidency, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">distressed at dissensions in Cabinet, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supports Hamilton's actions, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reëlection of, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">harsh words of Jefferson against, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Watchful waiting, policy of, advocated by Jefferson, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_452">452</a><br /> +<br /> +Watson, David, on board of visitors to University of Virginia, <a href="#Page_509">509</a><br /> +<br /> +Wayles, John, father-in-law of Jefferson, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br /> +<br /> +West Indies, commerce with, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280-282</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson opposed to change of ownership of, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span><br /> +Western lands, sale of, <a href="#Page_254">254</a><br /> +<br /> +Whisky Insurrection, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a><br /> +<br /> +White House, burned by English, <a href="#Page_476">476</a><br /> +<br /> +Wilkinson, James, and the Burr conspiracy, <a href="#Page_429">429-435</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a><br /> +<br /> +William and Mary College, <a href="#Page_8">8-11</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reorganization of, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">transformation of, <a href="#Page_358">358</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Williamsburg, Va., society in, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a><br /> +<br /> +Williamson, Hugh, discussions with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_371">371</a><br /> +<br /> +Wilson, James, and the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a><br /> +<br /> +Wilson, Woodrow, political aloofness and industrial development conspicuous in his position, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his phrase, "too proud to fight", <a href="#Page_398">398</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">neutrality of, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his hope of preserving peace, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his situation in 1914-1917 compared to that of Jefferson in 1808, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Wistar, Caspar, discussions with Jefferson, <a href="#Page_371">371</a><br /> +<br /> +Wolcott, Oliver, Secretary of the Treasury under Washington and Adams, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a><br /> +<br /> +Woodward, Augustus S., letter to, <a href="#Page_521">521</a><br /> +<br /> +Wythe, George, professor in William and Mary College, and Jefferson, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed reviser of laws of Virginia, <a href="#Page_90">90-93</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">congratulates Jefferson, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mentioned, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +XYZ Case, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See <i>also</i> France</span><br /> +</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Jefferson, by Gilbert Chinard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS JEFFERSON *** + +***** This file should be named 38073-h.htm or 38073-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/0/7/38073/ + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated 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