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27. Edward Coles to TJ, July 31, 1814, PTJ: Ret. Ser., 7:503–4; TJ to Coles, August 25, 1814, ibid., 7:603–5.
28. TJ to Coles, August 25, 1814, PTJ: Ret. Ser., 7:603.
29. JA to TJ, December 21, 1818, February 3, 1821, AJL 2:551, 571; TJ to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, Ford, WTJ 10:157–58.
30. Finkleman, “Jefferson and Slavery,” in Onuf, Jeffersonian Legacies, 212. For a survey of the modern censure of TJ for race, see Gordon S. Wood, “The Trials and Tribulations of Thomas Jefferson,” ibid., 396–98; Scot A. French and Edward L. Ayers, “The Strange Career of Thomas Jefferson: Race and Slavery in American Memory, 1943–1993,” ibid., 418–56; Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson, 170–229. See also Paul Finkelman, “The Monster of Monticello,” New York Times, November 30, 2012.
31. Philip D. Morgan, “Interracial Sex in the Chesapeake and the British Atlantic World, c. 1700–1820,” in Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, eds., Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture (Charlottesville, Va., 1999), 58. On the wages of craftsmen, see Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850 (New York, 1984), 50–51. TJ once remarked that he cared “for the happiness of those who labor for mine.” See TJ to Angelica Church, November 27, 1793, PTJ 27:449.
32. Finkleman, “Jefferson and Slavery,” in Onuf, Jeffersonian Legacies, 181–221; Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York, 1975), 375–85; Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1997), 144–52; Ari Helo and Peter S. Onuf, “Jefferson, Morality, and the Problem of Slavery,” William and Mary Quarterly 60 (2003): 583–614. See also Peter S. Onuf, “ ‘To Declare them a Free and Independent People’: Race, Slavery and National Identity in Jefferson’s Thought,” Journal of the Early Republic 18 (1998): 1–46; Onuf, “Every Generation is an ‘Independent Nation’: Colonization, Miscegenation, and the Fate of Jefferson’s Children,” William and Mary Quarterly 57 (2000): 153–70; and Henry Wiencek, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves (New York, 2012). Other important works on TJ and slavery include Cohen, “Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery,” Journal of American History 56 (1969): 503–26; and Miller, Wolf by the Ears. For an especially thoughtful piece on TJ and slavery, see Andrew Burstein, Jefferson’s Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello (New York, 2005), 113–49. For Rakove’s important essay, and the citation of the “evil of a kind” quotation, see Jack N. Rakove, “Our Jefferson,” in Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, eds., Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, Va., 1999), 228.
33. TJ to Coles, August 25, 1814, PTJ: Ret. Ser., 7:603.
34. TJ to Joseph Cabell, February 7, 1826, Ford, WTJ 12:451. On the sale of TJ’s library to the Library of Congress, see Kevin J. Hayes, The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 2008), 546–63.
35. Quoted in Brodie, TJ, 464. Some quotes are from Rebecca L. McMurry and James F. McMurry Jr., Anatomy of a Scandal: Thomas Jefferson and the Sally Story (Shippensburg, Pa., 2002), 70. On Callender, see the insightful essay by Joshua D. Rothman, “James Callender and Social Knowledge of Interracial Sex in Antebellum Virginia,” in Lewis and Onuf, Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, 87–113.
36. TJ’s denial was in an 1805 letter in which he acknowledged his improper behavior toward Betsy Walker, but added: “It is the only one founded in truth among all their allegations against me.” See TJ to Robert Smith, July 1, 1805, in Thomas Jefferson Correspondence. Printed from the Originals in the Collections of William Bixby (Boston, 1916), 115.
37. Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (New York, 2008), 648, 657–60.
38. TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., December 30, 1809, PTJ: Ret. Ser. 2:110.
39. TJ to Augustus B. Woodward, April 3, 1825, Ford, WTJ 12:408.
40. The foregoing paragraphs on TJ’s retirement draw on Cunningham, TJ, 322–49. For an excellent brief essay on the subject, see Andrew Burstein, “Jefferson in Retirement,” in Cogliano, A Companion to Thomas Jefferson, 218–33. The section on TJ and education draws from Harold Hellenbrand, The Unfinished Revolution: Education and Politics in the Thought of Thomas Jefferson (Newark, Del., 1990), 136–69; and Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson, 157–59. On TJ, religion, and death, see TJ to JA, November 13, 1818, April 11, 1823, AJL 2:529, 592. On TJ’s thought on life in the hereafter, see Andrew Burstein, Jefferson’s Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello (New York, 2005), 257–63.
41. TJ to Priestley, March 21, 1801, PTJ 33:393–94.
42. TJ, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, PTJ 33:149–50.
43. Quoted in Gar Alperovitz, America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy (Hoboken, N.J., 2005), 11.
44. Funeral Oration, [July 14, 1804], PAH 26:325–29. Morris’s diary entries, including his acknowledgement of AH’s opposition to republican government, can be found in ibid., 26:324n.
45. Malone, TJ, 6:498–99; Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson, 137.
Select Bibliography
The correspondence of Jefferson and Hamilton, as well as nearly all of Hamilton’s published essays, are available in modern collections in which specialized editors have provided useful introductory essays and clarifying footnotes. In addition, users are helped immensely by generally excellent indexing.
The modern edition of Jefferson’s papers has been dribbling out since 1950, and at the completion of this manuscript had reached nearly the midpoint of his presidency. One should see Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton, N.J., 1950–). Fortunately, in 2004 a second Jefferson papers project commenced that will span his seventeen-year retirement following his presidency. See J. Jefferson Looney et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series (Charlottesville, Va., 2004–). At the completion of this manuscript, the retirement series had progressed through the first half dozen years after Jefferson returned for good to Monticello. Two older multivolume series include most of Jefferson’s correspondence after 1815. These are Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1892–99); and A. A. Lipscomb and A. E. Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, D.C., 1900–4).
Jefferson’s correspondence with John and Abigail Adams, which continued on and off for four decades, has been collected in two volumes. See Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1961). Jefferson’s letters to and from his daughters and other family members can be found in E. M. Betts and J. A. Bear Jr., eds., The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson (Columbia, Mo., 1966). The financial record books that Jefferson kept are available. See James A. Bear and Lucia Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826 (Princeton, N.J., 1997). A massive single-volume compilation of Jefferson’s letters and writings can be found in Saul K. Padover, The Complete Jefferson: Containing His Major Writings, Published and Unpublished, Except His Letters (Freeport, N.Y., 1969).
Single-volume editions of Jefferson’s most important letters and writings have been edited by Merrill D. Peterson. See The Portable Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1977) and Thomas Jefferson, Writings (New York, 1984).
The modern edition of Hamilton’s papers has long since been completed and spans twenty-seven volumes. See Harold C. Syrett and Jacob E. Cooke, eds., Papers of Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1961–79). A fine one-volume collection of his most important writings is also available. See Joanne B. Freeman, ed., Alexander Hamilton, Writings (New York, 2001).
Historian Noble Cunningham edited a documentary study that outlines the lives of the two men, and America’s founding, around forty crucial documents. See Noble E. Cunningham Jr., Thomas Jefferson versus Alexander Hamilton: Confrontations That Shaped a Nation (New York, 2000).
Biographies of Jefferson and Hamilton abound. The m
ost comprehensive on the life of Jefferson is the six-volume, encyclopedic effort by Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time (Boston 1948–81). Alf J. Mapp Jr. authored a two-volume life history: Thomas Jefferson: A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity (Lanham, Md., 1987) covers the period through the election of 1800, while the subsequent years are detailed in Thomas Jefferson: Passionate Pilgrim—The Presidency, the Founding of the University, and the Private Battle (Lanham, Md., 1993). For longer single-volume treatments that emphasize his public side, see Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation (New York, 1970); Noble Cunningham, In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson (Baton Rouge, La., 1987); Willard Sterne Randall, Thomas Jefferson: A Life (New York, 1992); and Jon Meacham, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (New York, 2012). The modern biography that reshaped the discussion on Jefferson is Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (New York, 1974). For a semi-biographical character study of Jefferson, see Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1997).
For good short biographies see Page Smith, Jefferson: A Revealing Biography (New York, 1976); Norman K. Risjord, Thomas Jefferson (Lanham, Md., 2002); and Richard B. Bernstein, Thomas Jefferson (New York, 2003).
All other Hamilton biographies are overshadowed by Ron Chernow’s massive and resplendent single volume, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 2004). For an older, though useful, two-volume life history, see Broadus Mitchell, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1957, 1962). Several more brief biographies are available. See Richard Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton: American (New York, 1999); Jacob E. Cooke, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1982); Noemie Emery, Alexander Hamilton: An Intimate Portrait (New York, 1982); Robert A. Hendrickson, Hamilton (New York, 1976); Forrest McDonald, Alexander Hamilton: A Biography (New York, 1982); John C. Miller, Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox (New York, 1959); Willard Sterne Randall, Alexander Hamilton: A Life (New York, 2003); and Nathan Schachner, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1957). Hamilton’s life through the American Revolution is told in detail in James Thomas Flexner, The Young Hamilton: A Biography (Boston, 1978).
Far more has been written on Jefferson than on Hamilton, perhaps because of his longer life and greater abundance of papers. In fact, so many books and essays have poured forth on Jefferson that a comprehensive list of those works published prior to 1992 fills two large volumes. See Frank Shuffelton, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him (New York, 1983) and Shuffelton, Thomas Jefferson: An Annotated Bibliography (New York, 1992). Unfortunately, no such bibliography of works on Hamilton has been compiled.
A few previous comparative studies are available. The earliest was written by a journalist and political activist and reads like a campaign advertisement for Jefferson. See Claude Bowers, Jefferson and Hamilton: The Struggle for Democracy in America (Boston, 1925). A more scholarly treatment is Roger G. Kennedy, Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character (New York, 2000), though this book begins with the Hamilton-Burr duel and focuses largely on Jefferson’s relationship with Burr after 1804. For a thoughtful and provocative analysis, see Darren Staloff, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding (New York, 2005), a study that emphasizes how the Enlightenment guided and transformed these Founders.
Both Jefferson and Hamilton have been the subject of numerous works that probe specific aspects of their life, thought, ideas, and policies. Readers can find many cited in the notes for this book.
Abbreviations
AH
Alexander Hamilton
AJL
Lestor J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. 2 vols. Chapel Hill, N.C., University of North Carolina Press, 1959.
Bernstein, TJ
R. B. Bernstein, Thomas Jefferson. New York, Oxford University Press, 2003.
Brodie, TJ
Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History. New York, W. W. Norton, 1974.
Brookhiser, AH
Richard Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton: American. New York, Free Press, 1999.
Chernow, AH
Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton. New York, Penguin Press, 2004.
Cooke, AH
Jacob Ernest Cooke, Alexander Hamilton. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.
Cunningham, TJ
Noble E. Cunningham Jr., In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1987.
DAJA
L. H. Butterfield et al., eds., The Diary and Autobiography of John Adams. 4 vols. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1961.
Ellis, American Sphinx
Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. New York, Alfred Knopf, 1997.
ESH
Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton
Flexner, Young Hamilton
James Thomas Flexner, The Young Hamilton: A Biography. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1978.
FLTJ
E. M. Betts and J. A. Bear, Jr., eds., The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson. Columbia, Mo., University of Missouri Press, 1966.
Ford, WTJ
Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. 10 vols. New York, G. P. Putnam’s, 1892–99.
GW
George Washington
JA
John Adams
JM
James Madison
JMB
James A. Bear and Lucia Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826. 2 vols. Princeton, N.J., Prince ton University Press, 1997.
L & B, WTJ
A. A. Lipscomb and A. E. Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. 20 vols. Washington, D.C., Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States, 1900–04.
LDC
Paul H. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 29 vols. Washington, D.C., Library of Congress, 1976–2000.
McDonald, AH
Forrest McDonald, Alexander Hamilton: A Biography. New York, W. W. Norton, 1982.
Malone, TJ
Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time. 6 vols. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1948–81.
Miller, AH
John C. Miller, Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1959.
Mitchell, AH
Broadus Mitchell, Alexander Hamilton. 2 vols. New York, Macmillan Company, 1957, 1962.
Padover, CTJ
Saul K. Padover, ed., The Complete Jefferson: Containing His Major Writings, Published and Unpublished, Except His Letters. Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries, 1969.
PAH
Harold C. Syrett and Jacob E. Cooke, eds., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. 27 vols. New York, Columbia University Press, 1961–87.
Peterson, TJ
Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation. New York, Oxford University Press, 1970.
PGWC
W. W. Abbot et al., eds., The Papers of George Washington: Colonial Series. 10 vols. Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1983–95.
PGWCfed
W. W. Abbot et al., eds., The Papers of George Washington: Confederation Series. 6 vols. Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1985–97.
PGWP
Dorothy Twohig et al., eds., The Papers of George Washington: Presidential Series. Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1987–.
PGWR
Philander Chase et al., eds., The Papers of George Washington: Revolutionary War Series. Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1985–.
PGW: Ret. Ser.
Dorothy Twohig et al., eds., The Papers of George Washington: Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1998–99.
PJA
Robert J. Taylor et al., eds., Papers of John Adams. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1977–.
PJM
/> William T. Hutchinson et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison. Chicago and Charlottesville, University of Chicago Press and University Press of Virginia, 1962–.
PTJ
Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1950–.
PTJ: Ret. Ser.
J. Jefferson Looney et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 2004–.
TJ
Thomas Jefferson
WW
John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of Washington. 39 vols. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931–44.
A Note on the Author
John Ferling is professor emeritus of history at the University of West Georgia. A leading authority on American Revolutionary history, he is the author of ten books, including The First of Men: A Life of George Washington; the award-winning A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic; Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800; Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence; The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon, named one of the best books of 2009 by the Washington Post; and Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free. He and his wife, Carol, live in metropolitan Atlanta.