Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

by Jon Meacham

  “FULLY TO SOLICIT ON MY BEHALF” Ibid.

  PINCKNEY FADED TO THIRD APE, I, 41.

  “IT IS EXPECTED” PTJ, XXIX, 226. Madison wrote Jefferson of Adams:

  You know that his feelings will not enslave him to the example of his predecessor. It is certain that his censures of our paper system and the intrigues at New York for setting P. above him have fixed an enmity with the British faction. Nor should it pass for nothing, that the true interest of New England particularly requires reconciliation with France as the road to her commerce. Add to the whole that he is said to speak of you now in friendly terms and will no doubt be soothed by your acceptance of a place subordinate to him. It must be confessed however that all these calculations are qualified by his political principles and prejudices. But they add weight to the obligation from which you must not withdraw yourself. (Ibid., 226–27.)

  ADAMS WON, BARELY APE, I, 41.

  “O LORD!” Miller, Federalist Era, 264–65.

  BELIEVED DEEPLY IN “THE SENSE” Ibid.

  “I VALUE THE LATE VOTE HIGHLY” PTJ, XXIX, 258. He was always a precise vote counter: “In this point of view the difference between 68 and 71 votes is little sensible, and still less that between the real vote which was 69 and 70 because one real elector in Pennsylvania was excluded from voting by the miscarriage of the votes, and one who was not an elector was admitted to vote.” (Ibid.)

  “I KNEW IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE” Ibid., 232. To Edward Rutledge, Jefferson wrote: “You have seen my name lately tacked to so much of eulogy and of abuse, that I daresay you hardly thought it meant for your old acquaintance of 76. In truth I did not know myself under the pens either of my friends or foes. It is unfortunate for our peace that unmerited abuse wounds, while unmerited praise has not the power to heal. These are hard wages for the services of all the active and healthy years of one’s life.” (Ibid.)

  His supporters braced him for the inevitable criticism that was to come during the administration, in part by portraying the attackers as agents of what Jefferson hated and feared most. “It is true that you have been abused,” James Sullivan, a Republican lawyer and politician in Massachusetts, wrote Jefferson from Boston on January 12, 1797. “But this abuse came from a party who are determined to abuse every one who will not, with them, bow in adoration to the British monarchy. If the abuse and calumny of these men can deprive the public of the services of those on whom they may confide with safety, there will be an end to our free constitutions: and the enemies of an elective republic will obtain a complete triumph.” (Ibid., 262.)

  “THE HONEYMOON WOULD BE” Ibid.

  “THIS IS CERTAINLY NOT A MOMENT” Ibid.

  WHISPERS OF POSSIBLE SECESSION Ibid., 364.

  THE THREE-FIFTHS CLAUSE Ibid. See also Garry Wills, “Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power (New York, 2003), for a discussion of the role of the three-fifths clause in the politics of the early republic.

  “WE SHALL NEVER” PTJ, XXIX, 364.

  “I HAVE NO AMBITION” Ibid., 235. Benjamin Rush believed, with Jefferson, that it had been a lucky thing to lose the top post for now. “Accept of my congratulations upon your election to the Vice President’s Chair of the United States, and upon your escape of the Office of President,” Rush wrote. “In the present situation of our country it would have been impossible for you to have preserved the credit of republican principles, or your own character for integrity, had you succeeded to the New York administration of our government. The seeds of British Systems in everything have at last ripened. What a harvest of political evils is before us!” (Ibid., 251.)

  A DRAFT OF THE LETTER Ibid., 247–51. See also McCullough, John Adams, 465–66.

  MADISON REPLIED WITH A SIX-POINT CASE Ibid., 263–65.

  HE WOULD NOT MAIL Ibid., 280–81. A significant moment in the exchange with Madison over the virtues of the letter to Adams lies in a philosophical passage of Jefferson’s—a passage informed by a sense of tragedy. “In truth 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,” Jefferson wrote. “What is called civilization seems to have no other effect on him than to teach him to pursue the principle of bellum omnium in omnia [an allusion to Thomas Hobbes’s notion of “the war of all against all”] on a larger scale, and in place of the little contests of tribe against tribe, to engage all the quarters of the earth in the same work of destruction.” (Ibid., 248.)

  JEFFERSON REACHED PHILADELPHIA MB, II, 954–55.

  ADAMS, WHO LODGED AT FRANCIS’S PTJ, XXIX, 551.

  REPAID THE COURTESY THE NEXT MORNING Ibid.

  CLOSING THE DOOR BEHIND HIM Ibid.

  WAS GLAD JEFFERSON WAS ALONE Ibid.

  HAD MUCH TO TALK ABOUT Ibid.

  JEFFERSON AGREED THAT HE SHOULD Ibid., 552.

  “HE SAID THAT IF MR. MADISON” Ibid.

  THE CEREMONIAL PROCEEDINGS IN CONGRESS HALL McCullough, John Adams, 467–70.

  DELIVERED A SHORT SPEECH PTJ, XXIX, 310–12. Should any lawmaker find fault with his rulings from the chair, Jefferson said, he would “rely on the liberality and candor of those from whom I differ to believe that I do it on pure motives.” (Ibid., 311.) Faced with his primary duty—that of presiding over the Senate—he turned to his oldest teacher for guidance on his newest work, writing George Wythe for thoughts on parliamentary procedure. (Ibid., 275–76.)

  TO THE MORTALITY OF THE PRESIDENT Ibid., 311.

  PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION OF JOHN ADAMS McCullough, John Adams, 466–70.

  WASHINGTON SEEMED CHEERFUL Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson, 98.

  “THE PRESIDENT IS FORTUNATE” PTJ, XXIX, 255. Washington’s retirement from power was an epochal event for the country and for those who had fought for him and with him in war and peace. Jefferson assessed his old chief with a cold eye:

  Such is the popularity of the President that the people will support him in whatever he will do, or will not do, without appealing to their own reason or to any thing but their feelings towards him: his mind had been so long used to unlimited applause that it could not brook contradiction, or even advice offered unasked. To advice, when asked, he is very open. I have long thought therefore it was best for the republican interest to soothe him by flattery where they could approve his measures, and to be silent where they disapprove, that they may not render him desperate as to their affections, and entirely indifferent to their wishes; in short, to lie on their oars while he remains at the helm, and let the bark drift as his will and a superintending providence shall direct. (Ibid., 252.)

  “THE SECOND OFFICE” Ibid., 362. “When I retired from this place and the office of Secretary of State, it was in the firmest contemplation of never more returning here,” Jefferson told Gerry. “There had indeed been suggestions in the public papers that I was looking towards a succession to the President’s chair. But feeling a consciousness of their falsehood, and observing that the suggestions came from hostile quarters, I considered them as intended merely to excite public odium against me. I never in my life exchanged a word with any person on the subject till I found my name brought forward generally in competition with that of Mr. Adams.” (Ibid.)

  From Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry wrote of his pleasure at Jefferson’s election and offered the kind of wisdom most readily available from those familiar with politics but distant from the unfolding drama of the day. “Thus circumstanced, give me leave to express my apprehensions that the consequence of this election will be repeat[ed stratagems, to] weaken or destroy the confidence of the P and VP in each other, from an assurance that if it continues to the end of the President’s administration the VP will be his successor and perhaps from a dread of your political influence.” (Ibid., 326.)

  ADAMS AND JEFFERSON DINED Ibid., 552.

  “HE IMMEDIATELY SAID” Ibid. Responding specifica
lly to the suggestion that there might be tensions between him and Adams, Jefferson said: “These machinations will proceed from the Hamiltonians by whom he is surrounded, and who are only a little less hostile to him than to me.… I cannot help fearing that it is impossible for Mr. Adams to believe that the state of my mind is what it really is; that he may think I view him as an obstacle in my way.” (Ibid., 362.)

  HE FOUGHT TO KEEP THE PEACE EOL, 272–75.

  THE QUASI-WAR WITH FRANCE Ibid., 245–46.

  “THE HALF WAR WITH FRANCE” Ibid., 245.

  RETAINED WASHINGTON’S CABINET McCullough, John Adams, 471–72.

  THIS PROVED PROBLEMATIC It was, McCullough wrote, “one of the most fateful steps of his presidency.” (Ibid., 471.)

  REFLECTING ON THE EVENING CONVERSATION Ibid.

  PATSY RANDOLPH HAD THREE CHILDREN Kierner, Martha Jefferson Randolph, 102.

  “CONSTANTLY RESIDES WITH HER FATHER” Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, Social Life in the Early Republic (Williamstown, Mass., 1970), 110.

  THE NEXT YEAR POLLY MARRIED JOHN WAYLES EPPES TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/maria-jefferson-eppes (accessed 2012).

  NINE MONTHS AND TWO WEEKS LATER Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of Monticello, 530–36. As Gordon-Reed noted, the original William Beverley had been a great Virginian who had known Peter Jefferson and had negotiated the Treaty of Lancaster, the instrument by which Virginia took vast swaths of lands in the West from the Six Nations of the Iroquois. Naming his son Beverly honored Virginia and two other things of immense importance to Jefferson: his father and his vision of a boundless West. (Ibid.)

  “I HAVE BEEN FOR SOME TIME” Ibid., XXX, 129.

  “A FEW INDIVIDUALS OF NO FIXED SYSTEM” Ibid., XXIX, 437–38. Yet Jefferson still sought a degree of harmony and civility. “Political dissension is doubtless a less evil than the lethargy of despotism: but still it is a great evil, and it would be as worthy the efforts of the patriot as of the philosopher, to exclude its influence if possible, from social life,” he wrote. (Ibid., 404.)

  “A DETERMINATION NEVER TO DO” Randall, Jefferson, I, 22–23.

  “WHEN THIS IS IN RETURN” Ibid.

  A CATACLYSMIC REACTION IN FRANCE EOL, 239.

  “I ANTICIPATE THE BURNING” PTJ, XXIX, 404–5.

  MAZZEI PUBLICIZED THE WASHINGTON LETTER Ibid., 73–88.

  “THE PASSIONS ARE TOO HIGH” Ibid., 456.

  USING A NEW YELLOW FEVER EPIDEMIC PTJ, XXIX, 592. “Ambition is so vigilant, and where it has a model always in view as in the present case”—Madison and Jefferson thought that Adams saw himself in a monarchial light—“is so prompt in seizing its advantages, that it cannot be too closely watched, or too vigorously checked.” (Ibid.)

  “DAMN ’EM, DAMN ’EM” Ibid., 593.

  “ ‘FOR MY PART … I AVOW MYSELF A MONARCHIST’ ” Ibid., 596.

  TWENTY-NINE · THE REIGN OF WITCHES

  “NO, I THINK A PARTY IS NECESSARY” PTJ, XXX, 420.

  A DISTURBING STORY ABOUT 1787 Ibid., 13–14.

  THE FAILURE OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT Ibid. “They wished things to get more and more into confusion to justify the violent measure they proposed.” (Ibid., 14)

  SPAT IN THE FACE OF ANOTHER James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, N.Y., 1966), 223–24. See also EOL, 227–30.

  AFTER GRISWOLD INSULTED LYON’S COURAGE James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters, 223–24.

  AN EFFORT TO EXPEL LYON Ibid.

  ATTACKED LYON WITH A CANE EOL, 229.

  SEIZED SOME FIREPLACE TONGS Ibid.

  BRAWLED ON THE HOUSE FLOOR Ibid.

  A DIPLOMATIC MISSION TO FRANCE HAD FAILED Ibid., 243.

  “PRODUCED SUCH A SHOCK” Ibid.

  A MESSAGE CALLING ON AMERICANS John Adams, “Special Message,” March 19, 1798, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=65650 (accessed 2012).

  “ADOPT WITH PROMPTITUDE” Ibid.

  “OUR SEAFARING AND COMMERCIAL CITIZENS” Ibid.

  KNOWN AS THE ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS EOL, 249, 259. See also Risjord, Jefferson’s America, 292–96.

  “WRITE, PRINT, UTTER OR PUBLISH” Ibid., 259.

  “EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT” PTJ, XXX, 434–35.

  “HOW INCREDIBLE WAS IT” PTJ, XXXI, 445.

  FINES UP TO $2,000 AND UP TO TWO YEARS IN PRISON EOL, 259.

  “FOR MY OWN PART” PTJ, XXX, 560.

  THE DANGER OF WAR WAS REAL EOL, 259. “There existed a domestic—what shall I call it?—a conspiracy, a faction leagued with a foreign power to effect a revolution or a subjugation of this country, by the arms of that foreign power,” said Robert Goodloe Harper. (Ibid.)

  “THE MANAGEMENT OF FOREIGN RELATIONS” PTJ, XXX, 348.

  JEFFERSON DINED WITH ADAMS Ibid., 113.

  “WITHOUT WISHING TO DAMP” PTJ, XXXI, 129. Of Adams, James Madison said: “His language to the young men of Philadelphia is the most abominable and degrading that could fall from the lips of the first magistrate of an independent people, and particularly from a Revolutionary patriot.… The abolition of royalty was it seems not one of his Revolutionary principles.” (Ibid., XXX, 359.)

  “I AM AMONG THOSE” Ibid., 127.

  THESE WERE “BRANCHES OF SCIENCE” Ibid., 127.

  “THE GENERATION WHICH IS GOING OFF” Ibid., 128.

  A PARADE OF ABOUT 1,200 SUPPORTERS Ibid., XXX, 341–42.

  A FAST DAY Ibid.

  VIOLENCE BROKE OUT Ibid.

  “ADAMS’ FAST” Warren, Jacobin and Junto, 75.

  “A FRAY ENSUED” PTJ, XXX, 341.

  CONSPIRATORIAL FRAME OF MIND Ibid., 353. He understood that Adams was attempting to orchestrate public opinion. “All sorts of artifices have been descended to, to agitate the popular mind,” Jefferson wrote Madison on May 17, 1798. “The President received 3 anonymous letters (written probably by some of the war-men) announcing plots to burn the city on the fast-day. He thought them worth being made known, and great preparations were proposed by way of caution.… Many weak people packed their most valuable movables to be ready for transportation.” (Ibid.)

  “I KNOW THAT ALL MY MOTIONS” Ibid., 484.

  FEARED HIS MAIL Ibid., 588. “Yet the infidelities of the post office and the circumstances of the times are against my writing fully and freely, whilst my own indispositions are as much against writing mysteries innuendoes and half confidences,” Jefferson said. “I know not which mortifies me most, that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things.” (Ibid.)

  “EXECUTED WITH UNRELENTING FURY” Ibid., 440.

  HAMILTON WAS TO BECOME Ibid., 300.

  HAMILTON ULTIMATELY DECLINED Ibid., 302.

  “POLITICS AND PARTY HATREDS” Ibid., 355.

  JEFFERSON WAS PRESSED FOR CASH Ibid., 277.

  “MR. B’S HABITUAL INTOXICATION” Ibid., 15.

  ANNOUNCED THE DEATH OF HARRIET HEMINGS Ibid., 43.

  JEFFERSON COMPOSED A LETTER Ibid., XXXI, 172–74.

  THE BIRTH OF ANOTHER CHILD Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of Monticello, 73, 195.

  “THE X. Y. Z. FEVER” Ibid., 559–60.

  MONCK WAS A NOBLEMAN WHO BACKED THE RESTORATION For more of the letter that alluded to the Oliverians and to Monck, see PTJ, XXX, 559–60.

  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BACHE James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters, 188–204.

  JAMES THOMSON CALLENDER Ibid., 334–58.

  MATTHEW LYON Ibid., 225–46.

  A LETTER HE HAD WRITTEN Ibid., 226.

  “CONTINUAL GRASP FOR POWER” Ibid.

  “A SEDITIOUS FOREIGNER” Ibid.

  LYON WAS INDICTED, TRIED, AND CONVICTED Ibid., 229–38. Steven Thomson Mason reported public rea
ction to Jefferson on November 23, 1798: “Lyon’s trial has produced a very strong sensation here, and many who have valued themselves on being friends of order and supporters of government admit that this is going too far.” (PTJ, XXX, 586.)

  FOUR MONTHS IN JAIL Ibid., 235.

  FINED HIM $1,000 Ibid. Paterson also charged Lyon court costs of $60.96.

  “MATTHEW LYON, AS A MEMBER” Ibid.

  “I KNOW NOT” Ibid., 237.

  SOUGHT REELECTION Ibid., 238–42.

  “WHAT PERSON WHO REMEMBERS” PTJ, XXXI, 57.

  “PRAY, MY DEAR SIR” Ibid., XXX, 641.

  SECRETLY DRAFTED RESOLUTIONS Ibid., 529–56.

  BALKED AT THE NULLIFICATION LANGUAGE Ibid., XXXI, 266–68.

  “IN THE SENATE, THERE WAS A CONSIDERABLE” Ibid., 266.

  “I THINK WE SHOULD” Ibid., XXX, 580.

  “IN EVERY FREE AND DELIBERATING SOCIETY” Ibid., 388–89.

  “NO ONE CAN KNOW” Margaret Bayard Smith, First Forty Years, 406.

  “I AM FOR FREEDOM OF RELIGION” PTJ, XXX, 646–47.

  HE SOLICITED FRIENDS Ibid., 661.

  DISCUSSED PUBLIC-OPINION STRATEGIES PTJ, XXXI, 10. One example: “A piece published in Bache’s paper on foreign influence has had the greatest currency and effect,” Jefferson wrote Madison on February 5, 1799. (Ibid.)

  “SENSIBLE THAT THIS SUMMER” Ibid.

  “I WISH YOU TO GIVE THESE” APE, I, 63. He begged Madison to write letters he could then circulate. “You can render such incalculable services in this way.” (PTJ, XXXI, 10.) The mobilization of public sentiment was a powerful weapon. On February 13, 1799, Jefferson wrote: “A wonderful and rapid change is taking place in Pennsylvania, Jersey and N. York. Congress is daily plied with petitions against the Alien and Sedition laws and standing armies.… The materials now bearing on the public mind will infallibly restore it to its republican soundness in the course of the present summer, if the knowledge of facts can only be disseminated among the people.” Jefferson repeated the point to Pendleton the next day. (Ibid., 35–39.)

  “A DECIDED CHARACTER” PTJ, XXXI, 40.

  THIRTY · ADAMS VS. JEFFERSON REDUX

  “I SHOULD BE UNFAITHFUL” PTJ, XXXII, 126. Jefferson continued: “The first wish of my heart is to see them so guarded as to be safe in any hands, and not to depend on the personal disposition of the depository: and I hope this to be practicable as long as the people retain the spirit of freedom.… Our chief object at present should be to reconcile the divisions which have been artificially excited and to restore society to its wonted harmony.” (Ibid., 126–27.)