by Jon Meacham
JEFFERSON REPLIED, POLITELY Cappon, Adams-Jefferson Letters, 269–71.
ABIGAIL ADAMS WROTE HIM AGAIN Ibid, 271–74.
JEFFERSON REPLIED Ibid., 275.
JOHN ADAMS LEARNED OF IT Cappon, Adams-Jefferson Letters, 282. On November 19, 1804, Adams wrote: “The whole of this correspondence was begun and conducted without my knowledge or suspicion. Last evening and this morning at the desire of Mrs. Adams I read the whole. I have no remarks to make upon it at this time and in this place.” (Ibid.)
IN WEEHAWKEN, NEW JERSEY Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 700–5.
THE PUBLIC REACTION TO HAMILTON’S DEATH Ibid., 710–14.
“THE GREATEST AND MOST VIRTUOUS” JHT, IV, 425–26.
HIS HUGE NEW YORK FUNERAL Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 711–13.
“SEIZED THE MOMENT” Cappon, Adams-Jefferson Letters, 488.
“WE HAD INDEED” JHT, IV, 430.
MORE IMMEDIATE ISSUE WAS BURR David O. Stewart, American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America (New York, 2011), 124–33.
BURR WANTED TO “EFFECT” Anthony Merry to Lord Hawkesbury, August 6, 1804, FO 5/42, National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew.
“I SINCERELY REGRET” TJ to Elbridge Gerry, March 3, 1804, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC; at foot of text: “Elbridge Gerry esq.”
GEORGE CLINTON REPLACED BURR APE, I, 82–83.
THE CHILD OF IRISH IMMIGRANTS Bowers, Jefferson in Power, 257–58.
FIELDED CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY APE, I, 83–84.
THE PRESIDENT WAS REELECTED Ibid.
“THERE IS A PLOT” “A Friend of the Constitution” to TJ, December 6, 1804, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
“THE POWER OF THE ADMINISTRATION” Bowers, Jefferson in Power, 266.
“WE HAVE BUT FEW” TJ to Martha Jefferson Randolph, January 7, 1805, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City.
“WE ENTERED YOUNG” TJ to John Langdon, January 9, 1805, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
WAS DRESSED WELL William Plumer’s Memorandum of Proceedings in the United States Senate, 1803–1807, ed. Everett Somerville Brown (New York, 1969), 211–13.
“HE WAS TODAY RESERVED” Ibid.
“WE DROVE THEM” Augustus Foster to Elizabeth Cavendish, December 2, 1805, Augustus Foster Papers, LOC.
VICE PRESIDENT BURR TOOK HIS LEAVE Isenberg, Fallen Founder, 279–82.
“HE CAN NEVER” William Plumer’s Memorandum, 213.
“ALL IS NOW BUSINESS” TJ to John Glendy, March 3, 1805, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
“THE SUCCESSOR OF MONTEZUMA” Augustus Foster to Frederick Foster, July 1, 1805, Augustus Foster Papers, LOC.
DRESSED IN BLACK Ibid.
ON HORSEBACK Ibid.
SPEAKING TOO SOFTLY Ibid.
“DURING THIS COURSE” Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805, LOC.
“ALL THOSE WHO CHOSE ATTENDED” Augustus Foster to Frederick Foster, July 1, 1805, Augustus Foster Papers, LOC.
SOME MUSIC CAPPED THE DAY Ibid.
“MY OPINION ORIGINALLY” TJ to John Taylor, January 6, 1805, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
“I HAVE SINCE BECOME” Ibid.
“IT BEING THE WISH” William Clark to TJ, April 3, 1805, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
“I CAN FORESEE NO MATERIAL” Meriwether Lewis to TJ, April 7, 1805, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
A COLLECTION OF ARTIFACTS Thomas Jefferson’s List of Items Sent by William Clark, November 10, 1807, Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts, Massachusetts Historical Society.
“THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY” William Eustis to TJ, August 17, 1805, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
CLARK STAKED THE CLAIM The Journals of Lewis and Clark, ed. John Bakeless (New York, 2002), 283. See also Smelser, Democratic Republic, 128.
FROM LONDON HE ORDERED List of Items to be Acquired in London, 1805, The Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.
A ROOM IN THE MANSION FOR FOSSILS TJ to Caspar Wistar, Jr., March 20, 1808, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
SKULLS, JAWBONES AND TEETH Ibid.
“ONE HORN OF A COLOSSAL ANIMAL” Ibid.
“THE BONES ARE SPREAD” Ibid.
PURCHASED TWO BABY BEAR CUBS Zebulon Pike to TJ, February 3, 1808, Editorial Files, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Princeton University.
“I WOULD RECOMMEND IF PRACTICABLE” Ibid.
“I PUT THEM TOGETHER WHILE HERE” TJ to Charles Willson Peale, February 6, 1808, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
“WE CERTAINLY ARE NOT TO DENY” TJ to Daniel Salmon, February 15, 1808, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
“THE ACTUAL PRESIDENT” Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, IV, 509.
“A JEALOUS SENSE OF PRAISE AND CENSURE” Edward Thornton to Lord Hawkesbury, August 4, 1802, FO 5/35, National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew.
“WELL-PLACED TO BE CONSIDERED” Ibid.
“I REALLY BELIEVE” Ibid.
“WILL YOU COME AND TAKE” TJ to John Breckinridge, March 5, 1806, Whelpley Collection, Cincinnati Historical Society.
THE CROAKING OF FROGS JHT, V, 122–24.
“AGRICULTURE, GARDENING” Margaret Bayard Smith, First Forty Years, 50.
“WHAT WOULD YOU THINK” TJ to James Madison, Albert Gallatin, and Henry Dearborn, February 28, 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE YOUNG TJ to John Carr, April 28, 1807, University of Virginia.
TENSIONS WITH SPAIN EOL, 374–75.
THE FATE OF THE FLORIDAS Ibid.
FINANCIAL CLAIMS Harry Ammon, James Monroe, (Charlottesville, 1990), 238–44.
MISSION OF MONROE’S TO THE SPANISH CAPITAL Message to Congress on Spanish and French Spoliations, December 6, 1805, LOC.
RISK A BROADER WAR Ibid. See also EOL, 375.
“OUR CONSTITUTION IS” JHT, V, 76.
HARASSING AMERICAN SHIPS John M. Murrin et al., Liberty, Equality, Power, 6th ed. (Boston, 2012), 218.
VICTORY AT AUSTERLITZ EOL, 621.
TRIUMPH AT TRAFALGAR Ibid.
ALLEGEDLY PLOTTING AGAINST THE UNITED STATES Isenberg, Fallen Founder, 271–316. “Personal friendship for you and the love of my country induce me to give you a warning about Col. Burr’s intrigues,” an anonymous correspondent wrote Jefferson in a letter received on the first day of December 1805.
You admit him at your table, and you held a long, and private conference with him a few days ago after dinner at the very moment he is meditating the overthrow of your administration and what is more conspiring against the state. Yes, sir, his aberrations through the Western states had no other object. A foreign agent, now at Washington, knows since February last his plans and has seconded them beyond what you are aware of. Mistrust Burr’s opinions, and advice: be thoroughly persuaded B. is a new Catilina. Watch his connections with Mr. M——y and you will find him a British pensioner, and agent. Anonymous to TJ, received December 1, 1805, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
A related development was the arrival in New York of the Spanish officer Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan-born adventurer who dreamed of building a New World empire out of all the Spanish territories. A second note from the “Friend” said:
I had forgot in my last to mention the arrival at N. York of General Miranda. This event forms a link in Burr’s maneuvers. His instructions like those of Burr come from the same source … the same plans, or others similar in their tendency are to be offered to you … Be careful; although ostensibly directed against a foreign power, the destruction of our government, your ruin, and the material injury of the Atlantic states are their true object. “A Friend” to TJ, received after December 1, 1805, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
“WHAT AN AWFUL SPECTACLE” TJ to Thomas Lomax, January 11, 1806, Thomas Je
fferson Papers, LOC.
THIRTY-SEVEN · A DEEP, DARK, AND WIDESPREAD CONSPIRACY
“THE DESIGNS OF” TJ to Caesar A. Rodney, December 5, 1806. Grata Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
BRIGHTENED BY PATSY’S FAMILY’S JHT, V, 65.
DOLLEY MADISON HAD HELPED PATSY Martha Jefferson Randolph to TJ, October 26, 1805, Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts, Massachusetts Historical Society.
TO TEND TO HIS CELLAR TJ to Jean P. Reibelt, November 16, 1805 Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE BROKE WITH JEFFERSON See, for instance, EOL, 375.
A LONGSTANDING DISPUTE INVOLVING Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 78–79. See also EOL, 128–29.
“HE CONSIDERED GREAT BRITAIN” William Plumer’s Memorandum, 443–44.
STRUCK AGAIN THE NEXT DAY Ibid., 444.
“SIT DOWN, SIR, I SAY SIT DOWN” Irving Brant, James Madison, IV (New York, 1961), 316.
“ASTONISHED ALL HIS HEARERS Ibid., 315.
AS EITHER THE “QUIDS” EOL, 428. The new division in Washington worried some Republicans. “ ‘We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists’ read extremely well at the time, and I thought much good would come out of it, but I have found none,” Thomas Leiper wrote Jefferson from Philadelphia in March 1806. “Everything you do is wrong with the Leaders of that party and John Randolph.” (Thomas Leiper to TJ, March 23, 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.) Jefferson refused to overreact to the Randolph defection. “The H. of R. is as well disposed as I ever saw one,” He wrote Wilson Cary Nicholas in April. “The defection of so prominent a leader threw them into dismay and confusion for a moment, but they soon rallied to their own principles, and let him go off with 5 or 6 followers only.” (TJ to Wilson Cary Nicholas, April 13, 1806, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City.)
OR THE “OLD REPUBLICANS” JHT, V, 150.
“NEVER, IN MY OPINION” John Randolph to James M. Garnett, Jr., October 28, 1806, John Randolph Papers, LOC.
“SECRET ENEMIES” Ibid.
‘DAMNING WITH FAINT PRAISE’ Ibid. “What a tissue of intrigue, conspiracy and cabal does every day open to our view!” Randolph added.
“IS THE PRESENT EXECUTIVE PERFECT?” Ibid.
“THE MASK WHICH AMBITION HAS WORN” John Randolph to James M. Garnett, Jr., September 4, 1806, John Randolph Papers, LOC.
“THE OLD REPUBLICAN PARTY” John Randolph to James Monroe, March 26, 1808, John Randolph Papers, LOC.
THE TELLTALE HEADACHE WAS BACK JHT, V, 143.
HMS LEANDER WAS SCREENING Ibid., 115. “A letter from the Mayor of N.Y. complains of the murder lately committed, and the trespasses by the Leander, Cambrian and Driver, and asking for a naval force,” Jefferson wrote in his notes on a cabinet meeting where the administration formulated a response. Notes on a Cabinet Meeting, May 1, 1806 [LOC?].
ORDERING THE THREE Ibid.
CALLED FOR THE ARREST Ibid.
“MY PRESENT MALADY” TJ to George Logan, March 12, 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
“A LAMENESS IN THE KNEE” TJ to Lucy Lewis, May 26, 1806, Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts, Massachusetts Historical Society.
“I HAVE GOTTEN” TJ to John Wayles Eppes, May 24, 1806, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.
HAD RISEN AS USUAL Chadwick, I Am Murdered, 3. See also Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of Monticello, 592–94.
EATEN BREAKFAST Ibid., 14–15.
SICK TO HIS STOMACH Ibid., 15.
A MIXED-RACE TEENAGER NAMED MICHAEL Ibid., 16.
WAS SUSPICIOUS AND ORDERED AN AUTOPSY William Duval to TJ, June 4, 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
“I AM MURDERED” Chadwick, I Am Murdered, 16.
WYTHE “MENTIONED NO NAME” William Duval to TJ, June 8, 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
WYTHE’S PRIVATE LIFE I am indebted to Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of Monticello, 592–94, for this account.
LYDIA BROADNAX, A FREE WOMAN OF COLOR Ibid., 592.
IN WYTHE’S WILL Ibid., 592–93. Wythe had also left “property to another former slave Benjamin, who predeceased Wythe.” (Ibid., 592.)
PROVISIONS ASKING JEFFERSON TO OVERSEE THE EDUCATION Ibid., 593. Wythe also left Brown “bank stock.” (Ibid.)
THAT BROWN WAS THE SON OF BROADNAX AND WYTHE Ibid. “The exact nature of Michael Brown’s connection to Wythe and Broadnax is unknown,” wrote Gordon-Reed. “It has often been assumed that he was Wythe’s son and that Broadnax was his mother. No evidence exists to support either conclusion, however, though Wythe’s treatment of the pair was extraordinary.” (Ibid.)
“WHETHER BROWN” Ibid.
WYTHE LEFT JEFFERSON Chadwick, I Am Murdered, 162.
“GRATIFIED ME UNCEASINGLY” Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of Monticello, 593.
“SUCH AN INSTANCE OF DEPRAVITY” TJ to William Duval, June 14, 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC. Violence had cost him his friend. Soon it threatened to strike even closer to home. One day in the House of Representatives, where Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., had kept largely to himself, speaking rarely, a quarrel sprang up involving—unsurprisingly—John Randolph of Roanoke. Words were exchanged, and Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., believed himself so insulted that only a duel could resolve matters. (TJ to James Ogilvie, June 23, 1806, Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts, Massachusetts Historical Society.) The possibility both horrified and terrified Jefferson.
“It is with an aching heart I take up my pen, and this circumstance must apologize for my interference in the present case but where everything which I hold dear in this world is at stake, where the future happiness of our whole family, or their future misery unmixed and unabating, are hanging in even suspense, it must be justifiable to urge our rights to a due share of weight in your deliberations,” Jefferson wrote his son-in-law on June 23. (TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., June 23, 1806, University of Virginia.)
A duel was madness, Jefferson believed, sheer madness, but he understood he had to be delicate with his sensitive son-in-law. “Certainly I would not wish you to do what might lessen you in the esteem of the world,” Jefferson said. “But I wish you to estimate correctly the public opinion in such a case, and not to volunteer beyond what that might require or approve.” He could not keep his own emotions in check. “How different is the stake which you two would bring into the field!” Jefferson said. “On his side, unentangled in the affections of the world a single life, of no value to himself or others. On yours, yourself, a wife, and a family of children all depending, for all their happiness and protection in this world on you alone.” (Ibid.)
Finally tempers cooled sufficiently, and the matter went away. But for a time it had been yet another source of stress and strain for Jefferson—a cause of personal worry at a time of public anxiety.
A DEBILITATING DROUGHT TJ to James Madison, July 26, 1806, James Madison Papers, LOC.
“BURR IS UNQUESTIONABLY” TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., November 3, 1806, Massachusetts Historical Society.
HE WAS ALLEGEDLY Stewart, American Emperor, 134–42. “We learn that he is actually building 10 or 15 boats able to take a large gun and fit for the navigation of those waters. We give him all the attention our situation admits: as yet we have no legal proof of any overt act which the law can lay hold of.” TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., November 3, 1806, Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts, Massachusetts Historical Society.
“THIS IS INDEED” James Wilkinson to TJ, November 12, 1806, in Report of the Committee Appointed to Inquire into the Conduct of General Wilkinson (Washington, D.C., 1811), 425–28.
TO ISSUE A PROCLAMATION Proclamation on Military Expeditions against Spain, November 27, 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
WHAT WAS BURR DOING? For details, see Isenberg, Fallen Founder,
and Stewart, American Emperor.
PLUMER DINED WITH JEFFERSON William Plumer’s Memorandum, 543–44.
INCRIMINATING PAPERS JHT, V, 264.
DRAFTED A BILL “AUTHORIZING” TJ to John Dawson, December 19, 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC. “On the whole, this squall, by showing with what ease our government suppresses movements which in other countries requires armies, has greatly increased its strength by increasing the public confidence in it,” Jefferson said in February 1807. “It has been a wholesome lesson, too, to our citizens, of the necessary obedience to their government.” (Johnstone, Jefferson and the Presidency, 198.)
“STRICT LINE OF THE LAW” Message to Congress, January 22, 1807, LOC.
“GUILT IS PLACED BEYOND QUESTION” Sofaer, War, Foreign Affairs, and Constitutional Power, 191.
JEFFERSON PAID CAREFUL ATTENTION TJ to Caesar A. Rodney, March 22, 1807 private collection of William I. Davis, Newark, Ohio. “Burr, as a prisoner under a guard of 10 men, passed Coweta 800 miles from here, on the 3d inst.,” Jefferson wrote Rodney on Sunday, March 22, 1807.