Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
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“IN A STATE APPROACHING INSANITY” Ibid., 127.
COULD BE VICIOUS Crawford, Twilight at Monticello, 127.
FOR REFUSING TO HAND OVER THE KEYS Bear, Jefferson at Monticello, 94.
PATSY TRIED TO CALM Ibid.
BANKHEAD GOT INTO A FIGHT Crawford, Twilight at Monticello, 166–67.
“WITH RESPECT TO BANKHEAD” Ibid., 171.
“I THINK, WITH YOU” Cappon, Adams-Jefferson Letters, 467.
“I STEER MY BARK” Ibid.
“I ENJOY GOOD HEALTH” Ibid., 484.
“I DARE NOT LOOK BEYOND” PTJRS, VII, 217–18.
“SOME MEN LOOK” TJ to H. Tompkinson (Samuel Kercheval), July 12, 1816. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, http://retirementseries.dataformat.com (accessed 2011).
“THE FACT IS” TJ to Benjamin Waterhouse, March 3, 1818. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
BURNING OF THE ROUGHLY 3,000 BOOKS JHT, VI, 172.
6,487 VOLUMES Ibid., 176.
“FOR ITS SELECTION” Ibid., 177.
IT WAS A UNIVERSITY Randall, Jefferson, III, 462–63, details the organizational foundations.
TO “FORM THE STATESMEN” Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia Commissioners: The Rockfish Gap Report, August 4, 1818. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
“I KNOW NO” TJ to William C. Jarvis, September 28, 1820. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
“I THINK BY FAR” PTJ, X, 244–45. In 1814, he told Thomas Cooper: “I have long had under contemplation, and been collecting materials for the plan of a university in Virginia which should comprehend all the sciences useful to us, and none others.” (PTJRS, VII, 127.)
“THIS INSTITUTION WILL BE” TJ to William Roscoe, December 27, 1820. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
“FOR HERE WE ARE NOT” Ibid.
“IF OUR LEGISLATURE” TJ to Joseph C. Cabell, January 22, 1820. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011). Jefferson initially hoped the university was the capstone of a broader system of public education, a cause to which he had been devoted for decades. “Were it necessary to give up either the Primaries or the University, I would rather abandon the last,” he said in January 1823. “Because it is safer to have a whole people respectably enlightened, than a few in a high state of science and the many in ignorance. This last is the most dangerous state in which a nation can be. The nations and governments of Europe are so many proofs of it.” Ibid., January 13, 1823.
RODE THROUGH “A PERFECT HURRICANE” Elizabeth Trist to Nicholas P. Trist, March 9, 1819. Published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
SAID TO HAVE INSTALLED A TELESCOPE Randall, Jefferson, III, 473.
THE STATE’S RELIGIOUS WORLD REACTED Ibid., 465.
HE OFFERED A BRILLIANT PLAN Ibid., 468–69.
“I REJOICE THAT” TJ to Benjamin Waterhouse, June 26, 1822. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
“IS BECOME THE FAVORITE BEVERAGE” TJ to Edmund Rogers, February 14, 1824. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
“WERE I TO BE THE FOUNDER” TJ to Thomas B. Parker, May 15, 1819. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
“IS KNOWN TO” Randall, Jefferson, III, 440.
A FORTY-SIX-PAGE WORK The Jefferson Bible, 27. This Smithsonian edition is an elegant and engaging volume.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF JESUS Randall, Jefferson, III, 654.
A MORE AMBITIOUS WORK The Jefferson Bible, 26–31.
“THE RELIGION OF JESUS” TJ to Jared Sparks, November 4, 1820, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.
A CHURCHGOER WHO CARRIED Meacham, American Gospel, 278.
“OF A SECT BY MYSELF” Ibid., 4.
JEFFERSON HOPED THAT Johann N. Neem, “A Republican Reformation: Thomas Jefferson’s Civil Religion and the Separation of Church from State” in Cogliano, ed. A Companion to Thomas Jefferson, 91–109, is a excellent essay on the complexities of Jefferson’s thinking on these matters.
“THE TRUTH IS THAT” Cappon, Adams-Jefferson Letters, 594.
“MAY WE MEET THERE AGAIN” Neem, “A Republican Reformation: Thomas Jefferson’s Civil Religion and the Separation of Church from State” in Cogliano, ed. Companion to Thomas Jefferson, 97.
“THE DOCTRINES OF JESUS ARE SIMPLE” Ibid., 103.
“BOLD IN THE PURSUIT” PTJRS, VII, 191.
“IT IS TOO LATE IN THE DAY” Ford, Writings, IX, 412–14.
DONATED MONEY TO THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY PTJRS, VII, 178.
HE WAS FELLED Randall, Jefferson, III, 453.
“THE BOISTEROUS SEA OF LIBERTY” TJ to Richard Rush, October 20, 1820. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
FORTY-TWO · THE KNELL OF THE UNION
“FROM THE BATTLE OF BUNKER’S HILL” Randall, Jefferson, III, 454. .
“I HAVE MUCH CONFIDENCE” TJ to François Barbé de Marbois, June 14, 1817. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
“LIKE A FIRE BELL IN THE NIGHT” TJ to John Holmes, April 22, 1820. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
“THE CESSION OF THAT KIND” Randall, Jefferson, III, 456.
“THE BANKS, BANKRUPT LAW” Cappon, Adams-Jefferson Letters, 548–49.
THE RESOLUTION WAS A COMPROMISE Howe, Wrought, 147–60. See also Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 231–40, and Robert Pierce Forbes, The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2007).
“IT IS NOT A MORAL QUESTION” TJ to the Marquis de Lafayette, December 26, 1820. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, http://retirementseries.dataformat.com (accessed 2011).
“THE LEADERS OF FEDERALISM” Randall, Jefferson, III, 457. “They are taking advantage of the virtuous feelings of the people to effect a division of parties by a geographical line; they expect that this will insure them, on local principles, the majority they could never obtain on principles of Federalism,” said Jefferson. Ibid.
“A HIDEOUS BLOT” TJ to William Short, September 8, 1823. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, http://retirementseries.dataformat.com (accessed 2011).
“THIS, MY DEAR SIR” PTJRS, VII, 604. The plan had been proposed by Edward Coles.
“THERE IS NOTHING I WOULD NOT SACRIFICE” PTJRS, VII, 652.
“NOTHING IS MORE CERTAINLY WRITTEN” Jefferson, Writings, 44.
AN INTRINSIC “DEGRADATION” PTJRS, VII, 603.
RENDERING MORAL JUDGMENTS IN RETROSPECT I am indebted to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., for this insight. “Self-righteousness in retrospect is easy—also cheap,” he used to say.
BEGINNING WITH ROBERT CARTER See Andrew Levy, The First Emancipator: The Forgotten Story of Robert Carter, the Founding Father Who Freed His Slaves (New York, 2005).
T
HE POLITICIANS OF THE NORTH Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 218–22. See also Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom (New York, 1998), 84–94.
“THE SOUTHERN INTEREST” Sharp, “Unraveling the Mystery of Jefferson’s Letter of April 27, 1795,” 411–18.
“I DO NOT SAY THIS” Randall, Jefferson, III, 499.
“WHERE THE DISEASE IS MOST” Ford, Writings, IX, 516.
“THE MARCH OF EVENTS” TJ to Frances Wright, August 7, 1825. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
PERSONAL DEBT WAS ANOTHER ENDURING IRONY Herbert E. Sloan, Principle and Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt (New York, 1995), is the standard account. See also TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/debt (accessed 2012); and Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of Monticello, 629–35.
PLANTERS OF HIS TIME AND PLACE Robert E. Brown and B. Katherine Brown, Virginia, 1705–1786: Democracy or Aristocracy? (East Lansing, Mich., 1964), 96–124.
THE GROWING OF TOBACCO See, for instance, T. H. Breen, Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution (Princeton, N.J., 1987); and TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/crops-monticello (accessed 2012).
TRIED TO MOVE AWAY Ibid.
ALWAYS GREW THE CROP FB, 255–310.
A CONFLUENCE OF FACTORS TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/crops-monticello (accessed 2012). See also Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of Monticello, 316–17.
WORTH £4,000 Sloan, Principle and Interest, 18.
SKYROCKETING INFLATION Ibid., 16.
“BUT A SHADOW” Ibid.
THE DEBT REMAINED Virginia law protected him from British creditors, even under the Treaty of Paris. The signing of the Constitution, however, made him vulnerable to collection, and is probably part of the reason he asked to return from France in late 1788. At home he would be better able to manage the farming at Monticello and to bring his finances into order. (Ibid., 16–17, 21.) See also http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/debt and Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of Monticello, 629–35.
“BY THE SMOOTH HANDLE” Randall, Jefferson, III, 525.
THE PROSPECT OF RUIN WAS REAL Sloan, Principle and Interest, 3–12. See also Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of Monticello, 629–35, and JHT, VI, 301–16 and 473–78.
EVEN MORE EAGER TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-university-virginia.
“AS WELL AS HE DID 10 YEARS AGO” Elizabeth Trist to Nicholas P. Trist, March 9, 1819. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).
“THE PAPERS TELL US” Randall, Jefferson, III, 476.
HE PUT A FOOT WRONG Ibid., 486–87.
“DURING SUMMER” Ibid., 476.
“LIKE OTHER YOUNG PEOPLE” Cappon, Adams-Jefferson Letters, 613–14.
“WE HAVE BEEN TOO CARELESS” Randall, Jefferson, III, 488.
CROSSING THE RIVANNA Virginia J. Randolph (Trist) to Nicholas Philip Trist, May 13, 1823. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, http://retirementseries.dataformat.com (accessed 2011).
IN OCTOBER 1823 HE ANSWERED Randall, Jefferson, III, 491. See also T. R. Schellenberg, “Jeffersonian Origins of the Monroe Doctrine,” Hispanic American Historical Review 14 (February 1934): 1–31.
“THE QUESTION PRESENTED” Randall, Jefferson, III, 491.
“YOU ARE NOT TO BELIEVE” IbID., 495.
JEFFERSON FAVORED CRAWFORD Howe, Wrought, 203. See also JHT, VI, 431–32.
JACKSON’S CHARGES OF A “CORRUPT BARGAIN” See, for instance, Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 254–57.
ARRIVING AT MONTICELLO TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/lafayettes-visit-to-monticello-1824 (accessed 2012). I am indebted to these accounts for my portrait of the visit. See also Randall, Jefferson, III, 503. For a general account of Lafayette’s journey to America, see Howe, WroughT, 304–5.
AT A BANQUET IN LAFAYETTE’S HONOR Randall, Jefferson, III, 504.
“HIS DEEDS IN THE WAR” IBID.
“BORN AND BRED AMONG YOUR FATHERS” IBID.
“IN CONVERSATION” Ibid., 506.
“I FEEL MUCH ALARMED” IBID.
“I CANNOT PRETEND” IBID., 507.
COSIGNED A NOTE FOR $20,000 Ibid., 533–35. Randall is my source for the Nicholas EpISODE.
THE MARKET WAS BAD For the story of the lottery, see JHT, VI, 473–82, 488, 495–96, 511.
HE HAD BEEN, PATSY SAID IbId., 473.
IN AN APPEAL TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY Ibid., 473–78.
TO HIS HORROR IBID., 479.
WAS IN CHARGE OF THE ARRANGEMENTS IBId.
ASKED TO SEND COUNSEL TO A YOUNG NAMESAKE Randall, Jefferson, III, 524–25.
IN A BIZARRE EPISODE IbiD., 540.
“THE REVOLUTION IN PUBLIC OPINION” Jefferson, Writings, 1516. The occasion was a letter to James Heaton dated May 20, 1826.
“IT IS NOW THREE WEEKS” Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas Jefferson,” 63–79.
STILL, HE REFUSED TO GIVE UP Randall, Jefferson, III, 538.
ORGANIZERS OF THE WASHINGTON CELEBRATIONS Jefferson, WritingS, 1516.
“ALL EYES ARE OPENED” Ibid., 1517.
“TAKE CARE OF ME WHEN DEAD” IbId., 1515.
A DIFFERENT PASSION: WINE J. Jefferson Looney, “Thomas Jefferson’s Last Letter,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 112, no. 2 (2004): 178–84.
HE CONTINUED TO READ Randall, Jefferson, III, 539.
FORTY-THREE · NO, DOCTOR, NOTHING MORE
“THE LOSS OF MR. JEFFERSON” Randall, Jefferson, III, 551.
JEFFERSON PAINFULLY PUT PEN TO PAPER Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas JefferSOn,” 65.
THE DOCTOR SAID HE WAS “APPREHENSIVE” IBID.
HIS DAUGHTER SAT WITH HIM DURING THE DAY Randall, Jefferson, III, 543.
THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH, JR., THE MAN WHO Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas JeffersON,” 66.
“HIS MIND WAS ALWAYS CLEAR” Randall, Jefferson, III, 543.
JEFFERSON TOLD HIS GRANDSON IbID., 544.
LEE WAS ON A MISSION VTM, 108.
PATSY STOPPED LEE IbiD., 108–9.
HE WAS “NEVER MORE TO BEHOLD” IbID., 109.
JEFFERSON, LYING IN HIS BED IBID.
“MY EMOTIONS AT APPROACHING” IBID.
JEFFERSON COULD NOT HELP LEE IbiD., 108–9.
AN INTRIGUING DETAIL Ibid., 109–10.
“MRS. RANDOLPH AFTERWARDS TOLD ME” IbId., 110.
HE SAID GOOD-BYE Randall, Jefferson, III, 543–44.
“GEORGE DOES NOT” IbiD., 544.
“LORD, NOW LETTEST THOU THY SERVANT” IbID., 547.
THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH SUGGESTED IbiD., 543.
“DO NOT IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT” IBID.
“THAT ETERNAL SLEEP” TJ to William Short, May 5, 1816. Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessEd 2012).
HE AWOKE TO A NOISE Randall, Jefferson, III, 543.
HE HAD COMPOSED A POEM TDLTJ, 429. Also see Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas JeffeRSON,” 73.
MUSED ABOUT THE REVOLUTION Randall, Jefferson, III, 543.
HIS BED CURTAINS, HE NOTED IbID.
“A FEW HOURS MORE” IBid.
AT FIVE FORTY-FIVE P.M. ON THE SECOND Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas JefferSoN,” 73.
HE SLEPT FITFULLY IBId.
THEN, ON THE EVENING OF THE THIRD Randall, Jefferson, III, 548.
JEFFERSON TOOK WHAT
WOULD BE Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas JeffersOn,” 73.
“OH GOD” Nicholas P. Trist to Joseph Coolidge, “His Bedside, July 4th, 1826,” University of Virginia, Correspondence of Ellen Wayles Randolph COoliDGE.
“NO, DOCTOR, NOTHING MORE” Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas JefferSOn,” 74.
THE REMAINING THREE HOURS IbID., 75.
“THIS IS THE FOURTH? IBID.
TRIST COULD NOT BRING HIMSELF IBID.
MURMURING ABOUT THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF SAFETY Ibid., 74–75.
“WARN THE COMMITTEE” Randall, Jefferson, III, 546.
AT FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas JefferSoN,” 75.
AT TEN HE STIRRED IbiD.
IT WAS BURWELL COLBERT Randall, Jefferson, III, 544. Also see Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of Monticello, 650–51.
AT TEN MINUTES BEFORE ONE O’CLOCK Randall, Jefferson, III, 542.
HE DIED WITH HIS EYES OPEN IbID., 544.
THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH TOUCHED IBId.
NICHOLAS TRIST QUIETLY CLIPPED Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas JefferSOn,” 76.
THE WOODEN COFFIN BUILT BY JOHN HEMINGS Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of MonticELLo, 651.
THE COFFIN WAS TAKEN TO THE PARLOR Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas JeffersOn,” 77.
“TO ME HE HAS BEEN MORE” Randall, Jefferson, III, 551.
“HE LIVES AND WILL LIVE” IbiD., 550.
“HE OUGHT TO BE REVERED” VTM, 102–3.
WORMLEY HUGHES, THE GARDENER, DUG Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of MonticeLLo, 652.
THE WEATHER HAD BEEN WET Bear, “Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas JeffeRSOn,” 77.
GOT A LATE START IbID., 78.
A SMALL GROUP IbiD., 77–78.
READ THE BURIAL OFFICE Ibid., 78.
“ ‘I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE’ ” IbID.
IN HIS LIFE AND IN HIS WILL JEFFERSON Gordon-Reed, Hemingses of MonticellO, 649–51.
THE FOUR CHILDREN OF JEFFERSON AND SALLY’S TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/sally-hemings (accessed 2012). This article is based on the research of Lucia STANTOn.