One of the perplexities incidental to the employment of slave labour lay in finding something for the children to do. Mr. Jefferson’s way was perhaps as good as any. “Children till 10 years old to serve as nurses; from 10 to 16 the boys make nails, the girls spin; at 16 go into the ground [i.e. go at farm-work] or learn trades.” Mr. Jefferson’s nailery and his grist-mill on the Rivanna were the only enterprises that he operated for profit; and here again it appears that the cheapest labour is the dearest. His cost-sheet on the nailery, or “Estimate on the actual work of the autumn of 1794,” with its record of nearly one-fourth net wastage, is a remarkable exhibit of industrial inefficiency.
But what better could be done with these boys? They could not be effectively disciplined. They could not be discharged; they were slave-children, permanently on one’s hands. It was to no purpose to try to educate them beyond their slave-status; and even if one killed them off, their place would be taken almost immediately by others precisely like them.
VI
While Mr. Jefferson’s services to practical agriculture netted him little or nothing, they were of great benefit to the nation at large. Whenever he heard of a new device that bore upon farming, he promptly looked it up and wrote about it to his fellow-farmers. In the midst of the turmoil of 1793, when as Washington’s Secretary of State he saw the Administration fast going on the rocks, the country at the boiling point over the economic implications of the Constitution, and himself “worn down with labours from morning to night and day to day, knowing them as fruitless to others as they are vexatious to myself,” he asks Madison whether he had “ever taken notice of Tull’s horse-hoeing plow,” and says it is of doubtful value. Two months later, when the French minister Genêt had “thrown down the gauntlet to the President,” and one of Genêt’s consuls had employed armed force against a United States marshal in the matter of the seizure of two vessels in Boston harbour; when pestilence, of which “at first 3 out of 4 died, and now about 1 out of 3,” was ravaging Philadelphia, the temporary capital—he informs Madison that his threshing machine has arrived, and that “fortunately the workman who made it (a millwright) is come in the same vessel to settle in America. I have written to persuade him to go on immediately to Richmond, offering him the use of my model to exhibit, and to give him letters to get him into immediate employ in making them.” Shortly after this, he writes with enthusiasm about a new seed-box which “reduces the expense of seeding from six shillings to two shillings and threepence the acre, and does the business better than is possible to be done by the human hand.”
He found leisure to work out several devices of his own, but never patented one of them, “never having thought of monopolizing by patent any useful idea which happens to offer itself to me.” On the contrary, whenever he devised anything useful, he always published a description of it. Of his hemp-beater, for example, he says, “As soon as I can speak of its effect with certainty I shall probably describe it anonymously in the public papers, in order to forestall the prevention of its use by some interloping patentee.” He was stepmotherly towards patents. “Nobody wishes more than I do that ingenuity should receive a liberal encouragement,” and no doubt “an inventor ought to be allowed a right to the benefit of his invention for some certain time.” Yet on the other hand, “it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention are as fruitful . . . in new and useful devices” as England, the only country which granted them. The line between use and abuse was hard to draw; and it should in any case be drawn by “men of science” rather than by lawyers and legislators, since “we might in vain turn over all the lubberly volumes of the law to find a single ray which would lighten the path of the mechanic or the mathematician.” Mr. Jefferson’s bill of 1791 “to Promote the Progress of the Useful Arts” represented probably the best practical compromise that could be made between the interests of the inventor and those of the public; and it is no doubt due to him that the course of American patent law has borne no harder upon the public’s interests than it has.
For himself, however, he would have nothing to do with patents. He had no taste for money made out of any form of monopoly. In 1810, when the country was pursuing a policy of commercial isolation, it was a mark of high patriotism not to use imported goods. About this time, merino sheep were introduced with a view to improving the wool of domestic textiles, and the demand for them at once opened a harvest for the alert profiteer. “I have been so disgusted with the scandalous extortions lately practised in the sale of these animals, and with the ascription of patriotism and praise to the sellers, as if the thousands of dollars apiece they have not been ashamed to receive were not rewards enough, that I am disposed to consider as right whatever is the reverse of what they have done.” He accordingly writes to President Madison, suggesting a plan for the gradual co-operative distribution of the merino stock, gratis, among all the farmers of Virginia. “No sentiment is more acknowledged in the family of agriculturists than that the few who can afford it should incur the risk and expense of all new improvements, and give the benefit freely to the many of more restricted circumstances.” From doing this in the case of the merinos, he says there will “more satisfaction result to ourselves than money ever administered to the bosom of a shaver”; and then, remembering how Madison’s inveterate cautiousness was sharpened by residence in the White House, he adds characteristically, “There will be danger that what is here proposed, though but an act of ordinary duty, may be perverted into one of ostentation; but malice will always find bad motives for good actions. Shall we therefore never do good?”
He did his best to promote the culture of the fig, mulberry and sugar maple, as especially suitable to a slave-holding country, because it afforded light and appropriate labour for women and children, who were “often employed in labours disproportioned to their sex and age.”
CHART OF THE STATE OF THE VEGETABLE MARKET IN WASHINGTON FROM 1800 TO 1809
He experimented with a peach-orchard to prove that “five acres of peach trees at twenty-one feet apart will furnish dead wood enough to supply a fireplace all winter, and may be kept up at the trouble of only planting about seventy peach stones a year.” Each year that he was in the White House he kept record of the first and last appearance of every variety of vegetable—thirty-seven in all—put on sale in the Washington market; and he made a neat tabulation at the end, covering the whole period of eight years. He projected a kind of co-operative volunteer weather bureau, and actually did something with the idea, but his life was so much interrupted by long absences that it could not be fully carried out. Observing that the type of plough in general use could be improved, he worked out the mathematical formula, which still governs the shape of ploughshares, for a mould-board of least resistance. The French national institute of agriculture examined one of his ploughs, and gave him a prize for it. This plough was still on view in Paris a few years ago, and probably may be seen there even now. Timepieces were scarce among the poorer farmers of Virginia; so in 1811, while laid up with a run of rheumatism at Poplar Forest, “I have amused myself with calculating the hour-lines of a horizontal dial for the latitude of this place, which I find to be 37° 22′ 26″.” He sent the formula with directions for making the sun-dial, to a friend in Williamsburg, suggesting that it be passed along, since the calculations “would serve for all the counties in the line between that place and this, for your own place, New London, and Lynchburg in this neighbourhood.” He devised the leather buggy-top which is still in use. When phosphoric matches came out, he was among the first to try them, and he turned himself into a kind of volunteer agency for advertising and distributing them as “a beautiful discovery and very useful, especially to heads which, like yours and mine, can not at all times be got to sleep.” About this time, also, or perhaps a little later, he conferred an unintended benefit upon the bureaucracies of all civilized lands, by inventing the swivel-chair.
1 Shortly after this time, the Southern planters generally began to make studies
in industrial efficiency, and developed a highly effective technique in scientific management, although, like Molière’s hero, they did not call it by that name, or indeed, by any name. With this development came the rise of excellent agricultural journals which still repay perusal from a practical as well as an antiquarian interest. Some of their reports make depressing reading. There is, for instance, an actuarial estimate, well worked out and doubtless accurate, that the life of a labourer in the rice-fields would last eight years. In reckoning depreciation of capital, therefore, the planter calculated that his investment in a slave would evaporate in that period, and he managed accordingly.
1 Mr. Jefferson’s term had, in fact, expired two days before Tarleton’s demonstration.
Chapter III
1784-1789
I
IN 1784 John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were in Europe, as ministers plenipotentiary to negotiate treaties of commerce, struggling to revive the wilted credit of America and galvanize its palsied trade. On the seventh of May, the Congress resolved to add a third minister to its foreign staff. Age and infirmity were telling on Franklin; he wanted to come home, and it would be a hard matter to fill his place. John Adams could not be transferred to Paris; he was hardly the man to get on with the French, and he was doing so well in London that his removal would make, practically, two holes in the foreign service instead of one. Of the few men available—for there was no great competition among able men for this kind of position, or indeed for any position under the new Government—Mr. Jefferson seemed best qualified. Madison thought he would be willing to serve; he had already shown himself willing to go abroad as one of the peace commissioners, and it seemed likely, as Madison said, that “the death of Mrs. Jefferson had probably changed the sentiments of Mr. Jefferson with regard to public life.” This new appointment was less interesting than the place on the peace commission, and from the point of view of the practical politician it led nowhere; still, he might be induced to accept it.
The appointment really suited him, though for reasons not contemplated by the Congress. He was drifting into a bad way. For a year and a half, since his wife’s death, he had been melancholy and despondent, giving free rein to his natural turn for solitude. His only hold on public affairs was through his seat in Congress, where he became more than ever a silent member. Despondency aggravated his contempt for the ineptitute of this body, and contempt, in turn, reacted on his despondency. The Congress, he says, “was little numerous but very contentious. Day after day was wasted on the most unimportant questions.” The behaviour of “those afflicted with the morbid rage of debate” caused him to regard it as “really more questionable than may at first be thought, whether Bonaparte’s dumb legislature which said nothing and did much may not be preferable to one which talks much and does nothing.” Listless and depressed as he was, however, he did whatever came to his hand to do. Among other matters, he proposed the present monetary unit of the United States, the dollar, and the basis of the present coinage, namely: the ten-dollar gold piece, the silver dollar, the silver ten-cent piece and the copper penny. He drafted an ordinance for the temporary government of the Northwestern Territory, inserting an anti-slavery clause which was struck out by the Congress on the narrow margin of one vote. The Congress also struck out part of the provisions for admission of new States. Mr. Jefferson’s draft not only established the boundaries of these States, but did not leave even their names to “the consent of the governed.” One was to be called Pelisipia; another “within the peninsula formed by the lakes and waters of Michigan, Huron, St. Clair and Erie, shall be called Cherronesus”; another, Metropotamia; another, Polypotamia; and so on. The Congress put its shoulder manfully under this nomenclature, and heaved it out of the bill.
The appointment to France was not precisely a sinecure, yet it was not exacting. It meant prying open the French market to American rice, salt fish, salt meat, fish-oil and tobacco, on as favourable terms as possible, and getting a free entry for American products into the French West Indies. Important as it was, it was nothing that a person could work at week in and week out. Mr. Jefferson saw in it a prospect of profitable leisure, which he had his own notions about employing. His ideas are exhibited in a set of travelling notes, which he prepared later on the strength of his own experience, for Messrs. Rutledge and Shippen’s semi-official tour of Europe in 1788:
General Observations
On arriving at a town, the first thing is to buy the plan of the town, and the book noting its curiosities. Walk round the ramparts when there are any, go to the top of a steeple to have a view of the town and its environs.
When you are doubting whether a thing is worth the trouble of going to see, recollect that you will never again be so near it, that you may repent the not having seen it, but can never repent having seen it. But there is an opposite extreme, too, that is, the seeing too much. A judicious selection is to be aimed at, taking care that the indolence of the moment have no influence in the decision. Take care particularly not to let the porters of churches, cabinets, etc., lead you through all the little details of their profession, which will load the memory with trifles, fatigue the attention, and waste that and your time. It is difficult to confine these people to the few objects worth seeing and remembering. They wish for your money, and suppose you give it the more willingly the more they detail to you. . . . The people you will naturally see the most of will be tavern keepers, valets de place and postilions. These are the hackneyed rascals of every country. Of course they must never be considered when we calculate the national character.
Objects of Attention for an American
1. Agriculture. Everything belonging to this art, and whatever has a near relation to it. Useful or agreeable animals which might be transported to America. Species of plants for the farmer’s garden, according to the climate of the different States.
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, boats, bridges (very especially), etc., 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. We have only to cut out the superabundant plants.
5. Architecture. Worth great attention. As we double our numbers every twenty years, we must double our houses. Besides, we build of such perishable materials that one-half of our houses must be rebuilt in every space of twenty years, so that in that time houses are to be built for three-fourths of our inhabitants. It is, then, among the most important arts; and 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 labourers and especially at the moment of their repast; see what they eat, how they are clothed, whether they are obliged to work too hard; whether the government or their landlord takes from them an unjust proportion of their labour; on what footing stands the property they call their own, their personal liberty, etc., etc.
8. Courts. To be seen as you would see the Tower of London or menagerie of Versailles with their lions, tigers, hyænas, and other beasts of prey, standing in the same relation to their fellows. A slight acquaintance with them will suffice to show you that under the most imposing exterior, they are the weakest and worst part of mankind.
II
Mr. Jefferson l
eft for Europe from the port of Boston by the merchant sailing-vessel Ceres on the fifth of July, 1784, taking with him his oldest daughter Martha, and “the new fiddle” which he had originally contemplated purchasing in Italy. In 1771 he had seen with a hankering eye a magnificent violin in possession of a shoestring relative, one of the innumerable Randolph connexion, living in Williamsburg. John Randolph also looked covetously at certain books in Mr. Jefferson’s library. They could not agree. Mr. Jefferson could not bring himself to part with his books, nor John Randolph the violin. They finally devised an agreement for a kind of posthumous bargain or gamble; an iron-clad document from which there was neither escape nor appeal. It was attested by as many as seven witnesses, and duly recorded by the clerk of the General Court:
Jefferson Page 6