Mr. Jefferson did not distinguish this process of development, even though it went on before his eyes. He had a fanciful theory of his own concerning the natural division of men into parties. “The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people and is a Tory by nature. The healthy, strong and bold cherishes them and is a Whig by nature.” His only suggestion of an economic influence in the determination of partisanship is in a letter to Joel Barlow in 1802, and is more or less rhetorical. He there classifies “the rich and the corrupt” with the weakly and nerveless, as disposed to see “more safety and accessibility in a strong executive.” So far from seeing an economic interest in the factional divisions among Republicans and in their tendency to amalgamate with the Federalists, he said in 1805 that while the divisions are distressing, they are to be expected, because “the opinions of men are as various as their faces, and they will always find some rallying principle or point at which those nearest to it will unite, reducing themselves to two stations with a common name for each.”
Yet, curiously, no man ever drew a clearer picture of economic motive in party affiliation than Mr. Jefferson did in a letter to Professor Ebeling in 1795. Two parties, he said, exist in the United States:
They embrace respectively the following descriptions of persons. The anti-Republicans consist of:
1. The old refugees and Tories.
2. British merchants residing among us, and composing the main body of our merchants.
3. American merchants trading on British capital, another great portion.
4. Speculators, and holders in the banks and public funds.
5. Officers of the Federal Government, with some exceptions.
6. Office-hunters, willing to give up principles for places—a numerous and noisy tribe.
7. Nervous persons, whose languid fibres have more analogy with a passive than active state of things.
The Republican part of our Union comprehends:
1. The entire body of landholders throughout the United States. .
2. The body of labourers, not being landholders, whether in husbanding or the arts.
Nothing could be more obvious than the generalizations to be made from this, but more than intelligence was needed, to make them. The co-operation of the Zeitgeist was needed, and this was not yet to be had.
VI
Mr. Jefferson’s popularity was temporarily broken in his second term, but he had recovered it at the time of his retirement. He could have been re-elected, but declined to stand. There was “but one circumstance which could engage my acquisecence in another election, to wit: such a division about a successor as might bring in a monarchist”—once more his man of straw. Otherwise, Washington’s example was a good one. “If the principle of rotation be a sound one, as I conscientiously believe it to be with respect to this office, no pretext should ever be permitted to dispense with it, because there never will be a time when real difficulties will not exist, and furnish a plausible pretext for dispensation.” There was another consideration. Like many men of uncommon constitutional strength, whenever any little matter ailed him, he took it as a warning of approaching senility. “You suppose I am ‘in the prime of life for rule,’” he wrote an importunate correspondent, “I am sensible I am not; and before I am so far declined as to become insensible of it, I think it right to put it out of my own power.” He had the satisfaction, too, of knowing that Madison was the kind of successor “to whom I shall deliver the public concerns with greater joy than I received them.”
He went back to Monticello quietly and contentedly, with no pride in his achievements in office, and with a detached point of view upon the prospects for their continuance. John Adams, in one of his moments of greatness, which were many, wrote him in 1813 that “your character in history may easily be foreseen. Your Administration will be quoted by philosophers as a model of profound wisdom; by politicians, as weak, superficial and shortsighted.” Well, possibly; something of the sort might turn out to be true—who can tell? But why attempt to anticipate the definitive judgment of a long future? In the realm of the spirit as in the realm of affairs, Mr. Jefferson’s outlook was always sincerely practical. “We have set a good example,” he said, and more than that he was not disposed to say. As for the ensuing course of public affairs, he was aware that “in every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve.” One might always hope—indeed, it is one’s duty to do that—but expectations are inadmissible. “A government regulating itself by what is just and wise for the many, uninfluenced by the local and selfish views of the few who direct their affairs, has not been seen, perhaps, on earth. Or if it existed for a moment at the birth of ours, it would not be easy to fix the term of its continuance. Still, I believe it does exist here in a greater degree than anywhere else, and for its growth and continuance I offer sincere prayers,”
1 On the secular side, it is also to be noticed how promptly the familiar plea for the widows and orphans came into the campaign. “Tremble then in case of Mr. Jefferson’s election, all ye holders of public funds,” wrote one impassioned charitarian, “for your ruin is at hand. Old men who have retired to spend the evening of life upon the fruits of the industry have invested their moneys in the public debt, will be involved in one of their youth. Widows and orphans with their scanty pittances. Public banks, insurance companies, literary and charitable institutions, who, confiding in the admirable principles laid down by Hamilton and adopted by Congress, and in the solemn pledges of national honour and property, common, certain and not very distant ruin.”
1 The mob also burned in effigy Luther Martin, one of Burr’s counsel, an able jury lawyer and a mighty devotee of strong drink; and also Blen-nerhassett, the amiable amateur of music and chemistry, whom fate so sadly victimized through his casual acquaintance with Burr. The handbill inviting the public to this event is worth reproducing for the sake of its literary quality. It has been reprinted several times for other purposes, but perhaps never before for the sake of delighting a reader with the superb force and raciness of its style:
AWFUL!!!
The public are hereby notified that four choice spirits are this afternoon to be marshalled for execution by the hangman on Gallows Hill, in consequence of sentence passed against them by the unanimous voice of every honest man in the community. The respective crimes for which they suffer are thus stated in the record:
1. Chief Justice M——, for a repetition of his X. Y. Z. tricks, which are said to have been much aggravated by his strange capers in open court under pleas of irrelevancy.
2. His Quid Majesty, charged with the trifling crime of wishing to divide the Union and farm Baron Bastrop’s grant.
3. Blunderhassett, chemist and fiddler, convicted of conspiracy to destroy the tone of the public fiddle.
4th and last, but not least in crime, Lawyer Brandy-Bottle, for a false, scandalous and malicious prophecy that before six months Aaron Burr would divide the Union.
N.B. The execution of accomplices is postponed to a later day.
Chapter VII
RECOMMENCEMENTS
I
REACHING Monticello in the middle of March, “having found the roads excessively bad, although I have seen them worse,” Mr. Jefferson immediately wrote a letter to his successor in the White House, giving him news of the great world of reality outside the realm of politics. “The spring is remarkably backward,” is his first observation to the man who was facing the problems of possible war with Old England and possible secession in New England. “No oats sown, not much tobacco-seed, and little done in the gardens. Wheat has suffered considerably. No vegetation visible yet but the red maple, weeping willow and lilac. Flour is said to be at eight dollars in Richmond, and all produce is hurrying down.” War or no war, secession or no secession, men must live, and the only way the means of life can be produced is by “labouring the earth” in vigilant co-operation with the
sunshine, the air and the rain.
Mr. Jefferson at once set about picking up the sadly ravelled odds and ends of his farm work, laying out his flower-beds and gardens, and indulging his extravagant passion for architecture, both at Monticello and on his new house at Poplar Forest, in the county of Bedford. Monticello was really never finished; probably it was never meant to be finished, but to be kept as a kind of standing challenge to the ingenuity of its owner. “So I hope it will remain during my life,” he is reported to have told a visitor, “as architecture is my delight, and putting up and pulling down, one of my favourite amusements.” About the first thing he had done to occupy the “rural days in summer” which the sinecure of the Vice-Presidency afforded him, was to tear down the whole top story of Monticello and rebuild it as a votive offering to architectural style. Two weeks after his inauguration into that “honourable and easy office,” he speaks of this discomposing performance with an enthusiasm which those in charge of his housekeeping may not have shared. “I have begun the demolition of my house, and hope to get through its re-edification in the course of the summer.”
His interest in landscape-gardening and architecture began early, and its principle was as practical as that of all his interests, whether in the realm of the flesh or of the spirit. This principle appears in his travel-notes, already quoted, for the European tour of Shippen and Rutledge in 1788. Architecture, he says there, is worth great attention because the doubling of America’s population every twenty years means doubling the number of houses; “and it is desirable to introduce taste into an art which shows so much.” Houses, grounds and towns should be planned with an eye to the effect made upon the human spirit by being continually surrounded by a maximum of beauty. Mean and hideous surroundings, in other words—surroundings that reflect a low, commonplace or eccentric taste—have a debasing and dehumanizing effect upon the spirit. Cultivation of the instinct of beauty, therefore, is a primary practical concern, not only of the moralist but of the statesman; and especially so under a form of government which makes no place for the tutelage of an aristocracy.
Hence Mr. Jefferson seems always to have had a greater æsthetic delight out of the cultivation of art than out of contemplating it. “Here I am,” he playfully wrote the Comtesse de Tesse from Nîmes, in 1787, “gazing whole hours at the Maison Quarrée, like a lover at his mistress. The stocking-weavers and silk-spinners around it consider me a hypochondriac Englishman about to write with a pistol the last chapter of his history.” Yet most of his interest was that of a participant; what he really saw with his mind’s eye was a copy of the building, to be set up in Richmond from his own model, as the new State Capitol. A non-participating interest in art never touched him deeply. He left but a brief record of his admiration for certain pieces of sculpture, and of painting he says almost nothing. As he told Shippen and Rutledge, America could do little with these arts; they were as yet “too expensive for the state of wealth among us. . . . They are worth seeing but not studying.” Yet when he saw them, it was to good purpose. Writing to Macon, in 1816, concerning the costume for a statue of Washington, he recommended the Roman style, remarking with point that “our boots and regimentals have a very puny effect.”
But Americans must have houses; many of them must live in towns; many even of those in towns would have grounds about their houses. Here were practical opportunities for the exercise and cultivation of taste. It was therefore with a different and deeper emotion that he carefully studied the radial plan of cities, the lay-out of notable grounds and gardens, and that “while in Paris I was violently smitten with the Hôtel de Salm, and used to go to the Tuileries almost daily to look at it” and to renew the delightful experience of constructive conjecture concerning the accommodation of this or that architectural quality to the circumstances of the new land. He found, however, that he was in these respects rather out of the current of popular sentiment in America. He was well aware that “the first object of young societies is bread and covering,” and made allowances accordingly; but beyond that lay the great preoccupation with turning the immense resources of the country into money as quickly as possible—and these factors of necessity and greed together put a heavy discount on any devotion to the arts, no matter how practical its purpose. An interest in art marked one as alien, a dawdler and effeminate, and not quite to be trusted in the serious businesses of life. Mr. Jefferson felt the force of this discriminative sentiment, and once at least, attempted to vindicate himself against it in the eyes of an old friend. His enthusiasm for the arts, he wrote Madison in 1785, was one “of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world and procure them its praise.” But his countrymen cared little for having their taste improved. Carpe diem!—the thing was to grow rich as possible as quickly as possible, while yet one might. If ever art were wanted, one could always buy it. Nor were they interested in any enhancement of the world’s respect and praise; whatever of these was not purchasable was negligible.
Hence it came to pass that in 1785 Mr. Jefferson was found pleading his bitter mortification at the news from Virginia that “the first brick of the Capitol would be laid within a few days,” without waiting for the designs which he, in conjunction with the great Clerissault, had taken such devoted pains to work out from the model of the Maison Carrée. What could the Virginians be thinking of? These designs, he wrote distressfully to Dr. Currie, “are not the brat of a whimsical conception never before brought to light, but copied from the most precious, the most perfect model of ancient architecture remaining on earth.” His standard was that of Socrates. An ardent innovator, an indefatigable experimenter and improver, he yet believed that the practical starting-point in art is always with that which represents the longest experience and the greatest collective wisdom—. The Maison Carrée “has obtained the approbation of fifteen or sixteen centuries, and is therefore preferable to any design which might be newly contrived.” Changes and adaptations were always admissible; but their value likewise was not to be appraised contemporaneously, but by the collective experience of posterity.
His plans ought to have at least a fighting chance in competition for the suffrage of the Virginia Legislature. “Pray try if you can effect the stopping of this work,” he wrote Madison. “The loss will be only of the laying the bricks already laid, or a part of them. . . . This loss is not to be weighed against . . . the comfort of laying out the public money in something honourable, the satisfaction of seeing an object and proof of national good taste, and the regret and mortification of erecting a monument of our barbarism.” The Legislature thought he was making a great fuss over a small matter, but, like the unjust judge, finally let him have his way. They had some formal pride in their distinguished fellow-citizen, notwithstanding his residence in Paris had apparently alienated him a little too much towards the exotic fripperies of a light and notoriously immoral people. So at last they carried his plans “into execution, with some variations, not for the better, the most important of which, however, admit of future correction.”
While yet in his twenties, Mr. Jefferson made some rather elaborate notes of his ideas for the planning of a large property. These ideas were never carried out; the record of them is valuable only as marking the initial step in a painstaking development of taste. Perhaps the notes relating to the lay-out of a “burying-place” are as much worth citing as any, and they have a little additional interest because they show some trace of the emotion caused by the death of a young sister, Jane, whom he seems to have loved, in his inward and difficult fashion of loving, all his life. The burying-place should be—
among ancient and venerable oaks; intersperse some gloomy evergreens. The area circular, about sixty feet diameter, encircled with an untrimmed hedge of cedar, or of stone wall with a holly hedge on it. . . . In the centre of it erect a small Gothic temple of antique appearance. Appropriate one-half to the use of my own family, the other of strangers, se
rvants, etc. Erect pedestals with urns, etc., and proper inscriptions. The passages between the walls, four feet wide. On the grave of a favourite and faithful servant might be a pyramid erected of the rough rockstone; the pedestal made plain to receive an inscription. Let the exit of the spiral . . . look on a small and distant part of the Blue Mountains. In the middle of the temple, an altar, the sides of turf, the top a plain stone. Very little light, perhaps none at all, save only the feeble ray of a half-extinguished lamp.
Then follows an epitaph upon his sister, which even the native language of elegiac inscription can not quite liberate from a pinching constraint:
Ah! Joanna, puellarum optima,
Ah! ævi virentis flore prærepta,
Sit tibi terra levis;
Longe, longeque valeto.
But in the America of 1771, if one wished to indulge a cultivated taste in architecture and its allied arts—or indeed, in any art—one pretty well had to work out the practical side of it for oneself. One had to be largely one’s own architect, designer, draughtsman, master-builder and decorator; and the resources available for self-education were extremely scanty. When Mr. Jefferson was a student at William and Mary, he made the most of the few works on architecture to be found in Williamsburg, and later he imported others, more or less taking a shot in the dark at their serviceability. By the time he left for Paris, in 1784, he had in his library about a dozen books on the subject. By favour of instinct, luck, good sense, management, or whatever combination of all these graces, he succeeded in eluding the great peril which besets the Autodidakt to the end of his life, and oftener than nine times out of ten, lays him low, namely: the inability to appraise and grade one’s authorities, the tendency to accept whatever appears on the printed page as authoritative, even though its intrinsic recommendations may be quite specious. Thus Mr. Jefferson managed to keep clear of an undiscriminating Rabbinism on the one hand, and an eccentric neology on the other.
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