Although Jefferson wrote a letter congratulating Washington, he was not the same man who, as governor, had exchanged crisp, detailed communications with the general about the war in Virginia. Instead, he humbly explained that he would have come in person to thank him for Yorktown. But he was sure Washington had better things to do than exchange small talk with a mere “private individual.” The draft of the letter was crossed out and interlined to an extraordinary degree, suggesting Jefferson’s emotional turmoil. It is sad evidence of the deep depression into which Jefferson had plunged after the humiliating close of his governorship.10
Neither the assembly nor the man who proposed the inquiry into Governor Jefferson’s conduct had made any specific charges. But Jefferson magnified the proposal into a grievance that gave him an excuse to withdraw from politics permanently. He told his friend, Edmund Randolph: “I have returned to my farm, my family, and my books, from which I think nothing ever more will separate me.” The astounded Randolph replied: “If you can justify this resolution to yourself, I am confident you cannot to the world.”11
It is more than a little significant that Jefferson said nothing to James Madison about his withdrawal from public life—nor did his younger friend say a word to him, although there is no doubt that Randolph, who was also serving in Congress, had informed Madison of Jefferson’s letter. Similarly, neither Jefferson nor Madison mentioned the Virginia Assembly’s decision when they considered charges against him, two months after Yorktown. The legislators, their mood transformed by Washington’s victory, dismissed the indictment and declared their unwaveringly high opinion of Jefferson’s “ability, rectitude, and integrity as chief magistrate of this commonwealth.” By this time, not even Patrick Henry saw any point in condemning the drafter of the Declaration of Independence when hopes of ultimate victory were dawning.12
The legislature’s exoneration did not alter Jefferson’s determination to quit public life. He reiterated to several friends that he had no plans to leave Monticello for the rest of his days. He declined to serve when his county’s voters chose him for the state legislature and ignored a warning from the Speaker of the House of Delegates that he was risking arrest.
James Monroe, nephew of Congressman Joseph Jones, had been elected to the Virginia legislature from another county. Monroe warned the ex-governor that many members were criticizing him. Jefferson replied with an emotional letter. He declared that the threat of censure had inflicted injuries on his feelings that could only be cured by “the all healing grave.” He reinforced this pronouncement by refusing an attempt to elect him to Congress.13
An obviously troubled Madison admitted to Edmund Randolph that he was partial to Jefferson. But “the mode in which he seems determined to revenge the wrong inflicted by his country does not appear to me to be dictated either by philosophy or patriotism.” Madison was much kinder when he wrote to Jefferson. He explained his long silence by saying he was so certain the legislature would exonerate his friend, their decision had made “little impression” on him. But he confessed to personal disappointment because Jefferson had refused the attempt to elect him to Congress. To work with him again would have given Madison “both unexpected and personal satisfaction.” The country would also have probably derived “important aid” from his presence.14
At the close of his letter to James Monroe, Jefferson revealed an additional reason for his inner turmoil: “Mrs. Jefferson has added another daughter to our family. She has been ever since and still continues very dangerously ill.” Six months later, Martha Jefferson died, inflicting a terrific blow to this emotionally fragile man’s stability. For a while there was fear Jefferson would commit suicide—he later admitted he had considered it. His sense of responsibility for his three young daughters forced him to cling to a life he no longer valued. But he did little except wander his mansion or ride aimlessly around the countryside in a stupor of grief, sometimes accompanied by his distraught oldest daughter, Martha.
Jefferson did not write a word about this tragic ordeal to Madison. But the younger man soon heard about it from their mutual friend, Edmund Randolph, who described Jefferson as “inconsolable.” Madison knew how totally a plantation could become a world in itself, enveloping a man. He decided Jefferson’s only hope of recovery was a swift return to public life.
By this time, Madison had become one of the most influential members of Congress. He had no trouble persuading his fellow legislators to appoint Jefferson a commissioner in the peace negotiations that were about to begin in France. A confidential letter whizzed from Madison to Edmund Randolph in Virginia, telling him to let Jefferson know as quickly as possible. “An official notification will follow,” Madison added. Showing how well he understood that Jefferson’s wounded feelings needed balm, Madison urged Randolph to tell the ex-governor that the resolution “passed unanimously, without a single remark adverse to it.”
This long-range psychology worked perfectly. Jefferson accepted the appointment and was soon ready to leave Monticello for France. Accompanied by young Martha, he went first to Philadelphia to get the background he needed for his peace negotiator’s role. A smiling Madison greeted him at Virginia’s favorite boarding house, run by a genial widow named Mrs. Mary House and her lively daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Trist. After three years of separation, the two men quickly regained their old intimacy.
Another sign of their renewed friendship was a confession from Madison that he was in love. The young lady was a pretty teenager named Kitty Floyd, daughter of a New York congressman and his wife—also residents of Mrs. House’s hostelry. Young women did not go to college or pursue careers in 1782. Kitty, who would soon be sixteen, was considered more than eligible for marriage. Jefferson and his daughter headed for Baltimore, where a French frigate was to take them to France. Winter weather and a British blockade of the Chesapeake delayed his departure.
As he waited in Baltimore, Jefferson exchanged wry letters in cipher with Madison about the foibles of some of their fellow revolutionists. Madison described a stream of imprudent diatribes from John Adams, who was in Europe serving as one of the peace commissioners. These angry screeds exposed his vanity, his prejudice against France, and his “venom” against America’s ambassador, Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson tried to defend his colleague from the heroic days of 1776, who had stoutly supported his draft of the Declaration of Independence against congressional editing. He assured Madison that the volatile Yankee had a “sound head” and “integrity.”
As Jefferson began to complain of boredom in Baltimore, word arrived from France that the American negotiators had signed a “provisional” treaty of peace. Congress cancelled Jefferson’s appointment, but he did not return to Monticello. Instead, he headed for Philadelphia and participated in the celebrations when a copy of the peace treaty arrived from Europe on the ship Washington.
Early in the new year (1783), Jefferson proved that he had regained his equilibrium by writing a letter to George Washington in which he expressed his “individual tribute” for all the general “had effected for us.” He hesitated to indulge in “warm effusions” because “even the appearance of adulation” was “foreign” to his nature. Washington replied in equally warm terms. He wrote that winning the approval of men like Jefferson was all the reward he sought for his long service in pursuit of the victory that now seemed certain.15
Back in Virginia, Jefferson received a letter that exploded his hope that James Madison and Kitty Floyd would happily marry. On her return to New York, Miss Floyd had had second thoughts and written Madison a curt, dismissive letter. Struggling to be philosophical, Madison confided to Jefferson that it was “one of those incidents to which such affairs are liable.”
Jefferson tried to console his younger friend, exclaiming that “no event has been more contrary to my expectations.” He reminded him that “the world still presents the same and many other resources for happiness,” and assured Madison that “firmness of mind and unremitting occupation [hard work]” were th
e best remedies for his pain.
Madison stayed in Philadelphia until his term in Congress expired in November 1783, trying to take Jefferson’s advice about hard work. But circumstances beyond his control made legislative labors difficult. Not long after General Washington persuaded the infuriated officers of the Continental Army at New Windsor to abandon plans to march on the bankrupt Congress to demand their back pay, the nation’s legislators found themselves surrounded by a surly regiment of bayonet wielding soldiers who had been stationed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They wanted their long unpaid back salaries immediately, if not sooner.
Congress fled to Princeton, New Jersey, a little village with few of the creature comforts of Philadelphia. Madison found himself sharing a bed with six-foot-tall Joseph Jones, which added sleeplessness to his woes. He told one correspondent that he scarcely had room “to move my limbs.” Far more distressing was Congress’s descent to a new low in the eyes of the nation. One Philadelphia newspaper issued a summary judgment that was soon echoed by editors and readers everywhere. The legislators’ decision to cut and run “exhibited neither dignity, fortitude, nor perseverance.” In Europe, one American traveler reported, the story had been inflated into “the annihilation of Congress and the utter destruction of the commonwealth.”16
The American peace commissioners, waiting for a final version of the provisional treaty, warned that the news had “diminished the admiration in which the people of America were held by the nations of Europe.” This was James Madison’s reward for three years of toil, trying to create a legislature worthy of an independent nation. There can be little doubt that the experience made him begin thinking about a drastic cure for Congress’s futility.
In June 1783, the Virginia legislature nominated Thomas Jefferson to replace Madison as the leader of the state’s congressional delegation. Congress had moved to Annapolis, the capital of Maryland. There, Jefferson found a pathetic ghost of the legislature he had known in 1776. Only twenty delegates were present from seven states, which meant it was impossible to make any important decisions.
Staring at the delegates was the most significant document that Congress had considered since the Declaration of Independence—the definitive treaty of peace. With it came a letter from Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay, the American negotiators, telling them that the “riot in Philadelphia”—the attack by the bayonet-wielding soldiers—had given the British hopes that the United States was about to collapse, making a peace treaty dead on arrival.
The treaty stipulated that the Americans would sign it within six months of its acceptance by the British and the French. On January 1, 1784, an anxious Jefferson was telling Madison that one of the current congressmen had gone home, leaving only six states represented instead of the nine that were required to ratify the treaty. March 3 was the deadline for the signed treaty to be delivered to the British. What to do?
Arthur Lee, a Virginia delegate who specialized in being cantankerous, told Jefferson that seven states would be enough, and soon convinced two other Virginia delegates to join him in “violent” insistence on this solution. They vowed to put the idea to a vote when and if they had seven states represented.
Jefferson demurred. Too much was at stake to risk an accusation of deception from the truculent British. He sought Madison’s opinion, and he strongly agreed on the need for nine states. Signing with only seven present might deceive the British, but it would be “immediately detected at home” and the deception would “dishonor…Federal Councils everywhere.” This turmoil did not improve the depression that continued to trouble Jefferson. “I have had very ill health since I have been here, and am getting lower rather than otherwise,” he told Madison.17
Meanwhile, the president of Congress rushed frantic messages to absent members, and they trickled into Annapolis. On January 14, Congress had twenty-three delegates from nine states. To Jefferson’s vast relief, the peace treaty was ratified and returned to Europe. Not until May did the British sign it, making peace permanent.
This achievement was to be Jefferson’s only legislative satisfaction. Congress continued to behave like a pack of ill-bred adolescents. They came and went at will, repeatedly leaving those still in their seats without a quorum. Even when they managed to muster that minimum requirement, the delegates were so contentious, there was no hope of agreement on anything. An exasperated Jefferson—a lawyer himself—blamed the impasse on the fact that most of the delegates were attorneys, “whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour.”
Jefferson’s frustrations renewed his wish for the peace and quiet of private life. He urged Madison to buy land near Monticello. He had persuaded James Monroe and another young admirer, William Short, both of whom had studied law under his guidance, to agree with this idea. “In such a society,” Jefferson saw himself quitting politics and its contentions once and for all. “Life is of no value but as it brings us gratifications,” he avowed, and he saw no hope of pleasure in the “insupportable” arguments that harried him in Congress.
In the light of future years, perhaps the most important topic Jefferson addressed during this sojourn in Congress arrived on his desk in a letter from George Washington. When the Continental Army of the Revolution disbanded in 1783, the officers formed a “Society of the Cincinnati,” a name that honored the Roman general, Cincinnatus, who surrendered his military power after he successfully defended Rome, and returned to his farm. It was no accident that the Society elected Washington as their first president. In their eyes, he was a veritable model of this peaceful relinquishment of the honors and privileges of war.
The Society’s chief purpose was to offer help to officers who needed aid to reestablish their civilian lives. Another principle was a hereditary right for sons and grandsons of the founders to inherit their membership. This idea stirred violent antipathy among the civilians who had not served in the army. They accused the Cincinnati of conspiring to undermine America’s republican principles by creating a new aristocracy. Washington was disturbed by this rancor and asked Jefferson’s opinion of the Society, and how he might best deal with its political problems without undermining its commitment to help ex-officers in need of help.
Ex-Governor Jefferson wrote a masterful reply to the retired general. He told Washington the hereditary idea violated the American principle of “the natural equality of man…particularly the idea of preeminence by birth.” Most people, including almost all the current members of Congress, disapproved of it. Washington was not immortal, and they feared that future leaders of the Cincinnati would forget that “the moderation of a single character has probably prevented this revolution from being closed as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish.” The only solution, it seemed to Jefferson, was the abandonment of the hereditary principle. Even better might be the disbandment of the Society.
Jefferson closed his extraordinarily frank reply by assuring Washington that he would mention their discussion to no one. He saw himself as temporarily “thrown back by events on a stage where I had never more thought to appear.” He did not think he would stay very long in this role, but “while I remain…I shall be gratified by all occasions of rendering you service & of convincing you there is no one to whom your reputation & happiness are dearer.”18
Washington was so impressed, he stopped in Annapolis on his way to a meeting of the Cincinnati in Philadelphia. He spent an evening with Jefferson, discussing the best way to preserve the Society. He agreed with Jefferson about the need to eliminate the hereditary idea. But the ex-general felt too committed to the Society’s desire to offer mutual aid and brotherhood to urge the harsh final step of disbanding.19
After Washington departed, the quarrels of Congress must have seemed even more trivial to the still depressed Jefferson. Suddenly, rescue appeared in the guise of a message from Europe. Peace commissioner John Jay had announced his resignation, and the southern states demanded that someone from th
eir region replace him. Congress had asked the commissioners (Jay, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin) to remain in Europe and negotiate commercial treaties with several nations. Southerners felt their interests should be represented by one of their own.
To no one’s surprise, Congress nominated Jefferson for the post. He accepted without even a moment’s hesitation—evidence that he dreaded a return to Monticello and its tragic aura, which would only worsen his depression. At least as influential was his eagerness to visit Europe and explore nations and societies that he had read and thought about since his student days.
“I am now to take leave of the justlings (sic) of the states,” Jefferson informed Madison with visible delight. In this new field, “the divisions will be fewer but on a larger scale.” He hoped Madison would continue their correspondence. He was especially desirous of hearing from him “at the close of every session” of the Virginia legislature, and of Congress, so Jefferson could remain up-to-date on “general measures and dispositions.”20
With almost incoherent haste, Jefferson returned to Philadelphia, where he had left his thirteen-year-old daughter, Martha, in the care of poet Francis Hopkinson and his wife. The new diplomat invited William Short to join him as his secretary. In early May 1784, Jefferson and his entourage headed north to Boston, where a ship awaited them. Now and then, he paused to discuss politics with various friends in New England. In a farewell note to Madison, he reported “the conviction growing strongly that nothing can preserve our confederacy unless the band of Union, their common council [Congress], be strengthened.”21
Those words underscore a significant fact. Thomas Jefferson was out of touch with George Washington’s and James Madison’s approach to strengthening the federal government. The man from Monticello was thinking about Congress; the man from Mount Vernon and his scholarly young advisor would soon be thinking about a new political entity: the American presidency. This divide in their approach to the nation’s government would grow deeper in the years to come.
The Great Divide Page 4