Madison and Jefferson

by Nancy Isenberg;Andrew Burstein

  29. JMB, 1:468–69; Andrew Burstein, The Inner Jefferson: Portrait of a Grieving Optimist (Charlottesville, Va., 1995), chap 1; Malone, 1:287, 435–46; Jack McLaughlin, Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder (New York, 1988), 143–45. The additional acreage was spread about Amherst, Cumberland, Goochland, Rockbridge, and Henrico counties, plus a small lot in Richmond.

  30. Lee to TJ, May 2, 1778; “Bill for Raising a Battalion for Garrison Duty,” May 16, 1778; TJ to Lee, June 5, 1778; to Fabbroni, June 8, 1778, PTJ, 2:174, 179–80, 194–96.

  31. Frederick Doveton Nichols and Ralph E. Griswold, Thomas Jefferson: Landscape Architect (Charlottesville, Va., 1978), 139–42; Malone, 1:164–65.

  32. TJ to Hancock, October 19, 1778, PTJ, 2:225. It is curious that Pendleton, these days Virginia’s chief advocate for the established church, detested Philip Mazzei and suspected him of being an agent of the pope. It is interesting, too, that Richard Henry Lee proposed that Madison go with Mazzei on the mission to Italy. Madison, who in consideration of his inferior physical stamina would at no time agree to leave America’s shores, expressed confidence in Mazzei but refused to accompany him. See David John Mays, Edmund Pendleton, 1721–1803: A Biography (Richmond, 1984), 2:136–37; Ketcham, 85.

  33. Richard R. Beeman, Patrick Henry: A Biography (New York, 1974), 109–10.

  34. Lee to TJ, March 15 and May 3, 1779; Fleming to TJ, May 22, 1779, PTJ, 2:236, 262, 267.

  35. Fleming to TJ, May 22, 1779, PTJ, 2:269.

  36. JM to Samuel Harrison Smith, November 4, 1826, JMP-LC; Mason to Lee, June 4, 1779, Papers of George Mason, ed. Rutland, 2:506–7.

  37. Rutledge to TJ, February 12, 1779, PTJ, 2:234.

  38. Pendleton to TJ, May 11, 1779, PTJ, 2:266–67; Mays, Edmund Pendleton, 2:144–45.

  39. Page to TJ, June 2, 1779; TJ to Page, June 3, 1779; “Message Accepting Election as Governor,” June 2, 1779, PTJ, 2:277–79.

  40. JM to Margaret Bayard Smith, September 21, 1830, JMP-LC.

  41. Pendleton to TJ, May 11, 1779, PTJ, 2:266; “A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge” and “A Bill for Amending the Constitution of the College of William and Mary,” ibid., 526–43; Harold Hellenbrand, The Unfinished Revolution: Education and Politics in the Thought of Thomas Jefferson (Newark, Del., 1990), 76–94; Ralph Lerner, The Thinking Revolutionary: Principle and Practice in the New Republic (Ithaca, N.Y., 1979), 75–87.

  42. Pendleton to TJ, August 3, 1776; TJ to Pendleton, August 13, 1776, PTJ, 1:484–85, 491–93.

  43. John Bakeless, Background to Glory: The Life of George Rogers Clark (Philadelphia, 1957), 15–17; Ketcham, 19–20.

  44. Anthony Marc Lewis, “Jefferson and Virginia’s Pioneers, 1774–1781,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 34 (March 1948): 551–88; Letter to Clark (in Mason’s handwriting), January 3, 1778, PTJ, 2:132–33; TJ to Pendleton, August 13, 1776, PTJ, 1:494; Bakeless, Background to Glory, 33–39, 55–56. According to Lewis, Clark also knew Mason from the time of his youth. On the relationship between Virginians’ land hunger and the politically complex, utterly brutal career of the Revolutionary Indian fighter Clark, see esp. Barbara Alice Mann, George Washington’s War on Native America (Lincoln, Neb., 2008), 114ff.

  45. Malone, 1:257–59; Lewis, “Jefferson and Virginia’s Pioneers”; Peter S. Onuf, Origins of the Federal Republic (Philadelphia, 1983), 79–89.

  46. Clark to George Mason, November 19, 1779, Papers of George Mason, ed. Rutland, 2:555–88; Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 192–203; Malone, 1:294–95, 308–13; Mann, George Washington’s War on Native America, chap. 5; Bakeless, Background to Glory, passim; “Order of Virginia Council Placing Henry Hamilton and Others in Irons,” June 16, 1779; and TJ to the Continental Board of War, June 18, 1779, PTJ, 2:292–95, 300–301; “Jefferson, Madison, and the Executive Council to General William Phillips,” July 22, 1779, RL, 1:91–93.

  47. James M. Gabler, Passions: The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson (Baltimore, 1995), 3–8; Mazzei to TJ, March 4, April 21, and May 3, 1780, PTJ, 3:310–12, 360–61, 366–68; Mazzei to JM, November 30, 1780, PJM, 2:214–16; Brant, 1:340–52. Mazzei sailed through the Chesapeake, knowing that he might fall into British hands. So he concealed his commission and instructions in a sack containing a four-pound ball of lead. When the vessel was not long out of port, and the British boarded, Mazzei tossed the sack with his instructions overboard and had to go on to Europe without documentation. Once there, he learned Virginia had no credit to speak of among her presumed supporters.

  48. TJ to Gálvez, November 8, 1779, PTJ, 3:167–69; Brant, 2:70.

  49. Brant, 2:11.

  50. JM to JM, Sr., March 20, 1780, PJM, 2:3; Brant, 1:365–67; A Dictionary of the English Language (Philadelphia, 1813); on Jones, see Biographical Dictionary of the American Congress, 1774–1949 (Washington, D.C., 1950), 1388.

  51. JM to TJ, March 27–28, May 6, and June 2, 1780, RL, 1:135–40.

  52. TJ to JM, July 26, 1780, RL, 1:142–43.

  53. Rev. JM to JM, August 3, 1780, PJM, 2:54–55.

  54. Pennsylvania Packet, January 27, 1780.

  55. Pendleton to JM, August 27, 1780, PJM, 2:66–67.

  56. John Buchanan, The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas (New York, 1997); JM and Virginia Delegation to TJ, ca. October 5, 1780, RL, 1:146–47; TJ to Horatio Gates, September 3, 1780; to Lee, September 13, 1780, PTJ, 3:588, 642–43.

  57. Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (New York, 1971), chap. 2; Malone, 1:324–25.

  58. Ammon, James Monroe, 32–33; Monroe to TJ, September 9, 1780, PTJ, 3:622.

  59. Attending an official ball at the French legation, Madison struck Martha Bland as “stiff” and “unsociable” and appears to have been slow to warm up to strangers. But one should be careful not to overgeneralize, as there are earlier and later examples of his warmth around both men and women. Brant, 2:13, 16–17, 33; Jack Rakove, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (New York, 1990), 22.

  60. JM to Pendleton, October 31 and November 7, 1780; Jones to JM, November 5 and November 10, 1780; Pendleton to JM, November 6 and November 13, 1780, PJM, 2:157, 161–71.

  61. Jones to JM, November 18 and December 8, 1780; JM to Jones, November 28, 1780, PJM, 2:182–83, 209, 232–33. Madison may have borrowed the idea of freeing slaves who fought from a 1722 Virginia law upholding emancipation for “meritorious” service.

  62. Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 216–26; Buchanan, Road to Guilford Courthouse, chap. 21, quote at 327; Bakeless, Background to Glory, 271–73; Malone, 1:338–43. In his conceit, Tarleton blamed his troops’ “total misbehaviour” rather than credit Morgan for out-thinking him.

  63. Buchanan, Road to Guilford Courthouse, 383; TJ to Lafayette, March 12, 1781, PTJ, 5:130; JM to TJ, April 3, 1781, PJM, 3:45–46 (Jefferson’s letter to Madison was not preserved); McDonnell, Politics of War, 410, terming Jefferson’s remarks to Lafayette “somewhat disingenuous.”

  64. TJ to Virginia Delegates, April 6, 1781, PJM, 3:58–59.

  65. Pendleton to JM, May 28, 1781; Lee to Virginia Delegates, June 12, 1781, PJM, 3:136–37, 156–58; TJ to Washington, May 28, 1781; to Lafayette, May 29, 1781, PTJ, 6:32–33, 35–36.

  66. Pendleton to JM, April 7, 1781, PJM, 3:63; “Jefferson’s Statement of Losses to the British,” January 27, 1783, PTJ, 6:224–25; Malone, 1:352–69; Lucia Stanton, Free Some Day: The African-American Families of Monticello (Charlottesville, Va., 2000), 52–57; Sylvia R. Frey, Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age (Princeton, N.J., 1991), 211. Despite the slave exodus, the black population of Virginia grew by 100,000 from 1776 to 1782. See ibid., 218.

  67. JMB, 1:510–11.

  68. “Resolution to Inquire into the Conduct of the Executive,” and “Resolution of Thanks to Jefferson by the Virginia General Assembly,” November 27, 1781, and December 12, 1781, PTJ, 6:133–36; Malone, 1:366.

  69. In addition to his contemporaries, most hi
storians have criticized Jefferson for reacting too slowly to the invasion that occurred under his watch. His protective nineteenth-century biographer Henry S. Randall reviewed the situation differently: “Virginia continued to pour every enlisted soldier she could raise into the Northern and Southern armies, leaving her own bosom naked.” Randall likened Jefferson to Washington, who placed the national welfare over that of his home state, and there is a certain logic to the statement. Randall, Life of Thomas Jefferson, 1:291–92. A less charitable interpretation of Jefferson’s performance is in John Ferling, Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution (New York, 2000), chap. 8.

  70. Pendleton to JM, May 28, 1781, PJM, 3:136.

  71. TJ to Zane, December 4, 1781, PTJ, 6:143; Elson, comp., Patrick Henry in His Speeches and Writings, 100–103; Robert Douthat Meade, Patrick Henry, Practical Revolutionary (Philadelphia, 1969), chap. 17. A few months before the end of Jefferson’s governorship, believing that ill health could well bring an abrupt end to his political career, Henry had warmly addressed his successor, writing of “virtue and public spirit” and signing off as “your affectionate friend.”

  72. TJ to Clark, December 19, 1781; to Charles Thomson, December 20, 1781, PTJ, 6:139, 142.

  73. “Motion regarding Western Lands,” PJM, 2:72–77; Jensen, Articles of Confederation, chaps. 11 and 12; on Virginia-Pennsylvania relations and the Mason-Dixon Line (the “Mason” in which bears no relation to George Mason), see Mason to Joseph Jones, July 27, 1780, Papers of George Mason, ed. Rutland, 2:655–59. Mason believed that Pennsylvania’s commissioners for settling the disputed territory had “overmatched” Virginia’s, but that to “remove any cause of ill will or disagreement with a sister state,” Virginia should settle the matter as quickly as possible.

  74. JM to TJ, November 18, 1781, and January 15, 1782, RL, 1:202–3, 211; Mason to TJ, September 27, 1781, Papers of George Mason, ed. Rutland, 2:679.

  75. Reardon, Edmund Randolph, 41–43; Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 256–58.

  76. Onuf, Origins of the Federal Republic, 8–17, 96–99, quote at 3; “Proposed Amendment of Articles of Confederation,” March 12, 1781; and “Protest of Virginia Delegates,” October 10, 1781, PJM, 3:17–19, 284–86. Madison’s amendment would have authorized the central government to use force to “compel” the states “to fulfill their federal engagements.” George Mason was less amenable to federal compulsion; in 1787, when the Constitution was adopted, he would become an antifederalist.

  77. David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution, ed. Lester H. Cohen (Indianapolis, 1990 [1789]), chap. 24, quote at 2:590.

  78. Randolph to TJ, October 9, 1781, PTJ, 6:128; JM to Pendleton, December 25, 1781, PJM, 3:337.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Partners Apart, 1782–1786

  1. JM to TJ, January 15, 1782, RL, 1:209–11; John J. Reardon, Edmund Randolph: A Biography (New York, 1974), 47–56.

  2. TJ to JM, March 24, 1782, RL, 1:213; JM to Randolph, May 1, 1782; Randolph to JM, May 10, 1782; JM to JM, Sr., May 20, 1782, PJM, 4:195–96, 225–26, 256.

  3. Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782, trans. and ed. Howard C. Rice, Jr. (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1963), 2:389–95.

  4. TJ to Monroe, May 20, 1782, PTJ, 6:184–86; Andrew Burstein, The Inner Jefferson: Portrait of a Grieving Optimist (Charlottesville, Va., 1995), 118–19; Randolph to JM, May 5 and May 16, 1782, PJM, 4:208, 246. Monroe showed Jefferson’s letter to Edmund Randolph, who quoted parts of it back to Madison. Randolph believed that Jefferson could help himself most by returning to Richmond and taking on his former enemies. Randolph to JM, June 1, 1782, PJM, 4:305–6; JM to Randolph, June 11, 1782, PJM, 4:333.

  5. JMB, 1:508, 519; Karl Lehmann, Thomas Jefferson, American Humanist (Charlottesville, Va., 1985 [1947]), 54; Sarah N. Randolph, The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, Va., 1978 [1871]), 62–63; Burstein, Inner Jefferson, 60–63.

  6. Peter S. Onuf, Origins of the Federal Republic (Philadelphia, 1983), 94–97, 240n98; JM to Randolph, September 10, 1782, PJM, 5:115–16.

  7. As only immediate family and slaves were present at Jefferson’s “swooning away,” we must assume that either the house servants or the doctor was responsible for word reaching Richmond. It is interesting that this portion of Jefferson’s private history, reconfirmed in later years by his eldest daughter, made the rounds so quickly.

  8. Randolph to JM, September 20, 1782; JM to Randolph, September 30, 1782, PJM, 5:150–51, 170; Burstein, Inner Jefferson, 60–62.

  9. “Resolution of Congress Appointing Peace Commissioners”; TJ to Thomas McKean (president of Congress), June 15 and August 4, 1781, PTJ, 6:94, 113; Malone, 1:398; Randolph to JM, November 8 and November 22, 1782; “Motion to Renew Thomas Jefferson’s Appointment as Peace Commissioner”; JM to Randolph, November 12 and November 19, 1782, PJM, 5:262, 268, 272, 288–89, 307. As they were wearing Jefferson down, Madison proudly informed Randolph that not a single voice in Congress questioned the choice of Jefferson, while Randolph testified that “Monticello, which formerly was the great magnet, has lost its power.”

  10. JM to Randolph, December 30, 1782, PJM, 5:473; JMB, 1:524–25.

  11. JMB, 1:527n.

  12. JM to TJ, February 11, 1783; TJ to JM, February 14, 1783, RL, 1:221, 223; William Pencak, Jews and Gentiles in Early America, 1654–1800 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 2005), 209–10.

  13. Madison’s Notes on Debates for April 18, 1783, PJM, 6:471; Freeman’s Journal (Philadelphia), January 1, 1783; Massachusetts Centinel, March 1, 1786; New-York Journal, March 2, 1786; Brant, 2:209–36; Ketcham, 117–19.

  14. “Address to the States,” April 26, 1783, PJM, 6:494; Hamilton was already resorting to the authorship of anonymous newspaper essays to advance his aims. Our interpretation of Madison’s differences with Hamilton at this early moment in their relationship draws significantly on Lance Banning, “James Madison and the Nationalists, 1780–1783,” William and Mary Quarterly 40 (April 1983): 227–55.

  15. Stuart Leibiger, Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic (Charlottesville, Va., 1999), 20–25; Washington to JM, April 22, 1783; JM to Washington, April 29, 1783, PJM, 6:484–85, 505. McHenry of Maryland would eventually serve as U.S. secretary of war.

  16. Madison’s Notes on Debates for January 23, 1783, PJM, 6:62ff.; Brant, 2:242–46, 288–90. The editors of PJM suggest that Madison considered the titles owned by Reverend Madison, John Witherspoon, and Theodorick Bland, in addition to those of Jefferson.

  17. JM to TJ, April 22, 1783; TJ to JM, April 14 and May 7, 1783, RL, 1:242, 244–45; Brant, 2:283–87.

  18. JMB, 1:531.

  19. The tone of one letter should suffice to give evidence of Mason’s attitude. When recruited for state office, he delivered his firm refusal on grounds of “don’t call me, I’ll call you,” regarding the attempt as “an oppressive & unjust Invasion of my personal Liberty.” Mason to Martin Cockburn, April 18, 1784, The Papers of George Mason, ed. Robert A. Rutland (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1970), 2:799.

  20. TJ to Clark, November 26, 1782, PTJ, 6:204–5.

  21. TJ to JM, June 17, 1783, RL, 1:252–60; Adrienne Koch, Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration (New York, 1950), 11–13; David N. Mayer, The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, Va., 1994), 60–65; PTJ, 6:283, 308–16; “Resolutions on Private Debts Owed to British Merchants,” and R. H. Lee to JM, November 20, 1784, PJM, 8:58–63, 144–45; Sylvia R. Frey, Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age (Princeton, N.J., 1991), 211–12.

  22. Theodore Bolton, “The Life Portraits of James Madison,” William and Mary Quarterly 8 (January 1951): 25–27; JM to TJ, August 11, 1783, RL, 1:262.

  23. JMB, 1:536–42; Lucia Stanton, Free Some Day: The African-American Families of Monticello (Charlottesville, Va., 2000), 104.

  24. Madison’s notes indicate that he felt little concern for his ow
n safety in Philadelphia. The troops at large did not seem prone to violence, he wrote, “individuals only occasionally uttering offensive words and wantonly pointed their Muskets to the Windows of the Hall of Congress.” But the wide availability of “spirituous drink from the tippling houses” made him worry that the combustible combination of muskets and alcohol might lead to what he termed “hasty excesses.” For his part, Jefferson considered the event “a very trifling mutiny of 200 souldiers.” Why he believed that two hundred armed men did not constitute a threat is not entirely clear.

  25. Madison’s Notes on Debates for June 21, 1783; Brant, 2:294–95; TJ to Martha (Patsy) Jefferson, November 28, 1783, The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Edwin Morris Betts and James Adam Bear, Jr. (Charlottesville, Va., 1966), 19–20; Francis Hopkinson to TJ, January 4, 1784; TJ to Chastellux, January 16, 1784, PTJ, 6:444–45, 466; Malone, 1:404–5.

  26. TJ to JM, February 20, 1784; JM to TJ, March 16, 1784, RL, 1:297–303.

  27. Jefferson’s appeals on paper were always crafted with sensitivity to the temperament of the other party. Just as he knew how to tap into George Rogers Clark’s insecurity about his reputation back in Virginia by feeding antagonism toward Patrick Henry and promising to protect the frontiersman’s interest, he knew Madison well enough to engineer an approach based on his friend’s cautiousness—thus the allusion to “rational society.” The only chance he had was to convince Madison that he would be looking after his own best interest when he established himself in Albemarle. JM to TJ, March 16, 1784, RL, 1:305; PTJ, 7:82. On Jefferson’s epicurean side, see Andrew Burstein, Jefferson’s Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello (New York, 2005).

  28. JM to TJ, December 10, 1783, RL, 1:286; TJ to Carr, December 11, 1783; Francis Hopkinson to TJ, February 23, 1784; Randolph to TJ, May 15, 1784, PTJ, 6:379–80, 556, 7:260.

  29. Richard H. Kohn, “The Inside History of the Newburgh Conspiracy: America and the Coup d’Etat,” William and Mary Quarterly 27 (April 1970): 187–220; Kohn, The Eagle and the Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783–1802 (New York, 1975), chap. 2; C. Edward Skeen, John Armstrong, Jr., 1758–1843: A Biography (Syracuse, N.Y., 1981), 8–17; Leibiger, Founding Friendship, 25–28.