Jefferson’s allusion reveals his familiarity with Gulliver’s Travels, though no copy of the work is listed among his books. This and other references in his writings confirm his appreciation of Jonathan Swift. John Bernard, whose reminiscences are so important for understanding Jefferson’s literary tastes, recorded, “His prose favorites were Swift and Bolingbroke.”33 In a way, the image of Lemuel Gulliver both echoes and supersedes the image of Samson. In their respective stories, the two characters find themselves tied up by those who wish to restrain their movements. Whereas Samson can only break his bonds and destroy the Philistines through his own destruction, Gulliver needs only to wake up and move about to snap the cords that bind him.
The freedom of speech Jefferson exercised in the Mazzei letter reveals the strength of his decision to retire from public life. Anyone considering a return to politics would hardly speak so freely. While enjoying the life of a Virginia farmer, he neglected one crucial aspect of American presidential politics as it was constituted at the time: a person did not necessarily have to run for office in order to be elected to office. Just as John Adams was emerging as the de facto leader of the Federalists, Jefferson emerged as the de facto leader of the Republicans. Without campaigning, without running, without even expressing an interest in the American presidency, Jefferson came in second in the presidential balloting. Since president and vice president did not run on the same ticket back then, the man who came in second in presidential balloting served as vice president.
Despite the ideal life Jefferson had created for himself, he could not ignore the voice of the people. He accepted the vice presidency, exchanging the idyllic world of Monticello for the turbulent political world of Philadelphia. Suddenly, he could no longer speak freely as a private citizen. As second in command, he had to watch what he said and what he wrote. But during his vice presidency, one of the letters from this Virginia farmer—the Mazzei letter—would come back to haunt him.
CHAPTER 30
The Vice President and the Printed Word
After being elected vice president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was elected president of the American Philosophical Society, an office aligning him with some of the greatest scientific minds in early America. Benjamin Franklin had served as president of the Society until his death in 1790. David Rittenhouse had succeeded him and served until his death in 1796. Accepting the office and the honor, Jefferson expressed hope not only for what the Society could contribute toward the advancement of science, but also for what science could contribute toward the advancement of mankind: “I feel no qualification for this distinguished post but a sincere zeal for all the objects of our institution, and an ardent desire to see knowledge so disseminated through the mass of mankind that it may at length reach even the extremes of society, beggars and kings.”1 As he had many times before, Jefferson emphasized the direct relation between science and liberty. Freedom from tyranny brings opportunities for scientific inquiry; scientific advances reinforce and extend freedom. Given his ideas about how science could contribute to the advancement of mankind, Thomas Jefferson made an ideal choice to lead the American Philosophical Society into the next century.
His association with the Society extended back almost two decades. In 1779, the Reverend James Madison contributed a paper to the Society containing a series of meteorological observations he and Jefferson had recorded. The year after he was elected to the Society, Jefferson was chosen as one of its councilors. Unaware precisely what his responsibilities as councilor entailed, he consulted his old friend Charles Thomson, who was also serving as councilor. Thomson gave him a general overview of the organization’s basic purpose. In his words, the American Philosophical Society “has for its object the improvement of useful knowledge more particularly what relates to this new world. It comprehends the whole circle of arts, science and discoveries especially in the natural world.”2
Averse to “being counted as a drone in any society,” Jefferson wanted to contribute whatever he could. Since he was elected councilor shortly after completing his set of answers to Marbois’s queries about Virginia, he asked Thomson if a manuscript copy of the work might make a worthwhile contribution.3 Not surprisingly, Thomson told him that the American Philosophical Society would gladly welcome a copy of his manuscript. Jefferson, who kept tinkering with the work, revising and expanding it into what would become Notes on the State of Virginia, never quite got the manuscript into a form suitable for presentation, but he did contribute to the American Philosophical Society in other ways. While serving as secretary of state and living in Philadelphia, he became quite active in the organization. In 1791, he was elected a vice president of the Society for the first time. He continued being reelected to the position through 1794.
Once he returned to Monticello after resigning his position as secretary of state, Jefferson kept an eye out for scientific discoveries that he could report. When some fossilized remains from a previously unknown prehistoric creature were discovered in a cave beyond the Blue Ridge, he drafted a letter to David Rittenhouse informing him of the discovery. Jefferson characterized the bones as being of the lion family but “preeminent over the lion in size as the Mammoth is over the elephant.”4 He promised to deposit the fossils with the Society and coined a named for this new discovery, calling it the Great Claw or megalonyx. When he wrote his letter, Jefferson was unaware of Rittenhouse’s death. The letter ultimately reached Benjamin Smith Barton, the nation’s foremost naturalist, who read it before the Society in August 1796.
Even before learning of his election as president of the American Philosophical Society, Jefferson was planning to attend its meetings regularly as he had done while secretary of state. The opportunity to pursue his scientific interests while serving as vice president of the United States was just one of several reasons why he was happy he had been elected to second highest office in the nation instead of the first. Expressing his relief upon becoming the nation’s vice president, he told Elbridge Gerry, “The second office of this government is honorable and easy. The first is but a splendid misery.”5
He said much the same to Count de Volney but with more literary flair. In an earlier letter, Volney had quoted a speech made by Clorinda, a leader of the pagan forces in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. Pledging to defend her land and hoping for mighty conquests, she says, “L’altè Non temo, è l’humile Non Sdegno”: Great tasks I dread not, nor do I scorn the humble. Jefferson altered the expression to suit his acceptance of the vice presidency instead of the presidency. He told Volney, “I change the sentiment of Clorinda to ‘L’altè temo, l’humile non sdegno’ ”: Great tasks I dread, but I do not scorn the humble.6
Comparing it with the American presidency in a letter to Benjamin Rush, Jefferson called the vice presidency “a more tranquil and unoffending station…. It will give me philosophical evenings in the winter, and rural days in summer.”7 In other words, his time in Philadelphia would let him see his scientist friends formally at the meetings of the American Philosophical Society and informally at dinner gatherings. He would also have the opportunity to escape Philadelphia and return to Monticello during the summer when the Senate was not in session.
Shortly before John Adams’s inauguration, Jefferson told Rush that he would be in Philadelphia briefly for the event. He also alluded to “Memoir on the Megalonyx,” hoping that “the publications of the society may admit the addition, to our new volume, of this interesting article, which it would be best to have first announced under the sanction of their authority.”8 When it came to the megalonyx essay, Jefferson’s attitude toward publication differed significantly from his earlier attitude toward the publication of Notes on the State of Virginia. The change reflects the difference in purpose between the two works. Notes on the State of Virginia was a contribution to science, but it was also a social document, a work challenging the practice of slavery and the constitution of Virginia. The paper on the megalonyx was purely a contribution to science, and Jefferson was anxio
us to see it into print.
“Memoir on the Megalonyx” is just one of many works he published during his vice presidency. During this four-year period, his relationship with the printed word would become increasingly complex. Though severely attacked in the newspapers throughout his vice presidency, Jefferson held firm in his belief that a free press was essential to democracy. He staunchly refused to respond directly to newspaper attacks but did find ways to respond indirectly. Throughout his time as vice president, the printed word, paradoxically, was Jefferson best friend and worst enemy.
Prior to his departure for Philadelphia in early 1797, he spent much time composing “Memoir on the Megalonyx.” He related the discovery and then explained which bones had been discovered. Since the bones resembled those of a lion, he double-checked his copy of Buffon for comparison. Estimating the size of the megalonyx, he conjectured that it was more than three times the size of a lion. His comparison puts the beast in perspective: what the mammoth was to the elephant the megalonyx was to the lion. The megalonyx made a formidable antagonist for the mammoth in prehistoric America. While engaged in writing a scientific paper, Jefferson was obviously having fun imagining the prehistoric—he visualized the epic battles that occurred in Virginia between some of nature’s greatest creatures.
He was not necessarily willing to consign the megalonyx to prehistoric times, however: he had read printed accounts from the early American explorers attesting to the presence of huge, lionlike creatures. Captain John Smith, for one, found evidence of large wildcats in early-seventeenth-century Virginia. Furthermore, Jefferson had heard legends and firsthand accounts from trappers and backwoodsmen suggesting that the megalonyx still lived. Read in retrospect, his ideas seem naive, but he deserves credit for keeping an open mind about what lurked west of the Appalachians. He refused to make conclusions based on insufficient evidence.
He hypothesized that the westward migration of the American people had driven the largest creatures even farther west: “In the present interior of our continent there is surely space and range enough for elephants and lions, if in that climate they could subsist; and for mammoths and megalonyxes who may subsist there. Our entire ignorance of the immense country to the West and North West, and of its contents, does not authorize us to say what it does not contain.”9 Jefferson’s “Memoir on the Megalonyx” can be read as an impassioned plea for the scientific exploration of the American West. As such, it anticipates his presidential policy.
Until the continent was thoroughly explored, scientists had to use what evidence was available, including traditional stories. Arguing for the possibility of the megalonyx’s survival, Jefferson drew upon on local legend for support. The settlers of Greenbriar County told how they became alarmed the first night there when they heard the “terrible roarings of some animal unknown to them.”10 This ferocious beast circled their camp, coming close enough for them to see its eyes, which looked like balls of fire. Their frightened horses laid down on the earth, and their dogs were too scared to bark.
Some may accuse Jefferson of letting his imagination get the better of him, but his use of local legends in a scientific paper should not be critiqued too harshly. In the absence of supporting evidence, he was unwilling to discount the information legends could provide. Though he incorporated such fantastic detail, he did not accept traditional stories without question. “Memoir on the Megalonyx” shows that he tested the authenticity of local legends by cross-checking their details with information he found in natural histories and books of travel. To test an oral account, he would scan his library for books describing other parts of the world where similar phenomena occurred and then compare that information with what he gleaned from local legends to reconcile folk history with printed accounts.
It turns out that Jefferson’s megalonyx was actually a giant sloth of the Pleistocene epoch. Still, science has given him credit for the discovery: this prehistoric beast is now known as Megalonyx jeffersonii. While outdated as science, “Memoir of the Megalonyx” remains important to the history of both science and literature. Jefferson’s paper is considered the first American essay on vertebrate paleontology. The open-mindedness it embodies and the imagination it shows are qualities all important scientific papers should exemplify.
Having completed this paper, Jefferson left Monticello for Philadelphia. He wanted to enter the city unobtrusively. He told Madison, “I hope I shall be made a part of no ceremony whatever. I shall escape into the city as covertly as possible.”11 Such was not to be the case. Upon his arrival on Thursday, March 2, 1797, he was greeted by sixteen rounds of fire from an artillery company. He was installed as president of the American Philosophical Society Friday evening. The presidential and vice presidential inaugurations were scheduled for the following day.
On Saturday morning, William Bingham, president pro tempore of the Senate, administered the oath of office. Jefferson’s initial act as president of the Senate was to swear in eight new senators. Afterward, he delivered his first address as vice president.
“Gentlemen of the Senate,” he began. “Entering on the duties of the office to which I am called, I feel it incumbent on me to apologize to this honourable house for the insufficient manner in which I fear they may be discharged. At an earlier period of my life, and through some considerable portion of it, I have been a member of legislative bodies, and not altogether inattentive to the forms of their proceedings; but much time has elapsed since that, other duties have occupied my mind, and in a great degree it has lost its familiarity with this subject.” Continuing his speech, he affirmed his dedication to fairness and impartiality: “The rules which are to govern the proceedings of this house, so far as they shall depend on me for their application, shall be applied with the most rigorous and inflexible impartiality, regarding neither persons, their views or principles, and seeing only the abstract proposition subject to my decision.”12 After his speech, he and the senators left their chamber to go downstairs to the chamber of the House of Representatives, where a joint session of Congress would witness John Adams take the oath of office.
Jefferson lingered in Philadelphia through the following week. On Friday, March 10, he presented his “Memoir on the Megalonyx” to the American Philosophical Society. That same day, he went to see a Bengal elephant, which was being displayed on Market Street. With his mind filled with epic battles between mammoth and megalonyx, the sight of the elephant fired his imagination all the more. As large as that elephant was, there were similar yet larger creatures that once roamed the wilds of prehistoric America. Having seen the elephant, Jefferson left Philadelphia for Monticello the second week of March.
Another Philadelphia entertainment that year sparked a controversy that raged throughout Jefferson’s vice presidency. On the Philadelphia stage, James Fennel performed a one-man show during which he recited several famous orations, including Chief Logan’s great speech, which Jefferson had been instrumental in popularizing. His inclusion of it in Notes on the State of Virginia had reinforced its importance and prompted numerous reprintings. Logan’s speech names one Colonel Cresap as the man responsible for the slaughter of his family. Putting the speech into context in Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson supplied some additional explanation but unintentionally confused Colonel Thomas Cresap with his son, Captain Michael Cresap, calling him “a man infamous for the many murders he had committed on these much injured people [the Shawnee].” Jefferson explained how Cresap satisfied his thirst for revenge by attacking a canoe full of women and children: “Cresap and his party concealed themselves on the bank of the river, and the moment the canoe reached the shore, singled out their objects, and, at one fire, killed every person in it. That happened to be the family of Logan, who had long been distinguished as a friend of the whites.”13
When Luther Martin, the attorney general of Maryland, learned of Fennel’s performance, he was reminded of what Jefferson had said against Michael Cresap, who happened to be the father of Martin’s recently decease
d wife. The crafty Martin saw he could launch a brutal attack on Jefferson but disguise it as an altruistic attempt to clear the family name of his dead wife. Martin wrote an open letter to Fennel and published it in Porcupine’s Gazette, the paper edited by William Cobbett, one of Jefferson’s most virulent critics. Cobbett, who had established his reputation by attacking Jefferson and the Republicans under the pen name Peter Porcupine, was happy to publish Martin’s letter. Martin questioned the veracity of Logan’s speech, asserting that it was a deliberate fiction created by Jefferson to slur Cresap.
Martin subsequently wrote a series of open letters addressed to Jefferson but published in the newspapers. There was something underhanded about Martin’s approach: writing his attack in the form of a private letter and then publishing it, he was deliberately obscuring the boundaries between public and private. His open letters baited Jefferson to respond. Jefferson refused to take the bait—publishing a response to Martin in the newspapers would only result in an endless stream of attacks and counterattacks.
Jefferson did take Martin’s argument seriously and began preparing a defense. He wrote everyone he knew who had had some experience with either Logan or Cresap. Eventually, he gathered the pertinent documents together and published them in 1800 as a pamphlet, An Appendix to the Notes on Virginia Relative to the Murder of Logan’s Family.
The form Jefferson chose for his response says much about his intentions. The pamphlet implicitly let Martin know that though Jefferson refused to involve himself in newspaper controversy, he was responding to Martin’s charges in his own way. The pamphlet form let him develop his argument more fully than he could have in a newspaper article. With the pamphlet, Jefferson could determine the structure and scope of his response. He had room enough to present all of the various letters and testimonials he had solicited. Being a separate publication instead of a periodical contribution, Jefferson’s pamphlet essentially closed the book on Martin’s argument. The pamphlet form also gave Jefferson’s response a much greater sense of permanence. Today’s newspaper usually gets tossed by the time tomorrow’s arrives. But a pamphlet gets bound up with others and placed on a library shelf, where it endures.
The Road to Monticello Page 57