No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
In the fall of 1813, Jefferson sent Adams a letter destined to be one of his most famous. His subject is what he called the “natural aristocracy.” Though this letter is typically cited as the one in which Jefferson defined precisely what he meant by the phrase, the ideas this letter expresses occur in virtually all of his earlier discussions of education. His definition is actually quite simple: the natural aristocracy is not founded on wealth or birth—it is founded on “virtue and talents.” The American educational system must be structured to ensure that those with virtue and talents are recognized and given opportunities for education and advancement. In short, the natural aristocracy is “the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society.”36
Jefferson may have told Adams that he had quit reading the newspapers, but he was still keeping abreast of national affairs. Incidental remarks about the War of 1812 occur throughout their correspondence during this period. Jefferson also remained cognizant of world affairs. One event prompting his extended comments was the news of Napoleon Bonaparte’s exile to Elba in 1814. This event gave Jefferson the opportunity to reflect on Napoleon’s rule. “The Attila of the age,” he called him in a July 5, 1814, letter to Adams. “The ruthless destroyer of 10. millions of the human race,” he continued, “whose thirst for blood appeared unquenchable, the great oppressor of the rights and liberties of the world.” Jefferson characterized the pitifulness of Napoleon’s exile, in contrast to the greatness of his ambition: “How miserably, how meanly, has he closed his inflated career! What a sample of the Bathos will his history present! He should have perished on the swords of his enemies, under the walls of Paris.”37
After these reflections, Jefferson quoted some pertinent lines from Pietro Metastasio’s libretto Adriano in Siria. Jefferson had the London edition of Metastasio’s Opere in twelve pocket-sized volumes in his library at Poplar Forest, from which he had recently returned. This quotation suggests that he had been reading Metastasio on vacation. Writing to Adams, Jefferson quoted the original Italian, which can be translated:
The lion stricken to death
Realizes that he is dying,
And looks at his wounds from which
He grows ever weaker and weaker.
Then with his final wrath
He roars, threatens, and screams,
Which makes the hunter
Tremble at him dying.
Perpetuating the metaphor, Jefferson observed, “But Bonaparte was a lion in the field only. In civil life a cold-blooded, calculating unprincipled Usurper, without a virtue, no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption.”38
Jefferson’s words echo something he had written two decades earlier. In the first draft of the Mazzei letter, he had used the phrase “lions in the field and councils” to describe leadership qualities he admired. It was not enough to be valiant on the battlefield. A good leader needed the skills to negotiate the political labyrinth. Calling Napoleon a “lion in the field only,” Jefferson suggested that he was not a good leader because he was incompetent when it came to matters of administration, commerce, and diplomacy.
Jefferson’s reuse of this phrase to describe Napoleon provides a fascinating insight into his literary life. He had devised the phrase while drafting the Mazzei letter, which he deleted in favor of “Samsons in the field.” Still, he did not forget his original phrase. It remained dormant until Jefferson found the opportunity to use it. That opportunity came while reading Adriano in Siria soon after learning about Napoleon’s exile. Metastasio’s imagery prompted Jefferson to recall his original phrase and apply it to Napoleon. Read in light of the first draft of the Mazzei letter, this letter helps tie together Jefferson’s diverse body of writings and highlights a consistent theme that runs throughout his writing: the meaning of leadership.
When some of the first letters from the John Adams–Thomas Jefferson correspondence were published, they touched their readers’ hearts—as Benjamin Rush predicted they would. One prominent English reader, Thomas Love Peacock, remarked, “We know nothing more beautiful in the records of the retirement of illustrious men, than the manner in which these veteran statesmen renewed and continued their correspondence.”39 What they resumed in 1812, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would continue for the rest of their lives. The Adams–Jefferson correspondence offers a penetrating look into the lives of two men who were great leaders and great writers. Theirs is the finest correspondence in the history of American literature.
CHAPTER 37
The Library of Congress
Patrick Magruder, the ailing Librarian of Congress, left Washington in late July 1814 on his physician’s advice to visit the Virginia hot springs in order to recover his health. Before leaving, he put J. T. Frost in charge. Frost, the congressional clerk who acted as assistant librarian, was aided by Samuel Burch, another clerk in the House of Representatives. Unaware of the impending crisis, Magruder did not tell Frost what to do in case of attack. He simply instructed him to air out the books according to regulation. For the sake of the Library of Congress, Magruder chose the worst possible time to take sick leave. Had he stayed in Washington to fulfill his official responsibilities, however, chances are he could have done little more to save the library from destruction than Frost and Burch were able to do.1
In August, British troops massed in Chesapeake Bay for an assault on Washington. To protect the city, the District of Columbia called out the militia. All of the congressional clerks went with the militia, excluding Frost, who was too old to serve, but including Burch. George Magruder, Patrick’s brother and chief clerk, served as a colonel in the militia. Understanding the dire situation Frost faced alone, Colonel Magruder arranged a furlough for Burch so that he could help Frost save the books. Burch returned on Sunday evening, August 21.
On the twenty-second, they received word to pack up the books and papers and remove them from the Capitol for safekeeping. As Frost packed, Burch scoured Washington for wagons or carts or carriages to transport whatever books and papers they could. Wherever he went, he met with the same result: every wagon and nearly every cart belonging to the city had been turned into transport vehicles for the military. The few privately owned conveyances he encountered were loaded with the personal effects of citizens fleeing in the face of approaching enemy forces. Burch tried to impress a few of the vehicles he came across to stop and aid the Library of Congress. With neither legal authority nor military might, his attempts were in vain.
But Burch was not one to give up easily. He sent messengers into the country to see if they could have more luck than he was having in the city. His messengers managed to obtain one cart and a team of oxen. Frost and Burch loaded the cart with the most valuable congressional records and sent it to the safest place they could think of beyond the city limits. Meanwhile, the two continued packing. Once Bladensburg fell, there was no stopping the enemy. Frost and Burch needed to get out of Washington. They fled the city, leaving behind the three thousand volumes that then comprised the Library of Congress.
British troops ran roughshod over the Capitol building, looting what they could and destroying what they could not take away. The west side of the Capitol, where the library was housed, was constructed of timber and covered with shingles. Once the marauders set a torch to some books, the library went up like a tinder box. By the time the smoke cleared, little remained but charred bits of old folios.
News of this bibliographical carnage saddened Jefferson deeply. He predicted that people the world over would react to the news similarly: they would see the library’s destruction as an act of barbarism that did not belong to a civilized age. Jefferson’s prediction was accurate. Many people were incensed with
the wholesale destruction of books on the part of the British troops. At the risk of being prosecuted for libel, some English commentators spoke out against the actions taken by British forces. Using words closely paralleling Jefferson’s, a Nottingham editor condemned the destruction of the Library of Congress as “an act without example in modern wars or in any other wars since the inroads of the barbarians who conflagrated Rome and overthrew the Roman Empire.”2
Jefferson’s patriotism for America and his passion for books doubled the anger he felt upon learning what had happened. But he also had personal reasons to lament the library’s destruction. Established shortly before he became president, the Library of Congress had developed largely through the encouragement and support Jefferson provided during his presidency.
The shipment of books forming the nucleus of the original Library of Congress had reached Washington two months after Jefferson’s inauguration in 1801. Samuel Otis, then secretary of the Senate, informed President Jefferson of the shipment’s arrival. Jefferson subsequently called upon Otis to make a statement about the books at the next session of Congress. Congress proved reluctant to appropriate money for additional book purchases, but the legislators who supported the library sought the help of the greatest bookman ever to occupy the White House. After some gentle prodding from the president, Congress passed the appropriations bill.
A law passed in January 1802 established the position of Librarian of Congress and made it a presidential appointment. That same month, Jefferson appointed John Beckley the first Librarian of Congress. Beckley concurrently served as Clerk of the House of Representatives. After Beckley’s death in 1807, Patrick Magruder succeeded him as Clerk of the House of Representatives. Jefferson had hoped to separate the two positions, but in the absence of other qualified candidates, he appointed Magruder to the position of Librarian of Congress.
The January 1802 Act also established the Joint Committee on the Library, which consisted of members from both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Throughout his presidency, Jefferson worked closely with this committee. Upon its establishment, Senator Abraham Baldwin of Georgia was chosen as chair. Jefferson prepared a detailed catalogue of suitable books the committee should consider acquiring for the library and sent the list of desiderata to Baldwin. With the catalogue, Jefferson included a lengthy cover letter explaining its underlying rationale. The letter provides a good indication of what he considered the library’s purpose.
Agreeing with Baldwin that “books of entertainment” were beyond the scope of the Library of Congress, Jefferson “confined the catalogue to those branches of science which belong to the deliberations of the members as statesmen.” He excluded those “classical books, ancient and modern, which gentlemen generally have in their private libraries, but which cannot properly claim a place in a collection made merely for the purpose of reference.”3 This comment assumes that all congressmen and senators were well read in the ancient classics, an assumption that was becoming increasingly difficult to make.
Though history remained the most respected form of literature through the early decades of the nineteenth century, Jefferson saw no reason to include any in the Library of Congress—at least not narrative history. He explained, “In history, I have confined the list to the chronological works, which give facts and dates with a minuteness not to be found in narratives composed for agreeable reading.”4 Jefferson’s words emphasize that the Library of Congress should be purely a reference library, and a chronological list of historical events made for a much better reference work than an artfully crafted historical narrative.
Legislative proceedings demanded a significant collection of law books. “Under the law of nature and nations,” he told Baldwin, “I have put down every thing I know of worth possessing because this is a branch of science often under the discussion of Congress and the books written in it not to be found in private libraries.”5 Recall the comment Jefferson made to George Washington about books treating the laws of nature: when several reach a consensus on a particular issue, they form a powerful argument. A large collection of books treating the laws of nature and nations allowed for much consensus-making among lawmakers. In addition, the Library of Congress should contain reports of cases and special legal treatises.
The collection of parliamentary treatises should be as full as possible. “The Parliamentary section I have imagined should be compleat,” Jefferson continued. “It is only by having a law of proceedings, and by every member having the means of understanding it for himself, and appealing to it, that he can be protected against caprice and despotism in the chair.”6 A good collection of parliamentary books would help congressmen and senators fulfill their responsibilities as lawmakers, all of whom should have a general knowledge of parliamentary procedure and have the opportunity to double-check specific procedures whenever necessary.
In 1803 Jefferson tried to persuade Congress to purchase some books that survived from the library of Benjamin Franklin. N. G. Dufief, who was selling Franklin’s library piecemeal in Philadelphia and having little success, had written President Jefferson—one of his best customers—to enlist his help. Dufief catalogued the two thousand or so volumes that remained from Franklin’s library and sent the manuscript catalogue to Jefferson, urging him to persuade Congress to allocate funds for the purchase of the collection and thus to honor a Founding Father and one of the greatest minds America had yet produced by preserving his library as a national treasure.
Essentially, Dufief was suggesting a radical shift in the purpose of the Library of Congress. Instead of a working reference library for legislators, it should be a repository for books that contributed to the cultural and intellectual history of the nation. As the frequency of his Franklin anecdotes show, Jefferson retained fond memories of his old friend. Furthermore, he admired Franklin’s great personal library, which he came to know in Paris and saw for the last time in Philadelphia weeks before Franklin’s death. Already, he had personally acquired several volumes from Dufief formerly in the possession of Benjamin Franklin. Still, Jefferson hesitated to change what he saw as the fundamental purpose of the Library of Congress.
Instead of recommending to the Joint Committee on the Library that they purchase what remained of Franklin’s collection, Jefferson marked up the catalogue Dufief sent him to indicate which books Congress should notice in particular. Dufief’s original catalogue does not survive, but the reconstructed catalogue of Franklin’s library lists many books that suit the purpose of the Library of Congress that Jefferson outlined in Jefferson’s letter to Baldwin: numerous collections of debates in the House of Commons, several volumes of laws and statutes, The Parliamentary Register, A Complete Collection of the Lords’ Protests, a fifteenvolume collection of the Journal of the House of Commons, and many other related works.7
The time Jefferson spent reading and annotating the manuscript catalogue of Franklin’s library went for naught. Upon receiving it, the Joint Committee of the Library informed him that it had already exhausted its annual budget. Jefferson wrote Dufief to return the catalogue and give him the disappointing news that Congress could not afford the Franklin books. He did agree to buy a few more volumes from Franklin’s library for his own collection. Dufief eventually put the rest of the library up for auction. Franklin’s collection—second only to Jefferson’s among private libraries in early America—was so thoroughly dispersed after Franklin’s death that it has largely disappeared.
Jefferson’s thoughts on the dispersal of Franklin’s library have gone unrecorded, but its sorry fate may have prompted him to rethink the purpose of the Library of Congress. Should it remain a working library for legislators or should it assume a purpose similar to the one Dufief suggested? In other words, should it begin collecting books from all fields of study that have cultural or historical significance to the United States?
Franklin’s library may have turned Jefferson’s thoughts to his own library. Other great personal libraries in early America had met
a similar fate as Franklin’s. Around the same time that Dufief was selling the Franklin library, he was also selling piecemeal what remained of the great library of William Byrd of Westover. One important early American library that remained intact was James Logan’s. His library survived because he had had the foresight to donate it to the city of Philadelphia. The Loganian Library was a monument to a man who spent a lifetime carefully assembling his collection. Logan’s library now survives as part of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
Before enemy soldiers destroyed the Library of Congress, Jefferson had not decided what to do with his library. One idea was to present it to the university he wanted to establish, but the creation of this university remained a distant prospect. Coinciding with an acute personal need for ready cash, the destruction of the Library of Congress crystallized Jefferson’s thoughts in the matter: he would sell his collection to the government to form the kernel of a new Library of Congress.
Jefferson’s decision marks a fundamental shift in his conception of what the Library of Congress should be. His library contained many of the same kinds of books he had recommended to Baldwin a dozen years earlier. It was rich in law books, especially books treating the laws of nature and of nations, and its collection of parliamentary books was unsurpassed in America. But it also contained thousands of books that fell outside his recommendations to Baldwin: books of entertainment, classical books, narratives composed for agreeable reading.
The Road to Monticello Page 71