Whereas Jefferson had recommended selected books from Franklin’s library for Congress to buy, he insisted that Congress should purchase his entire collection. He wanted to ensure that the collection he had spent five decades assembling would remain intact. When William Short learned of Jefferson’s plan to sell his library to Congress, he congratulated him because it would preserve his library from the fate suffered by the library of William Byrd of Westover. Were he to leave his library in private hands, Short conjectured, his books would be dispersed and the integrity of the collection ruined. Occasionally encountering stray books from Byrd’s library in Philadelphia, Short had been saddened by the dispersal of that once great collection. He told Jefferson, “The fate of that of Westover was a sufficient warning. It was scattered in the winds, and separate volumes are every now and then to be found in the book-sales here.”8
But Jefferson was motivated by the desire not only to preserve his own library as a whole, but also to have it form the basis for a great new Library of Congress—a purpose John Adams well understood. When Adams learned of Jefferson’s plan to sell his library to Congress, he told him, “I envy you that immortal honour.”9
Jefferson did not necessarily see the sale of his library to Congress as a personal honor, but he did see it as another opportunity to inscribe himself onto the nation. In this respect, his careful library organization was more important than the individual books it contained. He cleverly devised a way for the Library of Congress to use the meticulous organizational scheme he had invented. More than the opportunity to preserve his personal library, as Short surmised, more than the opportunity for personal glory, as Adams surmised, Jefferson saw the sale of his highly organized library to Congress as an opportunity to determine how the new national library codified information.
On September 21, 1814, he drafted a letter to Samuel Harrison Smith describing his plan to sell his personal collection to the Library of Congress and soliciting Smith’s help. Jefferson began, “I learn from the newspapers that the Vandalism of our enemy has triumphed at Washington over science as well as the arts, by the destruction of the public library with the noble edifice in which it was deposited.” He reminded Smith of the greatness of his personal library, which he and his wife had seen when they visited Monticello: “You know my collection, its condition and extent. I have been fifty years making it, and have spared no pains, opportunity or expense, to make it what it is.”10
He also emphasized his efforts to assemble an unsurpassed collection of Americana. His personal library formed a collection that “can never again be effected, because it is hardly probable that the same opportunities, the same time, industry, perseverance and expense, with some knowledge of the bibliography of the subject, would again happen to be in concurrence.”11 Though Jefferson was typically modest when writing about himself, he was not afraid to praise his library. Stressing the significance of his Americana collection in the letter to Smith, he indicated that he had reconceived the purpose of the Library of Congress more along the lines Dufief had suggested.
Jefferson sent Smith the catalogue and asked him to give both it and his letter to the Joint Committee on the Library so that Congress could set the terms of remuneration. Though Jefferson refused to sell his library piecemeal, he hoped to hang onto some of the classical and mathematical books until his death—but he did not insist on this point. The most important thing was to maintain the collection’s integrity.
Smith presented Jefferson’s offer to the Joint Committee on the Library. The committee liked the idea but could not approve such a substantial purchase without the support of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
On Friday, October 7, Robert Goldsborough, chairman of the Joint Committee on the Library, submitted the following resolution: “Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the joint library committee of the two Houses of Congress be, and they are hereby, authorized and empowered to contract on their part, for the purchase of the library of Mr. Jefferson, late President of the United States, for the use of both Houses of Congress.”12
The following Monday, Jefferson’s letter to Smith was read before the Senate. Acting as a committee of the whole, the Senate debated the resolution. No amendments were proposed, and the resolution passed.
Before the day was out, the Senate sent a message to the House of Representatives informing it of the resolution and asking for its approval. The resolution was referred to a committee of the whole to be debated the next day, where it faced a more difficult time than it had in the Senate. The debate over the purchase of Jefferson’s library in the House of Representatives has been called “one of the most mean-spirited party battles in Congressional annals.”13
On Tuesday, October 11, Jefferson’s letter to Smith was read before the House. Much “desultory conversation” followed. Congressmen questioned the value of the library and wondered about the books it contained. To give members of the House more time to examine the library catalogue, the committee of the whole agreed to postpone debate until a later time.
Debate was resumed the following Monday, the seventeenth. According to the annals of Congress, this time the debate was both desultory and considerable. Charles Ingersoll, a representative from Pennsylvania, remembered what happened. Years later he recalled, “The discussion and votes in the House of Representatives on the purchase of Jefferson’s library betrayed the English prepossessions of some, the narrow parsimony of others, the party-prejudices of nearly all.”14 Among those against the purchase, some Congressmen objected to the potential cost of the library, others to its size, and still others to the nature of Jefferson’s collection, which, they insisted, contained too many foreign works. After seeing the catalogue of Jefferson’s library, one contemporary observer commented, “According to the Catalogue of names a great proportion of the books are in foreign languages, and wholly unintelligible to 9/10ths of the members of Congress.”15 Others objected to the large number of scientific works. Some found many of the works listed in the catalogue downright objectionable.
The names of several prominent authors entered the debate. One congressman did not think that the works of Voltaire deserved a place in the Library of Congress. To be sure, Jefferson owned a sizable Voltaire collection. His fifty-eight-volume collection of Voltaire’s Oeuvres combined some volumes from the 1775 Geneva edition—the same edition John Adams owned—and other volumes from the 1785 Kehl edition, which Jefferson preferred because, as he said, it was “the last edition corrected by the author himself.”16 Jefferson owned a number of separately published Voltaire works, too. When the newspapers got word of these debates, they attacked the small-mindedness, shortsightedness, and anti-intellectualism of the opposing congressmen. The Petersburg Courier, for one, observed, “Another great objection is, that Mr. Jefferson’s library contains the works of Voltaire—what a pitiful observation! Will it be said that the works of an author, which hold the first rank on the shelves of all the libraries of Europe, and which may be found in the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, and in those of the four Scotch universities, for the express purpose to be perused by students, should be prohibited or forbidden a place in the Library of Congress?”17
Ingersoll remembered objections to multiple authors in Jefferson’s library. One congressman even objected to the presence of John Locke! Learning about the kinds of objections Jefferson’s enemies in Congress were making, the Petersburg Courier remarked that if the opponents of the resolution had their way, then Locke’s works would be committed to the flames and replaced by the Arabian Nights’ Entertainment or Monk Lewis’s Tales of Wonder.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was another author Congress objected to, according to Ingersoll. The only volume by Rousseau listed in the catalogue of Jefferson’s great library is Letters on the Elements of Botany. Though Rousseau encouraged young women to study botany in this work, its educational program was hardly controversial. Numerous earlier works
popular in America had encouraged women to pursue their interests in the sciences.18 If this was the work congressmen were complaining about, then they were grasping at straws. On the other hand, there may have been other Rousseau works listed in the catalogue Jefferson prepared for Congress. The catalogue of his library at Poplar Forest reveals that he owned Pierre Alexandre Peyrou’s edition of Rousseau’s Oeuvres Completes as well as an edition of Rousseau’s correspondence, thirty-eight volumes of Rousseau in total. Perhaps these volumes had originally been in his Monticello library, and Jefferson transferred then to his vacation library to minimize controversy.
Those congressmen who advocated the purchase of Jefferson’s library understood its fundamental worth. They argued “that so valuable a library, one so admirably calculated for the substratum of a great national library, was not to be obtained in the United States; and that, although there might be some works to which gentlemen might take exception, there were others of very opposite character; that this, besides, was no reason against the purchase, because in every library of value might be found some books to which exceptions would be taken, according to the feelings or prejudices of those who examined them.”19
The key phrase in this passage—“the substratum of a great national library”—shows that the library’s supporters recognized that the new Library of Congress could be something much greater than the original one. It would not only be a working library for legislators but also a library for the nation.
Congressman Cyrus King of Massachusetts was one of the most vocal opponents. He moved to amend the resolution by letting the committee purchase a portion of Jefferson’s library. King’s amendment not only went against Jefferson’s express desire to prevent his library from being dismembered, but also negated the idea of a great national library in favor of a modest collection of legislative books. The amendment was discussed briefly but voted down.
Before the day was out, John Reed, another representative from Massachusetts, moved to amend the resolution by limiting the price to be given for the library to $25,000. Debate on Reed’s proposed amendment “continued with considerable vivacity” the following day.
John Hulbert, a junior representative from Massachusetts, broke ranks with his senior colleagues. He spoke against Reed’s amendment and in favor of the purchase of Jefferson’s library. The Annals of Congress notes that Hulbert’s speech—the first he had delivered in the House of Representatives—was “very ingenious and handsome.”20 Regardless of either its ingenuity or its handsomeness, Hulbert’s speech did nothing to quash the mounting controversy. The debate raged on, becoming “rather too animated” at times—so animated, in fact, that it had to be checked by the Speaker of the House. A vote was taken, and Reed’s amendment was denied.
Other amendments were proposed, debated, and rejected. Debate spilled over to Wednesday, October 19, when the resolution was finally approved by the House with one amendment, that Congress must approve the purchase once the Joint Committee on the Library had reached terms with Jefferson. Basically this amendment gave Congress the opportunity to debate the purchase of Jefferson’s collection all over again at a later date. The amended resolution was sent back to the Senate, which approved the measure two days later. Announcing the measure’s approval, the Alexandria Gazette quipped, “Congress have agreed to purchase Mr. Jefferson’s Library, trumpery and all.”21
After much correspondence between Jefferson, Smith, and Joseph Milligan, the exact size of the library was determined—6,487 volumes (nearly 6,700 once many errant volumes were located), and the entire collection was valued at $23,950. This figure derives from the arbitrary values assigned to each volume according to format—folio, quarto, octavo, duodecimo.
Some contemporary observers found this estimate absolutely parsimonious. William Thornton, who had also become familiar with Jefferson’s library during a visit to Monticello, understood the amount of learning necessary to assemble such a collection and realized that a similar collection could not be obtained without great trouble, great expense, and great risk. Thornton advised Congress to offer Jefferson $50,000 without hesitation. Another contemporary observer, calling Jefferson’s library “a collection that any monarch in Europe would be proud to own,” valued it at £50,000 sterling.22
One keen bookman found that the arbitrary amounts assigned to each volume undervalued the collection significantly. To make his point, he looked up selected titles from Jefferson’s library in European auction catalogues to compare what Congress paid—on average about $3.50 per volume—with what copies of the same titles fetched at auction in Europe. By this method, the three folio volumes of Theodor De Bry’s Voyages in Jefferson’s library were worth £400 sterling; Purchas His Pilgrimage was worth £56 sterling; and Captain John Smith’s Generall Historie of Virginia was worth £42 sterling.23
The whole idea of assigning a monetary value to Jefferson’s great library was offensive to some. As one enthusiastic supporter commented, “The mere ordinary valuation of such a library, as an article of merchandize, can give no just idea of its intrinsic value. There is a sort of intellectual advance stamped on the selected books of great men, which has been always recognized in every country and age.”24
Before the end of November, Robert Goldsborough introduced to the Senate a bill to authorize the purchase of Jefferson’s library. On December 3, the Senate passed the bill, informed the House of Representatives about its passage, and requested their concurrence.
When debate on the issue in the House resumed in January 1815, Jefferson’s enemies renewed their attack. One congressman moved to postpone consideration of the bill indefinitely. The motion was denied. Another moved to postpone consideration of the bill until March 4—the day after this session of Congress was scheduled to end. The motion was denied. Cyrus King moved to recommit the bill to a select committee with instructions to authorize the purchase of those “books belonging to said library as might be necessary or useful to Congress in their deliberations and to dispose of the remainder at public sale.” The motion was denied—emphatically.
King then moved to recommit the bill to a select committee to remove from the library once it arrived in Washington “all books of an atheistical, irreligious, and immoral tendency, if any such there be, and send the same back to Mr. Jefferson without any expense to him.” King withdrew the motion before it could be denied.25
The discussion continued. Though the editors of the Annals of Congress reported the early debate over Jefferson’s library in detail, they misjudged the interest of the later parts of the debate among their readers. Anxious to learn more about the attitudes toward the Library of Congress voiced by early-nineteenth-century legislators, readers of the Annals reach a dead end as they confront the following sentence: “This subject, and the various motions relative thereto, gave rise to a debate which lasted till the hour of adjournment; which, though it afford much amusement to the auditors, would not interest the feelings or judgment of any reader.” Despite the arguments of the bill’s detractors, its supporters maintained the importance of Jefferson’s library as “a most admirable substratum for a National Library.”26 The bill authorizing its purchase passed on January 30, 1815.
After the first bill had passed in December, Francis C. Gray and George Ticknor, two young Boston bookmen, became anxious to see Jefferson’s library before it was carted off to Washington. They planned a literary pilgrimage to Monticello. For each, John Adams wrote separate letters of introduction to Jefferson. The one Adams wrote for Ticknor is a pure delight. It begins, “The most exalted of our young Genius’s in Boston have an Ambition to see Monticello, its Library and its Sage.” Adams predicted that Jefferson would get along famously with both young men. As you are all “gluttons for books,” he continued, “I think you ought to have a Sympathy for each other.”27
Hiring a carriage in Charlottesville on Saturday, February 4, Gray and Ticknor left at noon on their way to Monticello. The clouds and rain this afternoon gave the day a gloomy
cast. The tall, bare oak trees covering the land leading to the top of Monticello reinforced the somber mood. Describing the trek to Jefferson’s mountaintop home, Ticknor observed, “The ascent up this steep, savage hill was as pensive and slow as Satan’s ascent to Paradise.” Gray’s description was less figurative but no less entertaining: “The forest had evidently been abandoned to nature; some of the trees were decaying from age, some were blasted, some uprooted by the wind and some appeared even to have been twisted from their trunks by the violence of a hurricane. They rendered the approach to the house even at this season of the year extremely grand and imposing.”28
Once inside Monticello, Ticknor was reminded of the home where the Man of the Hill lives in Tom Jones. Upon entering, Henry Fielding’s great hero is surprised to see the home “furnished in the most neat and elegant Manner. To say the Truth, Jones himself was not a little surprized at what he saw: For, besides the extraordinary Neatness of the Room, it was adorned with a great Number of Nick-nacks, and Curiosities, which might have engaged the Attention of a Virtuoso.”29
Ticknor was more specific in his description of the curiosities that adorned the hall at Monticello: “On one side hang the head and horns of an elk, a deer, and a buffalo; another is covered with curiosities which Lewis and Clarke found in their wild and perilous expedition. On the third, among many other striking matters, was the head of a mammoth, or, as Cuvier calls it, a mastodon, containing the only os frontis, Mr. Jefferson tells me, that has yet been found. On the fourth side, in odd union with a fine painting of the Repentance of St. Peter, is an Indian map on leather, of the southern waters of the Missouri, and an Indian representation of a bloody battle, handed down in their traditions.”30
Gray was struck by his host’s physical appearance. His journal contains one of the best personal descriptions of Jefferson in his old age, though it does border on caricature:
The Road to Monticello Page 72