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To THE MEMORY OF

Lieut.-Col. John Shaw Billings

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First Director or

The New York Public Library

WHO BY HIS FORESIGHT ENERGY' AND

ADMINISTRATIVE ABILITY

MADE EFFECTIVE

its far-reaching influence

"He is not dead who civf.tii ur to knowledge"

John Shaw Billings Memorial Fund Fovnded by Anna Palmer Draper

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From the Library of Edmund Lester Pearson

AN

fe>tantjaru iLibran? C&ition

AMERICAN STATESMEN

EDITED BY

JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

EN THIRTY-TWO VOLUMES VOL. XI.

THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY THOMAS JEFFERSON

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American Statesmen

THOMAS JEFFERSON

BY

JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

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BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

Cbc fitoetsibe press, Cambribge

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994034A

Copyright, 1883 and 1898, By JOHN X. MORSE, JR.

Copyright, 1898, By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

All rights reserved.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

The third period of our history, according to the division adopted for this series, has been char- acterized as that of the Jeffersonian Democracy. The group of biographies dealing with this period includes Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Albert Gallatin, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and John Randolph.

John Adams had collaborated with the natural course of events so efficiently that, upon his depar- ture from the presidency, the Federalist party was shattered into fragments. It was gone forever ; it had no future ; it had passed into history as completely as if it had existed in ancient Rome instead of in the new United States. Jefferson came triumphantly into power, and founded what has often and properly enough been called the Jef- fersonian dynasty. He deserved the eponymous honor quite as much as many of the individuals who have given their family names to lines of monarchs in Europe. He had formulated Demo- cratic doctrines and had organized the Democratic

vi EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

party. He brought over to the United States the theories, fortunately without the horrors and the mad unreason, of the French Revolution. He found the restlessness and the new ideas of the age filtering through his countrymen, but in a vague way, without the coherence of a system of principles. He supplied this defect; he was a man of broad views, powerful and original intel- lect, and by his nature sincerely in sympathy with the most advanced political doctrines of the age. He created what may be called the Code of De- mocracy, and thereby he rendered possible also the creation of a party which should adopt that code. For this collateral task he was equally well fitted ; for he was one of the most skillful politi- cians that this country of politicians has yet pro- duced. In this respect it is interesting to compare him with Alexander Hamilton, his distinguished, hated, and much less successful rival. Hamilton created Federalism, he gave orders to the powerful clique that led that party, but he himself never could lead the party en masse, and he never had the remotest chance of being president. Jefferson, on the other hand, had his party in complete subordination ; he not only dictated its principles and policy, and controlled its prominent members like so many lieutenants, but he held the rank and file to that blind, unquestioning allegiance which

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION vii

is more common in religious than in secular fol- lowing^. So it was matter of course that he was made president, and in that office he enjoyed a personal power greater than has ever been held by any other president of this country. Yet it has always been admitted that, beyond bringing his party into the supremacy, he really did little else. He did not make fundamental changes ; there was a democratic modification of the general spirit of the administration. The government ceased to advance along the Federalist lines, and advanced along somewhat more popular ones. But this was all. Nothing which had been done was undone. Jefferson had bitterly denounced the manner in which the Federalists had put together the administrative and political machine of the new government. But he made no effort to take apart that machine or to re-make it. On the con- trary, he accepted it with such practical approval as was involved in using it very efficiently. The truth is that Jefferson's democracy was like the political faith of a large proportion of the states- men of the world. A large percentage of it was personal. A strong centralized government was a very bad and dangerous thing when run by Ham- ilton and Federalists, because they would use it in an evil way for the exclusive benefit of a few aristocrats; the same power was most beneficial,

viii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

however, when, in the hands of Jefferson and the Democrats, it was sure to be wisely and virtuously employed for the good of the people. So the end of the bitter and abusive struggle between the opposing leaders led to no very definite results. Yet its consequences are not, on the other hand, to be undervalued, for it is certainly true that the stopping of the Federalist advance and the inaugu- ration of a popular theory gave direction to the subsequent development of the nation, politically. Federalism might have ended in the creation, not quite of an actual oligarchy, as has been too ex- travagantly said, but of an upper and ruling class. Democracy we have not seen the end of as yet ; instead of an upper ruling class, it may be going to give us a lower ruling class. It is not even yet time to discuss the ultimate outcome of the triumph of Jefferson over the Federalists.

Jefferson was hardly a distinguished administra- tor in the presidency. The executive department was not his forte. Moreover, wise as much of his statecraft was, certain absurd theories were em- bedded in it. Especially there was his pet hobby as to the possibility of peace by isolation. Destiny seemed to have taken in hand the business of his humiliation, by showing the folly of this, his favorite doctrine, while he himself was in control of the government, but by no means in control of

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION ix

events. It is true that lie had the good fortune to have his second terra of office come to an end before the war with Great Britain had actually broken out, but it was already a closely impending certainty, and his policy had been wholly unavail- ing to avert it. The unfortunate Madison it was, who had to take the actual burden upon his reluc- tant and unequal shoulders. Doubtless Madison was pleased to succeed to the presidential dignity, though his career in that office added little lustre to the reputation which he already enjoyed. But whether he was pleased or not, he had no option about it. His chief, Mr. Jefferson, named him, and that was sufficient. Jefferson was still dicta- tor. So it came about that one of the most pacific of modern statesmen found himself engaged jn conducting a war. Unfortunately the country was wholly unequal to the strain, alike in its physical and its financial resources. Moreover, the mea- sure was extremely unpopular in that very part of the country where there was most need of a hearty support. The New England merchants, with their well-filled coffers and their abundant marine, were so disaffected that they began to talk of secession. The Hartford Convention, which hardly restrained itself from crossing the danger line of treason, is one of the reminiscences of that period. Nor were there many military episodes in the war which it

x EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

is gratifying to recall. There was a tinge of irony in the fact that, whereas of all things Jef- ferson and his Democratic following had princi- pally condemned and sneered at a navy, the spo- radic achievements of our ships were the only events in the war of which the nation could hon- estly feel proud. When, however, the end was at last reached, it fortunately brought better results than had been really won; for our negotiators achieved a surprising measure of success at Ghent. An important refutation of some recent political abuse was made during the administrations of Jefferson and Madison. The one thing which had been denounced more bitterly than all else by the Jeffersonians had been the management of the Treasury by the Federalists. But when they them- selves came into power, they found that, though they had been such uncompromising critics of others, they had no great abundance of financial ability in their own party. Indeed there was really only one man among them upon whom Jefferson and Madison could depend to carry them through their matters of business, and that was the Swiss, Albert Gallatin. Accordingly they both kept him at the head of the Treasury. That he was fairly successful must be admitted by all, while his ad- mirers will be indignant at so limited a phrase concerning his career. Certainly he has left be-

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xi

hind him the name of a good financier, partly by- reason of his real merits, but partly because the writers in sympathy with his party have always loyally and loudly praised him. It may, how- ever, be suspected that they have admired him a little beyond his deserts, because he was the only one among them who had any financial capacity whatsoever. One fact no one has ever been able to deny : that, having bitterly abused the whole Hamiltonian policy and scheme of Treasury man- agement, he himself, so soon as he came into office, adopted that whole scheme and continued that same policy. If what he had said in pre- vious years was true, his conduct as secretary was fundamentally wrong. He introduced absolutely nothing that was new. None the less he enjoys great distinction.

Madison, who had been so painfully compelled to wield the sword, was happily permitted to sheathe it before he left office, and he finally re- tired amid an unusual and most pleasing political tranquillity. He was succeeded by James Monroe. It was the period of the succession of secretaries of state ; Madison had held that place in Jeffer- son's cabinet, Monroe held it in Madison's, John Quincy Adams held it in Monroe's. Perhaps there was no better reason than this for making Mon- roe president. He had been in public life for a

xii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

long while, and had done tolerably well, winning some distinction and also suffering some severe con- demnation, in sundry official positions. But he was a stanch Jeffersonian ; no one else was very prominent just then ; the times were tranquil, and he accordingly received the office and filled it altogether satisfactorily for eight years. It has happened to him to have his name, which might otherwise have been almost forgotten, become one of the important ones in our history, by reason of " the Monroe Doctrine," so called. This also was undeserved good fortune for him. The first suggestion of that doctrine may be referred to Washington. But so far as it was developed as a principle of political action during the presi- dency of Monroe it was really shaped by John Quincy Adams. Monroe has had the credit for it, as a general in command sometimes receives the credit for a victory which is in fact wholly the achievement of a subordinate. But Monroe needed some such adjunct to sustain his fame, and Adams can well afford to transfer it, so the accident need not be too much regretted.

The " era of good feeling," which culminated under Monroe, soon began to disappear during the presidency of his successor. It was not a gift of the older or of the younger Adams to bring quietude. So the era of good feeling gave way to the era which has been well enough described as

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xiii

that of "personal politics." Quarrels between persons who desired office and control were now foisted upon the public attention in the absence of issues based upon matters really of general moment. Adams, Clay, and Crawford rallied their hostile camps, with no more substantial causes for difference than mere personal preference ; and Jackson, though open to just objection on the ground of his lack of qualifications, contested for the time being upon much the same basis.

John Randolph is an excellent figurehead for these days, an exponent of the spirit of the time, not much concerned with great principles of policy or statecraft, or with anything really serious in poli- tics, but filled with ill-blood, busy with animosities, emptying vituperation, calumny, and abuse upon every side with a freedom not altogether delecta- ble to witness. He did not keep a diary, like John Quincy Adams, and did in public what that shrewder and more decent New Englander pre- ferred to do in private ; but whether in public or in private, much the same temper was displayed by them both. In fact it was the natural deca- dence and death of a period. A transition was taking place, which was not yet sufficiently devel- oped to be understood. The country was entering upon a new stage in its history.

JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

September, 1898.

CONTENTS

CttAP. PAGE

I. YOUTH 1

II. In the House of Burgesses ... 15

III. In Congress 23

IV. Again in the House of Burgesses . . 36 V. Governor of Virginia 51

VI. In Congress Again 64

VH. Minister to France 70

VIH. Secretary of State. — Domestic Affairs . 87

IX. Secretary of State. — Growth of Dissensions 100

X. Secretary of State. — Foreign Affairs . 130

XI.. In Retreat 148

XII. Vice-President 154

Xni. President : First Term. — Offices. — Callen-

der 186

XrV. President : First Term. — Louisiana . . 205 XV. President : First Term. — Impeachments. —

Reelection 230

XVI. President : Second Term. — Randolph's De- fection. — Burr's Treason . . . 242 XVII. President: Second Term. — Embargo . . 255 XVIII. At Monticello: Political Opinions . . 286 XIX. At Monticello : Personal Matters. — Death 295 Index 309

ILLUSTRATIONS

Thomas Jefferson Frontispiece

After a photograph owned by Dr. John Fiske of a drawing by C. B. J. FeVret de St. M^min, in the posses- sion of John C. Bancroft, Esq., Boston. This was made in 1S05, when Jefferson was sixty-two years of age, and is said to be St. M^min's strongest and most characteris- tic profile drawing. Autograph from the Declaration of Independence.

The vignette of "Monticello," Mr. Jefferson's home,

near Charlottesville, Va., is from a photograph.

Pago

The Declaration of Independence .... facing 34 From the painting by John Trumbull in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington.

Thomas Paine facing 114

From a portrait painted in 1803, by John Wesley Jarvis,

in the possession of Mr. John H. Johnston, New York,

N. Y.

Autograph from the Chamberlain Collection, Boston

Public Library.

Edmond C. Genet facing 132

After a miniature by Fouquet in 1793, in the possession of Genet's son, George C. Genet, Esq., New York, N. Y. Autograph from the Chamberlain Collection, Boston Public Library.

William B. Giles . facing 150

From the original painting by Gilbert Stuart, in the

possession of Clarence W. Bowen, Esq., New York, N. Y. Autograph from a MS. in the rooms of the Historical

Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

THOMAS JEFFEBSON

CHAPTER I

YOUTH

Little more than a century ago a civilized na- tion without an aristocracy was a pitiful spectacle scarcely to be witnessed in the world. The Amer- ican colonists, having brought no dukes and barons with them to the rugged wilderness, fell in some sort under a moral compulsion to set up an imita- tion of the genuine creatures, and, as their best makeshift in the emergency, they ennobled in a kind of local fashion the richer Virginian planters. These gentlemen were not without many qualifica- tions for playing the agreeable part assigned to them ; they gambled recklessly over cards and at the horse-racings and cock-fightings which formed their chief pleasures ; they caroused to excess at taverns and at each other's houses ; they were very extravagant, very lazy, very arrogant, and fully persuaded of their superiority over their fellows, whom they felt it their duty and their privilege to direct and govern ; they had large landed estates,

2 THOMAS JEFFERSON

and preserved the custom of entailing them in favor of eldest sons ; they were great genealogists, and steeped in family pride ; they occupied houses which were very capacious and noted for unlimited hospitality, but which were also ill-kept and bar- ren ; they were fond of field-sports and were ad- mirable horsemen ; they respected the code of honor, and quarreled and let blood as gentlemen should ; they were generous, courageous, and high- spirited ; a few of them were liberally educated and well-read. We all know that when the days of trial came, the best of them were little inferior to the best men whose names are to be found in the history of any people in the world ; 1 though when one studies the antecedents and social sur- roundings whence these noble figures emerged, it seems as if for once men had gathered grapes from thorns and figs from thistles.

Rather upon the outskirts than actually within the sacred limits of this charmed circle, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743. The first American Jefferson was dimly supposed to have immigrated from Snowdon, in Wales ; such at least was the family " tradition ; " while the only thing certainly to be predicated concerning him is that he was one of the earliest settlers, having ar- rived in Virginia before the Mayflower had brought

1 It should be remembered that by good rights neither Wash- ington, Jefferson, nor even Madison, before they became distin- guished, would have been entitled to take rank in the exclusive coterie of the best Virginian families.

YOUTH 3

the first cargo of Puritans to the New England coast. Peter Jefferson, the father of Thomas, gave the family its first impetus on the road towards worldly success. He was a man of superb phy- sique, and of correspondingly vigorous intellect and enterprising temper. In early life he became very intimate with William Randolph of Tucka- hoe ; he " patented " in the wilderness a thousand acres of land adjoining the larger estate of Ran- dolph, bought from his friend four hundred acres more, paying therefor the liberal price of " Henry Weatherbourne's biggest bowl of arrack punch," as is jovially nominated in the deed ; and further cemented the alliance by marrying William's cousin, Jane Randolph, in 1738. The distinction which this infusion of patrician blood brought to the com- moner Jeffersonian stream was afterwards slight- ingly referred to by Thomas Jefferson, who said, with a characteristic democratic sneer, that his mother's family traced " their pedigree far back in England and Scotland, to which let every one ascribe the faith and merit he chooses."

Peter Jefferson's plantation, or more properly his farm, for it seems to have been largely devoted to the culture of wheat, lay on the Rivanna near its junction with the James, including a large ex- tent of plain and some of the lower shoulders or spurs of the mountains known as the Southwest Range. He named it Shadwell, after the parish in London where his wife had been born ; among its hills was that of Monticello, upon which in after

4 THOMAS JEFFERSON

years Thomas Jefferson built his house. Peter was colonel of his county, and a member of the House of Burgesses, apparently a man of rising note in the colony. But in August, 1757, in the fiftieth year of what seemed a singularly vigorous life, he suddenly died, leaving Thomas only fourteen years old, with the advantages, however, of a comforta- ble property and an excellent family connection on the mother's side, so that it would be his own fault if he should not prosper well in the world.

Jefferson appears to have been sensibly brought up, getting as good an education as was possible in Virginia and paying also due regard to his physical training. He grew to be a slender and sinewy, or, as some preferred to say, a thin and raw-boned young man, six feet two and one half inches tall, with hair variously reported as red, reddish, and sandy, and with eyes mixed of gray and hazel. Certainly he was not handsome, and in order to establish his social attractiveness his friends fall back on " his countenance, so highly expressive of intelligence and benevolence," and upon his "fluent and sensible conversation " intermingled with a "vein of pleasantry." He is said to have improved in appearance as he grew older, and to have be- come " a very good-looking man in middle age, and quite a handsome old man." 1 He was athletic, fond of shooting, and a skillful and daring horse- man even for a Virginian. He early developed a strong taste for music, and fiddled assiduously for 1 Tucker's Life of Jefferson, i. 29.

YOUTH 5

many years. By his own desire he entered Wil- liam and Mary College in 1760, at the age of sev- enteen. He was now secure of every advantage possible for a young Virginian. The college was at Williamsburg, then the capital of the colony^ and his relationship with the Randolphs made him free of the best houses.1 A Scotch doctor, Wil- liam Small, was Professor of Mathematics and tem- porarily also of Philosophy. He appears to have had a happy gift of instruction, and to have fired the mind of his pupil with a great zeal for learn- ing. Jefferson afterward even said that the pre- sence of this gentleman at the University was " what probably fixed the destinies of my life."

If we may take Jefferson's own word for it, he habitually studied, during his second collegiate year, fifteen hours a day, and for his only exercise ran, at twilight, a mile out of the city and back again. Long afterward, in 1808, he wrote to a grandson a sketch of this period of his life, com- posed in his moral and didactic vein ; in it he draws a beautiful picture of his own precocious and unnatural virtue, and is himself obliged to gaze in surprise upon one so young and yet so good amid crowding temptations. Without fully

1 But one must not draw too glowing a picture of the advan- tage of living in Williamsburg, which in fact was a village con- taining about two hundred houses, " one thousand souls, whites and negroes," and " ten or twelve gentlemen's families constantly residing in it, besides merchants and tradesmen." Only during the winter session of the legislature it became "crowded with the gentry of the country." See Parton's Life of Jefferson, 20.

6 THOMAS JEFFERSON

sharing in this generous admiration, we must not doubt that he was sufficiently studious and sensi- ble, for he had a natural thirst for information, and he always afterward appeared a broadly educated man. His preference was for mathematics and natural philosophy, studies which he deemed " so peculiarly engaging and delightful as would induce every one to wish an acquaintance with them." He was fond also of classics, and indeed eschewed with positive distaste no branch of study save only ethics and metaphysics. At these he sneered, and actually once had the courage to say that it was " lost time " to attend lectures on moral philoso- phy, since " he who made us would have been a pitiful bungler if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science." Certainly morals never became in his mind one of the exact sciences, and the heretical notion of his youth re- mained the conviction of his mature years. He appears to have read quite extensively, with sound selection and liberal taste, among the acknowledged classics in Greek, Latin, and English literature, and to some extent also in French and Italian. But novels he never fancied and rarely touched at any period of his life, though not by reason of a severe taste, since for a long while he was nothing less than infatuated with the bombast of Ossian.

After graduation, Jefferson read law in the office of George Wythe, a gentleman whose genial social qualities and high professional attainments are at- tested by the friendly allusions of many eminent

YOUTH 7

contemporaries.1 His zeal in labor still continued, and again the story is told that he habitually reached the measure of fifteen hours of study daily. When he was about twenty-one years old, Jefferson drew up a plan of study and reading for a young friend. Before eight o'clock in the morn- ing this poor fellow was to devote himself to " phy- sical studies ; " eight to twelve o'clock, law ; twelve to one, politics ; afternoon, history ; " dark to bedtime," literature, oratory, etc., etc. Yet there were cakes and ale in those days, young girls and dancing at the Raleigh tavern, cards and horses ; and the young Virginians had their full share of all these good things. Probably the fifteen hours stint, as a regular daily allowance, is fabulous. With Professor Small and Mr. Wythe the young student formed a " partie carree " at the " pal- ace " of Francis Fauquier, then the gay, agreeable, accomplished, free-thinking, gambling governor of Virginia. The four habitually dined together in spite of the fifteen-hour rule, and it betokens no small degree of intellectual maturity on the part of Jefferson, that while a mere college lad, he was the selected companion of three such gentle- men. Fortunately his sound common sense pro- tected him from the dangerous elements in the association.

A few letters written by Jefferson at this time to his friend John Page, a member of the well-

1 John Marshall read law with him, and Henry Clay was his private secretary.

8

JEFFERSON

known Virginian famDv of that name and himself *-ward governor of Virginia, have been pre- ed. Without showing much brilliancy, i abound in labored attend humor, and are

thickly sown with fragments from the classics and simple \ ual Latinity. The chief bur-

den of them all girls, whose faces, it is to

be hoped, were prettier than their names. — "rukey

--L and the like. One of them, '• Belinda,'" as he called her. h -A in a rather

.liar way. He told her that he loved her, but did prese: himself, since

ished to go to Europe for an indefinite period : but he said that on his return, of course with un- changed af uld finally and openly commit himself. To this not very ardent propo- lady naturally said 2s o. and soon led another. The " laggard in love "" wrote a despairing letter or two. which fail to bring tears to tL- remained in eomforta- helorho ~ew short years, and then gave hand, and dou;. also in all warmth and ■erity his heart, to the young widow of Bathurst .ton. His mar; took place January 1, 1772. If the accounts of gallant chroniclers may :."usted, the bride had every qualification which can make woman attractive ; an exquisite feminine A manners, loveliness of disposition, verness. and ma- jmplishments. Fur- .uer father. John Wavles. a rich lawyer, ecnsiderav , about sixteen months after the

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8 THOMAS JEFFERSON

known Virginian family of that name and himself afterward governor of Virginia, have been pre- served. Without showing much brilliancy, they abound in labored attempts at humor, and are thickly sown with fragments from the classics and simple bits of original Latinity. The chief bur- den of them all is the girls, whose faces, it is to be hoped, were prettier than their names, — Sukey Potter, Judy Burwell, and the like. One of them, " Belinda," as he called her, he treated in a rather peculiar way. He told her that he loved her, but did not desire at present to engage himself, since he wished to go to Europe for an indefinite period ; but he said that on his return, of course with un- changed affections, he would finally and openly commit himself. To this not very ardent propo- sition the lady naturally said No, and soon wedded another. The " laggard in love " wrote a despairing letter or two, which fail to bring tears to the reader's eyes ; remained in comforta- ble bachelorhood a few short years, and then gave his hand, and doubtless also in all warmth and sincerity his heart, to the young widow of Bathurst Skelton. His marriage took place January 1, 1772. If the accounts of gallant chroniclers may be trusted, the bride had every qualification which can make woman attractive ; an exquisite feminine beauty, grace of manners, loveliness of disposition, rare cleverness, and many accomplishments. Fur- thermore, her father, John Wayles, a rich lawyer, considerately died about sixteen months after the

YOUTH 9

marriage, and so caused a handsome addition to Jefferson's property.

Jefferson, however, had no need to marry for money. Though not very rich, he was well off and was rapidly multiplying his assets. At the time of his marriage he had increased his patri- mony so that 1900 acres had swelled by purchases to 5000 acres, and thirty slaves had increased to fifty-two. He was getting considerably upwards of 83000 a year from his profession,1 and $2000 from his farm. This made a very good income in those days in Virginia. The evidence is abundant that he was thrifty, industrious, and successful. He seemed like one destined to accumulate wealth, but he never had a fair opportunity to show his capacity in this direction, since he maintained a resolve not to better his fortunes while in public life.

His career at the bar began in 1767, when he wras only twenty-four years old, and closed in 1774. If he had only been getting fairly into business when he left the profession, he would have had little right to complain. But apparently he had stepped at once into an excellent practice, and either the chief occupation of all Virginians was litigation, or else he must have enjoyed excep- tional good fortune. In the first year he had sixty-eight cases in the " general court," in the next year one hundred and fifteen, in the third

1 During the seven years that he was in practice his fees aver- aged $3000 per annum.

10 THOMAS JEFFERSON

year one hundred and ninety-eight. Of causes before inferior tribunals no record was kept. Yet Mr. Randall tells us that he was chiefly an " office- lawyer," for that a husky weakness of the voice prevented him from becoming very successful as an advocate.

The farming, though it contributed the smaller fraction of his income, was the calling which throughout life he loved with an inborn fondness not to be quenched by all the cares and interests of a public career, and his notebooks attest the unresting interest which he brought to it in all times and places. A striking paper, unfortunately incomplete and undated, is published in the first volume of his works. " I sometimes ask myself," he writes, " whether my country is the better for my having lived at all. ... I have been the in- strument of doing the following things." Then are enumerated such matters as the disestablish- ment of the state church in Virginia, the putting an end to entails, the prohibition of the importa- tion of slaves, also the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, and in the same not very long list, cheek by jowl with these momentous achieve- ments, follows the importation of olive plants from Marseilles into South Carolina and Georgia, and of heavy upland rice from Africa into the same States, in the hope that it might supersede the cul- ture of the wet rice so pestilential in the summer. '* The greatest service," he comments, " which can be rendered to any country is, to add a useful

YOUTH 11

plant to its culture, especially a bread grain ; next in value to bread is oil." At another time he wrote : " Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen peo- ple, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. . . . Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenome- non of which no age or nation has furnished an example. . . . Generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in any state to that of the husbandmen is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a good enough barometer whereby to mea- sure the degree of its corruption." From these premises he draws the conclusion that it is an error to attract artificers or mechanics from for- eign parts into this country. It will be better and more wholesome, he says, to leave them in their European workshops, and " carry provisions and materials to workmen there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles." This would hardly pass nowadays for sound political economy ; but it is an excellent sample of the simple, impractical form into which Jefferson's reflections were apt to de- velop when the mood of dreamy virtue was upon him. During an inroad of yellow fever he found " consolation " in the reflection that Providence had so ordered things " that most evils are the means of producing some good. The yellow fever will discourage the growth of great cities in our

12 THOMAS JEFFERSON

nation, and I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man." Nor did wider experience of the world cause him to change his views. In 1785 he wrote from Paris : " Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous ; and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds! ... I consider the class of artificers as the panders of vice, and the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally overturned." " Were I to indulge in my own theory," he again says, " I should wish them (the States) to practice neither commerce nor navigation, but to stand with respect to Eu- rope precisely on the footing of China."

For his own personal part, Jefferson was always an enthusiast in agriculture. He was never too busy to find time to note the dates of the planting and the ripening of his vegetables and fruits. He left behind him a table enumerating thirty-seven esculents, and showing the earliest date of the ap- pearance of each one of them in the Washington market in each of eight successive years. He had ever a quick observation and a keen intelligence ready for every fragment of new knowledge or hint of a useful invention in the way of field work. All through his busy official life, abroad and at home, he appears ceaselessly to have one eye on the soil and one ear open to its cultivators ; he is always comparing varying methods and results, sending

YOUTH 13

new seeds hither and thither, making suggestions, trying experiments, till, in the presence of his en- terprise and activity, one begins to think that the stagnating character so commonly attributed to the Virginian planters must be fabulous. For, on the contrary, so far was his temperament removed from the conservatism of the Anglo-Saxon race, that often he seemed to take the fact that a thing had never been done as a sufficient reason for doing it. All his tendencies were utilitarian. Though strangely devoid of any appreciation of fiction in literature, yet he had a powerful imagination, which ranged wholly in the unromantic domain of the useful, and ran riot in schemes for conferring practical benefits on mankind. He betrayed the same traits in agriculture and in politics. In both he was often a dreamer, but his dreams concerned the daily affairs of his fellow men, and his life was devoted to reducing his idealities to realities. It was largely this sanguine taste for novelty, this dash of the imaginative element, flavoring all his projects and doctrines, which made them attractive to the multitude, who, finding present facts to be for the most part hard and uninviting, are ever prone to be pleased with propositions for variety.

Only once, under the combined influences of Ossian, youth, and love, we find his fancy roving in a melodramatic direction. He turns then for a while from absorbing calculations of the amount of work which a man can do with a one-wheeled bar- row and the amount he can do with a two-wheeled

14 THOMAS JEFFERSON

barrow, the number and cost of the nails required for a certain length of paling, the amount of lime, or limestone, required for a perch of stone wall, and in place of these useful computations he lays plans for ornamental work. He will " choose out for a burying place some unfrequented vale in the park," wherein a bubbling brook alone shall break the stillness, while around shall be " ancient and ven- erable oaks " interspersed with " gloomy ever- greens." In the centre shall be a " small gothic temple of antique appearance." He will " appro- priate one half to the use of his family," the other, with an odd manifestation of Virginian hospitality, to the use of " strangers," servants, etc. There shall be " pedestals, with urns and proper inscrip- tions " and a " pyramid of the rough rockstone " over the " grave of a favorite and faithful servant." There will be, of course, a grotto, " spangled with translucent pebbles and beautiful shells," with an ever-trickling stream, a mossy couch, a figure of a sleeping nymph, and appropriate mottoes in Eng- lish and Latin. It is needless to say that these idle fancies seem never to have been seriously taken in hand. More important and engrossing work than the preparation of an enticing grave- yard was forthwith to claim Jefferson's attention.

CHAPTER II

IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES

About the time when he entered college, Jeffer- son made the acquaintance of Patrick Henry, then a rather unprosperous, hilarious, unknown young countryman, just admitted to the bar, though pro- foundly ignorant of law. An intimacy sprang up between them, and when Henry became a member of the House of Burgesses he often shared Jeffer- son's chambers at Williamsburg. From them he went, in May, 1765, to utter that ringing speech against taxation without representation which made him for a time foremost among Virginian patriots. In the doorway of the hall stood Jefferson, an en- tranced listener, thinking that Henry spoke "as Homer wrote." The magnetic influence of this brilliant friend would have transformed a more loyally disposed youth than Jefferson into an arrant rebel. But no influence was needed for this pur- pose ; Jefferson was by nature a bold and free thinker, wanting rather ballast than canvas. As he watched the course of public events in those years when the germs of the Revolution were swell- ing and quickening in the land, all his sympathies were warmly enlisted with the party of resistance.

16 THOMAS JEFFERSON

By the year 1768, when the advent of a new gov- ernor made necessary the election of a new House of Burgesses, he already craved the opportunity to take an active part in affairs, and at once offered himself as a candidate for Albemarle County. He kept open house, distributed limitless punch, stood by the polls, politely bowing to every voter who named him, all according to the Virginian fashion of the day,1 and had the good fortune, by these meritorious efforts, to win success. On May 11, 1769, he took his seat. Lord Botetourt delivered his quasi-royal speech, and Jefferson drew the reso- lutions constituting the basis of the reply ; but afterward, being deputed to draw the reply itself, he suffered the serious mortification of having his document rejected. On the third day the burgesses passed another batch of resolutions, so odiously like a Bill of Rights that the governor, much perturbed in his loyal mind, dissolved them at once. The next day they eked out' this brief term of service by meeting in the "Apollo," or long room of the Raleigh tavern, where eighty-eight of them, of whom Jefferson was one, formed a non-importation league as against British merchandise. All the signers of this document were at once reelected by their constituents.

In March, 1773, the burgesses again came to- gether in no good humor. The destruction of the Gaspee in Narragansett Bay had led to a tlraconic act of Parliament whereby any colonist, destroying

1 See Parton's description, in his Life of Jefferson, p. 88.

IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 17

so much as "the button of a mariner's coat," might be carried to England for trial and punished with death. Upon the assembling of the burgesses, Jef- ferson and some five or six others, " not thinking our old and leading members up to the point of forwardness and zeal which the times required," met privately in consultation. The offspring of their conference was a standing committee charged to correspond with like committees which the sister colonies were invited to appoint. An idle contro- versy has arisen as to whether Massachusetts or Virginia was first to devise this system of corre- spondence. Jefferson long afterward averred that Virginia was the earlier, and the evidence favors the substantial correctness of his statement ; for, though Massachusetts had suggested the idea some two years before, she had not pushed it, and the suggestion, known to few, had been forgotten by all. It naturally resulted from this proceeding that the burgesses were at once dissolved by the Earl of Dunmore. But the committee met on the next day and issued their circular of invitation.

A year later, in the spring of 1774, news of the Boston Port Bill came while the burgesses were in session. Ag;ain Jefferson and some half dozen more, feeling that " the lead in the House on these subjects [should] no longer be left with the old members," and agreeing that they "must boldly take an unecjuivocal stand in the line with Massa- chusetts," * met in secret to devise proper measures.

1 The march of events, Jefferson afterward wrote, "favored

18 THOMAS JEFFERSON

They determined to appoint a day of fasting and prayer, and in the House they succeeded in carry- ing a resolution to that effect. Again the gov- ernor dissolved them ; again they went over to the " Apollo," and again passed there most disloyal resolutions. Among these was one requesting the Committee of Correspondence to consult the other colonies on the expediency of holding annually a general congress ; also another, for the meeting of representatives from the counties of Virginia in convention at Williamsburg on August 1. The freeholders of Albemarle elected Jefferson again a burgess, and also a deputy to this convention.

Jefferson started to attend the meeting of the convention, but upon the road was taken so ill with a dysentery that he could not go on. He therefore forwarded a draft of instructions, such as he hoped to see given by that body to the dele- gates whom it was to send to the general con- gress of the colonies. One copy of this document was sent to Patrick Henry, who, however, " com-

the bolder spirits of Henry, the Lees, Pages, Mason, etc., with whom I went at all points. Sensible, however, of the importance of unanimity among our constituents, although we often wished to have gone faster, we slackened our pace that our less ardent colleagues might keep up with us ; and they on their part, differ- ing nothing from us in principle, quickened their gait somewhat beyond that which their prudence might, of itself, have advised, and thus consolidated the phalanx which breasted the power of Britain. By this harmony of the bold with the cautious, we ad- vanced with our constituents, in undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation than, perhaps, existed in any other part of the Union."

IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 19

municated it to nobody ; " perhaps, says Jefferson, " because he disapproved the ground taken," per- haps " because he was too lazy to read it." An- other copy was sent with better fortune to Peyton Randolph, president of the convention. It was laid by him upon the table, was read by the mem- bers, and was so well liked that it was printed in pamphlet form under the title of " A Summary View of the Rights of British America ; " in this shape it was sent over to Great Britain, was there " taken up by the opposition, interpolated a little by Mr. Burke," and then extensively circulated, running " rapidly through several editions."

Naturally that was the era of manifestoes in the colonies, and many pens were busy preparing documents, public and private, famous and neg- lected, but nearly all sound, spirited, generalizing, and declamatory. Jefferson's instructions did not wholly escape the prevalent faults, and had their share of rodomontade about the rights of freemen and the oppressions of monarchs. But these were slight blemishes in a paper singularly radical, au- dacious, and well argued. The mi oration of the " Saxon ancestors " of the present English people, he said, had been made " in like manner with that of the British immigrants to the American col- onies."

" Nor was ever any claim of superiority or depend- ence asserted over [the English] by that Mother Coun- try from which they had migrated ; and were such a claim made, it is believed his Majesty's subjects in

20 THOMAS JEFFERSON

Great Britain have too firm a feeling of the rights de- rived to them from their ancestors, to bow down the sovereignty of their State before such visionary preten- sions. And it is thought that no circumstance has oc- curred to distinguish materially the British from the Saxon emigration. America was conquered and her settlements made and firmly established at the expense of individuals, and not of the British public."

This was laying the axe at the very root of the tree with tolerable force ; and more blows of the same sort followed. The connection undeniably existing between the colonies and the mother coun- try was reduced to a minimum by an ingenious explanation. The emigrants, Jefferson said, had " thought proper " to " continue their union with England " " by submitting themselves to the same sovereign," who was a " central link " or " media- tory power " between " the several parts of the em- pire," so that " the relation between Great Britain and these colonies was exactly the same as that of England and Scotland after the accession of James and until the union, and the same as her present relations with Hanover, having the same executive chief, but no other necessary connection." The corollary was " that the British Parliament has no right to exercise authority over us," and when it endeavored to do so " one free and independent legislature " took upon itself " to suspend the pow- ers of another, free and independent as itself."

These were revolutionary words, and fell short by ever so little of that direct declaration of inde-

IX THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 21

pendence which they anticipated by less than two years. They would have cost Jefferson his head had it been less inconvenient to bring him to West- minster Hall, and even that inconvenience would probably have been overcome had forcible opposi- tion been a little longer deferred in the colonies. As it was, the pamphlet " procured him the honor of having his name inserted in a long list of pro- scriptions enrolled in a bill of attainder commenced in one of the houses of Parliament, but suppressed in embryo by the hasty step of events, which warned them to be a little cautious."

One can hardly be surprised that this Jefferson- ian " leap was too long, as yet, for the mass of our citizens," and that " tamer sentiments were preferred ' by the convention. Jefferson himself frankly admitted, many years afterward, that the preference was wise. But his colleagues so well liked a boldness somewhat in excess of their own, that six months later, in view of the chance of Peyton Randolph being called away from service in the Colonial Congress, they elected Jefferson as a deputy to fill the vacancy in case it should occur. Not many weeks later it did occur. But Jefferson was detained for a short time in order to draw the reply of the burgesses to the celebrated "concil- iatory proposition," or so-called " olive branch," of Lord North. Otherwise it was " feared that Mr. Nicholas, whose mind was not yet up to the mark of the times," would undertake it. On June 10, 1775, the burgesses accepted Jefferson's draft

22 THOMAS JEFFERSON

" with long and doubtful scruples from Nicholas and Mercer," only making some slight amendments which Jefferson described as " throwing a dash of cold water on it here and there, enfeebling it some- what." The day after its passage Jefferson set forth to take his seat in Congress, bearing with him the document, which had been anxiously ex- pected by that body as being the earliest reply from any colony to the ministerial proposition. Its closing paragraph referred the matter for ultimate action to the general congress.

CHAPTER III

IN CONGRESS

Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia on the tenth day of his journey, and on June 21 became one of that assembly concerning which Lord Chatham truly said that its members had never been ex- celled w in solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion." Jefferson, at the age of thirty-two, was among the younger deputies 1 in a body which, by the aid of Dr. Franklin, aged seventy-one, and Edward Rutledge, aged twenty- six, represented all the adult generations of the country. He brought with him a considerable reputation as a ready and eloquent writer, and was justly expected, by his counsel, his pen, and his vote, to bring substantial reinforcement to the more advanced party. In debate, however, not much was to be anticipated from him, for he was never able to talk even moderately well in a delib- erative body. Not only was his poor voice an im- pediment, but he was a man who instinctively abhorred contest. Daringly as he wrote, yet he

1 Not, as he himself with wonted inaccuracy says, "the young- est man hut one ; " for hesides Edward Ilutledge, horn in 1749, there was also John Jay, born in 1745.

24 THOMAS JEFFERSON

shrank from that contention which pitted him face to face against another, though the only weapons were the " winged words " of parliamentary argu- mentation. Turmoil and confusion he detested ; amid wrangling and disputing he preferred to be silent; it was in conversation, in the committee- room, and preeminently when he had pen, ink, and paper before him, that he amply justified his pre- sence among the threescore chosen ones of the thir- teen colonies. In his appropriate department he quickly superseded Jay as document-writer to Con- gress.

Yet his first endeavor did not point to this dis- tinction. When news of the fight at Bunker's Hill arrived in Philadelphia, Congress felt obliged to publish a manifesto setting before the world the justification of this now bloody rebellion. Jeffer- son, as a member of the committee, undertook to draw the paper ; but he made it much too vigor- ous for the conciliatory and anxious temper of Dickinson ; so that, partly out of regard for this courteous and popular gentleman, partly from a politic desire not to outstrip too far the slower ranks, Jefferson's sheets were submitted to Dick- inson himself for revision. Not content with mod- ification, that reluctant patriot prepared an entire substitute which was reported and accepted. But its closing four and one half clauses were borrowed from the draft of Jefferson, whose admirers think that these alone save the document from being altogether feeble and inadequate. Among them

IN CONGRESS 25

were the following significant words : " We mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sin- cerely wish to see restored. Necessity has not yet [note the pregnant word] driven us into that de- sperate measure." 1

A month afterward Jefferson had better luck with his composition. He was second on the com- mittee— of which the members were chosen by ballot and took rank according to the number of votes received by them respectively — deputed to draw the reply of Congress to Lord North's " con- ciliatory proposition." He based his paper on the reply already drawn by him for the Virginian bur- gesses, and was gratified by seeing it readily ac- cepted. A few days later Congress adjourned, and Jefferson resumed his seat and duties in the state convention, by which he was at once reelected to Congress, this time standing third on the list of delegates.

Much time has been wasted in idle efforts to determine precisely when and by whom the idea of separation and consequent independence of the

1 The authorship of these closing paragraphs has heen denied to Jefferson and attributed to Dickinson. But the evidence would establish only a small measure of probability in favor of Dickinson, if it stood wholly uncontradicted ; and it utterly fails to meet and control Jefferson's direct assertion, made in his Auto- biography, p. 11, that these words were retained from his own draft. The anxiety to claim them for Dickinson shows the com- parative estimation in which they are held. See Magazine of Amer. Hist. viii. 514.

26 THOMAS JEFFERSON

provinces was first broached before the Colonial Congress. The inquiry is useless for many rea- sons, but conclusively so because all the evidence which the world is ever likely to see has .been already adduced, and has not sufficed to remove the question out of the domain of discussion. The truth is that, while no intelligent man could help contemplating this probable conclusion, all depre- cated it, many with more of anxiety than resolu- tion, but not a few with a more daring spirit. In varying moods any person might have different feelings on different days. In his habitual frame of mind Jefferson thought separation to be daily approaching, and in the near presence of so mo- mentous an event he was so far grave and dubious as to express a strong disinclination for it, though avowedly preferring it with all its possible train of woes to a continuance of the present oppression. He was too thoughtful not to be a reluctant revolu- tionist, but for the same reason he was sure to be a determined one. His relative, John Randolph, attorney-general of the colony, was a loyalist, and in the summer of 1775 was about to remove to England. Jefferson wrote him a friendly, serious letter, suggesting some considerations which he hoped that Randolph might have opportunity to lay before the English government, advantageously for both parties. He deprecates the present " con- tention" and the "continuance of confusion," which for him constitute, " of all states but one, the most horrid." He says that England

IN CONGRESS 27

" would be certainly unwise, by trying the event of another campaign, to risk our accepting a foreign aid, which perhaps may not be obtainable but on condition of everlasting avulsion from Great Britain. This would be thought a hard condition to those who still wish for a reunion with their parent country. I am sincerely one of those, and would rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any other nation on earth, or than on no nation. But I am one of those, too, who, rather than submit to the rights of legislating for us assumed by the British Parliament, and which late experience has shown they will so cruelly exercise, would lend my hand to sink the whole island in the ocean."

This was written August 25, 1775 ; three months later he wrote, with a perceptible increase of feel- ing:—

" It is an immense misfortune to the whole empire to have a king of such a disposition at such a time. . . . In an earlier part of this contest our petitions told him that from our King there was but one appeal. The ad- monition was despised and that appeal forced on us. To undo his empire, he has but one truth more to learn, — that, after colonies have drawn the sword, there is but one step more they can take. That step is now pressed upon us by the measures adopted, as if they were afraid we would not take it. Believe me, dear sir, there is not in the British Empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament proposes ; and in this I think I speak the sentiments of America. We want neither inducement nor power to

28 THOMAS JEFFERSON

declare and assert a separation. It is will alone that is wanting, and that is growing apace under the fostering hand of our King. One hloody campaign will probably decide, everlastingly, our future course ; and I am sorry to find a bloody campaign is decided on."

In the autumn of 1775 Jefferson was again at- tending Congress in Philadelphia; early in 1776 he came home ; but on May 13, 1776, he was back in his seat as a delegate from the Colony, soon to be the State, of Virginia. Events, which ten years ago had begun a sort of glacial movement, slow and powerful, were now advancing fast. On this side of the Atlantic, Thomas Paine had sent " Com- mon Sense " abroad among the people, and had stirred them profoundly. Since the bloodshed at Lexington and Charlestown, Falmouth had been burned, Norfolk bombarded, and General Wash- ington, concluding triumphantly the leaguer around Boston, was as open and efficient an enemy of Eng- land as if he had been a Frenchman or a Spaniard.

It was time to transmute him from a rebel into a foreigner. Nor had the members of Congress any chance of escaping the hangman's rope unless this alteration could be accomplished for all the colonists. For all prominent men, alike in mili- tary and in civil life, it was now independence or destruction. Virginia instructed her delegates to move that Congress should declare " the United Colonies free and independent States," and on June 7 Richard Henry Lee offered resolutions ac- cordingly. In debate upon these on June 8 and

IN CONGRESS 29

10, it appeared, says Jefferson, that certain of the colonies tk were not yet matured for falling from the parent stem, but that they were fast advancing to that state." To give the laggards time to catch up with the vanguard, further discussion was post- poned until July 1. But to prevent loss of time, when debate should be resumed, Congress on June 11 appointed a committee charged to prepare a Declaration of Independence, so that it might be ready at once when it should be wanted. The members, in the order of choice by ballot, were : Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Frank- lin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.

For the last hundred years one of the first facts taught to any child of American birth is, that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. The original draft in his handwriting was afterward deposited in the State Department. It shows two or three trifling alterations, interlined in the hand- writing's of Franklin and Adams. Otherwise it came before Congress precisely as Jefferson wrote it. Many years afterward John Adams gave an account of the way in which Jefferson came to be the composer of this momentous document, differ- ing slightly from the story told by Jefferson. But the variance is immaterial, hardly greater than any experienced lawyer would expect to find between the testimony of two honest witnesses to any trans- action, especially when given after the lapse of many years, and when one at least had no memo- randa for refreshing his memory. Jefferson's state-

30 THOMAS JEFFERSON

ment seems the better entitled to credit, and what little corroboration is to be obtained for either nar- rator is wholly in his favor. He says simply that when the committee came together he was pressed by his colleagues unanimously to undertake the draft ; that he did so ; that, when he had prepared it, he submitted it to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, separately, requesting their corrections, " which were two or three only and merely verbal," " inter- lined in their own handwritings ; " that the report in this shape was adopted by the committee, and a " fair copy," written out by Mr. Jefferson, was then laid before Congress.

A somewhat more interesting discussion concerns the question, how Jefferson came to be named first on the committee, to the entire exclusion of Lee, to whom, as mover of the resolution, parliamentary etiquette would have assigned the chairmanship. Many explanations have been given, of which some at least appear the outgrowth of personal likings and dislikings. It is certain that Jefferson was not only preeminently fitted for the very difficult task of this peculiar composition, but also that he was a man without an enemy. His abstinence from any active share in debate had saved him from giving irritation ; and it is a truth not to be concealed, that there were cabals, bickerings, heart- burnings, perhaps actual enmities, among the mem- bers of that famous body, which, grandly as it looms up, and rightly too, in the mind's eye, was after all composed of jarring human ingredients.

IN CONGRESS 31

It was well believed that there was a faction op- posed to Washington, and it was generally sus- pected that irascible, vain, and jealous John Adams, then just rising from the ranks of the people, made in this matter common cause with the aristocratic Virginian Lees against their fellow countryman. Adams frankly says that he himself was very un- popular ; and therefore it did not help Lee to be his friend. Furthermore, the anti-Washingtonians were rather a clique or faction than a party, and were greatly outnumbered. Jay, too, had his little private pique against Lee. So it is likely enough that a timely illness of Lee's wife was a fortunate excuse for passing him by, and that partly by rea- son of admitted aptitude, partly because no risk could be run of any interference of personal feel- ings in so weighty a matter, Jefferson was placed first on the committee with the natural result of doing the bulk of its labor.

On July 1, pursuant to assignment, Congress, in committee of the whole, resumed consideration of Mr. Lee's resolution, and carried it by the votes of nine colonies. South Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it. The two delegates from Delaware were divided. Those from New York said that per- sonally they were in favor of it and believed their constituents to be so, but they were hampered by instructions drawn a twelvemonth since and strictly forbidding any action obstructive of reconciliation, which was then still desired. The committee re- ported, and then Edward Rutledge moved an ad-

32 THOMAS JEFFERSON

journment to the next day, when his colleagues, though disapproving the resolution, would prob- ably join in it for the sake of unanimity. This motion was carried, and on the day following the South Carolinians were found to be converted ; also a third member " had come post from the Delaware counties " and caused the vote of that colony to be given with the rest ; Pennsylvania changed her vote ; and a few days later the con- vention of New York approved the resolution, " thus supplying the void occasioned by the with- drawing of her delegates from the vote."

On the same day, July 2, the House took up Mr. Jefferson's draft of the Declaration, and debated it during that and the following day and until a late hour on July 4. Many verbal changes were made, most of which were conducive to closer ac- curacy of statement, and were improvements. Two or three substantial amendments were made by the omission of passages ; notably there was stricken out a passage in which George III. was denounced for encouraging the slave trade. It was thought disingenuous to attack him for tolerating a traffic conducted by Northern shipowners and sustained by Southern purchasers, though it was true that sundry attempts of the Southern colonies to check it by legislation had been brought to naught by the king's refusal or neglect to ratify the enactments. Congress also struck out the passage in which Jef- ferson declared that the hiring of foreign mercena- ries by the English must " bid us renounce forever

IN CONGRESS 33

these unfeeling brethren," and cause us to " en- deavor to forget our former love for them, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends." It was thought better to say nothing which could be construed as an an- imadversion on the English people. No interpo- lation of any consequence was made.

Jefferson had ample cause to congratulate him- self upon this event of the discussion. While it was in progress and his paper was undergoing sharp criticism during nearly three days, he felt far from cheerful. He himself spoke not a word in the debate, partly, perhaps, from a sense of in- capacity to hold his own in so strenuous a contest of tongues, but also deeming it a " duty to be . . . a passive auditor of the opinions of others, more impartial judges." Dr. Franklin sat by him, and, seems: him " writhing a little under the acrimoni- ous criticisms on some of its parts," told him, " by way of comfort," the since famous story of the sign of John Thompson, the hatter. The burden of argument, from which Jefferson wisely shrank, was gallantly borne by John Adams, whom Jeffer- son gratefully called " the colossus of that debate." Jefferson used afterward to take pleasure in tinge- ing the real solemnity of the occasion with a color- ing of the ludicrous. The debate, he said, seemed as though it might run on interminably, and prob- ably would have done so at a different season of the year. But the weather was oppressively warm and the room occupied by the deputies was hard

34 THOMAS JEFFERSON

by a stable, whence the hungry flies swarmed thick and fierce, alighting on the legs of the delegates and biting hard through their thin silk stockings. Treason was preferable to discomfort, and the members voted for the Declaration and hastened to the table to sign it and escape from the horse- fly. John Hancock, making his great familiar signature, jestingly said that John Bull could read that without spectacles ; then, becoming more seri- ous, began to impress on his comrades the neces- sity of their " all hanging together in this matter." " Yes, indeed," interrupted Franklin, " we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." " When it comes to the hanging," said Harrison, the " luxurious heavy gentleman " from Virginia, to the little meagre Gerry of Mas- sachusetts, " I shall have the advantage of you ; it will be all over with me, long before you have done kicking in the air." Amid such trifling, concealing grave thoughts, Jefferson saw his momentous docu- ment signed at the close of that summer afternoon ; he had acted as undertaker for the royal colonies and as midwife for the United States of America.

It is a work of supererogation to criticise a paper with which seventy millions of people are to-day as familiar as with the Lord's Prayer. The faults which it has are chiefly of style and are due to the spirit of those times, a spirit bold, energetic, sensible, independent, in action the very best, but in talk and writing much too tolerant of broad and high-sounding generalization. John Adams and

The Declaration of Independence

! L

IN CONGRESS 35

Pickering long afterward, when they had come to hate Jefferson as a sort of political arch-fiend, blamed it for lack of originality. Every idea in it, they said, had become " hackneyed " and was to be found in half a dozen earlier expressions of public opinion. The assertion was equally true, absurd, and malicious. No intelligent man could suppose that the Americans had been concerned in a rebellious discussion for years, and engaged in actual war for months, without having fully com- prehended the principles, the causes, and the justi- fication on which their conduct was based. It was preposterous to demand new discoveries in these particulars. Had such been possible, they would have been undesirable ; it would have been extreme folly for Jefferson to open new and unsettling dis- cussions at this late date. Of this charge against his production Jefferson said, with perfect wisdom and fairness, " I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether and to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before."

The statement that all men are created " equal " has been declared liable to misconstruction ; but no intelligent man has ever misconstrued it, unless intentionally. So the criticism may be disregarded as trivial. Professor Tucker justly remarks of the whole paper that it is " consecrated in the affec- tions of Americans, and praise may seem as super- fluous as censure would be unavailing."

CHAPTER IV

AGAIN IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES

Jefferson was reelected to Congress on June 20, 1776, but declined to serve. At the time he assigned as his reason " the situation of his do- mestic affairs " and " private causes," into which " the delicacy of the House would not require him to enter minutely." Many years afterward he de- clared a different motive : " When I left Congress, in 1776, it was in the persuasion that our whole code must be reviewed and adapted to our repub- lican form of government, and now that we had no negative of councils, governors, and kings, to restrain us from doing right, that it should be cor- rected in all its parts, with a single eye to reason and the good sense of those for whose government it was framed." " I knew that our legislation, under the regal government, had many very vicious points which urgently required reformation, and I thought I could be of more use in forwarding that work."

The ex-colonies l'eorganized themselves in the shape of independent states very readily. On August 13, 1777, Jefferson wrote to Franklin that, " with respect to the State of Virginia, . . . the

AGAIN IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 37

people seemed to have laid aside the monarchical, and taken up the republican, government with as much ease as would have attended their throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes. We are at present in the complete and quiet exer- cise of well-organized government." Times which made this transfiguration so easy were naturally ripe for other changes also. It was the era of revolution, of destruction and re-creation, in orderly fashion to be sure, so far as possible ; but still the temper of the hour was favorable for a general revision of all the established laws and forms of society. The people were like a ploughed field in which the political sower might scatter broadcast new ideas and innovating doctrines with fair hope of an early harvest. Jefferson, reformer and rad- ical by nature, instinctively knew his opportunity and went forth zealously to this task. Certainly he cast strong and wholesome seed, and with lib- eral hand, into the ready social furrows around him. Much of his planting struck root at once ; much more lay in the ground for a long period, so that it was ten years before some of the bills intro- duced by him during the two years of his service were actually passed into laws ; only a little, unfor- tunately, never fructified. The results of his labor changed not only the surface but the fundamental strata of the social and economical system of Vir- ginia. Of course he did not accomplish so much without assistance. George Mason, George Wythe, and Madison, then a " new member and young,"

38 THOMAS JEFFERSON

were efficient coadjutors. But they were coadjutors and lieutenants only ; Jefferson was the principal and the leader.

On October 7, 1776, he took his seat in the House of Delegates and at once was placed on many committees. On October 11 he obtained leave to bring in a bill establishing courts of jus- tice throughout the new State. On the next day he obtained leave to bring in a bill to enable ten- ants in tail to convey entailed property in fee simple. Two days later he reported a bill doing away with the whole system of entail. It was an audacious move. From generation to generation lands and slaves — almost the only valuable kinds of property in Virginia — had been handed down protected against creditors, even against the very extravagance of spendthrift owners ; and it was largely by this means that the quasi-nobility of the colony had succeeded in establishing and maintain- ing itself. A great groan seemed to go up from all respectable society at the terrible suggestion of Jefferson, a suggestion daringly cast before an Assembly thickly sprinkled with influential dele- gates who were bound by family ties and self-inter- est to defend the present system. Records of the times fail to explain the sudden and surprising suc- cess of a reform which there was every reason to suppose could be carried through only very slowly and by desperate contests ; we know little more than the strange fact that the whole system of entail in Virginia crashed to pieces almost literally

AGAIN IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 39

in a day, carrying with it an " aristocracy " some- what brummagem, but the only one which has ever existed in the territory now of the United States.

The cognate principle of primogeniture followed, assailed by the same vigorous hand. At least, im- plored Pendleton, if the eldest son may no longer inherit all the lands and the slaves of his father, let him take a double share. No, said Jefferson, the leveler, not till he can eat a double allowance of food and do a double allowance of work. So an equal distribution of property was established among the children of intestates ; and though any one might still prefer by will an eldest son, yet the effect of the law upon public opinion was so great that all distinctions of this kind rapidly faded away.

Thus was a great social revolution wrought in a few months by one man. In his grandiose, human- itarian, self -laudatory vein, Jefferson afterward wrote that his purpose was, "instead of an aris- tocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aris- tocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society, and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions." But his brilliant triumph cost him a price. That distinguished class, whose ex- istence as a social caste had been forever destroyed, reviled the destroyer from this time forth with relentless animosity ; and, even to the second and third generations, the descendants of many of these

40 THOMAS JEFFERSON

patrician families vindictively cursed the statesman who had placed them on a level with the rest of their countrymen.

Jefferson's next important assault was upon the Established Church. Jefferson's religious views have given no small trouble to his biographers, who have been at much pains to make him out a sound Christian in the teeth of many charges of free-thinking. There is little evidence to show what his belief was at this period of his life. Cer- tainly he did not flout or openly reject Christian- ity ; not improbably he had a liberal tolerance for its tenets rather than any profound faith in them. On August 10, 1787, in a letter of advice to his young ward, Peter Carr, he dwelt upon religion at much length, telling Carr to examine the question independently. He added instructions so colorless that they resemble the charge of a carefully impar- tial judge to a jury. But in this especial matter labored impartiality usually signifies a negative prejudice. At least Jefferson showed that he did not regard Christianity as so established a truth that it was to be asserted dogmatically, and though he so cautiously seeks to conceal his own bias, yet one instinctively feels that this letter was not writ- ten by a believer. Had he believed, in the proper sense of the word, he would have been unable to place a very young man midway between the two doors of belief and unbelief, setting both wide open, and furnishing no indication as to which led to error. Yet, as any inference may possibly be

AGAIN IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 41

wrong, it is perhaps safer to admit that the prob- lem of his present faith or unfaith is not surely- soluble, and to rest content with saying — what alone is now necessary — that he certainly viewed with just abhorrence the mediaeval condition of religious legislation in Virginia in 1777.

He set about the task of clearing away this dead wood no less vigorously and extensively than he had hewed at the obstructive social timbers. But, strange to say, the apparently sapless limbs gave the stouter resistance. He aimed at complete re- ligious freedom, substantially such as now exists throughout the United States ; but he was able only to induce a legislature, in which churchmen largely predominated, to take some initial steps in that direction. Yet the impetus which he gave, refreshed by others during a few succeeding years, at last brought the law-makers to the goal, so that in 1786 the full length of his reform was reached and his original " bill for establishing religious freedom " was passed, with immaterial amend- ments.

Here again it is to be said that Jefferson was in that position in which alone he ever won success ; he was the mouthpiece of multitudes too numerous not to be heard, the leader of a popular movement too massive to be obstructed. The majority of citizens were dissenters from the established. Epis- copal Church, and were resolved no longer to con- tribute of their funds for its support. Jefferson says that "the first republican legislature . . .

42 THOMAS JEFFERSON

was crowded with petitions to abolish this spiritual tyranny." This fact gave him the strength that he needed. He only required, but he always did require, that confidence and inspiration which came to him from the sense of having at his back largely superior numbers : it mattered not that they were ignorant, so that they were much the greater number. It is impossible to imagine Jef- ferson combating a popular error, controlling a mistaken people, encountering a great clamor of the masses. From these earliest days of his pub- lic career we find him always moving and feeling with the huge multitude, catching with sensitive ear the deep mutterings of its will, long before the inarticulate sound was intelligible to others in high places, encouraged by its later and hoarser outcry, gathering his force and power from its presence, his incentive and persistence from its laudation.

Almost immediately after taking his seat among the delegates, Jefferson had been placed at the head of a committee of five, charged with the gen- eral revision of all the laws of Virginia. It was an enormous task, of which he did much more than his just share. Some of the legislation re- ferred to in the preceding pages found its place in the report of this committee. Other important matters, also included in the same report, can only be mentioned. The seat of government was re- moved from the commercial metropolis of Wil- liamsburg to the small but central village of Rich- mond. The like principle has since prevailed in

AGAIN IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 43

the selection of much the largest proportion of our state capitals. A bill for promoting the prompt naturalization of foreigners gave form to the sub- sequent practice of the country in this matter, and was only blameworthy because it failed to protect against a large and easy admission by checks of fitness in the way of knowledge and intelligence. Like much of Jefferson's work it was too demo- cratic, as if all men must be fit for all things ; also, like some of his work, it was not justified by his own principles declared at other times when his thoughts happened to be taking a different direction. A code of punishment for crime was drawn up, which was a vast improvement upon the merciless severity of preceding laws, but which retained to an unjustifiable extent and against the wishes of Jefferson the principle of retaliation. An elaborate school system was also devised ; but the narrow prejudice of the rich planters pre- vented it from ever being fully adopted and pro- perly set in working order.

As has been intimated, this mass of legislation, of which only the more prominent portions have been mentioned, was not all enacted during the two years of Jefferson's presence in the House of Delegates. Much of it, notably in the criminal department, lay untouched for a long time ; but the laws reported by Jefferson formed a sort of reservoir from which the legislature drew from time to time, during many following years, so much as they had leisure or inclination to use. It

44 THOMAS JEFFERSON

was not until the close of the Revolutionary war that leisure was found really to finish the whole business. But when at last the end was reached, few serious alterations had been made ; and though it would be an exaggeration to assert that by 1786- 87 the statute-book of Virginia had become a Jef- fersonian code, yet it is within the truth to say that the impress of his mind was in every part of the volume, and that especially the social legisla- tion was due chiefly to his influence.

Only in one grave matter — gravest, indeed, of all — he and a few humane and noble coadjutors encountered an utter defeat, which cost Virginia a great price of retribution in years thereafter. This concerned negro slavery. Though Jefferson did not, like his friend Wythe, emancipate his own slaves, yet from his early years he had been strongly opposed to slavery, as were many of the best and wisest Virginians of that day. Now the committee of revisers, pondering deeply on this difficult problem, and having it very much in their hearts to cleanse their State from a malady which they foresaw must otherwise prove fatal, contented themselves in the first instance with returning in their report a " mere digest of the existing laws . . . without any intimation of a plan for a future and general emancipation. It was thought better that this should be kept back, and attempted only by way of amendment, whenever the bill should be brought on. The principles of the amendment, however, were agreed on, that is to say, the free-

AGAIN IN THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 45

dom of all born after a certain day, and deporta- tion at a proper age." But all this strategy was of no avail. " It was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even to this day ; yet," continues Jefferson, writ- ing in his autobiography in 1821, " the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free." How fortunate would it have been for Vir- ginia could she have been persuaded by the words spoken by her son, wise beyond his time, and by his fellow prophets in this great cause !

Yet when one examines Jefferson's scheme in its details, its primordial destiny of failure becomes at once evident. His project was as follows : All negroes born of slave parents after the passing of the act were to be free, but to a certain age were to remain with their parents, and were " then to be brought up at the public expense to tillage, arts, or sciences, according to their geniuses, till the females should be eighteen and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be colo- nized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of household and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, etc." The United States were then " to declare them a free and independent people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they have acquired strength ; and to send vessels

46 THOMAS JEFFERSON

at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants, to induce whom to migrate hither proper encouragements were to be proposed."

In the notion that such a costly and elaborate scheme might be carried into effect we get a mani- festation of the most dangerous weakness of Jeffer- son's mind. His visionary tendency would thus often get the better of his shrewder sense, and the line of demarcation between the practicable and the impracticable would then become shadowy or wholly obliterated for him. In palliation it can only be remembered that he lived in an a°:e of social and political theorizing, and that he was a man emi- nently characteristic of his era, sensitive to its in- fluences and broadly reflecting its blunders not less than its wisdom.

Probably even at this early date the slavery problem had become insoluble. Certainly Jeffer- son's opinions concerning the two races in their possible relations towards each other rendered it insoluble by him. His observation had thoroughly convinced him of a truth, which all white men al- ways have believed and probably always will be- lieve in the private depths of their hearts, that the negro is inferior to the white in mental capacity. Yet, if this were so, a measure of inferiority much greater than any one ventured to insist upon would not justify the enslavement of the black men. It was from another conviction that Jefferson's prac- tical difficulty arose ; he felt sure that u the two

AGAIN IX THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 47

races, equally free, cannot live in the same govern- ment." The attempt, he predicted, would " divide Virginians into parties and produce convulsions which would probably never end but in the exter- mination of the one or the other l'ace." Perhaps in this he was wrong. Yet holding these two firm convictions, it is impossible to see what better plan he could have adopted than that which he did adopt, impossible though it was of execution. At least his prescience of a condition of things at which, as he said, u human nature must shudder," proves his social and political foresight.

In connection with a topic which was destined soon to become so important in the history of the nation, a few words may be pardoned, though they carry us for a moment away from the subject of the Virginian reforms. Some ten years later Jef- ferson wrote a letter to his friend M. de Warville, of Paris, which the abolitionists of a subsequent generation were so fond of quoting that they made it widely known. Therein he says : " The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boistei'ous passions ; the most unremitting despotism on the one part and degrad- ing: submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it. With the morals of the people their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him." He then adds this alarming suggestion, which has been often repeated since his day : " And can the liberties of

i> THOMAS JEFFERSON

a nation be thought secure when we have removed (heir onlj linn basis, a cODVictioo in the minds of the people that these Liberties are of the gift of God? l bat the;j are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed,] tremble for mj country when 1 reflect that God is just i; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that, considering numbers, nature and natural moans onl\ . a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by super- natural interference I The AJmight] has no attri- bute which ran take side with us in such a contest." Tins letter i> not onlj interesting as an utterance refrerson's views concerning slavery, but also as an indication of certain of his characteristics. It is an excellent instance of the waj in which his pen was ferj apt to run awaj with him. The suggestion bj a man of his religious opinions, that it might be reasonably anticipated that God would at some time intervene to reverse the positions of the white race ami the black race, shows that emo- tional tendencj which often loo1 him into utteranoes bj no means lit to encounter criticism. This fan- ciful efflorescenoe of his notion that the two races, equally free, oould not exist Bide by side, was not likely seriously to alarm men of practical minds, the other hand, the letter also manifested his prudence in action in sharp oontrast with his ex- travagance in speech, lor ho declined to make what might prove an embarrassing commitment bj joining the French society for the abolition of

AGAIN IX THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES 41)

the slave trade ; and he gave only the very thin excuse that " the influence and information of the friends of this proposition in France will be far above the need of my association." Jefferson's en- thusiasm often carried him, with an impetuous rush, to the edge of personal imprudence ; but he always stopped short at the line. He distinguished with perfect skill and self-control between extravagant words and ill-advised acts. In reviewing Jeffer- son's position as to slavery, the fair conclusion seems to be that he condemned it with the zeal of one who was offended by its moral evils and who feared its political perils, that he was honest in advising his fellow citizens to enter upon a scheme of abolition, and that he would have heartily aided therein, but that so long as the community re- frained from this step he, as an individual, did not feel called upon to go farther than an occasional expression of his views.

One practical measure he did carry. Virginia, while still a colony, had made many efforts, ren- dered futile by royal obstruction, to stop the im- portation of slaves. In 1778, " in the very first session held under the republican government," Jef- ferson introduced a bill for this purpose which was readily passed without opposition. With this ho was much and justly pleased, saying : " It will in some measure stop the increase of this great politi- cal and moral evil, while the minds of our citizens may be ripening for a complete emancipation of human nature." What he meant by this vague

50 THOMAS JEFFERSON

and absurd phrase, so characteristic of his habits of expression, it is not easy to say, and for the moment one almost forgets the high deserts of the reformer in irritation at his chatter about " the complete emancipation of human nature."

CHAPTER V

GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA

Patrick Henry, first governor of the independ- ent State of Virginia, served, by reflections, three successive years, and was then, by the Constitution, ineligible for another term. In January, 1779, the legislature chose Jefferson to succeed him on the following June 1. The honor was not greatly to be coveted, yet Jefferson found a competitor for it in the friend of his youth, John Page, over whom he triumphed by a very few votes. The old good feeling between the two contestants was very cred- itably preserved throughout the political campaign, and perhaps by the time Jefferson left office he would have been glad if Page had been the success- ful candidate, and Page might rejoice at the oppo- site conclusion. For in this chapter of Jefferson's life the task of his biographers has been to encoun- ter the widespread impression that his administra- tion was disgracefully inefficient. Mr. Randall especially has discussed this matter elaborately, and his facts and arguments, when rescued drip- ping from the sea of rhetoric and fine writing in which he nearly drowns them, appear to establish a satisfactory defense. Yet a man in public life

52 THOMAS JEFFERSON

does not achieve a complete success when he can be defended against charges of gross incompetency ; and the negative assertion that Jefferson did not make a bad governor is by no means equivalent to the positive commendation that he made a really good one. The truth is that he was not fitted to be a " war governor," and though he did as well as he could, he did not do so well as some others might have done.

Until very nearly the close of Henry's third term, Virginia had enjoyed a happy immunity from invasion. Otherwise, however, she had borne her full share of patriotic burdeus, and it may be imagined that the willing steed, spurred for three years by so hard a rider as Henry, was somewhat breathless and exhausted when he left the saddle. So, indeed, Jefferson found it. Men, horses, and food, Virginia had lavishly given ; also arms and money, so far as she had been able. At last the point was close at hand at which further contribu- tions involved such severe suffering that they must inevitably come slowly and reluctantly. Neverthe- less Jefferson's sole business was to keep the stream still flowing and replenished. At first he was able to do surprisingly well. When he called for re- cruits for Greene's army in the Carolinas, many farmers came gallantly forward from the already sorely depleted fields. By September, 1780, there were not muskets for the men who were willing to march ; neither a shilling in the treasury ; wagons and horses could be had only by impressment, a

GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA 53

hazardous pressure to put upon a people fighting for freedom. But it was inevitable, and it was applied to all alike ; a wagon, a pair of horses, and two negro drivers were taken from Governor Jefferson's own farm. A month later he hopes the new levies " will be all shod," and cannot say " what proportion will have blankets," though he is purchasing " every one which can be found out ; there is a prospect of furnishing about half of them with tents."

It was a cruel blow, soon after, to learn that a large proportion of these scarce and valuable sup- plies were destroyed or captured, and that Corn- wallis, with his face set northward, was leading a victorious army towards Virginia. It was an almost miraculous good fortune which checked his march a short distance from the border. But in the moment of apprehension Jefferson was bitterly blamed for having uselessly expended Virginian resources in Carolina. The accusation was grossly unjust. The governor had been perfectly right in sending all the men and supplies he could muster to the places where the fighting was going forward. How else was the war to be maintained ? What better course could be devised, not only for secur- ing a general and ultimate success, but also for keeping actual war at a distance from Virginia? The blunder would have been to send meagre sup- plies, and retain a still insufficient reserve at home, thus allowing the English to conquer in detail.

In another matter, more in his line, Jefferson

54 THOMAS JEFFERSON

again showed good judgment. The enterprising frontier fighter, General George Rogers Clarke, by a bold and soldierly movement in the far north- western part of the State, captured the British colonel Hamilton. This officer had been accused of many atrocities, and though the charges prob- ably outran the truth, yet Jefferson was justified in believing him a guilty man.1 He accordingly ordered the colonel and two more officers to be put in irons and closely confined. The British general, Phillips, protested. Jefferson referred the matter to Washington, who, with much hesitation and apparent reluctance, advised a mitigation of the extreme severity. But the dose was whole- some, and Jefferson's stern readiness to administer it had a salutary effect. He had in his keeping a large number of British prisoners, including many of high rank ; and his avowed purpose, thus sub- stantially enforced, to repay cruelty in kind and to retaliate hangings, irons, close confinement, and prison ships with identical measures upon his own part, undoubtedly checked the brutal tendencies of too many of the English officers.

Almost the last occurrence in Virginia under Governor Henry's administration had been a Brit- ish raid. A dozen vessels landed some two thou- sand troops, who burned and ravaged extensively

1 Professor Tucker in his Life of Jefferson undertakes to de- fend Hamilton. But his defense amounts to little or nothing more than that he knew Hamilton, and thought him quite too good a fellow and too much of a gentleman to have been guilty of the behavior alleged against him.

GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA 55

for a few days, wholly unmolested, and then re- turned as they had come. The affair was a dan- gerous indication to the English of the destruction which they could easily accomplish in this great reservoir of supplies. Yet it was not until late in October, 1780, that they repeated the enterprise. On the 22d of that month news came to Governor Jefferson that a fleet of sixty sail had anchored in Hampton Roads ; four of the vessels were armed, while transports were putting on shore a land force roughly estimated at upwards of twenty-five hun- dred men. This was terrible intelligence in a thinly-settled country, where it must be long before an adequate defensive array could be assembled. Yet even men were more plentiful than muskets, and Jefferson sadly wrote : " It is mortifying to suppose that a people, able and zealous to contend with their enemy, should be reduced to fold their arms for want of the means of defense." Two or three weeks later " the prospect of arms " continued to be " very bad indeed." Moreover, in Albemarle County, hard by the anchorage ground, there were some four thousand prisoners of war, Burgoyne's army, who had been consigned to Virginia for safe- keeping. Cornwallis, having lately defeated Gates badly at Camden, was less than one hundred and fifty miles from the Virginian border. A messen- ger from General Leslie, the commander of the invading body, was captured, having in his mouth a little quid containing a note to Cornwallis indi- cating a plan to unite both armies. In such immi-

5G THOMAS JEFFERSON

nent jeopardy the State and the governor stood helpless, but ultimately were saved by good fortune and lack of enterprise on the part of the English. The North Carolina patriots harassed Cornwallis till he actually fell back to the southward. Leslie lay a month in camp, making no movement, then embarked and sailed away. Virginia had another surprising respite.

The third time the State was to fare worse. On the morning of Sunday, December 31, 1780, Jef- ferson again received intelligence that a fleet of twenty-seven vessels had entered Chesapeake Bay on the preceding day. Whatever may have been the case heretofore, it cannot be denied that he was now culpably remiss. It is true that he did not know that the fleet might not be French, or that its destination might not be Baltimore. But he did know that it certainly might be British, that its destination might be Williamsburg, Petersburg, or Richmond, and that in such event the best speed could not collect the Virginian levies rapidly enough. It was the dead of winter, not a severe season in Virginia, and when the husbandman is idle. It is impossible to suggest a satisfactory reason why Jefferson should not, in such proba- ble and instant emergency, have prepared at once for the worst. He did not ; he simply dispatched General Nelson, with abundant authority, to the lower river counties. Then he waited.

On Tuesday morning, fifty valuable but wasted hours after the first news reached him, he at last

GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA 57

got definite information which showed him how stupid he had been. The fleet was hostile and was coming up the James. Then he did what he ought to have done at eight o'clock A. m. of the preced- ing Sunday : he ordered out forty-seven hundred militiamen from the nearest counties. Further- more, having at last got fairly at work, he showed considerable personal energy. He got the public papers and some stores and articles of value across the river to a less exposed place, and he galloped about the country terribly busy and excited, till he killed his horse and was obliged to mount an un- broken colt. Eighty-four hours he was in the sad- dle. But the enemy cared little for all his prancing to and fro on blooded steed or raw colt. They ascended the river and entered Richmond, burned and destroyed to their hearts' content, reembarked, and dropped down stream again. The militia were only beginning to assemble when the British were back intrenching themselves in Leslie's deserted camp. The governor returned to the devastated village which constituted his capital. He had shown that he was deficient in prompt decision ; in a word, that he was not the man for the place and the times.

The invaders seemed to be established for a long stay, and with slight chance of being disturbed ; for the " fatal want of arms " still continued. There was not a regular soldier in the State, nor arms to put in the hands of the militia. Matters were nearly as bad as in North Carolina, where, Jeffer-

58 THOMAS JEFFERSON

son wrote, the Americans could be saved only by the " moderation and caution " of their adversaries, — a slender dependence indeed ! It added to the exasperation of the Virginians that the traitor, Arnold, was in command upon their soil. Jeffer- son tried to devise a scheme for kidnaping him ; but it may be conceived that such a bird was not to be snared by such a fowler.

For several months the British kept Virginia in a state of nervous inquietude. It is easy to im- agine how Jefferson, as the winter and spring crept forward on leaden heels, must have counted first the months, then the weeks, then even the very days, which had yet to elapse before his painful responsibility would reach its end. For the sec- ond year of his administration would close on June 1, and he had wisely resolved not to be a candidate for reelection. Possibly mutterings of dissatisfaction alarmed him for his success. But in his autobiography he says : " From a belief that, under the pressure of the invasion under which we were then laboring, the public would have more confidence in a military chief, and that, the military commander being invested with the civil power also, both might be wielded with more energy, promptitude, and effect for the de- fense of the State, I resigned the administration at the end of my second year." There was some talk among the discouraged Virginians, during the dark days now close at hand, of setting over them- selves a dictator. This classic but mistaken expe-

GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA 59

client Jefferson had the good sense to oppose ; he afterward said that " the very thought alone was treason against the people, was treason against mankind in general." Fortunately, his remon- strances prevailed in due season.

April came and was fast passing. Only May remained before the wearied governor would be governor no longer. But fortune had yet one more buffet to deal him at parting. In the latter part of April, Cornwallis set out on a northward march, and, laying waste as he advanced, came into Virginia. By May 20 he was in Petersburg, and the State lay at his mercy. Jefferson could devise nothing better than to implore Washington to hasten to its rescue. The legislature, which had thrice already, since the year came in, fled in alarm from Richmond, had been adjourned to meet on May 24 at the safer village of Charlottesville, at the foot of the hills on which was Monticello. It was not till May 28 that a quorum came together, and then they deferred from day to day the elec- tion of a new governor. Jefferson's term expired, but still he had to hold over, since no successor had been chosen. Things were in this condition when, on June 4, the early summer sun not having yet risen, a hard-ridden steed was reined up at the governor's door. The rider had galloped in the night from an eastward county-town to say that a small body of British cavalry under the dreaded Tarlton was pushing rapidly along the road to Charlottesville and Monticello ; they would prob-

60 THOMAS JEFFERSON

ably be hardly three hours behind him. In this emergency Jefferson certainly showed no lack of personal courage. That is to say, he was not panic stricken. He did not go to Charlottesville, because he wisely reflected that the members of the legislature were able to run away from the town without his assistance. He stayed tranquilly at home, breakfasted, sent away his family, and con- cealed his plate and papers, all very leisurely. In- deed, he owed his escape from capture more to good luck than to any intelligent precaution on his own part. Had he fallen into the enemy's hands he would have been thought to have acted stu- pidly. As it turned out, he did get safely away into the woods, and Colonel Tarlton, disappointed of his prey, had only to ride back again. But the ignominious scattering of all the ruling officials of the State served to fasten still another irritating, though really undeserved, stigma upon Jefferson's administration. It was the more vexatious be- cause he ought to have been freed several days before from so much as a technical responsibility. He was also then, and long afterward, made very angry by imputations upon his courage, as though his flight had been ignominious. It is needless to say that it was not so. He could hardly have been expected to stand alone in his doorway and shoot at the body of dragoons.

Tarlton's men appear to have taken nothing at Jefferson's house beyond food and drink, in which refreshment even the owner himself could hardly

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have wished to stint them in that land of un- questioning hospitality. Jefferson afterward said, " Tarlton behaved very genteelly with me." But at another of his farms, which fell within reach of Cornwallis's force, Jefferson fared worse. It was not long since certain British commissioners, nomi- nally sent on a futile errand of reconciliation, had declared that the inevitable conclusion of events must be that the colonies woidd become depend- ents of the French crown, and that England de- signed to make the grain of as little value to France as possible. The innuendo of this announcement was soon made the basis of practical operations ; and the British armies, devoting themselves more to devastation than to warfare, harried the country upon all sides. Jefferson suffered with the rest, and has left a formidable record of the pillage. All his husbanded crops and one hundred and fifty cattle, sheep and hogs were seized for food ; all his growing crops were wantonly destroyed, and all his fences were burned ; not only were his many valuable horses taken, but the throats of colts too young to be used were barbarously cut. Thirty slaves also were carried away. " Had this been to give them freedom," Jefferson said, Corn- wallis " would have done right ; but it was to con- sign them to inevitable death from the small-pox and putrid fever then raging in his camps," as in fact became their wretched fate. It is not surpris- ing that in later days Jefferson cherished a bitter hostility towards a nation which had not only cur-

62 THOMAS JEFFERSON

tailed his popularity and reputation among his countrymen, but also attacked his property in a spirit of extermination.

The censorious temper which many Virginians felt towards Jefferson found open expression in the legislature during the last few months of his administration ; and even some preparation, though just how much cannot be accurately ascertained, was made for an investigation. Certain it is that Mr. George Nicholas moved for an inquiry at the next session,1 and that he was by no means without supporters. The prevalence of this sort of talk cut Jefferson deeply, and he went out of office in a very bitter frame of mind, resolved to leave for- ever the public service. He only wished to return to the next session of the legislature in order to court the threatened inquiry. To enable him to do this a member resigned, and then Albemarle County paid him the handsome honor of electing him one of its delegates, actually by an unani- mous vote. Having taken his seat, he stated to the House his wish to meet the charges lately made against him. No one replied. He then read cer- tain " objections " which had been informally fur- nished to him by Nicholas, and gave his reply to them. Still no one rose to assail him. It was in December, 1781, and the recent surrender of Corn-

1 Jefferson afterward was on friendly terms with Nicholas, say- ing that he was an ahle and honest man, and that this motion was the hlunder of an ardent youth. Nicholas also afterward made the amende honorable to Jefferson.

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wallis at Yorktown had probably softened some- what the recent asperities. His friends became sufficiently emboldened to offer a resolution, which was readily passed, thanking him for his " impar- tial, upright, and attentive " administration, bearing testimony to his " ability, rectitude, and integ- rity," and avowing a purpose thus to remove " all unmerited censure." The closing phrase might mean much or little, and the adjectives and nouns, shrewdly selected, did not express exhaustive praise of an administration in time of war. But the whole constituted a mollifying application and an agree- ment to have done with unkindly criticism. Gen- eral Washington also had closed with courteous words a letter, which he had lately found occasion to write to Jefferson, making a sort of certificate of good character. With such comfort as he could find in these testimonials, Jefferson withdrew to private life. He had had the misfortune to be placed in a position for which he was ill adapted, and in which perhaps no one could have given sat- isfaction. He had merited some praise and some censure, and got less of the former and more of the latter than was quite just. Altogether he had had decidedly hard fortune.

CHAPTER VI

IN CONGRESS AGAIN

It soon became evident that the ex-governor had experienced a wound far too deep to be healed by the gentle palliatives which had been consider- ately, but not enthusiastically, given to him. In an extremely bitter and resentful frame of mind, he moodily secluded himself at home, and reiterated upon every opportunity his resolve never again to be drawn forth into public life. He busied himself with his plantations, the education of his children, and the care of his invalid wife. In the winter months, early in 1782, he put the finishing touches to a labor which he had begun in the preceding- spring, his well-known and useful " Notes on Vir- ginia." In the spring of the same year he obsti- nately refused to attend the session of the legisla- ture, though he was still a member. His enemies severely criticised this conduct, which his friends could not easily defend ; Madison privately de- plored such a display of irreconcilable temper, and Monroe more openly wrote him a plain letter of rebuke. But he was not to be moved ; his only reply was a reiteration of his rankling sense of injury, and his obstinate purpose to have done forever with the public service.

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Yet it is probable that a more amiable incentive for such conduct mingled with his anger, though he was too proud and too hurt to name it. For his wife was in very ill health. In May, 1782, she lay in with her sixth child, and thereafter there coidd be no real hope of her recovery. Jef- ferson was tender and assiduous in his care of her as it was possible for man to be, and when at last, in September, the final day came, the scene was a terrible one. For three weeks after she died he did not leave his room ; afterward he had recourse to long wanderings in the solitary wood-paths of the mountain. His oldest daughter was his con- stant companion during these weeks of intense grief, of which she has left a harrowing picture, showing Jefferson to have been not only affection- ate but very emotional in temperament.

It is said that Mrs. Jefferson, almost in the extreme moment, begged her husband never to give her children a stepmother, and the pledge which he then so solemnly made he ever faithfully kept. Henceforth Martha, his first-born child, was to hold the warmest corner in his heart. She and Mary, the fourth child, were the only ones of six that were born to him who lived to mature years, and only Martha survived him. But the children of his brother-in-law, Dabney Carr, who had died young and poor, had been taken into his home, and remained there like his own, He was not only very kind and fond towards all these young people of his household, but he gave to their bring-

66 THOMAS JEFFERSON

ing up a conscientious and untiring care.1 The letters which he wrote to them, and which have been reproduced with encomiums by admiring bi- ographers, are always absurdly didactic, and often remind the reader of the effusions of the late Mrs. Barbauld, or of the virtue and wisdom enshrined in the pages of " Sanford and Merton ; " but they are kindly and indicative of a lively interest.

In September, 1776, Congress nominated Jeffer- son, with Franklin and Deane, to frame a treaty of alliance and commerce with France ; but he de- clined the mission. In June, 1781, he was again deputed to go abroad with Franklin, Adams, Jay, and Laurens, to negotiate a treaty of peace ; but again he pleaded personal reasons as an excuse. Two months after the death of his wife news came to him at the seat of his friend Colonel Cary, at Ampthill, where he was nursing his own children and the young Carrs through the process of inocu- lation, that he had been again appointed upon the same duty. The proposition came opportunely, offering an activity and change of scene at once wholesome and agreeable. He accepted, and made

1 The list of Jefferson's children is as follows : Martha Jeffer- son, horn September 27, 1772, married to Thomas Mann Randolph on February 23, 1790, died October 10, 1836; Jane Randolph Jefferson, born April 3, 1774, died September, 1775 ; a son, born May 28, 1777, died June 14, 1777 ; Mary (or Maria) Jefferson, born August 1, 1778, married to John W. Eppes on October 13, 1707, and died April 17, 1804; a daughter, born November 3, 1780, died April 15, 1781 ; Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson, born May 8, 1782, died , 1784.

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ready for departure ; but the presence of English cruisers off the coast delayed the sailing of vessels, and before he could get away news came showing that the negotiations were so far advanced that his presence would be substantially useless. So in February, 1783, he again returned home.

But another door for reentrance into public life was forthwith opened. On June 6, 1783, he was chosen by the Virginia legislature a member of Congress, whither he repaired in November follow- ing. That body had fallen into something very like contempt, and many gentlemen conceived that the honor, such as it was, of membership need not entail the trouble of attendance. So it happened that, though the treaty of peace was to be ratified before a certain near date, only seven States were represented, whereas the assent of nine was neces- sary. Some members proposed that the seven should ratify, upon the chance that Great Britain would never detect the insufficiency. But this dis- honorable expedient was vigorously opposed by Jefferson and others. At last an urgent appeal brought in some of the delinquent members ; and Jefferson had the pleasure of signing the treaty which established the Independence declared by his document seven years before. It fell to him, also, to play an important part in arranging the ceremonial of Washington's resignation.

The need of an executive power more permanent than this intermittent Congress led Jefferson to propose a " committee of the States," to be com-

08 THOMAS JEFFERSON

posed of one member from each State and to re- main in session during the recesses. The plan was adopted, but resulted in complete failure by reason of factions in the committee. He showed a sounder wisdom in his criticism of Morris's report on the national finances. That gentleman, by in- genious figuring, had devised a money unit which was a perfectly accurate common measure between the currencies of all the States. This was the T4V0 Par* °f a d°Har' Jefferson justly found fault with a system which would make all the little computations of daily life ridiculously vast and complex. For example, he said, the price of a loaf of bread, ^ of a dollar, would be 72 units ; of a pound of butter, -\ of a dollar, 288 units ; of a horse, worth $80, 115,200 units ; while a national debt of 180,000,000 would be 115,200,000,000 units. To escape such palpable folly he suggested the dollar as the unit.

Jefferson further had the pleasure of tendering to Congress Virginia's deed, ceding her vast north- western territory to be held as the common pro- perty of all the States. Directly afterward he was made one of the committee charged to prepare a plan for the government of this region. The re- port was doubtless composed by him, since the draft in the State Department is in his handwrit- ing. It contains the substance of the famous Ordi- nance of the Northwestern Territory. Its most honorable provision is, "that after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery

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nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes," etc. Yet beside this humane and noble piece of statesman- ship we have a glimpse of that absurd element in Jefferson's mind which his admirers sought to ex- cuse by calling him a " philosopher." The matter is small, to be sure, but suggestive. He proposed as names for the several subdivisions of this ter- ritory : Sylvania, Michigania, Cherronesus, Assen- isippia, Mesopotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Wash- ington, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia. Fortunately these wondrous classic titles have not afflicted the children of our common schools. But much less happily the clause prohibiting slavery was lost, only six of the Northeastern and Middle States voting for it.

Such were the last legislative undertakings of Mr. Jefferson. On May 7, 1784, he left Congress.

CHAPTER VTI

MINISTER TO FRANCE

Simultaneously with his retirement from Con- gress, Jefferson was for the fourth time appointed to a foreign mission. His errand was to aid Dr. Franklin and John Adams in negotiating treaties of commerce. He sailed from Boston July 5, 1784, and arrived in Portsmouth July 30. He proceeded at once to Paris, and soon established himself there in a handsome house, which he afterward ex- changed for one of considerable magnificence, and in all respects he made arrangements for living in very good style. His salary was nine thousand dollars a year, and with all the aid he could get from his private fortune he was hard pushed to meet his expenses. His daughter Martha he placed at the most fashionable and exclusive convent- school in the country.

He soon found that he could do little for the United States beyond representing them creditably and serving as a respectable sample of the new trans-Atlantic people. Nor were his duties much changed when, in the following spring, the trio of diplomatists was broken up by the departure of Franklin for home and of John Adams for Eng-

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land, and by his own appointment as resident min- ister to France. The unpleasant truth was that the ancient monarchies of Europe knew little and cared less for the parvenu republics of a distant continent, and were indifferent concerning commer- cial treaties with a people whose commerce wTas an unknown and unvalued quantity. "Lady Rock- minster has took us up," said the Begum Claver- ing to Pendennis ; and very much in the same way France had taken up the North American States. She vouched for their respectability, treated them publicly with pointed courtesy, and affably ex- tended to their representatives the hospitalities of her court for holding diplomatic intercourse with other powders. But when these other powers, though civil enough, were wholly uninterested, France could not further help her proteges. Indeed, she herself disappointed expectation when it came to actual business. Jefferson, who had decided no- tions about the advantages of free trade, was un- tiring in his efforts to mitigate the severity of the French regulations, and his diplomatic corre- spondence with Vergennes and Montmorin fairly reeks with the flavors of whale oils, salt-fish, and tobacco. Yet he was able to accomplish scarcely anything.

He had also to encounter the usual humiliations which beset all American envoys for many years by reason of the financial embarrassments of the States. He lived in a hive of creditors of his na- tion, who seemed resolved, if they could not extort

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from him payment of their demands, at least to have their money's worth in tormenting him. He was further much irritated at being compelled to aid in arranging, on behalf of his countrymen, that disgraceful tribute which powerful civilized nations were wont to pay to the corsair states of Northern Africa. He strenuously urged that war would be more effectual, more honorable, and in the end not more costly, and he proposed to form a league of commercial nations to sustain a com- bined naval armament sufficient to overawe those pirates in their own waters. But his spirited and sensible efforts did not meet with the success which they deserved.

In the early spring of 1786 another unpleasant task awaited him. He was obliged to spend a few weeks in London, in the hope of aiding Mr. Adams in sundry commercial negotiations there pending. He was presented, he says, " as usual, to the king and queen at their levees, and it was impossible for anything to be more ungracious than their no- tice of Mr. Adams and myself." Also the Mar- quis of Caermarthen, minister of foreign affairs, was so vague and evasive as to confirm Mr. Jeffer- son in his belief of the English " aversion to have anything to do with us." Naturally he achieved nothing and went away in no pleasant frame of mind, carrying personal reminiscences chiefly of coldness and insolence. His contempt and hatred towards England, much intensified by this trip, and his belief in the bitter hostility of that coun-

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try towards the States, hereafter find frequent and vigorous expression in his correspondence.

u That nation hate us," he wrote, " their ministers hate us,- and their king more than all other men. . . . Our overtures of commercial arrangements have been treated with derision. ... I think their hostility to- wards us is much more deeply rooted at present than during the war."

" In spite of treaties, England is still our enemy. Her hatred is deep-rooted and cordial, and nothing is wanting with her but the power to wipe us and the land we live in out of existence."

The English " do not conceive that any circumstance will arise which shall render it expedient for them to have any political connection with us. They think we shall be glad of their commerce on their own terms. There is no party in our favor here, either in power or out of power. Even the opposition concur with the ministry and the nation in this."

" I think the king, ministers, and nation are more bitterly hostile to us at present than at any period of the late war."

" The spirit of hostility to us has always existed in the mind of the king, but it has now extended itself through the whole mass of the people and the majority in the public councils."

" I had never concealed . . . that I considered the British as our natural enemies and as the only nation on earth who wished us ill from the bottom of their souls. And I am satisfied that, were our continent to be swal- lowed up by the ocean, Great Britain would be in a bonfire from one side to the other."

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So excessive was his distrust that he even " thought the English capable of administering aid to the Algerines."

He was further profoundly incensed at the bad character which persistent abuse by the English press was fastening upon his country among Euro- peans. " There was," he says, " an enthusiasm towards us all over Europe at the moment of the peace. The torrent of lies published unremit- tingly in every day's London papers first made an impression and produced a coolness. The republi- cation of these lies in most of the papers of Eu- rope . . . carried them home to the belief of every mind." The wretched credit of the States abroad is, he says, " partly owing to their real deficiencies, and partly to the lies propagated by the London papers, which are probably paid for by the minis- ter to reconcile the people to the loss of us. No paper, therefore, comes out without a dose of para- graphs against America."

This state of popular feeling in England filled Jefferson with forebodings for the future. " In a country where the voice of the people influences so much the measures of administration, and where it coincides with the private temper of the king, there is no pronouncing on future events." " A like disposition [of hostility] on our part has been rising for some time. . . . Our countrymen are eager in their passions and enterprises and not disposed to calculate their interests against these." Reflecting that the animosities " which seize the

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whole body of a people, and of a people too who dictate their own measures, produce calamities of lono- duration," he said that he should " not won- der to see the scenes of ancient Rome and Car- thage renewed in our days." But he consoled him- self with the thought that " we are young and can survive them ; but their rotten machine must crush under the trial."

Jefferson was preeminently a man of peace ; he instinctively loved it, and he knew that his own abilities fitted him only for peaceful scenes. About the time of which we are writing he re- marked that " the most successful war seldom pays for its losses," and throughout life he hated everything which did not pay. He therefore de- precated a war even with England ; yet he abomi- nated her with that peculiar bitterness which is seldom cherished by more combative natures, but has -a strange way of lurking in the obscure depths of pacific characters. Allowing for a little excess in this feeling, he was in the main perfectly right. It is necessary to dip very little beneath the tran- quil surface of history to find a vast reservoir of evidence in corroboration of his views and justifi- cation of his feelings. He read English sentiments and purposes with perfect accuracy. But further, besides their enmity he plainly saw that perverse and obstinate dullness which was so long a marked trait in their intercourse with this country. With bitter justice he said : " Our enemies (for such they are in fact) have for twelve years past followed

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but one uniform rule, that of doing exactly the contrary of what reason points out. Having early during our contest observed this in the British conduct, I governed myself by it in all prognos- tications of their measures ; and I can say with truth it never failed me but in the circumstance of their making peace with us." He further ventured to say that the English " require to be kicked into common good manners." Yet he retained sufficient fairness to admit the excellence of the English system of government, reserving his con- demnation chiefly for the behavior of the ministry and prominent men.

From this futile and exasperating English trip Jefferson returned to a thoroughly congenial so- ciety. If, as these Parisian years glided pleasantly by, they seemed fraught with little matter of im- portance for the States, and to be chiefly instru- mental in promoting Jefferson's personal grati- fication, it was only because their true bearing was not yet apparent. It was seed-time, and the harvest was not to ripen until Jefferson should be- come the leader of a powerful party in the United States. Then English insolence and French cour- tesy began severally to bear their appropriate fruits, and the gathering of those fruits was a matter of some consequence to all concerned.

Mr. Jefferson's stay in France extended through five years. When he arrived, the monarchy seemed firmly established as ever ; before he left, the Bas- tille had been destroyed, blood had been freely

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spilled in the streets, mobs had overawed the kins: and slain cabinet ministers. No Frenchman watched events with more profound interest than did Jefferson, and none had better opportunities than he enjoyed for observing the gradual advance of revolutionary feeling. His own predilections and his natural intimacy with Lafayette brought him from the outset into the society of the liberal or patriotic party. These men, moderate and rea- sonable reformers and not at all identical with the violent revolutionists of later stages, found in him a kindred spirit, long accustomed to think the thoughts which they were just beginning to think, and to hold the beliefs which they were now acquiring. They made of him at once an instruc- tor, counselor, and sympathizing friend. They recognized him as one of themselves, a specula- tive thinker concerning the rights of mankind, a preacher of extreme doctrines of political freedom, a deviser of theories of government, a propounder of vague but imposing generalizations, a condemner of the fetters of practicability, in a word, by the slang of that day, a " philosopher ; " and they liked him accordingly. Upon his own part, his interest in the reformation of their odious royal despotism could hardly have been greater had he himself been a Frenchman. He went daily to Versailles to attend the debates of the National Assembly. Lafayette and others sought his sug- gestions. The archbishop of Bordeaux, as head of a committee of the National Assembly, charged

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to draft the projet of a constitution, actually in- vited him " to attend and assist at their delibera- tions." This he wisely declined to do. But later, in private conference with one or two personal friends, he proposed an important step, — that " the king, in a seance royale, should come for- ward with a charter of rights in his hand, to be signed by himself and by every member" of the Assembly ; and he actually sketched the chief heads of such a " charter."

If these acts seem an interference of question- able propriety, yet upon the whole it must be ad- mitted that he behaved with excellent discretion and self-control, though the temptation to mingle in affairs was rendered exceptionally great by his real interest in them, by the abnormal state of po- litical matters, by his friendship with Lafayette and others, and by the deference which was shown to him personally, indicative of the influence which he might exert. Only once did he appear in dan- ger of being seriously compromised, and then it was through the blunder of another. Lafayette, without previously consulting him, arranged that six or eight discordant chiefs of different sections of the liberal party in the Assembly should dine at Jefferson's house, in the hope that they might reach an agreement. Jefferson was much annoyed at this " inadvertence " on the part of his friend, and waited on Count Montmorin the next morning with an explanation. The count replied that

" he already knew everything which had passed, that

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so far from taking umbrage at the use made of my house on that occasion he earnestly wished I would habitually assist at such conferences, being sure I should be useful in moderating the warmer spirits and promoting a whole- some and practicable reformation only. I told him I knew too well the duties I owed to the king, to the na- tion, and to my own country, to take any part in councils concerning their internal government, and that I should persevere with care in the character of a neutral and passive spectator, with wishes only, and very sincere ones, that those measures might prevail which would be for the greatest good of the nation."

It has been the fashion to say that the feelings and ideas gathered by Jefferson in France consti- tuted the predominant influence throughout his subsequent political career. In this there is much exaggeration, and towards him much injustice. His character was more independent. Moreover, he was a mature man when he went abroad, and had been busied from early youth, alike in the way of theory and practice, with the political and social problems of government. The originating disposi- tion and radical temper of his mind had appeared from the outset, and were only confirmed, not created, by his foreign experience. Neither was his affection for France, nor his antipathy to Eng- land, then first implanted. Both sentiments were strong before he crossed the Atlantic ; they were only encouraged by the pleasures of his long resi- dence in the one country, and the convictions borne in upon him during his brief visit to the other.

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His character would be ill understood if it were supposed that his subsequent political career was the exotic growth of French seeds, instead of being developed in ordinary course from the native root. He would always have been a radical, an extreme democrat, a hater of England, a lover of France, a sympathizer with the French revolutionists, though he had never sailed out of sight of American shores. The only effect of his European life was to corroborate preexisting opinions, and somewhat to intensify sentiments already entertained. Per- haps these were naturally so strong that a counter- acting influence would have been more wholesome, and this might have been experienced had he remained to witness the Reign of Terror and the ascendency of Robespierre. This, however, was not to be. In September, 1789, he sailed for home from Havre, upon what he supposed to be a short leave of absence granted at his urgent request. But events, as will be seen, rendered his stay at home permanent.

Jefferson ought to have been a happy man when he set sail on this return trip. Never did an in- voluntary exile glorify, in imagination, his lost home as Jefferson had been glorifying the States for five years past. All the charms of Paris were to him as nothing in comparison with the merits of his dear native land. "London," he said, "though handsomer than Paris, is not so handsome as Phil- adelphia ! " He found that, in the way of educa- tion, only vice and modern languages were better

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taught in Europe than at home ; instruction was just as good at William and Alary College as at the most famous seats of learning abroad ! He begged Monroe to come to France, because " it will make you adore your own country, its soil, its climate, its equality, liberty, laws, people, and manners." He predicted that many Europeans would settle in America, but " no man now living will ever see an instance of an American removing to settle in Europe and continuing there." The virtues of his fellow citizens he attributes to the fact that they have " been separated from their parent stock and kept from contamination, either from them or the other people of the old world, by the intervention of so wide an ocean." " With all the defects of our Constitution, . . . the comparison of our govern- ments with those of Europe is like a comparison of heaven and hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station."

To the gaze of such a patriot everything which took place in his own country seemed admirable. Even Shays's insurrection in Massachusetts, which, by the alarm that it spread among all thinking men, contributed largely to the adoption of the new Constitution, seemed to Jefferson a commendable occurrence. Undeniably he talked some very bad nonsense about it.

" The commotions offer nothing threatening; they are a proof that the people have liberty enough, and I could not wish them less than they have. If the happiness of the mass of the people can be secured at the expense of

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a little tempest, now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase." " To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty." " A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, ... an observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their pun- ishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of govern- ment." " Thus I calculate, — an insurrection in one of thirteen States in the course of eleven years that they have subsisted, amounts to one in any particular State in one hundred and forty-three years, say a century and a half. This would not be near as many as have happened in every other government that has ever existed. So that we shall have the difference between a light and a heavy government as clear gain." " Can history pro- duce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted ? . . . God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. . . . What signify a few lives lost in a century or two ? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

It shakes one's faith in mankind to find a really great statesman uttering such folly ! It had not even the poor excuse of being caught from the French revolutionists ; for the latest of these sen- tences was uttered in November, 1787, when Jeffer- son was more probably engaged in imparting such extravagant notions to the moderate French re- formers than in receiving these wild ideas from them. In truth, Jefferson was recoiling too far from the " conspiracy of kings and nobles," and

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was cast for a time into the ridiculous position of advocating a " no government " theory. " The basis of our governments," he said, " being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right," — a sound postulate which he makes the pedestal for a preposterous super- structure ; for he adds : "Were it left to me to de- cide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the lat- ter," — the newspapers of the latter half of the eighteenth century ! " I am convinced," he says, " that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former public opinion is in the place of law, and restraining morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere." " Societies exist under three forms : . . . 1. Without government as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence. ... 3. Under governments of force. ... It is a problem not clear in my mind that the first condi- tion is not the best." One loses patience with an intelligent man talking such stuff.

Jefferson's experience abroad, in attempting to form commercial treaties, had taught him the ne- cessity of a closer union of the States for purposes of foreign relationships ; but when the lesson of Shays's insurrection was even read backwards by

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him, it is easy to see that he was far from com- prehending the domestic necessity for a much firmer consolidation. " My general plan," he said, " would be to make the States one as to every- thing connected with foreign nations, and several as to everything purely domestic." Such being his opinion, it was inevitable that, when the Constitu- tion of the United States was published, he found much in it which seemed to him very unsound and objectionable. There are in the document, he said, " things which stagger all my dispositions to subscribe to what such an assembly has proposed," and his earliest criticisms were very severe. Fur- ther consideration, however, the arguments of "The Federalist," and correspondence with Madison and Monroe, gradually induced him to modify his views. By May, 1788, he was able to say: "I look forward to the general adoption of the new Constitution with anxiety, as necessary for us under our present circumstances." If in many particulars he was still imperfectly pleased, he was only of the like sentiment with most of the zealous advocates of adoption. Probably every promi- nent man among the Federalists could, in his own opinion, have suggested improvements. Jefferson finally took the national charter as its other sup- porters did, " contented with the ground which it will gain for us, and hoping that a favorable mo- ment will come for correcting what is amiss in it." His earlier wish was that nine States would adopt it, " in order to insure what was good in it, and

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that the others might, by holding off, produce the necessary amendments." But later he declared the plan of Massachusetts to be " far preferable," and expressed the hope that it would " be followed by those who are yet to decide." Finally on Decem- ber 4, 1788, he writes : " I have seen with infinite pleasure our new Constitution accepted by eleven States, not rejected by the twelfth ; and that the thirteenth happens to be a State of the least im- portance."

The preceding extracts, which might be multi- plied by many more of identical tenor, abundantly show Jefferson's real sentiments concerning the Constitution, and refute the unfair charge after- ward brought against him by his enemies, that he was opposed to it. His own characteristic state- ment was : " I am not a Federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an ad- diction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. Therefore I am not of the party of the Federalists. But I am much farther from that of the anti-Federalists. I approved, from the first moment, of the great mass of what is in the new Constitution." He then con- tinues at great length to show how his objections gradually gave way before argument, until a con- fession of faith, too rigid to have been repeated by

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him, could have been repeated by very few indi- viduals in the States. It is probable that the Con- stitution was nearer to his ideal upon the one side than it was to Hamilton's ideal upon the other. The only serious objections, which he retained to the end, were the absence of a bill of rights and the presence of the reeligibility of the President. The former real defect was promptly and wisely cured ; the latter has been practically controlled by a wise custom which he himself helped to inaugurate.

CHAPTER VIII

SECRETARY OF STATE. — DOMESTIC AFFAIRS

Ox October 23, 1789, Mr. Jefferson sailed from Cowes, and on December 23 he was welcomed by his slaves at Monticello. At his departure he had supposed that he was returning home for a visit of a few months only, and that he should speedily go back to watch the progress of the French Revolu- tion. He was now so much more interested in this movement than in any other matter, that he was by no means gratified to find awaiting him, upon his arrival, an invitation from President Washing- ton to fill the place of secretary of state. He replied that he did not prefer the change, but that he would be governed by the President's wishes. Washington thereupon wrote again in very urgent fashion, and Madison made a visit to Monticello for the express purpose of exerting his personal influence. Beneath such pressure Jefferson reluc- tantly abandoned his hope of remaining abroad, and accepted the secretaryship, only stipulating for a few weeks for setting in order his private affairs. It was not until March 21, 1790, that he arrived in New York and entered upon the duties of his office.

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In those days the cabinet consisted of only- four persons. John Jay had been acting tempo- rarily as secretary of state, but with the under- standing that he should be made chief justice so soon as a permanent secretary could be appointed ; Hamilton had been made secretary of the trea- sury immediately after Washington's inauguration ; about the same time Knox had been appointed secretary of war, and later Edmund Randolph had been made attorney-general. The great brunt of the labor in the organization of public affairs had fallen and still rested upon Hamilton, who had en- countered the vast and complex task with magnifi- cent spirit and ability. By the time that Jefferson came to share in the business of government, all questions concerning the foreign debt and the do- mestic national debt had been disposed of by Con- gress in accordance with Hamilton's recommenda- tions. But there still remained, as a bone of fierce contention, the secretary's scheme for the assump- tion by the United States of the war debts of the individual States ; and concerning this the opposing parties had been wrought up to a pitch of exceed- ing bitterness and excitement. In committee of the whole in the House of Representatives the assumption had been carried by thirty-one yeas to twenty-six nays ; but when the question came to be taken in the House proper the representatives from North Carolina had arrived, and aided in turning the scale, so that on March 29 the measure was voted down. From the condition of feeling it was

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evident that a serious crisis already menaced the young nation. Congress met daily and adjourned without transacting any business ; the hostile fac- tions could not work together upon any subject, and, indeed, nobody cared to think or talk of any- thing save assumption. Threats of disunion were heard on all sides. Hamilton contemplated the emergency with profound anxiety, for the Treasury Department carried within itself the fate of the new government ; and upon his financiering really depended the existence of a people. The momen- tous struggle called forth all the resources of his ingenious and fertile mind. While he kept up a steady fight all along the front, he also set himself to devise a flank movement, and in this manoeuvre he resolved to make use of Mr. Jefferson.

It happened opportunely that the selection of a site for the national capital had given rise to an eager sectional division in Congress. The South- ern States wanted it on the Potomac ; the Middle and Eastern States wished it to be farther north. The northern party had prevailed by a narrow ma- jority. Now it was fortunately the case that the parties in the assumption debate had divided by the like sectional lines ; the Middle and Eastern States were in favor of assumption ; the Southern States were opposed to it ; and in this matter the South had prevailed, also by a slender majority. The opportunity for a bargain was obvious ; the temptation to it was irresistible ; the justification was sufficiently satisfactory. Hamilton accordingly

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resolved to buy two or three votes for his assump- tion scheme at the price of the required number of votes for the Potomac site. In this bit of political commerce he selected Jefferson as an efficient part- ner. So one day, meeting Jefferson in the street, Hamilton walked with him and discussed the mat- ter. He depicted the national jeopardy in woeful colors, and movingly besought Jefferson to use his influence with some of his friends and to save the Union. Jefferson replied that he was " really a stranger to the whole subject," but that the preser- vation of the country touched him nearly, and he begged Hamilton to dine with him the next day, to meet one or two more whom he would invite, in the hope that together they might devise some acceptable " compromise." The dinner came off ; Jefferson afterward wrote that he himself " could take no part in [the discussion] but an exhortatory one," because he was a " stranger to the circum- stances which should govern it." But the bargain was then and there struck ; and at that dinner-table assumption was bought at the price of a capital on the Potomac. The terms of the agreement were punctually fulfilled. The requisite number of votes were delivered, on both sides, and Hamilton's financial policy prevailed without mutilation.

Soon, however, Jefferson found himself deeply repenting his share in this transaction. He began to doubt whether assumption was really wise and right, and he plainly saw that from a personal and selfish point of view he had blundered seriously.

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For he had greatly aided the prestige and influence of one who soon became his most formidable polit- ical opponent, and he had been largely efficient in achieving the success of a measure which his party was forthwith to single out for especial denuncia- tion. "When, therefore, he was pushed ere long to find explanations of this compromising fellowship with Hamilton, he behaved like the fox who gnaws off his own leg to escape from the trap : he sacri- ficed, by denial, one of the most marked of his mental traits, his political astuteness ; he said that he had been tricked by Hamilton, and made a dupe and tool in a department of business with which he was unfamiliar, that he had been " most igno- rantly and innocently made to hold the candle " for the wicked game of the secretary of the treasury. Such a defense seemed a bad advertisement of his fitness for political leadership, and was otherwise so poor and incredible that it would not have been resorted to, could any other have been devised. The bargain which had been made was perfectly plain and simple, at least in respect of political morality, and so far as this went could be ex- plained and comprehended in five minutes. As for the soundness of the policy of assumption, Jef- ferson could have heard little else talked about since his arrival at New York. He knew the bit- terness of the contest concerning it, and, if he had not made up his mind about it, he was rash in taking sides so decisively. But even if he had been rash, he was not therefore entitled to abuse

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Hamilton for setting forth and promoting his own views.1 The truth is not, however, buried out of sight beneath his excuses and explanation of his action. This truth is, that he was asked and that he consented to take a part before he compre- hended or even suspected the powerful formative eneraies which ran under the surface of Hamilton's financial measures, like sinews beneath the skin. He was, therefore, willing enough to help forward a measure upon which seemed to depend the con- tinuance of the Union, and of which the remoter bearing and effects lay beyond his vision. A little later he appreciated that Hamilton had not only been handling the finances with singular technical skill, but had also been so shaping all his measures that they had constituted so many tonic doses administered to the national government, strength- ening it, confirming it in the interests of an influ- ential portion of the community, and exercising a powerful centralizing influence. When all this dawned upon Jefferson's understanding, he was filled with horror and indignation at the share he had unwittingly taken in promoting principles of government which he abominated. Also he was seriously irritated at the inconvenient light in which he had thus been made to appear before those with whom he sought political fellowship and authority. Then, his eyes being at last opened, anger against

1 As evidence that Jefferson understood very well what he was about, and had his own wishes in the matter, see his letter to Monroe of June 20, 1700, and letter to Gilmer of June 27, 1790.

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Hamilton induced him to assert that Hamilton had outwitted him by taking unfair advantage of his inexperience.

Jefferson was no financier. The shrewd good sense which he had displayed in managing his own business, as a planter, was superseded by an un- controllable passion for theorizing when he came to grapple with the great and intricate problems of national finances. At times he wandered into the wildest and most absurd vagaries. Thus, only a few months before he took his seat in the cabinet, he had been much pleased with a novel idea that had struck him concerning "a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also among the fundamental principles of every government." It is with some astonishment that the patient reader follows through several pages of guileless argument the development of this grand, fundamental, newly-discovered truth, and finally learns the confounding doctrine: that no public debt can rightfully survive the generation which con- tracts it ! The daring and original logician starts with the " self-evident " proposition that " the earth belongs in usufruct to the living ; that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it." But, he says, if a debt survives the generation which con- tracts it, then the subsequent generation takes " the earth " subject to a burden imposed by and for the dead. This must needs be wrong, since it is coun- ter to a " self-evident " premise. Assuming, he said, that men come of age at twenty-one, and that the

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majority of those who are alive at twenty-one will live thirty-four years more, it follows that a genera- tion may contract debts to run thirty-four years and no longer. This period he afterward reduced to nineteen years ; for " a generation consisting of all ages, and which legislates by all its members above the age of twenty-one years, cannot contract for so long a time, because their majority will be dead much sooner." It is at once ludicrous, pitiful, and alarming to hear such rubbish from an influen- tial leader of the people. After listening to it one is not surprised to hear that, in criticising the work of one of the greatest financiers whom the world has ever seen, Jefferson made but a sorry show.

Nevertheless, being profoundly unconscious of his own incapacity in this department of knowledge, Jefferson did not refrain from free indulgence in such dangerous criticism. He was wont to say that Hamilton's financial system was designed to serve as a puzzle for excluding popular understand- ing and inquiry. In 1802 he wrote to Gallatin concerning Hamilton : —

" In order that he might have the entire government of his machine, he determined so to complicate it as that neither the President nor Congress should he able to understand it or to control him. He succeeded in doing this, not only beyond their reach, but so that he himself could not unravel it. He gave to the debt in the first instance, in funding it, the most artificial and mysterious form he could devise. He then moulded up his appro- priations of a number of scraps and remnants, many of

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which were nothing at all, and applied them to different objects in reversion and remainder, until the whole sys- tem was involved in impenetrable fog."

He actually reiterated this declaration so late as 1818, long after the perfect practical success of that renowned system had constituted its unan- swerable vindication. But it is not probable that he was disingenuous in his abuse, for certainly Hamilton's financiering was from the beginning, and ever remained, a "puzzle" utterly insoluble for Mr. Jefferson. Nevertheless he persisted in a blind hatred and denunciation, eloquent enough while he confined himself to generalities, but, so often as he turned to more specific fault-finding, mani- festing a surprising ignorance of economic prin- ciples and a hopeless confusion of thought. Yet a distinguishing feature of Hamilton's system was its grand, plain simplicity, not only in its broad out- lines, but in matters of detail and technique. His reports to Congress were lucid to a degree which makes them comprehensible to a woman or a child. It befell, however, very fortunately for Jefferson, that he had not much fighting to do in a field in which he was so little at home. By the time that the antagonism between him and Hamilton had become fairly developed, all the principal features of Hamilton's financial scheme, except only the national bank, had become complete and adopted parts of the governmental machinery. It was not necessary, therefore, to encounter them with argu- ment, but only to revile them in a broad way.

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It has been said that Washington formed his cabinet with a deliberate purpose of amalgamating parties by bringing together, as political comrades, the two chief representatives of opposing opinions. This erroneous statement has been sustained by two other incorrect propositions, namely, (1) that Jefferson was opposed to the Constitution which Hamilton befriended, a theory already shown to be untrue ; (2) that he and Hamilton had re- spectively from the beginning established policies antagonistic to each other, which is a palpable mis- representation. For a while all was doubtful and tentative concerning; both men and measures in the new government, although the outcome now appears to have been so strictly in accordance with the logic of circumstances, and the native bent and qualities of the different individuals, that it is diffi- cult not to carry back the later opinions and know- ledge to a date at which neither could have existed. It took some time for this logic and these qualities to become apparent to the chief actors, who learned each other's ways of thinking only by degrees. Meanwhile Hamilton and Jefferson met upon a friendly footing, and for a time apparently enter- tained no suspicion that they would not be able to pursue an harmonious policy. Indeed, there hardly were at first two parties or two systems of national politics in the country. The material for forming these lay ready at hand in the natural constitution of men's minds, but it still reposed like ore in the mine, half unseen and wholly unshaped. There

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were those who always instinctively said Nay to all proposals coming from Hamilton ; but they were not an organized party, and had no defined policy of their own. It was very gradually that what deserved to be called a hostile school of political thought was developed by the measures of the gov- ernment. Only as the Hamiltonian structure grew piece by piece did the design of the builder appear to be much more comprehensive than had been at first understood. Then it was seen that Hamilton, besides substituting order for confusion, and sol- vency for insolvency, had also been creating a very powerful governmental machine ; then men saw how deep down in the nation he had succeeded in setting the foundations of the government, and what extensive powers he had grasped for it by construing the Constitution to his purpose. They remembered that he theoretically believed in a monarchical form, and they saw that he was fast making this republican government not less strong and centralized than a limited monarchy. Then the men of democratic minds became combined together through their common alarm : and as no man was more thoroughly democratic than Jeffer- son, so no man was more profoundly alarmed. We have but to recall his talk about the charms of newspapers without a government, and about the excellence of the Indian form of polity, to conceive the horror with which he beheld this rapid trans- formation of a federal league into a national unit. No sooner did he get a notion of the ruinous course

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by which Hamilton was steering the ship than he began to whisper warnings among the passengers, to organize a species of mutiny against one who, in truth, had no more exclusive right to the helm than he himself had. So the period of confidence between Hamilton and Jefferson endured only for a limited time, and, though they remained personal friends for a short while after they had become political opponents, yet such accusations and per- sonalities as were soon cast against each by the friends and followers of the other ere lon<r de- stroyed all traces of good feeling, and thereafter they distrusted and hated each other, and fought and denounced each other bitterly, and believed every possible ill of each other during the rest of their lives.

Most unfortunately for his own good fame, Jef- ferson allowed himself to be drawn by this feud into the preparation of the famous " Anas." His friends have hardly dared to undertake a defense of those terrible records, and the very manner of those apologies which some have ventured to pre- sent has been fatal to their efficacy. The editor of the congressional edition of Jefferson's works ex- cuses the insertion of these post-mortuary slanders on the ground of editorial duty, and only reluc- tantly suffers himself to become the formal agent of their perpetuation. But there is no symptom that Jefferson thought that it was unbecoming in him to set down all the idle rumors, the slander and gossip received at third and fourth hand, the niali-

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cious tales of enemies, aimed at the good fame of an adversary who, at least, had never dealt him an unfair blow, and to leave this odious collection of poisonous scraps to be published not only after the death of that adversary, and so late that no sub- stantial opportunity of contradictions by contem- porary evidence remained, but also after his own death, so that he could not be called upon to sus- tain his statements, or punished for failure to do so. It must be confessed that the compilation of these unfortunate and most disreputable fragments is among the meanest acts recorded by history, and that it has more impaired Jefferson's good name than all the other mistakes of his life and all the assaults of his enemies. Had he been able to resist the temptation to seek such an ignoble revenge on a dead foe, he would have lived in history as a man of a far more honorable spirit than can now be attributed to him.

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CHAPTER IX

SECRETARY OF STATE. — GROWTH OF DISSENSIONS

Jefferson was the most astute and successful politician who has yet flourished in a country sin- gularly and unfortunately prolific of this not very estimable race. But he was very much more than a politician, and he added something even to the essential traits of a statesman ; he was a profound thinker concerning the theory of government and the principles of social and political organization. In full accord with the new spirit of his era, he was a radical even among radicals, and a democrat of the extreme class. He could hardly bring himself to declare that the people should govern, because he had a lurking notion that there should be no government at all. " The rights of man," the favorite slang phrase of the day, signified to his mind an almost entire absence of governmental control. His milder opponents called him a vision- ary, and the hopeless impracticability of many of his theories almost justified the term. His more bitter assailants stigmatized him as dishonest ; and there certainly was an element of disingenuousness in his character, a covert habit in his dealings, and a carelessness concerning the truth in small

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matters. But his belief in the doctrines of human freedom was a pure and deep conviction, an inerad- icable portion of his nature. His faith in the laxest form of democracy, scarcely removed from anarchy, stood to him in the place of a religion ; he preached it with a fervor, intensity, and con- stancy worthy of Mahomet or Wesley. It was an inevitable consequence of this vehement conviction that he regarded supporters of contrary principles with distrust and abhorrence as wicked men, con- scious promulgators of falsehood in the most im- portant of all human concerns. Evil reports con- cerning them seemed so intrinsically probable as always to command his ready belief ; and there is no evidence that he ever refused to credit any mali- cious tale repeated against them, no matter how tainted in its origin or progress. He was observant and quick-witted, and soon appreciated the skill with which Hamilton was rapidly constructing a powerful centralized government. At Hamilton's back he beheld a disciplined body of able and am- bitious men, some filling places of public trust and power, others absorbing wealth, all in one shape or another acquiring an extensive and irresistible influence in the body politic and social. Jefferson gazed upon this portentous growth with dread and repulsion. He saw enough to induce him fearfully to anticipate the destruction of human freedom in the United States, and he suspected much more than he saw. As he peered into the mystery of the Federalist polic3r, the vision of monarchy took

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shape before his eyes and long remained with him, an ever present and vivid terror. Henceforth in every measure of the secretary of the treasury he discerned an artful move in the monarchical game ; at every social gathering of Federalists he seemed to hear the whispered plots of " Monocrats." If gentlemen, flushed with wine after dinner, made statements far outrunning their sober beliefs, their extravagant words were borne in exaggerated form to Jefferson's ears, were magnified by his excited mind, and were stored away by him as conclusive evidence of monarchical projects. The idea became a monomania with him. He wrote it to his friends; he jotted it down on the scraps of paper which afterward were gathered together for the " Anas ; " he mournfully bore the gossip to Washington, and was not to be deterred from repeating it, though the President told him that he was talking non- sense.

Long afterward, looking back upon this period, Jefferson declared that these dreadful monarchical tendencies had been visible to him from the earliest days of his arrival in New York.

" The President," he says, " received me cordially, and my colleagues and the whole circle of principal citi- zens apparently with welcome. The courtesies of both political parties, given me as a stranger newly arrived among them, placed me at once in their familiar society. But I cannot describe the wonder and mortification with which the table conversations filled me. Politics were the chief topic, and a preference of kingly over republi-

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can government was evidently the favorite sentiment. An apostate I could not be, nor yet a hypocrite ; and I found myself, for the most part, the only advocate on the republican side of the question, unless among the guests there chanced to be some member of that party from the legislative houses."

These sentences linger in that debatable land, somewhere in which exaggeration passes into false- hood. Evidently, in looking back down the long vista of nearly thirty years, Jefferson's vision was indistinct. If he had really been plunged into such a chilling bath of monarchy at once upon his arrival in New York, he would have cried out promptly at the sudden shock, and left contempo- raneous evidence of it; whereas, in fact, some time elapsed before he began to give perceptible symptoms of distress at the unsound political faith about him. Monarchy was doubtless spoken of in a manner offensive to his democratic ears. The Constitution was a compromise wholly satisfac- tory to no one ; the government was undeniably an experiment ; and its probable efficiency was often discussed as an open question. Sentiments of loyalty, pride, and affection had not had time to strike deep root. But Jefferson made a mistake in construing an anxious doubt as equivalent to ac- tive disaffection ; and was guilty of a gross, though certainly an unintentional, injustice in charging the advocates of a strong system with a design of changing the form of government. He was driven beyond his reason by foolish terrors when he

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spoke of Hamilton as the enemy of the Constitu- tion. Every one has long since agreed that the Constitution had no other friend nearly so efficient as Hamilton. No man living had better means of knowledge concerning these matters than Wash- ington, and no man was intellectually more capable of forming a correct judgment. Yet even Jeffer- son could not in his " Anas " set down the lan- guage, which the President held to him, in shape more corroborative of his views than this : " That with respect to the existing causes of uneasiness, he [Washington] thought there were suspicions against a particular party [Hamilton] which had been carried a great deal too far. There might be desires, but he did not believe there were designs, to change the form of government into a monarchy ; that there might be a few who wished it in the higher walks of life, particularly in the great cities, but that the main body of the people in the East- ern States were as steadily for republicanism as in the Southern." Making ever so slight allowance for refraction by reason of the transmission of these words through the Jeffersonian medium, we see the most inadequate basis for the vast pile of Jefferson's suspicion.

But in dealing with Jefferson's conduct, it is not the truth which must be sought so much as Jeffer- son's idea of the truth. That he had an honest belief in the monarchical conspiracy, and in the treasonable designs of the Hamiltonian clique, ap- pears certain. Indeed, if he began with a faith

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like a grain of mustard seed, he must soon have caused it to expand into a vigorous tree, so lib- erally did he water it with the ceaseless iteration and reiteration of his own assertions. Frequent repetition of a statement assumes in time the as- pect of evidence ; and what he said so often he probably at last came to believe. Unquestionably he induced others to believe it. For years his talk was of " monarchists " and " monocrats," till the reader of his letters and memoirs regards these people like the sea-serpent, feels that it would be incongruous if so familiar a name did not repre- sent some real existence, and in a way permits the fiction to be asserted into a reality. There was an earnestness, or, as he himself would have said, a venom, in Jefferson's language, when he dealt with this topic, indicating a force and depth of feeling hardly to be adequately conveyed by description, and which is so utterly inappropriate for a fable that it seems sufficiently to imply truth.

If the purpose of the monarchical party was ab- horrent to Jefferson, so their means appeared con- sonantly base. The decision to pay in full not only the principal of the domestic debt, but also the arrears of interest, followed by the assumption of the state indebtedness, furnished, during a year and a half, opportunities for speculation which were availed of with an ardor that has not been surpassed in Wall Street in our own generation. Naturally those who gathered in the securities at low prices were the men of capital, sagacity, and

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enterprise, who lived in eities, more especially resi- dents in New York and Philadelphia, who could best forecast congressional action. Naturally, too, those who had most faith in Hamilton plunged most boldly into the venture. Jefferson, there- fore, and others who had taken fright at the mo- narchical scarecrow, were scandalized and alarmed as they saw the supporters of Hamiltonian mea- sures reaping a great harvest of wealth, and conse- quently of political power and social consideration. They began to charge the secretary of the treasury with winning adherents by giving opportunities of growing suddenly and enormously rich. That great financial system, which in a few brief months had raised the United States from a condition of piti- ful and ignoble bankruptcy to the status of a sol- vent power in excellent credit, wore, to Jefferson's suspicious eyes, the aspect of a great, complex, and terribly efficient machine for building up in the state the most dangerous kind of aristocratical party.

His dissatisfaction was further nourished by other measures ; the military establishment dis- gusted him, because he abhorred every manifes- tation of governmental power or control. The excise seemed odious, because he thought that all branches of internal taxation ought to be left to the States. But most of all the proposition for a national bank appeared to bristle with objection- able traits. By the time that Hamilton was pre- pared to push this project, the political operation

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of his financial policy was fully appreciated, and indeed greatly exaggerated, by Jefferson : nor was it longer possible for the treasury party to coerce support by declaring the existence of the Union to be at stake. This bank act involved first a ques- tion of law and then one of expediency. In the former aspect it presented much difficulty, and Washington asked for written opinions from his cabinet officers. Hamilton supported it in an ar- gument which is one of the most famous of our state papers. Jefferson took the other side and argued the legal point, which alone he imderstood, with much force and ability. After great hesita- tion Washington decided to sign the bill. He was always reluctant to interfere with his secretaries in their respective departments : furthermore, if he was making a constitutional error it could be cor- rected by the Supreme Court. In due time that tri- bunal sustained the constitutionality of the bank, Chief Justice Marshall delivering an opinion in which he added nothing to the reasoning of Hamil- ton. But though the views of Jefferson were thus finally rejected, it must be acknowledged that the question, regarded as one purely of law, might just as well or better have been determined the other way. The issue was, whether a rigid or a liberal construction should be given to the general clauses of the Constitution ; and a bench of strict con- structionists would have encountered no insuper- able legal obstacles in the way of sustaining Jef- ferson.

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But if the legal and constitutional aspects and the political bearing of this measure were easily within Jefferson's comprehension, its relations to the finances and business of the country were far beyond his understanding. He proclaimed the most ignorant theories, and talked the most absurd twaddle about its mischievous introduction of pa- per money, and the consequent banishment of gold and silver from circulation. When the subscrip- tion books were opened, he saw with melancholy forebodings the capitalists rushing forward in such eager competition that much more than the capital stock was quickly subscribed. He wrote gloomily to Monroe : u Thus it is that we shall be paying thirteen per cent, per annum for eight millions of paper money, instead of having that circulation of gold and silver for nothing. . . . For the paper emitted from the bank, seven per cent, profits will be received by the subscribers for it as bank paper, . . . and six per cent, in the public paper of which it is the representative. Xor is there any reason to believe that either the six millions of paper or the two millions of specie deposited will not be Buffered to be withdrawn, and the paper thrown into circulation. The cash deposited by strangers for safekeeping will probably suffice for cash demands." He was probably ignorant that such special deposits could not lawfully be used by the bank at all : and this is only a sample of his general lack of knowledge in all matters of business.

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There is no doubt that the hank, whether consti- tutional or not, was of immense advantage to the country ; but Jefferson could see in it only a pro- lific machine for turning out more corrupt support- ers of that dangerous and designing monarchist, the secretary of the treasury. Henceforth his abuse of the " treasury party," as he called it, re- doubled ; nor did he ever modify this opinion to the end of his life. In his introduction to the "Anas," in 1818, he recorded that "Hamilton was not only a monarchist, but for a monarchy bot- tomed on corruption ; " and he said that the bank was designed as an " engine of influence more per- manent '' for corrupting the legislature than the funding system and assumption could be. Accord- ingly " members of both houses," he said, " were constantly kept as directors who, on every question interesting to that institution or to the views of the federal head, voted at the will of that head ; and, together with the stockholding members, coidd al- ways make the Federal vote that of the majority." On March 3, 1793, discussing Giles's famous reso- lutions of censure on Hamilton, he notes " the com- position of the House, 1, of bank directors ; 2, holders of bank stock ; 3, stock jobbers ; 4, blind devotees ; 5, ignorant persons who did not compre- hend them ; 6, lazy and good-humored persons, who comprehended and acknowledged them, yet were too lazy to examine, or unwilling to pronounce censure ; the persons who knew these characters foresaw that, the three first descriptions making

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one third of the House, the three latter would make one half of the residue." It was thus that he endeavored to account for the ignominious fail- ure of the anti-Federalist attempt to establish defi- nite charges of dishonesty against Hamilton ; and admitted his own sympathy with the blunder of that unfortunate and disastrous measure.

Another thing which Jefferson beheld with hor- ror was the national debt. Besides the speculation which soon ended in widespread ruin, he conceived that he detected a purpose on Hamilton's part to use this debt permanently, in some ingenious and covert way, as a perpetual resource for corrupting the legislature. The fact that a portion of it had been made "deferred" for a few years, convinced him that Hamilton intended never to let the people pay what they owed and get clear of obligation. Everybody, he said, stood in dread of the " chickens of the treasury " and their " many contrivances." " As the doctrine is that a public debt is a public blessing, so they think a perpetual one is a perpet- ual blessing, and therefore wish to make it so large that we can never pay it off." He could not be induced to renounce this suspicion, even when a scheme was brought forward by Hamilton to pro- mote payment within a short period. No evidence ever could persuade him that Hamilton was politi- cally honest, and no lapse of time could allay his prejudices.

Washington, meanwhile, watched with profound concern the development of a spirit of antagonism

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and distrust between his chief secretaries, and the coincident organization of hostile political parties. He himself, elevated? to office by the whole nation, was resolved to hold aloof from any party connec- tions. But he could not close his ears to the cease- less din of accusations, arguments, and complaints which the opposing leaders insisted upon making him hear. On May 23, 1792, Jefferson wrote to the President a long letter " disburdening " himself concerning a " subject of inquietude " almost coex- tensive with the whole national affairs. He intro- duced his strictures by saying "it has been urged;" but soon he warmed with his work, threw off the impersonality of this phrase, and openly delivered his own sentiments. A public debt, he said, too great to be paid before it would inevitably be in- creased by new circumstances, had been " artifi- cially created by adding together the whole amount of the debtor and creditor sides of accounts ; " the finances had been managed not only extravagantly but so as to create " a corrupt squadron, deciding the voice of the legislature," and manifesting "a disposition to get rid of the limitations imposed by the Constitution ; " " that the ultimate object of all this is to prepare the way for a change from the present republican form of government to that of a monarchy." He was positive that " the corruption of the legislature" would prove "the instrument for producing in future a king, lords, and com- mons, or whatever else those who direct it may choose." " The owers of the debt are in the south-

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ern and the holders of it in the northern division," so that a sectional distribution exists fraught with imminent danger of dissolution of the Union. He is so convinced that nothing save Washington's continuance in office can avert this peril, that he lays aside his objections to a second term, and im- plores the President not to think of retiring.

These same apprehensions he reiterated when- ever occasion offered. On July 10, 1792, he urged upon the President " that the national debt was unnecessarily increased, and that it had furnished the means of corrupting both branches of the legis- lature ; that . . . there was a considerable squad- ron in both, whose votes were devoted to the paper and stock-jobbing interests, . . . that on examin- ing the votes of these men they would be found uniformly for every treasury measure, and that as most of these measures had been carried by small majorities, they were carried by these very votes."

Two or three months earlier he had told Wash- ington that all existing discontents were to be at- tributed to the Treasury Department :

" that a system had there been contrived for deluging the States with paper money instead of gold and silver, for withdrawing our citizens from the pursuits of com- merce, manufactures, building, and other branches of useful industry, to occupy themselves and their capitals in a species of gambling, destructive of morality, and which had introduced its poison into the government itself. That it was a fact . . . that particular mem- bers of the legislature, while those laws were on the

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carpet, had feathered their nests with paper, had then voted for the laws ; . . . that they had now brought for- ward a proposition far beyond any one ever yet advanced, and to which the eyes of many were turned as the de- cision which was to let us know whether we live under a limited or an unlimited government."

This reference bore upon that part of Hamil- ton's famous report on manufactures " which, un- der color of giving bounties for the encouragement of particular manufactures," was designed to grasp for Congress control of all matters " which they should deem for the public welfare and which [were] susceptible of the application of money," as certainly few matters were not. On October 1, 1792, he says that he told Washington :

" That though the people were sound, there were a numerous sect who had monarchy in contemplation ; that the secretary of the treasury was one of these. That I had heard him say that this Constitution was a shilly-shally thing of mere milk and water, which could not last and was only good as a step to something better. That when we reflected that he had endeavored in the convention to make an English Constitution of it, and when, failing in that, we saw all his measures tending to bring it to the same thing, it was natural for us to be jealous ; and particularly when we saw that these measures had established corruption in the legislature, where there was a squadron devoted to the nod of the Treasury, doing whatever he had directed and ready to do what he should direct."

On February 7, 1793, he again said that the ill-

114 THOMAS JEFFERSON

feeling at the South was due to a belief in the existence " of a corrupt squadron of voters in Con- gress, at the command of the Treasury," suf- ciently numerous to make the laws the reverse of what they would have been had only honest votes been cast.

It was seldom that Jefferson was at the trouble to aim a shaft directly at any one save Hamilton ; but once, May 8, 1791, he took an insidious side- shot at John Adams. " I am afraid," he wrote to Washington, " the indiscretion of a printer has committed me with my friend, Mr. Adams, for whom, as one of the most honest and disinterested men alive, I have a cordial esteem, increased by long habits of concurrence in opinion in the days of his republicanism ; and even since his apostasy to hereditary monarchy and nobility, though we differ, we differ as friends should do."

What he said to Washington he said and wrote also to others. So early as February 4, 1791, he wrote to Colonel Mason that " it cannot be de- nied that we have among us a sect who believe it [the English Constitution] to contain whatever is perfect in human institutions ; that the members of this sect have, many of them, names and offices which stand high in the estimation of our country- men." July 29, 1791, writing to Thomas Paine, he speaks of a " sect here, high in name, but small in numbers," who had been indulging a false hope that the people were undergoing conversion " to the doctrine of kings, lords, and commons ; " but he

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politely adds that this delusion has been " checked at least,*' and the people " confirmed in their good old faith," by the recent publication of Paine's " Rights of Man." To Lafayette he writes, June 16, 1792 : " A sect has shown itself among us who declare they espoused our new Constitution, not as a good and sufficient thing in itself, but only as a step to an English Constitution, the only thing good and sufficient in itself in their eye. . . . Too many of these stock-jobbers and king-jobbers have come into our legislature ; or, rather, too many of our legislature have become stock-jobbers and king- jobbers."

During this prolonged stress of anxiety and alarm, Jefferson, who was unquestionably a sincere patriot and honest in his opinions, sought encour- agement in such evidence of republican sentiment as he could discover in the mass of the people. His faith and reliance were always in numbers, and in the vast bulk of the population, rather than in the politicians and upper classes of society, who appeared more prominently upon the surface. Ac- cordingly he never missed an opportunity of drop- ping his plummet into the mighty depths beneath ; and if he discovered those profound currents to be in accord with his own tendencies, as he always expected to do, and generally did, he refreshed his wearied spirit with the instinctive anticipation that these would control the course of the country at no distant time. Herein lay his deep wisdom ; he enjoyed a political vision penetrating deeper down

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into the inevitable movement of popular govern- ment, and farther forward into the future trend of free institutions, than was possessed by any other man in public life in his day. He had sound con- fidence that the multitude, led by a single able strategist like himself, was sure in time to outvote and overpower the much smaller body of educated men who understood and admired the statesman- ship of Hamilton.

But concerning this confidence of Jefferson in the people, which must be so constantly borne in mind in order to comprehend his character, some observations should be made. Not merely did he appreciate and foresee their invincible power in politics, but he had perfect faith in the desirability of the exercise of that power ; he anticipated that in this exercise the masses would always show wis- dom and discrimination, that they would select the most able and most honest men in the country to preside over the national affairs, men like himself and Mr. Madison. It was a delightful ideal of a body politic which he had before his eyes, wherein a huge volume of human poverty and ignorance would be always pleased to recognize and set over itself a few exalted individuals of lofty character and distinguished intelligence. In his day it was still a question how poverty and ignorance would behave in politics ; and it was his firm expectation that they would behave with modesty and self-ab- negation. It was a kindly belief, but indicative of the enthusiast. He deserves the praise of thinking

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better of his fellow men than they deserve. If he could see what sort of men have in fact satisfied the people since his doctrines have become devel- oped, he would probably greatly modify them. His notion of a democratic polity had as its main principle that the multitude should select the best men, and, after that expectation had been once dis- proved by fair and sufficient experience, he would almost undoubtedly have abandoned his doctrine in disappointment and indignation. But though this is matter of speculation, and may be correct or not, one thing at least is certain, that democracy has not worked as Jefferson expected it to work, and that the two generations or more, which have passed away since his day, have brought forth re- sults which would have astonished and shocked him, if presented as the outgrowth of his teachings. It was the custom of that period for men hold- ing high official positions to contribute anonymous political communications to the newspapers, — a custom which, among some advantages, possessed the serious disadvantage that out of it arose much suspicion, ill-blood, and personal resentment. The misunderstanding with John Adams, already re- ferred to, had its origin in an episode of this kind, wherein Jefferson made an absurd, though natural, blunder. Adams's " Discourses of Davila " appear to-day as stupid reading as one could discover in a large library ; but, in the times of which we are writing, several persons read them through ; and readers of democratic proclivities were even more

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incensed than bored by them. The doctrines therein proclaimed were mercilessly castigated in Paine's " Rights of Man," of which it so happened that " the only copy " in the United States was sent to .Jefferson, with the request that, after read- ing it, he would " send it to a Mr. J. B. Smith, who had asked it for his brother to reprint it." " Be- ing an utter stranger to J. B. Smith," says Jeffer- son, " I wrote a note to explain to him why I (a stranger to him) sent him a pamphlet ; . . . and to take off a little of the dryness of the note, I wrote that I was glad to find it was to be reprinted ; that something would at length be publicly said against the political heresies which had lately sprung up among us," etc. To Jefferson's " great astonishment," the printer " prefixed " this note to the volume. At once the Federalist writers settled like a hive of hornets upon the unfortunate sponsor of " Tom " Paine, and a peculiarly vigorous sting was sent in by one Publicola. Jefferson hastened to write two letters of explanation to John Adams, deprecating any quarrel, and speaking with espe- cial animosity and contempt of the mischief-making Publicola. Little did he think with what a freight he had laden his peaceful missives, for Publicola was none other than John Adams's son, John Quincy Adams, whose family were very proud of this early filial exploit. Such were some of the perils of this darkling habit of anonymous news- paper writing. Isaac had actually been made a peace-offering to Abraham.

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But difficulties much more grave than such com- ical errors were often promoted by the newspapers of the day. Shortly after Jefferson was appointed secretary of state, he received from Madison a let- ter commending' for a clerkship one Philip Fre- neau, a democratic scribbler of verses rather better than most Americans could write in those days. Jefferson had then no vacancy ; but a little later he found a " clerkship for foreign languages," carrying only the petty salary of " two hundred and fifty dollars a year," but giving " so little to do as not to interefere with any other calling " which the clerk might choose to carry on. In a very kind note Jefferson conferred this modest position upon Freneau, and in so doing wrote the first stanza in a long Iliad of troubles. For it so happened that the " other calling " which the ill- paid translating clerk selected for eking out his subsistence was the editorship of a newspaper ; and it further so happened that Mr. Freneau had a zealous faith in the chief of his own department, and a correspondingly intense aversion towards the rival secretary of the treasury. Hitherto Fen no's " Gazette " had represented " the Treasury " with- out an equal opponent ; but the new " National Gazette " now sustained the Department of State with not inferior ardor, with an appalling courage m the use of abusive language, and with terrible enterprise in preferring outrageous accusations. For Freneau had not only extreme convictions, but a trenchant pen. Hamilton and his friends were

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soon wincing beneath his attacks ; but they pre- ferred to pass by the writer as a being too insignif- icant for their wrath, and to denounce his alleged patron and protector, the secretary of state, in per- son. He it was, they said, who insidiously fur- nished material and information to the disaffected and scurrilous sheet which was issued, as they chose to declare, almost actually from his department. He was responsible for its malicious temper, for its reckless aspersions of his honoi'able colleagues, and even of the President himself. Jefferson an- grily repelled these assertions, declaring that he had nothing whatsoever to do, directly or indi- rectly, with the management of the paper ; but at the same time he had the courage not to conceal that he thought the " Gazette " to be in the main sound in its doctrines, and doing good work. He neither dismissed nor rebuked Freneau. It is rea- sonable to suppose that a rebuke would have been effectual ; but his obligation to give it is by no means clear. His asseveration that he did not interfere, even indirectly, in the conduct of the sheet, derives credit from the probability that, if he had interfered, he would have been sufficiently wise and politic to discourage the personal attacks upon Washington, which he must have seen to be blunders. But in a broad and very forcible way the paper advocated his views ; and in return he generally spoke well of it, and was interested in its success. It is difficult to say that he was positively wrong in this. Possibly he occasionally " inspired "

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it, to use the ingenious, indefinite slang of our day ; but it was going too far when he was treated as a responsible member of the editorial staff. Whether it was becoming in him to retain in his department a writer whose daily business was to defame the policy and character of a colleague in the cabinet, is a part of the general question, soon to be dis- cussed, of the relationship which those colleagues were bound, under the peculiar circumstances then existing, to maintain towards each other and their chief.

At last, in August, 1792, Hamilton was pro- voked into coming1 down to the lists and himself taking a hand in the fray. He descended like a giant among the pygmies, and startled all by his sudden apparition in the guise of " An American." Though he thus wore his visor down, every one at once knew the blows of that terrible hand. In his first article he bitterly assailed Jefferson for re- taining his office and at the same time continuing his connection with Freneau. Further, he charged Jefferson with disloyalty to the Constitution and the administration. Jefferson was absent when this powerful diatribe appeared ; but Freneau printed an affidavit, saying that he had had no negotiations with Jefferson concerning the estab- lishment of his paper, and that Jefferson had never controlled it in the least, or written or dictated a line for it. Hamilton, in replication, contemptu- ously declined to seek any other antagonist than Jefferson himself. His arguments were powerful,

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and a great wrath inspired his pen. But defenders of the secretary of state were not lacking ; and Hamilton, being once in the field, had perforce to lay about him among a throng of small assailants, for whose destruction he cared little, while Jeffer- son himself, with exasperating caution, declined to be drawn into the furious arena.

Washington beheld this sudden melee with extreme annoyance, and made a noble, pathetic, hopeless effort to close a chasm which the forces of nature herself had opened. He wrote to each sec- retary a short letter of personal appeal, breathing a beautiful spirit of concord and patriotism. From each he received a noteworthy and characteristic response, courteous and considerate towards him- self, but showing plainly the impossibility of har- mony between two representatives so adverse in intellectual constitution. Hamilton briefly justi- fied what he had done, and said that he must now go through with this conflict, but that he would try not to become so involved again. Jefferson sent an elaborate argument, defending himself and his party, and arraigning the policy and the char- acter of the Federalists. The letter is such an ample exposition of the anti-Federalist tenets, such a forcible apologia of the writer, that it ought not to be mutilated by excerpts ; yet it is much too long for reproduction here.

Jefferson began by saying that when he " em- barked in the government, it was with a determi- nation to intermeddle not at all with the legislature,

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and as little as possible with my co-departments." For the most part he had scrupulously observed this wise resolution, though he bitterly recalled his share in the assumption measure. Into this " I was duped by the secretary of the treasury, and made a tool for forwarding his schemes, not then sufficiently understood by me ; and of all the errors of my political life this has occasioned me the deepest regret." He acknowledged that he had " utterly, in his private conversations, disapproved of the system of the secretary of the treasury," which " flowed from principles adverse to liberty, and was calculated to undermine and demolish the republic, by creating an influence of his depart- ment over the members of the legislature." He then developed fully his favorite theory of a " cor- rupt squadron " in Congress, whose votes could always turn the scale, who were under the com- mand of the secretary of the treasury, and were by him used " for the purpose of subverting, step by step, the principles of the Constitution, which he had so often declared to be a thing of nothing which must be changed." He complained that his own abstinence from interference with the Treasury Department had not been reciprocated by Hamil- ton, who had repeatedly intermeddled in the for- eign affairs, and always in the way of friendship to England and hostility to France, a policy " ex- actly the reverse " of that of Jefferson, and, as Jefferson believed, also of that of Washington. He then passed to the attacks made by Hamilton,

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as " An American," in Fenno's " Gazette." For the charge of disloyalty to the Constitution, he de- nied that he had been more an opponent of the Constitution than Hamilton had been, and showed that his objections to it had been vindicated by the subsequent adoption of amendments almost wholly coextensive with his criticism ; whereas Hamilton had been dissatisfied because " it wanted a king and house of lords." Hamilton, he said, wished the national debt " never to be paid, but always to be a thing wherewith to corrupt and manage the legislature," whereas he himself would like to see it " paid to-morrow." Still harping on corruption, he said : " I have never inquired what number of sons, relatives, and friends of senators, representa- tives, printers, or other useful partisans, Colonel Hamilton has provided for among the hundred clerks of his department, the thousand excisemen at his nod, and spread over the Union ; nor could ever have imagined that the man who has the shuffling of millions backwards and forwards from paper into money, and money into paper, from Europe to America, and America to Europe ; the dealing out of treasury secrets among his friends in what time and measure he pleases ; and who never slips an occasion of making friends with his means, — that such an one, I say, would have brought forward a charge against me for having appointed the poet Freneau a translating clerk to my office, with a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a year." He tells the story of the starting

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of Freneau's paper in a way to exculpate himself ; and, concerning its subsequent conduct, says : " I can protest, in the presence of Heaven, that I never did, by myself or any other, say a syllabic, nor attempt any kind of influence. I can further protest, in the same awful Presence, that I never did, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, write, dictate, or procure any one sentence or sen- timent to be inserted in his or any other gazette to which my name was not affixed, or that of my office." He concluded : " When I came into this office it was with a resolution to retire from it as soon as I could with decency. It pretty early ap- peared to me that the proper moment would be the first of those epochs at which the Constitution seems to have contemplated a periodical change or renewal of the public servants. ... I look to that period with the longing of a wave-worn mariner who has at length the land in view, and shall count the days and hours which still lie between me and it." But, he says, though he has a " thorough dis- regard for the honors and emoluments of office," he has a great value " for the esteem of his coun- trymen ; and, conscious of having merited it," he " will not suffer his retirement to be clouded by the slanders of a man whose history, from the moment at which history can stoop to notice him, is a tissue of machinations against the liberty of the country which has not only received and given him bread, but heaped its honors on his head." For himself, he declares his belief, with obvious

12C THOMAS JEFFERSON

innuendo, that the people do not regard him as " an enemy of the republic, nor an intriguer against it, nor a waster of its revenue, nor prosti- tutor of it to the purposes of corruption."

The letter is a characteristic and very remarkable document ; it deserves to have become as famous as a great speech, so plausible was it in defensive argument, so imposing in denunciation, so bitter in personal invective, so skillful and yet earnest in its interweaving of truth with gross misrepresenta- tions, so spirited at once and pathetic in its protes- tations of rectitude. It contained some falsehoods, yet it was honestly written. It did not induce Washington to abjure Hamilton ; but it proved to him that each side was too much in the right to yield, and that each had such an honest confidence in the wickedness of the other that reconciliation was hopeless ; matters had gone far beyond that stage when Jefferson had the audacity to talk of the moment when history could first stoop to no- tice his distinguished rival, and could actually twit Hamilton with having had bread " given " to him by the country !

Federalist historians have always lost their tem- pers over this most aggravating epistle, and are accustomed to compare the replies of the two secre- taries vastly to Jefferson's discredit. Hamilton, they say, did not malign his opponent in private correspondence with their common chief. But the fact that Hamilton did not see fit to write an elab- orate, argumentative, offensive and defensive let-

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ter does not establish the fact that Jefferson ought not to have done so. Neither, when writing, knew what course the other would pursue in this respect, so that no unfair advantage was taken. It may be well suspected that the real cause of the Federalist vexation is, that Hamilton left no corrective anti- dote to Jefferson's powerful document. In the Ions struoo-le between Hamilton and Jefferson, the Hamiltonians always intimated that Jefferson was a darkling underhand antagonist, who would cov- ertly traduce and vilify, and employ underlings to take the responsibilities and encounter the perils which he himself should have assumed. Thus they depict him as a contemptible and cowardly charac- ter; but, as it seems, with a great exaggeration of the truth, if not altogether without any truth. Hamilton was by his nature a fighter, ardent, defi- ant, self-confident, always ready to change blows with one or with a host, half winning victory by his sanguine anticipation of it. Jefferson on the other hand was as non-combatant as a Quaker, seldom and reluctantly entering a debate either in words or in print. But his detractors were of opin- ion that if he would not make a political speech, he ought not to talk politics with his friends after dinner ; if he would not write political articles for the newspapers, he ought never to put an expres- sion of political opinion into his correspondence. They laid down for him an absurd rule which was followed by no man in those days, or indeed in any days. It does not appear that Jefferson ever con-

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cealed his sentiments, or that he often conciliated any man in public and defamed him in private ; observing these principles, he had a perfect right to declare his beliefs about public men and mea- sures, in conversation or in letter-writing, to any person whomsoever.

So long as the department of national finances, the liquidation of the national debt and provision for its payment, the establishment of the bank and of the mint, the arrangement of the tariff, and the organization of taxes constituted the chief business of the government, it was impossible for Jefferson to encounter Hamilton with any hope of success. For even if Hamilton's financiering had been as unsound as in fact it was sound, Jefferson was too much of a novice in such matters to be able to expose any errors. In other matters, also, Ham- ilton enjoyed great influence and prestige induced by his admirable management of his preeminently important department. It was not without rea- son that Jefferson complained that his colleague encroached on his functions. Hamilton had the mind of a ruler, and could not help placing him- self substantially at the head of the nation, with a policy on every subject and an unconquerable habit of making that policy felt. It was not sur- prising that Jefferson became irritated and discour- aged ; for it was evident that he had no reasonable hope of holding his own unless the struggle could be transferred to some new field better suited to his abilities. Fortunately for him, precisely this

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movement was already going rapidly forward. Just about the time when the opponents of the secre- tary of the treasury had become consolidated and trained by the severe lessons of repeated disasters, and when Jefferson's position as their leader had become universally admitted, questions of domestic policy began to be superseded by the foreign rela- tions of the United States. The new problems soon took such shape that Jefferson and his follow- ers regained coura