Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (101 page)

A
VAST
CHEESE
ARRIVED
PTJ,
XXXVI, 246–52. Jefferson understood from whence it came. “It is an ebullition of republicanism in a state where it has been under heavy oppression,” he wrote John Wayles Eppes on January 1, 1802. (Ibid., 261.)

TH
E
D
ANBURY
B
APTIST
A
SSOCI
ATION
HAD
ASSEMBLED
Ibid., 253–58.

“B
ELIEVING
WITH
YOU
”
Ibid., 258.

“I
AGREE
WITH
YOU
”
Ibid., XXXII, 205.

“
THE
TERRIBLE
EVILS
OF
DEMOCRACY
”
Life and Correspondence of Rufus King,
IV, 11.

ABOLI
SH
ALL
INTERNAL
TAXE
S
Ibid., 388.

DECLARE
WAR
ON
T
RI
POLI
Ibid.

EASE
NATURALIZ
ATION
RULES
Ibid.

REPEAL
THE
J
UDICIARY
A
CT
OF
1801
Ibid., 168.

“W
OULD
TO
G
OD
”
Life and Correspondence of Rufus King,
IV, 109.

B
URR
'
S
“
DIFFIDENCE
”
IN
FA
ILING
TO
COMBAT
Isenberg,
Fallen Founder,
230. “Burr was not immediately abandoned by the Jefferson administration,” wrote Isenberg. “It happened gradually over the first year of the president's term.” (Ibid., 229.)

T
HE
COMPLICATIONS
OF
N
EW
Y
ORK
STATE
POLITIC
S
Ibid., 226–31.

J
EFFERSON
CHOSE
T
O
THWART
B
URR
'
S
AMBIT
IONS
Ibid., 231.

O
NE
B
URRITE
, M
ATT
HEW
L. D
AVIS
,
CALLED
ON
T
HE
PRESIDENT
Gustavus Myers,
The History of Tammany Hall
(Ann Arbor, Mich., 2005), 15. In Myers's version of the story, Davis had been talking about the “immense influence” of New York in the moments before Jefferson caught the fly. The president then asked Davis if he had ever noticed the difference in size between “one portion of the insect and its body.” As Myers has it, “The hint was not lost on Davis, who, though not knowing whether Jefferson referred to New York or to him, ceased to talk on the subject.” (Ibid.) My own view is that snatching a fly out of the air would leave a distinct enough impression even without additional commentary.

“T
HER
E
IS
HARDLY
A
MAN
”
Isenberg,
Fallen Founder,
231.

“T
HERE
IS
CERTAINLY
”
Ibid., 133.

“M
R
. B
URR
WILL
SURELY
ARRIVE
”
Louis-André Pichon to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Les Archives Diplomatiques-P19506. “He is a man against whom you know all there is to say, but what is certain is that he would take the reins of business; if the Federalists consent, you can rely that this nation takes on an appearance that it has not had before,” Pichon added. (Ibid.)

A
CELEB
RATORY
F
EDERALIST
DIN
NER
Life and Correspondence of Rufus King,
IV, 103.

O
N
THE
F
OURTH
PTJ,
XXXVIII, 121.

“T
HE
SPECIAL
FEASTS
”
Ibid., 89.

“T
HE
PRINCIPLES
WHIC
H
DIRECT
IT
”
Louis-André Pichon to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Les Archives Diplomatiques-P19506.

“T
HAT
WO
ULD
SCARCELY
HAPPEN
”
Ibid.

“J
EFFERSON
IS
THE
ID
OL
”
Life and Correspondence of Rufus King,
IV, 103–4.

A
DECADE
LATER
PTJ,
XXV, 75–84.

A
THREAT
FROM
THE
B
RITISH
James P. Ronda,
Jefferson's West: A Journey with Lewis and Clark
(Charlottesville, Va., 2000), 26–27. For a standard account of Jefferson and the Lewis and Clark expedition, see Donald Jackson,
Thomas Jefferson and the Stony Mountains: Exploring the West from Monticello
(Norman, Okla., 1993).

“
IT
REQUIRES
ONLY
THE
COUNTENANCE
”
Alexander Mackenzie,
Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence: Through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans; in the Years 1789 and 1793
(New York, 1814), 388.

“M
ANY
POLITICAL
REASON
S
”
Ibid., 392.

“I
AM
AFRAID
”
Ronda,
Jefferson's West,
21.

A
T
HEATER
OF
CONTENTION
Ibid., 33–37, describes some of the political and diplomatic factors at work, including counsel from Gallatin and Attorney General Levi Lincoln.

M
ERIWETHER
L
EWIS
,
HI
S
PRIVATE
SECRETARY
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/meriwether-lewis (accessed 2012).

B
ORN
IN
1774
AT
L
OCUST
H
ILL
Ibid.

TEN
MILES
FROM
M
ONTICELLO
Ibid.

HIS
OWN
“
NEIGHBORHO
OD
”
Ibid.

BLUE
-
EYED
Marshall Smelser,
The Democratic Republic, 1801–1815
(New York, 1968), 125.

A
L
IEUTENANT
IN
THE
U.S. A
RMY
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/meriwether-lewis (accessed 2012).

“
KNOWLEDGE
OF
THE
W
ESTERN
COUNTRY
”
Ibid.

APPA
RENTLY
DREW
ON
L
EWIS
'
S
SENSE
Ibid.

C
ONGRESS
SE
CRETLY
AGREED
PTJ,
XXXIX, 588. “You know we have been many years wishing to have the Missouri explored and whatever river, heading with that, runs into the Western ocean,” Jefferson wrote Benjamin S. Barton from Washington in February 1803. “Congress, in some secret proceedings, have yielded to a proposition I made them for permitting me to have it done. It is to be undertaken immediately with a party of about ten, and I have appointed Capt. Lewis, my secretary, to conduct it.” (Ibid.)

T
HE
PRESIDENT
ASKED
FOR
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/jeffersons-confidential-letter-to-congress (accessed 2012).

FIFTEEN
TIMES
THAT
AMOUNT
Jackson,
Letters of Lewis and Clark,
II, 428. The best estimate of the cost is $38,722.25. I am grateful to Barbara Oberg and to Gary Moulton for their help on this point.

“C
APT
. L
EWIS
IS
BRAVE
”
PTJ,
XXXIX, 599.

L
EWIS
ASKED
W
ILLIAM
C
LARK
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/expedition-timeline (accessed 2012).

THIRTY
-
FOUR
·
VICTORIES, SCANDAL, AND A SECRET SICKNESS

“B
Y
THIS
W
ENCH
S
ALLY
”
PTJ,
XXXVIII, 324.

I
T
WAS
A
N
IDEAL
OF
THE
AGE
Wood,
Radicalism of the American Revolution,
298–301.

HAD
WARNED
AGAINST
PARTISAN
SPIRIT
George Washington,
Writings,
ed. John H. Rhodehamel (New York, 1997), 962–77.

WERE
NEVER
TO
BE
REALIZED
Jefferson himself came to see that total unity of interest was simply not an element of the political condition. He would later tell John Adams that all societies in all times had been divided roughly along Whig and Tory (or Republican and Federalist) lines. In his
Origins of American Politics,
Bernard Bailyn quotes a 1733 essay in the New York
Gazette
on the practicalities of partisanship. “I may venture to say that some opposition, though it proceed not entirely from a public spirit, is not only necessary in free governments but of great service to the public. Parties are a check upon one another, and by keeping the ambition of one another within bounds, serve to maintain the public liberty. Opposition is the life and soul of public zeal which, without it, would flag and decay for want of an opportunity to exert itself.… It may indeed proceed from wrong motives, but still it is necessary.” (Ibid., 126.)

Bailyn found a Pennsylvania writer saying much the same thing in 1738 and a New York writer in 1748 arguing that “regard for liberty has always made me think that parties in a free state ought rather to be considered as an advantage to the public than an evil. Because while they subsist I have viewed them as so many spies upon one another, ready to proclaim abroad and warn the public of any attack or encroachment upon the public liberty and thereby rouse the members thereof to assert those rights they are [entitled?] to by the laws.” (Ibid., 127.) Such sentiments were the exception, not the rule, but Jefferson articulated similar views.

“Y
OU
MAY
SUPPOSE
”
Cunningham,
Jeffersonian Republicans in Power,
102.

“T
HE
MEN
OF
THE
DIFFERENT
PARTIES
”
Ibid.

“N
O
TAVERN
O
R
BOARDING
HOUSE
”
Ibid., 103.

“N
O
THING
SHALL
BE
SPARE
D
”
Ibid., 8.

“T
HE
ATTEMPT
AT
RE
CONCILIATION
”
Ibid., 9.

“T
HERE
IS
NOTHING
TO
WHICH
A
NATION
”
PTJ,
XXXIII, 234.

“
REIGN
OF
WITCHES
”
Ibid., XXX, 389.

“T
HE
COUNTR
Y
IS
SO
TOTALLY
”
Diary of John Quincy Adams,
1794–1845: American Political, Social, and Intellectual Life from Washington to Polk,
ed. Allan Nevins (New York, 1969), 21.