Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (63 page)

“
LET
US
THE
N
TAKE
ANOTHER
STEP
”
Milton E. Flower,
John Dickinson: Conservative Revolutionary
(Charlottesville, Va., 1983), 66–67.

“
LEVEL
250
FT
.
SQUARE
”
GB,
12–13.

REPORTED
T
HOMAS
J
EFF
ERSON
'
S
ELECTION
JHT,
I, 129–31.

T
HE
T
OWNSHEND
A
CTS
Morgan,
Birth of the Republic,
34–35.

A
SENSE
OF
URGENCY
JHT,
I, 134–37.

SUMMONED
THE
B
URGESSES
Ibid., 136.

WALKE
D
TO
THE
A
POLLO
R
OOM
Ibid., 137.

LEAD
BUST
OF
S
IR
W
ALTE
R
R
ALEIGH
Tyler,
Williamsburg: Old Colonial CapitaL,
233.

THE
V
IRGI
NIANS
HAD
A
PLAN
PTJ,
I, 27–31.

T
HEY
WOULD
NOT
IMPORT
OR
CONSUME
Ibid., 27–31. The signatories to this agreement pledged “to be frugal in the use and consumption of
British
manufactures” in the hope that “the merchants and manufacturers of
Great-Britain
may, from motives of interest, friendship, and justice, be engaged to exert themselves to obtain for us a redress of those grievances under which the trade and inhabitants of
America
at present labour.” (Ibid.) A provocative document, but in the spring of 1769 Jefferson, who signed it, and most of his colleagues were still far from revolution. In the Apollo Room after the adoption of the Nonimportation Resolutions, the assembled legislators drank toasts to the royal family, to Lord Botetourt, to “a speedy and lasting union between
Great-Britain
and her colonies,” and to the author of the
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania
. (Ibid., 31) It was, to say the least, a confusinG TIME.

ACCOMPANYING
HIS
MOTHER
Parton,
LiFE,
99.

THE
S
LAVE
REPLIED
TDLTJ,
43.

T
HE
B
URNED
BOOKS
PTJ,
I, 35.

“W
OULD
TO
G
OD
”
IBID.

DESPERATE
,
EVE
N
FRANTIC
Ibid., 34–38.

H
E
CONTEM
PLATED
MOVING
Ibid., 35. “If this conflagration, by which I am burned out of a home,” he said, “had come before I had advanced so far in preparing another, I do not know but I might have cherished some treasonable thoughts of leaving these my native hills.” (IbID.)

H
E
BL
EAKLY
ALLUDED
TO
IT
IbID.

T
HE
SUMMIT
OF
HIS
MOUNTAI
N
GB,
16–19.

CREATED
AN
ORCHA
RD
Ibid., 15. His thought was to build and move into a house he described to his uncle as “another habitation which I am about to erect, and on a plan so contracted as that I shall have but one spare bedchamber for whatever visitants I may have.” He was ready for a demanding pace: “Nor have I reason to expect at any future day to pass a greater proportion of my time at home.” What he called the “way to and from Williamsburg” was to be a familiar one. (
PTJ,
I, 24.)

“Y
OU
BEAR
YOUR
MISFORTUNE
”
PTJ,
I, 38.

“C
ARRY
O
N
,
AND
PRESERVE
”
Ibid. John Page sensed, too, that Jefferson was applying his reading of the ancients to the destruction of a whole domestic world. “I have heard of your loss and heartily condole with you, but am much pleased with the philosophy you manifest.” (Ibid.) As philosophical as Jefferson tried to be, the pain was still there, and his thoughts turned to other hearths and other lives. He idealized his brother-in-law's situation. Dabney Carr, he told Page, “speaks, thinks, and dreams of nothing but his young son. This friend of ours, Page, in a very small house, with a table, half a dozen chairs, and one or two servants, is the happiest man in the universe.” (Ibid., 36.)

AN
A
DVERTISEMENT
J
EFFERSO
N
PLACED
PTJ,
I, 33.

WOULD
OWN
MORE
THAN
600
SLAVES
Stanton,
“Those Who Labor for My Happiness,”
106. Writing of the difficulties of historical work on slavery at Monticello, Stanton noted: “To reconstruct the world of Monticello's African Americans is a challenging task. Only six images of men and women who lived there in slavery are known, and their own words are preserved in just four reminiscences and a handful of letters. Archaeological excavations are unearthing fascinating evidence of the material culture of Monticello's black families, and since 1993, steps have been taken to record the oral histories of their descendants. Without the direct testimony of most of the African American residents of Monticello, we must try to hear their voices in the sparse records of Jefferson's Farm Book and the often biased accounts and letters dealing with labor management and through the inherited memories of those who left Monticello for lives of freedom.” (Ibid.) See also Cassandra Pybus, “Thomas Jefferson and Slavery,” in Cogliano, ed.,
A Companion to Thomas Jefferson,
271–83. A new work is Henry Wiencek,
Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves
(New York, 2012). Wiencek was kind to share a galley of his book with me; he offers a bracing argument about Jefferson and slavery—one that is of a piece with my contention that Jefferson was driven to control and exert power over the world around him. “The regime at Monticello was far crueler than we have been led to believe; but more important, Jefferson's financial letters and accounts reveal his icy calculus of slavery's profits. He calculated he was getting a 4% increase in capital assets per year on the births of black children. He urged a neighbor to invest in slaves. He financed the rebuilding of Monticello with a $2,000 ‘slave-equity' loan from a Dutch banking house. Far from being stuck or ensnared in slavery, Jefferson embraced it. He modernized slavery, diversified it, industrialized it. Through him we can see why slavery survived the Revolution and how it emerged as a robust and adaptable component of the American economy.” (Henry Wiencek to author, June 27, 2012.)

INHERITED
150
Stanton, “Those who labor for My Happiness,” 106.

BOUGHT
ROUGHLY
20
IBiD.

MOST
OF
TH
E
OTHERS
WERE
BORN
I
NTO
SLAVERY
ON
HIS
L
ANDS
IBid.

F
ROM
1774
TO
1826
IbID.

THE
CA
SE
OF
S
AMUEL
H
OWELL
V
. W
ADE
N
ETHERLAND
John C. Miller,
The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
(Charlottesville, Va., 1991), 4–5. See also Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
99–101.

“I
MADE
ONE
EFFORT
”
Jefferson,
WritiNGS,
5.

CRAFTED
A
BILL
JHT,
I, 121–22, and Miller,
Wolf by the EarS,
4–5.

UNILATERAL
AUTHO
RITY
TO
FREE
A
SLAVE
Miller,
Wolf by the Ears,
4. Miller wrote: “For half a century, manumission had been permitted only with the consent of the governor and council; Jefferson sought to give every slaveowner the right to free his slaves if he so desired.” (IBID.)

“
MERITORIOUS
SER
VICES
”
Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
109. As Gordon-Reed wrote, the statute governing manumission, in effect since 1723, stated: “No negro, mulatto or Indian slaves shall be set free upon any pretense whatsoever, except for some meritorious services, to be adjudged and allowed by the governor and council.” (IBID.)

J
EFFERSON
A
SKED
R
ICHARD
B
LAND
Miller,
Wolf by the EARS,
5.

THE
H
OWELL
CASE
Ibid., 5–6. See also Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
99–101.

“
EVERYONE
COMES
INTO
”
Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of MonticellO,
100.

LOST
THE
CASE
Miller,
Wolf by the Ears,
5–6.

“I
REFLECT
OFTEN
”
Ibid., 35–36.

FIVE
·
A WORLD OF DESIRE AND DENIAL

“H
ARMONY
IN
THE
MARRIAGE
”
PTJ,
XXX, 15.

“
A
LITHE
AND
EXQUISITEL
Y
”
TDLTJ,
43.

“H
ER
COMPLEXION
W
AS
BRILLIANT
”
Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 63–64.

“
GOO
D
SENSE
AND
GOOD
NAT
URE
”
PTJ,
I, 66.

O
NE
KINSMAN
TH
OUGHT
THE
J
EFFERSONS
“
A
COUPLE
”
Ibid., 84. The kinsman was Robert Skipwith, who married a sister of Martha's. By the middle of 1771, Jefferson was writing Skipwith at the Forest: “Offer prayers for me too at that shrine to which, tho' absent, I pay continual devotion.” (Ibid., 78.) In reply, on September 20, 1771, Skipwith said: “My sister Skelton, Jefferson I wish it were, with the greatest fund of good nature has all that sprightliness and sensibility which promises to ensure you the greatest happiness mortals are capable of enjoying.” (Ibid., 84.)

“
THE
BEGIN
NINGS
OF
KNOWLEDGE
”
Parton,
Life,
128.

H
E
CONFIDED
IN
HER
AB
OUT
POLITICS
PTJ,
I, 247.

P
ATTY
'
S
“
PASSIONATE
ATTACH
MENT
”
TDLTJ,
343.

J
EFFERSON
'
S
“
C
ONDUCT
AS
A
HUSBAND
”
IBId.

P
ATTY
ONCE
COMPLAIN
ED
THAT
SOME
INSTANC
E
IBiD.

“B
UT
IT
WAS
ALWAYS
SO
”
IBId.

LIKED
HAVING
HE
R
WAY
Kukla,
Mr. Jefferson's WomeN,
72.