Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (88 page)

Read Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power Online

Authors: Jon Meacham

Tags: #Biography, #History, #Non-Fiction, #Politics, #Goodreads 2012 History

“T
HE
POLITICS
OF
THE
WESTERN
COUNTRY

Dunbar,
Study of “Monarchical” Tendencies,
106. Wilkinson added that only a “high toned monarchy” could remedy the Confederation government's “imbecility, distraction and capricious policy.” (Ibid.)

“T
HERE
IS
SUCH
A
R
OOTED
AVERSION

PTJ,
XIII, 461–62.

I
N
A
REPORT
OF
A
CONVER
SATION
“Governor Simcoe's Conversation with Peirce Duffy,” June 1793, Niagara. George Beckwith also reported that an American informant had told him that there was no gentleman “who does not view the present government with contempt, who is not convinced of its inefficiency, and who is not desirous of changing it for a Monarchy.” (Boyd,
Number 7,
7.)

“T
O
MY
MIND
A
TRUE
ESTIMATE

Hamilton,
Writings,
978. The quotation is found in the course of a revealing letter of Hamilton's to James Bayard about Jefferson, Burr, and the 1800 election. (Ibid., 977–81.)

I
N
1790
AND
IN
1791
EOL,
200–201; 533–34. See also Herring,
From Colony to Superpower,
62–63.

FOUGHT
TO
WIN
THE
LIBERTIES
Miller,
Wolf by the Ears,
133.

“T
HE
SITUATION
OF
THE
S
AI
NT
-D
OMINGUE
FUGITIVES

PTJ,
XXVI, 503.

“I
T
IS
HIGH
TIME

Ibid.

THE
LONG
-
DREADED
SLA
VE
WAR
Miller,
Wolf by the Ears,
133–34.


EVERY
ACC
OUNT
OF
THE
SUCCESS

Edward Thornton to Lord Hawkesbury, May 1, 1802, FO 5/35, National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew.

MIGHT
BECOME
THE
ASYLUM
Ibid., 133.

THE
LEADERSHIP
OF
T
OUSSAINT
-L
OUVERT
URE
Herring,
From Colony to Superpower,
105–6.

REASSESS
ITS
AMBITIONS
Ibid.

“I
WRITE
TO
DAY

PTJ,
XX, 342–43.

A
TRIP
OF
THEI
R
OWN
Ibid., 434–73, covers the journey and its sundry purposes. See also Andrea Wulf,
The Founding Gardeners,
90–110. In New York, Sir John Temple, the British consul general, told London that Jefferson's “party and politics” were popular. (Ibid., XVIII, 240–41.) Robert Troup, a Hamiltonian, told the Treasury secretary that he believed the Jefferson interest, which in his view included Chancellor Robert R. Livingston and Aaron Burr—was moving toward total war. “There was every appearance of a passionate courtship between the Chancellor—Burr—Jefferson and Madison when the latter two were in town,” Troup wrote Hamilton on June 15, 1791. “
Delenda est Carthago
[Carthage must be destroyed] I suppose is the maxim adopted with respect to you.” (Ibid., XX, 434.)

I
N
THEIR
BRIEF
TIME
TOGETHER
Ibid., 435.

P
HILIP
F
RENEAU
,
A
WRITER
Ibid., 453, 657, and 718. For the full account of the Freneau chapter in early national Jeffersonian politics, see ibid., 718–59.

See also Philip M. Marsh, “Philip Freneau and His Circle,”
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
63, no. 1 (January 1939): 37–59, and Marsh, “Freneau and Jefferson: The Poet-Editor Speaks for Himself About the
National Gazette
Episode,”
American Literature
8 (May 1936); 180–89.

WHOM
M
ADISON
H
AD
KNOWN
Marsh, “Philip Freneau and His Circle,” 39.

SUBSIDIZED
BY
THE
D
EPARTMENT
OF
S
TATE
Ibid., 45–47. “I should have given him the perusal of all my letters of foreign intelligence and all foreign newspapers; the publication of all proclamations and other public notices within my department, and the printing of the laws, which added to his salary would have been a considerable aid,” Jefferson wrote Madison on July 21, 1791. (
PTJ,
XX, 657.)

A
CRITICAL
STEP
Todd Estes, “Jefferson as Party Leader,” in Cogliano, ed.,
A Companion to Thomas Jefferson,
132–34.

J
OHN
B
ECKLEY
Ibid., 139.


THE
FLOATING
ARDOR

Bailey, “Jefferson on Public Opinion and the Executive” in Ibid., 194. The context was the enforcement of the embargo in 1807, but as Bailey notes, the remark “reveals nicely the relationship between executive action and public judgment.” (Ibid.)

“N
OTHING
NEW
IS
TALKED
OF
HERE

Ibid., 617.

“Y
OU
MENTIONED
FORMERLY

Ibid., 706.

J
EFFERSON
AN
D
H
AMILTON
SPOKE
PRIV
ATELY
Ibid., XXII, 38–39. Hamilton added of the republican experiment: “The success indeed so far is greater than I had expected, and therefore at present success seems more possible than it had done heretofore, and there are still other stages of improvement which, if the present does not succeed, may be tried and ought to be tried before we give up the republican form altogether, for that mind must be really depraved which would not prefer the equality of political rights which is the foundation of pure republicanism, if it can be obtained with order.” (Ibid.)

“W
HETHER
THESE
MEASURES

Peterson,
Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation,
436.


THE
PE
OPLE
IN
YOUR
QUARTER

Ibid., 437.


THERE
IS
A
VAST
M
ASS

Ibid., 436.

LAWMAKERS
WERE
BECOMING
FINANCIALLY
ENMESHED
PTJ,
XXIII, 537–41. See also Ibid., XXIV, 25–27. On a separate but related matter,
EOL,
299, alludes to Jefferson's broader concerns about the corrupting possibilities of patronage.

TWENTY
-
FIVE
·
TWO COCKS IN THE PIT

“H
OW
UNFORTUNATE
 … 
THAT
W
HILST

PTJ,
XXIV, 317.

D
INNER
WAS
O
VER
PTJRS,
III, 305.

P
RESIDENT
W
ASHI
NGTON
WAS
OUT
OF
TOW
N
Ibid.

DOMINATED
BY
A

CO
LLISION
OF
OPINION

Ibid.

IN
HIS
VIEW

IF
SOME
OF
IT
S

Ibid.


IT
WAS
THE
MOST
PERFECT
MODEL

Ibid. See also Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton,
393–94.

S
IR
F
RANCIS
B
ACON
, J
OHN
L
OCK
E
,
AND
S
IR
I
SAAC
N
EWTON
Ibid.

H
AMILTON
ASKED
J
EFFE
RSON
Ibid.

“I
TOLD
HIM

Ibid.

H
AM
ILTON
PAUSED
Ibid.

“T
HE
GR
EATEST
MAN

Ibid.

“M
R
. A
DAMS
WAS
HONEST

Ibid.

J
EFFERSO
N
WAS
RUNNING
LATE
PTJ,
XXIII, 184.


DOUBLING
THE
VELOCITY

Ibid.

FOR

THE
T
REASURY
PO
SSESSED
ALREADY

Ibid. Jefferson continued “that even future Presidents (not supported by the weight of character which [he] himself possessed) would not be able to make head against this department.” It was a gentle, effective way to flatter Washington and to raise his concerns about Hamilton to Washington, who did not mind tributes to his own character. (Ibid.)

NOT
ONE
OF

PERSONAL
INT
EREST

Ibid.

T
HE
PRESIDENT
THEN
BROUGHT
THE
TA
LK
Ibid. During “that pause of conversation which follows a business closed,” Jefferson later wrote, Washington “said in an affectionate tone that he had felt much concern at an expression which dropt from me yesterday, and which marked my intention of retiring” when Washington did. (Ibid.)

W
ASHINGTON
SAID
HE
INTENDED
Ibid., 184–85.

“I
TOLD
H
IM
THAT
NO
MAN

Ibid., 185.


HAD
SET
OUT
WITH

Ibid., 186.


ONLY
A
SINGLE
SOURCE

Ibid.


D
ELUGING
THE
STATES
W
ITH
PAPER
-
MONEY

Ibid.


FE
ATHERED
THEIR
NESTS

Ibid. Jefferson had asked Madison to supply a list of the names of lawmakers who held public securities or stock in the Bank of the United States. He wanted it, he said, to show the president “that I have not been speaking merely at random.” Jefferson ultimately did not use any such list in arguments with Washington. (Ibid., XXIV, 26.)

HIS
FOES

HAD
NOW

Ibid., 187. Washington asked what, specifically, Jefferson was talking about. “I answered … that in the Report on Manufactures which, under color of giving
bounties
for the encouragement of particular manufactures, meant to establish the doctrine that the power given by the Constitution to collect taxes to provide for the
general welfare
of the U.S. permitted Congress to take everything under their management which
they
should deem for the
public welfare,
and which is susceptible to the application of money.” (Ibid.)

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