Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (92 page)

J
EFFERSON
ADMITTED
THAT
THE
SUBJECT
Ibid., 338–40. This letter of April 27, 1795, has been the subject of intriguing scholarly attention. James Roger Sharp, “Unraveling the Mystery of Jefferson's Letter of April 27, 1795,”
Journal of the Early Republic
6, no. 4 (Winter 1986): 411–18, explores an important textual change in the copy of the letter that Jefferson kept. Jefferson wrote that as he would not seek the office, “my sole object is to avail myself of the first opening ever given me from a friendly quarter (and I could not with decency do it before), of preventing any division or loss of votes, which might be fatal to the Southern interest.” Yet someone—Jefferson himself, perhaps, or Thomas Jefferson Randolph (who edited his grandfather's papers in the 1820s) or Nicholas P. Trist, who worked with Randolph—changed the word “Southern” in the letter to read “Republican.”

Anxious to present the Jeffersonian political movement as a national, not a sectional, undertaking, whoever changed the phrase was evidently attempting to protect Jefferson from appearing to be anything less than a firm nationalist. States'-rights and national tensions existed from the start, and the prolific Jefferson proved a useful source of quotations and inspiration for sectionalist (and even secessionist) elements in America in his lifetime and long afterward. The preponderance of his life and work, though, put Jefferson on the side of the American union.

It seems likely that his use of the word “Southern” in 1795 was more of a reference to the choice of candidate to lead the Republican interest than it was a wholesale characterization of Republicanism as a regional phenomenon. Consider the sentences following the use of the phrase “Southern interest”: “If that [the Southern interest] has any chance of prevailing, it must be by avoiding the loss of a single vote, and by concentrating all its strength on one object.
Who
[emphasis mine] this should be is a question I can more freely discuss with anybody than yourself. In this I painfully feel the loss of Monroe. Had he been here I should have been at no loss for a channel through which to make myself understood.” (
PTJ,
XXVIII, 339.)

My reading of this is that Jefferson is still trying to encourage Madison to seek the presidency, in part because Jefferson loved Madison and believed in him, but also because Jefferson would prefer a Republican president from the South to a Republican president from the middle states or New England.

“
CONT
INUAL
INSINUATIONS
”
Ibid., 338.

“T
HE
LITTLE
SPICE
OF
AMBITION
”
Ibid., 339.

GAVE
BI
RTH
TO
THEIR
DAUGHTE
R
H
ARRIET
Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
516–17.

T
HE
CHIL
D
DIED
Ibid., 530.

“I
AM
CONVINCE
D
”
PTJ,
XXXVI, 676.

“
MAKE
ME
UP
A
SE
T
”
Ibid., XXVIII, 377.

“
A
FUGITIVE
PUBLI
CATION
”
Ibid., 387.

W
ILLIAM
B
RANC
H
G
ILES
ANNOUNCED
Noble E. Cunningham,
The Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Organization, 1789–1801
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1957), 86.

I
N
THE
FALL
, A
ARON
B
URR
OF
N
EW
Y
ORK
Ibid., 86–87.

F
EDERALI
ST
CHARGES
THAT
THE
TWO
MEN
Ibid.

A
BRIEF
VIS
IT
ON
J
EFFERSON
'
S
MOU
NTAINTOP
Nancy Isenberg,
Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr
(New York, 2008), 145–46. As Isenberg noted, “There is no record of what Jefferson and Burr discussed during this brief visit.… The two men had little time to plan, and it is highly unlikely that they accomplished anything so momentous as cementing the Republican ticket. Still, Burr
was
actively campaigning. He had made the long trip not just to consult with Jefferson but to show in the flesh his commitment to the Virginia Republicans.” (Ibid., 146.)

T
HE
TREATY
,
WHICH
P
RES
IDENT
W
ASHINGTON
RECE
IVED
PTJ,
XXVIII, 400.

A
NGRY
CROWDS
BURNED
J
AY
IN
EFFIGY
EOL,
198. For more on reaction to the Jay Treaty, see Warren,
Jacobin and Junto
.

TALK
OF
IMPEACHING
W
ASHINGTON
Ibid. See also Michael Beschloss,
Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789–1989
(New York, 2007), 1.

J
EFFERSON
DESPIS
ED
THE
TREATY
PTJ,
XXVIII, 55. By August, Jefferson was writing Madison about Hamilton's maneuvers in New York. “You will perceive by the enclosed that Hamilton has taken up his pen in support of the treaty.… He spoke on its behalf in the meeting in New York, and his party carried a decision in favor of it by a small majority. But the Livingstonians appealed to stones and clubs and beat him and his party off the ground. This from a gentleman just from Philadelphia.” (Ibid., 430.) Madison later corrected Jefferson on the details of the anecdote, almost none of which was accurate. (Ibid., 432.)

“F
ROM
N
ORTH
TO
S
OUTH
”
Ibid., 435.

MID
-A
UGUST
FLOODS
Ibid., 439.

“S
O
GENERAL
A
BURST
OF
”
Ibid., 449.

“
REALLY
A
COLOSSUS
TO
THE
ANTIREPUBLIC
AN
PARTY
”
Ibid., 475.

FRETTING
A
BOUT
“
THE
QUIETISM
”
Ibid., 476. The storm stirred Jefferson's allies. Rutledge, telling him the obligation to serve outweighed his concern about his reputation: “The experience of every day evinces that the service of our country, like the practice of virtue, must bring with it its own reward: whoever expects that gratitude to be the fruit of patriotism expects a vain thing, and disappointment, or mortification will be his portion.” (Ibid., 502.)

Rutledge's son delivered the letter personally and stayed at Monticello for a time. “He found me in a retirement I dote on, living like an Antediluvian patriarch among my children and grandchildren, and tilling my soil,” Jefferson wrote the senior Rutledge afterward. On the question of public life, Jefferson was apparently unwavering. “You hope I have not abandoned entirely the service of our country: after a five and twenty years continual employment in it, I trust it will be thought I have fulfilled my tour, like a punctual soldier, and may claim my discharge.” Yet he could not avoid politics, adding: “I join with you in thinking the treaty an execrable thing.” It was, Jefferson said, an “infamous act, which is really nothing more than a treaty of alliance between England and the Anglomen of this country against the legislature and people of the United States.” (Ibid., 541–42.)

“A
BOLDER
PARTY
-
STROKE
WAS
NEVER
STRUCK
”
JHT,
IV, 247.

T
HE
H
OUSE
NEEDED
TO
AP
PROVE
FUNDING
John C. Miller,
The Federalist Era, 1789–1801
(Prospect Heights, Ill., 1998), 172–76. James Madison mounted a bid to bring the treaty before the House of Representatives. Madison's argument, one with which Jefferson had much sympathy, was that the House should have a voice in a treaty that touched on so many matters that also fell under House jurisdiction. The treaty did require House approval of an appropriations measure to fund parts of the treaty, and the measure passed over Madison's objection. (Ibid.)

“
A
SUPERCILIOUS
TYRANT
”
Warren,
Jacobin and Junto,
63.

“
RULER
WHO
TRAMPLES
”
Ibid.

“N
EVER
,
TILL
A
FEW
M
ONTHS
”
Ibid., 64.

“T
HIS
WAS
THE
FIRST
TIME
”
Ibid.

“T
HE
N. E
NGL
AND
S
TATES
”
PTJ,
XXIX
,
95.

“T
WO
PA
RTIES
THEN
DO
EXIST
”
Ibid., XXVIII, 508–9.

J
EFFERSON
WROTE
B
ACH
E
Ibid., 560–61.

T
HOUGH
HE
HAD
HAR
DLY
LEFT
THE
ARENA
Ellis,
American Sphinx,
184, fixes the
Aurora
moment as the one that marks Jefferson's reentry into politics. As noted, I do not believe Jefferson ever left, but Ellis makes an interesting point: Asking the editors for the papers put Jefferson back on the stage in the eyes of those most politically engaged of men—the newspaper editors of the eighteenth century.

“Y
OU
OWE
IT
TO
YOURSELF
”
PTJ,
XXVIII, 607.

“Y
OU
WILL
HAVE
SEEN
”
Ibid., XXIX, 124.

J
EFFERSON
HAD
READ
A
REPORT
Ibid., 127–30. “That to your particular friends and connections, you have described, and they have announced to me, as a person under a dangerous influence; and that, if I would listen
more
to some
other
opinions all would be well,” Washington said. He continued:

My answer invariably has been that I had never discovered any thing in the conduct of Mr. Jefferson to raise suspicions, in my mind, of his insincerity; that if he would retrace my public conduct while he was in the Administration, abundant proofs would occur to him, that truth and right decisions, were the
sole
objects of my pursuit; that there were as many instances within his
own
knowledge of my having decided
against,
as in
favor of
the opinions of the person evidently alluded to; and moreover, that I was no believer in the infallibility of the politics or measures of
any man living
. In short, that I was no party man myself, and the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them. (Ibid., 142.)

“
EVERYTHING
SACRED
AND
HO
NORABLE
”
Ibid., 127.

MAY
“
TRY
TO
SOW
TARES
”
Ibid.

“A
S
YOU
HA
VE
MENTIONED
”
Ibid., 142.

P
ATRIC
K
H
ENRY
TO
STAND
APE,
I, 36. See also Kidd,
Patrick Henry,
234–35.

“
TO
INFORM
YOU
THAT
THE
PEOPLE
”
Ibid., 169.

“I
HA
VE
NOT
THE
ARROGANCE
”
Ibid., 199.