Read Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power Online
Authors: Jon Meacham
Tags: #Biography, #History, #Non-Fiction, #Politics, #Goodreads 2012 History
“Y
OU
WI
LL
BEFORE
THIS
”
Ibid.
“
IN
POLITICAL
SUBSTANCE
”
Ibid., 137.
“
VIRTUALLY
A
CANDID
RETRACTION
”
Dunn,
Jefferson's Second Revolution,
225.
“O
LD
FRIENDS
WHO
HAD
BEE
N
”
PTJ,
XXXIII, 261.
“I
T
IS
NOT
POSSIB
LE
”
Ibid., 426.
“W
E
REFLECT
”
Ibid., 290.
“
PUR
SUING
STEADILY
MY
OB
JECT
”
Ibid., XXXVII, 296â97. “Nero wished all the necks of Rome united in one, that he might sever them at a blow,” Jefferson had written in his second year in office. So it was, he said, with his foes, who, “wishing to have a single representative of all the objects of their hatred, honor me with that post, and exhibit against me such atrocities as no nation has ever before heard or endured. I shall protect them in the right of lying and calumniating, and shall go on to merit the continuance of it.” (Ibid.)
“I
FEEL
A
GREAT
LOAD
”
Ibid., XXXIII, 181.
R
EPUBLICAN
CON
GRESSIONAL
MAJORITIE
S
http://artandhistory.house.gov/house_history/partyDiv.aspx (accessed 2012).
THE
S
ENATE
MARGIN
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm (accessed 2012).
THE
AUTHORITY
OF
THE
PRESI
DENTIAL
OFFICE
Robert M. Johnstone, Jr.,
Jefferson and the Presidency: Leadership in the Young Republic
(New York, 1978), stated the case well. “It is a central thesis of this book that Jefferson's presidency marked the pioneering effort in erecting a working model of presidential leadership characterized by persuasion and the cultivation of influence. Jefferson was the first president willing to implement the bargaining relationships that could enhance presidential influence, and he did so with great natural skill and patience.” (Ibid., 14.) McDonald, in Cogliano, ed.,
A Companion to Thomas Jefferson,
164â83, explores issues of Jefferson and executive power. “A commonsense understanding of Jefferson's presidency as a referendum on the issues and ideas that secured his election in 1800 and 1801 holds that, although he sometimes broke rules that he advocated as opposition leader, he never abandoned the goal of a strictly limited and thoroughly republican government,” McDonald writes, and I agree: Such was always his goal, even if his means to the end of securing republicanism were not always strictly republican. Sorting through the scholarship of Leonard White, Jeremy D. Bailey, and Johnstone, McDonald also notes: “Leonard White may be correct to observe that âJefferson fully maintained in practice the Federalist conception of executive power'
â¦Â
, but Johnstone believes that his similar actions were governed by different justifications. So does Jeremy Bailey
 â¦Â
, who argues that Jefferson, who had long supported executive vigor, strengthened the presidency by envisioning it as the one branch representative ofâand subject toâall of the nation's voters. The fact that Jefferson, as Johnstone writes, âcombined the constitutional power of the presidency with a âpolitical' power grounded on popular support' made this mode of leadership republican
â¦Â
. The fact that it was Jefferson who accomplished the feat made it Republican.” (Ibid., 178.)
SENT
A
REASSURING
SIGNAL
PTJ,
XXXIII, 14.
“O
NE
IMPUTATION
”
Ibid.
CUT
THE
NATIONAL
DEBT
FROM
$83
M
ILLION
TO
$57
MILLION
Robert M. S. McDonald, “The (Federalist?) Presidency of Thomas Jefferson,” in Cogliano, ed.,
A Companion to Thomas Jefferson
, 170.
REDUCING
MILITARY
E
XPENDITURES
Ibid.
DECLINE
D
TO
WEAR
A
CEREMONI
AL
SWORD
Ibid., 134.
DINNER
AS
USUAL
Margaret Bayard Smith,
First Forty Years,
12â13.
COACHES
AND
SILVER
HARNESSES
Seale,
President's House,
I, 90.
A
BIGAIL
A
DAMS
HUNG
LAUNDRY
IN
THE
E
AST
R
OOM
Stein,
Worlds of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello,
54.
“
GREAT
UNFIN
ISHED
AUDIENCE
-
ROOM
”
Ibid.
J
EFFERSON
INSTALLED
HIS
SECRE
TARY
Ibid., 56.
IN
THE
SOUTHWE
ST
CORNER
OF
THE
FIR
ST
FLOOR
Ibid.
H
E
KEPT
GE
RANIUMS
IN
THE
WINDO
W
AND
MOCKINGBIRDS
A
T
HAND
Margaret Bayard Smith,
First Forty Years,
384â85.
DRAWERS
FO
R
J
EFFERSON
'
S
TOOLS
A
ND
KNICKKNACKS
Ibid.
H
E
W
AS
USUALLY
HUMMING
Stein,
Jefferson at Monticello,
13.
J
EFFERSON
KEPT
PET
MOCKINGBIRDS
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/mockingbirds (accessed 2012).
“L
EARN
ALL
THE
CHILDREN
”
PTJ,
XXVI, 250.
A
BIRD
HE
NAMED
D
ICK
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/mockingbirds (accessed 2012). As Lucia Stanton noted, “Dick” is a little disappointing given the standard set by Jefferson's noble and often mythological names for his horses, but there we are. (Ibid.)
HANGING
ITS
CAGE
IN
THE
WINDOW
Margaret Bayard Smith,
First Forty Years,
385.
ORDERED
THE
DEMOLIT
ION
William Seale,
The President's House: A History,
I (Washington, D.C., 1986), 88.
“
WATER
CLOSET
S
 â¦Â
OF
SUPERIOR
CONSTRUCTION
”
Ibid.
WHICH
PIECES
OF
FURNITURE
Ibid.
H
IS
CHIEF
DOMESTIC
, R
APIN
PTJ,
XXXIII, 96â98.
H
ENRY
D
EA
RBORN
OF
N
EW
H
AMPSHIRE
Ibid., 13.
B
ORN
IN
G
ENEVA
IN
1761
Henry Adams,
Life of Albert Gallatin,
is full of primary documents. See also “Albert Gallatin, (1761â1849),” Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress, 1774âPresent, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=g000020 (accessed 2012).
L
OUIS
-A
NDRÃ
P
ICHON
TO
LD
P
ARIS
Louis-André Pichon, Les Archives Diplomatiques.
“
ONE
CANNOT
HELP
”
Ibid.
“H
ENCEFORTH
,
WE
CAN
PREDICT
”
Ibid.
“
INVAR
IABLY
OPPOSED
”
Ibid.
“T
HE
S
TORM
THROUGH
WHICH
”
PTJ,
XXXIII, 196.
“W
E
CAN
NO
LONGER
”
Ibid., 394.
“I
AM
SENSIBLE
HO
W
FAR
”
Ibid., 506.
REFERRED
TO
T
HE
F
EDERALISTS
AS
MAD
MEN
Ibid., XXXIV, 262. See also ibid., XXXIII, 403.
“T
HEIR
LEADERS
A
RE
A
HOSPITAL
”
PTJ,
XXXIV, 262.
“
Politics
will not make you”
Ibid., XXXIII, 568.
“
IN
ESSENTIAL
HARMO
NY
”
Ibid., 254. “It will be a great blessing to our country if we can once more restore harmony and social love among its citizens,” Jefferson told Gerry. Yet he understood the political realities. “I was not deluded by the eulogisms of the public papers in the first moments of change. If they could have continued to get all the loaves and fishes, that is if I would have gone over to them, they would continue to eulogize. But I well knew that the moment that such removals should take place, as the justice of the preceding administration ought to have executed, their hue and cry would be set up and they would take their old stand.” (Ibid., 491.)
“M
ANY
FRIENDS
MAY
GROW
COOL
”
Ibid., XXXIII, 127.
“T
HE
DANGERS
TO
OU
R
FORM
OF
GOVERNMENT
”
Ibid., 636.
“T
HE
EJECTED
PARTY
”
Ibid., 228.
A
RANGE
OF
ISSUES
AND
PROBLEMS
See, for instance, Ibid., XXXIII, 585â94.
LIKE
“
TWO
M
ICE
IN
A
CHURCH
”
The Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison,
ed. David B. Mattern and Holly C. Shulman (Charlottesville, Va., 2003), 39. See also
PTJ,
XXXIV, 200.
“I
AM
STILL
AT
A
GREAT
LOS
S
”
PTJ,
XXXIII, 260.
BE
“
A
REAL
FAVOR
”
Ibid., XXXIV, 242.
“T
HE
CITY
IS
RATHER
SICKLY
”
Ibid., XXXV, 109.
“I
T
IS
SUBSTI
TUTING
”
Ibid.
“W
E
FIND
THIS
A
VERY
AGREEABLE
”
JHT,
IV, 42.
ISSUED
PRESIDENTIAL
PARDONS
James Morton Smith,
Freedom's Fetters,
268.
HIS
OL
D
ALLY
J
AMES
T
HOMSON
C
A
LLENDER
PTJ,
XXXIII, 309â10.