Produced by The James J. Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's
University, and Alev Akman
JEFFERSON AND HIS COLLEAGUES,
A CHRONICLE OF THE VIRGINIA DYNASTY
By Allen Johnson
CONTENTS
I. PRESIDENT JEFFERSON'S COURT
II. PUTTING THE SHIP ON HER REPUBLICAN TACK
III. THE CORSAIRS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
IV. THE SHADOW OF THE FIRST CONSUL
V. IN PURSUIT OF THE FLORIDAS
VI. AN AMERICAN CATILINE
VII. AN ABUSE OF HOSPITALITY
VIII. THE PACIFISTS OF 1807
IX. THE LAST PHASE OF PEACEABLE COERCION
X. THE WAR-HAWKS
XI. PRESIDENT MADISON UNDER FIRE
XII. THE PEACEMAKERS
XIII. SPANISH DERELICTS IN THE NEW WORLD
XIV. FRAMING AN AMERICAN POLICY
XV. THE END OF AN ERA
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
JEFFERSON AND HIS COLLEAGUES
CHAPTER I. PRESIDENT JEFFERSON'S COURT
The rumble of President John Adams's coach had hardly died away in
the distance on the morning of March 4,1801, when Mr. Thomas Jefferson
entered the breakfast room of Conrad's boarding house on Capitol
Hill, where he had been living in bachelor's quarters during his
Vice-Presidency. He took his usual seat at the lower end of the table
among the other boarders, declining with a smile to accept the chair
of the impulsive Mrs. Brown, who felt, in spite of her democratic
principles, that on this day of all days Mr. Jefferson should have the
place which he had obstinately refused to occupy at the head of the
table and near the fireplace. There were others besides the wife of the
Senator from Kentucky who felt that Mr. Jefferson was carrying
equality too far. But Mr. Jefferson would not take precedence over the
Congressmen who were his fellow boarders.
Conrad's was conveniently near the Capitol, on the south side of the
hill, and commanded an extensive view. The slope of the hill, which
was a wild tangle of verdure in summer, debouched into a wide plain
extending to the Potomac. Through this lowland wandered a little stream,
once known as Goose Creek but now dignified by the name of Tiber. The
banks of the stream as well as of the Potomac were fringed with native
flowering shrubs and graceful trees, in which Mr. Jefferson took great
delight. The prospect from his drawing-room windows, indeed, quite as
much as anything else, attached him to Conrad's.
As was his wont, Mr. Jefferson withdrew to his study after breakfast and
doubtless ran over the pages of a manuscript which he had been preparing
with some care for this Fourth of March. It may be guessed, too, that
here, as at Monticello, he made his usual observations-noting in his
diary the temperature, jotting down in the garden-book which he kept
for thirty years an item or two about the planting of vegetables, and
recording, as he continued to do for eight years, the earliest and
latest appearance of each comestible in the Washington market. Perhaps
he made a few notes about the "seeds of the cymbling (cucurbita
vermeosa) and squash (cucurbita melopipo)" which he purposed to send to
his friend Philip Mazzei, with directions for planting; or even wrote a
letter full of reflections upon bigotry in politics and religion to
Dr. Joseph Priestley, whom he hoped soon to have as his guest in the
President's House.
Toward noon Mr. Jefferson stepped out of the house and walked over to
the Capitol--a tall, rather loose-jointed figure, with swinging stride,
symbolizing, one is tempted to think, the angularity of the American
character. "A tall, large-boned farmer," an unfriendly English observer
called him. His complexion was that of a man constantly exposed to the
sun--sandy or freckled, contemporaries called it--but his features were
clean-cut and strong and his expression was always kindly and benignant.
Aside from salvos of artillery at the hour of twelve, the inauguration
of Mr. Jefferson as President of the United States was marked by extreme
simplicity. In the Senate chamber of the unfinished Capitol, he was met
by Aaron Burr, who had already been installed as presiding officer, and
conducted to the Vice-President's chair, while that debonair man of the
world took a seat on his right with easy grace. On Mr. Jefferson's left
sat Chief Justice John Marshall, a "tall, lax, lounging Virginian," with
black eyes peering out from his swarthy countenance. There is a dramatic
quality in this scene of the President-to-be seated between two men who
are to cause him more vexation of spirit than any others in public
life. Burr, brilliant, gifted, ambitious, and profligate; Marshall,
temperamentally and by conviction opposed to the principles which seemed
to have triumphed in the election of this radical Virginian, to whom
indeed he had a deep-seated aversion. After a short pause, Mr. Jefferson
rose and read his Inaugural Address in a tone so low that it could be
heard by only a few in the crowded chamber.
Those who expected to hear revolutionary doctrines must have been
surprised by the studied moderation of this address. There was not
a Federalist within hearing of Jefferson's voice who could not have
subscribed to all the articles in this profession of political faith.
"Equal and exact justice to all men"--"a jealous care of the right of
election by the people"--"absolute acquiescence in the decisions of
the majority"--"the supremacy of the civil over the military
authority"--"the honest payments of our debts"--"freedom of
religion"--"freedom of the press"-"freedom of person under the
protection of the habeas corpus"--what were these principles but the
bright constellation, as Jefferson said, "which has guided our steps
through an age of revolution and reformation?" John Adams himself might
have enunciated all these principles, though he would have distributed
the emphasis somewhat differently.
But what did Jefferson mean when he said, "We have called by different
names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans--we are all
Federalists." If this was true, what, pray, became of the revolution
of 1800, which Jefferson had declared "as real a revolution in the
principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form?" Even
Jefferson's own followers shook their heads dubiously over this passage
as they read and reread it in the news-sheets. It sounded a false note
while the echoes of the campaign of 1800 were still reverberating. If
Hamilton and his followers were monarchists at heart in 1800, bent
upon overthrowing the Government, how could they and the triumphant
Republicans be brethren of the same principle in 1801? The truth of
the matter is that Jefferson was holding out an olive branch to his
political opponents. He believed, as he remarked in a private letter,
that many Federalists were sound Republicans at heart who had been
stampeded into the ranks of his opponents during the recent troubles
with France. These lost political sheep Jefferson was bent upon
restoring to the Republican fold by avoiding utterances and acts
which would offend them. "I always exclude the leaders from these
considerations," he added confidentially. In short, this Inaugural
Address was less a great state paper, marking a broad path for the
Government to follow under stalwart leadership, than an astute effort to
consolidate the victory of the Republican party.
Disappointing the address must have been to those who had expected a
declaration of specific policy. Yet the historian, wiser by the march of
events, may read between the lines. When Jefferson said that he desired
a wise and frugal government--a government "which should restrain men
from injuring one another but otherwise leave them free to regulate
their own pursuits--" and when he announced his purpose "to support the
state governments in all their rights" and to cultivate "peace with all
nations--entangling alliances with none," he was in effect formulating a
policy. But all this was in the womb of the future.
It was many weeks before Jefferson took up his abode in the President's
House. In the interval he remained in his old quarters, except for a
visit to Monticello to arrange for his removal, which indeed he was in
no haste to make, for "The Palace," as the President's House was dubbed
satirically, was not yet finished; its walls were not fully plastered,
and it still lacked the main staircase-which, it must be admitted, was a
serious defect if the new President meant to hold court. Besides, it
was inconveniently situated at the other end of the, straggling, unkempt
village. At Conrad's Jefferson could still keep in touch with those
members of Congress and those friends upon whose advice he relied in
putting "our Argosie on her Republican tack," as he was wont to
say. Here, in his drawing-room, he could talk freely with practical
politicians such as Charles Pinckney, who had carried the ticket
to success in South Carolina and who might reasonably expect to be
consulted in organizing the new Administration.
The chief posts in the President's official household, save one,
were readily filled. There were only five heads of departments to be
appointed, and of these the Attorney-General might be described as a
head without a department, since the duties of his office were few and
required only his occasional attention. As it fell out, however,
the Attorney-General whom Jefferson appointed, Levi Lincoln of
Massachusetts, practically carried on the work of all the Executive
Departments until his colleagues were duly appointed and commissioned.
For Secretary of War Jefferson chose another reliable New Englander,
Henry Dearborn of Maine. The naval portfolio went begging, perhaps
because the navy was not an imposing branch of the service, or because
the new President had announced his desire to lay up all seven frigates
in the eastern branch of the Potomac, where "they would be under
the immediate eye of the department and would require but one set of
plunderers to look after them." One conspicuous Republican after another
declined this dubious honor, and in the end Jefferson was obliged to
appoint as Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith, whose chief qualification
was his kinship to General Samuel Smith, an influential politician of
Maryland.
The appointment by Jefferson of James Madison as Secretary of State
occasioned no surprise, for the intimate friendship of the two
Virginians and their long and close association in politics led
everyone to expect that he would occupy an important post in the new
Administration, though in truth that friendship was based on something
deeper and finer than mere agreement in politics. "I do believe,"
exclaimed a lady who often saw both men in private life, "father never
loved son more than Mr. Jefferson loves Mr. Madison." The difference in
age, however, was not great, for Jefferson was in his fifty-eighth
year and Madison in his fiftieth. It was rather mien and character that
suggested the filial relationship. Jefferson was, or could be if he
chose, an imposing figure; his stature was six feet two and one-half
inches. Madison had the ways and habits of a little man, for he was only
five feet six. Madison was naturally timid and retiring in the presence
of other men, but he was at his best in the company of his friend
Jefferson, who valued his attainments. Indeed, the two men supplemented
each other. If Jefferson was prone to theorize, Madison was disposed
to find historical evidence to support a political doctrine. While
Jefferson generalized boldly, even rashly, Madison hesitated,
temporized, weighed the pros and cons, and came with difficulty to
a conclusion. Unhappily neither was a good judge of men. When pitted
against a Bonaparte, a Talleyrand, or a Canning, they appeared
provincial in their ways and limited in their sympathetic understanding
of statesmen of the Old World.
Next to that of Madison, Jefferson valued the friendship of Albert
Gallatin, whom he made Secretary of the Treasury by a recess
appointment, since there was some reason to fear that the Federalist
Senate would not confirm the nomination. The Federalists could never
forget that Gallatin was a Swiss by birth--an alien of supposedly
radical tendencies. The partisan press never exhibited its crass
provincialism more shamefully than when it made fun of Gallatin's
imperfect pronunciation of English. He had come to America, indeed, too
late to acquire a perfect control of a new tongue, but not too late to
become a loyal son of his adopted country. He brought to Jefferson's
group of advisers not only a thorough knowledge of public finance but
a sound judgment and a statesmanlike vision, which were often needed to
rectify the political vagaries of his chief.
The last of his Cabinet appointments made, Jefferson returned to
his country seat at Monticello for August and September, for he was
determined not to pass those two "bilious months" in Washington. "I have
not done it these forty years," he wrote to Gallatin. "Grumble who will,
I will never pass those two months on tidewater." To Monticello, indeed,
Jefferson turned whenever his duties permitted and not merely in the
sickly months of summer, for when the roads were good the journey was
rapidly and easily made by stage or chaise. There, in his garden
and farm, he found relief from the distractions of public life. "No
occupation is so delightful to me," he confessed, "as the culture of the
earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden." At Monticello,
too, he could gratify his delight in the natural sciences, for he was a
true child of the eighteenth century in his insatiable curiosity about
the physical universe and in his desire to reduce that universe to an
intelligible mechanism. He was by instinct a rationalist and a foe
to superstition in any form, whether in science or religion. His
indefatigable pen was as ready to discuss vaccination and yellow fever
with Dr. Benjamin Rush as it was to exchange views with Dr. Priestley on
the ethics of Jesus.
The diversity of Jefferson's interests is truly remarkable. Monticello
is a monument to his almost Yankee-like ingenuity. He writes to his
friend Thomas Paine to assure him that the semi-cylindrical form of roof
after the De Lorme pattern, which he proposes for his house, is entirely
practicable, for he himself had "used it at home for a dome, being 120
degrees of an oblong octagon." He was characteristically American in
his receptivity to new ideas from any source. A chance item about Eli
Whitney of New Haven arrests his attention and forthwith he writes to
Madison recommending a "Mr. Whitney at Connecticut, a mechanic of the
first order of ingenuity, who invented the cotton gin," and who has
recently invented "molds and machines for making all the pieces of his
[musket] locks so exactly equal that take one hundred locks to pieces
and mingle their parts and the hundred locks may be put together as well
by taking the first pieces which come to hand." To Robert Fulton,
then laboring to perfect his torpedoes and submarine, Jefferson wrote
encouragingly: "I have ever looked to the submarine boat as most to be
depended on for attaching them [i. e., torpedoes].... I am in hopes it
is not to be abandoned as impracticable."
It was not wholly affectation, therefore, when Jefferson wrote, "Nature
intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my
supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived,
have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself
on the boisterous ocean of political passions." One can readily picture
this Virginia farmer-philosopher ruefully closing his study door, taking
a last look over the gardens and fields of Monticello, in the golden
days of October, and mounting Wildair, his handsome thoroughbred,
setting out on the dusty road for that little political world at
Washington, where rumor so often got the better of reason and where
gossip was so likely to destroy philosophic serenity.
Jefferson had been a widower for many years; and so, since his daughters
were married and had households of their own, he was forced to preside
over his menage at Washington without the feminine touch and tact
so much needed at this American court. Perhaps it was this unhappy
circumstance quite as much as his dislike for ceremonies and formalities
that made Jefferson do away with the weekly levees of his predecessors
and appoint only two days, the First of January and the Fourth of July,
for public receptions. On such occasions he begged Mrs. Dolly Madison
to act as hostess; and a charming and gracious figure she was, casting
a certain extenuating veil over the President's gaucheries. Jefferson
held, with his many political heresies, certain theories of social
intercourse which ran rudely counter to the prevailing etiquette of
foreign courts. Among the rules which he devised for his republican
court, the precedence due to rank was conspicuously absent, because he
held that "all persons when brought together in society are perfectly
equal, whether foreign or domestic, titled or untitled, in or out of
office." One of these rules to which the Cabinet gravely subscribed read
as follows:
"To maintain the principles of equality, or of pele mele, and prevent
the growth of precedence out of courtesy, the members of the Executive
will practise at their own houses, and recommend an adherence to the
ancient usage of the country, of gentlemen in mass giving precedence
to the ladies in mass, in passing from one apartment where they are
assembled into another."
The application of this rule on one occasion gave rise to an incident
which convulsed Washington society. President Jefferson had invited to
dinner the new British Minister Merry and his wife, the Spanish Minister
Yrujo and his wife, the French Minister Pichon and his wife, and Mr. and
Mrs. Madison. When dinner was announced, Mr. Jefferson gave his hand to
Mrs. Madison and seated her on his right, leaving the rest to straggle
in as they pleased. Merry, fresh from the Court of St. James, was aghast
and affronted; and when a few days later, at a dinner given by the
Secretary of State, he saw Mrs. Merry left without an escort, while Mr.
Madison took Mrs. Gallatin to the table, he believed that a deliberate
insult was intended. To appease this indignant Briton the President was
obliged to explain officially his rule of "pole mele"; but Mrs. Merry
was not appeased and positively refused to appear at the President's New
Year's Day reception. "Since then," wrote the amused Pichon, "Washington
society is turned upside down; all the women are to the last degree
exasperated against Mrs. Merry; the Federalist newspapers have taken
up the matter, and increased the irritations by sarcasms on the
administration and by making a burlesque of the facts." Then Merry
refused an invitation to dine again at the President's, saying that he
awaited instructions from his Government; and the Marquis Yrujo, who had
reasons of his own for fomenting trouble, struck an alliance with the
Merrys and also declined the President's invitation. Jefferson was
incensed at their conduct, but put the blame upon Mrs. Merry, whom
he characterized privately as a "virago who has already disturbed our
harmony extremely."
A brilliant English essayist has observed that a government to secure
obedience must first excite reverence. Some such perception, coinciding
with native taste, had moved George Washington to assume the trappings
of royalty, in order to surround the new presidential office with
impressive dignity. Posterity has, accordingly, visualized the first
President and Father of his Country as a statuesque figure, posing at
formal levees with a long sword in a scabbard of white polished leather,
and clothed in black velvet knee-breeches, with yellow gloves and a
cocked hat. The third President of the United States harbored no such
illusions and affected no such poses. Governments were made by rational
beings--"by the consent of the governed," he had written in a memorable
document--and rested on no emotional basis. Thomas Jefferson remained
Thomas Jefferson after his election to the chief magistracy; and so
contemporaries saw him in the President's House, an unimpressive figure
clad in "a blue coat, a thick gray-colored hairy waistcoat, with a red
underwaist lapped over it, green velveteen breeches, with pearl buttons,
yarn stockings, and slippers down at the heels." Anyone might have found
him, as Senator Maclay did, sitting "in a lounging manner, on one hip
commonly, and with one of his shoulders elevated much above the other,"
a loose, shackling figure with no pretense at dignity.
In his dislike for all artificial distinctions between man and man,
Jefferson determined from the outset to dispense a true Southern
hospitality at the President's House and to welcome any one at any
hour on any day. There was therefore some point to John Quincy Adams's
witticism that Jefferson's "whole eight years was a levee." No one could
deny that he entertained handsomely. Even his political opponents rose
from his table with a comfortable feeling of satiety which made them
more kindly in their attitude toward their host. "We sat down at the
table at four," wrote Senator Plumer of New Hampshire, "rose at six,
and walked immediately into another room and drank coffee. We had a very
good dinner, with a profusion of fruits and sweetmeats. The wine was
the best I ever drank, particularly the champagne, which was indeed
delicious."
It was in the circle of his intimates that Jefferson appeared at his
best, and of all his intimate friends Madison knew best how to evoke the
true Jefferson. To outsiders Madison appeared rather taciturn, but among
his friends he was genial and even lively, amusing all by his ready
humor and flashes of wit. To his changes of mood Jefferson always
responded. Once started Jefferson would talk on and on, in a loose
and rambling fashion, with a great deal of exaggeration and with many
vagaries, yet always scattering much information on a great variety of
topics. Here we may leave him for the moment, in the exhilarating
hours following his inauguration, discoursing with Pinckney, Gallatin,
Madison, Burr, Randolph, Giles, Macon, and many another good Republican,
and evolving the policies of his Administration.