Finally, although the letters to be exchanged between the British and

American governments did not properly constitute a treaty, Jefferson

advised Monroe to lay the case before Congress at the first opportunity,

since this doctrine might lead to war, "the declaration of which

requires an act of Congress."

Whatever use has been made of the Monroe Doctrine and whether or not the

"mandate" assumed by the United States has proved irksome to several

South American republics, there is no doubt that it was not proclaimed

without long hesitation and that its promoters did not take up this new

responsibility with "_un coeur leger_." There is no doubt, either,

that it was not considered as an instrument of imperialism. It was

primarily the extension of the doctrine of self-protection already

advanced by John Adams in 1776 and since then maintained by Washington

and Jefferson himself. It was also a corollary of the theory of the

balance of power which Jefferson always kept in mind. In this he was not

only followed but urged on by all his liberal friends in Europe.

I would not be sorry--wrote Lafayette in 1817--to see the American

government invested by the follies of Spain, with the opportunity to

take the lead in the affairs of her independent colonies. Unless that

is the case or great changes happen in the European policies, the

miseries of those fine countries will be long protracted. Could you

establish there a representative system, a free trade, and a free

press, how many channels of information and improvement should be

open at once.[521]

Jefferson himself was too respectful of self-government ever to think of

interfering with the internal affairs of the new republics. On the other

hand, he was too firmly convinced of the moral, intellectual and

political superiority of his own country not to believe that a time

would come when the contagion of liberty would extend to the near and

remote neighbors of the United States. The unavoidable result of the

Monroe Doctrine and the moral mandate of America would be ultimately to

form a "Holy American Alliance" of the free peoples of the Western

Hemisphere, to counterbalance the conspiracy of Kings and Lords "called

the European Holy Alliance."

CHAPTER II

DEMOCRATIC AMERICA

Protected against foreign entanglements and having survived the

convulsions that had shattered the old structures of Europe, America was

at last free to pursue her development along her own lines. The

philosopher of Monticello could sit back, take a more disinterested view

of the situation and make a forecast of the future of his country. He

could also advise, not only his immediate successors, but the

generations to come and take up again the part of "counsellor" which had

always suited him better than the part of the executive. He believed too

much in the right of successive generations to determine their own form

of government, to attempt to dictate in any way the course to follow.

But he was none the less convinced that certain principles embodied in

the Constitution had a permanent and universal value, and during the

years at Monticello he formulated the gospel of American democracy.

As it finally emerged from the several crises that threatened its

existence, the American Government was, if not the best possible

government, at least the best government then on the surface of the

earth. It was at the same time the hope and the model of all the nations

of the world.

We exist and are quoted--wrote Jefferson to Richard Rush--as standing

proofs that a government, so modelled as to rest continuously on the

will of the whole society, is a practicable government. Were we to

break to pieces, it would damp the hopes and efforts of the good, and

give triumph to those of the bad through the whole enslaved world. As

members, therefore, of the universal society of mankind, and standing

high in responsible relation with them, it is our sacred duty to

suppress passion among ourselves and not to blast the confidence we

have inspired of proof that a government of reason is better than a

government of force.[522]

Some dangers, however, were threatening to disturb the equilibrium of

the country. The most pressing was perhaps the extraordinary and

unwholesome development of State and local banks, which suspended

payment in great majority in September, 1814. The deluge of paper money

and the depreciation of the currency became, for Jefferson, a real

obsession and strengthened him in his abhorrence of commercialism. He

did not cease to preach the necessity of curbing the fever of

speculation that had accumulated ruins upon ruins and the return to more

sound regulations of the banks. "Till then," he wrote to John Adams, "we

must be content to return, _quoad hoc_, to the savage state, to recur to

barter in the exchange of our property, for want of a stable, common

measure of value, that now in use being less fixed than the beads and

wampum of the Indians."[523]

His banking theories, however, had scarcely any influence upon his

contemporaries, and even Gallatin was little impressed by them. But the

evident danger of inflation turned his mind back to the days when he had

fought the Hamiltonian system and gave him once more an opportunity to

pass judgment upon his opponent of the old days:

This most heteregeneous system was transplanted into ours from the

British system, by a man whose mind was really powerful, but chained

by native partialities to everything English; who had formed

exaggerated ideas of the superior wisdom of their government, and

sincerely believed it for the good of the country to make them their

model in everything, without considering that what might be wise and

good for a nation essentially commercial and entangled in complicated

intercourse with numerous and powerful neighbors, might not be so

for one essentially agricultural, and insulated by nature, from the

abusive governments of the old world.[524]

From this and many other passages it might be surmised that Jefferson

still held to the old antimercantile theories that had crystallized in

his mind when he was in Europe. If this were true, the contradiction

between his conduct as President and his personal convictions would be

so obvious that his sincerity might be questioned. As a matter of fact,

on this point as on many others, he had undergone a slow evolution. He

was certainly sincere when, shortly after leaving office, he wrote to

Governor John Jay in order to make his position clearer:

An equilibrium of agriculture, manufacture, and commerce, is

certainly become essential to our independence. Manufactures,

sufficient for our own consumption (and no more). Commerce sufficient

to carry the surplus produce of agriculture, beyond our own

consumption, to a market for exchanging it for articles we cannot

raise (and no more). These are the true limits of manufacture and

commerce. To go beyond is to increase our dependence on foreign

nations, and our liability to war.[525]

This can be taken as the final view of Jefferson on a subject on which

he is often misquoted and misunderstood. That he was fully aware of the

change that had taken place in his own mind can be seen in a declaration

to Benjamin Austin, written in January, 1816. Between 1787 and that

date, and even earlier, Jefferson had seen the light and realized that

to discourage home manufactures was "to keep us in eternal vassalage to

a foreign and unfriendly people." He had no patience with politicians

who brought forth his old and now obsolete utterances to promote their

unpatriotic designs:

You tell me I am quoted by those who wish to continue our dependance

on England for manufactures. There was a time when I might have been

so quoted with more candor, but within the thirty years which have

elapsed, how circumstances changed.... Experience since has taught me

that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our

comfort; and if those who quote me as of different opinion will keep

pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign where an equivalent of

domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to the difference of

price, it will not be our fault if we do not soon have a supply at

home equivalent to our demand.[526]

Desirable as it was to promote the industrial development of the United

States, it was no less desirable not to encourage it beyond a certain

point. Jefferson saw quite clearly that, under existing conditions, a

great industrial growth of the country would have as an unavoidable

result the perpetuation of slavery in the South and the even more

undesirable creation of a proletariat in the North. He had always held

that slavery was a national sore and a shameful condition to be remedied

as soon as conditions would permit. He was looking forward to the time

when this could be done without bringing about an economic upheaval; but

all hope would have to be abandoned if slavery were industrialized and

if slave labor became more productive. As to the other danger of

industrialism, it was no vague apprehension; one had only to consider

England to see "the pauperism of the lowest class, the abject oppression

of the laboring, and the luxury, the riot, the domination and the

vicious happiness of the aristocracy." This being the "happiness of

scientific England", he wrote to Thomas Cooper, "now let us see the

American side of the medal":

And, first, we have no paupers, the old and crippled among us, who

possess nothing and have no families to take care of them, being too

few to merit notice as a separate section of society, or to affect a

general estimate. The great mass of our population is of laborers;

our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional,

being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class

possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from

the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and the

competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, clothed

above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families.

They are not driven to the ultimate resources of dexterity and skill,

because their wares will sell although not quite so nice as those of

England. The wealthy, on the other hand, and those at their ease,

know nothing of what the Europeans call luxury. They have only

somewhat more of the comforts and decencies of life than those who

furnish them. Can any condition of society be more desirable than

this?[527]

Once more Jefferson appears as a true disciple and continuator of the

Physiocrats and one might be tempted at first to agree entirely with Mr.

Beard on this point. But this is only an appearance. To understand

Jefferson's true meaning, it is necessary to turn to his unpublished

correspondence with Du Pont de Nemours, and particularly to those

letters written after Jefferson's retirement from public life.

The rapid industrialization of the United States had greatly alarmed the

old Physiocrat. In his opinion there was a real danger lest the national

character of the people be completely altered and the foundation of

government deeply shaken. Considering the situation from the

"economist's" point of view, Du Pont came to the conclusion that the

development of home industries in America would necessarily bring about

a permanent reduction in the Federal income, largely derived from import

duties. The government could not be run without levying new taxes and

the question was to determine what methods should be followed in the

establishment of these new taxes. If the United States decided to resort

to indirect taxation, that is to say, excise, the unavoidable result

would be the creation of an army of new functionaries, as in France

under the old regime, and the use of vexatory procedure for the

enforcement of the new system. Furthermore, according to the theories

of the Physiocrats, indirect taxation was an economic heresy, since it

was a tax on labor, which is not a source but only a transformation of

wealth. The same criticism applied _a fortiori_ to the English income

tax which constituted the worst possible form of taxation.

In the controversy which arose between Jefferson and his old friend, the

Sage of Monticello again took a middle course. First of all, he refused

to concede that the development of industries could ever change the

fundamental characteristics of the United States. They were essentially

an agricultural nation, and an agricultural nation they would remain, in

spite of all predictions to the contrary. Furthermore, the question was

not to determine theoretically what was the best possible form of

taxation, but to find out what form the inhabitants of the country would

most easily bear. That in itself was a big enough problem and could not

be solved in the abstract, since, according to Jefferson: "In most of

the middle and Southern States some land tax is now paid into the State

treasury, and for this purpose the lands have been classed and valued

and the tax assessed according to valuation. In these an excise is most

odious. In the Eastern States, land taxes are odious, excises less

unpopular."[528]

Finally, Jefferson pointed out that his friend had neglected several

important factors, one of them being "the continuous growth in

population of the United States, which for a long time would maintain

the quantum of exports and imports at the present level at least."

Consequently, for several generations, the Government would be able to

support itself with a tax on importations, "the best agrarian law in

fact, since the poor man in the country who uses nothing but what is

made within his own farm or family, or within the United States, pays

not a farthing of tax to the general government." With the

characteristic optimism of the citizen of a young, strong and energetic

country, Jefferson then added:

Our revenue once liberated by the discharge of public debt and its

surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., and the farmer will

see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of

his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone

without being called on to spare a cent from his earnings. The path

we are now pursuing leads directly to this end, which we cannot fail

to attain unless our administration should fall into unwise

hands.[529]

This point alone should suffice to differentiate Jefferson's system from

physiocracy, since the Physiocrats had adopted as their motto the famous

_laissez faire laissez passer_ and were certainly in favor of free

trade. How far from Du Pont Jefferson remained in other particulars may

be gathered from his "Introduction" and notes to the "Political Economy"

of Destutt de Tracy, the translation and publication of which he

supervised and directed. In it he paid homage to the founders of the

science of political economy, and particularly to Gournay, Le Trosne and

Du Pont de Nemours, "the enlightened, philanthropic and venerable

citizen, now of the United States." But he pointed out that the several

principles they had discussed and established had not been able to

prevail, "not on account of their correctness, but because not

acceptable to the people whose will must be the supreme law. Taxation

is, in fact, the most difficult function of the government, and that

against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory. The general

aim is, therefore, to adopt the mode most consonant with the

circumstances and sentiments of the country."

This is Jefferson's final judgment on the Economists. Another

confirmation of his lack of interest in principles and theories not

susceptible of immediate application may be seen in it. In matters of

government, the important question, after deciding what should be done,

was to determine how much could be done under the circumstances, and if

a particular piece of legislation was turned down by the public will or

only reluctantly accepted, to bide one's time and wait for a more

favorable occasion. Even when doubting the wisdom of a popular verdict,

it was the duty of the public servant to do the public will. Thus in

this correspondence are revealed the two sides of Jefferson's character,

or to speak more exactly, the two parallel tracks in which his mind ran

at different times.

At the bottom of his heart, he believed that many of the economic

doctrines of Du Pont were fundamentally sound; but he also knew that the

citizens of the United States were not ready to accept the truth of

these principles, and he did not feel that, as an executive, he had the

right to attempt to shape the destinies of his country according to his

own preferences. Thus he laid himself open to the reproach of

insincerity, or at least of inconsistency, for on many occasions one may

find a flagrant contradiction between his public utterances and the

private letters he wrote to his friends. For this reason, Du Pont de

Nemours was never fully able to understand his American friend. This

difference between the French theorician and the American statesman will

appear even more clearly in the letters in which they exchanged views on

democracy and discussed the conditions requisite for the establishment

of a representative government.

Jefferson's opinion of the French people with regard to the form of

government they should adopt had never varied since the earliest days of

the Revolution. Every time he was consulted by his friends on the

matter, he invariably answered that they could do no better than to

follow as closely as possible the system of their neighbors and

hereditary enemies, the British. This answer, which recurred

periodically in his correspondence, was made particularly emphatic in

1801, when he again warned Lafayette that France was not ready to enjoy

a truly republican government. He went on by categorically stating that

what was good for America might be very harmful to another country and

that even in America it was neither desirable nor possible to enforce at

once all the provisions of the Constitution. Thus, in a few lines, he

defined his policies more clearly than any historian has ever done; he

analyzed that curious combination of unwavering principles and practical

expediency so puzzling to those once called by Jefferson himself "the

closet politicians."

What is practicable--he said--must often control what is purely

theory and the habits of the governed determine in a great degree

what is practicable. The same original principles, modified in

practice to the different habits of the different nations, present

governments of very different aspects. The same principles reduced to

form of practice, accommodated to our habits, and put into forms

accommodated to the habits of the French nation would present

governments very unlike each other.[530]

Thirteen years later his opinion had not varied one iota. Reviewing the

situation in France after the return of the Bourbons, he wrote to Du

Pont de Nemours:

I have to congratulate you, which I do sincerely, on having got back

from Robespierre and Bonaparte, to your ante-revolutionary condition.

You are now nearly where you were at the Jeu de Paume, on the 20th of

June 1789. The King would then have yielded by convention freedom of

religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, habeas corpus and a

representative legislation. These I consider as the essentials

constituting free government, and that the organization of the

executive is interesting, as it may ensure wisdom and integrity in

the first place, but next as it may favor or endanger the

preservation of these fundamentals.[531]

The same note reappears constantly in the letters written by Jefferson

to his French friends, but a rapid survey of his correspondence with Du

Pont de Nemours may serve to make his position even more definite.

When, in December, 1815, Du Pont was invited by "the republics of New

Grenada, Carthagenes and Caracas" to give his views on the constitution

they intended to adopt, he drew up a plan of government for the

"Equinoctial republics" and sent it for approval to the Sage of

Monticello. Faithful to the principles of the Physiocrats, he had

divided the population into two classes: the real citizens or landowners

and the "inhabitants", those who work for a salary, possess nothing but

personal property, can go any day from one place to another, and make

with their employers contracts which they can break at any time. These

were entitled to protection, peaceful enjoyment of their personal

property, free speech, freedom of religion, habeas corpus, and such

natural rights, but Du Pont refused them any participation in the

government; for only those who "owned the country" should have the right

to decide how it was to be administered. To give the ballot to a

floating population of industrial workers, unattached to the soil, who

had nothing to sell except their labor, was "to brew a revolution, to

pave the way for the Pisistrates, the Marius, the Caesars, who represent

themselves as more democratic than they really are and than is just and

reasonable, in order to become tyrants, to violate all rights, to

substitute for law their arbitrary will, to offend morality and to

debase humanity."[532]

This was a doctrine which Jefferson could not accept, for it was in

direct contradiction to the tenets he had formulated early in his life

and held to during all his career. Because he had read Locke, and more

probably because he was trained as a lawyer, he opposed the contractual

theory of society to this economic organization. He maintained that

society was a compact, that all those who had become signatories to the

compact were entitled to the same rights, and consequently should have

the same privilege to share equally in the government, except, and this

proviso was important, when they freely agreed to delegate part of their

powers to elected magistrates and representatives.

This was the theory, the inalienable principle to be proclaimed in a

bill of rights, the necessary preamble to any constitution. In practice,

however, various limitations to universal suffrage were to be

recognized. One could not even think of granting the ballot to minors,

to emancipated slaves or to women. It did not follow either that, all

citizens being endowed with the same rights, they were equally ready to

exercise the same functions in the government. Men are created equal in

rights but differ in intelligence, learning, clear-sightedness and

general ability. In other words, there are some natural _aristoi_, and

John Adams brought Jefferson to this admission without any difficulty.

If this fact be accepted, the next step is to recognize that "that form

of government is the best, which provided the most effectually for a

pure selection of these natural _aristoi_ into offices of the

government." It was the good fortune of America that all her

constitutions were so worded as "to leave the citizens the free election

and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of the wheat from

the chaff. In general, they will elect the really good and wise. In some

instances, wealth may corrupt, and birth blind; but not in a sufficient

degree to endanger society."[533]

According to this theory, the real function of the people is not to

participate directly in all governmental activities, but to select from

among themselves the most qualified citizens and the best prepared to

administer the country. In a letter to Doctor Walter Jones, who had sent

him a paper on democracy, Jefferson made his position even more definite

by establishing a very important distinction which gives more than any

other statement his true idea of a progressive democracy--an ideal to

be striven for, not a condition already reached:

I would say that the people, being the only safe depository of power,

should exercise in person every function which their qualifications

enable them to exercise, consistently with the order and security of

society; that we now find them equal to the election of those who

shall be invested with their executive powers, and to act themselves

in the judiciary, as judges in questions of fact; that the range of

their powers ought to be enlarged....[534]

In these circumstances, Jefferson's reluctance to encourage both his

French and Spanish friends to establish at once a government modeled on

the American government in their respective countries, is perfectly

intelligible. Of all the nations of the earth, England alone could

"borrow wholesale the American system."

They will probably turn their eyes to us, and be disposed to tread in

the footsteps, seeing how safely these have led us into port. There

is no part of or model to which they seem unequal, unless perhaps the

elective presidency, and even that might possibly be rescued from the

tumult of the elections, by subdividing the electoral assemblage into

very small parts, such as of wards or townships, and making them

simultaneous.[535]

As for the other nations, they were no more qualified to exercise the

duties of a truly representative government than were the inhabitants of

New Orleans at the time of the purchase. The French, in particular, had

proved in several instances that they could not be intrusted with the

administration of their own affairs.

More than a generation will be requisite--he wrote to

Lafayette--under the administration of reasonable laws favoring the

progress of knowledge in the general mass of the people, and their

habituation to an independent security of person and property, before

they will be capable of estimating the value of freedom, and the

necessity of sacred adherence to the principles on which it rests for

preservation. Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in

the progress of reason, if recovered by mere accident or force, it

becomes, with an unprepared people, a tyranny still, of the many, the

few, or one.[536]

From these declarations, to which many other similar passages could be

added, a capital difference between the idealism of Jefferson and the

idealism of the French philosophers becomes quite obvious. The author of

the Declaration of Independence had proclaimed that all men are born

free and equal, but he never thought that women, Indians and newly

enfranchized slaves should be admitted to the same rights and privileges

as the other citizens. In like fashion, although representative

government remains the best possible form of government, he found it

desirable that some people, who are still children, should not be

granted at once the full enjoyment of their natural rights. Thus

self-government, which had become a well established fact and a reality

in America, should remain for other peoples a reward to be obtained

after a long and painful process of education. It could be hoped that

some day, after many disastrous experiments and much suffering, the

peoples of Europe and South America might deserve the blessings enjoyed

by the American people. But nothing was further from the character of

Jefferson than to preach the gospel of Americanism to all the nations of

the world. Instead of considering as desirable a close imitation of the

American Constitution by the newly liberated nations, he maintained that

each people should mold their institutions according to their own habits

and traditions. Far from being a Jacobin, a wild radical, or a "closet

philosopher", this practical politician had come to the conclusion that

each people have the government they deserve, and that durable

improvements can come only as a result of the improvement of the moral

qualities of every citizen--from within and not from without. Such a

moderate conclusion may surprise those who are accustomed to damn or

praise Jefferson on a few sentences or axioms detached from their

context; but, after careful scrutiny of the evidence, it seems difficult

to accept any other interpretation.

Comparatively perfect as it was, the government of the United States

presented certain germs of weakness, corruption and degeneracy. The Sage

of Monticello did not fail to call his friends' attention to some of the

dangers looming up on the horizon. As he had warned them against

inflation, he opposed the formation of societies which might become so

strong as "to obstruct the operation of the government and undertake to

regulate the foreign, fiscal, and military as well as domestic affairs."

This might be taken already as a warning against lobbying. He was fully

aware that a time might come when the speeches of the Senators and

Representatives "would cease to be read at all" and when the Legislature

would not enjoy the full confidence of the people. He deplored the law

vacating nearly all the offices of government nearly every four years,

for "it will keep in constant excitement all the hungry cormorants for

office, render them as well as those in place sycophants to their

Senators, engage in eternal intrigue to turn out and put in another, in

cabale to swap work, and make of them what all executive directories

become, mere sinks of corruption and faction."[537]

Serious and pressing as these dangers were, they could be left to future

generations to avoid, but at the very moment he wrote another fear

obsessed his mind:

The banks, bankrupt laws, manufactures, Spanish treaty are nothing.

These are occurrences which, like waves in a storm, will pass under

the ship. But the Missouri question is a breaker on which we lose the

Missouri country by revolt, and what more God only knows. From the

Battle of Bunker's Hill to the treaty of Paris, we never had so

ominous a question.... I thank God that I shall not live to witness

its issue.[538]

No New Englander had done more to promote the cause of abolition than

Jefferson; on two occasions he had proposed legislative measures to put

an end to the scourge of slavery and he had never ceased to look for a

solution that would permit the emancipation of the slaves without

endangering the racial integrity of the United States. But this was no

longer a question of humanity. What mattered most was not whether

slavery would be recognized in Missouri or not. Slavery had become a

political question; it had created a geographical division between the

States, and the very existence of the Union was at stake. As on so many

other occasions, the old statesman had a truly prophetic vision of the

future when he wrote to John Adams early in 1820:

If Congress has the power to regulate the conditions of the

inhabitants of the States, within the States, it will be but another

exercise of that power to declare that all shall be free. Are we then

to see again Athenian and Lacedemonian confederacies? To wage another

Peloponesian war to settle the ascendency between them? Or is this

the tocsin of merely a servile war? That remains to be seen; but not,

I hope, by you or me.[539]

The whole question was fraught with such difficulties that Jefferson

refused to discuss the abolition of slavery with Lafayette when the

Marquis paid him a last visit at Monticello. With his American friends

he was less reserved. When, as early as 1811, James Ogilvie asked him to

suggest an important and interesting subject for a series of lectures he

intended to deliver in the Southern States, Jefferson could think of

nothing more momentous than a discourse "on the benefit of the union,

and miseries which would follow a separation of the States, to be

exemplified in the eternal and wasting wars of Europe, in the pillage

and profligacy to which these lead, and the abject oppression and

degradation to which they reduce its inhabitants."[540]

Jefferson has so long been represented as the champion of State rights,

he stood so vigorously against all possible encroachments of the States'

sovereignty by the Federal Government, that we have a natural tendency

to forget this aspect of his policies and to see in him only the man who

inspired the Kentucky resolutions. It must be remembered, however, that

he never ceased to preach the necessity of the union to his fellow

countrymen, that when President he lived in a constant fear of secession

by the New England States, that he stopped all his efforts in favor of

abolition lest he should inject into the life of the country a political

issue which might disrupt national unity. While he claimed that

theoretically the States had a right to secede, he could no more

consider actual secession than he would have approved of any man

breaking the social compact in order to live the precarious life of the

savage.

From these dangers nothing could preserve the United States except what

Du Pont de Nemours called once "the cool common sense" of their

citizens. It was the only foundation on which to rest all hopes for the

future, for American democracy is not a thing which exists on paper, it

is not a thing which can be created overnight by law, decree or

constitution, it is not to be looked for in any document. "Where is our

republicanism to be found," wrote Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval. "Not in

our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our people.

Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our constitution all

things have gone well."[541]

One of the most reassuring manifestations of this spirit was seen in the

willingness of the people to choose the best qualified persons as their

representatives, executives and magistrates. But if the Republic was to

endure, it was necessary to enlighten and cultivate the disposition of

the people, and it was no less important to provide a group of men

qualified through their natural ability and training, to discuss and

conduct the affairs of the community. Thus Jefferson was induced to take

up again in his old days one of his pet schemes, the famous bill for the

diffusion of knowledge.

As a matter of fact, he had never abandoned it completely, and its very

purpose had been explained already in the "Notes on Virginia":

In every government on earth there is some trace of human weakness,

some germ of corruption and degeneracy.... Each government

degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The

people themselves are therefore its only safe depositories. And to

render even them safer, their minds must be improved to a certain

degree. This is not all that is necessary, though it be essentially

necessary.

During his stay in Europe, Jefferson had become acquainted with great

universities, particularly those of Edinburgh and Geneva, and after

coming back to America he shifted somewhat the emphasis. It was not so

immediately necessary to improve the minds of all the citizens as to

form an _elite_, a body of specialists who might become the true leaders

of the nation. This seems to have been the object of his plan, to bring

over to America the whole faculty of the University of Geneva to

establish a national university at Richmond or in the vicinity of

Federal City. This scheme was only defeated because of the opposition of

Washington who, with great common sense, realized how incongruous it

would be to call National University an institution where the teaching

would be conducted entirely in a foreign language and by foreigners.

Even after this plan had failed, Jefferson did not give up his ambition

to establish somewhere in America and preferably in Virginia, an

institution of higher learning. On January 18, 1800, he wrote to Joseph

Priestley to ask him to draw up the program of a university "on a plan

so broad, so liberal, and modern, as to be worth patronizing with the

public support. The first thing is to obtain a good plan."

Priestley sent him, in answer, some "Hints Concerning Public Education"

which have never been published and probably did not arouse any

enthusiasm in Jefferson. The English philosopher had simply taken the

main features of the English system, placing the emphasis on the ancient

languages and excluding the modern: "For the knowledge of them as well

as skill in fencing, dancing and riding is proper for gentlemen

liberally educated, and instruction in them may be procured on

reasonable terms without burdening the funds of the seminary with

them." He ended with a very sensible piece of advice:

Three things must be attended to in the education of youth. They must

be _taught_, _fed_, and _governed_, and each of these requires

different qualifications. In the English universities all these

offices are perfectly distinct. The _tutors_ only teach, the

_proctors_ superintend the discipline, and the _cooks_ provide the

victuals.[542]

At the same time Jefferson had sent a similar request to Du Pont de

Nemours. Curiously enough, the Frenchman manifested little enthusiasm

for the proposal of his friend. To establish a university was all very

well, but first of all one had to provide solid foundations and to place

educational facilities within the reach of the great mass of

citizens--the university being only the apex of the pyramid. On this

occasion Du Pont reminded Jefferson that he had expressed himself to

such an intent some fifteen years earlier in his "Notes on Virginia",

which developed the excellent view that colleges and universities are

not the most important part of the educational system of the State:

All knowledge readily and daily usable, all practical sciences, all

laborious activities, all the common sense, all the correct ideas,

all the morality, all the virtue, all the courage, all the

prosperity, all the happiness of a nation and particularly of a

Republic must spring from the primary schools or Petites Ecoles.[543]

By July, 1800, Du Pont de Nemours, who had already proposed a similar

scheme to the French Government, had completed his manuscript and sent

it to Jefferson at the end of August. This was more speed than Jefferson

had expected, and Du Pont's plan was far too elaborate and too

comprehensive to be of immediate value. "There is no occasion to

incommode yourself by pressing it," wrote Jefferson, "as when received

it will be some time before we shall probably find a good occasion of

bringing forward the subject."[544]

During his presidency, Jefferson had had to lay aside all his plans and

postpone any action for the organization of public education in his

native State until after his retirement. In the meantime, he read and

studied the project of Du Pont de Nemours and corresponded with Pictet

of Geneva; he had in his hands several memoirs of Julien on the French

schools, and he looked everywhere for precedents and suggestions. His

views were finally formulated in a "Plan for Elementary Schools" sent to

Joseph C. Cabell from Polar Forest, on September 9, 1817. The act to be

submitted to the Assembly of Virginia was far more comprehensive than

the title indicates. It provided for the establishment in each county of

a certain number of elementary schools, supported by the county and

placed under the supervision of visitors; the counties of the

commonwealth were to be distributed into nine collegiate districts, and

as many colleges, or rather secondary schools, instituted at the expense

of the literary fund, "to be supported from it, and to be placed under

the supervision of the Board of Public Instruction."

"In the said colleges," proposed Jefferson, "shall be taught the Greek,

Latin, French, Spanish, Italian and German languages, English grammar,

geography, ancient and modern, the higher branches in numeral

arithmetic, the mensuration of land, the use of the globes, and the

ordinary elements of navigation."

A third part of the act provided for

... establishing in a central and healthy part of the State an

University wherein all the branches of useful sciences may be taught

... such as history and geography, ancient and modern; natural

philosophy, agriculture, chemistry, and the theories of medicine;

anatomy, zooelogy, botany, mineralogy and geology; mathematics, pure

and mixed, military and naval science; ideology, ethics, the law of

nature and of nations; law, municipal, and foreign; the science of

civil government and political economy; languages, rhetoric,

belles-lettres, and the fine arts generally; which branches of

science will be so distributed and under so many professorships, not

exceeding ten as the Visitors shall think most proper.

Finally, in order "to avail the commonwealth of those talents and

virtues which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as among the

rich, and which are lost to their country by the want of means of their

cultivation", the visitors would select every year a certain number of

promising scholars from the ward schools to be sent to the colleges and

from the colleges to be sent to the University at the public expense.

This was essentially the Bill for the Diffusion of Knowledge proposed to

the Assembly in 1779. Jefferson had incorporated in it such

modifications as he may have borrowed from Du Pont de Nemours, but

essentially the plan was his own. That Jefferson himself was perfectly

aware of it appears in a short mention of the fact that "the general

idea was suggested in the 'Notes on Virginia.' Quer. 14."[545]

It was soon realized that neither the Assembly nor the public were ready

for such a comprehensive scheme. Part of the plan had to be sacrificed,

if a beginning was to be made at all. Jefferson did not hesitate long;

the elementary schools could be organized at any time without much

preparation or expense; secondary education was taken care of after a

fashion in private schools supported from fees; but nothing existed in

the way of an institution of higher learning. Young Virginians had to be

sent to the northern seminaries, there "imbibing opinions and principles

in discord with those of our own country." The university was the thing,

and, in order to provide sufficient funds to start it, Jefferson

proposed that subsidies from the literary fund to the primary schools be

suspended for one or two years. In his opinion this measure did not

imply any disregard of primary education, and Jefferson vehemently

protested to Breckenridge that he had "never proposed a sacrifice of the

primary to the ultimate grade of instruction"; but, "if we cannot do

everything at once, let us do one at a time."[546]

The fight in which Jefferson engaged to obtain recognition for his

project, to have Central College or, as it was finally to be called, the

University of Virginia, located near Monticello, where he could watch

its progress and supervise the construction of its buildings, has been

told many times and does not need to be recounted here.[547]

On the board of visitors with Jefferson were placed James Madison, James

Monroe, Joseph C. Cabell, James Breckenridge, David Watson and J. H.

Cocke. Jefferson was appointed Rector of the University at a meeting

held on March 29, 1819, at a time when the university had no buildings,

no faculty, no students and very small means. Everything had to be done

and provided for. It would have been possible to put up some sort of

temporary shelter, a few ramshackle frame houses, but Jefferson wanted

the university to endure and he remembered that he was an architect as

well as a statesman. It was not until the spring of 1824 that he could

announce that the buildings were ready for occupancy--the formal opening

was to be held at the beginning of the following year--but the master

builder could be proud of his work. The university was his in every

sense of the word: not only had he succeeded in arousing the interest of

the public and the Assembly in his undertaking, but he had drawn the

plans himself with the painstaking care and the precision he owed to his

training as a surveyor. He had selected the material, engaged the stone

carvers, the brick layers and the carpenters, and supervised every bit

of their work. After his death he would need no other monument.

Then, as everything seemed to be ready, a new difficulty arose. Ever

since 1819, the visitors had been looking for a faculty. Ticknor, with

whom Jefferson had gotten acquainted through Mrs. Adams, had refused to

leave Cambridge although disgusted with the petty bickerings of his

colleagues. Thomas Cooper had proved inacceptable, and the very mention

of his name had aroused such a storm among the clergy that the

appointment had to be withdrawn. After a long and fruitless search for

the necessary talents at home, Jefferson and his fellow members on the

board of the university decided to procure the professors from abroad.

This time, however, they were not to repeat the mistake of the proposed

transplantation of the University of Geneva. Several prominent Frenchmen

suggested by Lafayette were turned down as too ignorant of the ways of

American youth and the language of the country. There remained only one

place from which satisfactory instructors could be obtained; this was

England. Their nationality did not raise any serious objection, for, to

the resentment of the War of 1812 had succeeded the "era of good

feeling", and Francis Walker Gilmer was commissioned to go to England

in order to consult with Dugald Stewart and to recruit a faculty from

Great Britain, "the land of our own language, habits and manners."[548]

Eighteen months later, the Rector declared the experiment highly

successful, and the example likely to be followed by other institutions

of learning.

It cannot fail--wrote Jefferson--to be one of the efficacious means

of promoting that cordial good will, which it is so much the interest

of both nations to cherish. These teachers can never utter an

unfriendly sentiment towards their native country; and those into

whom their instruction will be infused, are not of ordinary

significance only; they are exactly the persons who are to succeed to

the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its

friendships and fortunes.[549]

Thus after fifty years, Jefferson was able to make real his educational

dream of the Revolutionary period, to endow his native State with an

institution of higher learning in which the future leaders of the nation

would be instructed. They would no longer have to be sent abroad to

obtain the required knowledge in some subjects; nor would they have to

study in "the Northern seminaries", there to be infected with pernicious

doctrines; above all, they would be preserved from any sectarian

influence during their formative years; for no particular creed was to

be taught at the university, although the majority of the faculty

belonged to the Episcopal Church.

The University of Virginia was the last great task to which Jefferson

put his hand, an achievement of which he was no less proud than of

having written the Declaration of Independence. To bring it to a

successful conclusion this septuagenarian displayed an admirable

tenacity, a resourcefulness, a practical wisdom, a sense of the

immediate possibilities and an idealistic vision, the combination of

which typifies the best there is in the national character of the

American people. It would take many pages to study in detail Jefferson's

educational ideas, as he expressed them in the minutes of the board and

in his many letters to John Adams, Thomas Cooper and Joseph Cabell. The

most remarkable feature of the new institution was that, for the first

time in the history of the country, higher education was made

independent of the Church, and to a large extent the foundation of the

University of Virginia marks the beginning of the secularization of

scientific research in America. Its "father" certainly gave some thought

to the possible extension of the educational system that had finally won

recognition in his native Virginia, to all the States in the country;

but he was too fully aware of the difficulties to follow his old friend

Du Pont de Nemours and to propose a Plan for a National Education. At

least he "had made a beginning", he "had set an example", and he built

even better than he knew. The man who wished to be remembered as the

"father of the University of Virginia" was also, in more than one sense,

the father of the State universities which play such an important part

in the education of the American democracy.

CHAPTER III

THE PHILOSOPHY OF OLD AGE

Old people are often accused of being too conservative, and even

reactionary. They seem out of step with the younger generations, and

very few preserve enough resiliency to keep in touch with the ceaseless

changes taking place around them. But a few men who, born in the second

half of the eighteenth century, lived well up into the nineteenth, were

able to escape this apparently unavoidable law of nature. After

witnessing political convulsions, commotions and revolutions, they clung

tenaciously to the faith of their younger days. They refused to accept

the view that the world was going from bad to worse; they looked

untiringly for every symptom of improvement and thought they could

distinguish everywhere signs foretelling the dawn of a new era. The

growing infirmities of their bodies did not leave them any illusion

about their inevitable disappearance from the stage and they were not

upheld by any strong belief in personal immortality. But however

uncertain and hazy may have been their religious tenets, they had a

stanch faith in the unlimited capacity of human nature for improvement

and development. They believed in the irresistible power of truth, in

the ultimate recognition of natural principles and natural laws, in the

religion of progress as it had been formulated by the eighteenth-century

philosophers. Thus, rather than follow the precept of the ancient poet

and unhitch their aging horses, they had anticipated the advice of the

American philosopher by hitching their wagon to a star.

Du Pont de Nemours, experimenting with his sons to develop American

industries in order to make America economically independent from

Europe; Destutt de Tracy, almost completely blind, dictating his

treatise on political economy and appearing in the streets of Paris

during the glorious days of 1830; Lafayette, yearning and hoping for the

recognition of his ideal of liberty during the Empire and the

_Restauration_--all of these were more than survivors of a forgotten

age. Even to the younger generations they represented the living

embodiment of the political faith of the nineteenth century. It is not a

mere coincidence that most of them were friends and admirers of the Sage

of Monticello, whose letters they read "as the letters of the Apostles

were read in the circle of the early Christians."

Jefferson could complain that "the decays of age had enfeebled

the useful energies of the mind",[550] but he kept, practically

to his last day, his alertness, his encyclopaedic curiosity and

an extraordinary capacity for work. A large part of his time was

taken by his correspondence. Turning to his letter list for 1820 he

found that he had received no less than "one thousand two hundred and

sixty-seven communications, many of them requiring answers of elaborate

research, and all of them to be answered with due attention and

consideration."[551] I may be permitted to add that a large part of the

letters he received as well as those he wrote deserve publication and

would greatly contribute to our knowledge of the period.

Among them essays and short treatises on every possible subject under

heaven will be found. With Du Pont de Nemours, Jefferson discussed not

only questions of political economy, education and government, but the

acclimation of the merino sheep, the manufacturing of woolen goods and

nails, the construction of gunboats and the organization of the militia.

With Madame de Tesse, Lafayette's aged cousin, he resumed the exchange

of botanical views, interrupted by his presidency and the continental

blockade. He undertook to put together the scraps of paper on which he

had scribbled notes during Washington's and Adams' administrations and

compiled his famous "Anas"; he wrote his "Autobiography", furnished

documents to Girardin for his continuation of Burke's "History of

Virginia"; he answered queries on the circumstances under which he had

written the Declaration of Independence, the Kentucky Resolution, on his

attitude towards France when Secretary of State and President; he

criticized quite extensively Marshall's "History of Washington" and one

of his last letters, written on May 15, 1826, was to inform one of his

friends of the facts concerning "Arnold's invasion and surprise of

Richmond, in the winter of 1780-81."[552]

His interest in books was greater than ever; he had scarcely sold his

library to Congress when he undertook to collect another, going

systematically through the publishers' catalogues, writing to

booksellers in Richmond, Philadelphia, New York and even abroad,

requesting his European friends to send him the latest publications and

asking young Ticknor to procure for him, in France or Germany, the best

editions of the Greek and Latin classics. He drew up the plans for the

University of Virginia and supervised the construction of the building.

Between times he took upon himself the task of rewriting entirely the

translation of Destutt de Tracy's "Review of Montesquieu" and directed

the printing of his treatise on "Political Economy." After writing

letters, regulating the work of the farm, he spent several hours on

horseback every day and during the balance of the afternoon read new and

old books, played with his grandchildren, walked in the garden to look

at his favorite trees, listened to music and, during the fine weather,

received the visitors who flocked to Monticello by the dozens. Some were

simply idlers coming out of curiosity, many were old friends who stayed

for days or weeks; but all were welcomed with the same affable courtesy

and the same generous hospitality, according to the best traditions of

old Virginia.

They came from all nations, at all times--wrote Doctor Dunglison--and

paid longer or shorter visits. I have known a New England judge bring

a letter of introduction and stay three weeks. The learned abbe

Correa, always a welcome guest, passed some weeks of each year with

us during the whole time of his stay in the country. We had persons

from abroad, from all the States of the Union, from every part of the

State--men, women, and children.... People of wealth, fashion, men in

office, Protestant clergymen, Catholic priests, members of Congress,

foreign ministers, missionaries, Indian agents, tourists, travellers,

artists, strangers, friends.[553]

No sound estimate of the extraordinary influence exerted by Jefferson

upon the growth of liberalism can be made at the present time. It would

require separate studies, careful investigation and the publication of

many letters, safely preserved but too little used, which rest in the

Jefferson Papers of the Library of Congress, and with the Massachusetts

Historical Society. I have already printed Jefferson's correspondence

with Volney, Destutt de Tracy, Lafayette and Du Pont de Nemours; many

other letters, no less significant, remain practically unknown. He

encouraged his European friends, Correa de Serra, Kosciusko, the Greek

Coray, to keep up their courage, to hope against hope. To all of them he

preached the same gospel of faith in the ultimate and inevitable

recognition throughout the world of the principles of American

democracy. This was not done for propaganda's sake, for no man would

deserve less than Jefferson the dubious qualification of propagandist.

The many letters written to his American friends on the same subject

clearly show that this was his profound conviction and almost his only

_raison d'etre_. His was not an over-optimistic temperament; he did not

fail to notice all "the specks of hurricane on the horizon of the

world." Yet, all considered, and in spite of temporary fits of

despondency, his conclusion on the future of democracy can be summed up

in the words he wrote to John Adams at the end of 1821:

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a

hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance. We have seen

indeed, once within the record of history, the complete eclipse of

the human mind continuing for centuries ... even should the cloud of

barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of

Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and

liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the 4th of July

1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by

the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume

these engines and all who work them.[554]

Jefferson felt such a dislike for unnecessary controversies that he was

apt to adopt the tone and the style of his correspondents and apparently

to accept their ideas, so that many contradictions can be found in these

letters. To a chosen few only he fully revealed his intimate thoughts

and without reticence, without fear of being betrayed, communicated his

doubts, his hopes and his hatred. The letters he wrote to Short,

Priestley, and Thomas Cooper are most remarkable in this respect. But

with none of them did he communicate so freely as with his old friend

John Adams. The correspondence that passed between them during the last

fifteen years of their lives constitutes one of the most striking and

illuminating human documents a student of psychology may ever hope to

discover. To those who have had the privilege of using the manuscripts

to follow month by month the palsied hand of Adams until he had to cease

writing himself and dictated his letters to a "female member of his

household", it seems unthinkable that the wish expressed by Wirt in

1826,--to see the correspondence between the two great men published in

its entirety,--should not have received its fulfillment.

They had been estranged for a long time, and no word had passed between

them for more than ten years after Adams' sulky departure from

Washington on the morning of March 4, 1801. At the beginning of 1811,

Doctor Benjamin Rush made bold to deplore "the discontinuance of

friendly correspondence between Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson." Jefferson

answered quite lengthily, giving a long account of his difficulties with

Adams, including the letter written by Abigail Adams in 1802, but adding

that he would second with pleasure every effort made to bring about a

reconciliation. However, he did not entertain much hope that Doctor Rush

would succeed, for he knew it was "part of Mr. Adams' character to

suspect foul play in those of whom he is jealous, and not easily to

relinquish his suspicions."[555]

It was not until the end of the same year that Jefferson took up the

subject again, having heard that during a conversation Adams had

mentioned his name, adding: "I always loved Jefferson, and still love

him." This was enough, and it only remained to create an opportunity to

resume the correspondence without too much awkwardness; but "from this

fusion of sentiments" Mrs. Adams was "of course to be separated", for

Jefferson could not believe that the woman wounded in her motherly pride

had forgotten anything. This was no insuperable obstacle, however: "It

will only be necessary that I never name her" wrote Jefferson.[556]

Adams took the first step, and, knowing how much Jefferson was

interested in domestic manufactures, sent him a fine specimen of

homespun made in Massachusetts. Jefferson could but acknowledge the

peace offering, which he did most gracefully, without mentioning Mrs.

Adams.[557] But he was too much of a Southern gentleman to hold a

resentment long even against a woman of such a jealous disposition. Two

months later he sent for the first time the homage of his respects to

Mrs. Adams, after which he never forgot to mention her. On two occasions

he even wrote her charming letters, in the same friendly tone as he had

used with her twenty-five years earlier, when he used to do shopping for

her in Paris. On hearing of her death on November 13, 1818, he sent to

his stricken old friend a touching expression of his sympathy:

Will I say more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort

to us both, that the term is not very distant, at which we are to

deposit in the same cerement our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to

ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have

loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose

again.[558]

Quite naturally, as the circle of his friends grew narrower and one

after the other were called by death, Jefferson's thoughts turned to the

hereafter. In his youth he had apparently settled the problem once for

all; but the solution then found was scarcely more than a temporary

expedient. It may behove a young man full of vigor, with a long stretch

of years before him, to declare that "the business of life is with

matter" and that it serves no purpose to break our heads against a blank

wall. There are very few men, if they are thinking at all, who can

entirely dismiss from their minds the perplexing and torturing riddle,

as the term grows nearer every day. Such an ataraxia may have been

obtained by a few sages of old, but it is hardly human, and Jefferson,

like Adams, was very human. This is a subject, however, which I cannot

approach without some reluctance. Jefferson himself would have highly

disapproved of such a discussion. After submitting silently to so many

fierce criticisms, after being accused of atheism, materialism, impiety

and philosophism by his contemporaries, he hoped that the question would

never be broached to him again. With those who tried to revive it, he

had absolutely no patience.

One of our fan-coloring biographers--he wrote once--who paint small

men as very great, inquired of me lately, with real affection too,

whether he might consider as authentic, the change in my religion

much spoken of in some circles. Now this supposed that they knew what

had been my religion before, taking for it the word of their priests,

whom I certainly never made the confidants of my creed. My answer

was: "Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and myself

alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if

that has been _honest and dutiful_ to society, the religion which has

regulated it cannot be a bad one."[559]

Unfortunately the controversy is still going on and at least a few

points must be indicated here. The simplest and to some extent the most

acceptable treatment of the matter was given a few years after his death

by the physician who attended him up to the last minutes:

It is due, also, to that illustrious individual to say, that, in all

my intercourse with him, I never heard an observation that savored,

in the slightest degree, of impiety. His religious belief harmonized

more closely with that of the Unitarians than of any other

denomination, but it was liberal, and untrammelled by sectarian

feelings and prejudices.[560]

But Doctor Dunglison's declaration is somewhat unsatisfactory and

misleading, for Jefferson once gave his own definition of Unitarianism.

From a letter he wrote to James Smith in 1822 it appears he was not

ready to join the Unitarian Church any more than any other:

About Unitarianism, the doctrine of the early ages of Christianity

... the pure and simple unity of the Creator of the universe, is now

all but ascendant in the Eastern States; it is dawning in the West,

and advancing towards the South; and I confidently expect that the

present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion

of the United States.... I write with freedom, because, while I claim

a right to believe in one God, if so my reason tells me, I yield as

freely to others that of believing in three.[561]

On the other hand, one might easily be misled by some declarations of

Jefferson to his more intimate friends. "I am a materialist--I am an

Epicurian," he wrote on several instances to John Adams, Thomas Cooper

and Short, with whom he felt that he could discuss religious questions

more freely than with any others. Rejecting the famous _Cogito ergo sum_

of Descartes, he fell back when in doubt on his "habitual anodyne": "I

feel therefore I exist." This in his opinion did not imply the sole

existence of matter, but simply that he could not "conceive _thought_ to

be an action of a particular organisation of matter, formed for the

purpose by its Creator, as well as that attraction is an action of

matter, or magnetism of loadstone." Then he added: "I am supported in my

creed of materialism by the Lockes, the Tracys and the Stewarts. At what

age of the Christian Church this heresy of immaterialism or masked

atheism, crept in, I do not exactly know. But a heresy it certainly is.

Jesus taught nothing of it."[562]

In the same sense he could write to Judge Augustus S. Woodward: "Jesus

himself, the Founder of our religion, was unquestionably a Materialist

as to man. In all His doctrines of the resurrection, he teaches

expressly that the body is to rise in substances."[563]

His definition of Epicurism would seem equally remote from the popular

acceptation, and certainly Jefferson was never of those who could

deserve the old appellation of _Epicuri de grege porcus_; for his

Epicurus is the philosopher "whose doctrines contain everything

rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us."[564]

All through the year 1813 and on many occasions after that date, Adams

tried to draw him out on the question of religion. "For," as he said,

"these things are to me, at present, the marbles and nine-pins of old

age; I will not say beads and prayer books." But Jefferson could not

have declared, as did his old friend: "For more than sixty years I have

been attentive to this great subject. Controversies between Calvinists

and Arminians, Trinitarians and Unitarians, Deists and Christians,

Atheists and both, have attracted my attention, whenever the singular

life I have led would admit, to all these questions."[565]

Not so with Jefferson, who felt a real abhorrence for theological

discussions and considered them as a sheer waste of time. They belonged

to a past age and were to be buried in oblivion lest they create again

an atmosphere of fanaticism and intolerance; at best, they could be left

to the clergy. But tolerant as he was, there were certain doctrines

against which Jefferson revolted even in later life, as he probably did

when a student at William and Mary:

I can never join Calvin in addressing _his God_. He was indeed an

atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was daemonism.

If ever man worshipped a false God, he did. The God described in his

five points, is not the God whom you acknowledge and adore, the

Creator and benevolent Governor of the world; but a daemon of

malignant spirit.

But right after this virulent denunciation comes a most interesting

admission. If Jefferson's God was not the God of Calvin, he was just as

remote from the mechanistic materialism of D'Holbach and La Mettrie as

he was from Calvinism and predestination. Leaving aside all questions

of dogmas and revelation he held that:

When we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or

particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and

feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power

in every atom of its composition. So irresistible are these evidences

of an intelligent and powerful Agent, that of the infinite numbers of

men who have existed through all time, they have believed, in the

proportion of a million at least to a unit, in the hypothesis of an

eternal pre-existence of a Creator, rather than in that of a self

existing universe.[566]

From this passage, it would seem that Jefferson founded his belief in

the existence of God on the two well-known arguments: the order of the

Universe and the general consensus of opinion. If it were so, he would

follow close on the steps of the English deists of the school of Pope.

But religion to him was something more than the mere "acknowledgement"

and "adoration of the benevolent Governor of the world";

It is more than an inner conviction of the existence of the Creator;

true religion is morality. If by _religion_ we are to understand

_sectarian dogmas_, in which no two of them agree, then your

exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best

possible of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

But if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his

physical constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the

sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of

Nazareth, in which we all agree, constitute true religion, then,

without it, this would be, as you again say, "something not fit to be

named even, indeed, a hell."[567]

On this point as on so many others Jefferson is distinctly an

eighteenth-century man. One of the pet schemes of the philosophers was

to prove that there is no necessary connection between religion and

morality. It was an essential article of the philosophical creed from

Pierre Bayle to Jefferson, and long before them, Montaigne had filled

his "Essays" with countless anecdotes and examples tending to prove this

point. But Jefferson went one step farther than most of the French

philosophers, with the exception of Rousseau. Morality is not founded on

a religious basis; religion is morality. This being accepted, it remains

to determine the foundation of morality. In a letter written to Thomas

Law during the summer of 1814, Jefferson examined the different

solutions proposed by theologians and philosophers and clearly indicated

his preference.

"It was vain to say that it was truth; for truth is elusive,

unattainable, and there is no certain criticism of it." It is not either

the "love of God", for an atheist may have morality, and "Diderot,

d'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been the most virtuous of men."

It is not either the _to kalon_, for many men are deprived of any

aesthetic sense. Self-interest is more satisfactory, but even the

demonstration given by Helvetius is not perfectly convincing. All these

explanations are one step short of the ultimate question.

The truth of the matter is, that Nature has implanted in our breasts

a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in

short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and succour their

distresses. It is true that these social dispositions are not

implanted in every man, because there is no rule without exceptions;

but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general

rule. Some men are born without the organs of sight, or of hearing,

or without hands. Yet it would be wrong to say that man is born

without these faculties. When the moral sense is wanting, we endeavor

to supply the defect by education; by appeals to reason and

calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed other

motives to do good. But nature has constituted utility to man the

social test of virtue. The same act may be useful and consequently

virtuous in a country which is injurious and vicious in another

differently circumstanced. I sincerely then believe, with you, in the

general existence of a moral instinct. I think it is the brightest

gem with which the human character is studded, and the want of it is

more degrading than the most hideous of the bodily deformities.[568]

The test of morality then becomes, not self-interest, as Helvetius had

maintained (and Jefferson reproved Destutt de Tracy for having accepted

this theory), but general interest and social utility. This is almost

the criterium of Kant and one would be tempted to press this

parallelism, if there was any reason to believe that the Philosopher of

Monticello had ever heard the name of the author of "Practical Reason."

On this point, as on so many others, Jefferson differs radically from

Rousseau, who admitted also a benevolent governor of the world and the

existence of a moral instinct, but who would have strenuously denied

that this moral instinct was nothing but the social instinct. Jefferson,

on the contrary, is led to recognize the existence of morality, chiefly

because, man being a social being, society cannot be organized and

subsist if it is not composed of moral beings.

Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of

society require the observation of those moral precepts in which all

religions agree, (for all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder or bear

false witness,) and that we should not intermeddle with the

particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are

totally unconnected with morality. In all of them we see good men,

and as many in one as another. The varieties of structures of action

of the human mind as in those in the body, are the work of our

Creator, against which it cannot be a religious duty to erect the

standard of uniformity. The practice of morality being necessary for

the well-being of society, he has taken care to impress its precepts

so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the

subtleties of our brain.[569]

This was stated more humorously by John Adams after they had treated the

subject exhaustively in a series of letters: "Vain man, mind your own

business. Do no wrong--; do all the good you can. Eat your canvasback

ducks, drink your Burgundy. Sleep your siesta when necessary, and TRUST

IN GOD."[570]

This being the case, it remained to determine whether man could not find

somewhere a code of morality that would express the precepts impressed

in our hearts. In his youth, Jefferson had copied and accepted as a

matter of course the statement of Bolingbroke that:

It is not true that Christ revealed an entire body of ethics, proved

to be the law of nature from principles of reason and reaching all

duties of life.... A system thus collected from the writings of the

ancient heathen moralists, of Tully, of Seneca, of Epictetus, and

others, would be more full, more entire, more coherent, and more

clearly deduced from unquestionable principles of knowledge.[571]

In order to realize how far away Jefferson had drawn from his

radicalism, it is only necessary to go back to his "Syllabus of an

Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, compared with those of

others", written for Benjamin Rush, in 1803, after reading Doctor

Priestley's little treatise "Of Socrates and Jesus compared."[572] There

he had declared that

His moral doctrines relating to kindred and friends, were more pure

and perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers, and

... they went far in inculcating universal philanthropy, not only to

kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind,

gathering all into one family, under the bonds of love, charity,

peace, common wants and common aids. A development of this head will

evince the peculiar superiority of the system of Jesus over all

others.

Jefferson had been won over to Christianity by the superior social value

of the morals of Jesus. In that sense, he could already say, "I am a

Christian, in the only sense in which He wished any one to be, sincerely

attached to His doctrines, in preference to all others."

This profession of faith made publicly might have assuaged some of the

fierce attacks directed against Jefferson on the ground of his

"infidelity", and yet even at that time he emphatically begged Doctor

Rush not to make it public, for "it behoves every man who values liberty

of conscience for himself ... to give no example of concession,

betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering

questions of faith, which the laws have left between God and himself."

To a certain extent, however, his famous "Life and Morals of Jesus",

compiled during the last ten years of his life[573] may well be

considered an indirect and yet categorical recantation of Bolingbroke's

haughty dogmatism. Age, experience, observation had mellowed the Stoic.

He was not yet ready to accept as a whole the dogmas of Christianity,

but the superiority of the morals of Jesus over the tenets of the

"heathen moralists" did not any longer leave any doubt in his mind.

Whether after the death of the body something of man survived, was an

entirely different question--one that human reason could not answer

satisfactorily. It cannot even be stated with certainty that he would

have agreed with John Adams when the latter wrote: "_Il faut trancher le

mot._ What is there in life to attach us to it but the hope of a future

and a better? It is a cracker, a rocket, a fire-work at best."[574]

He never denied categorically the existence of a future life, but this

life was a thing in itself, and after all, it was worth living.

Altogether this world was a pretty good place, and when John Adams

asked him whether he would agree to live his seventy-three years over

again, he answered energetically: "Yea.--I think with you," he added,

"that it is a good world on the whole; that it has been framed on a

principle of benevolence, and more pleasure than pain dealt to us.... My

temperament is sanguine. I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving

Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail, but not oftener than the

foreboding of the gloomy."[575] His old friend was far from attaining

such an equanimity and could not help envying the Sage of Monticello

sailing his bark "Hope with her gay ensigns displayed at the prow, Fear

with her hobgoblins behind the stern. Hope springs eternal and all is

that endures...." But Jefferson was bolstered up in his confident

attitude by the intimate conviction that he had done good work, that he

had contributed his best to the most worthy cause and that he had not

labored in vain.

This was not only a good world, but it was already much better than when

he had entered it. He had

... observed the march of civilization advancing from the sea coast,

passing over us like a cloud of light, increasing our knowledge and

improving our condition, insomuch as that we are at that time more

advanced in civilization here than the seaports were when I was a

boy. And where this progress will stop no one can say. Barbarism has,

in the meantime, been receding before the steady step of

amelioration; and will in time, I trust, disappear from the

earth.[576]

Scarcely two weeks before he died--and this is practically his last

important utterance--he recalled in a letter to the citizens of the city

of Washington who had invited him to attend the celebration held for the

fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, how proud he

was that his fellow citizens, after fifty years, continued to approve

the choice made when the Declaration was adopted. "May it be to the

world," he added, "what I believe it will (to some parts sooner, to

others later, but finally to all) the signal of arousing men to burst

the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded

them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of

self-government."[577]

This faith in the ultimate recognition of the ideals, which he had

defined with such a felicity of expression half a century earlier, was,

even more than any belief in personal immortality, "the rocket" that

John Adams thought so necessary to attach us to this life. It was a real

religion, the religion of progress, of the eighteenth century which had

its devotees and with Condorcet its martyr. Strengthened by the intimate

conviction that he would be judged from his acts and not "from his

words", he saw the approach of Death without any qualms, and he turned

back to his old friends of Greece and Rome, for "the classic pages fill

up the vacuum of _ennui_, and become sweet composers to that rest of the

grave into which we are sooner or later to descend."[578] On many

occasions he expressed his readiness to depart: "I enjoy good health,"

he wrote once to John Adams; "I am happy in what is around me, yet I

assure you I am ripe for leaving all, this year, this day, this

hour."[579] It took almost ten years after these lines were written for

the call to come. Most of his biographers have dealt extensively with

the remarkable vigor preserved by Jefferson even to his last day. For

several years after his retirement he remained a hale and robust old

man. But he felt none the less the approaching dissolution and watched

anxiously the slow progress of his physical limitations. His letters do

not completely bear out on this point the statement made by Mrs. Sarah

Randolph in her "Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson."

At seventy-three he was still remarkably robust and, with the minuteness

of a physician, described his case in a letter to his old friend Charles

Thomson:

I retain good health, am rather feeble to walk much, but ride with

ease, passing two or three hours a day on horseback.... My eyes need

the aid of glasses by night, and with small print in the day also; my

hearing is not quite so sensible as it used to be; no tooth shaking

yet, but shivering and shrinking in body from the cold we now

experience; my thermometer having been as low as 12 deg. this morning. My

greatest oppression is a correspondence afflictingly laborious, the

extent of which I have been long endeavoring to curtail. Could I

reduce this epistolary corvee within the limits of my friends and

affairs ... my life would be as happy as the infirmities of age would

admit, and I should look on its consummation with the composure of

one "_qui summum nec metuit diem nec optat_."[580]

This remarkable preservation of his faculties he attributed largely to

his abstemious diet. For years he had eaten little animal food, and that

"not as an aliment so much as a condiment for the vegetables", which

constituted his principal diet. "I double however the Doctor's glass and

a half of wine, and even treble it with a friend, but halve its effects

by drinking the weak wines only. The ardent wines I cannot drink, nor do

I use ardent spirits in any form."[581]

Yet he had to admit to Mrs. Trist in 1814 that he was only "an old

half-strung fiddle",[582] and as he advanced in age the "machine" gave

evident signs of wearing out. The recurrence of the suffering caused by

his broken wrist, badly set in Paris by the famous Louis,[583] and still

worse the very painful "disury" with which he was afflicted[584] gave

him many unhappy hours. To die was nothing, for as he wrote then in his

old "Commonplace Book", "I do not worry about the hereafter, even if

now the doom of death stands at my feet, for we are men and cannot live

forever. To all of us death must happen."[585] But "bodily decay" was

"gloomy in prospect, for of all human contemplation the most abhorrent

is a body without mind. To be a doting old man, to repeat four times

over the same story in one hour", if this was life, it was "at most the

life of a cabbage."[586] He was spared this affliction he dreaded so

much, and when Lafayette visited him in November, 1824, the Marquis

found him "much aged without doubt, after a separation of thirty-five

years, but bearing marvelously well under his eighty-one years of age,

in full possession of all the vigor of his mind and heart."[587] Six

months later, when Lafayette took his final leave, Jefferson was weaker

and confined to his house, suffering much "with one foot in the grave

and the other one uplifted to follow it."

Death was slowly approaching, without any particular disease being

noticeable; after running for eighty-three years "the machine" was about

to "surcease motion." The end has been told by several contemporaries

and friends. No account is more simple and more touching in its

simplicity than the relation written by his attending physician, Doctor

Dunglison:

Until the 2d. and 3d. of July he spoke freely of his approaching

death; made all arrangements with his grandson, Mr. Randolph, in

regard to his private affairs; and expressed his anxiety for the

prosperity of the University and his confidence in the exertion in

its behalf of Mr. Madison and the other visitors. He repeatedly, too,

mentioned his obligation to me for my attention to him. During the

last week of his existence I remained at Monticello; and one of the

last remarks he made was to me. In the course of the day and night of

the 2d of July he was affected with stupor, with intervals of

wakefulness and consciousness; but on the 3d the stupor became

almost permanent. About seven o'clock of the evening of that day he

awoke and, seeing me staying at his bedside, exclaimed, "Ah, Doctor,

are you still there?" in a voice, however, that was husky and

indistinct. He then asked, "Is it the Fourth?" to which I replied,

"It will soon be." These were the last words I heard him utter.

Until towards the middle of the day--the 4th--he remained in the same

state, or nearly so, wholly unconscious to everything that was

passing around him. His circulation, however, was gradually becoming

more languid; and for some time prior to dissolution the pulse at the

wrist was imperceptible. About one o'clock he ceased to exist.[588]

A few days before he had taken his final dispositions and seen all the

members of his family. He was not a man to indulge in a painful display

of emotions, but he told his dear daughter Martha that "in a certain

drawer in an old pocket book she would find something for her." It was a

piece of paper on which he had written eight lines "A death bed adieu

from Th. J. to M. R." There was no philosophism nor classical

reminiscence in it; it was the simple expression of his last hope that

on the shore

"_Which crowns all my hopes, or which buries my care_" he would find

awaiting him "two seraphs long shrouded in death", his beloved wife and

his young daughter Maria.

He was buried by their side in the family plot of Monticello. According

to his wishes no invitations were issued and no notice of the hour

given. "His body was borne privately from his dwelling by his family and

servants, but his neighbors and friends, anxious to pay the last tribute

of respect to one they had loved and honored, waited for it in crowds at

the grave." A typically American scene, without parade, without speeches

and long ceremonies--almost a pioneer burial in a piece of land

reclaimed from the wilderness.

INDEX

Absolutism, evils of, 203

Adams, Abigail, Jefferson shops for, 160;

the "New England Juno", 323;

and Jefferson, 382, 383, 386, 518, 519

Adams, Henry, his criticism of Jefferson's conduct of foreign

affairs, 409, 440, 441, 453, 459, 460, 464

Adams, John, Jefferson's correspondence with, 23, 482, 490, 503, 512,

517, 521, 526, 529;

his first impression of Jefferson, 59;

on committee of Continental Congress appointed to answer Lord

North's "Conciliatory Proposition", 62;

assists in framing resolution instructing colonies to form

governments, 66;

his part in Declaration of Independence, 69, 70;

on committee to suggest United States seal, 86;

appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate treaties of Commerce

with foreign nations, 152, 162;

his wines, 160;

in favor of loose association of States, 196;

and the Barbary pirates, 206;

Jefferson gives estimate of, 248;

his quarrel with Jefferson, 259-261;

reelection of, as Vice-President, 273;

elected President, 319;

attempts reconciliation with Jefferson, 321, 322, 325;

inaugural address, 321, 322;

not a party man or party leader, 323;

a complicated and contradictory figure, 323;

action in XYZ case, 325, 331, 336-338, 348, 355;

nominated for Presidency in 1800, 362;

changes in his Cabinet, 368;

in election of 1800, 367-369;

"midnight" appointments, 373, 374;

refuses to welcome successor, 375;

reconciliation with Jefferson, 518, 519;

his study of religious controversies, 522;

on life, 527

Adams, John Quincy, removed from office by Jefferson, 382, 383

Adams, Samuel, 359, 361

Addison, Judge, deposition of, by Senate of Pennsylvania, 384

Albemarle resolutions, 45-47

Alexander I of Russia, 448

Algiers, 206

Alien Bills, 340, 342-347

Aliens, their right to hold real property denied, 151

Allen, Ethan, declaration concerning, drafted by Jefferson, 65

American civilization, underlying ideas of, 85.

American imperialism, 398-400

American public education, first charter of, 95-100

American Revolution, remonstrance in House of Burgesses, 38;

articles of association directed against British merchandise, 38;

as to causes of, 42;

effect of passage of Boston Port Bill, in Virginia, 43, 44;

proposal to form Congress, 44;

declaration of mutual defence, 45;

resolutions adopted by freeholders of Albemarle County, Va., 45-47;

resolutions adopted by Assembly of Fairfax County, 45-47;

regulation of American commerce, 46;

doctrine of expatriation, 47, 50;

first Continental Congress, 54;

second Continental Congress, 59;

Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition" answered, 62;

independence not at first aimed at, 63-65;

colonies instructed to form governments, 66;

Declaration of Independence, 69-71;

treatment of prisoners in, 109-112.

_See also_ British colonies

Americanism, cardinal principles of, 52, 61;

creed of, formulated by Jefferson, 62, 120;

Jefferson's conception of, when he wrote "Notes on Virginia", 136;

practical idealism a tenet of, 275;

pure, 334, 335;

definition of, 352;

Jefferson's system of, 423, 428, 468

Armstrong, Gen. John, American representative in Paris, 462

Arnold, Benedict, 108

"Arrears of Interest, Report on", Jefferson, 146

Articles of Confederation, discussion of, in Congress, 80;

defects in, 145, 146, 195, 197

"Assumption" of the State debts, 250-255

_Aurora_, journal, 311, 313, 343, 354

Austin, Benjamin, 491

Bache's _Aurora_, 311, 313, 343, 356

Balance of power, 476

Bank Bill, Hamilton's, 255-258

Bannister, J. B., Jr., letter to, 172

Barbary pirates, 205-207, 428, 443

Barbe-Marbois, secretary of French legation in United States, 118, 414

Bastille, capture of, 235

Bayard, James A., nominated plenipotentiary to French Republic, 373,

374

Bellini, letter to, 173

Berlin Decree, 450

Beveridge, Albert J., his "Life of Marshall", 384, 385, 434

Bill for a General Revision of the Laws, Virginia, 90

Bill for Amending the Charter for William and Mary, 98, 99, 105, 106

Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments, Virginia, 93-95

Bill for Religious Freedom, Virginia, 89, 100-103, 106, 365

Bill for the more General Diffusion of Knowledge, Virginia, 95-99,

105, 505, 508

Bill of Rights, 198-201, 204

Bill on the Naturalization of Foreigners, 89

Bill to Abolish Entails, Virginia, 88, 89

Bingham, Mrs., 160

Bishop, Samuel, appointed collector of New Haven, 381

Blennerhasset, Harman, and the Burr conspiracy, 431, 432

Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, his influence on Jefferson, 21, 23,

26, 31

Bollman, and the Burr conspiracy, 432, 433

Bonaparte, his projected invasion of England, 336;

Jefferson's opinion of, 359, 475, 476;

precedent established by, 360

Boston Port Bill, 43

Brazil, 483

Breckenridge, James, on board of visitors of University of

Virginia, 509

Breckenridge, John, letters to, 370, 371, 416

British colonies, contractual theory of government of, 45, 46;

regulation of commerce of, 46, 47;

rights of, 48-53.

_See also_ American Revolution

Brunswick, Duke of, defeat, 273

Buchan, Lord, letter to, 444

Budget, presented by Jefferson, 146

Buffon, G. L. L. de, theory of, concerning

animals in America, 121, 122

Burke, "History of Virginia", 12, 515

Burlamaqui, Jean Jacques, quotation from, 73

Burnaby, English tourist, quoted on Virginia colonists, 42

Burr, Col. Aaron, letters to, 332, 354;

nominated for Vice-Presidency (1800), 362;

in the 1800-election, 369-373;

his presence in government an annoyance to Jefferson, 382;

conspiracy, 429-439;

duel with Hamilton, 431

Burwell, Rebecca, and Jefferson, 16, 17

Cabanis, P. J. G., 161;

letter to, 422

Cabell, Joseph C., 507;

on board of visitors of University of Virginia, 509;

letters to, 512

Cabell, Gov. William H., 451

Cabinet, the President's, in Washington's time, 247;

Adams's, 322, 323, 368;

relation to President, 392

Callender, 356, 427;

employed by Jefferson, 361;

Jefferson's interest in, 363;

his pamphlet, "The Prospect Before Us" ("History of the

Administration of John Adams"), 382

Calonne, Charles Alexandre de, 178, 182

Calvinism, 522

Canning, George, 453

Capital, of United States, seat of, 252, 253

Capitol, at Washington, the new, question of putting inscription

on, 479

Caracas, constitution of, 498

Carleton, Guy, governor of Canada, 111

Carmichael, 198, 211, 226, 263, 276, 288

Carr, Dabney, death, 40, 41

Carr, Peter, 21, 175

Carrington, Edward, letters to, 196, 213, 219

Carthagenes, constitution of, 498

Cary, Col. Archibald, 139

_Ceres_, sailing-vessel, 153, 159

Champion de Cice, Archbishop of Bordeaux, 235

Charlottesville, Va., war prisoners at, 109

Chase, Judge Samuel, impeachment of, 387-389

Chastellux, Chevalier de, friend of Jefferson, 154

_Chesapeake-Leopard_ affair, 451-453

Church, Mrs., 298, 299

Church of England, in Virginia, 90, 103

Cincinnati, Society of the, 152, 306

Clay, Rev. Mr. Charles, subscription for support of, 103-105

Clinton, George, Vice-President, 395, 463, 464

Cocke, J. H., on board of visitors of University of Virginia, 509

Collot, Gen., 402

Colvin, J. B., letter to, 469

Comite du Commerce, 178, 183

Commerce, one of the great causes of war, 83;

Treaty of, 143, 144;

Gallo-American, 181-184;

Report of Jefferson on Privileges and Restrictions of, 302

Commercial monopolies, 151, 152

Commercial treaties, 149-152

Committees of safety, 54

Confederation, Treaty of Commerce, 143, 144;

defects in, 145, 146, 195, 197;

monetary system, 146, 147;

new States, 148; slavery, 148, 149;

hereditary titles, 148, 149;

commercial treaties, 149-152.

_See also_ Articles of Confederation; United States

Congress, first proposal for, 44.

_See also_ Continental Congress

Congressional election, _see_ Election

Congressional Library, destroyed by English, 476

Constitution of United States, 195-202

Continental Congress, First, 54, 83;

Second, 59;

of the Confederation, 143-152

Contraband, 151, 152, 422, 423

Cooper, Thomas, 510; letters to, 492, 512, 521

Coray, Mr., 516

Corny, M. de, 234

Corny, Madame de, 161, 245, 246, 274, 298, 299

Correa de Serra, 484, 516

Coxe, Tench, letters to, 304, 371, 372

Crawford, Dr. John, letter to, 480

Crimes and punishments, in Virginia, 93-95

Cuba, 470, 485

Cutting, letter to, 225

Dalrymple, Sir John, his "Essay Towards a General History of Feudal

Property", 30

Dandridge, Mr., 14

Danville, Duchesse, 274

Deane, Silas,

quoted on Southern delegates to first Continental Congress, 42;

elected commissioner to France, 87

Dearborn, Henry, Secretary of War in Jefferson's Cabinet, 374

Debts of United States, foreign, domestic, and State, 250-255, 258

"Declaration Europeenne des droits de l'homme et du citoyen",

Lafayette, 232-234

Declaration of Independence, the story of, 69-71;

origin of, 71-74, 77;

as literature, 72;

"the pursuit of happiness" in, 75-76;

highest achievement of eighteenth-century philosophy, 76;

suggests tone of Greek tragedy, 77

Declaration of Rights of 1774, 73

Declaration on Violation of Rights, adopted by First Continental

Congress, 83

Dejean, Lieut., 111

_Democrat_, sailing-vessel, 294

Democratic societies, 306, 334

De Moustier, letter to, 254

Destutt de Tracy, A. L. C., meeting with Jefferson, 161;

letter to, 484;

his "Political Economy", 495;

living embodiment of political faith of nineteenth century, 514

Dexter, Samuel, Secretary of War in Adams's Cabinet, 368;

Secretary of the Treasury in Adams's Cabinet, 374

Dickinson, John, in Continental Congress, 60;

letter of, 361

Dictator, proposition for appointment of, 127, 128

Douglas, Dr., clergyman, 5, 20

Duane, William, flogged, 355;

letter to, 475

Dumas, financial agent of the United States at the Hague, 185, 187,

197, 209, 252, 253, 289

Dunbar, William, discussions with Jefferson, 371

Dunglison, Dr., on visitors at Monticello, 516;

on Jefferson's religious belief, 520;

his account of Jefferson's death, 531

Dunmore, John Murray, Earl of, governor of Virginia, 43, 44, 54, 55,

66

Du Pont de Nemours, Pierre S., Jefferson's association with, 215;

his "Plan of a National Education", 358, 506, 507, 512;

theories and practice of, 395;

correspondence with Jefferson, 405-409, 411, 414, 415, 420, 452,

471, 478, 493, 497, 498, 514;

and the Louisiana problem, 407-409, 412-415;

never fully understood Jefferson, 496;

draws up plan of government for the "Equinoctial republics", 498;

living embodiment of political faith of nineteenth century, 513, 514

Edwards, Jonathan, 430

Election, of 1792, 272, 273;

of 1796, 316-319;

of 1800, 363-373;

of 1804, 389, 395

Ellsworth, Oliver, appointed Plenipotentiary to France, 355

Embargo of 1807, 428, 456-462, 470, 471

"Encyclopedie Methodique", 160, 214

English, their monopoly of the American market, 326, 327

Entails, abolished in Virginia, 88, 89

Epicurism, 521

Eppes, Mrs., sister of Mrs. Jefferson, 153

Equinoctial republics, 498

Essex case, 447

Estaing, Admiral d', 206

Euripides, 22, 24

Eustis, Dr. William, letter to, 461

Excise tax, 254, 255, 393;

revolt against (Whisky Insurrection), 305, 306;

Jefferson's bitterness against, 306, 307

Expatriation, doctrine of, 47, 50, 89, 107

Fairfax resolutions, 45-48

Farmers-general, 177-181

Farming taxes, 177-181

Fauquier, Dr., of Floirac, 12

Fauquier, Gov. Francis, his intimacy with Jefferson, 12, 13

Federal Government, prerogatives of, 83

_Federalist_, the, 200

Federalists, their power broken, 355, 362;

in election of 1800, 367-373, 389;

in Jefferson's administration, 380, 381

Feudal system, abolishment of, in Virginia, 88, 89

Fleming, William, letters to, 78, 79;

on committee on religion, 89

Florida, Western and Eastern, 445, 446

Foster, Dwight, Senator, makes offer to Jefferson, 373

Fox blockade, 450

France, educational system of, 98;

colonizing designs of, feared, 207;

difficulties with, 288, 323-325, 331-342, 440, 447-462.

_See also_ French Revolution

Franklin, Benjamin, on committee of Continental Congress appointed

to answer Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition", 62;

his part in Declaration of Independence, 69, 70;

on committee to suggest United States seal, 86;

elected commissioner to France, 87;

Jefferson's view of, 122;

appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate treaties of

commerce, 152, 162;

interview with Jefferson, 247

Franklin, William Temple, papers entrusted to, by Benjamin Franklin,

247

Free ports, 182

Freedom of speech, 427

Freedom of the press, importance of, 203, 427

Freedom of thought, Jefferson's understanding of, 103

Freeholders, rights of, 52

French constitution, 143

French debt, of United States, 176, 177, 181, 182, 184-193

French Revolution, Declaration of June 23, 1793, 76;

Declaration of May 29, 1793, 82;

Assembly of the Notables, 219-222, 225;

convocation of States-General, 227, 229;

National Assembly, 231, 232;

capture of the Bastille, 235;

defeat of Duke of Brunswick, 273;

becomes international issue, 279;

flight of king, 282;

execution of king, 287

Freneau, Philip, his paper, the _National Gazette_, 261-263, 269

Fry, Joshua, professor in William and Mary College, 5

Gallatin, Albert, defies excise law, 305;

speech of, 311;

letter to, 480

Gates, Horatio, letters to, 416, 445

_Gazette of the United States_, attacks Jefferson, 268, 269

Geismer, Baron de, 110, 163

Generations of men, rights of, 234

Genet, Citizen Edmond C., the case of, 288-297

Gerry, Elbridge, letters to, 325, 351-353;

appointed envoy extraordinary to France, 333

Ghent, Treaty of, 485

Giles, William B., and Jefferson, 311;

letters to, 307, 309, 436

Gilmer, Francis Walker, and Jefferson, 253;

sent to England to recruit faculty for University of Virginia, 511

"Government by the people", 237

Granger, Gideon, letter to, 363

Great Britain, United States debt to, 186-193;

her hatred of United States, 208, 209;

and France, war between, 288, 440, 447-462;

her navy, policies of, in regard to contraband and impressment,

422, 423

Greene, William, letter to, 356

Hamilton, Alexander,

quarrel with Jefferson, 127, 255-258, 263, 265, 266, 268-271;

Secretary of the Treasury, 247;

Jefferson gives estimate of, 248;

Reports of, 249;

his Bank Bill, 255-257;

his actions supported by Washington, 271;

attitude toward England, 290;

and Whisky Insurrection, 306;

would encourage American manufactures, 327, 443;

his plans of administrative reorganization, 349, 350;

in election campaign of 1800, 367, 368;

duel with Burr, 431

Hamilton, Gov., of Kaskakias, 111

Hammond, George, British minister to United States, 291, 292

Hardy, Samuel, delegate to Congress from Virginia, 140

Harrison, Gov., letters to, 145, 415

Hawkesbury, Lord, 402, 404

Hawkins, Col. Benjamin, discussions with Jefferson, 358;

letter to, 364

Hay, George, 436

Helvetius, Madame, 161, 215

Henry, Patrick, and Jefferson, 14, 15, 26, 27, 37, 63;

his study of the law, 28;

after passage of Boston Port Bill, 43;

and Jefferson's "Summary View", 47;

speech at second Virginia Convention, 54;

opposes Bill to Abolish Entails, 89;

seconds motion for appointment of dictator, 127;

appointed Plenipotentiary to France, 355

Hereditary titles, in the Confederation, 148, 149

Hervey, John, guardian of Jefferson, 8

Hobbes, Thomas, 82

Holland, United States debt to, 187-193

Hopkinson, Francis, 200

Hopkinson, Mrs., 153

Houdetot, Madame d', 161, 274

Howe, Lord, negotiations of Franklin with, 247

Howick, Lord, 450

Humboldt, Baron Alexander von, letter to, 481

Humphreys, Col. David, secretary of legation in Paris, 153, 159, 223,

228

Immigration, Jefferson's views of, 123-125

Impeachment, the Republican understanding of, 385, 387

"Implied powers", doctrine of, 256

Impressment, of British sailors on neutral vessels, 423;

an issue of the War of 1812, 478

Income tax, 494

Indians, 7;

study of customs and languages of, 99;

atrocities of, in American Revolution, 111;

eloquence of, 121;

affairs of, treated in Jefferson's second inaugural, 425-427

Industrialism, dangers of, 492

Isham, Mary, 3

Jackson, Andrew, 431

Jacobins, _see_ Republicans

Jay, John, letters to, 223, 224, 231, 234, 236, 239.

_See also_ Jay treaty

Jay, Gov. John, letter to, 491

Jay treaty, 305, 307, 308, 316, 324

Jefferson, Lucy Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Jefferson, 139;

death, 163

Jefferson, Martha, daughter of Thomas Jefferson,

her account of Mrs. Jefferson's death, 138;

date of birth, 139;

accompanies father to Europe, 153, 159;

marriage, 246;

at Monticello, 300;

Jefferson's farewell message to, 532

Jefferson, Mary, daughter of Thomas Jefferson, 139, 161;

joins father in Paris, 163

Jefferson, Peter, father of Thomas Jefferson, 4, 5

Jefferson, Mrs. Peter, _see_ Randolph, Jane