MR. JEFFERSON'S ADVICE
"Merne, my boy," said Thomas Jefferson, when at length they two were
alone once more in the little office, "I cannot say what your return
means to me. You come as one from the grave--you resurrect another
from the grave."
"Meaning, Mr. Jefferson?----"
"You surely have heard that my administration is in sad disrepute?
There is no man in the country hated so bitterly as myself. We are
struggling on the very verge of war."
"I heard some talk in the West, Mr. Jefferson," hesitated Meriwether
Lewis.
"Yes, they called this Louisiana Purchase, on which I had set my
heart, nothing but extravagance. The machinations of Colonel Burr have
added nothing to its reputation. General Jackson is with Burr, and
many other strong friends. And meantime you know where Burr himself
is--in the Richmond jail. I understand that his friend, Mr. Merry, has
gone yonder to visit him. Our country is degenerated to be no more
than a scheming-ground, a plotting-place, for other powers. You come
back just in the nick of time. You have saved this administration!
You bring back success with you. If the issue of your expedition were
anything else, I scarce know what would be my own case here. For
myself, that would have mattered little; but as to this country for
which I have planned so much, your failure would have cost us all the
Mississippi Valley, besides all the valley of the Missouri and the
Columbia. Yes, had you not succeeded, Aaron Burr would have succeeded!
Instead of a great republic reaching from ocean to ocean, we should
have had a scattered coterie of States of no endurance, no continuity,
no power. Thank God for the presence of one great, splendid thing
gloriously done! You cannot, do not, begin to measure its importance."
"We are glad that you have been pleased, Mr. Jefferson," said Lewis
simply.
"Pleased! Pleased! Say rather that I am saved! Say rather that this
country is saved! Had you proved disloyal to me--had you for any cause
turned back," he went on, "think what had been the result! What a
load, although you knew it not, was placed on your shoulders! Suppose
that you had turned back on the trail last year, or the summer
before--suppose you had not gotten beyond the Mandans--can you measure
the difference for this republic? Can you begin to see what
responsibility rested on you? Had you failed, you would have dragged
the flag of your country in the dust. Had you come back any time
before you did, then you might have called yourself the man who ruined
his President, his friend, his country!"
"And I nearly did, Mr. Jefferson!" broke out Meriwether Lewis. "Do
not praise me too much. I was tempted----"
The old man turned toward him, his face grave.
"You are honest! I value that above all in you--you are punctilious to
have no praise not honestly won. Listen, now!" He leaned toward the
young man, who sat beside him. "I know--I knew all along--how you were
tempted. She came here--Theodosia--the very day you left!"
Lewis nodded, mute.
"In some way, I knew, the conspirators fought against your success and
mine. I knew what agencies they intended to use against you--it was
this woman! Had you failed, I should have known why. I know many
things, whether or not you do. I know the character of Aaron Burr well
enough. He has been crazed, carried away by his own ambitions--God
alone knows where he would have stopped. He has been a man not
surpassed in duplicity. He would stop at nothing. Moreover, he could
make black look white. He did so for his daughter. She believed in him
absolutely. And knowing somewhat of his plans, I imagined that he
would use the attraction of that young lady for you--the power which,
all things considered, she might be supposed to possess with you. I
knew the depth of your regard for her, the deeper for its
hopelessness. And more than all, I knew the intentness and resolution
of your character. It was one motive against the other! Which was the
stronger? You were a young man--the hot blood of youth was yours, and
I know its power. Had the woman not been married, I should have lost!
You would have sold a crown for her. It was honor saved you--your
personal honor--that was what brought us success. No country is bigger
than the personal honor of its gentlemen."
The bowed head of Meriwether Lewis was his only answer. The keen-faced
old man went on:
"I knew that before you had left the mouth of the Ohio River he would
do his best to stop you--I knew it before you had left Harper's Ferry;
but I placed the issue in the lap of the gods. I applied to you all
the tests--the severest tests--that one man can to another. I let you
alone! For a year, two years, three years, I did not know. But now I
do know; and the answer is yonder flag which you have carried from one
ocean to the other. The answer is in this map, all these hides
scrawled in coal--all those new thousands of miles of land--_our_
land. God keep it safe for us always! And may the people one day know
who really secured it for them! It was not so much Thomas Jefferson as
it was Meriwether Lewis.
"Each time I dreamed that my subtle enemies were tempting you, I
prayed in my own soul that you would be strong; that you would go on;
that you would be loyal to your duty, no matter what the cost. God
answered those prayers, my boy! Whatever was your need, whatever price
you paid, you did what I prayed you would do. When the months passed
and you did not come back, I knew that not even the woman you loved
could have called you back. I knew that you had learned the priceless
lesson of renunciation, of sacrifice, through which alone the great
deeds of the world always have been done."
Meriwether Lewis stood before his chief, cold and pale, unable to
complete much speech. Thomas Jefferson looked at him for a moment
before he went on.
"My boy, you are so simple that you will not understand. You do not
understand how well I understand you! These things are not done
without cost. If there was punishment for you, you took that
punishment--or you will! You kept your oath as an officer and your
unwritten oath as a gentleman. It is a great thing for a man to have
his honor altogether unsullied."
"Mr. Jefferson!" The young man before him lifted a hand. His face was
ghastly pale. "Do not," said he. "Do not, I beg of you!"
"What is it, Merne?" exclaimed the old man. "What have I done?"
"You speak of my honor. Do not! Indeed, you touch me deep."
Thomas Jefferson, wise old man, raised a hand.
"I shall never listen, my son," said he. "I will accord to you the
right of hot blood to run hot--you would not be a man worth knowing
were it not so. All I know or will know is that whatever the price,
you have paid it--or will pay it! But tell me, Merne, can you not tear
her from your soul? It will ruin you, this hopeless attachment which
you cherish. Is it always to remain with you? I bid you find some
other woman. The best in the land are waiting for you."
"Mr. Jefferson, I shall never marry."
The two sat looking into each other's eyes for just a moment. Said
Thomas Jefferson at length, slowly:
"So! You have come back with all happiness, all success, for me and
for others--but not for yourself! Such proving as you have had has
fallen to the lot of but few men. I know now how great has been the
cost--I see it in your face. The fifteen millions I paid for yonder
lands was nothing. We have bought them with the happiness of a human
soul! The transient gratitude of this republic--the honor of that
little paper--bah, they are nothing! But perhaps it may be something
for you to know that at least one friend understands."
Lewis did not speak.
"What is lost is lost," the President began again after a time. "What
is broken is broken. But see how clearly I look into your soul. You
are not thinking now of what you can do for yourself. You are not
thinking of your new rank, your honors. You are asking now, at this
moment, what you can do for _her_! Is it not so?"
The smile that came upon the young man's face was a beautiful, a
wonderful thing to see. It made the wise old man sad to see it--but
thoughtful, too.
"She is at Richmond, Merne?" said Mr. Jefferson a moment later.
The young man nodded.
"And the greatest boon she could ask would be her father's
freedom--the freedom of the man who sought to ruin this country--the
man whom I scarcely dare release."
The thin lips compressed for a moment. It was not in implacable,
vengeful zeal--it was but in thought.
"Now, then," said Thomas Jefferson sharply, "there comes a veil, a
curtain, between you and me and all the world. No record must show
that either of us raised a hand against the full action of the law, or
planned that Colonel Burr should not suffer the full penalty of the
code. Yes, for him that is true--but _not for his daughter_!"
"Mr. Jefferson!" The face of Meriwether Lewis was strangely moved. "I
see the actual greatness of your soul; but I ask nothing."
"Why, in my heart I feel like flinging open every prison door in the
world. If you have gained an empire for your country, and paid for it
as you have, could not a great and rich country afford to pay to the
extent of a woman's happiness? When a king is crowned, he sets free
the criminals. And this day I feel as proud and happy as if I were a
king--and king of the greatest empire of all the world! I know well
who assured that kingdom. Let me be, then"--he raised his long
hand--"say nothing, do nothing. And let this end all talk between us
of these matters. I know you can keep your own counsel."
Lewis bowed silently.
"Go to Richmond, Merne. You will find there a broken conspirator and
his unhappy daughter. Both are ostracized. None is so poor as to do
either of them reverence. She has no door opened to her now, though
but lately she was daughter of the Vice-President, the rich Mrs.
Alston, wife of the Governor of her State. Go to them now. Tell
Colonel Burr that the President will not ask mercy for him. John
Marshall is on the bench there; but before him is a jury--John
Randolph is foreman of that jury. It is there that case will be
tried--in the jury room; and _politics will try it_! Go to Theodosia,
Merne, in her desperate need."
"But what can I do, Mr. Jefferson?" broke out his listener.
"Do precisely what I tell you. Go to that social outcast. Take her on
your arm before all the world--_and before that jury_! Sit there,
before all Richmond--and that jury. An hour or so will do. Do that,
and then, as I did when I trusted you, ask no questions, but leave it
on the knees of the gods. If you can call me chief in other matters,"
the President concluded, "and can call me chief in that fashion of
thought which men call religion as well, let me give you unction and
absolution, my son. It is all that I have to give to one whom I have
always loved as if he were my own son. This is all I can do for you.
It may fail; but I would rather trust that jury to be right than trust
myself today; because, I repeat, I feel like flinging open every
prison door in all the world, and telling every erring, stumbling man
to try once more to do what his soul tells him he ought to do!"