Thomas Jefferson, The Apostle Of Americanism - free ebook by Gilbert Chinard

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1929

9 minute read

Read Chapter

INTRODUCTION

This study of Jefferson's mind is the indirect outcome of an ambitious undertaking on which I launched about ten years ago. My original purpose had been to determine more exactly than had heretofore been done the contribution of the French thinkers to the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. The points of similarity were obvious: the parallelism between the theory of natural rights and the Déclaration des droits de l'homme is patent; the American statesman shared with the French "doctrinair

18 minute read

Read Chapter

A VIRGINIA BOYHOOD

The peoples of the Old World worship at the birthplaces of their national heroes and bury their mortal remains in splendid mausoleums, pantheons or Westminster Abbeys. By a significant and symbolic contrast, the memories of Washington and Jefferson are enshrined in no ancestral homes, but in the mansions planned with loving care, in which they so expressed themselves that their very spirit seems to haunt the deserted rooms of Mount Vernon and Monticello. They are buried according to their wishes

23 minute read

Read Chapter

AN AMERICAN DISCIPLE OF GREECE AND OLD ENGLAND

Until very recently the material for a study of the formative years of Thomas Jefferson was very scanty. Many of his earliest letters have disappeared and he always felt a strong disinclination to analyze himself in writing. It was also contrary to his training and to the customs of his milieu to discuss personal matters too frankly and too openly. An American Jean-Jacques Rousseau baring his heart to posterity would have been as out of place as a man from the moon in New England or Virginia. Bu

21 minute read

Read Chapter

A VIRGINIA LAWYER

In 1767, Thomas Jefferson, then twenty-four years of age, was "led into the practice of the law at the bar of the General Court" by his friend and mentor, Mr. Wythe. He was the owner of a substantial estate inherited from his father, and he managed the family property of Shadwell, but he had already formed plans for an establishment of his own and begun preparations to build Monticello on the other side of the Rivanna. The only future open to him seemed to be that of any young Virginian of his s

31 minute read

Read Chapter

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

When Thomas Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia and took lodgings with "Ben Randolph" on Chestnut Street, he was only thirty-three years old, "the youngest member of Congress but one." But he was already known as the author of the "Summary View of the Rights of British America", he was bringing with him Virginia's answer to Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition," and he had been appointed to succeed as delegate the former President of Congress. Most of all he had behind him, not only the first co

40 minute read

Read Chapter

THE REVISION OF THE LAWS OF VIRGINIA

At the meeting of July 4, 1776, Congress, after adopting the Declaration of Independence, " Resolved , That Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, be a committee, to bring in a device for a seal for the United States of America." [54] Among the several suggestions made in the committee, the one proposed by Jefferson, according to John Adams, deserves particular attention: "Mr. Jefferson proposed, the children of Israel in the wilderness led by a cloud by day, and a pillar by night—and on

32 minute read

Read Chapter

GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA—THE "NOTES ON VIRGINIA"

Jefferson served two years as Governor of the Commonwealth and when he wrote his "Autobiography" he gave only a short paragraph to this episode of his eventful career, referring for more details to Girardin's continuation of Burk's "History of Virginia." The student of law, the erudite jurist, and classical scholar was by the choice of the Assembly entrusted with the duties and responsibilities of a war chief, and it cannot be said that Jefferson enjoyed the experience. The duties of governor we

44 minute read

Read Chapter

A STATESMAN'S APPRENTICESHIP

The year 1782 was for Jefferson a year of trial and suffering. A child was born to Mrs. Jefferson on May 8; she never recovered fully and soon it appeared that she was irrevocably doomed. This tragic, touching story had better be told in the simple words of his daughter Martha, then nine years of age: As a nurse no female had ever more tenderness nor anxiety. He nursed my poor mother in turn with aunt Carr and her own sister—sitting up with her and administering her medicines and drink to the la

26 minute read

Read Chapter

SOCIETY AND TRAVEL

The Ceres reached Portsmouth nineteen days after leaving Boston, a remarkably swift passage, without incident, except for three days spent in fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland, while the ship was becalmed. Jefferson and his companions were delayed a week in Portsmouth by Martha's slight illness, and then went directly to Paris, where he arrived on August 6, 1784. Jefferson was to remain in France till the fall of 1789—five years crowded with pleasures, social duties, political duties, and har

25 minute read

Read Chapter

GALLO-AMERICAN COMMERCE AND THE DEBT QUESTION

After Franklin's departure from Paris, Jefferson was left officially in charge of the diplomatic relations of the United States with the French Court. Adams was in London and Carmichael in Madrid, and with them he exchanged extensive communications. But the Paris legation was really the headquarters of American diplomacy, and the problems that came up taxed the ingenuity and all the intellectual resources Jefferson could command. Summing up his activities in Paris, he declared with too much mode

24 minute read

Read Chapter

UNION AND ISOLATION

Even an incomplete survey of Jefferson's activities in Paris would convince any one that at all times the preoccupation uppermost in his mind was to defend and further the interests of the United States. He shared practically without any reservation the commonly accepted theory of his time that self-interest is the most powerful motive of human actions, and that enlightened self-interest is the true foundation of morality. Never a sentimentalist, he felt it his duty to put all the questions he h

31 minute read

Read Chapter

JEFFERSON AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Jefferson has often been represented, both by his enemies and friends, as the American exponent of the theories of the French Revolution. The possible influence exerted upon the development of his political philosophy by French thought has been the subject of lengthy discussions and probably will never be determined with any degree of exactness. It is very difficult to see how a man of his character could have remained in Paris for more than five years without participating in some manner in the

40 minute read

Read Chapter

THE QUARREL WITH HAMILTON

For more than two years Jefferson had repeatedly expressed the wish to be allowed to return to his native country, at least for a short visit. When he finally received official notification that his request had been granted, he departed from Paris rather abruptly and even without taking leave of his best friends. "Adieus are painful," he wrote to Madame de Corny, "therefore I left Paris without bidding one to you." [234] This is a naïve and quite significant confession of the difficulty he exper

43 minute read

Read Chapter

JACOBIN OR AMERICAN?

One of the first duties of Jefferson in taking charge of foreign affairs was to explain to his French friends, who on the other side of the Atlantic had been accustomed to look up to him as a guide and counsellor, the reasons which had determined his choice to remain in America. To Madame de Corny, the Duchesse Danville, the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Madame d'Houdetot, he wrote gracefully worded notes, in the best style of the society of the time. In France, among other things, he had learned how

35 minute read

Read Chapter

MONTICELLO—AGRICULTURE AND POLITICS

When Jefferson left Philadelphia for what he sincerely believed would be definite retirement from the field of politics, he felt weary, tired, and already old. He had transacted all the business of his office with a minimum of clerical assistance, attending himself to all the details not only of foreign but also of domestic affairs, sometimes translating documents which he did not trust Freneau with, preparing reports for the President, digging in his manuals of international law, Wolfe, Puffend

34 minute read

Read Chapter

"THE DICTATES OF REASON AND PURE AMERICANISM"

When Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia to attend the inauguration of the new President, he had not seen Adams for four years and only insignificant communications had passed between them, since Madison had thought it proper to suppress the letter written by Jefferson at the end of December, not knowing "whether the rather difficult temper of Mr. Adams would not construe certain passages as a personal criticism." [339] With Adams, however, the first impulse was often the best. At the time he felt

32 minute read

Read Chapter

POLITICAL LEADER AND STRATEGIST

When Jefferson went home after the adjournment of Congress he remained completely silent for two months. But the newspaper war went on in Philadelphia with more virulence than ever: attacks against the arch plotter and the defender of the French Jacobins were multiplied, prosecutions were begun in Massachusetts under the Sedition Act and for a time Jefferson himself seems to have feared for his own safety. To Samuel Smith, who had sent him a clipping in which he was vehemently accused, he answer

16 minute read

Read Chapter

"ALL REPUBLICANS, ALL FEDERALISTS"

The battle over, Jefferson's first and only desire seems to have been to bring about a reunion of the former political opponents. He had hardly been elected when he declared that he was not the choice of one party, but that the analysis of the last ballot showed clearly that "the former federalists have found themselves aggregated with us and that they are in a state of mind to be aggregated with us." [415] And this, much to the surprise and disappointment of the militants who had fought the har

25 minute read

Read Chapter

PROTECTIVE IMPERIALISM AND TERRITORIAL EXPANSION

The famous Inaugural Message of Jefferson gave more space to questions of domestic politics than to foreign problems, but it contained a clear definition of America's attitude towards Europe—a short and terse statement in which the President reiterated the principles which had guided him when Secretary of State. These were the same principles that underlay the foreign policies of the United States from the early days of the Revolution. They had already appeared in the Plan of Treaties drawn up b

43 minute read

Read Chapter

"SELF-PRESERVATION IS PARAMOUNT TO ALL LAW"

When, on the fourth of March, 1805, Jefferson began his second term, he had a right to review with some complacency the achievements of his first administration. To foreign affairs he scarcely granted a short paragraph, but he pointed out with great details the suppression of unnecessary offices, the reduction of taxes, the fact that the Federal Government was almost entirely supported by duties levied on importations, so that "it may be the pleasure and pride of an American to ask, what farmer,

22 minute read

Read Chapter

"PEACE AND COMMERCE WITH EVERY NATION"

War is not always an unmixed curse, at least for nations who manage to remain neutral while the rest of the world is torn by calamitous conflicts. Europe's misfortune had been to some extent America's good fortune. With comparatively short intermissions, France and England were engaged in a death struggle from 1793 to 1815, and although Britannia ruled the sea, the belligerents had to resort to neutral shipping. The exports of the United States, which were valued at only nineteen millions in 179

36 minute read

Read Chapter

"AMERICA HAS A HEMISPHERE TO ITSELF"

When, after a long and fatiguing journey, Thomas Jefferson reached Monticello in the spring of 1809, he was in his sixty-third year and had well earned his "quadragena stipendia." But the Republic did not serve any pension to retired Presidents. For more than twelve years he had perforce neglected his domain, and his son-in-law, who had been in charge of the estate for some time, was scarcely a man to be intrusted with the administration of complicated financial interests. A large part of Jeffer

31 minute read

Read Chapter

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 bet

35 minute read

Read Chapter

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 t

29 minute read

Read Chapter