: CONTENTS

THE CARES OF A SEPTUAGENARIAN

XX The Solicitous Grandfather 285

XXI The Harassments of Debt, 1817-1822 301

XXII The Hopes and Fears of a Slaveholder 316

XXIII Firebell in the Night: The Missouri Question 328

XXIV Republicanism, Consolidation, and State Rights 345

THE OLD SACHEM

XXV Foundations and Frustrations: The University.

1819-1821 XXVI The Empty Village, 1820-1824 XXVII A Bold Mission and a Memorable Visit XXVIII Life Comes to the University, 1825 XXIX A Last Look at Public Affairs

365

381

397 411 426

FINISHING THE COURSE

XXX The Changing Family Scene XXXI A Troubled Twilight XXXII The End of the Day

447 463

479

APPENDICES

I Descendants of Thomas Jefferson II Jefferson's Financial Affairs III The Hemings Family

Acknowledgments

List of Symbols and Short Titles

Select Critical Bibliography

Index

501

513

515

517 521 537

Introduction

THIS book deals with the life of Thomas Jefferson between his retirement from the presidency on March 4, 1809, and his death at Monti cello on July 4, 1826. It concludes the comprehensive biography entitled Jefferson and His Time. I began work on that in 1943, shortly after the celebration of his bicentennial, and published Jefferson the Virginian on his birthday five years later. In the introduction I stated that I hoped to complete the study in four volumes. By the time I wrote the next introduction I had concluded that five volumes would be required to maintain the scale of the first, and I eventually felt compelled to extend the number to six. Even so, I have left out much I would have liked to include and cannot hope to have done full justice to a virtually inexhaustible subject.

I prudently refrained from making a precise prediction of the time that would be required to complete the task. Like the construction of Mon-ticello this work of historical biography has suffered considerable interruption. During one stretch of six or seven years I could devote practically no time to it. As a result there was a lapse of more than a decade between the appearance of Volume II in 1951 and that of Volume III in 1962. It was in the latter year that I was relieved of academic duties and entered upon the period of technical retirement during which the last three volumes of the work were written. In each of these I have made some reference to the fortunate combination of circumstances which enabled me to remain busy and productive when I might have been turned out to pasture.

This final volume covers more time than any of the others except the first and has the greatest diversity of them all. Because of the variety of Jefferson's activities and the lack of a dominant narrative thread such as was provided by public events when he was in office, I have resorted more often than hitherto to topical treatment. I hope I have been reasonably successful in avoiding excessive repetition on the one hand and imperfect synchronization on the other.

Jefferson was not strictly correct when he said that he had been continuously in public service for forty years. Actually there were a few

breaks, but during almost his entire maturity he had been a public man. Again and again he had contrasted the miseries of official position with the blessings of private life. When he ferried across the Potomac on his way homeward shortly before he became sixty-six, he had no way of knowing that he would never do so again, but he was determined to remain a private citizen. Leaving affairs of state to President James Madison, whom he trusted implicitly, he avoided the very appearance of sharing the determination of public policy.

Though he claimed to be reading Tacitus and Thucydides rather than newspapers, he remained well informed about developments both at home and abroad. His correspondence provides an illuminating commentary on the main events of the time. In his private letters Jefferson spoke with candor and often with extravagance. He was frequently embarrassed by the unwarranted publication of extracts from these. On the other hand he was glad for certain letters of his to be passed around. Some of them were influential, but in general it can be said that he had slight influence on national policies during his retirement. His prestige with his contemporaries increased with the passing years, but posterity was the real beneficiary of his writings.

The blessings Jefferson expected to enjoy as a private citizen were positive as well as negative. Not only would he escape from public cares and quarrels; he would escape to his family, his farms, and his books. This he did, but the results were not in full accord with his sanguine anticipations. He knew he would face financial problems. As an ex-President of the United States he received no pension. At no time did he profit in a monetary way from his writings or his inventions. Already burdened with debt, he had only his farms to depend on. His sad financial history is recorded in considerable detail in this book. Jefferson may have lacked managerial skill, as he himself said, and his absorption in public matters had undoubtedly prevented him from giving his personal affairs the attention they deserved. But his ultimate insolvency was primarily owing to factors beyond his control.

The ex-President, who had so often complained when in office that he was deprived of family life, suffered no lack of it in retirement. His daughter Martha, with her large and growing brood, lived with him at Monticello. A couple of his grandchildren usually accompanied him on visits to Poplar Forest, his second home. He had a dozen grandchildren altogether, including Francis Eppes, the son of his deceased daughter Maria. They adored and revered the kindly patriarch and contributed greatly to his happiness. His hospitality was imposed upon by relatives, but he bore with equanimity his responsibilities as the head of the clan.

The physician who attended him in his last months said that no one could have been more amiable in domestic relations. Life at Monticello was not always tranquil, but Jefferson was at his best as a family man.

In his old age he must have been more aware of the limitations of agriculture as a means of livelihood than when he penned the rhapsody that appeared in his Notes on Virginia, but he continued to regard the cultivation of the soil as the most delightful of occupations. In the long run he may have found rural life less blissful than Horace and Cicero made it out to be. But he found great enjoyment in it — cultivating his garden and riding over his red hills.

In the spring of 1815 he entrusted the management of his Albemarle farms to his grandson Jeff Randolph. He did not cease to be an outdoor man at the age of seventy-two, but he may be said to have attained full stature as a bibliophile and patron of learning about this time. John Adams, reporting that the brightest young Bostonians were eager to visit the Sage of Monticello, introduced several of them to him. Pilgrimages to the shrine increased thereafter.

The Sage sold his superb library to Congress after the British burned the small one in the Capitol in Washington, but he promptly proceeded to assemble another. He now laid less emphasis on law and politics than previously and more on history and the ancient classics, which he read in the original until his dying day.

Not only did he pursue knowledge with delight and encourage others to do so; he served the cause of public enlightenment by creating institutions that were destined to endure. As a champion of individual freedom and self-government, Jefferson tended to minimize the value of institutions and even to fear them. Although a notable President in many ways, he had contributed little to the presidency as an institution. His contributions to executive procedure were not perpetuated. In his last years, however, he gave substance to his undying faith in private learning and public education in the form of a library and a university. He never claimed that he was the founder of the Library of Congress, but it was his virtual creation, and his title as father of the University of Virginia is beyond dispute.

While he himself regarded the establishment of this institution of higher learning as one of the most memorable achievements of his entire life, he failed to obtain for his state a full-bodied system of public education such as he had advocated for half a century. He w as c onv inced t hat only an£nligkt£Jied societ^was capable of genuine self-government an djhat no ign orant people could, maiat girr-rhrh'^od-giv en freedom. In the numerous papers and letters he wrote on this subject he"consistently

championed public education at all levels, laying greatest emphasis on the elementary stage. At the same time he clearly perceived the importance of trained leadership and recognized the usefulness of knowledge. His effort to establish in his own state a temple of freedom and fount of enlightenment is described in detail in this book. I have attempted to follow the long and complicated story of the struggle step by step.

After three or four years of tedious preliminaries, the University was chartered in 1819. This turned out to be one of the most discouraging years in the history of the commonwealth and for Jefferson himself. He had told John Adams that he steered his bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. He never ceased to be basically optimistic and his imperturbability in the face of disaster was frequently remarked upon. But the panic of 1819, the Missouri question, and the decisions of John Marshall plunged him into the deepest depression of spirit that he had known since the time of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

He sharply criticized the oligarchic constitution of Virginia and openly advocated its democratization. Although he had no direct responsibility for the state-rights movement in his commonwealth in the 1820's, he strongly supported it in private and was induced to express approval of its principles in public. At this stage, when he had little or no influence on the course of events, he assumed a defensive posture in response /to political developments and in reaction to economic trends. He deplored slavery and believed that ultimate emancipation was inevitable. On the other hand, he recognized the dangers of emancipation and de-\ nied the authority of Congress to intervene in the domestic affairs of a state. Confronted with a contradiction he could not resolve, he left this problem to another generation.

It took him and his supporters six years to make a living reality of the University that existed on paper. During this period there was little or no improvement in the economic situation in Virginia. The state, which lost its primacy in population by 1820, was clearly falling behind in influence and power in the Union. Under these circumstances Jefferson's role as a local patriot sometimes overshadowed that of Sage. He appealed to local interest in behalf of the University and expected it to be a bastion of republicanism against consolidation.

f In certain religious groups he aroused fears that were destined to persist. He was not always wise or tactful, but he consistently supported religious freedom and sought academic excellence. He had to curtail his program somewhat, but the University he created was unique. There was scarcely a thing in the original institution that he did not prescribe and many of his distinctive ideas were to be long-lived. The academical

village, whose beginnings I have had the pleasure of describing, is still intact. In 1976 it was voted "the proudest achievement of American architecture in the past 200 years." 1 It is a pity the author of the Declaration of Independence could not have been present to receive this accolade in person.

Many of Jefferson's contemporaries disapproved of both his buildings and his academic program. Speaking of the latter, one of his most sympathetic guests said that, while it was less impractical than he had feared, he was not sure that the institution could be successful. 2 Throughout Jefferson's career opponents and critics charged him with being an impractical theorist. In his seventy-sixth winter he told a friend that his plan for a complete system of public education in his state might be a "Utopian dream." In the twentieth century it would certainly not have been so regarded; it was merely ahead of its time. The same can be said of other projects of this forward-looking man, and the claim that he was a theorist was owing to more than his specific proposals.

Three decades after his death his granddaughter Ellen said that the main cause for the charge of impracticality against him was "his obstinate propensity to think well of mankind, of human nature, to^putt largely the good sense and good feeling of the mass." 3 Much as she adored him, she did not fully share his democratic spirit. In her opinion the question whether he was right or wrong in trusting the American people as he did had not yet been answered.

It now appears that he expected citizens to be more reasonable than they are likely to be in any age. He made too little allowance for emotions and counted too much on the sufficiency of reason. In my judgment, as in that of John Adams, he underestimated ihe-evil in unrege-nerate man, and time has shown that more is needed to cure the ills of mankind than the accumulation of knowledge. Having said this, I must also say that I regard his faith as the most admirable thing ab6ut him and his most enduring legacy — his faith in human beings and in the human mind. To those who exalt force and condone deception he will ever be a visionary, to be ignored or silenced. But to all who cherish freedom and abhor tyranny in any form he is an abiding symbol of the hope that springs eternal.

'Jefferson's design was selected in a Bicentennial poll of the American Institute of Architects (AlA Journal, 65 [July 1976], 91).

2 George Ticknor to W. H. Prescott, Dec. 16, 1824 (Life, Letters, and Journals, I, 348).

3 Ellen Randolph Coolidge to H. S. Randall, Feb. 13, 1856 (Letterbook, Coolidge Papers, UVA).

It has been my great privilege as a biographer to be intimately associated with this extraordinary man for many years. At the end of my long journey with him I leave him with regret and salute him with profound respect.

Dumas Malone Alderman Library University of Virginia January, ip8i

Chronology

1809

Mar. 4 TJ retires from the presidency.

// He leaves Washington for Monticello, arriving March 15. Apr. ip President Madison proclaims the restoration of trade with Britain under the Erskine agreement. Aug. ip Non-Intercourse with Britain is resumed. Oct. ip-23 TJ visits Richmond.

Dec. 1 He acknowledges receipt of the first volume of Hening's Statutes at Large.

1810

Feb. 2 The Literary Fund of Virginia is established.

July 31 TJ completes a brief for his lawyers on the New Orleans bat-

ture case. Aug. 12 He suggests that William Duane publish Destutt de Tracy's

commentary on Montesquieu.

1811

Mar. 27 Before this date, TJ becomes a great-grandfather upon the birth

of John Warner Bankhead. Apr. 6 James Monroe succeeds Robert Smith as secretary of state. Dec. 5 Livingston vs. Jefferson (the batture case) is dismissed.

Toward the end of the year, TJ begins the manufacturing of cloth at Monticello.

1812

Jan. 1 John Adams renews correspondence with TJ.

Apr. 12 TJ sends William Wirt an account of Patrick Henry.

June 18 War with Great Britain is declared.

1813

Jan. 24 TJ writes John W. Eppes the first of several letters on public finance.

1814

Mar. 2$ TJ is named a trustee of Albemarle Academy. Aug.-Sept. Thomas Mann Randolph, Jeff Randolph, and Charles Bank-head take part in the defense of Richmond.

Aug. 25 TJ assures Edward Coles that the emancipation of the slaves is inevitable but declines active leadership of the cause.

Sept. 7 He writes a letter to Peter Carr describing a scheme of public education.

21 He offers to sell his library to Congress to replace the one

burned by the British on Aug. 24.

1815

Feb. 4-y George Ticknor and Francis Gray visit Monticello. 14 About this time TJ learns of the Treaty of Ghent. Mar. 16 Jeff Randolph is married to Jane Hollins Nicholas. Apr. 18 About this time TJ sends his library to Washington. June 21 Before this date, Jeff Randolph is given the management of TJ's

Albemarle farms. Sept. 18 TJ, accompanied by Francis Gilmer and the Abbe Correa, visits the Peaks of Otter.

1816

Jan. p TJ informs Benjamin Austin that he now supports the development of American manufacturing.

Feb. 16 He learns of the passage of the Central College bill. March Ellen Randolph visits Washington.

Apr. 6 TJ announces the completion of his translation of Destutt de Tracy's Political Economy.

July 12 He writes Samuel Kercheval about the revision of the Virginia Constitution.

Oct. 18 He is named a Visitor of Central College.

1817

Mar. 4 James Monroe is inaugurated as President. May 5 The Board of Visitors of Central College meets for the first time. August TJ travels to Natural Bridge with his granddaughters. Oct. 6 The cornerstone of the first pavilion at Central College is laid.

1818

January TJ sums up his weather records.

Feb. 4 He writes an explanation of confidential papers he had collected while secretary of state.

22 The legislature passes a bill establishing a university.

CHRONOLOGY

XXI

July 30 TJ learns that the Bank of the United States is curtailing all notes, including his. Aug. 1-4 He attends the Rockfish Gap Conference. Aug. 7-21 He visits Warm Springs and leaves seriously ill. Dec. 7, 9 He cancels newspaper subscriptions to all but the Richmond Enquirer.

1819

Jan. Feb.

Mar.

2S

I

is

6

*9

May

Aug. S

Sept. 6

Oct. 31

Dec.

>J

The university bill passes, with Central College as the site.

A fight takes place between Jeff Randolph and Charles Bank-head.

Joseph C. Cabell informs TJ of his appointment as Visitor.

The McCulloch vs. Maryland case is decided by the Supreme Court.

TJ is elected Rector at the first meeting of the UVA Board of Visitors.

He helps set up Stack's preparatory school in Charlottesville.

Wilson Cary Nicholas informs TJ of his failure.

TJ writes Spencer Roane about his Hampden letters.

He writes William Short about being an Epicurean^ and afterwards completes his "Life and Morals of Jesus."

Thomas Mann Randolph becomes_governor of Virginia, serving three terms.

1820

Apr. 3 The Visitors accept Thomas Cooper's resignation.

22 TJ writes John Holmes about the Missouri Compromise. Sept. 21 He instructs Francis Eppes on his trip to the University of

South Carolina. Oct. 10 Wilson Cary Nicholas dies. Dec. 2$ TJ writes to Thomas Ritchie praising John Taylor's Construction

Construed.

1821

January Bernard Peyton succeeds Patrick Gibson as TJ's agent, and Jeff

Randolph takes over the farms at Poplar Forest. Jan. 6 TJ begins his memoirs (leaves off July 29).

31 He writes a gloomy letter to Cabell urging him to remain in the legislature. Feb. 28 The second Missouri Compromise is approved by the Senate. March The Greek War for Independence begins. About this time the

Holy Alliance puts down Italian revolts. April Thomas Sully visits Monticello. June 27 TJ writes Spencer Roane enclosing a recommendation of Construction Construed. Oct. 8 Edmund Bacon leaves TJ's employment.

1822

Jan. 7 TJ writes Thomas Ritchie that he will not be involved in the presidential election.

July 12 He writes William T. Barry about natural political differences among men.

Nov. 28 Francis Eppes marries Mary Elizabeth Randolph. November TJ breaks his left arm.

December He arranges to distribute the Maverick engravings of the University of Virginia.

Mar. 12

May 14-2/

Aug. 2

3*

September

Sept. 23

Oct. 24

Dec.

1823

TJ orders work to begin on the Rotunda.

He mades his last trip to Poplar Forest.

He writes Samuel Harrison Smith on the coming election.

The Spanish revolution is put down.

William H. Crawford suffers a stroke.

John W. Eppes dies at Millbrook.

TJ writes Monroe on the momentous question of foreign rela-

^ tions.

he Monroe Doctrine message is presented.

1824

Mar. 2y Ticknor writes a letter of introduction for Joseph Coolidge.

May Francis Walker Gilmer departs for Europe.

August TJ's recommendation of Bernard Peyton is rejected by Monroe.

September Virginia Randolph marries N. P. Trist.

Nov. i$ A dinner is given for Lafayette in the Rotunda.

Dec. 1 It becomes known that John Quincy Adams has been elected

President.

December Daniel Webster and the Ticknors visit Monticello.

Sept.

Mar. 4

7 May 17

27

30-Oct. 1

Oct. 3 7

IS Dec. 6

December

1825

John Quincy Adams is inaugurated as President.

The University of Virginia opens.

Dr. Dunglison makes his first professional visit as TJ's health

declines. Ellen Randolph marries Joseph Coolidge. Student disturbances occur. The Board of Visitors meets. J. H. I. Browere makes a life mask of TJ. John Quincy Adams sends his first annual message to Congress. TJ drafts a Virginia protest.

CHRONOLOGY

XX111

1826

The public sale o££cjgehill is held. TJ launches his^tterHscheme. Anne Cary Banlcfead-'aies.

TJ asks Madison to take care of him when he is dead. The lottery bill is passed.

TJ executes his will. He adds a codicil on Mar. 17. John Adams writes TJ about the visit of Jeff Randolph. TJ writes his last letter.

TJ and John Adams die on fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

CO

The Return of a Native

FOR a week after the inauguration of his successor on March 4, 1809, Thomas Jefferson continued to occupy the President's House in Washington. James and Dolley Madison would have denied him nothing, but it was no real hardship for them to remain that much longer in their house on F Street. In the afternoon of inauguration day his Washington neighbors presented him with appropriate resolutions to which he made fitting response, and a couple of days later he made a graceful parting gesture to Margaret Bayard Smith, wife of the publisher of the National Intelligencer. That adoring lady, seeing in his cabinet a geranium he had cultivated with his own hands, had expressed the desire that, if he should not take it with him, he would leave it with her. She said she would water it with tears of regret at the departure of "the most venerated of human beings." Sending it to her, he said that this plant could hardly fail to be "proudly sensible of her fostering attentions." In parting with her he found some consolation in her promise to visit Monticello in the summer. This promise she and her husband were duly to carry out, being received "with open arms and hearts by the whole family" just as he now predicted. 1

The retiring President had been winding up his affairs for several months. Early in the year he had obtained loans sufficient to cover the deficit he had incurred while in the highest office. This he now estimated as about $11,000. Thus he was able to settle his current accounts. 2 His trusted overseer at Monticello, Edmund Bacon, had come up to help him pack and move his things. After about two weeks, Bacon set out on the

'Mrs. Smith's note and TJ's reply of Mar. 6, 1809, are in Garden Book, pp. 382-383. The address of Washington citizens and his response are described in Jefferson the President: Second Term, pp. 667-668.

2 Ibid., p. 666, and, in particular, Account Book entries of Jan. 23, Mar. 10, 11, Apr. 19, 1809. His financial situation is described more fully in ch. Ill, below.

return trip. As he afterwards remembered, there were three wagons. Two of them, drawn by six-mule teams, were loaded with boxes. The third, a four-horse wagon, was filled with shrubbery from the nursery of Thomas Main near Washington. 3

Thomas Jefferson Randolph — whom his grandfather called Jefferson but we must call Jeff to avoid confusion — had already gone home for a brief visit before returning to Philadelphia to continue his higher education. Toward the end of February, Charles Willson Peale, with whom he was lodging, sent the boy's grandfather a portrait of him. Peale reminded his friend that this was painted at the age of sixty-eight by one who had long neglected his art while devoting himself to the "charming study of natural history." (He seemed disposed to yield portraiture to the superior talents of his son Rembrandt.) The recipient of the portrait, who was himself nearing sixty-six, was sure it would do honor to any period of life. He described it as a treasure and took good care that it was preserved. 4

Making a late start on March 11, two days after the departure of Bacon and the wagons, he took the Georgetown ferry for the last time and spent the night at Ravensworth, the home of Richard Fitzhugh in Fairfax County some ten miles from Washington. From his host he got for planting in his garden some peas that were already known by the name of Ravensworth and esteemed highly. 5 He did not reach Monticello until March 15, after what he described to Madison as a very fatiguing journey. The roads were excessively bad, and for eight hours he rode through one of the most disagreeable snowstorms of his experience. He caught up with the wagons at Culpeper and got home before they did. 6

Other belongings of the ex-President were shipped by water — the expectation being that they would proceed down the Potomac to Chesapeake Bay, up the James to Richmond, and thence by smaller vessel to Milton just below Shad well on the Rivanna. The day after he got home he learned that the vessel on which his "baggage" was shipped had gone aground in the eastern branch of the Potomac and was unable to continue its voyage. Accordingly, his things had been put aboard the Dolphin of York. Among these effects was a trunk containing the Indian

3 The journey is described in Bacon's reminiscences, in H. W. Pierson, Jefferson at Monticello (1862), pp. 113-116, referred to hereafter as Pierson. Some allowance should be made for an old man's memory.

4 Peale to TJ, Feb. 21, 1809 (LC); TJ to Peale, Mar. 10, 1809 (LC).

5 The Account Book entry of Mar. 12, 1809, refers to R. Fitzhugh, while the note in Garden Book, p. 400, identifying the place and mentioning the peas, refers to William Fitzhugh.

6 TJ to Madison, Mar. 17, 1809 (L. & B., XII, 266); Account Book, Mar. 14-15, 1809. Bacon's account of events in Culpeper, where he said a crowd had gathered and finally burst into TJ's private room, there to be addressed briefly by him, is rather confused (Pierson, pp. 115-116).

vocabularies, some fifty in number, that he had collected through thirty years. On the last leg of the journey, while ascending the James above Richmond, this trunk was stolen. Toward the end of May a reward for its recovery was offered by his agents in Richmond, Gibson and Jefferson. The description in the notice shows that, besides writing paper, the trunk contained a pocket telescope and a dynamometer, described as "an instrument for measuring the exertions of draught animals." To the distressed owner, his agent and cousin George Jefferson reported in June that papers from the trunk had been discovered in the James below Lynchburg. But George's personal search of the river turned up little of the contents, though the trunk and its thief were afterwards found. Only a few defaced leaves of the vocabularies were saved. In some of his comments on this irreparable loss Jefferson seemed vindictive. Later in the summer he stated with apparent satisfaction that the culprit was on trial and would doubtless be hanged. 7

From his former secretary, Isaac Coles, he learned that the Madisons had moved into the President's House promptly but were not fortunate in their maitre d'hotel, whose insobriety was interfering with his performance of his duties. Thus reminded of his own maitre d'hotel, the former master of that house wrote a generous letter of appreciation to Etienne Lemaire, saying what he had found it impossible to say when parting with those with whom he had lived so long in Washington and by whom he had been served so well. Lemaire's whole conduct, he said, had been "so marked with good humor, industry, sobriety, and economy" as never to have given him a moment's dissatisfaction. He hoped to keep in touch with him and saluted him with "affectionate esteem." Not to be outdone, Lemaire, replying in French, said that, of all the persons he had ever worked for, Jefferson had given him the most happiness and satisfaction, for service of this master was more a pleasure than a task. 8 To another old employee of his, Joseph Dougherty, Jefferson gave what that Irish coachman described as a "noble recommendation." The two carried on animated correspondence thereafter about sheep, especially a broad-tailed ram selected from Dr. William Thornton's flock by Dougherty and designated for paternity at Monticello. 9 The affectionate relations between Jefferson and his domestic staff were

'Isaac A. Coles to TJ, Mar. 13, 1809 (LC); TJ to George Jefferson, May 18, 1809 (MHS); notice of reward offered by Gibson & Jefferson in Richmond Enquirer, May 30, 1809; George Jefferson to TJ, June 12, June 26, July 21, 1809, with enclosure (MHS); TJ to J. S. Barnes, Aug. 3, 1809 (LC); TJ to Dr. B. S. Barton, Sept. 21, 1809 (L. & B., XII, 312-313).

8 TJ to Lemaire, Mar. 16, 1809; Lemaire to TJ, Mar. 22 (LC).

'Among a number of letters reference may be made to Dougherty's of Apr. 19, 1809 (LC), May 15 and 18 (Farm Book, pp. 118-119), and TJ's of June 26 and Aug. 25, 1809 (ibid., pp. 119-120).

Courtesy of tbe Tbomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation; photo by Robert C. Lautman, Washington, D.C.

monticello:

View of the East Front

amply illustrated in both cases. And the parting words of his young secretary were more than perfunctory. At the end of his letter Isaac Coles had said that toward Jefferson his heart would "never cease to overflow with sentiments" to which he had "no power to give utterance."

The mansion house that Jefferson had been building and rebuilding for some forty years was now essentially finished, along with its dependencies. 10 Writing Benjamin H. Latrobe, the American whose architectural judgment he most valued and probably most feared, Jefferson observed: "My essay in Architecture has been so much subordinated to the law of convenience, and affected also by the circumstances of change in the original design, that it is liable to some unfavorable and just criticisms. But what nature has done for us is sublime and beautiful and unique." 11 Visitors to Monticello in the early years of his retirement had much to say about nature, especially in connection with the approach to the house — up an "abrupt mountain" or a "steep savage hill," through "ancient forest-trees." Jefferson himself said that his grounds were still largely in their majestic native woods with close undergrowth. On the ascent nature appeared untamed, and viewed from the summit, five hundred feet above the Rivanna, the vast panorama of forest and mountain was still little marred by the hand of man. Looking at the "spacious and splendid structure" that crowned the height, one observer said: "Here, in this wild and sequestered retirement, the eye dwells with delight on the triumph of art over nature, rendered the more impressive by the unreclaimed condition of all around." 12

It would be nearer the truth to say that nature and art appeared here in notable conjunction, reflecting the deep feeling of Jefferson for them both. Also, his architectural creation represented a distinctive blend of the functional with the aesthetic. The connection of the service wings to the main house by covered passageways provided an excellent example of his practicality; and he manifested his modernity by filling his mansion with convenient devices and flooding it with light. Yet his orders — Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Attic — were designed in strict accor-

10 The plan and its development are described in detail in Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, chs. 14, 15. An authoritative and convenient modern account is the beautifully illustrated booklet Monticello, by F. D. Nichols and J. A. Bear, Jr. (1967), published by the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.

11 TJ to B. H. Latrobe, Oct. 10, 1809 (LC, quoted in Garden Book, p. 416).

12 Margaret Bayard Smith, in A Winter in Washington (1824), II, 261. In this work of fiction the descriptions were drawn from the author's observations, such as those she made on a visit to Monticello in the summer of 1809. Among other descriptions I have drawn on at this point are those of J. E. Caldwell, in A Tour through the State of Virginia, in the Summer of 1808, ed. by W. M. E. Rachal (1951), pp. 36-41, and George Ticknor, in his Life, Letters, and Journals, ed. by G. S. Hillard et al. (1876), I, 34-38, describing a visit of 1815.

dance with those of Palladio, while the friezes in the various rooms were adapted from the entablatures of Roman temples. His entrance hall and parlor were filled with busts and paintings. (There were too many paintings, in fact, and the entrance hall was so filled with specimens of natural history that it was already referred to as a museum.) At length he had provided for himself a habitation befitting his extraordinarily diverse and well-rounded personality. It was an expression of his love of privacy, his elevation of spirit, his sophisticated taste, his utilitarianism, his desire for self-sufficiency. The Chinese railing on the terraces was not to be installed for years, and he was to be much occupied with the grounds. Not even now was Monticello wholly complete, but to satisfy his appetite for building he had turned to Poplar Forest, though we shall not follow him to that other home quite yet.

Martha Jefferson Randolph went to Monticello several days before her father's arrival. Throughout his presidency she had made it a practice to be there, along with the children, whenever he was at home. Previously, she had returned to Edgehill after his departure but apparently she did not go back to that place, except for brief visits, after he came home to stay. 13 He had long expected that they would all live together after his retirement, and she had no thought of letting anybody else be his housekeeper. The precise position of her husband in this arrangement is not clear. Thomas Mann Randolph had his own farms to look after, but he appears to have usually had breakfast and dinner at Monticello in this period and to have slept there. A number of his slaves, brought from Edgehill, were housed on the place. The situation could not have been wholly congenial to this proud and sensitive man, but he does not seem to have fretted under it particularly.

He was now forty-one, while Martha was thirty-seven, and their children numbered eight. The eldest, Anne Cary, now eighteen, had been married in the previous fall to Charles Lewis Bankhead. Since the young couple lived at Carlton on the western slope of Jefferson's little mountain, he saw a great deal of this favorite granddaughter. 14 Her brother Jeff, whose portrait Charles Willson Peale had painted, was sixteen when he rode to the Capitol with his grandfather for the inauguration of James Madison. As expected, he returned briefly to Philadelphia for botanical lectures, but he did not go to the College of William and Mary the next

n See Family Letters, p. 384, note 2. For a map of the Monticello neighborhood, see below, p. 254.

14 See the account of Anne and her husband by Olivia Taylor in George G. Shackelford, ed., Collected Papers . . . of the Monticello Association (1965), ch. V. Her troubles because of the alcoholism of her husband became acute by 1815, if not earlier.

Courtesy of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation; photo by George M. Cusbing, Boston

Thomas Jefferson Randolph Portrait by Charles Willson Peale, 1808

year as his grandfather had planned. Jefferson had become convinced of his grandson's industry and sobriety, and as time went on depended on him more and more, but it was clear that the robust lad's interests were not primarily intellectual. It was adjudged sufficient for him as a prospective planter to complete his formal education by attending the school of Louis H. Girardin in Richmond during i809-1810.

After Jeff came four girls, ranging in age from five to twelve, all of whom went to school to their mother. The eldest, Ellen Wayles, had already shown herself to be a diligent correspondent, and she was to be Anne Cary's replacement as guardian of the flowers. Edmund Bacon said that these two girls, like their mother, had the fresh, rosy look of the Jeffersons, while most of the other children tended to be dark, like theif father. 15 There were two little boys: one, born in the President's House and now aged three, was name d James M adison^ while the bai>y^still in his first year, bore the distinguished name of Benjamin Franklin. As though these were not enough, there were to be three more children, and young Francis Eppes, the son of Jefferson's lamented daughter Maria, was often at Monticello. In the winter of 1809-1810 when he was eight, he was engaged in a spirited contest with his cousin and contemporary Virginia Randolph in the art of reading.

As a father and grandfather Jefferson received the warmest of welcomes when he dismounted at Monticello. He would have been escorted to the door by a body of friends and neighbors if they had had their way. A group of citizens of Albemarle had wanted to meet him at the county line and conduct him home. They gave up the idea when informed that the precise day of his arrival was uncertain, but, before this came around, a group met at the courthouse and adopted an address in the name of all the inhabitants of the county. Since he was receiving messages from all over the Union, they could add nothing "on the score of public gratitude," they said. Referring, as so many other addresses and resolutions did, to his "voluntary relinquishment of honors and of power," they rejoiced in the restoration to them of "a friend and neighbor as exemplary in the social circle, as he is eminent at the helm of state." There was no intimation here of any sort of public failure or moral turpitude on his part. And, although these sentiments could hardly have had unanimous support in Albemarle, this affectionate address shows unmistakably that he was held in the highest honor in his own locality.

Presumably the gentlemen of the committee who had drafted the ad-

ls Pierson, pp. 86, 88. For detailed information about the family members, see Appendix 1, below.

-A

dress bore it to Monticello and presented it in person. 16 The episode must have reminded Jefferson of the welcome he had received from his Albemarle neighbors on his return from France some twenty years before. 17 In the memorable address he made on that occasion he spoke of "the sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs," and of the will of the majority as "the only sure guardian of the rights of man." He urged his hearers forever to "bow down to the general reason of society." They were safe in that, he said, for although it sometimes erred, it soon returned to the right way. After observing the most philosophical phase of the French Revolution in 1789 he had been in an optimistic frame of mind. Now, receiving with "inexpressible pleasure" the cordial welcome of his local fellow citizens, he was personal rather than philosophical. He said that for the joys of affectionate association with them and the endearments of domestic life he gladly laid down "the distressing burden of power," and the measure of his happiness would be complete if his public services had received the approbation of his countrymen. In some sense he was on the defensive, though these approving neighbors had certainly not put him there. Of them he could ask with confidence, "Whose ox have I taken, or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed, or of whom have I received a bribe to blind my eyes therewith?"

An occasional visitor to Jefferson's native district asserted that he was not highly regarded by his neighbors, but the burden of testimony gives the opposite impression. Of his own attitude toward the locality which was in the deepest sense his "country" there could be no doubt whatsoever. Writing a distinguished foreign explorer and savant, now settled in Paris, he had recently said: "You have wisely located yourself in the focus of the science [knowledge] of Europe. I am held by the cords of love to my family and country, or I should certainly join you." 18 Nothing seems to have been farther from his thoughts than another trip to the vaunted scene of Europe, but he was not far from the literal truth when he said that he was burying himself in the groves of Monticello.

In late September of the year of his homecoming, shortly before Madison returned to Washington, Jefferson visited his friend and successor

16 From the account of the episode in the Richmond Enquirer, Apr. 14, 1809, we learn that the citizens met at the courthouse in Charlottesville on Mar. 6 and 11. The committee consisted of William D. Meriwether (chairman of the meetings), Nimrod Bramhan, Dr. Charles Everitt, Thomas W. Maury, and Dabney Minor. Meriwether wrote TJ, Mar. 23, 1809 (LC). The Enquirer published both the address and TJ's reply. The latter, dated Apr. 3, is in L. & B., XII, 269-270. See also Martha to TJ, Feb. 24, 1809 {Family Letters, p. 384); TJ to TMR, Feb. 28 (L. & B., XII, 256-257).

11 See Jefferson and the Rights of Man, pp. 246-247.

18 To Baron Alexander von Humboldt, Mar. 6, 1809 (L. & B., XII, 263).

YLAND

Jefferson's Country, 1809-1826

\

14 THESAGEOFMONTICELLO

at Montpelier. During the rest of his life he did this almost every year, but Orange County was the closest he was to get to the capital of the Republic. Only once during the seventeen years of his retirement did he visit the capital of his own commonwealth. In the fall of this first year he went to Richmond on business, and there he received a very hearty welcome. 19 Learning of his presence, a group of citizens met at the cap-itol the morning after his arrival. They unanimously adopted resolutions of respect and admiration for his exalted character and of gratitude for his distinguished services. A committee was appointed to prepare an appropriate address. In his gracious reply to this he claimed no other merit than that of having contributed his best endeavors to the "establishment of those rights, without which man is a degraded being." He hailed these citizens as fellow laborers in the same holy cause.

The honors paid him on this apparently unannounced visit seem to have been spontaneous. About the same time that resolutions were being adopted at the capitol, a drill muster of the 19th Regiment took place on capitol square. The officers, learning of Jefferson's arrival, invited him to dine with them at 4 p.m. that day. In due course he was escorted from .the Swan Tavern with Governor John Tyler, Colonel James Monroe, and others. Among the toasts was one he offered to "the militia of the United States — the bulwark of our independence." On the next day there was a public dinner in his honor at the Eagle Tavern. A large and brilliant company were said to have attended. After Jefferson's retirement, Governor Tyler toasted him as "first in the hearts of his country." 20 If by Jefferson's country the Governor meant Virginia rather than the United States, the saying was doubtless true, and in the physical sense he was henceforth nothing but a Virginian. Until his dying day he never left the state. Late in his life he went once to Warm Springs, the westernmost point of all his travels, but he never returned to Richmond, and except for Montpelier, almost the only other place he went to was his own Poplar Forest.

He had good reason to visit the farms in Bedford County that constituted almost half of his estate, but during his presidency he was unable to make this journey of ninety miles more than once a year. According to family tradition he conceived the idea of building a house at Poplar Forest when confined for three days by rain in one of the two rooms of an overseer's cottage there. 21 The idea was natural enough in any case,

"Account Book, Oct. 15-31, 1809, shows that he visited Carysbrook, Clifton, and Ep-pington both going and coming and was in Richmond Oct. 19-23.

20 The events of this visit, including the resolutions, address, and two dinners are described in Richmond Enquirer, Oct. 24, 1809.

but he does not appear to have considered it seriously until he relinquished the purpose of building at Pantops in Albemarle County the house originally intended for his daughter Maria and John W. Eppes. This was during his first presidential term and not long after he designed Farmington for his friend and fellow horticulturist George Divers. 22 In this period he was experimenting with octagons in combination with rectangles. The plan for Poplar Forest, novel in America then and distinctive at any time, called for a regular octagon that centered on a square room lighted from above and that had porticos on the front and rear. 23 Work on the building was begun in 1806; the walls were up by the fall of 1808; and Jefferson was able to stay in the house when he visited the place a year later. 24 Plastering did not begin until two years after that, and the house that Jefferson called his retreat and designated as a legacy to his grandson Francis Eppes was long to remain unfinished. Its completion was not to require a generation, as that of Monticello did, but this was to take upwards of a dozen years.

It turned out to be an architectural gem in a harmonious setting that pleased its designer and builder. His visits to it increased in number and duration. From the second year of his retirement until he stopped traveling altogether he averaged three a year. His life there can be more fittingly described after this really became his second home; but we may note here that virtually the whole of his seventeen years of retirement was spent in the red-clay country and that, the weather permitting, he was nearly always in sight of the mountains. 25

At the beginning of his retirement at Monticello he established a regimen from which he departed little thereafter. He continued to rise by daybreak — that is, as soon as he could make out the hands of a clock he kept beside his bed. He then recorded the temperature. Sometimes his overseer observed him walking on the terrace in the dawn's early light. Usually he started on his necessary correspondence as soon as he could, hoping to get this done by breakfast. Judging from the accounts of visitors, that meal was at nine. One wonders if he had tea or coffee when he arose. At first he seems to have managed to visit his garden and

22 The house with later additions is now the Farmington Country Club, near Charlottesville. See the map, below, p. 254.

23 Fiske Kimball, Thomas Jefferson, Architect (1916), pp. 70-72, relates the plan to TJ's studies for Farmington and to a design of Inigo Jones for a larger and more elaborate building. See also F. D. Nichols, Thomas Jefferson s Architectural Drawings (1961), pp. 7-8 and Plate No. 29, reproduced below, p. 295.

24 See Hugh Chisholm to TJ, Sept. 4, 1808 {Garden Book, p. 377). Chisholm was a brick-mason, among other things, and was dispatched from Monticello to Poplar Forest as other workmen were.

25 His route to Poplar Forest is marked on the map, above, p. 1}. For further reference to life there, see ch. XX.

/ shops and begin to ride about his place soon after breakfast. This he did for health and pleasure, and also to note the state of his property and I crops. When his correspondence increased, with the passing months, he had to stay indoors longer, but even then he generally began his daily ride by noon. 26 On this he customarily wore a pair of overalls. By all accounts he was an uncommonly fine horseman, and in extreme old age he said that life would have been unbearable without this daily revival. 27 His ride lasted until he came in for dinner, a meal that seems to have generally begun about four in the afternoon and to have continued long. He said that he gave the time from dinner to dark to the society of neighbors and friends, and that from candlelight to early bedtime he read. When there were no special guests he may have done this in the company of members of his family, who were engaged in sewing or knitting or something else. According to some accounts, however, he customarily retired to his quarters after tea, which was served about seven.

He referred repeatedly to his beloved books and he crowded an incredible amount of reading into his last years, but during the first of them he rejoiced in his opportunity to be an outdoor man, concerned with practical affairs. u My health is perfect," he reported to General Thaddeus Kosciuszko in 1810, "and my strength considerably reinforced by the activity of the course I pursue; perhaps it is as great as usually falls to the lot of near sixty-seven years of age." (When sixty-eight he had an attack of rheumatism which reduced his walking but did not long affect his riding.) Edmund Bacon, whose acquaintance with him did not begin until Jefferson was sixty-three, thus described him: "Mr. Jefferson was six feet two and a half inches high, well proportioned, and straight * as a gun-barrel. He was like a fine horse — he had no surplus flesh." 28

\rtO

T

here were many references to his tall and slender figure, and others described it as little impaired by age, but few observers may have realized, as his overseer did, how strong he was. He had a machine for measuring strength, and very few of the men that Bacon saw try it were as strong in the arms as Thomas Mann Randolph, but Jefferson was stronger than his son-in-law. According to Margaret Bayard Smith, at the time of her visit to Monticello in August 1809, his white locks announced an age that was contradicted by his "activity, strength, health,

26 Among the best accounts of his regimen in his early years of retirement are those he gave Thaddeus Kosciuszko, Feb. 26, 1810, and Dr. Benjamin Rush, Jan. 16, 1811 (L. & B., XII, 369-370; XIII, 1-2).

27 Comment of Bacon (Pierson, p. 74); TJ to Wm. Short, Apr. 10, 1824, quoted in Farm Book, p. 87, at the beginning of a detailed account of TJ's horses.

28 Pierson, p. 70.

enthusiasm, ardor and gaiety." 29 To Kosciuszko he wrote a few months later: "I talk of ploughs and harrows, of seeding and harvesting, with my neighbors, and of politics too if they choose, with as little reserve as the rest of my fellow citizens, and feel at length the blessing of being free to say and to do what I please without being responsible to any mortal." This was the sort of life he wanted to lead — the sort of life that had been extolled by ancient writers he knew well — Cicero and Horace and the younger Pliny. But there were practical difficulties, chiefly financial, from which there was no escape and which were eventually to bear him down. And he could not get entirely out of public affairs all at once. There were loose ends to tie up, and he could never be wholly a private man.

29 Comment of Aug. 3, 1809, in Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society, ed. by Gaillard Hunt (1906), p. 80.

ra

Presidential Aftermath 1809-1811

ON the eve of his retirement Jefferson said that if the country should meet misfortunes it would be "because no human wisdom could avert them." 1 There can be no more doubt of his confidence in his successor than of his relief in "shaking off the shackles of power." By this time he actually had little power left to shake off. As soon as the election of Madison was unquestionable, he had shifted to this trusted colleague all the responsibility he could, and the form that the final legislation of his presidency assumed was chiefly owing to others. 2

In the existing state of world war the entire avoidance of misfortune was indeed beyond American wisdom. In his inaugural address Madison described the international situation as unparalleled, and the situation of his own country as full of difficulties. Neither in public nor in private did he blame his immediate predecessor, who, as he said somewhat elaborately, was now enjoying "the benedictions of a beloved country, gratefully bestowed for exalted talents zealously devoted through a long career to the advancement of its highest interest and happiness." 3 One 'would have great difficulty in finding anywhere in the papers of either of these longtime friends and associates any reflection on the policies or conduct of the other. The historian may properly ask, however, what sort of legacy the third President left the fourth.

For the unparalleled state of world affairs neither was responsible; and in the foreign policies that had been followed by the government it is almost impossible to distinguish between them. Madison had no apologies for a course he regarded as unexceptionable, but he recognized that

'TJ to Du Pont de Nemours, Mar. 2, 1809 (J--D. Correspondence, p. 122).

2 The developments during the final congressional session of his administration are treated in detail in Jefferson the President: Second Term. See especially chs. XXXIV-XXXV1.

it had not availed against "the injustice and violence of the belligerent powers." He made no specific reference to the embargo or to the modified policy of commercial restriction that was embodied in the Non-Intercourse Act as adopted at the very end of the congressional session. 4 While this measure did not mark an abandonment of the principle of economic coercion and was not hailed as a glorious victory by the anti-administration forces, it would not have been adopted in this reduced form but for the violent opposition that had been directed against the laws it superseded. On the eve of Madison's accession the government of Connecticut and the General Court of Massachusetts were defying the executive in Washington along with the embargo. While Jefferson's policies may be said to have saved the West to the Union, they had finally played into the hands of his enemies in New England and accentuated disaffection in that commercial region. The unity of the party, which he had maintained hitherto with such conspicuous success, was breached jn the last half of his final congressional session by the revolt of members from the Northeast. Under these circumstances the executive branch lost the initiative that Jefferson had generally maintained. Thus his successor inherited not only a dislocated economy but a divided country and a divided government. Furthermore, it soon appeared that Madison wa^ presiding over a divided Cabinet.

Faced with the opposition of a senatorial group that included Samuel Smith of Maryland, William Branch Giles of Virginia, and Michael Leib of Pennsylvania, he abandoned his purpose to have Albert Gallatin as secretary of state and appointed Robert Smith, brother of the Senator, to that key post, no doubt expecting to write the diplomatic dispatches himself. Gallatin remained as secretary of the treasury. Madison may be charged with weakness in yielding to this senatorial faction at the outset of his administration and may be compared unfavorably to Jefferson in his relations with Congress. Indeed, a contrast has been drawn between the Madisonian "model" of government, with its emphasis on checks and balances, and the "system" of Jefferson, which is said to have collapsed under his successor. 5 To Jefferson, who stressed political party and majority rule, has been attributed the exercise of presidential leadership with unparalleled skill and effectiveness. The reference is not to his last congressional session, however. The same senatorial faction that blocked Madison's nomination of Gallatin had rejected Jefferson's of William

4 Act of Mar. 1, 1809, repealing the embargo and providing for non-intercourse with Great Britain and France and the opening of trade with other countries (Annals, 10 Cong., 2 sess., pp. 1824-18 30; discussed in Jefferson the President: Second Term, pp. 648-649).

s James MacGregor Burns, The Deadlock of Democracy (1063), chs. 1, 2; see also pp. 265-267, 338. By the "model" of Madison is meant the one he set up in the Federalist, especially No. 51.

20 THESAGEOFMONTICELLO

Short. Nor does it seem that, even at the time of his greatest effectiveness as a leader, he differed much from his Secretary of State in basic theory. Opposed to any sort of tyranny as he was, Jefferson adhered in principle to the division of powers and favored a limited as well as a balanced government. These doctrines served to inhibit him — not only because they were generally approved by his countrymen but also because he accepted them himself. In practice, though, he was disposed to be pragmatic. His exercise of leadership in legislative matters during much the larger part of his administration provides a striking example of this, but in deference to Congress and the doctrine of separation of powers, he kept out of sight insofar as possible. Procedure that was not formalized or even openly acknowledged could not have been expected to set a firm precedent. It may be doubted if any other President has ever employed party loyalty more effectively to procure legislation, but his party^ leadership was essentially personal, and from almost the beginning to almost the end it was undisputed. Madison occupied no such position of advantage. Nor did he have comparable skill in conciliating dissidents or equal ability to gain and maintain personal loyalty.

Jefferson's public image, like his physical stature, was more impressive than Madison's, but it was not that of a charismatic chieftain. Rather it was that of a friend of mankind who would ask no more of his fellows than he had to. His popularity, at least until the period of the embargo, was owing in no small part to the fact that he asked little. His domestic program was distinctly limited. He sought to maintain the freedom of his country and countrymen and to make the republican experiment a success. On the world front he was generally engaged in a holding operation; nearly always he was playing for time. His superiority to his friend and colleague in presidential leadership can be best attributed to his personality and the circumstances by which they were confronted. Although alrtrong President when at his best, he obviously weakened at the end; and it may be doubted if he measurably strengthened the presidential office.

From the beginning of their intimate association Jefferson had treated Madison as a peer, and he had yielded the helm to him as soon as possible. He would have been out of character if he had sought to dictate to his successor, and in fact he scrupulously avoided any suggestion of interference. 6 From their correspondence it appears that their personal relations were wholly unaffected by their change in status and that entire candor was maintained between them. During Madison's first summer

6 Their relations were well analyzed by R. J. Honeywell in "President Jefferson and His Successor" (AJJ.R., XLVI, 64-75). In recent writings there has been no such over-emphasis on the former as he perceived at that time (1940).

as President he visited Jefferson at Monticello in company with Albert and Mrs. Gallatin. Unfortunately, we have no record of their private talk, but judging from their correspondence, Madison usually asked for advice only on matters carried over from Jefferson's administration or relating to it. He reported foreign affairs to his friend promptly and fully. Jefferson's comments on events were mostly meant to be encouraging.

At the outset the general impression seems to have been that the administration of Madison amounted to a continuation of Jefferson's and the initial rejection of his nomination of John Quincy Adams as minister to Russia and his forced abandonment of his plan to have Gallatin as secretary of state would lead one to suppose that the new President was as powerless at the beginning as the old President at the end. After the brief executive session of the Senate, called to consider appointments, the President was free of immediate congressional supervision until the beginning of the special session on May 22. Meanwhile, at Monticello, spending more time indoors than he liked because of the cold and backward season, Jefferson was considerably occupied with answering the many addresses and letters from Republicans that manifested their continued loyalty to him.

About a month after he got home and about a week after his sixty-sixth birthday he received highly gratifying news from Washington. He learned of the declaration of the young and friendly British minister, David Erskine, that the Orders in Council of January and November, 1807, against which his own government had so strongly protested, would be withdrawn on June 10. He also learned that, in turn, Madison had proclaimed the renewal of the commerce with Great Britain which had been proscribed. 7 One feature of the surprising Erskine agreement Jefferson regretted — the prospective sending by the British of an envoy

(extraordinary to negotiate a trade treaty. In his opinion they had never been known to make an equitable commercial treaty, and none could .therefore be expected. Nevertheless, he rejoiced in the apparent British retreat as the triumph of the "forbearing and yet persevering system" of the American government. He told Madison that the agreement would give the country peace in his administration, and by permitting the extinguishment of the national debt would open to them "the noblest application of revenue^that has ever been exhibited by any nation." No doubt the ex-President was thinking of the program of internal improvements and education he and Gallatin had had to forgo. 8

7 Erskine's communications of Apr. 18, 19, 1809, Madison's proclamation of the latter date, and his letter of Apr. 24 to TJ are in Hunt, VIII, 50-53. TJ commented in a letter to Madison, Apr. 27 (L. & B., XII, 274-277).

* See Jefferson the President: Second Term, pp. 553-560.

.

These events stimulated his imagination. While declaring that the policy of the French Emperor was so crooked as to elude conjecture, he himself engaged in a good deal of the latter — not merely with respect to the revocation of the French edicts in response to the British action, but also regarding expansion into Spanish territories and former colonies that seemed to be slipping from Napoleon's control. Besides the Flori-tfas, his aspirations for his country as now expressed extended to Cuba. Beyond that southern outpost he would not go, but he still had hopes of including £anada in "our confederacy." Then, he said, they would have "such an empire for liberty" as had not been surveyed since the creation. And he was persuaded that "no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government." 9

The shocking news that the Erskine agreement had been repudiated by the British government reached him in early August. Such euphoria as it had created lasted not more than three months, and both he and Madison began to have doubts at least a month before that. 10 Madison had to issue another proclamation, restoring the prohibition of trade with Great Britain as required by the Non-Intercourse Act. Jefferson at Mon-ticello, more convinced than ever of British chicanery, wrote Madison that if Bonaparte should have the wisdom to "correct his injustice" against the United States, war with Great Britain would be inevitable. While expressing continued confidence in Erskine's integrity, he spoke of the "unprincipled rascality" of Canning and described the present ministry as the most shameless that had ever disgraced England. And he sought to reassure his mortified successor by holding that both of Madison's proclamations were entirely proper under their respective circumstances. 11 The net result of these developments, according to Gallatin, was to leave the nation in a weaker condition than it had been a year earlier. 12 Thus it would seem that the Madison administration, instead of being credited with a plus mark, should have been charged with a minus, and one would have supposed that the President's credibility would have suffered. No doubt it did, but most Federalists appear to have been restrained in their early criticism. Some sharp things were said in especially pro-British papers, but in contrast to his predecessor

9 L. & B., XII, 277. He did not allow for the increase in the slave population of the country that would result from the acquisition of Cuba. On the Floridas, see ch. VI, pp. 86-88, below.

,0 For an authoritative account of this from the British point of view, see Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War (1963), pp. 207-209. See TJ's comments to Madison, June 16, 1809 (Ford, IX, 255-256); Madison's to TJ* June 20 (Hunt, VIII, 60-61).

"TJ to Madison, Aug. 17, 1809 (L. & B., XII, 304-305, supplemented from LC). Perkins takes a much more favorable view of Canning {Prologue to War, pp. 210-220).

12 Gallatin to John Montgomery, July 27, 1809 (cited, ibid., p. 219).

he was not subjected to grave personal abuse. Thus far the Federalists preferred him to Jefferson.

The Erskine agreement, which seems to have been more widely and more enthusiastically hailed than the Louisiana Purchase, had been attributed in Federalist circles to the escape of the administration from the influence of Jefferson. One writer declared that it was owing to "fortuitous circumstances abroad, and a disposition not perverse in the new president." Said a Federalist editor: "Our only fear respecting Mr. Madison has been that he would be influenced by his predecessor." 13 Even after the repudiation of the Erskine agreement, there was a disposition in Federalist circles to absolve him from blame for the crisis. The source of the country's troubles, alleged one paper, was to be found in the eight years preceding him. 14

Speaking of his own proceedings, Jefferson said that the "republican portion" of his fellow citizens had viewed them with indulgence. His friend Benjamin Rush congratulated him on the "auspicious issue" of his "free and protracted negotiations" with the British. The Richmond Enquirer copied from a western paper a Latin quotation which, while making him the major luminary, sought to honor both him and his successor. In translation it read: "The-sun retires, but darkness does not follow." An even better expression of predominant Republican sentiment was the toast that Thomas Ritchie, editor of the Enquirer, gave at a Fourth of July celebration: "Thomas Jefferson and James Madison — the same in principle — the same in measures — the same in the confidence of their country." 15

Ritchie, always a seeker after party unity, was well aware of what the Federalists were saying. So was Madison himself. Writing Jefferson about a week after the special session of Congress began, he said: "Nothing could exceed the folly of supposing that the principles and opinions manifested in our foreign discussions were not, in the main at least, common to us: unless it be the folly of supposing that such shallow hypocrisy could deceive any one." 16 In fact there was reason to believe that Madison was less anti-British than his predecessor and thus in a somewhat better position to negotiate. Jefferson's Chesapeake proclamation had been a stumbling block, and, while this was not formally disavowed, one feature of the modified policy represented by the Non-Intercourse Act

13 Charleston Courier (a relatively moderate paper), May 2, 1809, quoting communication in Baltimore Federal Gazette; Charleston Courier, May 10, 1809, quoting Freeman s Journal.

XA Charleston Courier, Aug. 23, 1809, quoting Virginia Gazette; see also Aug. 21.

,5 TJ to William Lambert, May 28, 1809 (L. & B., XII, 284); Rush to TJ, May 3, 1809 (Butterfield, II, 1003-1004); Richmond Enquirer, May 10, quoting Missouri Gazette; ibid., July 7, containing Ritchie's toast.

16 Madison to TJ, May 30, 1809 (Hunt, VIII, 61-62).

was that French as well as British warships were excluded from American waters. This modification he may be presumed to have acceded to, however, and Madison was entirely warranted in saying that their political enemies were seeking to make a distinction where there was no difference worthy of the name.

Both Madison and Jefferson were anathema to John Randolph, erstwhile Republican turned perennial gadfly. At the beginning of the special session of Congress he introduced a resolution calling for an inquiry into the financial transactions of the government during Jefferson's two terms. The main question he raised was whether the moneys had been properly applied to the objects for which they were appropriated. But Randolph's friend Nathaniel Macon, after affirming his own belief in the propriety of investigating the money affairs of any and every administration whenever a President retired, made this observation: "I feel no hesitation in saying that the nation will never be blessed with such another Administration as the last." John Randolph, hastening to say almost the same thing with a quite different meaning, provided one of the most memorable and most unfavorable characterizations of the Jeffersonian regime:

I do unequivocably say that I believe the country will never see such another Administration as the last; it had my hearty approbation for one half of its career — as to my opinion of the remainder of it, it has been no secret. The lean kine of Pharaoh devoured the fat kine; ... I repeat it — never has there been any Administration which went out of office, and left the nation in a state so deplorable and calamitous as the last. 17

In contrasting Jefferson's two terms this embittered critic did not allow for the intensification of the duel between Great Britain and France, and for the shrinkage in the options of neutrals. In calling for an inquiry into the expenditures of the recent government, furthermore, he was not attacking it at a point of particular vulnerability. It may have been less economical than it claimed to be, but it had been notably scrupulous and free of scandal. Nothing much came of this resolution. The committee made an incomplete report which was tabled. 18 The retired President does not appear to have been at all perturbed by this move, or gesture,

xl Annals, n Cong., i sess., I, 69; see also pp. 63-64, 66, 68. 18 June 27, 1809 (ibM-> P- 448)-

PRESIDENTIAL AFTERMATH

25

of his inveterate critic, but he was disturbed by another resolution from the same hand, calling for an inquiry into prosecutions for libel in the federal courts and pointing to the libel cases in Connecticut. This caused Jefferson to write letters to Congressman Wilson Cary Nicholas and Postmaster General Gideon Granger, who had been his intermediary in this matter. As we have noted elsewhere, Jefferson's private explanation of his own connection with these abortive prosecutions for libel leaves something to be desired, but he was clearly not responsible for starting them, and the statement that Granger published in midsummer appeared to bring that controversy to a satisfactory conclusion. Not even the Connecticut Federalists entered into it with eagerness at this time. 19

It should certainly not be supposed that Jefferson's old political foes ceased attacking him. During the first months of his retirement, while most of the Federalists were applauding Madison for his apparent diplomatic triumph, a two-volume work, entitled Memoirs of the Hon. Thomas Jefferson, was published in New York. 20 It was better described by one of its subtitles, for it purported to give "a view of the rise and progress of French influence and French principles" in the country. This was distinctly a High Federalist view, pro-British and anti-democratic. Fol-i lowing the strict party line that had been laid down in the previous decade, the author identified Jefferson with these baleful French ideas, but he gave relatively slight attention to the recent President in the first volume. In the second that gentleman was described as "weak, visionary, timorous and irresolute, destitute of fortitude, destitute of magnanimity," and he was said to have brought the country to ruin at home and disgrace abroad. 21 Jefferson does not appear to have possessed a copy of the book and may never have learned from it that his principal characteristic was duplicity. He still subscribed to the Philadelphia Aurora, however; and, though he claimed that he was doing little reading of newspapers, he could have seen there William Duane's comment on the work as "a satire of the American people, and disgrace to the press, and to human nature." 22

The National Intelligencer responded to what it called the "clamorous abuse" of the ex-President even before Duane sought to expose the author. Samuel Harrison Smith published a series of ten articles under the

"There is a detailed account of these cases in Jefferson the President: Second Term, ch. XXI. Developments after TJ's retirement are described on pp. 388-391.

20 Attributed to Stephen Cullen Carpenter. Right to title registered June 7, 1809.

21 Memoirs of the Hon. Thomas Jefferson, II, 90.

22 Philadelphia Aurora, Aug. 21, 1809. Duane, who was avidly anti-British, noted the anonymous publication Aug. 17 and referred to it a number of times thereafter. Saying that it was the work of Stephen Cullen, who had added the name Carpenter, Duane charged him with being a British pensioner.

title "Defence of Mr. Jefferson's Administration." 23 Smith blamed this abuse on the spirit of a faction: "Professing an unbounded respect for the present Chief Magistrate, it daringly carries the dagger to the heart of his best friend." Jefferson, who was here referred to as the Sage of Mon-ticello, was said to need no defense, but, week by week, he received one. The successive articles dealt with practically all the controversial issues of his presidency. Smith might have made more of the Louisiana Purchase and have claimed less for the embargo than he did.

After the repudiation of the Erskine agreement, some Federalists were intimating that the difficulties confronting Madison were not of his own making. Thus one newspaper said: "Again we are inflicted with the king's evil: I mean the evil of the 'illustrious Jefferson'." 24 It is hard to determine the precise point at which Federalist praise of Madison turned to blame and he ceased being compared with Jefferson to the latter's disadvantage. Perhaps his first address to Congress marked a turning point. Disappointment was expressed that he gave no hint of a policy. Said the Connecticut Courant: "We are left to grope our way in the dark, without one ray of light." 25

Of more abiding interest was a veiled attack on Jefferson, made at the very end of 1809, which escaped from the heavy-handedness that characterized virtually all other partisan attacks on him and, unlike them, gained for itself a place in literature. About Christmastime appeared A History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker — that is, Washington Irving. In this fanciful and witty work the character of William the Testy was modeled in part on Jefferson; and his administration is satirized in the account of the administration of the seventeenth-century Dutch governor Wilhelmus Kieft. 26

The picture is inexact: William the Testy was a small man, given to violent outbursts of temper, impatient of all advice. Jefferson did not look like that, and those who knew him best would never have agreed that he was passionate and unreasonable. Unlike William the Testy, he was not enamored of metaphysics and he was too utilitarian to find enduring delight in abstractions.

Nevertheless, along with some wide misses, the young author made some palpable hits — poking fun at the Governor's "universal acquirements," his art of fighting by proclamation, his disposition to experiment in political as well as mechanical matters, his obsession with economy. Young Irving remarked that if William had been less learned he might

23 National Intelligencer, July 19-Oct. 6, 1809. Smith himself was presumed to have written the articles.

24 James Cheetham in American Citizen, quoted by Charleston Courier, Sept. 20, 1809.

25 Quoted by Charleston Courier, Dec. 21, 1809.

26 Book IV.

have been a greater governor. As for economy, Knickerbocker said: "This all-potent word, which served as his touchstone in politics, at once explains the whole system of proclamations, protests, empty threats, windmills, trumpeters, and paper war." 27 There was truth in these jests, though certainly not the whole truth, and the downfall of the prototype of William the Testy was properly attributed to the Yankees, who, in this ingenious narrative, could be regarded as either the New Englanders (with whom the New Amsterdamers were in perpetual dispute) or as the British violators of American rights.

That Jefferson was not unresponsive to humorous writing is suggested by his admiration of Laurence Sterne and his liking for Tristram Shandy, but there seems to be no way of knowing what he thought of this post-presidential satire on himself. He does not appear to have owned or ever to have referred to Knickerbocker's History.

Ill

About the time of his retirement Jefferson had Samuel Harrison Smith of the National Intelligencer print a circular letter laying down for himself the law of never interfering with his successor or the heads of departments in any application for public office. 28 He was never quite able to live up to his resolution, but his chief departures from it were shortly before and during the War of 1812, when he was especially pressed to intervene. In the first half of Madison's first term, however, he gave significant counsel and rendered important services in connection with personnel and appointments at the highest level. In particular the reference is to James Monroe a nd A lbert Gallatin. N^

Probably no one else did so much as he to prepare the way for the restoration of intimate personal and political relations between Madison and Monroe. These had been interrupted in 1808, when the frustrate ex-minister to Great Britain was set up against Madison in the presidential election by a group of dissident Republicans. The breach was grievous to Jefferson, who was always deeply concerned for party unity and was devoted to both men. 29 Soon after the ex-President got home, Monroe, who was then in the process of moving from a rented house in Richmond to his farm in Albemarle County near Monticello, dined and passed an evening there with his distinguished neighbor. Jefferson reported to Madison with particular pleasure that the latter's recent rival

21 History of New York, ed. by E. T. Bowden (1964), pp. 187-188.

28 Ford, IX, 248. An undated draft of this, addressed to Samuel H. Smith, is in the J. Henley Smith Papers (LC). Madison issued a circular of the same wording on his retirement (Hunt, VIII, 389*1.).

29 See Jefferson the President: Second Term, pp. 548-549, 551-553.

T

had parted company with "the junto that had got possession of him" for their own purposes. He was confident that Monroe's "strong and candid mind" would bring him to "a cordial return to his old friends." 30 Monroe's bonds with Jefferson had never been severed, and their intimacy was renewed as county neighbors. The reconciliation of Monroe and Madison was not to be effected for more than a year.

Late in the fall of 1809 the President asked Jefferson to sound out Monroe regarding his possible appointment to the governorship of the Louisiana Territory, now vacant because of the tragic death of Meriwether Lewis. 31 Jefferson rode over to Highlands (later Ash Lawn) to see Monroe, catching him the day before he was to leave for Loudoun County to look after his interests there. The ex-President reported to Madison that Monroe regarded the governorship as incompatible with the respect he owed himself. He indicated that he would have taken a place in the Cabinet if it had been offered. He was not unready to serve the public, but his main concern at present was to free himself from his financial embarrassments.

From Monroe's own account of this meeting it would appear that this hypersensitive man was offended by Jefferson's suggestions, and he was unquestionably resentful of developments in Albemarle during his absence in Loudoun. Two days after he left, announcement was made of the candidacy of Thomas Mann Randolph for the congressional seat of Wilson Cary Nicholas, who was not standing for re-election. Monroe, who had not been informed of the vacancy, believed that the timing was deliberate. He heard that Jefferson had expressed the opinion that he did not wish to be elected. He himself said that, while it would have been most difficult for him to serve, he would have agreed to do so if elected. 32 There is no evidence that Jefferson played any part in the abortive campaign of his son-in-law, who was soundly defeated by David Shepherd Garland of Amherst County. 33 And if relations between him and Monroe were somewhat strained for several weeks, he took the lead in restoring them to their old friendliness by calling at Highlands when Monroe was ill.

Meanwhile, Madison had learned from Jefferson's report that his alienated friend would have accepted and presumably would still accept an appointment to the Cabinet. In May, 1810, Monroe visited Washington,

30 TJ to Madison, Mar. 30, 1809 (LC).

31 Madison to TJ, Nov. 27, 1809 (MP); TJ's reply of Nov. 30 is in Ford, IX, 265-267.

"Monroe to Richard Brent, Feb. 25, 1810 (S.M.H., V, 108-120). In the latter part of this long letter he defended his conduct as a diplomat. While unwilling to accept any appointive office except one of the highest, he regarded election to almost any office as a vindication.

33 Gaines, p. 70.

where he was received in a very friendly manner by the President. Writing Madison soon after Monroe returned to Albemarle, Jefferson expressed delight at the effect the visit had on his neighbor's state of mind. "There appears to be the most perfect reconciliation and cordiality established toward yourself," he said. "I think him now inclined to rejoin us with zeal. The only embarrassment will be from his late friends." 34

Jefferson may never have been aware of the pains to which Monroe went to explain himself to his "late friends." In September he wrote to John Taylor of Caroline, one of the Old Republicans who never ceased being loyal to Jefferson and wanted Monroe to rejoin the administration. His letter was passed around as he expected, though the length of it must have been discouraging. 35 In his elaborate defense of his own official conduct he gave what amounted to a critique of the foreign policy of the government in Jefferson's second term. The rejection of the Mon-roe-Pinkney treaty still rankled in his breast, and he had not forgotten what he regarded as ill treatment by the administration. 36 He claimed, however, that his friendship with Jefferson had been preserved, as Jefferson himself did. And, while expressing regret for the errors of that former chief magistrate, he paid him tribute as a firm and incorruptible upholder of the rights of his country and its people. 37

Developments in Richmond early in 1811 enabled Monroe, who was so hungry for justification, to make an honorable return to public life. The appointment of John Tyler as district court judge (which had been the subject of previous correspondence between Madison and Jefferson) was followed by his resignation from the governorship of the state and the election of Monroe in his place. Congratulating him on the governorship, Jefferson said that, while it was not a post in which much "genius" could be manifested, it was a prominent one. What most pleased him was that in elevating him the Virginia legislature bore testimony to the "fidelity" of his principles "before the Republicans of the Union generally," thus placing him back on his "antient ground." 38 His appointment by Madison as secretary of state in succession to Robert Smith followed a few months later. He wrote Jefferson that he accepted it in the hopes that his action would promote harmony, at least in their party. 39

34 TJ to Madison, May 25, 1810 (Ford, IX, 275). The reconciliation is described by Harry Ammon in James Monroe (1971), pp. 270-288.

35 Monroe to Taylor, Sept. 10, 1810 (S.M.H., V, 121-149). See also his letter of Nov. 19 to Taylor {ibid., pp. 150-158).

36 On the rejected treaty, see Jefferson the President: Second Term, ch. XXII.

"S.M.H., V, 122-.23, 131, 136.

38 TJ to Monroe, Jan. 25, 1811 (LC), replying to Monroe's letter of Jan. 21 (S.M.H., V, i6o)-

39 Monroe to TJ, Apr. 3, 181 1 (ibid., 184-185).

* * *

Jefferson could hardly have been unaware that the nomination of Gallatin as secretary of state had been blocked by the Smith-Giles-Leib faction in the Senate. His preference for Gallatin over Robert Smith could have been assumed long before the incompetence of the new secretary of state was signally manifested. Yet, since he wanted to be a friend to everybody — or at least to members of his own party — and persistently strove to maintain harmony within the government, he was quite in character in expressing more appreciation of his former Secretary of the Navy than that official deserved. Forwarding a letter that had come to him by mistake, Jefferson seized the opportunity to salute Smith with affection and gratitude, to remind him of the harmony and good will that had sweetened the toils of his own official family, and to express confidence that this spirit would be continued in that of Madison. With considerably more optimism than the situation warranted, he said: "I sleep with perfect composure, knowing who are watching for us." 40

In his remote canton he may have been slow to learn of the exacerbation of the feud between Gallatin and the Smith-Giles-Leib faction. But the feeling was so strong that, when Gallatin visited Monticello with the Madisons toward the end of the summer of 1809, he told Jefferson he seriously thought of resigning. 41 Writing Gallatin a few weeks later, Jefferson said he had "reflected much and painfully on the change of dis-, positions" that had recently occurred in the Cabinet. Also, he said that the retirement of Gallatin would be a "public calamity." He laid first emphasis on the "extinguishment" of the national jiebu regarding this as 7^"~ vital to the destiny of the country. (With the benefit of hindsight it may appear that this emphasis was excessive; but they had no way of anticipating the era of world peace during which the young republic was to realize so richly on its vast potentialities.) What Jefferson wanted to avoid was the cycle of debt and corruption that he perceived in England, and he believed that no other President and secretary of the treasury would ever make the reduction of the debt their major object. If Gallatin t5£j should retire before the end of Madison's administration, that would be the "most inauspicious day" ever seen by their new government. Therefore, he urged Gallatin to abandon any thought of resigning. 42 In his reply to what he described as an affectionate letter, Gallatin said that Jefferson's continued friendship and confidence more than consoled him for his recent mortifications. Sincerely attached to Madison, he voiced

40 TJ to Robert Smith, June 10, 1809 (L. & B., XII, 287).

41 The story of this part of Gallatin's struggle with the Smith faction, with pertinent correspondence, is in Henry Adams, The Life of Albert Gallatin (1879), pp. 400-411. It is covered through the year 1810 in Raymond Walters, Jr., Albert Gallatin (1957), ch. 18.

42 TJ to Gall«in, Oct. 11, 1809 (Ford, IX, 264-265).

V/7 V '

no criticism of him but admitted that his feelings had been deeply wounded. 43

An episode that particularly troubled him and Jefferson was the publication of one of Erskine's dispatches in which Gallatin was said to have characterized Jefferson as pro-French and to have contrasted his policy with that of Madison. This occasioned the publication of a denial by Gallatin. That did not stop the outcry, and it was followed by an exchange of letters between him and Jefferson on the subject. Jefferson needed no assurance of Gallatin's loyalty. Nor did Gallatin believe that any newspaper attack would create any doubt in Jefferson's mind of the "sincerity and warmth" of his sentiments. 44 Their friendship did not waver when attacks on Gallatin continued.

Largely because of the opposition of Gallatin's enemies in the Smith-Giles-Leib faction (sometimes referred to as the "invisibles"), a bill embodying Gallatin's recommendations about commercial policy visa-vis the British and the French was defeated, and what is known to history as Macon's Bill Number Two was subsequently adopted. Even if not the "most disgraceful act on the American statute-book," as Henry Adams said it might well be, it was unquestionably a feeble measure. 45 Nevertheless, Jefferson's letters during the first regular congressional session of the new administration (i 809-1810) imply no criticism of his successor for lack of leadership. Those to Madison himself in fact were largely devoted to the subject of Merino sheep.

The session of 181 o-1811 was marked by the failure of a bill to re-charter the Bank of the United States that Gallatin favored. Again the "invisibles" had defeated him. Though Jefferson himself opposed re-charter, this fact did not affect his relations with Gallatin; but that frustrated official, believing that his usefulness to the administration was at an end, submitted his resignation immediately after the adjournment of Congress. 46 About this time John Randolph commented: "The Administration are now in fact aground at the pitch of high tide, and a spring tide too. Nothing, then, remains but to lighten the ship, which a dead calm has hitherto kept from going to pieces." 47 Though it sounded extravagant, the saying was all too true. During the first half of his first term, when he might have been expected to be at his strongest, Madison

43 Gallatin to TJ, Nov. 8, 1809 (Writings, ed. by Henry Adams [1879], I, 464-466).

44 Gallatin to the National Intelligencer, Apr. 21, 1810 (ibid., pp. 475-479); TJ to Gallatin, Aug. 16, and Gallatin to TJ, Sept. 10, 1810 (Adams, Gallatin, pp. 418-419).

45 Adams, Gallatin, p. 416. This act removed the restrictions on commerce with Great Britain and France and provided for the reimposition of these on either nation if the other, within a specified time, should withdraw its own objectionable orders or decrees.

46 For the events and Gallatin's letter of Mar. 4, 1811, to Madison, see ibid., pp. 426-435.

47 Quoted, ibid., p. 431.

controlled neither Congress nor his own household. He rose to this particular occasion, however. Declining to accept the resignation of his only strong minister, he dropped Robert Smith, who had proved disloyal as well as incompetent, and gained a superior replacement in the person of James Monroe.

Jefferson had no part in these events except for his important earlier reports on Monroe's state of mind. After being informed by Madison of the change in the Cabinet, he indicated to him his strong approval. 48 But this division among his former colleagues pained him deeply, and he wrote Gallatin and Smith claiming the privilege of neutrality and asking mutual permission to esteem all his friends, neither knowing nor asking to know the causes of their differences. 49 A little later, when Smith addressed a paper to the public in which he attacked Madison, Jefferson expressed an unfavorable view of Smith's conduct; and his former Secretary of the Navy passed out of his life at this point, while Gallatin definitely remained in it. 50

The troubles of that harassed official were by no means over, for William Duane continued to denounce him, and under these circumstances Jefferson's relations with the passionate editor of the Aurora may seem surprising. As long as he was the recognized leader of the party, Jefferson, appreciating Duane's abilities and services, had borne with him patiently and had retained his loyalty. In retirement the former President carried on an extensive correspondence with him. This related chiefly to the publication by Duane of a treatise that had been sent Jefferson from France for translation and publication. 51 Because of Duane's financial difficulties, he appealed for help to the Great White Father at Monti-cello, expressing doubt of his ability to publish the book. In view of Duane's attacks on Gallatin, Jefferson was placed in an equivocal position. While strongly defending Gallatin to his assailant, he induced William Wirt and Peter Carr to seek aid for Duane in Virginia. Those efforts had to be abandoned when further assaults on Gallatin were coupled with violent attacks on Madison. 52 Jefferson gave the President

48 Madison to TJ, Apr. i, 1811 (Hunt, VIII, 136/j.); TJ to Madison, Apr. 7, 1811 (L. & B., XVIII, 269).

49 TJ to Gallatin, Apr. 24, 1811; to Robert Smith, Apr. 30, 1811 (ibid., XIII, 45-47).

S0 TJ to Madison, July 3, 1811 (ibid., p. 63). Apparently he had no later correspondence with Smith.

SI [Destutt de Tracy], A Commentary and Review of Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, printed and published by Duane in 1811. See below, ch. XIV, pp. 208-212, and TJ to Tracy, Jan. 26, 1811 (Ford, IX, 305-310).

52 Details of this episode can be recovered from the correspondence in Ford, IX, 310-321: TJ to Duane, Mar. 28 and Apr. 30, 1811; to Wirt, Mar. 30 and May 3; to Madison, Apr. 24. See also TJ to Duane, July 25 (L. & B., XIII, 65-67). Duane to TJ, Mar. 14 and July 5, 1811, and Wirt to TJ, Apr. 17, 1811, are in LC.

a full account of his vain effort to procure financial help for Duane, asking him to show the letter to Gallatin, whom he wrote more briefly. 53 Gallatin appears to have remained silent about this episode, which actually left his affectionate relations with Jefferson unimpaired. Jefferson told Madison that he would make one last attempt to reclaim Duane "from the dominion of his passions." He afterwards learned that his letter of remonstrance had given its recipient pain. 54 Such was not his intention, and in fact he tried to help out Duane until almost the end of his own life.

This episode provides a striking example of the lengths to which Jefferson would go to retain a friend and maintain the unity of his party^ The latter motive must have been predominant in this particular instance, for he was not personally intimate with Duane, and party unity was to him little short of an obsession. At this stage he virtually identified this with national unity. "For the republicans are the nation ," he had already written Duane. "Their opponents are but a faction, weak in numbers, but powerful and profuse in the command of moneys," and backed by a foreign power (Britain). His description of them as monarchists now seems extreme, but he was championing the cause of republicanism at a time when the American Republic was even lonelier than it had been before Napoleon became emperor of France. For the union of true believers, of whom he regarded Duane as one, he would sacrifice "all minor differences of opinion."

We may discern rationalization in his identification of Republicans with republicanism. Similar claims have been made many times by partisans for their particular cause. But Jefferson's evangelical fervor suggests that he was thinking of more than political advantage. In this time of dissension among the leaders of his own group he wrote: "And when we reflect that the eyes of the virtuous all over the earth are turned with anxiety on us, as the only depositories of Jthe-Sacred fire ^f liberty, and that our falling into anarchy would decide forever the destinies of mankind, and seal the political heresy that man is incapable of self-government, the only contest between divided friends should be who will dare farthest into the ranks of the common enemy." 55

53 TJ to Gallatin, Apr. 24, 1811 (L. & B., XIII, 45-46). 54 TJ to Duane, July 25, 1811 (ibid., p. 66). 5S TJ to John Hollins, May 5, 1811 (ibid., p. 58).

D'O

Assets and Liabilities 1809-1812

IN the first summer of his retirement Jefferson said that the value of his property was fifty times a debt of $4500 that might ultimately be charged against his estate. ! We need not conclude from this that he valued his property at $225,000, nor need we try to translate this figure into its present-day equivalent, which of course would be many times that. It seems safe to say, nonetheless, that at this time — and indeed for years thereafter — he believed that his assets greatly exceeded his liabilities. The major difficulty was that of realizing on these assets. Consisting wholly of real property and chattels, they could not be quickly converted into cash in the particular economy in which he operated.

Although it would be difficult to set forth his assets in precise monetary terms, we can get a good view of his possessions at this time since he drew up a full list of his lands and slaves in 1810, about a year after his retirement. 2 The land roll of that year shows that he had slightly more than ten thousand acres. Somewhat more than half of these were in Albemarle County and fewer than half in Bedford. Also he owned Natural Bridge (157 acres) and several lots, including one in Richmond. He said that of all things he was most tenacious of land. Chiefly because of gifts to his daughters and their husbands he had a little less of it in 1810 than when he made a comparable list some fifteen years earlier. 3

1 TJ to John Barnes, June 15, 1809 (LC). In 1817 he placed an even greater value on his lands alone.

2 Rolls of 1810 are in Farm Book, pp. 127-129. It should be noted that references to the facsimile in the Berts edn. are italicized. For editorial commentary and correspondence regarding his lands, see pp. 324-336.

3 Land roll of 1794 (Farm Book, p. 32). In Albemarle, TJ gave Pantops (819J4 acres) to JWE and Maria, and sold his claim to 245 acres of John Harvie's Belmont. In Bedford, he gave 1450 acres of Poplar Forest to TMR and Martha, and sold Tullos (474 acres). The only significant addition to his property was at Milton in Albemarle (1 162V4 acres). On this see Appendix II, Section A, below.

ASSETS AND LIABILITIES 35

During his presidency some of his farms in Albemarle were rented. When he came home five fields of one hundred acres each below the Rivanna were leased to John H. Craven, along with the slaves residing on them, and eight fields of forty acres each at Shadwell were rented to Eli Alexander. Both tenants were obligated to follow a specified schedule of crop rotation, and the owner was to receive approximately $1000 a year in one case and about $320 in the other. Alexander was behind on his rent when Jefferson retired, and a dispute between them regarding certain additional acres that might be cleared had to be referred to arbitration. This particular tenancy was a headache to Jefferson and his rentals never proved very profitable. 4

At this time he had about two hundred slaves, divided between Albemarle and Bedford much as his lands were. There were more domestics at Monticello than at Poplar Forest and there were a number of artisans — tradesmen Jefferson called them, though the first on the list, John Hemings, was a carpenter. One can gain a false impression from the totals, since allowance should be made for the children and the aged. A breakdown on the basis of age, from Jefferson's careful retords, shows that one-third of the Negroes were ten or under. In another and smaller category were those retired from service because of age or infirmity. Notable in this group was Old Judy at Poplar Forest, aged eighty-one in

1809. Her husband, Old Will, had vanished from the scene but she remained a couple of years longer. At Monticello boys between ten and sixteen were commonly engaged in the nailery, and girls of that age were occupied in spinning. 5 Not more than a third of Jefferson's slaves were available as field hands, and at this time he actually hired a few to perform tasks beyond the capacity of his own force — such as construction work on his manufacturing mill, digging his canal, and building roads. 6 These had to be paid for in cash, once a year, but in helping construct his mill they were supposedly adding to the value of his property and to his much-needed cash income.

On his retirement from office Jefferson was still bearing a burden of pre-Revolutionary debts to British firms, as well as one dating from the

4 See Farm Book, pp. 161, 171-185. The lease to Craven appears to have run through

1810, and that to Alexander until Dec. 1, 1812, although no payment after Apr. 1, 1811, seems to have been recorded in the Account Book.

5 For an account of TJ's slaves in the 1790's, set Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, pp. 209-212.

6 Between 1806-1810 he hired slaves of Mrs. Mary and Miss Sarah Dangerheld of Spotsylvania County. The original agreement was for nine, but the number was slowly decreased in 1809, when he hired four from Gen. William Chamberlayne {Farm Book, pp. 2 3-33>-

1790's to a Dutch financial house. 7 During his presidency he had finally relieved himself of the most pressing of his obligations — what he called "the great Wayles debt" — and he made payments on the others, but the interest that had accumulated in the years when he made no payments still left him a considerable sum to pay. What concerned him most at this time was the debt of about $11,000 that he had incurred as President.

The financial program he had worked out before coming home called for the application to this of the entire income from his Bedford lands, chiefly from tobacco but to some extent from wheat, both of which were cash crops. He estimated this income as $2500 a year, but in this period it usually came to less. He expected to live off his operations in Albemarle, but, as he told his daughter, that would require good management. Accordingly, he thought at first that, for aid on his farms, he would need to call on his Randolph son-in-law, who was perhaps at the height of his agricultural career about this time. Martha's husband had developed a system of horizontal plowing calculated to prevent erosion, and he produced excellent crops on his red-clay lands, though he was much less successful in marketing them. 8

For reasons that are not clear Jefferson did not seek much help from his son-in-law, and in fact he does not appear to have concerned himself very much with his farms during the first months of his retirement. He took them into his own hands after Christmas, 1809, he said, and until then he devoted himself especially to his gardens. In the summer of 1810 he wrote: "My farms occupy me much, and require much to get them underway." 9 His vegetable gardens were distinctly useful but they deserve treatment, along with his flowers, elsewhere than in a chapter devoted chiefly to finances.

Precisely what the master's plantation management consisted of at this stage cannot be readily determined. Edmund Bacon, the overseer, said he received written instructions about everything, so that he always knew what to do. 10 No doubt Jefferson was diligent in farm management as in other matters, but as time went on he had to devote more and more of it to his correspondence and therefore he spent proportionately less on farming. His later references to his own management were distinctly uncomplimentary. Presumably he could have been more successful if he had concentrated his attention on it, and if the lands themselves had been better. "It was not a profitable estate," said Bacon, referring partic-

7 These debts are described in Appendix II, Section B.

8 On TMR at this time, see Gaines, ch. VI. He made an unsuccessful run for Congress in the winter of 1808-1809, and if anything his financial situation had worsened. 9 TJ to S. H. Smith, Aug. 6, 1810, quoted in Garden Book, p. 427. ,0 Pierson, p. 44.

ularly to the part in Albemarle; "it was too uneven and hard to work." In the opinion of this competent observer, Madison's plantation was much better.

Jefferson raised some tobacco in Albemarle in later years, but at this time his only cash crop there seems to have been wheat. While he sought to approximate self-sufficiency as nearly as possible, he limited the cultivation of corn to prevent erosion and often had to buy it to feed his slaves. Among other demands for cash one of the most persistent was his account with David Higginbotham, a merchant at Milton on the Ri-vanna below Shadwell. Submitted annually, this included items ranging from tea and coffee to salt fish, chiefly for the slaves, and "Negro cloth" for their garments. Until Jefferson turned over all his affairs to his grandson toward the end of his life, he resorted to many and various expedients to meet this perennial obligation. Some of these will be referred to hereafter, but reference should be made first to the failure of one source of cash income on which the ex-President had been counting — namely, the rental from his manufacturing mill.

11

He had two mills on the Shadwell side of the Rivanna, about three-fourths of a mile above the village of Milton and six miles below the village of Charlottesville. From his father he had inherited a gristmill, a canal, and a dam, but all of these were washed away in the great "fresh" of 1771, and they were not fully restored for a generation. During his first term as President a new canal was dug, at an estimated total cost of $20,000. A new gristmill was built for his own use and another dam was constructed. This had to be repaired after later floods but it seemed secure when he came home.

The manufacturing mill, which was expected to grind grain for all comers, went into operation during his second term. 11 Unlike the gristmill or toll mill, this was rented, supposedly for $1250 a year, but it was being operated badly and had brought in no rent as yet. The original arrangement had been made with Jonathan Shoemaker, who insisted on bringing in his son Isaac as a partner and left the running of the mill to him while he himself lived elsewhere. Before Jefferson got home Martha had informed him of the general opinion in the neighborhood that it would be better to get the mill back on any terms than to leave it in the hands of the Shoemakers. Shortly after his return the harassed proprie-

11 The general account of TJ's mills, canal, and dam in Farm Book, pp. 341-343, is followed by extracts of letters bearing on them. They are shown on the Monticello neighborhood map, below, p. 254.

tor wrote a stern letter to Jonathan Shoemaker, as a result of which he received in midsummer a sizable payment on the rent. But this fell considerably below his expectation, and, despite later payments, Shoemaker was still about a year behind when Jefferson had been a year at home. 12

In this staple-producing region, where cash was scarce between crops, there was much recourse to barter. Jefferson's nail business was largely on that basis. 13 But he had to pay in money for the rod and bar iron he got for his nailery from Jones and Howell in Philadelphia, and he had counted on the cash income from his mill. Disappointed in his returns from that source, he was compelled in the summer of 1809 to ask for an extension of credit from Jones and Howell. This was readily granted to him as an old customer, but he had difficulty in paying their bills in the next two or three years. 14 Before the War of 1812 caused commerce with Philadelphia to be interrupted and the operations of his nailery to be suspended, he had taken the manufacturing mill back from the Shoemakers, but it was never to bring him much of a return on his large investment in it. 15 And his operations on the little river that flowed through his lands were to involve him in difficulties and perplexities during the rest of his days.

In particular he was troubled by the activities of the Rivanna Company, created by legislative act in 1806 and designed to improve the navigation of that stream between Charlottesville and Milton. According to Jefferson, the only difficulties lay in the stretch of two and a quarter miles between Secretary's Ford and Sandy Falls — that is, the passage through the Southwest Mountains. His dam gave "a sheet of dead water" for about a mile and a half to the entrance, and his canal by-passed the remainder of the troubled waters. The problem was to get boats (bateaux) into the lower stream, and the directors, including friends and county neighbors of Jefferson's, finally decided to use his canal and build locks somewhat above his manufacturing mill. He provided the materials for these but denied that he was obligated to build them, as was claimed by the directors.

12 Partial extracts from Martha's letter of Mar. 2, 1809, to TJ, and from his correspondence with Jonathan Shoemaker in 1800-1810, are in Farm Book, pp. 360-376. Shoemaker's payment of $490 on Aug. 6, 1809, already earmarked for David Higginbotham, was promptly sent that merchant. It was followed by lesser payments amounting to $571 through Mar., 1810.

13 On the nailery, see Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, pp. 217-220, and Farm Book, pp. 426-453.

,4 TJ to Jones and Howell, Aug. 10, 1809 (.Garden Book, p. 414); extracts of correspondence of 1809-1811 in Farm Book, pp. 448-450.

,s After the Shoemakers the mill was leased to TMR, who had James McKenney of Culpeper as a partner briefly, and Thomas Eston Randolph for a longer time. The latter ultimately became the sole leaser. The terms of the successive arrangements varied, payment being made at times in flour.

Beginning at least in the fall of 1810 there were differences between him and the directors, but before the outbreak of the War of 1812 these appear to have been largely worked out. One gains the impression that he was overly generous if anything. New difficulties arose in the winter of 1812-1813, when the company sought to gain legislative approval of an enlargement of its powers. Suffice it to say here that the locks worked improperly, at times causing a stoppage of the mill by depriving it of water, and that the legalities of the situation remained so unclear that Jefferson in the last decade of his life was impelled to institute a friendly suit in chancery. This was not concluded until 1819. 16

During his first year of retirement Jefferson made no perceptible progress in reducing the deficit he had incurred while President, but, soon after he came home, he shifted his loans. Being unable to renew a private loan of $8000 which had been procured for him toward the end 7)f4iis presidency, he transferred this to the Bank of Virginia in Richmond. 17 Despite later payments to this bank he was never able to extricate himself wholly from debt to it. y

The story of another transaction, involving President James Madison in Washington and General Thaddeus Kosciuszko in Paris, is of particular interest. Before leaving the Capital, Jefferson negotiated a loan with the Bank of the United States. This was endorsed by Madison and by John Barnes, a factor, formerly of Philadelphia and now of Georgetown, with whom Jefferson had long dealt. Barnes was the endorser of first liability; and the old man, as Jefferson described him, was uneasy under the responsibility. Accordingly, Jefferson, after rather painful explanations of the necessities which caused him to seek the loan in the first place, asked Madison to assume the first liability. 18 No doubt this action did much to relieve the mind of Barnes, but that financier came up with a suggestion calculated to relieve the minds of all concerned. This involved General Kosciuszko and the latter's American investments, over which Jefferson had power of attorney and which were largely managed by Barnes. Certain eight per cent certificates of Kosciuszko's, totaling $4500, were on the point of being retired, and the money was to be otherwise invested at Barnes's discretion. He proposed that it be loaned

16 Excellent overall account to Jan. 4, 1813, in TJ's letter of that date to Philip Barbour {Farm Book, pp. 386-393); see also Peter Minor to TJ, Nov. 15, 1813, and TJ to Minor, Nov. 18 {ibid., pp. 395-398). The chancery suit is referred to in letters of TJ to Howe Peyton, Feb. 8, 1817, and J. H. Peyton to TJ, Dec. 17, iSi<){ibui., pp. 400-401, 405-406).

17 This money came from Mrs. Tabb of Amelia County, Va. See Account Book, Jan. 23, July 1, July 22, 1809, Feb. 5, 1810.

18 TJ to Madison, May 22, 1809 (Ford, IX, 241W.). TJ to John S. Barnes, May 24, 1809 (LC).

General Thaddeus Kosciuszko Engraving from a portrait by Josef Grassi

to Jefferson at eight per cent. That gentleman gladly agreed to the suggestion and retired the note in the bank in Washington. 19

He was delighted to be rid of the obligation to the bank without inconveniencing anybody. He did not doubt that Kosciuszko would approve, since the General never intended to withdraw his capital from America and there would be no diminution in his interest. If Jefferson lived he would pay off the debt, and if he did not it would be a charge against an estate worth fifty times the amount. Along with the first remittance of interest by Barnes, Jefferson sent a long letter to. Kosciuszko in the course of which he fully described this transaction. Alter going into embarrassing detail about his general financial situation, he said: "The proposition [of Barnes] was like a beam of light; & I was satisfied that were you on the spot to be consulted the kindness of your heart would be gratified, while receiving punctually the interest for your own subsistence, to let the principal be so disposed of for a time as to lift a friend out of distress." 20 In a letter of effusive friendliness and praise the PoJisJh-patrjot expressed in French his full approval of this disposition of his funds, saying that he had complete confidence in Jefferson and asking only that the interest be paid regularly. It was remitted regularly, if not always promptly, and although the debt was not paid in four or five years as Jefferson predicted, it was paid in six or seven under circumstances which will be described hereafter. 21

Jefferson's papers contain numerous calculations with respect to-tfie payment of various debts, but rarely did events bear out his hopes or even his expectations. Within three years of his return home, however, he did make gratifying progress in reducing what he called his presidential debt. He was by no means over his troubles at the mill; the dam was nearly destroyed by flood in the fall of 1810. 22 He was getting most of the promised rental, but the mitigation of his financial circumstances was chiefly owing to the sale of lands on Ivy Creek in Bedford, 474 acres altogether. On April 7, 1810, he received from Samuel J. Harrison of Lynchburg the first of three annual payments, totaling $5000, and in this period he reduced his notes in the bank in Richmond by approximately that amount. Also, with the help of a good harvest he made a payment

19 TJ to Barnes, June 15, Aug. 3, 1809 (LC). I have been unable to find the letters of Barnes to which TJ was replying.

20 TJ to Kosciuszko, Feb. 26, 1810 (LC). A section was omitted from the letter as printed in L. & B., XII, 365-370. I am much indebted to the admirable article of Edward P. Alexander, "Jefferson and Kosciuszko: Friends of Liberty and of Man" {Pa. Mag. of Hist., XCII [Jan., 1968], 87-103).

21 Kosciuszko to TJ, Mar. 1, 1811; received July 7 (MHS). The Kosciuszko accounts, 1809-1816, are in Edgehil^Randolph Papers, UVA. For the final settlement, see below, p. 181.

22 Garden Book, p. 427.

of $1000 on one of the two pre-Revolutionary debts by which he was still encumbered. 23

His relations with the Scottish house of Henderson, McCaul & Company had been notably agreeable through a generation. He said that he had known its representative, James Lyle, longer than any other living friend. Substantial payments had been made on this debt through the years, but interest had accumulated remorselessly, and when an accounting was made in 1808 a balance of £877 was outstanding. In the fall of 1809 Jefferson visited Lyle at his house in Manchester below Richmond while on his way to that city. No doubt they enjoyed talking over old times, but Lyle may not have been entirely satisfied with their deliberations. He went to Richmond the next day, hoping to see Jefferson but found him occupied. Early in 1810 this creditor wrote his old friend, reminding him that he was "in distress for money" and that he had expected a payment. He said that he found it most disagreeable to be troubling Jefferson. That eminent debtor received the letter with "sincere affliction." For reasons into which he went at length, however, he was then utterly unable to comply. 24 He said he hoped to get rid of this debt before it destroyed him, as it probably would have done but for Lyle's patience.

The letter Lyle wrote his old friend a year later was the more appealing because of its references to his age and infirmity. Now nearly eighty-five, he besought Jefferson not only for a payment but also for aid in procuring spectacles. Jefferson promptly sent him a pair, but these proved useless. Lyle concluded that his optical ills were irremediable but gained the promise of a payment and got one a few months later. 25 The specific debt to which this payment was directed was originally one of £54 to a local merchant which had been assigned to the Scottish firm in 1775. By 1811 interest had accumulated to such an extent that Jefferson's payment of $1000 did not cover it. 26 In this case of old debt, as in others, the interest ultimately exceeded the principal. Such reductions of debt as he had made before the outbreak of the War of 1812 were largely owing to the sale of capital assets. Since he had not seriously depleted his material resources, however, he had some justification for resuming his characteristic optimism. But it remained to be seen what the weather would do to his crops and the war to his markets.

23 Account Book, Apr. 7, June 13, 1810; Apr. 4, June 24, 181 1; May 29, 1812.

24 Lyle to TJ, Jan. 24, 1810; TJ to Lyle, Feb. 12, 1810 (MHS).

25 Lyle to TJ, Jan. 3, Mar. 23, i8n;TJ to Lyle, Jan. 27, 1811 (ibid.).

26 Lyle to TJ, Aug. 5, 181 1, statement of account July 6, 181 1 (ibid.).

/ DO

The Young Gardener

JEFF ERSON believed thatLthe particular direction his major activities took in the course of his life was owing more to circumstances than .toj^hoice. In this opinion and experience he was far from unique among human beings, but because of the extraordinary range of his interests and diversity of his talents, one cannot help wondering just what he would have done if he had really been free to choose. A couple of years after his retirement he made a suggestive statement in that regard. This was in a letter to Charles Willson Peale, the artist and museum director, who had recently left Philadelphia for a farm. To this old friend and fellow naturalist he wrote: "I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near -a good market for the productions of the garden. fjo^oc eupation is _s o. ^KghHJil fp n ^ e as the culture of the earth, an d no culture compara ble to that of the garden. Such a variety of subjects,~"some one always coming to perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, and instead of one harvest a continued one through the year." His little mountaintop was neither fertile nor well watered, and there was no nearby market for its produce. Under no demand except for the family table he was devoted to the garden. "But," he added, "though an old man, I am but a young gardener." 1

This modest disclaimer did scant justice to the interest in the cultivation not merely of vegetables but also of flowers that he began to manifest, at least by the age of twenty-three. The garden book he then began to keep opened with the entry, "Purple hyacinth begins to bloom," and all the others for the year 1766 relate to flowers. In the next year he started off with a reference to the sowing of peas, and from that time

'TJ to C. W. Peale, Aug. 20, 1811 (L. & B., XIII, 79).

Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and tbt Joseph and Sarab Harrison Collectk

Charles Willson Peale "The Artist in His Museum," self-portrait, 1822

onward vegetables and flowers were commingled in his records. 2 During his years abroad, manifesting his "zeal to promote the general good of mankind by an interchange of useful things," he instituted overseas traffic in plants as well as books, and until his dying day hp was pvrhang-in g horticultu ral ite ms with k in dred spirits in thr OH Wnrlrl and tbf New. | j| a list ^of b lg n \yn c ^ r virfs that he drew up in 1800 he included , along with the draft ing of the Declaratio n of Independe juXr the sendin g > j)f olive trees and upland rice to South Caro lina f rom France. _ In this

Connection he Observed: * Jb p gr^nl-pct rpruirfl urrn'rh nnn hp^rerjdeT ^

jmy coun try is to add a useful plant to its culture ." 3 He perceived no conflict between utility and Beauty. He admired the English most for their gardens, which he might have regarded as wasteful, and he urged young Americans to make a special point of viewing gardens when abroad, since noble ones could be so easily made in their own land. In one of the most moving of his protests against the shackles of public office he spoke of his "interest or affection in every bud that opens, in every breath that blows." 4 Rarely did he make such direct referenced his love of nature, but, as has been said, this was "so intense that his observant eye caught almost every passing change in it." 5 His joy in architecture is reflected in the saying that "putting up and pulling down" was a favorite amusement of his . Gardening supplemente d architecture fls^m4«t £rest T and, M e '^ wa s one of the most absorbin g and abiding or' iiis life. *"■"" '

While his interest in plants was lifelong, that in planting necessarily varied with circumstances. Naturally it was quickened by his anticipation of his return home to stay and his expectation of the early completion of building operations at Monticello. Before the middle of his second presidential term he was dispatching fruit and shade trees, shrubs, and thorn plants, chiefly from Main's nursery near Washington. Also, he was discussing landscape gardening with William Hamilton of Philadelphia, whose grounds were the only ones in America that he regarded as comparable to those of England. 6 The thorn hedge around his orchard was only in its beginning and his hilltop was still raw when he viewed them on his spring visit two years before his retirement. At that time, besides setting out shrubs and shade trees, he laid out and planted with flowers the beds that still surround the house. The general plan for the mansion

2 See Thomas Jefferson's Garden Book, 1/66-1824 ( I 944)» es P- PP- ! » 4~7- Admirably annotated by E. M. Betts, this is an invaluable source, to the richness of which I cannot hope to do full justice.

3 Ford, VII, 477; see also Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, p. 485.

4 To Madison, June 9, 1793 (Ford, VI, 290-291).

5 Betts in Garden Book, pp. v-vi.

6 On his activities in 1806 see Jefferson the President: Second Term, pp. 124-127.

and outbuildings that he had drafted a generation earlier showed rectangular beds but these existed only on paper. 1 hose of 1807 were mostly oval though a few were round. 7 Though Jefferson personally directed these and later plantings, the actual digging was done by one of his servants, generally Wormley, while he carried a measuring line. His granddaughter Anne Cary was his enthusiastic assistant. To her he wrote that, since these beds did not provide room enough for the variety of flowers he wanted, he was planning a winding walk around the lawn on the south side, with narrow borders of flowers. 8 This was made the next year, along with a fish pond near the southeast pavilion. Also, that year the old vegetable garden was leveled.

In order to avoid excessive labor, Jefferson concluded that the garden should be in four levels and before the spring of 1808 he had instructed Edmund Bacon to that effect and had requested Thomas Mann Randolph to establish the second of these. When he came home a year later the first terrace was ready for planting. If the master's instructions were carried out, from sixty to seventy loads of manure had been dropped on it — an amount that he regarded as sufficient for the present. 9 When Margaret Bayard Smith and her husband visited Monticello in the summer of 1809, she reported that little had been done and that the chief beauty of the garden was the noble view it commanded. Before that time Jefferson had laid it off in eighteen beds or squares (later increased to twenty-four). He must have done a vast amount of planting by 1809, judging from the "Kalendar" he compiled for that year. The first in a series which, with a single interim, he continued until the last two years of his life, it lists vegetables, states when and where they were sowed, when transplanted, and when brought to table. 10 No later calendar was as "long as this one; and this sowing was probably his most extensive.

(According to Mrs. Smith, he kept his garden seeds in a little closet. Peas and beans were in tin canisters, but all the other seeds were in "little phials," she said, "labeled and hung on little hooks," everything being in fclje "neatest order." 11

He had seeds from everywhere: from county neighbors like George Divers of Farmington; from nurseryman Bernard McMahon and natu-

1 Garden Book, Plate XXIII, which may be compared with Plate III. These and other flower beds were restored in 1939-1941 by the Garden Club of Virginia. (See the beautiful booklet by E. M. Betts and H. B. Perkins, Thomas Jeffersons Flower Garden at Monticello, 1971 edn.) Nothing was planted that he was not known to have had. Thus there is no boxwood.

8 TJ to Anne Cary Randolph, June 7, 1807 (Family Letters, pp. 307-308); Plate XXIV in Garden Book; extract of letter of Ellen Randolph Coolidge to H. S. Randall (ibid., p. 636).

9 TJ to Bacon and to TMR, Feb. 23, 1808 (Garden Book, pp. 364-365; to Bacon, Dec. 26, 1808 (ibid., p. 383). Actually, there were three levels in the garden as finally laid out.

^Garden Book], pp. 388-393, 395.

11 M. B. Smith, First Forty Years, p. 72.

ralists William Bartram and Benjamin S. Barton in the Philadelphia district; from Thomas Main and Dr. William Thornton in that of Washington; from Justice William Johnson and General Thomas Sumter in South Carolina; from Philip Mazzei in Italy; fr^m Lafayf rrp '* a \1Pt„ Madame de Tesse, and Andre Thouin, director of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. To the latter, it may be noted, he had seeds fro m Lewis and Clark sent by Bernard McMahon. He made some purchases, but mostly he was engaging in two-way traffic and free exchange. No small part of his cor= , respondence was with the botanical and horticultural enthusiasts of his age. From them he got not merely peas and beans in variety, but stones, "cuttings, and seeds of trees and vines and shrubs not hitherto planted in his region — a mimosa or silk tree from Bartram, Alpine strawberries from Mazzei, the pod of an acacia and benne seed from Justice Johnson. Not all of these could have been expected to thrive in his environment and they were subject to other difficulties and dangers arising from his particular situation.

He had what he called nurseries, but these were only specially designated beds. He also had a greenhouse, but, as he himself described it, this was merely a glassed-in piazza adjoining his study. There he had hoped to have oranges, limes, mimosa, and the like for his enjoyment, but in the first winter of his retirement everything in the greenhouse froze to death. Judging from his report of the temperature in his bedroom in January, 1810 — once as low as 32^2° — that fate must have nearly befallen himself. 12 Not only were his seedlings without benefit of a hothouse; they were dependent on the rains from heaven just as his grainfields were.

Thft watpr supply at Monticello was pr ecarious. The well near the southeast pavilion was dug forty yearsbefore Jefferson ceased to be President. It had failed many times in the intervening years and was to do so thereafter. He sought to remedy the situation by means of cisterns. Following elaborate calculations made in 1808 of the number of gallons that might be expected from his roof, he built four cisterns within the next two years. These were located on the two sides of the covered ways to the east and west of the mansion. He was still trying to perfect them a decade later, and we may safely presume that they did not fulfill his expectation. His final recourse for water was to springs, of which he himself referred by name to fifteen, ten on the south side and five on the north side of the mountain. 13 In times of drought water had to be brought to the mansion from these hillside springs, and we may doubt if much of it was ever available for grass and vegetables and flowers.

12 Betts & Perkins, pp. 25-26.

13 Garden Book, Appendix II; Berts & Perkins, pp. 21-23.

The successive calendars that Jefferson drew up, from 1809 to 1824, leave no possible doubt of the vast scope of his horticultural ambitions but suggest that his reach considerably exceeded his grasp. This is especially true of the first and longest calendar, which comes to six pages in print. The sowings far outnumbered the transplantings, and, in view of the length of the list of vegetables, relatively few appear to have reached the table. 14 Obviously he was most successful with peas, beans, and other staples. Among the local gentry there was considerable rivalry with respect to the earliest production of edible peas. According to custom a dinner was given by the winner in the race, who was generally George Divers of Farmington. The story is that once, when Jefferson was ahead of everybody, he kept quiet so that this friend would enjoy success as usual. 15

J efferson's diet co p^H jn ostly of fruits and vegetable s^and long before he died he had from his own acres a sufficiently diverse supply of both, actual or potential. In 1811 his plan for his orchard showed that he had 384 fruit trees — peaches, a pple s, and cherries,chiefly, along with some apricots. n prfar 'n?ft, cminces, plums/anH^pears^ Among the trees he proposed to plant in seventy-one vacancies were sixteen pecan trees — spelled by him "peccans." He was unaware that they would bear no nuts in his latitude. 16 By the next year his vegetable garden was graded in three terraces — or, as he called them, platforms; and, besides an elaborate calendar, he left to posterity a plan of his planting arrangement. 17 This shows a division of his twenty-four beds into three main parts, respectively designated "Fruits," "Roots," and "Leaves." The first of these, consisting of the "upper platform," was not a section of his orchard as might have been supposed from its name, but contained peas, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and squashes. The "roots" on the middle terrace included carrots, beets, and onions. The third terrace, assigned chiefly to "leaves," contained lettuce and endive, celery, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, and the like. In the borders, among other things, he had strawberries and had, or hoped to have, tarragon.

Much of Jefferson's correspondence, especially that with Bernard McMahon, from whom he got so many bulbs and seeds, relates to flowers, but he kept no such records of them as he did of vegetables. Writing his granddaughter Anne Cary during one of her visits to her husband's parents, he said that, having left everything to her, he really knew nothing about the flowers. Accordingly, he suggested that she prepare a book

14 See Garden Book for the years in question. It is possible that, after recording the sowings and transplantings, TJ neglected to fill in the other columns.

15 Recounted by T. J. Randolph (Randall, III, 674). 16 Garden Book,, p. 468.

"Ibid., 469.

of instructions for her sister Ellen, her designated surrogate, who had fewer cares than he. 18 This was at just the time he was assuming the personal management of his farms. Toward the end of the following summer he wrote Samuel Harrison Smith that he had made no progress that year in his works of ornament since he had been forced to attend to those of utility. 19 In the spring he had sowed larkspur and poppies in his flower borders and had planted yellow jasmine in the oval beds next to the covered ways on both sides of the house. But the manufacturing mill was more in his mind at this stage.

Perhaps the most beautiful saying of his about flowers was in a letter to his eldest granddaughter. Late in May of the year he was sixty-eight he reported to Anne Cary, who was visiting the Bankheads with his first great-grandchild, a baby boy named John:

Nothing new has happened in our neighborhood since you left The houses and trees stand where they did. The flowers come forth like the belles of the day, have their short reign of beauty and splendor, and retire like them to the more interesting office of reproducing their like. The hyacinths and tulips are off the stage, the Irises are giving place to the Belladonnas, as this will to the Tuberoses &c. As your Mama has done to you, my dear Anne, as you will do to the sisters of little John, and as I shall soon and chearfully do to you all in wishing you a long, long, gooc night. . . . 20

His premonitions about himself were partially borne out a few weeks later, when he had a long attack of rheumatism. This prostrated the muscles of his back, hips, and thighs and kept him from walking. By the time he wrote Benjamin Rush in August, 1811, he was able to walk, but suffered from a pain in his hip when he did. He wrote from Poplar Forest, where he had arrived after a painful journey in a "hard-riding gig." It had been the delight of his retirement to be in constant physical activity and he deplored his inability to take exercise. His zest for gardening had suffered little or no diminution, however; the letter to Charles Willson Peale in which he extolled it was written a few days later. 21 The elaborate records of his vegetables that he kept in 1812 may reflect the fact that he was more indoors than usual, but nature smiled on him sufficiently to make that a good year, perhaps his best year as a gardener. This was the case in the realm of ornament as well as that of

10 TJ to Anne Cary, Dec. 29, 1809 {Family Letters, p. 394). 19 TJ to S. H. Smith, Aug. 6, 1810, quoted in Garden Book, p. 427. 20 TJ to Anne Cary, May 26, 1811 {Family Letters, p. 400).

21 TJ to Benjamin Rush, Aug. 17, 1811 (L. & B., XIII, 76); to C. W. Peale, Aug. 20 {ibid., p. 79).

utility — in the realm of flowers no less than that of vegetables. In the spring he changed tne planting of the borders of the winding walk behind his house so as to bring similar plants together and create better color effects. 22 The bloom of Monticello lasted from early spring till winter. EdnjujisUBaxoji^^said in later years that he never saw anything like it and Ellen recalledtrTat the moments spent by the patriarch and Y-4li5^Ibck amid the flowers were among the happiest of all their lives. 23 ^TB-*h^spnngof 1813 Jefferson reported to a friend that, while he could ride with sufficient comfort, he could walk no further than his garden. 24 He continued to find it easier to ride, but he did not soon cease walking to his garden. The three or four years following his retirement may perhaps be viewed as his golden age as a gardener, but he never ceased to believe that botany is one of the most valuable of sciences and association with growing plants one of life's delights. We may doubt if anybody ever said it better than he did in a letter to a learned friend wheti he was seventy-one:

/ .Botany Lxa nk w ith the most valuable sciences, whether we con-/ sftter-its-subjects as furrnshTfig^ the priricipaTlsubsistence of life to man and beast, delicious varieties for our tables, refreshments from our orchards, the adornments of our flower-borders, shade and perfume of our groves, materials for our buildings, or medicaments \ for our bodies. . . . To a country family it constitutes a great por-\ tion of their social entertainment. No country gentleman should be \ without what amuses every step he takes into his fields. 25

V

11

Interest in the weather was to be expected of a countryman, farmer, and horticulturist, but Jefferson's went far beyond that of his fellows, and in keeping meterological records he was an American pioneer. Systematic aslTe"was, he might Tiave come to the keeping of such records in any case, but as a law student in Williamsburg he may have received his original stimulus from Governor Francis Fauquier, who was an enthusiastic observer and recorder of natural phenomena. 26 His own system-

22 Betts & Perkins, p. 47, citing entry of Apr. 8, 1812, in Garden Book, p. 474.

"Pierson, p. 38; Randall, HI, 347.

24 To Mrs. Elizabeth Trist, May io, 181 3 {/Garden Book, p. 501).

25 TJ to Thomas Cooper, Oct. 7, 1814 (L. & B., XIV, 201).

26 On Fauquier, sec Jefferson the Virginian, p. 77. TJ was familiar with observations of temperature, winds, and rainfall that were made at and near Williamsburg from 1772 to 1777, as he showed by his use of them in his Notes on Virginia (in his answer to Query VII).

atic recording may be said to have begun in Philadelphia, where, on July 1, 1776, he made the first entry in his weather memorandum book. Though thermometers were very scarce in pre-Revolutionary America, he had acquired one by or before this time, and within a day or two he bought a relatively expensive one in the colonial metropolis. His friend and fellow observer of wind and weather, Rev. James Madison of Williamsburg (later Bishop), complained that, during the Revolution, the British robbed him of his. Jefferson reported that he was without one in the very cold winter of 1783-1784 when attending the Continental Congress in Annapolis and believed there was not one in the entire state of Maryland. 27

Following an insistent suggestion from Jefferson, Congressman James Madison, Jr., cousin of the clergyman, was drawn into observations of the weather in Orange County, which were afterwards taken over by his father, but these meteorological coadjutors of the Squire of Monti-cello were handicapped by the lack of a barometer and even of a thermometer at first. 28 Jefferson's own observations do not appear to have been often limited by lack of instruments and he made them wherever he was, but the records in his Weather Memorandum Book were necessarily intermittent except when he was in one place for a considerable period. 29 They are fullest during his periods of retirement and best of all from 1810 to 1816, when they attained a degree of reliability that gratified him and has commended him to later meteorologists.

Long before he made this detailed record his travels had served to increase his satisfaction with the climate of his native region. This is well expressed in a letter he wrote his daughter Martha from Lake Champlain while he was secretary of state and on a holiday journey with Madison. Rarely did this lover of the sunshine complain of heat, but the only thing that had marred the pleasure of his trip thus far, he said, was sultry weather such as supposedly would be met with in Carolina or Georgia rather than in New York and New England. He was inclined to believe that summer heat in the North was worse than in the South while it lasted. Actually, he was never to be in New England in summer long

27 On the meteorological activities of this member of the Madison family and TJ in the early period, see Alexander McAdie, "A Colonial Weather Service" {Popular Science Monthly, XLV [July, 1894], 331-337). On TJ's activities and services in this field as a whole, see E. T. Martin, Thomas Jefferson: Scientist (1952), ch. V.

28 On the Madisonian collaboration, see Papers of James Madison, ed. by R. A. Rutland et al., VIII (1973), Appendix B, and letter of TJ to Madison, Mar. 16, 1784 (pp. 15-16), which the latter's editors describe as a virtual command.

29 Though the Weather Memorandum Book, 1776-1820, like the Account Book, is in several volumes (LC and MHS), I have used the photostatic copy at UVA and refer to it by date only.

enough to test this opinion, but the general satisfaction with his own situation that he expressed at this time was to be maintained:

On the whole I find nothing anywhere else in point of climate which Virginia need envy to any part of the world. Here [Lake Champlain] they are locked up in ice and snow for 6. months. Spring and autumn which make a paradise of our country are rigorous winter with them, and a tropical summer breaks on them all at once. When we consider how much climate contributes to the happiness of our condn. by the fine sensation it excites, and the productions it is the parent of, we have reason to value highly the accident of birth in such a one as that of Virginia. 30

Half a dozen years later, writing the French traveler and scholar Vol-ney, who had visited him at Monticello the previous June when his building operations were at a very confused stage,- he ^described his district as. thp F.dpn of the United States 31 Writing in early April, 1797, he spoke of his delight in the "soft genial temperature of the season, just above the want of fire, enlivened by the reanimation of birds, flowers, the fields, forests and gardens." He does not appear to have been fully aware or sufficiently appreciative of the glory of the northern autumn, but he rightly rejoiced in the long and delicious Virginia spring.

To this noted traveler he admitted some years later that people were disposed to like the sort of climate they were used to. "The Canadian," he said, "glows with delight in his sleigh and snow, the very idea of which gives me the shivers." 32 He always dreaded cold and never during his years abroad did he become reconciled to the cloudy skies of Europe. For its sunshine if for no other reason he preferred the American climate. "I think it a more cheerful one," he said. "It is our cloudless sky which has eradicated from our constitutions all disposition to hang ourselves, which we might otherwise have inherited from our English ancestors." According to his own reckoning the climate at Monticello was distinctly cheerful; he concluded that on an average five of every seven days were clear, and only one was wholly cloudy.

He kept records of the weather while President, as he did of the appearance of vegetables in the Washington market, but not until his retirement was he in position to keep a continuous meteorological diary. Not even then was he wholly stationary, for he made regular visits to Poplar Forest. On all the other days during the seven years 1810-1816, he made observations before dawn and between three and four in the