by John Ferling
Though the emancipation plans went nowhere, the Committee of Revisors—following Jefferson’s lead—proposed that it be made easier for slave owners to manumit their slaves, after which those who were freed would have to leave the state. So too would white women who bore children fathered by black men, and of course they would have to take their child into exile as well. Both recommendations eventually became law. The legislature also enacted a tightened slave code that Jefferson drafted, statutes that made already unsparing laws even harsher. Neither the Committee of Revisors nor the legislature considered citizenship for free blacks, and neither contemplated bequeathing to blacks the same legal rights enjoyed by whites.18
Jefferson waged battles for change in three other areas: land, religion, and education. During his first days back in the assembly in 1776, he secured the repeal of the entailing of estates. Entail, a carryover from medieval England, was designed to keep the land of a family intact, and under the practice the heir to entailed land could not sell the inherited property. Though not every estate in Virginia was entailed, many were, with the result that over several generations the practice had contributed to the concentration of property in fewer and fewer hands. For example, late in the seventeenth century, John Pleasants, a Tidewater planter, had entailed his nine thousand acres among three children; a century later, at the time of independence, the property remained in the hands of just three persons. Had Pleasants’s land never been entailed, some four hundred of his descendants might have owned a piece of the original estate by 1776. Jefferson was not only committed to individual freedoms; he also believed that the living should not be shackled by the practices of those who had lived in earlier times. What is more, practices such as entail facilitated the hegemony of Tidewater planters in the colonial assembly. Jefferson understood that the abolition of entail would over time weaken the aristocracy and redistribute political power in Virginia. Many of Virginia’s aristocrats understood that as well, and some ranted against Jefferson’s “cursed bill,” exclaiming that its reform-minded author was carrying on like a “midday drunkard.” Some influential Virginians hated Jefferson ever afterward.19 But their enmity did not stop him. Once the Committee of Revisors came into being, Jefferson also went after primogeniture, which required that a father’s property be bequeathed to his eldest son. Like entail, primogeniture was non-compulsory, but the recodified law proposed by the committee, and enacted in 1785, eliminated the option.20
Virginia had greeted independence by guaranteeing freedom of religion, though, as had been true for 150 years, the province still had an established church (the Church of England before independence, the Episcopal Church thereafter). Established churches could force all citizens to attend their services and pay tithes for their support, and they not infrequently formed an alliance with the aristocracy, standing arm in arm against change. By the time Jefferson reached Williamsburg in the autumn of 1776, the legislature had been inundated with petitions from those who urged more substantive changes in the realm of religious freedom. Conservatives fought back, hoping among other things to retain laws that required church attendance and punished heresy and blasphemy. Jefferson joined the fight for greater religious freedom, which he subsequently called the “severest contest in which I have ever been engaged.”21 The battle raged for years, and its outcome was never certain. In 1777, as part of recodification, Jefferson drafted a statute for religious freedom, but he did not feel that the time was right for its introduction. Finally, in 1779, his proposed law was introduced. It would have instituted comprehensive change, literally bringing Virginia from the premodern to the modern world in the sphere of religion. It stated that “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support” any church or religion, and that none “shall be restrained, molested, or burthened … on account of his religious opinions or belief.” It continued: “all men shall be free to profess … their opinions in matters of religion” and those opinions “shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.22
After a bruising struggle, the legislature postponed action on Jefferson’s bill; long after he left the assembly, his friend James Madison secured its passage. It was rapidly adopted as a model for laws of religious freedom in several states, and years later was incorporated in the U.S. Constitution through the First Amendment. Jefferson prayed that it might have some influence in Europe as well. Had “the almighty begotten a thousand sons, instead of one,” they could not have eradicated the “ignorance, superstition, poverty and oppression of body and mind” that churches had inflicted, he once remarked. But he believed that a law of the sort that he had written might “emancipate the minds” of Europe’s masses.23
Next to land reform, Jefferson believed that nothing was more crucial for sustaining republicanism than providing wider educational opportunities. To do so, he said, would establish “a system by which every fibre would be eradicated of ancient or future aristocracy.” He later asserted that “a nation [that] expects to be ignorant and free … expects what never was and what never will be.” Should the citizenry be “inattentive to public affairs,” he additionally warned, officeholders “shall all become wolves.” Jefferson drafted a bill that called for three years of free public education for all white children in Virginia and for the establishment of public college preparatory schools for the most promising students. Those who excelled in the prep schools were to be the recipients of three years of free education at the College of William and Mary. While it was under consideration, Jefferson called the proposed education law “by far the most important bill in our whole code.” But as was the case with his forward-looking land distribution proposal, his educational recommendations were not enacted. Nor, for that matter, did the publicly endowed state library system that he advocated come into being. Jefferson’s proposals failed, he charged, because the “wealthy class [was] unwilling to incur” the expense that would result from “throw[ing] on wealth the education of the poor.” Not for the last time in American history, the wealthiest in society refused to make a sacrifice from which they perceived little or nothing of benefit to themselves.24
Jefferson had not always succeeded as a reformer, but a real revolution had been set in motion in Virginia and other colonies. “I am surprized at the Suddenness, as well as the Greatness of this Revolution,” John Adams exclaimed, adding: “Idolatry to Monarchs, and servility to Aristocratical Pride was never so totally eradicated from so many Minds in so short a Time.” Jefferson said that the colonists had made the transition from monarchy to republicanism “with as much ease as … throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes.”25 Prior to independence, Jefferson had remarked that in “truth … the whole object of the present controversy” was the establishment of state governments that would prevent those who held power from extinguishing liberty.26 Before the end of 1776 a majority of the states had adopted new constitutions that severely limited the authority of state governors so they could not “corrupt”—the operative word that year—the legislative branch as the English monarch was thought to have done with Parliament. Some states broadened the electorate and based representation on population.27 Virginia’s constitution made the legislature supreme and independent, but it did little to weaken the clout of the gentry. Indeed, Edmund Randolph, who helped write the constitution, said that it “was tacitly understood” that the political leadership of the aristocracy was to continue after 1776 as it had “existed under the former government.”28
A rankled Jefferson sought without success for three years after independence to achieve a real revolution in Virginia, both in the distribution of power and in individual freedoms. Late in life, Jefferson said, “I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is the better for my having lived at all? I do not know that it is.” And with a self-effacement that would have been unimaginable for many other Founding Fathers, Jefferson went on to say that had he not lived, someone else would have done what he had done, and “perhaps, a little better.”29 On that score, he was
wrong. Jefferson had not made the American Revolution alone, but his personal contribution to the blossoming of independence was staggering. He had drafted the Declaration of Independence which became for contemporaries and generations yet unborn what historian Pauline Maier has accurately described as a “scripture” crystallizing the founding ideals of the new United States.30 But breaking Britain’s chains was not enough. More than any single individual, he had struggled to diminish the power of the “Patrician order” in the hope of forming “a system” with “a foundation laid for a government truly republican.”31
Despite all that Jefferson had accomplished, some Virginia activists in the 1770s—and many Americans in the 1790s who learned their history during the early Republic’s fierce partisan warfare—came to think of Jefferson as too self-absorbed to serve in the American Revolution. The criticism began in 1776, when some in Williamsburg plotted what Jefferson thought was the “secret assassination” of his character. They assailed him for his lengthy absence from Congress.32 Even as he drafted the Declaration of Independence, foes at home circulated the rumor that he was opposed to taking military action against Indians who helped the British army. (He countered by saying that he hoped any tribes aiding the redcoats would be driven west of the Mississippi River.)33 Some were put off that autumn when he quit Congress after only one year’s service, and others questioned his virtue when he refused to be part of the diplomatic mission to France. A year later, Richard Henry Lee wrote to Jefferson from Philadelphia, sarcasm dripping from his pen: “It will not perhaps be disagreeable to you in your retirement, sometimes to hear the events of war, and how in other respects we proceed in the arduous business we are engaged in.”34
In later years critics portrayed Jefferson as an uncaring hedonist who had spent the trying early period of the war living in luxury and safety at Monticello, while others served in Congress or soldiered, and many died at places such as Bemis Heights, Brandywine, and Valley Forge. In truth, Jefferson’s behavior was an open invitation for censure.
He spent up to nine months at home each year from the summer of 1776 until the summer of 1779, always attributing his behavior to his wife’s precarious health. Martha did experience a difficult pregnancy in 1776–1777 before delivering a son who, sadly, died before he was named. Five months later she was pregnant again. The child that was born in August 1778—christened Mary, though her father called her Maria, or Polly—survived, but Martha recovered so slowly that it is now believed that she was seriously ill for some time.35
Had Jefferson abandoned a spouse in perilous health, he would today justly be condemned as uncaring and self-centered. But his remaining at home was not all that provoked criticism. The manner in which he lived during the war aroused scorn. Jefferson continued building his mansion. Washington was simultaneously doubling the size of Mount Vernon, but others were overseeing the work while he served with the Continental army. Jefferson by contrast was a hands-on builder. While Washington was engaged in bitter struggles in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, Jefferson was fussing over floor plans and plantings at Monticello. Under his watchful eye, bricks were made, materials acquired, and craftsmen and laborers carefully supervised. All the while, Jefferson persistently grafted trees for his orchards, hired a gardener, and searched for a vigneron. His appetite for shopping was unflagging.
When the British and Hessian soldiers who surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777 were transferred to Albemarle County fourteen months later, Jefferson devoted his energies to making them safe and comfortable, steps that may have saved the lives of innumerable captives. Jefferson also hosted British officers at lavish dinners, opened his library to them, and invited them to his home for philosophical discussions. On many evenings, he and Martha were joined by prisoners of war for music and singing. He once wrote to a friend in Congress asking for the release from captivity of one officer, a Hessian nobleman who hoped to “return home on parole” in order to save his family’s estate. Jefferson never hid his inclination to treat the captives “with politeness and generosity.” In fact, from nearly the moment of the prisoners’ arrival he explained his conduct to Virginia’s governor.36 But not everyone saw consorting with enemy officers in the same humane light as did Jefferson.
Jefferson also annoyed, or at least exasperated, others by imprudently talking of retiring from public life altogether in 1779. He was thirty-five years old, and his country was in the midst of a desperate struggle. France had allied with the United States a few months earlier, leading him to think that the war was nearly over—a mistaken sentiment shared by many. But peace was not at hand, and some of Jefferson’s friends were angry that he would even consider retirement as this juncture. One, Edmund Pendleton, lectured him on the inappropriateness of wishing for a “happy quietus from the Public” when his services were so badly needed by his country.37
No one had to goad Alexander Hamilton into serving his country, and none ever questioned his courage. He had been marching and drilling with the militia for nearly ten months when, in March 1776, he took command of a volunteer artillery company and began readying it for Britain’s anticipated invasion of New York. Always neat and careful about his appearance, Captain Hamilton was especially eager that his men look like soldiers. With funds that he raised, Hamilton outfitted himself and his men in blue and buff coats with buckskin trousers, and he completed the look with swashbuckling white belts crisscrossing the chest. Hamilton dressed the part of a spit-and-polish soldier, though it is unlikely that he struck anyone as rugged or tough. He was five feet seven, the average height of men in late-eighteenth-century America, but very slight, with narrow shoulders and a tiny waist. As for the past ten years he had been a clerk and a student, it was unlikely that he was mistaken for a man accustomed to hard physical work. Though twenty-one, Hamilton was so spare that his physique must have resembled that of a still-growing adolescent, probably leading some to wonder whether he possessed the stamina for the rigors of soldiering. But military officers come in all shapes and sizes, and if Hamilton’s physical form was not striking, he exuded more than a few positive qualities. He moved with a supple grace, and his dedication and commitment to the cause were beyond question. Beneath thick auburn hair, his face was strong, his jaw hard and firm. His blazing azure eyes were his most prominent feature. They sparkled with enthusiasm, firmness, and intelligence, provoking a sister-in-law to remark later on that he had “a face never to be forgotten.”38 Hamilton was one of those rare individuals who, even before he said a word, conveyed a sense of courage, intelligence, and quick-wittedness. Once he did speak, he struck listeners as well educated, self-assured, and confident, a force to be reckoned with, an officer capable of leading.
Young people who have not yet proven themselves are often insecure. About to try to make a name for himself as a soldier, Hamilton was anxious. He never doubted his intellect or bravery, and he knew that he was ambitious, but he was the first to admit that he was also vain and immodest. Hamilton worried too that he lacked some of the happier traits that “embellish human nature.”39 What he meant is not clear, but he could have been pondering whether the dark side of his harsh lot in childhood had rendered him too ambitious, unfeeling, ruthless, cynical, and above all, designing.
Whatever his attributes and shortcomings, Hamilton early on understood that he would require a patron if he was to truly get ahead. Benefactors had been essential in helping him get to this point. Through ready displays of energy, intelligence, industry, loyalty, zeal, and a bright, uplifting manner, he had impressed men of influence on St. Croix. Those same qualities won over many of the well-established men he met in New Jersey and New York. Clearly, Hamilton had a facility for attracting notice and favorable judgments. It was not due to good fortune, but the legacy of years of thought, planning, study, and hard work. Once in the army, he again called on those skills that had served him so well. To them, he added a crucial new virtue: courage under fire. The war would provide ample opportunities for Hamilton to prove hi
s valor.
Hamilton had been in the army only about one hundred days when a British invasion fleet arrived off Long Island. The rebel army, led by General Washington, was soon boxed in by a powerful adversary, and on July 12 the British tightened the noose. Two Royal Navy frigates, the Phoenix and the Rose, sailed up the Hudson River, not only brushing past the marine obstacles the Americans had prepared but also scarcely bothered by what Washington called the “heavy and Incessant Cannonade” of the Continental artillerists. The only American casualties were several artillerymen who were killed when their own cannon exploded, the result of poor discipline and leadership.40 All the unlucky gunners were members of Captain Hamilton’s company. A tragedy of this sort can often be ruinous to one’s career aspirations, but Hamilton was never disciplined, most likely because someone protected him or, as sometimes occurs in armies, blame was simply placed on someone of lower rank.
Captain Hamilton was back in action when the British landed some 20,000 men on Long Island. The brief engagement that ensued on August 27 was an American disaster. Continental losses were heavy. Those who survived did so by fleeing the battlefield and racing in wild flight for the relative safety of the redoubts in Brooklyn Heights. Part of that panicky escape, Hamilton’s company lost its baggage and a field gun.41 Heavily outnumbered and with their back to the East River, Hamilton and his trapped comrades—nearly 9,500 American Continentals and militiamen—appeared to face certain death or capture the moment that Britain’s commander, General William Howe, finally attacked. But Howe was slow—and always had been. He waited for reinforcements, additional supplies, further intelligence reports. While Howe dawdled, a great storm blew up. Washington took advantage of the weather. Acting on the fog-shrouded, jet-black night of August 29, he extricated his army, bringing the wet, shaken men across the river and back to Manhattan. There was little safety there, as Hamilton quickly discovered. Posted in New York City with about 3,500 others, Washington was nearly enveloped and trapped again on September 15 following a British landing to the north at Kip’s Bay. Had the redcoats moved with dispatch, they could have sealed off all escape routes from the city, and Hamilton, if he survived, would have spent the war in captivity and most likely never would have made a name for himself. Instead, the British advanced at a snail’s pace, and Hamilton, for a second time in three weeks, got away. Six hours after the British landing commenced, the last of the Americans exited the doomed city, taking unmarked roads northward to rejoin the remainder of Washington’s army in Harlem Heights. In what one day would be seen as a strange twist of history, Hamilton was led to safety by Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Burr, a native New Yorker who was aware of roads unknown to the British invaders.
