by John Ferling
Jefferson chaired the committee that prepared a plan of government for the west. Having first considered the matter as early as 1776, and having tended to it while Congress was idled by the lack of a quorum, he was ready in no time with a plan. He recommended the creation of fourteen territories of roughly equal size. He named them in some instances for people or events from the American Revolution (Washington and Saratoga), and in some cases he combined classical and Indian nomenclature (Illinoia and Pelisipia). He proposed that the territories proceed to statehood in stages, according to the size of their population, and he urged self-government for the residents. All adult, white, male residents were to have suffrage rights, and at every stage of the progression toward statehood, the qualified voters were to choose their rulers, write their constitutions, and make their own laws. The national government was to have virtually no role in the governance of the territories. Jefferson’s report contained one more controversial recommendation: After 1800, slavery and indenture servitude were to be illegal in every territory. His recommendation was silent on the matter of colonization, so that any slaves taken into the territory prior to 1800 would be permitted to remain.53
Congress adopted most of Jefferson’s report in the Ordinance of 1784, though the national government was given somewhat more authority in the first stage of territorial governance. Furthermore, by a single vote, Jefferson’s ban on slavery was deleted from the final act. Jefferson immediately understood the magnitude of Congress’s decision with regard to what he called the “abominable crime” of permitting slavery’s expansion beyond the original thirteen states. Two years later, he lamented that the “fate of millions unborn” would be adversely affected, and added that “heaven was silent in that awful moment!”54
The Ordinance of 1784 never fully took effect. When delays arose as a result of negotiating land cessions with the Native Americans, it was discovered that Jefferson’s scheme for territorial boundaries, which had ignored geographical features such as rivers, was impractical. Ultimately, Congress replaced the act with the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, both of which incorporated sufficient numbers of Jefferson’s recommendations—including the prohibition of slavery in territories north of the Ohio River—that he deserves substantial credit for envisaging the organization and governance of America’s territories for generations to come. At a time when only Pennsylvania had a truly democratic constitution and many doubted that rude frontiersmen were capable of exercising self-government, Jefferson believed in the ability of people to govern themselves. In the long run, he was proven correct. Moreover, had Jefferson’s recommendation concerning the prohibition of slavery in all western territories been adopted, slavery might have died a peaceful death once an adequate supply of labor existed below the Potomac River.
If Jefferson had agreed to serve in Congress as a stepping stone to a diplomatic post, his gambit succeeded. Congress had initially voted to leave three of its peace commissioners—John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay—in Europe to seek commercial treaties. But when Congress learned on May 7 that Jay was coming home, it named Jefferson that same day to its team of envoys. No one had to twist his arm. Before evening fell on the day of his appointment, Jefferson wrote to William Short, a twenty-three-year old Virginian and graduate of the College of William and Mary, asking that he serve as his secretary.55
Within a week, Jefferson was on his way. He hurried to Philadelphia to retrieve Patsy and James Hemings, a nineteen-year-old slave whom Jefferson had summoned.56 The threesome rushed to Boston in the hope of sailing with Abigail Adams and her daughter, Nabby, who were known to be crossing that summer. Jefferson’s party arrived too late to enjoy their company, but he soon booked passage on the Ceres. It weighed anchor and sailed from America for France on July 5, 1784.
Three years earlier, Jefferson’s public life seemed a thing of the past, while Hamilton, a hero at Yorktown, was positioned for greatness. But now, six months into the postwar period, Hamilton had retired from public life while Jefferson had found redemption and was embarking on what would be a transformative adventure in a foreign land.
Chapter 7
“They will go back good republicans”
Jefferson in Paris
Some experience no more than a single pivotal moment in their lives. That was not the case with Hamilton and Jefferson. The adversities of youth left an indelible imprint on Hamilton. His life changed fundamentally as a result of his move to the mainland colonies. What he encountered as a soldier reshaped his thinking, and by serving at Washington’s headquarters, he came to the attention of the most influential men in America. Just as his thinking had been changed forever by the ardors of the long war, Hamilton’s consolidationist perspective solidified as he grew more uneasy in the 1780s with what he found were disturbing postwar episodes and changes.
Without a doubt, Jefferson was stamped by his long years of solitary study and reflection, and by the American Revolution, which gave new meaning to his life and thought. But his plans and expectations for life after his years as governor were shattered by the loss of his wife. His years abroad, beginning in 1784, would be another pivot, as living in France widened his vision and sharpened his social skills, led to a profound personal transformation, and broadened and deepened his commitment to what he always referred to as the “principles of ’76.”
Jefferson was forty-one years old when he sailed for France. His Atlantic crossing was extraordinarily rapid. He landed in England after less than three weeks at sea. Before July ended, he alighted on French soil, and on the thirty-first day after departing Boston, he arrived in Paris.1
In large measure, Jefferson had agreed to serve in Europe in the hope of getting his life back together, though his restless curiosity enticed him to live in a strange land. He dwelled in France for five years, and in some respects it was the happiest period of his adult life, save for his time at Monticello with Martha and the girls. The life of a diplomat was good. He had ample free time, the work was challenging—and satisfying when he achieved something for his country—and he was more comfortable meeting with his diplomatic counterparts than he had ever been sitting in a legislature. Despite his well-known eulogizing of pastoral virtues, Jefferson found that he enjoyed city life. He had lived briefly in Philadelphia, but never in a city the size of Paris, a metropolis that sprawled over nearly half the area of today’s city and was home to hundreds of thousands.2 It offered countless diversions, an endless array of shops that were nirvana for an inveterate consumer, and accessibility to a rich assortment of acquaintances.
Jefferson settled in a house, which he instantly set about remodeling, but after thirteen months he moved again, renting the Hôtel de Langeac on the Champs-Élysées, where he remained for the duration of his stay. With three floors, in addition to a basement, this was a vast house, perfect for an envoy with staff and servants, and well suited for entertaining and conducting business. Its library-study was conveniently connected to a bedroom and dressing room—an arrangement that Jefferson later replicated in remodeling of Monticello. The mansion came with indoor bathrooms, and its spacious grounds included greenhouses and a large garden, where Jefferson set to work. He planted corn, sweet potatoes, watermelon, and cantaloupe and hired a gardener to tend the trees, shrubs, and grass. The Hôtel de Langeac was in a recently developed neighborhood far from downtown, but there were houses all about and a customs building just across the street. His carriage was a necessity for reaching the center of Paris, but it was walking that Jefferson really enjoyed. “A strong body makes the mind strong,” he believed, and he looked on walking as both exercise and recreation. “You should … not permit yourself even to think while you walk,” he once advised, adding that strolls helped “relax the mind.” He encouraged others “to walk very far,” and while in Paris he adhered to his advice, daily walking five miles or more. He even meticulously measured his walking speed, noting that he covered a mile in sixteen minutes, though because he walked
faster in cold weather, he took 331 fewer steps per mile on his winter rambles.3
Three weeks after he arrived in Paris, Jefferson enrolled Patsy in a boarding school in a convent operated by Bernardine nuns.4 A couple of days later he rode to Passy, a suburb, and met with his fellow commissioners, Franklin and Adams. He got on well with both, but it was with John and Abigail Adams that Jefferson established the closest relationship. Despite dissimilar backgrounds and personalities, Jefferson and Adams had enjoyed a cordial, respectful relationship while serving in Congress. In Paris, they became close friends. Each shared a passion for knowledge and conversation, and each was fascinated by politics and the theory and mechanics of governance. What unfolded between them for nine delightful months was similar to Jefferson’s intellectually invigorating experience with Chastellux during his brief visit to Monticello. Abigail noted that Jefferson was “the only person with whom [her husband] could associate with perfect freedom, and unreserve.” Jefferson acknowledged that he disagreed with Adams on some things, and he found him “vain, irritable.” However, those qualities were offset by Adams’s other side. He is “profound in his views: and accurate in his judgment,” said Jefferson. “He is so amiable, that I pronounce you will love him,” Jefferson advised Madison.5
Jefferson likewise developed an immediate affinity for Abigail. He had met few women like her, as she was well read and better educated than most women of the time. He was comfortable with her and enjoyed her company, and it is equally clear that she indisputably enjoyed being with Jefferson. She found him to be soft, considerate, multifaceted, and incredibly bright. She was so swept up by him that she pronounced him “one of the choice ones of the Earth,” adding that he was “an Excellent Man, Worthy of his station.” Abigail provided guidance about the home furnishings that Jefferson purchased, instructed him on the proper dress for a diplomat, and even shopped for some of his clothing. She also was a source of consolation for him. Jefferson was ill throughout the autumn and winter—he suffered from what travelers of the day referred to as the “seasoning,” the adjustment to a strange environment—and initially, at any rate, he likely remained in the throes of grief over the loss of his wife. Furthermore, in January he was jolted by word from Virginia that little Lucy Elizabeth had perished of whooping cough. Abigail, who had lost a daughter of about the same age years earlier, understood Jefferson’s pain and helped him through his bereavement. Over the year or so that he and the Adamses lived in Paris, Jefferson shared many evenings with them, sometimes entertaining them, more often as their guest, and on occasion the three were entertained by a French luminary, such as Lafayette. They went together on outings; on one occasion Abigail accompanied him to a Roman Catholic worship service at the convent where Patsy was studying. Jefferson also spent a bit of time with their seventeen-year-old son, John Quincy, and even more with nineteen-year-old Nabby, as the two enjoyed occasional shopping forays.6
For Jefferson, who never tired of searching for new acquisitions, living in Paris was akin to being the proverbial kid in a candy store. He purchased furnishings for his spacious residence, most of which he intended to bring home to Virginia. These included more than sixty paintings, busts (he acquired plaster copies of Jean-Antoine Houdon’s busts of Washington, Franklin, Lafayette, John Paul Jones, and Voltaire), clocks, mantel pieces, cast-iron stoves, newfangled lamps, wallpaper, mirrors, and Venetian blinds, along with assorted pieces of furniture, tableware, and cooking utensils. He also bought two watches, a pair of spectacles—like Washington, he had reached the age where reading glasses had become useful—two flintlock pistols and six officers’ fusils (light flintlock muskets), a harpsichord for Patsy and a violin for himself, a music stand, a Normandy shepherd and a riding horse, a large carriage, which at times was drawn by as many as five horses, and a cabriolet—a one-seat conveyance drawn by a single horse. Instruments and gadgets appealed to him, and he acquired many, including a perspective machine (which he used for making drawings in scale), a pedometer, metronome, telescope, copying machine, thermometer, solar microscope, hygrometer, and a protractor and camp theodolite, both tools used in running surveys. His greatest enjoyment may have been in shopping for books. “While residing in Paris,” he later remarked, “I devoted every afternoon I was disengaged … in examining all the principal bookstores.” He bought countless volumes for his already considerable library, and he sent home some two hundred books to Madison and a large number to a brother-in-law. The ship that brought Jefferson back to America in 1789 was jammed with eighty-six crates of his possessions and still more were shipped later on a second vessel.7
No traveler ever did more sightseeing than Jefferson. He purchased a map on his first day in Paris and immediately set off to see the city. In time, he visited gardens and art galleries, but Jefferson most enjoyed studying the magnificent array of architecture. Official business eventually took him to England, Holland, southern France, northern Italy, what now is Germany, and through Alsace, Lorraine, and Champagne. Everywhere he went, Jefferson sought out historic sites and the ruins of antiquity, observed the landscape (often comparing it to portions of America that he had seen), took notes on the details of provincial architectural styles, and was intrigued by the soil and farming practices. He transplanted in his Paris garden clippings from vineyards that he visited and sent samples of rice that he found in Italy to Edward Rutledge, an acquaintance from his first term in Congress, in South Carolina. Jefferson was fascinated by local culinary practices—he took comprehensive notes on the preparation of Westphalian ham, for instance—and he made such a thorough study of the numerous varieties of wine that his principal biographer concluded that he likely came to be the best-informed American on the subject.8
Living in a city exposed Jefferson to a new world, and he made the most of it. He spent many nights at the theater, enjoying operas, dramas, Shakespearean plays, and comedies, and frequently attended concerts and recitals. He often dined out, witnessed several hot-air balloon ascensions, and twice attended masquerade balls, which featured dancing from midnight until dawn. He also discovered the Parisian salon, gatherings attended by both sexes and highlighted by wide-ranging discussions of literature, science, politics, and the arts. Though unaccustomed to such gender equality, Jefferson rapidly adjusted and found himself quite comfortable in the company of women. Just as he had drawn close to Abigail Adams, warm relationships emerged between him and several women. He was especially fond of Angelica Church, the sister of Betsey Schuyler, Hamilton’s wife. Having eloped with an Englishman, she lived in London, but in 1787 she traveled to Paris for a two-month stay, during which she met Jefferson. Regarded by many men as singularly attractive, she was also quite intelligent, and she captivated Jefferson. He seemed to have a similar impact on her. She presented him with gifts and treasured a miniature painting of Jefferson that she acquired. Theirs was not an amorous relationship, but one in which each cherished the easy friendship of the other. He enjoyed her company so much that he beseeched her to return to Paris, invited her to Monticello, waxed on about calling on her in Albany should she ever return to visit her family, and invited her to accompany him when he prepared to return to America.9
Jefferson had gone to France on a diplomatic mission, and he was a diligent, if not terribly successful, envoy. He had been sent abroad to join with Adams and Franklin in seeking commercial treaties with sixteen governments in Europe and another four in North Africa. After two years, their only real success was a pact with Prussia. The other European powers remained intransigent adherents of mercantilism, an age-old doctrine that spurned free trade and emphasized national self-sufficiency. But Jefferson also rapidly discovered that many European diplomats felt that America’s decentralized system, which left each state to formulate a commercial policy, posed such a barrier to trade that it was not worth their trouble to negotiate. The Barbary States of North Africa posed a different problem. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli preyed on European and American commerce in the Mediterranean. The
y would suspend their marauding only if foreign nations paid them a tribute—or bribe—for the privilege of conducting commerce in the region. From the beginning, Jefferson thought there was little hope of success in dealing peacefully with these piratical entities, and he was correct. Rather quickly, Jefferson’s experiences reshaped some of his thinking. Within a year, he became an advocate of vesting Congress with supremacy in all matters concerning foreign commerce. In addition, the Barbary pirates convinced him of the necessity for a strong navy, which by “constant cruising and cutting them to pieces by piecemeal” would solve the problem.10
America’s greatest commercial problem, however, stemmed from recent action taken by its late enemy, Great Britain. Shortly before the Treaty of Paris was signed, London had promulgated Orders in Council signaling that it would treat the United States as it did other foreign nations. Britain would sell to the United States, but it would permit only American tobacco and naval stores to enter ports in the home islands—and then only in British vessels—and it closed altogether the ports in its West Indian colonies to United States trade. Before the Revolution, most of the exports from the American colonies had gone to Great Britain or its Caribbean possessions. American merchants, farmers, and tradesmen had expected these markets to be reopened when hostilities ended. That they were shut tightly against American commerce was a staggering blow, especially in the middle Atlantic and New England states.
The United States had concluded a treaty of commerce with its ally France in 1778, and six years later, when Jefferson arrived in Europe, three-fourths of the goods exported from the northern states went to France. Even so, the volume of that trade was small in comparison with America’s prewar trade with Britain. London’s retaliatory commercial policies made it imperative that the American commissioners seek ways to expand trade with France, including fully opening the French West Indies to American commerce and persuading Versailles to end lingering restrictions that had originated generations before. All this made America’s minister to France the young nation’s most important diplomat, and in many ways its single most important official. In May 1785, nine months after he arrived in Paris, Jefferson learned that he had been named to succeed Franklin as minister plenipotentiary to France.
