Jefferson and Hamilton

by John Ferling

  32. Kurtz, The Presidency of John Adams, 400–401; AH to Charles Carroll of Carrollton, July 1, 1800, PAH 25:2.

  33. JM to TJ, January 10, 1801, PTJ 32:436–37. Webster’s and Troup’s quotations can be found in Ralph Adams Brown, The Presidency of John Adams (Lawrence, Kans., 1975), 185.

  34. Brown, The Presidency of John Adams, 185.

  35. TJ to Burr, December 15, 1800, PTJ 32:307.

  36. TJ to Rush, December 14, 1800, PTJ 32:306; Thomas McKean to TJ, December 15, 1800, ibid., 32:307–10; TJ to Charles Pinckney, November 4, 1800, ibid., 32:242–43. For a good account of Pennsylvania imbroglio, see Jacob E. Cooke, Tench Coxe and the Early Republic (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1978), 380–89.

  37. TJ to JM, November 9, 1800, PTJ 32:250; TJ to Randolph, December 5, 1800, ibid., 32:271.

  38. Charles Pinckney to TJ, December 6, 1800, PTJ 32:279–80; Peter Freneau to TJ, December 2, 1800, ibid., 32:265–66; TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, December 12, 1800, ibid., 32:300.

  39. TJ to JM, December 19, 1800, PTJ 32:322.

  40. TJ to Burr, December 15, 1800, PTJ 32:307; Burr to TJ, December 23, 1800, ibid., 32:342–43; Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson, 178. For TJ’s residence in Washington, see JMB 2:1031n.

  41. Michael A. Bellesiles, “ ‘The Soil Will Be Soaked with Blood’: Taking the Revolution of 1800 Seriously,” in James Horn et al., eds., The Revolution of 1800: Democracy, Race, and the New Republic (Charlottesville, Va., 2002), 67; Bruce Ackerman, The Failure of the Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Marshall, and the Rise of Presidential Democracy (Cambridge, Mass., 2005), 41–45; James Gunn to AH, December 18, 1800, PAH 25:263; Sedgwick to AH, January 10, 1801, ibid., 25:310–13; Gouverneur Morris to AH, January 16, 26, 1801, ibid., 25:324–25, 329–30; John Rutledge Jr. to AH, January 10, 1801, ibid., 25:308.

  42. AH to Wolcott, December 16, 1800, PAH 25:257; AH to James Bayard, December 27, 1800, January 16, 1801, ibid., 25:276–77, 319–24; AH to John Rutledge Jr., January 4, 1801, ibid., 25:293–98; AH to James Ross, December 29, 1800, ibid., 25:280–81; AH to McHenry, January 4, 1801, ibid., 25:292.

  43. Cabot to AH, August 10, 1800, PAH 25:64.

  44. The foregoing on Burr draws on Isenberg, Fallen Founder.

  45. AH to Bayard, April 6, 1802, PAH 25:588.

  46. Burr to Samuel Smith, December 29, 1800, in Mary-Jo Kline and Joanne Wood Ryan, eds., Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr (Princeton, N.J., 1983), 1:478–79. In the words of historian Joanne Freeman, Burr “left things open,” saying nothing about “declining the office if offered.” See Joanne B. Freeman, “A Qualified Revolution: The Presidential Election of 1800,” in Francis D. Cogliano, ed., A Companion to Thomas Jefferson (Chichester, England, 2011), 145–163. The quote is on page 155 of Freeman’s essay.

  47. TJ to Randolph, January 23, 1801, PTJ 32:500; TJ to Mary Jefferson Eppes, January 4, 1801, ibid., 32:391; TJ to Burr, February 1, 1801, ibid., 32:528; TJ, Anas (April 15, 1806), in Padover, CTJ 1286–87.

  48. TJ to Eppes, February 15, 1801, PTJ 32:593; TJ, Anas, (February 12, 14, 1801, January 26, 1804), in Padover, CTJ, 1282, 1285; AH to McHenry, January 4, 1801, PAH 25:292–93; AH to Wolcott, December 16, 1800, ibid., 25:258; AH to Bayard, December 27, 1800, ibid., 25:277.

  49. There were problems with Georgia’s ballot, now thought to have been caused by carelessness or incompetence by those who certified the results in Savannah. Jefferson wisely, and correctly, concluded that the irregularities were due to frontier lawyers, and he counted the state’s votes for himself and Burr. Had he done otherwise, no one would have received a majority of the electoral votes, and the House would have had to pick the winner from the five candidates who had received electoral votes. See Ackerman, Failure of the Founding Fathers, 55–76.

  50. Baker, “ ‘An Attack Well Directed,’” Journal of the Early Republic 31:555–56.

  51. PTJ, editorial note, 32:578n; Sharp, Deadlocked Election of 1800, 149–53; Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson, 186–89.

  52. TJ to Monroe, February 15, 1801, PTJ 32:594; TJ to JM, February 18, 1801, ibid., 33:16; TJ, Anas (April 15, 1806), in Padover, CTJ, 1286–87; Ackerman, Failure of the Founding Fathers, 87–88; James E. Lewis Jr., “‘What Is to Become of Our Government’: The Revolutionary Potential of the Election of 1800,” in Horn, Revolution of 1800, 20; Bellesiles, “ ‘The Soil Will Be Soaked with Blood,’ ” ibid., 65; James Roger Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis (New Haven, Conn., 1993), 267–71; Sharp, Deadlocked Election of 1800, 153–56. The “factious foreigners” and “fighting bacchanals” quotations are in Ackerman, Failure of the Founding Fathers, 3.

  53. Quoted in Sharp, Deadlocked Election of 1800, 159.

  54. “Deposition of James A. Bayard,” April 3, 1806, in Memoirs of Aaron Burr: With Miscellaneous Selections from His Correspondence, Matthew L. David., ed. (New York, 1971), 2:122–33; John S. Pancake, Samuel Smith and the Politics of Business, 1752–1839 (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1972), 57; Franck A. Cassell, Merchant Congressman in the Young Republic: Samuel Smith of Maryland, 1752–1839 (Madison, Wisc., 1971), 99–101; Bayard to Richard Bassett, February 16, 1801, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1913 (Washington, D.C., 1915), 126; Bayard to Samuel Bayard, February 22, 1801, ibid., 131–32; Morton Borden, The Federalism of James Bayard (New York, 1955), 84–93; Bayard to AH, March 8, 1801, PAH 25:344. The Sedgwick quotation can be found in Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson, 193.

  55. TJ, Anas (April 15, 1806), CTJ, 1287; Burr to Albert Gallatin, February 25, 1801, in Kline and Ryan, Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr, 1:509; Bayard to Allan McLane, February 17, 1801, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1913, 128; “Deposition of Bayard,” Memoirs of Burr, 2:122–33; “Deposition of Samuel Smith,” ibid., 2:133–37.

  56. For a good introduction to the topic of TJ’s presidency, accompanied by an excellent bibliographical guide, see Robert M. S. McDonald, “The (Federalist?) Presidency of Thomas Jefferson,” in Cogliano, A Companion to Thomas Jefferson, 164–83.

  CHAPTER 15: “THIS AMERICAN WORLD WAS NOT MADE FOR ME”: A GLORIOUS BEGINNING AND A TRAGIC END

  Chernow, AH, 640–709; Cooke, AH, 225–43; Miller, AH, 533–76; Brookhiser, AH, 197–217.

  1. TJ to Henry Knox, April 8, 1800, PTJ 31:488.

  2. Susan Dunn, Jefferson’s Second Revolution: The Election Crisis of 1800 and the Triumph of Republicanism (New York, 2004), 191; James Roger Sharp, The Deadlocked Election of 1800: Jefferson, Burr, and the Union in the Balance (Lawrence, Kans., 2010), 125. JA’s quote can be found in Thomas Froncek, ed., The City of Washington: An Illustrated History (New York, 1977), 87.

  3. JMB 2:1035. The quotation is in Dunn, Jefferson’s Second Revolution, 191. For a good description of the new capital, see David McCullough, John Adams (New York, 2001), 541–42, 550–51.

  4. John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (reprint, New York, 2010), 413.

  5. Malone, TJ, 4:29–32; Dunn, Jefferson’s Second Revolution, 213–17; David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1997), 187–93. The Aurora quotations can be found in McCullough, John Adams, 562.

  6. Editor’s note, PTJ 33:134. The “femininely soft” voice quote is in Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington, ed., Gaillard Hunt (New York, 1906), 26.

  7. TJ, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, PTJ 33:148–52. TJ’s two earlier drafts can be found in ibid., 33:139–47.

  8. Bernstein, TJ, 136.

  9. James Bayard to AH, March 8, 1801, PAH 25:344; AH, An Address to the Electors of the State of New-York, March 21, 1801, ibid., 25:365.

  10. TJ to Gates, March 8, 1801, PTJ 33:215; AH to Gouverneur Morris, February 29, 1802, PAH 25:544; AH to Richard Peters, December 29, 1802, ibid., 26:69.

  11. AH to ESH, January 26, May 24, 1800, PAH 24:220, 525; AH to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, December 29, 1802, ibid., 26:71; Burr to TJ, April 21, 1801, PT
J 33:627.

  12. AH to ESH, January 26, [1800], PAH 24:220.

  13. AH to Gouverneur Morris, February 29, 1802, PAH 25:544.

  14. AH to William Cooper, September 6, 1802, PAH 26:52; AH to Peters, December 29, 1802, ibid., 26:69.

  15. Editor’s note, PAH 25:38–41.

  16. AH, Alexander Hamilton’s Explanation of His Financial Situation, [July 1, 1804], PAH 26:289.

  17. PAH 25:450.

  18. The eighteen essays of AH’s “The Examination,” published between December 17, 1801–April, 8, 1802, are interspersed between pages 453 and 597 in volume 25 of PAH.

  19. Quoted in Miller, AH, 542.

  20. Editor’s note, PAH 25:436–38; AH to Benjamin Rush, March 29, 1802, ibid., 25:583–84; AH to John Dickinson, March 29, 1802, ibid., 25:583.

  21. TJ, Anas (April 15, 1806), in Padover, CTJ 1286.

  22. AH to King, June 3, 1802, PAH 26:13–14.

  23. AH to Gouverneur Morris, March 4, 1802, PAH 25:559; AH to Bayard, April 6, [16–21], 1802, ibid., 25:588, 605.

  24. Quoted in Chernow, AH, 661.

  25. AH to King, February 24, 1802, PAH 26:195.

  26. AH, Speech at a Meeting of Federalists in Albany, February 10, 1804, PAH 26:187–90; AH to Harper, February 19, 1804, ibid., 26:191–92.

  27. Nancy Isenberg, Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (New York, 2007), 243–56. The “nigger ball” quotation can be found in Chernow, AH, 675.

  28. Cooper’s two letters, which were published in the Albany Register in April, can be found in PAH 26:243–46 and 244n.

  29. Burr to AH, June 18, 1804, PAH 26:242–43.

  30. AH to Burr, June 20, 1804, PAH 26:247–49.

  31. Burr to AH, June 21, 1804, PAH 26:249–50.

  32. AH to Burr, June 22, 1804, PAH 26:253–54.

  33. Burr to AH, June 22, 1804, PAH 26:255–56.

  34. William P. Van Ness’s Narrative of Events, June 18–22, 21–22, 22, 22–23, 25, 26, 27–28, 1804, PAH 26:241–42, 246–47, 249, 251–52, 254–55, 257–58, 261–62, 264, 267, 274–75; Nathaniel Pendleton’s Narrative of Events, June 22, 23, 23–25, 25, 27–28, 1804, ibid., 26:252, 259, 260, 263, 274–76; Aaron Burr, Instructions to Van Ness, June 22–23, 1804, ibid., 26:256–57; Burr to Van Ness, June 25, 26, 1804, ibid., 26:265, 266–67; Van Ness to AH, June 23, 1804, ibid., 26:257, 258; AH to Van Ness, June 23, 1804, ibid., 26:259; Van Ness, Disclaimer for AH Prepared by William P. Van Ness, June 25, 1804, ibid., 26:265–66; Pendleton, Nathaniel Pendleton’s First and Second Accounts of AH’s Conversation at John Taylor’s House, June 25, 1804, ibid., 26:260–61, 263; Pendleton to Van Ness, June 26, 1804, ibid., 26:270–71; Van Ness to Pendleton, June 27, 1804, ibid., 26:272–73. On Van Ness and Pendleton, see Thomas Fleming, Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of American Politics (New York, 1999), 60, 125.

  35. Editor’s note, PAH 26:240; Burr, Instructions to Van Ness, June 22–23, 1804, ibid., 26:157. On Burr’s advice to Monroe in 1797, see Roger G. Kennedy, Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character (New York, 2000), 69.

  36. AH to Bayard, April 6, 1802, PAH 25:587.

  37. AH to Bayard, April [16–21], 1802, PAH 25:605.

  38. Quoted in Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, Conn., 2001), 196.

  39. J. Lee Schneidman and Conalee Levine-Schneidman, “Suicide or Murder: The Burr-Hamilton Duel,” Journal of Psychohistory 8 (1980–81):159–81. For an excellent account of AH’s thinking, and one that does not buy into the psychohistory theory, see Joseph J. Ellis, “The Duel,” in Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York, 2000), 20–47.

  40. AH to ESH, July 4, 1804, PAH 26:293.

  41. AH, Statement of my property and Debts, July 1, 1804, PAH 26:283–87; AH, Alexander Hamilton’s Explanation of His Financial Situation, [July 1, 1804], ibid., 26:287–91; AH, Deed of Trust …, July 6, 1804, ibid., 26:297–300; AH, Assignment of Debts …, July 9, 1804, ibid., 26:301—4; AH, Debts Owed for Services Not Rendered, July 10, 1804, ibid., 26:307; AH, Last Will and Testament of Alexander Hamilton, July 9, 1804, ibid., 26:305–6.

  42. AH, Statement on Impending Duel with Aaron Burr, [June 28–July 10, 1804], PAH 26:278–80.

  43. For a compilation of AH’s earlier dueling activities, see Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 326–27. The compilation can be found in endnote number thirteen.

  44. AH, Statement on Impending Duel, [June 28–July 10, 1804], PAH 26:279.

  45. William P. Van Ness’s Regulations for the Duel, July 9, 1804, PAH 26:306–7; Nathaniel Pendleton’s First Statement of the Regulations of the Duel, July 4, 1804, ibid., 26:295–96; Nathaniel Pendleton’s Second Statement of the Regulation for the Duel, July 10, 1804, ibid., 26:308–9

  46. Fleming, Duel, 323–24.

  47. Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 180.

  48. For the conflicting accounts offered by the seconds, see Joint Statement by William P. Van Ness and Nathaniel Pendleton on the Duel …, July 17, 1804, PAH 26:333–34; Nathaniel Pendleton’s Amendments to the Joint Statement …, July 19, 1804, ibid., 26:337–39; William P. Van Ness’s Amendments to the Joint Statement …, July 21, 1804, ibid., 26:340–41; editor’s notes, ibid., 26:334–36n.

  49. David Hosack to William Coleman, August 17, 1804, PAH 26:344–47.

  RECKONING

  1. TJ to Martha Jefferson Randolph, July 17, 1804, FLTJ, 261; TJ to Philip Mazzei, July 18, 1804, L & B, WTJ 11:41.

  2. See Virginia Scharff, The Women Jefferson Loved (New York, 2010), 306–9.

  3. TJ to John Melish, January 13, 1813, in PTJ: Ret. Ser. 5:563–64. See also TJ to Walter Jones, March 5, 1810, January 2, 1814, ibid., 2:272; 7:102–3; TJ to Joel Barlow, January 24, 1810, ibid., 2:176–77; TJ to Rush, January 16, 1811, ibid., 3:305; TJ to William Worthington, February 24, 1810, ibid., 2:252.

  4. JA to TJ, June 30, July 3, 22, November 15, 1813, September 3, 1816, AJL 2:346, 349, 363, 488.

  5. TJ to Barlow, January 24, 1810, PTJ: Ret. Ser. 2:177.

  6. TJ, Explanations of the 3 volumes bound in marbled paper, February 4, 1818, in Padover, CTJ, 1211.

  7. TJ to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819, Ford, WTJ 12:136, 140; TJ to Priestley, March 21, 1801, PTJ 33:394; Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776), in Philip S. Foner, ed., The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine (New York, 1945), 1:45.

  8. TJ to Dickinson, March 6, 1801, PTJ 33:196; TJ to Samuel Adams, March 29, 1801, ibid., 33:487; TJ to Barlow, March 14, 1801, ibid., 33:274; TJ to Short, March 17, 1801, ibid., 33:337. TJ to Paine, March 18, 1801, ibid., 33:358–59.

  9. TJ to Paine, March 18, 1801, PTJ 33:358–59; TJ to Priestley, June 19, 1802, ibid., 37:625–26.

  10. The foregoing draws on Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (New York, 2009), 286–356; Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalization of the American Revolution (New York, 1992), 312; Susan Dunn, Jefferson’s Second Revolution: The Election Crisis of 1800 and the Triumph of Republicanism (Boston, 2004), 273–82; Darren Staloff, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment (New York, 2005), 332–50; and William B. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps, 1784–1861 (Lawrence, Kans., 1992), 8.

  11. Quoted in Wood, Empire of Liberty, 712. See also Robert M. S. McDonald, “The (Federalist?) Presidency of Thomas Jefferson,” in Francis D. Cogliano, ed., A Companion to Thomas Jefferson (Chichester, England, 2011), 164–83.

  12. L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between (New York, 1958), 7.

  13. AH to Theodore Sedgwick, July 10, 1804, PAH 26:309.

  14. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 702–3; Wood, Radicalization of the American Revolution, 310–25; Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans (Cambridge, Mass., 2000), 57–59; Jonathan Prude, The Coming of Industrial Order: Town and Factory Life in Rural Massachusetts, 1810–1860 (Cambridge, Eng., 1983), 71.

  15. Wood, Radicalization of the American Revolution, 325, 366–69.

  16. TJ to Samuel Kerchev
al, July 12, 1816, in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., The Portable Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1976), 559; TJ to JA, April 8, 1816, September 12, 1821, AJL 2:467, 575; TJ to Roger Weighman, June 24, 1826, Ford, WTJ 10:390–92.

  17. TJ to Van De Kemp, January 11, 1825, Ford, WTJ 10:337.

  18. TJ to JA, August 1, 1816, AJL 2:485; TJ to Josephus B. Stuart, May 10, 1817, L & B, WTJ 15:113. The “become my own biographer” letter is quoted in Brodie, TJ, 600–601.

  19. Francis D. Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy (Charlottesville, Va., 2006), 75–77.

  20. TJ, Explanations of the 3 volumes bound in marbled paper, February 4, 1818, in Padover, CTJ, 1204. The “Anas” itself can be found in ibid, 1212–88.

  21. TJ’s Autobiography can be found in Padover, CTJ, 1110–94. The quoted material can be found on page 1119.

  22. Quoted in Staloff, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, 359.

  23. The literature on TJ and slavery is enormous. The following are good starting points: Paul Finkleman, “Jefferson and Slavery: ‘Treason Against the Hopes of the World,’ ” in Peter S. Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (Charlottesville, Va., 1993), 181–21; Lucia Stanton, “ ‘Those Who Labor for My Happiness’: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves,” ibid., 147–80; Adam Roth-man, “Jefferson and Slavery,” in John B. Boles and Randal L. Hall, eds., Seeing Jefferson Anew: In His Time and Ours (Charlottesville, Va., 2010), 103–25; John Chester Miller, The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery (New York, 1977); the groundbreaking essay by William Cohen, “Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery,” Journal of American History 56 (1969): 503–26; and Robert McColley, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia (Urbana, Ill., 1973), 2.

  24. TJ to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, Ford, WTJ 10:157. (For what TJ actually said in this letter, see Finkleman, “Jefferson and Slavery,” in Onuf, Jeffersonian Legacies, note 138, page 221.)

  25. TJ to St. George Tucker, August 28, 1797, PTJ 29:519.

  26. Monroe to TJ, February 13, 1802, PTJ 36:576; TJ to King, July 13, 1802, ibid., 38:54–55; Douglas R. Egerton, Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1993), 153–62. On TJ’s estimate on the cost of colonization, see William Cohen, “Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery,” Journal of American History 56 (1969): 503–26.