Madison and Jefferson
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48. PAH, 18:415–18.
49. JMB, 2:923; Lucia Stanton, Free Some Day: The African-American Families of Monticello (Charlottesville, Va., 2000), 102–7, 118–19; Jack McLaughlin, Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder (New York, 1988), 114, 406–7; Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (Charlottesville, Va., 1997), 195; Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello (New York, 2008), 497–501. Jefferson freed Robert Hemings after Bob made arrangements to remove to Richmond. In 1784, after seeing Jefferson off to Europe, he had been allowed to hire himself out. In this way he found a wife, Dolly, and during Jefferson’s years abroad they had a child. Dolly was owned by a physician, who agreed to advance Bob the sum he needed to purchase his freedom, in order that the family could live together. Jefferson complained that Bob had been “debauched” from him—a remark that seems utterly cruel and selfish. Bob explained to Patsy that he did not wish to cause his master unhappiness, but he could not help choosing his immediate family over the one he had come into deprived of choice.
50. Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy (Cambridge, 1989), 233–36; Susan Dunn, Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison, and the Decline of Virginia (New York, 2007), 40–41.
51. Western Star [Stockbridge, Mass.], December 15, 1795; James Roger Sharp, “Unraveling the Mystery of Jefferson’s Letter of April 27, 1795,” Journal of the Early Republic 6 (Winter 1986): 411–18.
52. Ebeling to TJ, July 30, 1795; “Notes on the Letter of Christoph Daniel Ebeling,” [after October 30, 1795], PTJ, 28:423–27, 506–10; Andrew Burstein, Jefferson’s Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello (New York, 2005), 199–203.
CHAPTER NINE
Danger, Real or Pretended, 1796–1799
1. Todd Estes, “Shaping the Politics of Public Opinion: Federalists and the Jay Treaty Debate,” Journal of the Early Republic 20 (Autumn 2000): 393–422; Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, Public Opinion, and the Evolution of Early American Political Culture (Amherst, Mass., 2006); Jack N. Rakove, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (New York, 1990), 117–120; “Notes for Speech, Jay’s Treaty, 1796,” JMP-LC.
2. JM to TJ, April 4 and April 11, 1796, RL, 2:929, 931.
3. Jefferson egged Madison on, writing with grand gestures and extreme language. He would preserve the power of treaty making as a method of securing peace only, he said, seeing “no harm” in “annihilating” it if it was nothing more than a means to forge permanent links between England and the Anglomen in Congress. This language of noncompliance was a clear preview of an even more radical position: the language of nullification which would dramatically challenge the sanctity of the Union. By his use of the word annihilating Jefferson was declaring that one party might reject a federal treaty or federal law, bypassing constitutional guidelines altogether. He regarded such a maneuver as the only way to stop Hamilton. See TJ to JM, March 27, 1796; JM to TJ, April 4 and April 11, 1796, RL, 2:928–29, 931. Washington cited the journals of the Constitutional Convention, as Hamilton did in his “Camillus” essays, written in an effort to defeat Madison’s bill. For Madison’s reliance on the state constitutional conventions (Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania), see “Note for Speech in Congress, March 23–April 2,” and “Jay’s Treaty,” April 6, 1796, JMP, 16:274, 276, 296; Ketcham, 361–62.
4. JM to TJ, May 1, 1796, RL, 2:936.
5. Writing under a pseudonym, Robert Livingston observed the previous September, in a widely circulated opinion, that all Americans with unbiased judgment disapproved of what they saw happening. Of the deepening divisions around the country over the Jay Treaty, he wrote: “The states in which there is least of party spirit, manifest most warmth and most unanimity in their opposition.” See Cato no. 8, Philadelphia Gazette, September 12, 1795. But this did not seem to matter in the end, as Hamilton’s perspective won the day. “To the Citizens Who Shall Be Convened This Day in the Fields in the City of New York,” April 22, 1796, PAH, 20:131–34.
6. JM to TJ, May 9, 1796, RL, 2:937, 940. Historian Todd Estes explains that Washington had an “extraordinary sense of timing and use of delay.” He waited until anger had abated before publicly embracing the less than ideal treaty. Estes also believes that Madison recognized the uncertainty of his constitutional argument that the House, because of its role in appropriations, rightly deserved to be involved in monitoring the treaty. See Estes, Jay Treaty Debate, 154, 160–61.
7. TJ to JM, March 6, 1796; JM to TJ, April 4, 1796, RL, 2:923–24, 929. The post road bill was defeated because some New England Federalists saw it as a ploy for using northern tax dollars to pay for improving southern roads. See “Post Road Survey,” February 5 and 11, and May 19, 1796, PJM, 16:213, 221–22, 363; Joseph H. Harrison, Jr., “Sic Et Non: Thomas Jefferson and Internal Improvement,” Journal of the Early Republic 7 (Winter 1987): 340; on the poor state of southern roads, see Richard B. Kielbowicz, “The Press, Post Office, and the Flow of News in the Early Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic 3 (Autumn 1983): 277.
8. JM to Monroe, May 14, 1796, PJM, 16:358; Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Organization, 1789–1801 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1959), 80–85.
9. As Madison had taken an instant dislike to Adams years earlier, Adams had a particular aversion to Gallatin, Madison’s chief lieutenant in Congress. He proclaimed that the congressman’s “Ignorance” had been exposed in a speech—the same speech that so enchanted Thomas Jefferson when he read it in Bache’s paper that he pronounced it worthy of being added to the Federalist Papers! Previewing a prejudice Adams would carry into his presidency, he added of Gallatin: “It is intolerable that a Forreigner, should act such a Part as he has done and yet go on.” John Adams to Abigail Adams, February 27 and April 28, 1796, Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society (http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams); TJ to JM, March 27, 1796, RL, 2:927–28.
10. TJ to Monroe, June 12, 1796, PTJ, 29:124; Nancy Isenberg, Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (New York, 2007), 145–46. Already among Burr’s powerful friends in the state of Virginia were Governor Robert Brooke, Henry Tazewell, and John Taylor of Caroline—the latter two had served with him in the U.S. Senate.
11. Madison exercised a commanding influence in Jefferson’s Albemarle, where admiring friends took charge of rallying freeholders; farther west the population was thin, and he had little influence. In other places where the Republicans held sway, he lacked personal connections and was unable to identify who the moderates were; as a result, some diehards took center stage and made the Republican cause vulnerable to charges of “jacobinical” radicalism. See Richard R. Beeman, The Old Dominion and the New Nation, 1788–1801 (Lexington, Ky., 1972), 132–35, 143–66.
12. Ibid., 161; Brant, 3:440.
13. Jeffrey L. Pasley, “ ‘A Journeyman, Either in Law or Politics’: John Beckley and the Social Origins of Political Campaigning,” Journal of the Early Republic 16 (Winter 1996): 531–69; Brant, 3:445.
14. JM to Monroe, September 29, 1796, PJM, 16:404, and JMP-LC. The numerical code used breaks up certain words into syllables or even individual letters; “Jefferson,” for instance, which is designated 581 798 604 146, translates into “Je” “f” “fer” “son.”
15. Adams to Abigail Adams, as quoted in PJM, 17:xix, and RL, 2:895.
16. TJ to Washington, June 19, 1796, PTJ, 29:127–28.
17. Washington to TJ, July 6, 1796, PTJ, 29:141–43.
18. Madison consulted with District of Columbia Commissioner and Virginian Alexander White, in discussing possible strategies for gaining support in Congress. See Alexander White to JM, September 26 and December 2, 1796, and Madison’s two speeches on the National University, December 12 and December 26, 1796, PJM, 16:401–3, 421–22, 425–26, 436–38.
19. Felix Gilbert, To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy (Princeton, N.J., 1961), 123–26. Gilbert’s treatm
ent is sound, but Stuart Leibiger’s analysis of Washington’s attitude toward Madison is a good deal more persuasive. See Leibiger, Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic (Charlottesville, Va., 1999), 209–14.
20. Gilbert, To the Farewell Address, 137–47.
21. See esp. U.S. senator Henry Tazewell to JM, October 3, 1796, PJM, 16:406–7.
22. Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans, 97–99.
23. Gazette of the United States, October 27, 1796.
24. “Cassius, No. II,” New Jersey Journal [Elizabethtown], November 16, 1796. This particular piece went on to assert: “Men of narrow minds are delighted with the exercise of power … But great men accept offices as painful duties.” Crediting Jefferson with the courage of his convictions was a subtle means of counteracting the Hamiltonian definition of masculine authority. The writer praised Jefferson’s resistance to the “detestable influence” of a certain “insidious foreigner,” exaggerating the foreignness of the Caribbean-born Hamilton, at the same time insisting that Jefferson’s deviation from Washington’s political line was not a disqualifier, because Washington was not the arbiter of the “eternal nature” of truth.
25. Columbian Herald [Charleston, S.C.], July 23, 1793; Aurora General Advertiser, July 7, 1795; Jersey Chronicle [Mt. Pleasant], July 18 and November 28, 1795, originating with the Aurora.
26. For a compelling discussion in this regard, see Susan Dunn, “Revolutionary Men of Letters and the Pursuit of Radical Change: The Views of Burke, Tocqueville, Adams, Madison, and Jefferson,” William and Mary Quarterly 53 (October 1996): 729–54.
27. Jones saw “Pelham’s” impulse as an urge to instigate “a separation from the Southern people.” Recall that Jefferson had only recently (to Madison) identified the Republicans as the party of the “Southern interest.” See Connecticut Courant, November 21 and December 12, 1796; James C. Welling, Connecticut Federalism, or Aristocratic Politics in a Social Democracy (New York, 1890), 10–16; James Roger Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis (New Haven, Conn., 1995), 158–59; TJ to JM, April 27, 1795, RL, 2:877–78; Sharp, “Unveiling the Mystery of Jefferson’s Letter of April 27, 1795,” Journal of the Early Republic 6 (1986): 411–18; Joseph Jones to JM, December 1796 or January 1797, PJM, 16:448–49.
28. TJ to JM, January 1, 1797, with enclosure, RL, 2:952–55.
29. JM to TJ, January 15, 1797, RL, 2:956–58.
30. John Adams Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797, in James D. Richardson, comp., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of Presidents of the United States, 20 vols. (New York, 1897–1917), 1:218–22; TJ to JM, January 22, 1797, RL, 2:960.
31. JMB, 2:954–60; TJ to Gerry, May 13, 1797, PTJ, 29:361–64.
32. Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (New York, 1993), 61–62.
33. James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Acts and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, N.Y., 1956), 189–91; Kurtz, Presidency of John Adams, 141; Abigail Adams to Mary Cranch, May 7, 1798, in Stewart Mitchell, ed., “New Letters of Abigail Adams,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 55 (April–October, 1945), 347; Karen List, “The Role of William Cobbett in Philadelphia Party Press, 1794–1799,” Journalism Monographs 82 (1993): 1–23. James Roger Sharp also provides a good brief assessment of the Adams-Jefferson dynamic and the slow disintegration of the relationship as the embassy to France was being considered; see Sharp, American Politics in Early Republic (New Haven, Conn., 1995), 160–67.
34. JM to James Madison, Sr., March 12, 1797, PJM, 16:500; JMB, 2:956.
35. Ketcham, 365, 370–72, 386–87; TJ to JM, January 3, 1798, RL, 2:1012.
36. “Address to the Senate,” March 4, 1797, PTJ, 29:310–11.
37. By Paine’s accounting, Washington had failed as president. “How America will scuffle through I know not,” he opined, persuaded that “John Adams has not Character to do any good.” He repeated himself later in the same letter: “Your Executive, John Adams, can do nothing but harm.” Even if the much-admired Madison were dispatched to Paris, as was still being rumored, he could expect to accomplish nothing of substance, just because Adams had sent him. Paine to TJ, April 1 and May 14, 1797, PTJ, 29:340–44, 366–67.
38. TJ to Giles, March 19, 1796, PTJ, 29:35.
39. “Jefferson’s Letter to Mazzei,” April 24, 1796; “A Native American” to TJ, May 19, 1797, PTJ, 29:73–87, 382–84.
40. To take the allegory further, Samson was blinded by the Philistines as a result of having his head shaved while he slept; Solomon, idolatrous and undependable, had his kingdom divided after he turned against the God of Israel. Regarding Jefferson’s explanation of the Mazzei letter to Martin Van Buren many years later, see Andrew Burstein, The Inner Jefferson: Portrait of a Grieving Optimist (Charlottesville, Va., 1995), 222–23; also Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1858), 2:371–73; Malone, 3:308–11.
41. TJ to JM, August 3, 1797; JM to TJ, August 5, 1797, RL, 2:985–86, 990–91, 996–97; Monroe to TJ, July 12, 1797, PTJ, 29:478. It is meaningful that as part of his effort to convince Jefferson to stay out of the papers, Madison invoked the example of Washington, who (from Madison’s direct knowledge) had not responded to the publication of forged Revolution-era letters attributed to him.
42. TJ to Mrs. Church, May 24, 1797, PTJ, 29:396–97.
43. “David Gelston’s Account of an Interview between Alexander Hamilton and James Monroe,” July 11, 1797; John Barker Church to Hamilton, July 13, 1797; “Printed Version of the ‘Reynolds Pamphlet,’ ” PAH, 21:159–63, 238ff, quotes at 238, 239, 243; JM to TJ, October 29, 1797, RL, 2:993; Malone, 3:327–31. Months after their shouting match, Monroe was still inquiring of his friend Madison: “You will be so good as to tell me frankly yr. opinion of the footing upon wh. my correspondence with that Scondrel stands, and whether it becomes me to pursue him further.” Monroe to JM, October 15, 1797, PJM, 17:50.
44. JMB, 2:963, 972; Malone, 3:239–40. Jefferson gave the couple the estate of Pantops, in Albemarle, and thirty-one slaves, but Maria and Jack chose to spend most of their time at the Eppeses’ ancestral home.
45. “Notes on a Conversation with John Adams,” PTJ, 30:113.
46. JM to TJ, February 12 and February 18, 1798; TJ to JM, February 15 and March 2, 1798, RL, 2:1018–21, 1024.
47. “Geoffrey Touchstone,” The House of Wisdom in a Bustle (Philadelphia, 1798), quote at 21; see also The Spunkiad, or Heroism Improved. A Congressional Display of Spirit and Cudgel (Newburgh, N.Y., 1798); TJ to JM, February 15, 1798; JM to TJ, February 18, 1798, RL, 2:1019–22.
48. JM to Monroe, December 17, 1797; Monroe to JM, June 8, 1798, PJM, 17:61–62, 145–46.
49. Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, Conn., 2001), 10.
50. TJ to JM, March 21–22, April 6, and April 12, 1798; JM to TJ, April 2, 1798, RL, 2:1028–36; TJ to Pendleton, April 2, 1798, PTJ, 30:242; Alexander DeConde, The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797–1801 (New York, 1966); Sharp, American Politics in Early Republic, 171–73. Curiously, Jefferson’s most adoring modern biographer considered Jefferson’s position on the XYZ Affair to be “labored and injudicious” and his expectations from the Adams administration unrealistic. See Malone, 3:374.
51. JM to TJ, April 15, 22, and 29, 1798, RL, 2:1037, 1041, 1043.
52. TJ to JM, June 21, 1798, RL, 2:1008–10, 1060–61; Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation (New York, 1996), 234–36. Marshall may have refused to pay the French agents X, Y, and Z; but he himself was paid handsomely by the Adams administration for his time abroad, netting $18,000 after expenses. He owed interest on his Virginia estate at this time, so it is no wonder that he should have been in good spirits and eager to perform more public service. Jefferson’s annual income as vice president was only $5,000. Ibid., 238.
On the
very same weekend as Marshall docked, Jefferson’s Philadelphia Quaker friend George Logan left for Paris on an ostensibly selfless personal mission to make peace with France; the Aurora published a secret letter from Talleyrand, and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Wolcott, a Hamilton ally, rushed to New York to interview an American returning from France, in the hope of uncovering a damning letter showing Jefferson’s connection to a French plot. He, of course, failed to find anything. See Malone, 4:377–78.
53. Leonard Baker, John Marshall: A Life in Law (New York, 1974), 303–4; [John Thomson], The Letters of Curtius (Richmond, 1798), 3–7, 26–27, 32–35. Addressing the Adams administration’s aggressiveness, Thomson sharply challenged the abuse of language that went along with a perverse policy. The word France, he charged, was “the cabalistic word” by which the Federalists had “silenced all opposition.” Rancor was extreme, moderation mocked. “This delusion cannot last,” he vowed. On Thomson’s brief career, see Edward A. Wyatt IV, “John Thomson, Author of the ‘Letters of Curtius,’ and a Petersburg Contemporary of George Keith Taylor,” William and Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine 16 (January 1936): 19–25. Thomson died in 1799, but he was memorialized by his admirer John Randolph of Roanoke in the next decade.
54. TJ to JM, August 3, 1797; JM to TJ, August 5, 1797, RL, 2:973–75, 985–91. Jefferson’s contention was that the federal grand jury had no “sanctuary,” no separate standing in the state, and was under the jurisdiction of the Virginia Assembly.
55. For the logic regarding Hamilton and Gallatin, see for example the Republican Star (Easton, Md.), October 19, 1802.
56. TJ to John Taylor of Caroline, June 4, 1798, PTJ, 30:389.
57. JM to TJ, May 20 and June 3, 1798, RL, 2:1051, 1056; John Ferling, A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic (New York, 2003), 424–25.
58. Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans, 125. A New Jersey Republican versified his resentment in the face of Federalists’ accusations that the party’s political opposition was unpatriotic because of its reluctance to challenge France: