DOCSLIB.ORG

The American Pageant

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The American Pageant 11 The Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian Republic 1800–1812 Timid men . prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty. n the critical presidential contest of 1800, the fi rst Iin which Federalists and Democratic-Republicans Federalist and Republican functioned as two national political parties, John Ad- Mudslingers ams and Thomas Jefferson again squared off against each other. The choice seemed clear and dramatic: Ad- In fi ghting for survival, the Federalists labored under ams’s Federalists waged a defensive struggle for strong heavy handicaps. Their Alien and Sedition Acts had central government and public order. Their Jefferso- aroused a host of enemies, although most of these crit- nian opponents presented themselves as the guardians ics were dyed-in-the-wool Jeffersonians anyhow. The of agrarian purity, liberty, and states’ rights. The next Hamiltonian wing of the Federalist party, robbed of its dozen years, however, would turn what seemed like a glorious war with France, split openly with President clear-cut choice in 1800 into a messier reality, as the Adams. Hamilton, a victim of arrogance, was so indis- Jeffersonians in power were confronted with a series of creet as to attack the president in a privately printed opportunities and crises requiring the assertion of fed- pamphlet. Jeffersonians soon got hold of the pamphlet eral authority. As the fi rst challengers to rout a reigning and gleefully published it. party, the Republicans were the fi rst to learn that it is The most damaging blow to the Federalists was the far easier to condemn from the stump than to govern refusal of Adams to give them a rousing fi ght with consistently. France. Their feverish war prep ara tions had swelled This icon will direct you to interactive activities and study materials on The American Pageant website: www.cengage.com/history/kennedy/ampageant14e 224 Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 1053641_CH_11.indd 224 11/14/08 11:10:54 AM Federalists Versus Republicans 225 navy” were called “John Adams’s Jackasses.” Adams The Reverend Timothy Dwight (1752–1817), himself was known, somewhat ironically, as “the Fa- president of Yale College, predicted that in the event ther of the American Navy.” of Jefferson’s election, Thrown on the defensive, the Federalists concen- the Bible would be cast into a bonfi re, our trated their fi re on Jefferson himself, who became the “holy worship changed into a dance of [French] victim of one of America’s earliest “whispering cam- Jacobin phrensy, our wives and daughters paigns.” He was accused of having robbed a widow and dishonored, and our sons converted into the her children of a trust fund and of having fathered nu- merous mulatto children by his own slave women. (Jef- disciples of Voltaire and the dragoons of ferson’s long-rumored intimacy with one of his slaves, Marat. Sally Hemings, has been confi rmed through DNA test- ” ing. See “Examining the Evidence,” p. 227.) As a liberal in religion, Jefferson had earlier incurred the wrath of the orthodox clergy, largely through his successful struggle to separate church and state in his native Vir- the public debt and had required disagreeable new ginia. Although Jefferson did believe in God, preachers taxes, including a stamp tax. After all these unpopular throughout New Eng land, stronghold of Federalism mea sures, the war scare had petered out, and the coun- and Congregationalism, thundered against his alleged try was left with an all-dressed-up-but-no-place-to-go atheism. Old ladies of Federalist families, fearing Jef- feeling. The military prep ara tions now seemed not only ferson’s election, even buried their Bibles or hung them unnecessary but extravagant, as seamen for the “new in wells. Washington and Jefferson Compared, 1807 This pro-Federalist, anti-Jefferson cartoon accuses Jefferson of sympathizing with French Revolutionary despotism. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 1053641_CH_11.indd 225 11/14/08 11:10:56 AM 226 Chapter 11 The Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian Republic, 1800–1812 The Empire State fell into the Jeffersonian basket, and The Jeffersonian with it the election, largely because Aaron Burr, a mas- “Revolution of 1800” ter wire-puller, turned New York to Jefferson by the narrowest of margins. The Virginian polled the bulk Jefferson won by a majority of 73 electoral votes to 65 of his strength in the South and West, particularly in (see Map 11.1). In defeat, the colorless and presumably those states where universal white manhood suffrage unpopular Adams polled more electoral strength than had been adopted. he had gained four years earlier—except for New York. Decisive in Jefferson’s victory was the three-fi fths clause of the Constitution. By counting three-fi fths of the slave population for the purposes of congressional 1800 and Electoral College representation, the Constitution gave white southern voters a bonus that helped Jeffer- son win the White House. Northern critics fumed that Jefferson was a “Negro President” and an illegitimate VT 4 NH MA embodiment of the “slave power” that the southern NY 6 16 12 states wielded in the nation. RI Jeffersonian joy was dampened by an unexpected 4 PA CT deadlock. Through a technicality Jefferson, the presi- DR-8/F-7 NJ 9 NORTH- 7 dential candidate, and Burr, his vice-presidential run- INDIANA WEST DE TERRITORY TERR. 3 ning mate, received the same number of electoral votes VA for the presidency. Under the Constitution the tie could 21 MD KY DR-5/F-5 be broken only by the House of Representatives (see 4 NC Art. II, Sec. I, para. 2). This body was controlled for sev- TN R-13/F-4 eral more months by the lame-duck Federalists, who 3 SC preferred Burr to the hated Jefferson.* Voting in the 8 GA House moved slowly to a climax, as exhausted repre- MISSISSIPPI 4 TERRITORY sentatives snored in their seats. The agonizing deadlock was broken at last when a few Federalists, despairing of electing Burr and hoping for moderation from Jef- ferson, refrained from voting. The election then went to the rightful candidate. John Adams, as fate would have it, was the last Fed- eralist president of the United States. His party sank slowly into political oblivion and ultimately disap- Candidate (Party) Electoral Vote peared completely in the days of Andrew Jackson. Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) 73 53% Jefferson later claimed that the election of 1800 was Burr 73 53% a “revolution” comparable to that of 1776, and histori- Adams (Federalist) 65 47% Pinckney 64 46% ans have sometimes referred to the Revolution of 1800. Jay 1 But the election was no revolution in the sense of a Map 11.1 Presidential Election of 1800 (with electoral massive popular upheaval or an upending of the politi- vote by state) New York was the key state in this elec- cal system. In truth, Jefferson had narrowly squeaked tion, and Aaron Burr helped swing it away from the through to victory. A switch of some 250 votes in New Federalists with tactics that anticipated the political York would have thrown the election to Adams. Jeffer- “machines” of a later day. Federalists complained that son meant that his election represented a return to Burr “travels every night from one meeting of Republi- what he considered the original spirit of the Revolution. cans to another, haranguing . them to the most zeal- ous exertions. [He] can stoop so low as to visit every low In his eyes Hamilton and Adams had betrayed the ide- tavern that may happen to be crowded with his dear fellow citizens.” But Burr proved that the price was worth it. “We have beat you,” Burr told kid-gloved Feder- *A “lame duck” has been humorously defi ned as a politician whose alists after the election, “by superior Management.” political goose has been cooked in the recent elections. The possi- bility of another such tie was removed by the Twelfth Amendment Interactive Map in 1804 (see the Appendix). Before then, each elector had two votes, with the second-place fi nisher becoming vice president. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 1053641_CH_11.indd 226 11/14/08 11:10:59 AM The Thomas Jefferson–Sally Hemings Controversy ebate over whether Thomas Jefferson had sex- ton’s biography of Jefferson revealed that among Dual relations with Sally Hemings, a slave at Mon- Jefferson’s white descendants, it was said that his ticello, began as early as 1802, when James Callender nephew had fathered all or most of Sally’s children.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Jefferson's Failed Anti-Slavery Priviso of 1784 and the Nascence of Free Soil Constitutionalism
    MERKEL_FINAL 4/3/2008 9:41:47 AM Jefferson’s Failed Anti-Slavery Proviso of 1784 and the Nascence of Free Soil Constitutionalism William G. Merkel∗ ABSTRACT Despite his severe racism and inextricable personal commit- ments to slavery, Thomas Jefferson made profoundly significant con- tributions to the rise of anti-slavery constitutionalism. This Article examines the narrowly defeated anti-slavery plank in the Territorial Governance Act drafted by Jefferson and ratified by Congress in 1784. The provision would have prohibited slavery in all new states carved out of the western territories ceded to the national government estab- lished under the Articles of Confederation. The Act set out the prin- ciple that new states would be admitted to the Union on equal terms with existing members, and provided the blueprint for the Republi- can Guarantee Clause and prohibitions against titles of nobility in the United States Constitution of 1788. The defeated anti-slavery plank inspired the anti-slavery proviso successfully passed into law with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Unlike that Ordinance’s famous anti- slavery clause, Jefferson’s defeated provision would have applied south as well as north of the Ohio River. ∗ Associate Professor of Law, Washburn University; D. Phil., University of Ox- ford, (History); J.D., Columbia University. Thanks to Sarah Barringer Gordon, Thomas Grey, and Larry Kramer for insightful comment and critique at the Yale/Stanford Junior Faculty Forum in June 2006. The paper benefited greatly from probing questions by members of the University of Kansas and Washburn Law facul- ties at faculty lunches. Colin Bonwick, Richard Carwardine, Michael Dorf, Daniel W.
    [Show full text]
  • The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Report of the Scholars Commission
    turner 00 fmt auto cx 3 3/17/11 10:54 AM Page iii The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Report of the Scholars Commission Edited by Robert F. Turner Carolina Academic Press Durham, North Carolina turner 00 fmt auto cx 3 4/15/11 5:36 AM Page iv Copyright © 2001, 2011 Robert F. Turner All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings Matter. The Jefferson-Hemings controversy : report of the Scholars Commission / edited by Robert F. Turner. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-89089-085-1 (alk. paper) 1. Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826--Relations with women. 2. Hemings, Sally. 3. Jef- ferson, Thomas, 1743–1826--Relations with slaves. 4. Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826-- Family. I. Turner, Robert F. II. Title. E332.2.S35 2010 973.4'6092--dc22 2010031551 Carolina Academic Press 700 Kent Street Durham, NC 27701 Telephone (919) 489-7486 Fax (919) 493-5668 www.cap-press.com Printed in the United States of America turner 00 fmt auto cx 3 3/17/11 10:54 AM Page v This book is dedicated to the memory of our beloved colleagues Professor Lance Banning Hallam Professor of History University of Kentucky (January 24, 1942–January 31, 2006) and Professor Alf J. Mapp, Jr. Eminent Scholar, Emeritus and Louis I. Jaffe Professor of History, Emeritus Old Dominion University (February 17, 1925–January 23, 2011) turner 00 fmt auto cx 3 3/17/11 10:54 AM Page vii Contents Preface xiii Acknowledgments xv Members of the Scholars Commission xvii Scholars Commission on The Jefferson-Hemings Matter, Report 12 April 2001 3 Summary
    [Show full text]
  • HIS 100: Introduction to Historical Methods: the World of Thomas Jefferson Fall 2010 Professor T. Slaughter Tuesday and Thursday
    HIS 100: Introduction to Historical Methods: The World of Thomas Jefferson Fall 2010 Professor T. Slaughter Tuesday and Thursday RR Library 456, 9:40-10:55. Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 11-noon, and by appointment. 369B RR; 273-2799 [email protected] Thomas Jefferson is an ideal focus for discussions of the range of subjects that fascinated him, from gardening to food, wine, women, education, politics, philosophy, architecture, and plantation management. He provides an exquisite example of Enlightenment culture during the age of revolutions, and of a Founding Father who, as Secretary of State, Vice President, and President attempted to implement the revolutionary and constitutional principles on which the United States was founded. His private correspondence and public papers, his published writings and private musings, give access to Jefferson’s inner landscape as well as the world in which he lived. Through films, non-fiction and fiction, and primary source documents relating to case studies—The Declaration of Independence and its contrast to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense; the Burr Conspiracy; and Jefferson’s relationship with his slave Sally Hemings—we will explore historical research and interpretation, both our own and that of other historians. In particular, we will look at some of the ways that historical research can go wrong, and how historical writing is always a reflection of perspectives rather than of gathered facts, of interpretations rather than recovery, of creativity rather than objective engagement with sources. Your grades will be based on attendance; active, knowledgeable participation in class discussions; and three papers that you will re-write after the first drafts are returned to you.
    [Show full text]
  • Young Elizabeth‟S World
    1 Young Elizabeth‟s World lizabeth Hemings began life when America was still a colonial possession. She lived through the Revolution in the home of one of the men who helped make it and died during the formative years of the American Republic, E an unknown person in the midst of pivotal events in national and world history. Hemings lived at a time when chattel slavery existed in every American colony, but was dramatically expanding and thriving in the Virginia that was her home. She was, by law, an item of property—a nonwhite, female slave, whose life was bounded by eighteenth-century attitudes about how such persons fit into society. Those attitudes, years in the making by the time Hemings was born, fascinate because they are at once utterly familiar and totally alien. Most Americans today admit the existence of racism and sexism, even as we often disagree about examples of them. When we encounter these practices while studying the eighteenth century, we react knowingly. “These are the things,” at least some of us say, “that we‟re still working to overcome.” We also know that hierarchies, based on any number of factors, exist in every society, enriching the lives of some and blighting the lives of others. Yet, slavery is a different matter altogether. There are workers all over the world who live desperate lives with little hope of advancement for themselves or their children. There are women who are held in bondage and forced to work as prostitutes or to clean others‟ homes and care for others‟ families while their own families go unattended.
    [Show full text]
  • Life Stage Information Sheet: Born Into Slavery and Inherited by Jefferson
    Life Stage Information Sheet: Born into Slavery and Inherited by Jefferson Sally Hemings’s story began before her birth in 1773. Her mother, Elizabeth Hemings, was the daughter of an African slave and an English sea captain named Hemings. From Captain Hemings, Elizabeth and her future children received their surname. Captain Hemings made multiple efforts to purchase Elizabeth, but her owner, John Wayles, refused to sell the girl. As a result, Elizabeth grew up subject to Wayles’s authority in every matter. After the deaths of three wives, Wayles took Elizabeth to be his “concubine.” Concubine, a term used by Betty’s grandson, Madison Hemings, meant that he held her in a sexual relationship without the prospect of marriage or legal recognition. The pair produced six children named Robert, James, Thenia, Critta, Peter, and Sally. Therefore, Sally was born into a Virginia plantation culture where inter-racial and extra-marital relationships were common. In 1773, just after Sally’s birth, John Wayles died and Thomas Jefferson, Wayles’s son-in-law, relocated the Hemings family to his plantation, Monticello. Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton in 1772, and by this marriage, he gained the legal rights to Elizabeth, Sally, and the rest of the Hemings family. Therefore, despite being Martha Jefferson’s half-sister, Sally became a housemaid at Monticello. Sally was nine years old and present when her half-sister and mistress died in 1782. After you read through the profile, consider these points about this stage in Sally’s life: 1. What might Sally have thought about serving her half-sister? 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Sally Hemings, and Was Sired on Her by Thomas Jefferson, but There Is an Absence of DNA Evidence to Demonstrate Either That He Was Or That He Wasn’T
    “DASHING SALLY” AND THE “PHILOSOPHIC COCK” THOMAS JEFFERSON Thomas Woodson’s descendents claim he was a son of Sally Hemings, and was sired on her by Thomas Jefferson, but there is an absence of DNA evidence to demonstrate either that he was or that he wasn’t. Absence of evidence is not evidence of anything, but not only are there no plantation records suggesting that Hemings was Woodson’s mother but also the oral testimony of Woodson’s descendents is directly contradicted by the oral testimony of Sally’s son Madison Hemings.1 DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. 1. Gordon-Reed, Annette. THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS. Pages 67-75 HDT WHAT? INDEX MONTICELLO SALLY HEMINGS 1647 Just when and how the economic logic of slave ownership took shape is a fascinating question. One wonders what analogies slave owners used as they considered the implications of owning female slaves AND the offspring of these females. Clearly, this logic was different from that entailed by servitude, for in general the masters of servants in early America struggled not to get them to reproduce themselves but instead to prevent them from engaging in any sexual relations (with each other, at least). In general they did not want their female servants either to marry or to get pregnant, because either of these would of course diminish the amount of labor the master could extract from the distracted servant. The most obvious analogy is between the ownership of black slaves and the ownership of ordinary livestock. As early as the 1640s, Virginia planters were selling and bequeathing female “Negroes” using language that resembled the wording of similar deeds for the transfer of livestock.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Jefferson 1 Thomas Jefferson
    Thomas Jefferson 1 Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson 3rd President of the United States In office March 4, 1801 – March 4, 1809 Vice President Aaron Burr George Clinton Preceded by John Adams Succeeded by James Madison 2nd Vice President of the United States In office March 4, 1797 – March 4, 1801 President John Adams Preceded by John Adams Succeeded by Aaron Burr 1st United States Secretary of State In office March 22, 1790 – December 31, 1793 President George Washington Preceded by John Jay (Acting) Succeeded by Edmund Randolph United States Ambassador to France In office May 17, 1785 – September 26, 1789 Nominated by Congress of the Confederation Preceded by Benjamin Franklin Succeeded by William Short Thomas Jefferson 2 Delegate to the Congress of the Confederation from Virginia In office November 3, 1783 – May 7, 1784 Preceded by James Madison Succeeded by Richard Henry Lee 2nd Governor of Virginia In office June 1, 1779 – June 3, 1781 Preceded by Patrick Henry Succeeded by William Fleming Delegate to the Second Continental Congress from Virginia In office June 20, 1775 – September 26, 1776 Preceded by George Washington Succeeded by John Harvie Personal details Born April 13, 1743 Shadwell, Virginia Died July 4, 1826 (aged 83) Charlottesville, Virginia, United States Political party Democratic-Republican Party Spouse(s) Martha Wayles Children Martha Jane Mary Lucy Lucy Elizabeth Alma mater College of William and Mary Profession Planter Lawyer Teacher Religion See article Signature Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom (1777), the third President of the United States (1801–1809) and founder of the University of Virginia (1819).[1] He was an influential Founding Father and an exponent of Jeffersonian democracy.
    [Show full text]
  • Jefferson￢ﾀﾙs Spaces
    Jefferson’s Spaces Peter S. Onuf, Annette Gordon-Reed Early American Literature, Volume 48, Number 3, 2013, pp. 755-769 (Review) Published by The University of North Carolina Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/eal.2013.0049 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/524957 Access provided by Thomas Jefferson Foundation (1 Jun 2017 20:18 GMT) Peter S. Onuf University of Virginia Annette GOrdOn- reed Harvard University review essay Jefferson’s Spaces “A Rich Spot of Earth”: Thomas Jefferson’s Revolutionary Garden at Monticello Peter HAtcH New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012 263 pp. Jefferson in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates Kevin J. HAyeS Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2012 210 pp. Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello cyntHiA A. Kierner Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012 360 pp. Thomas Jefferson presents daunting obstacles to biographers. Historian Merrill Peterson famously called Jefferson “impenetrable,” echoing the complaints of visitors to Monticello who were denied access to the great man’s private suite, or “sanctum sanctorum” (Thomas Jefferson viii). Jeffer- son customarily diverted his guests’ attention away from himself, invit- ing them to enjoy the magnificent views, imagine what Monticello might look like if construction were ever completed, and contemplate the stat- ues, paintings, prints, maps, Indian artifacts, and other conversation pieces that filled the house to overflowing. Granddaughter Ellen Randolph called life at her childhood home a “feast of reason,” but there were limits to the feast.
    [Show full text]
  • Claiming Our Foremothers: the Legend of Sally Hemings and the Tasks of Black Feminist Theory
    University at Buffalo School of Law Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship Fall 1997 Claiming Our Foremothers: The Legend of Sally Hemings and the Tasks of Black Feminist Theory Stephanie L. Phillips University at Buffalo School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles Part of the Gender and Sexuality Commons, Law Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons Recommended Citation Stephanie L. Phillips, Claiming Our Foremothers: The Legend of Sally Hemings and the Tasks of Black Feminist Theory, 8 Hastings Women's L.J. 401 (1997). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles/270 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CLAIMING OUR FOREMOTHERS: THE LEGEND OF SALLY HEMINGS AND THE TASKS OF BLACK FEMINST THEORY Stephanie L. Phillips * TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. THE LEGEND OF SALLY HEMINGS A. THE DRAMA UNFOLDS B. WHAT SEQUEL SHALL I WRITE? III. PRIMEVAL STORIES ABOUT BLACK WOMEN AND WHITE MEN DURING "SLAVERY TIME" A. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT B. THE STORIES 1. FirstPrimeval Story: Slave Hates Master; Master Takes Sex by Brutality/Rape/Coercion a. Celia (First Version) b. Mary Peters; Tempe Pitts c. Harriet (Slave-of-the-Smiths) d. Harriet Jacobs e. Summary: Themes of the Hate Story 2.
    [Show full text]
  • The Sally Hemings Story
    Such Is the Story That Comes Down to Me My Hemings Family My Oral History Lesson I can remember intently listening to the story of my maternal ancestors as told by my grandmother, great-aunt, and mother. In hushed tones they told my sister and I of our very special five-times great-grandmother. Her name was Sarah "Sally" Hemings. She had a secret relationship with a very prominent gentlemen named TJ. They had four children who survived their childhood, becoming thriving adults. I didn't realize until the third grade just how prominent TJ was. Imagine when I realized our TJ was the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The story did not dwell on the fact that Sally and her children were enslaved, but instead focused on their talents and skills that helped them survive. My task was to keep the story alive, to pass it on, to be proud of my roots, to make my ancestors proud. Great-great-grandmother Emma Jane Byrd Great-grandmother Ella Mae Young Grandmother Emma Lee Cooper Mother Emma Jane Dalton My sister, brother and I are keepers of the story. We are passing it on to my nephew. Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826 United States statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. • Author of the Declaration of Independence • Author of the Statute of Virginia Religious Freedom • Second Governor of Virginia • Minister to France • First Secretary of State • Second Vice President • Founder of the University of Virginia Thomas
    [Show full text]
  • The Master and the Mistress by ERIC FONER October 5, 2008
    BOOK REVIEW The Master and the Mistress By ERIC FONER October 5, 2008 Sometime around 1800, an anonymous American artist produced an arresting painting entitled “Virginian Luxuries.” It depicts a slave owner exercising two kinds of power over his human property. On the right, a white man raises his arm to whip a black man’s bare back. On the left, he lasciviously caresses a black woman. The artist’s identification of these “luxuries” with the state that produced four of our first five presidents underscores the contradiction between -ideals and reality in the early Republic. No one embodied this contradiction more strikingly than Thomas Jefferson. In 1776, when he wrote of mankind’s inalienable right to liberty, Jefferson owned more than 100 slaves. He hated slavery but thought blacks inferior in “body and mind” to whites. If freed, he believed, they should be sent to Africa; otherwise, abolition would result in racial warfare or, even worse, racial “mixture.” Yet in his own lifetime, reports circulated that Jefferson practiced such mixture with his slave -Sally Hemings. In 1997, Annette Gordon-Reed, who teaches at New York Law School and in the history department of Rutgers University, published “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy.” Reviewing the evidence, she concluded it was likely that Jefferson had fathered Hemings’s children. But her main argument was that generations of Jefferson scholars had misused historical sources to defend the great man’s reputation. For example, they had dismissed as worthless the recollections of Madison Hemings, Sally Hemings’s son, who described his mother’s relationship with Jefferson to a journalist in 1873, while accepting at face value the denials of Jefferson’s white descendants that such a relationship existed.
    [Show full text]
  • Chronology from Thomas Jefferson: Writings, Edited by Merrill D
    Thomas Jefferson: Chronology From Thomas Jefferson: Writings, edited by Merrill D. Peterson. The Library of America, 1984. Revised November 2011. Copyright © 2011 Literary Classics of the U.S., Inc. Chronology 1743 Born April 13 (April 2, Old Style) at Shadwell, Goochland (now Albemarle) County, Virginia, fi rst son (third of ten children) of Peter Jeff erson, surveyor, landowner, mapmaker, and magistrate, and Jane Randolph, a member of the most prominent land-owning and offi ce-holding family of colo- nial Virginia. 1745 Death of William Randolph (Jane Randolph Jeff erson’s cousin) leaves three orphaned children, among them Thom- as Mann Randolph. Peter Jeff erson, fulfi lling the request made in Randolph’s will, becomes their guardian, occupies the family mansion, and manages the plantation at Tuckahoe on the James River above Richmond. Thomas spends six years there, and with his sisters and cousins attends the one- room plantation schoolhouse, where he is tutored privately. 1752 Returns with family to Shadwell, and enters a Latin school conducted by the Reverend William Douglas, of Scot- land. 1757 Father dies. 1758–60 Attends school of the Reverend James Maury, “a correct classical scholar,” and boards with Maury’s family in Freder- icksville; rides twelve miles home each weekend. 1760–62 Attends College of William and Mary, at Williamsburg, study- ing particularly with the professor of mathematics, William Small of Scotland, the only layman on a faculty of Anglican clerics; Small’s teaching is rational and scientifi c, and his infl u- ence, Jeff erson later wrote, “probably fixed the destinies of my life.” 1762–67 Studies law under the direction of George Wythe, a man of considerable learning, later a signer of the Declaration of Independence, fi rst professor of law at William and Mary, and Chancellor of Virginia.
    [Show full text]