Sphinx without a Riddle: and the Art of Jefferson Biography

George M. Curtis III*

It would be interesting to find out when and why American readers begin their historical acquaintances with . There is certainly no shortage of opportunities when one considers the enormous flock of books about the man. Given this flood of ink, it is reasonable to suspect that very many Americans, academic and otherwise, do indeed search out Jefferson at some time or other. I am no exception, although I may have been a bit late. Not until well along in my graduate studies of the did Jefferson become more than a name for schools. Even then it was almost accidental, for I decided one year to give Lester Cappon’s edi- tion of the letters of and Thomas Jefferson to my father as a present.’ He read them with great interest and thus began a conversation between father and son that lasted for the rest of our years together, my father always siding vigorously with Jefferson and I usually with Adams. Coincidentally, my historical interests would take me to Virginia’s revolution. In this way, Jefferson soon became part of a larger narrative, a story that has served to sustain those first conversations with my father. I suspect there is a private side that explains at least part of what brings every biographer to Jefferson, and Joseph Ellis’s history with Jefferson certainly has its own marks of distinctiveness, elements that he does not mask. Like so many serious students of American history before him, Ellis took up study of Jefferson with mixed emotions. In mitigation he brings with him previous biographical ventures where he has limned many of the most showy American founders.’ Ellis, like Jef- ferson, calls Virginia his place of beginning. Ellis, like Jefferson’s famous critic, Henry Adams, begins his history of Jefferson after hav- ing spent years concerned more immediately with the affairs of the Adams family. And Ellis, like many American historians and biog-

*George M. Curtis I11 is senior fellow, Liberty Fund, Inc., Indianapolis, Indi- ana, and professor of history, Hanover College, Hanover, Indiana. ‘Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Corre- spondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., 1959). *JosephJ. Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (New York, 1993) and Ellis, After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture (New York, 1979).

INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, XCV (June, 1999). 0 1999, Trustees of Indiana University. The Art of Biography 179

raphers before him, approaches Jefferson with some trepidation, acknowledging at the same time that those before him who were so intrepid as to enter the home grounds of the historical Jefferson were certainly not afraid to take risks. Such an enterprise is comparable in a metaphoric sense to many immigrants who ventured out from all over the globe seeking a home in a country whose character has become so intimately connected with Jefferson. Ellis, again like so many immigrants, depends heavily upon those who came before, those pio- neer biographers starting with Henry Adams and later Dumas Mal- one and Merrill Peter~on.~While acknowledging his indebtedness to these predecessors, Ellis intentionally strikes out for new territory. His journey, while occasionally bright with future promise, exhibits also the difficulties of a complex landscape for which no adequate maps exist. There is finally the question of destinations-consider- ations of whom Ellis is writing for and why he seeks the audience that he does and considerations of Ellis’s construction of a distinctive and new Jefferson. In his earlier character study of John Adams, Ellis showed a willingness to build upon previous treatments of that neglected founder. It is significant that both Adams and Jefferson have the benefit of prodigious editorial projects, each in its own way a distin- guished contribution to the understanding of the life and times of the subject. That Ellis has made a close study of older biographies is clear, if for no other reason than that throughout the Jefferson biog- raphy he exhibits two commendable restraints. First, he avoids hagiog- raphy, and second, he refrains from precious criticism of hagiographers. Also, he chose to publish at a propitious moment in Jeffersonian time, for 1992 marked the two hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Jefferson’s birth, an occasion that provoked a good deal of celebration, both schol- arly and popular. Jefferson’s own academy, the University of Vir- ginia, held a commemorative conference, the papers of which were later edited by Peter Onuf as Jeffersonian Legacies.4 At the other end of the spectrum, from the eye of the popularizer Ken Burns came the

SHenryAdams, History of the United States ofAmerica During the First Admin- istration of Thomas Jefferson (1889-1890; reprint, New York, 1986); Dumas Malone, (6 vols., New York, 1948-1981); Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography (New York, 1970). For an essay describ- ing the creation of Malone’s six-volume biography see Merrill D. Peterson, “Dumas Mal- one: An Appreciation,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. series, NXLV (April, 19881, 237-52. 4PeterS. Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (Charlottesville, Va., 1993). For a sur- vey of these essays and a commentary on current Jeffersonian scholarship see Peter Onuf, “The Scholars’ Jefferson,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. series, L (October, 1993),671-99.An earlier and still important collection of disparate biographical essays about Jefferson appeared in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Jefferson: A Profile (New York, 1967). See also Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography (New York, 1986). JEFFERSON’SPLAN FOR THE

Reproduced from Roy J.Honeywell, The Educahonal Work of Thomas Jefferson(Cambridge, Mass., 19311, opposite 78. The Art of Biography 181

film, Thomas Jefferson (1997).5So Ellis’s biography arrived at an auspicious moment, a time cluttered with remembrance and so a time that served also as an enticement for any uncommon voice, the better to be heard in this new outpouring of Jeffersoniana. Given this context, the winning of the National Book Award by American Sphirwc: The Character of Thomas Jefferson represented a notable endorse- ment of Ellis’s biographical art.6 Not at all surprising, these studies and celebrations of Jeffer- son have in themselves become the occasion for commentary, some in the form of review^.^ This recent wave almost moves a person to wonder if Jefferson biographical moments are themselves part of a more permanent rhythm of American history. Whether this be some- thing to ponder, the fact is that any person in search of the histori- cal Jefferson is faced with a wealth and a welter of commentaries. After all is said, selection remains a problem for many readers who begin with serious questions about this much remembered man. Even for Ellis, selection poses a major problem. Defining his own methodolo- gy as “cinematic,” he claims that “another full-scale, multivolume narrative” would be redundant. So Ellis selects what he believes were “the propitious moments” to reveal “the character” of Thomas Jef- ferson.8Of course, Ellis, whether he realizes it or not, was hardly the first to approach Jefferson in bits and pieces. Henry Adams actual- ly endorsed such a methodology when he claimed that Jefferson “pos- sessed a character which showed itself in acts.”g The five special stopping places for Ellis are Jefferson’s partic- ipation in the second , which culminated in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence; his tour as ambassador to , 1784-1789; his years “in exile” at , 1794-1797; his first term as president, 1801-1804; and his final years, 1816-1826. As matters turn out, the details of Jefferson’s life trump Ellis as more and more of these selected “moments”become filled with connecting stories that fit equally as well into other periods of Jefferson’s life. So in the end, each moment is really a series of moments crafted to fit together in a seamless narrative that promises to reveal a historical Jefferson as Ellis contends none of his predecessors has managed to do. The chosen segments soon take on the appearance of contrivance, sometimes artfully charming and at other times literary occasion for what appears to be the masking of an incomplete biographical nar- rative. Introducing and concluding these well-crafted moments is an

5Thomas Jefferson, prod. and dir. Ken Burns (Florentine Films, 1997). 6JosephJ. Ellis, : The Character of Thomas Jeferson (New York, 1997). ’See Jack Rakove, “Jefferson Perceived,” Journal of the Early Republic, XVII (Winter, 19971, 677-85. ”Ellis, American Sphinx, ix. gAdams, First Administration, 126. 182 Indiana Magazine of History extended commentary on the world of Jeffersoniana. Here Ellis out- lines the contemporary rush of popular and scholarly interest in his subject. This discussion also serves as stage for Ellis’s personal reflec- tion on the meaning of Jefferson in American history and his decla- ration to the reader of how he intends to treat both Jefferson and this most recent “Jeffersonian Surge.” Announcing that he strives to be in the company of the best Jefferson commentators who preced- ed him, Ellis realizes that his mission is delicate indeed, for Jeffer- son’s real story is distinct and separate from the static living image on permanent display at the , , and Monticello. He acknowledges that “the Jefferson image is safe- ly enshrined in the national memory.” So Ellis believes that “it is safe to get to know him as he really was.” Having asserted this inten- tion, which many will greet as a clarion call to objectivity, Ellis veers. As he limns his portrait, he seeks what he views as the most reveal- ing features. Ellis emphasizes that “the essence of his story” ought to show that “unlike Washington, he was never a legend in his own time, always a controversial figure who combined great depth with great shallowness, massive learning with extraordinary naivete, piercing insights into others with daunting powers of self-deception. His flaws, in other words, should be just as interesting as his strengths, and the way they interacted with one another, as he, like all of us, managed his way through life, not his inexorable growth toward greatness.”’O Henry Adams would not necessarily have disagreed with this, but he might have suggested that such a disclaimer was a useless stab. Adams cast the question of the relation of Americans to Jefferson differently: “This sandy face, with hazel eyes and sunny aspect; this loose, shackling person; this rambling and often brilliant conversation, belonged to the controlling influences of American his- tory, more necessary to the story than three-fourths of the official papers, which only hid the truth.”” When historians select, however, even in so pleasantly plausi- ble a way as Ellis does, there arises a problem of trust, challenging readers to know enough even before starting to secure an intellec- tual beachhead from which to operate. Often the sands on that beach are shifting-intellectual fashions change; historical reputations ebb and flow; and the huckstering blurbs of booksellers’ advice are often mostly wind. After his death on July 4, 1826, a memorable anniver- sary that marked the exit of John Adams as well, Jefferson has become a special magnet for ensuing legions of historical admirers and detrac- tors. Through the years various other famous Americans also became cottage industries in a historical profession often mindful of the need

‘“Ellis, American Sphinx, 22-23. “Adams, First Administration, 127. The Art of Biography 183

to construct a national memory.'2 Beyond all of this industry Jeffer- son has maintained an elevated place, in its own way not unlike the site he selected for his home, adroitly removed from the fray. Why this has been so becomes a lesson in the history of American histo- ry, some cynics going so far as to suggest that if "the American Sphinx" did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. In an irony Jefferson might have enjoyed, he has become a light- ning rod of a distinctive sort in the late twentieth century. The post- World War I1 launching of the Jefferson Papers, not even half complete after a half-century in business, served to prompt a peculiarly bifur- cated course for the history of American history. On the one side grew up a new community, largely outside of the established groves of the academy, a community of scholars where entire professional careers were given over to the preservation and publication of the letters and papers of great individuals or special subjects such as abolition of , ratification of the Constitution, and the first fed- eral congress. Federal funding was critical in sustaining this grand departure. On the other side, academic historians, newly divorced from close association with documentary editors, embraced histori- cal writing that became more interpretive with the passing of the years, reflected in part by the gradual disappearance in the class- room of history courses organized around and driven by primary sources. The historical memory of Thomas Jefferson has been both ben- eficiary and victim of this development. With the letterpress, film, and digital publication of records came exaggerated expectations that historical writing would be grounded securely upon the evidence. Interestingly, documentary publication served simultaneously to loosen the speculative urges as more and more historians engaged in the art of the extended essay-or history as argument. In time, the scholarship of American history became bifurcated as the monu- ments to archival memory struggled to coexist with a Babel of increas- ingly arcane studies that suited the whims of the currently fashionable. It is a daunting task for anyone who sets out to get a hand around the subject of Jefferson in American history. The number of people who have tried gives pause. Some have compiled bibliogra- phies of secondary sources; collections of primary sources also abound; and then there are the studies of the studies. Here readers have been treated to Merrill Peterson's The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (1960). Peterson recognized something important in histori-

''Without the visual reminders of unearned status that are displayed in a monar- chy or aristocracy, Americans have invented private associations to institutionalize the memory of designated individuals or groups of individuals. There are several examples, including the Plymouth Society; the Society of Cincinnatus; the Daughters of the American Revolution; the Mount Vernon Ladies Association; the Abraham Lin- coln Association; and, of course, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation. BUST OF JEFFERSONBY JEAN-ANTOINE HOUDON(1789)

The Gilder Lehrman Collection on Deposit at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, New York. GLC 3106. The Art of Biography 185

ography that served as a backdrop for understanding why so many Americans over such a long period of time felt somehow compelled to come to terms with Jefferson as well as other founders. During the Revolution, Americans did away with both monarchy and birthright aristocracy. Interestingly, Jefferson himself was politically most assertive in this stripping away of the dead hand of artificial privi- lege. Simultaneously, Americans yearned for icons worthy of their new order; so the founding fathers in general and Jefferson in par- ticular soon became the objects of historical apotheosis. Once this happened and as Americans continued in the twentieth century to expand the geography of history, the image of Jefferson worked its way into virtually every historical consideration of the Revolution and the new nation.13 It is into this modern minefield of scholarly complexi- ty that Ellis has journeyed in search of his “chief quarry,” one, he believed, that had eluded his predecessors in what many considered the most important challenge ever to face American historians- making sense of Thomas Jeffer~0n.l~ In human action there are masks and there are fictions. Some of these masks and fictions are carefully designed for the construc- tion of useful objects. Manners, for example, are often masks of care- ful social design, as are corporations in the law. Fictions serve clever humorists as well as those caretakers of the law who craft special cases in property and tort to accommodate the tradition of legal forms and social progress simultaneously. There has always been a dark side as well. Here slavery has ranked as a most ingeniously pernicious mask in the law, the intentional construct of something naturally wrong. Robert Penn Warren wondered if the same might be said for the autobiographical epitaph, particularly that composed and ordered by Jefferson, an epitaph that may be the most famous in American history: Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom And Father of the University of Virginia. Warren did not shrink from noticing that Jefferson was neither the sole author nor the only father. Warren is one of the very few who have ventured to comment upon this Jefferson fiction, most biographers choosing instead to view the inscription through the prism of the romantic ideal. Ellis’s portrayal of Jefferson is centered on different polarities than those conjured up by fictions and masks. According to Ellis, Jefferson masked himself from himself, finally unable to face

13MerrillD. Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (New York, 1962). “Ellis, American Sphinx, xii. ENGRAVINGOF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA BY BENJAMINTANNER (1826)

Thomas Jefferson Papers, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Virginia The Art of Biography 187

the realities of the world around him, seeking comfort in the icy grandeur of his carefully crafted ideals. Ellis’s portrait of Jefferson’s character focuses upon the contest that raged within, the contest between the ideal and the real. This was on exhibit whether the sub- ject was executive authority in the person of a king or a president, the authority of the government to address the power that came from wealth, or the authority of one individual over the life of another, free and slave. Ellis believes that this contest of Jefferson’s was fated to end in disappointment. The romantic aspirations of his better self were destined to be defeated by outsiders who employed the world view of Thomas Hobbes as their weapon.15 The first Ellis moment, “Philadelphia, 1775-76,” culminates with a discussion of the Declaration of Independence. Using quota- tions from previous Jefferson historians and others as epigraphs for each chapter, Ellis’s evocative and trenchant choice for this segment comes from Malone: “It is easier to reach a confident opinion about the sort of man he was in 1776 than to do so for 1793 or 1800.” Not only will Ellis test this enigmatic proposition in coming chapters, he also uses this chapter to establish the central features of Jeffer- son’s character. In short, this is the critical moment for the biogra- pher’s art. None will doubt the importance of what the biographer chooses to remember as he sets about establishing this foundation. Given the richness of the various sources available to Ellis, the view of Jefferson in 1776 can also be seen in those features of Jefferson’s character and activities that Ellis chose to omit. Since this study departs from the biographical genre known as “life and times,” the biography becomes, at least in part, an exercise in the art of con- cealment, all in the name of asserting as Ellis does that his selective construction reveals historical truth. If this appears oxymoronic, wel- come to a world where “fiction” has entered the vocabulary as an acceptable fashion in historical writing, and deconstruction-or the new relativism-is considered intellectually safe from the sort of treatment that wits such as H. L. Mencken or Mark Twain might have savored. With the Declaration of Independence as the destination, Ellis views much of what transpired before as prologue. The young Jef- ferson was both an inward person, one who might be viewed as a loner today, and a political idealist, one who attached himself with great conviction to the Enlightenment’s faith in reason.16Ellis claims that this combination of characteristics provoked a compelling life-

‘”Robert Penn Warren, Brothers to Dragons: A Tale in Verse and Voices (1953; reprint, New York, 1979). I6For an interesting contrast see Andrew Burstein, The Inner Jefferson: Por- trait of a Grieving Optimist (Charlottesville, Va., 1995). Analyzing the epistolary Jef- ferson, Burstein suggests that Jefferson’s letters indicate a person who “spent his life reaching out to others.” Burstein, Inner Jefferson, 116. 188 Indiana Magazine of History long conflict within Jefferson. Insofar as he was a private person who believed passionately in the ideal, he approached what Adam Smith described in A Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) as a “man of sys- tem.” By this Smith meant a person who “is apt to be very wise in his own conceit, and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.” Smith, of course, worried that such a person tended to see human beings as things to be manipulated, like so many pieces on a “chess board.”I7 Starting with the first chapter and continuing throughout his study, Ellis contends with the historiographically heretical notion of a Jefferson inclined toward something other than individual liber- ty. Beginning with his analysis of the Declaration, continuing later with Jefferson’s reception of the , and culminating with the evolution of Jefferson’s concepts of both Native Americans and Africans, Ellis develops this interpretation. Ellis probes the impli- cations of the deep conflict caused by Jefferson’s character with con- siderable sympathy and discernment toward both Jefferson and Jefferson’s biographers. But probe he does as when he concludes the discussion of the Declaration by suggesting it “represented yet anoth- er formulation of the Jeffersonian imagination.” As much as Jeffer- son was indebted to John Locke or the political philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment for conceptions of the ideal society, the urge to embrace such an ideal society came from deep inside Jefferson himself. It was the vision of a young man projecting his personal cravings for a world in which all behavior was voluntary and therefore all coercion unnecessary, where indepen- dence and equality never collided, where the sources of all authority were invisible because they had already been internalized. Efforts on the part of scholars to determine whether Jefferson’s prescriptive society was fundamentally individualistic or communal can never reach closure, because within the Jeffersonian utopia such choices do not need to be made. They reconcile themselves naturally. . . . Jefferson’s political vision was more radical than liberal, driven as it was by a youthful romanticism unwilling to negoti- ate its high standards with an imperfect world.L8 As Ellis approaches what he considers to be Jefferson’s center, he presents a historical player doomed to disappointment, if not fail- ure. Perhaps this is more a reflection of Ellis’s own conception of the destiny of the American Revolution, interesting but largely irrele- vant in a biography seeking to reveal Jefferson’s character.

I7Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759; reprint, Indianapolis, Ind., 19761,380-81. Historians do not agree on this subject. In Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, Peterson referred to Jefferson as a “philosopher-statesman,” assert- ing that “he was distrustful of philosophical systems generally--they were prisons of the mind. Thought with him was an instrument for reshaping life, not for reflecting it in some grand cosmic design.” Peterson, Thomas Jefferson, 45-46. Forrest McDon- ald opposed this view, stating that Jefferson had achieved the construction of an ide- ology, “a system of values and a way of looking at things.” Forrest McDonald, The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson (Lawrence, Kans., 1976), 161. ‘*Ellis,American Sphinx, 59. The Art of Biography 189

Some may find elements of this presentation disingenuous, as if Ellis had tried to have things both ways. Others might chime in with calls for Ellis to give better notice to earlier biographical and mono- graphic studies of the early years. Jefferson as well left some hints in an unpublished autobiography, a personal history he began dur- ing January, 1821, ”for the information of my family,” a major writ- ing task never finished and a source that Ellis does not emphasize. The autobiography reveals two remarkable stones about Jefferson and the coming of the Revolution, the actual apprenticeship for Jeffer- son’s contributions to the Continental Congress in 1775 and 1776. In recalling his tenure as a member of the House of Burgesses, Jef- ferson noted his dual role, one as legislator and one as leader of the patriot cause. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected; and indeed, during the regal government, nothing liberal could expect success. Our minds were circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country in all matters of gov- ernment. . . . The difficulties with our representatives were of habit and despair, not of reflection & conviction. Experience soon proved that they could bring their minds to rights on the first summons of their attention.” Jefferson, in words that left obscured the extent of his own involvement, was commenting upon both the state of political resis- tance and the new generation of leadership from Virginia’s estab- lished families who would take the American colonists to independence. In Virginia, Jefferson was one of the central players in this stunning change, something that he acknowledged in his autobiography when he wrote of Virginia’s reactions to the various statutory responses of Parliament to the Boston Tea Party soon to be labeled in America as the Intolerable Acts. “The lead in the house on these subjects being no longer left to the old members, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Fr. L. Lee, 3. or 4. other members, whom I do not recollect, and myself, agree- ing that we must boldly take an unequivocal stand . . . cooked up a resolution . . . for appointing the 1st Day of June . . . for a day of fast- ing, humiliation & prayer.”20All of this heated stew they knew full well would force the governor to dissolve the legislature in an act that became the signal for the beginning of the Revolution in Vir- ginia. While both Malone and Peterson emphasize this political moment, Ellis does not. Interestingly, Ellis omits several key ele- ments of Jefferson’s political life as he passed so quickly by the cru- cial years of 1774 and 1775. Even as a student at the College of William and Mary, Jeffer- son courted the politics of the capitol as he dined with the governor. This interest may have been the fuel for his study of the law. It is well

l9ThomasJefferson (cited hereafter as TJ), “Autobiography,” in Thomas Jef- ferson: Writings, ed. Merrill D. Peterson (New York, 1984), 5. ‘“TJ, “Autobiography,” 7-8. 190 Indiana Magazine of History known that he never actively pursued a profession in the law, at least not in the manner of some of his long-standing adversaries such as Patrick Henry and John Marshall. Even so, his legal scholarship as well as several of his opinions for the General Court, particularly on the question of the Fee Bill and court closure in 1774, reflected in significant ways upon both his character and his politics.’l Some have argued that to understand Jefferson’s public career as well as his private character it is necessary to consider his investment in the law. If Cicero and Montaigne served as his models in the world of letters for addressing friends and acquaintances, then Coke, Black- stone, and the world of the Enlightenment became mentors for his public career. Ellis fails to emphasize these inspirations as he probes the distinctions between the public and private that Jefferson craft- ed so carefully. The law informed Jefferson’s view of Virginia’s independence every bit as much as the historical views he presented in A Sum- mary View of the Rights of British America (1774), which Ellis con- tends served as the primary backdrop for his draft of the Declaration. Once he completed his legal education and started his appellate prac- tice, Jefferson began to keep notes of certain cases in Virginia’s high- est appellate court. Although these reports were not published until several years after he died, he had earlier penned a short introduc- tion that conveyed views central in his political thought. Assembling notes on earlier decisions and compiling reports of cases between 1768 and 1772, Jefferson stated that his principle of selection was straightforward. He considered the decisions of the General Court “on our peculiar laws” to have been “of conclusive authority. As prece- dents, they established authoritatively the construction of our own enactments, and gave them the shape and meaning, under which our property has been ever since transmitted, and is regulated and held to this day.”22Aside from the question of judicial interpretation of statutes, Jefferson selected special areas of the private law of prop- erty and contracts that he believed were distinctive in Virginia. It was within this context of Virginia’s legal and constitutional histo- ry that Jefferson believed he acted at the beginning of the Revolution.u

“Daniel J. Boorstin, The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948; reprint, Chica- go, 1981); Frank Dewey, Thomas Jefferson, Lawyer (Charlottesville, Va., 1986). Peter- son did not reach this conclusion, holding that “Jefferson’s study of law led him to the Anglo-Saxon conception of English liberty.” Willard Sterne Randall argued that the many elements of Jefferson’s legal education in both English treatises and Virginia case law entered without the Saxon filter into both his political beliefs and his devel- oping constitutional views. See Willard Sterne Randall, Thomas Jefferson: A Life (New York, 1993). For an extensive treatment of Jefferson’s legal education see David N. Mayer, The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, Va., 19941, chapter 1. “TJ, Reports of Cases Determined in the General Court of Virginia, from 1730 to 1740; and from 1768 to 1772 (1774; reprint, Charlottesville, Va., 1903), 5. 23Perhap~the earliest and still most telling commentary on this view of Amer- ican legal thought appeared in St. George Tucker’s preface, “On the Study of Law,” The Art of Biography 191

This perspective on the seminal influence of Virginia’s distinc- tive legal history goes a long way in explaining Jefferson’s keen inter- est in statutory codification. His association with Edmund Pendleton was particularly important. Early in 1774 Jefferson won a signifi- cant political and legal battle with this man who would take execu- tive charge of Virginia’s move to independence during the critical months after June, 1774. The General Court requested both these men, one the young and unseasoned Jefferson and the other among the foremost attorneys practicing in the General Court, to give opin- ions about whether the court could remain open if the legislature failed to pass statutory rates for court fees. Jefferson argued that it could not, and the court accepted his view. Although the evidence is incomplete, this may have sealed both Jefferson’s claim to leader- ship within the patriot party and a lasting friendship with Pendle- ton. These alliances, forged as they were during the most trying of times, suggest a Jefferson who was extraordinarily active, in some ways the perfect portrait of the new Virginia leader whose appren- ticeship in the hotbed of colonial resistance was careful and pur- poseful. His engagements, at once politically risky and personally emphatic, suggest anything but the image of the political outsider that Ellis conveys.24 It is notable that of all the American patriots who embraced the tenets of the Enlightenment, none was more learned in the law than Jefferson. Few could match the manner in which he joined his legal scholarship with the politics of the Revoluti~n.~~In his codifi- cation of the laws of Virginia, Jefferson’s learning and political inter- ests converged in the creation of a new legal order, perhaps the most significant example of his unequaled capacity to fuse philosophy and political action. In his study of Jefferson’s constitutional thought, Mayer notes this achievement. While not seeking to dispel the past out of hand, Jefferson sought to select those parts of the statutory law and judge-made, or common, law that would be useful as Vir- ginia “adapted to our republican form of government: and, now that we had no negatives of Councils, Governors, and Kings to restrain us from doing right, it should be corrected, in all its parts, with a sin-

in his edition of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England pub- lished in Philadelphia in 1803. For a reprint of this essay see Clyde Wilson, ed., A View of the Constitution of the United States with Selected Writings (Indianapolis, Ind., 1999), 1-17. ”For conflictine discussions of court closure see Dewey, Thomas Jefferson,94- 106, and George M. curtis, “The Role of the Courts in the Making of the-Revolution in Virginia,” in The Human Dimension of Nation Making, ed. James K. Martin (Madi- son, Wisc., 1976), 121-47. 25F~ra documentary view of Virginia’s Revolution see William Van Schreeven et al., eds., Revolutionary Virginia (7 vols., Charlottesville, Va., 1973-1983). The Pendleton correspondence can be found in Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (27 vols. to date, Princeton, N.J., 1950- 1. 192 Indiana Magazine of History gle eye to reason, and the good of those for whose government it was framed.”26 Thus this view of the law as a rational instrument for future use was clearly not simply an invention of late nineteenth-century American jurists, given Jefferson’s view of this legal imperative for the Revolution in Virginia. While not going so far as to label Jeffer- son “an instrumentalist” in the modern sense of the term, Mayer does argue that Jefferson viewed this as a singular episode in Virginia legal history. Ellis and others do not connect Jefferson’s passionate and sustained engagement in the statutory codification of Virginia laws with his later comment to Madison where he claimed that “the earth belongs in usufruct to the living.” Rather than looking at old family debts, as well as those of others who forged American inde- pendence-an interpretation so many have argued over the years- Jefferson may have been looking west, seeking to use the past in a consciously selective way so as to give vent to the spontaneous ener- gies of the present. After 1763 Americans came increasingly to see the king in Parliament as an agent using the dead hand of the past to arrest the future that colonists considered vital, hence the bill of particulars in the De~laration.’~ is Ellis’s next port of call for Jefferson. Jefferson’s stint in that city offers Ellis an opportunity once again to dwell on the con- text of his subject’s career, just as he did when he portrayed Jeffer- son’s entry into Philadelphia, replete with his retinue of slaves. In Philadelphia, Jefferson had immediately found a home among friends from Virginia and allies from other colonies. In Paris there seemed to be no similar welcome, a circumstance even more poignant and trying for someone recently widowed as Jefferson was. At least that is the impression Ellis conveys. Actually, Jefferson was well acquaint- ed with a number of notables, particularly the Marquis de Lafayette and the Marquis de Chastellux, men whom he had befriended dur- ing the American war for independence while he was . Jefferson’s arrival in France also affords Ellis the opportunity to glance back briefly at his term as governor, which Ellis recalls

26TJ,“Autobiography,” 31. 27Fora discussion of Virginia’s codification see Mayer, Constitutional Thought, 66-74. See also Herbert Sloan, “The Earth Belongs in Usufruct to the Living,” Jeffer- sonian Legacies, Onuf, 281-315. When Ellis took up the drafting of the Declaration, he acknowledged the previous commentaries of Carl Becker, Julian Boyd, Garry Wills, and John Hazelton while praising particularly Pauline Maier’s new analysis, Sacred Scriptures: Making the Declaration of Independence (1998). Ellis, American Sphinx, 316n. Some of Jefferson’s convictions about the “release of energy” that the law promised anticipated the comments of Wilhelm von Humboldt in his Limits of State Action, published in part in 1792 and later published as a whole by his brother Alexander. See Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits ofstate Action (1792; reprint, Indianapolis, Ind., 1993). For a discussion of early instrumental views of the law see J. Willard Hurst, Law and the Conditions of Freedom in Nineteenth-Century America (Madison, Wisc., 1956). The Art of Biography 193

through Malone (whose biography according to Ellis “at times takes on the tone of a defense attorney’s brief for the Accord- ing to others, such as Emory Evans, Jefferson hardly needed the help, for Jefferson’sgovernorship, no matter how immediately painful to him personally, was a success and a very important one at that. While contemporary critics emphasized how ill-prepared Virginia was for the British invasion that marred the conclusion of Jeffer- son’s tenure, too often later observers overlooked the circumstances under which Jefferson accepted the position and what it portended. To say nothing about how this constitutionally limited governor man- aged the war-torn state during its darkest hours. Like Patrick Henry before him, Jefferson came to the office from the legi~lature.~~These years as governor served as a trial that tempered his views on the bal- ance of powers as well as inspiration for his criticisms of the Virginia constitution. In his Notes on the State of Virginia, written in 1781 and pub- lished in 1785, Jefferson openly criticized the 1776 Virginia consti- tution for its failure to separate powers of government properly and for incapacitating the governor at almost every important turn, par- ticularly when it came to the question of emergency powers. His expe- rience as governor during the most critical hours of the war became a signal chapter in the education of Jefferson as an executive. June 1, 1779, marked the beginning of Jefferson’s experience as an exec- utive. From the moment he had entered the House of Burgesses until his elevation to governor, he had been a part of the opposition to executive authority. How he handled the difference between being out of power and in power has been a subject of continuing interest. At the conclusion of a significant narrative of Jefferson’s two years as governor Peterson concluded: His governorship could not be reckoned brilliant or even successful. Yet if faithful- ness to duty, courage in distress, calmness and forecast of mind, devotion to republi- can principles, flexibility in the face of danger, and an enlarged view of Virginia’s place in the grand strategy of the Union-if these things were important, then Jefferson was more deserving of praise than of blame. He certainly never claimed more for him~elf.~’ With Jefferson in Paris, Ellis introduces the terrible subject of slavery, one that hounds his historical reputation even as birthday celebrations, popular films, and new studies of the Declaration con- tinue to embellish it. Ellis emphasizes Jefferson’s commentary about slavery in the early French edition of the Notes, for as matters turned out, this writing became a significant point of departure. In the years

2REllis,American Sphinx, 316n. 5eeEmory G.Evans, “Executive Leadership in Virginia, 1776-1781: Henry, Jefferson, and Nelson,” in Sovereign States in an Age of Uncertainty, eds. Ronald Hoff- man and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville, Va., 19811, 185-225. ““Peterson,Thomas Jefferson, 239. 194 Indiana Magazine of History to come Jefferson never again publicly advanced such criticism of the institution. It was here that he predicted a holocaust of racial war. “Indeed I tremble for my country. When I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interferen~e!”~~According to Ellis these prophetic words, not unlike the introduction to the Declaration, took on a life of their own in Jefferson as well as in American history. Ellis returns to the discussion of slavery during Jefferson’s Monticello years, 1794-1797. Here he lists the reasons that he believed per- suaded Jefferson to move from the forefront of reform to silence. In addition to the trepidation he felt after the publication of the Notes, Jefferson came to believe that there was no practical solution for emancipation, a view that he may have been attracted to in part because of his growing financial dependence “upon the monetary value and labor of his slaves.” The conclusion was tragic for others, for “the net result of all these influences was a somewhat tortured posi- tion on slavery that combined unequivocal condemnation of the insti- tution in the abstract with blatant procrastination whenever specific emancipation schemes were ~uggested.”~~ Added to the melancholy of this discussion of slavery was Jef- ferson’s history with , mulatto daughter of his father- in-law, a history that would hound him and his reputation from the time James Callender published his account in 1802. Sadly, during the time following the publication of this biography, Ellis became embroiled in the politics of impeachment, so much so that some won- dered openly if his activities regarding the DNA testing of certain descendants of Thomas Jefferson in an effort to establish his pater- nity of Hemings’s children were politically motivated. If such alle- gations are true, Ellis’s conversion to the belief that Jefferson sired at least one child by Hemings will affect how readers view American Sphin~.~~ In his biography, having introduced the general subject of the intimate relation between Jefferson and the Hemings family in the discussion of slavery at Monticello, Ellis writes a special appendix, “A Note on the Sally Hemings Scandal,” in which he provides a brief historiographical summary. He concludes by stating, “after five years mulling over the huge cache of evidence that does exist on the thought and character of the historical Jefferson, I have concluded that the

“Quoted in Ellis, American Sphinx, 87. ”Ellis, American Sphinx, 148. ”For an example of the public comments see Joseph J. Ellis, “Founding Father- hood,” Wall Street Journal, February 28, 1999. See also Joseph J. Ellis, “Jefferson Fathered Slave Child,”Nature, January 7, 1999. In this article Ellis renounced the posi- tion that he took in his biography. The Art of Biography 195

likelihood of a liaison with Sally Hemings is remote,” although he does give a nod to Fawn Brodie’s introduction of the thesis that Jef- ferson and Hemings shared love. He does not stress that many sub- sequently denied such a relation on the grounds that, given Jefferson’s character, the exploitive nature of slavery precluded such a history, one that some suggested began during the exile at Monticello and lasted until Jefferson’s death. While slavery continues to serve as the leitmotif for so much contemporary scholarship, much of it subjectively politicized, Ellis recognized it as only a part of the complex geography of Jefferson’s interior world, a subject that remained privately awful and publicly troubling. This has not been so for others, particularly when current gossip now fueled by DNA science ignites a fury of personal judg- ments from historian^.^^ Sadly lost in this contemporary outpouring is notice of the shortcomings of Jefferson’s instrumental view of the law to use human reason in legislation for remedying the positive legal structures of slavery that persisted. Also lost in the shuffle of new voices is a remembrance of Robert Penn Warren’s understand- ing of slavery as a human tragedy rather than a southern sin. The years in Paris also give Ellis the opportunity to discuss Jef- ferson’s relationships with women. He begins with Jefferson’s friend- ship with and ends with his love for . When compared to more recent treatments of William Adams’s The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson (1997) or John Kaminski’s essay in ?Jefferson in Love: The Love Letters between Thomas Jefferson and Maria Cosway (19991, Ellis’s account appears bloodless. Jefferson’s famous and noteworthy letter to Cosway, “the head and the heart” letter, receives short shrift in Ellis. This is strange in two ways. First, the correspondence revealed the limits of Jefferson’s Enlightenment mentality insofar as it reflected accurately his segregation of reason and emotion. Second, Jefferson went to some pains, literally, to save a copy of this letter, suggesting an archival consideration that Ellis could have probed for signals issuing from Jefferson’s interior, that precious space that Ellis throughout so fervently seeks to expose.35 Ellis’s selection of Jefferson’s tenure as secretary of state and his first term as president opens again the question of the public man. He offers the traditional version of the origins of the political party of Jefferson. In his portrait of Jefferson as president, Ellis spot-

34SeeFawn Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (New York, 1974) and John C. Miller, The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and SZavery (New York, 1977). For recent treatments of Jefferson, Hemings, and slavery see Paul Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: ‘TreasonAgainst the Hopes of the World,”’ in Jefersonian Lga- cies, Onuf, 181-221, and Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (Charlottesville, Va., 1997). ljWilliam H. Adams, The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson (New Haven, Conn., 1997) and John P. Kaminski, ed., Jefferson in Love: The Love Letters between Thomas Jefferson and Maria Cosway (Madison, Wisc., 1999). 196 Indiana Magazine of History lights moments within moments, such as the fate of Jefferson’s first inaugural address. Normally, judgments of this kind are understood to be the special preserve for argumentative historians who hunt for meaning in the popularity polls. Even so, to rank the first inaugural address second after the Declaration as the most significant of Jef- ferson’s public statements is not only to give it great emphasis, but also, coming where it does in the middle of the book, to shape the entire work. The context of Ellis’s pronouncement has a troublesome ring to it, for his Jefferson from the very first is the least public of all famous American public leaders, a mark of his character that Ellis takes repeated trouble to establish. It becomes one of the central ironies of the biography-that this most famous American, this man who became almost a mythical metaphor for all that was noble in the American political experiment, was in fact reclusive by inclina- tion. Jefferson appeared to avoid the public spotlight as he labored to create an epistolary archive that would assure his hold upon the American historical imagination. Ellis is fond of emphasizing the hidden Jefferson, tantamount in some ways to suggesting that Jef- ferson became for American public letters what Shakespeare became for all of English literature-the eternal enigma. Or to put it common sensically, how can we know so much about someone who remains so hidden from our view? Since the sphinxlike Jefferson has been so central a part of the Peterson and Ellis viewpoint, the question aris- es whether this characteristic is at least in part a figment of the biog- rapher’s imagination. Simultaneously, of course, American historians have held that no one symbolized the distinctiveness of America more accurately than Jefferson. So, ever since Henry Adams’s sweeping portrait of the third president, readers have faced a bifurcated image- on the one side forever hidden and on the other side a looming pres- ence of the quintessential American.36 Also remaining obscure in Ellis’s Jefferson is due consideration for the development of his legal and constitutional thought, the very bedrock of his public character in the opinion of several historians, including Malone and Mayer. Ellis’s discussion of the first inaugu- ral is the occasion for a long offset quotation, a profound constitu- tional and legal claim of Jefferson’s that stands without any historical explication from Ellis. The passage is certainly famous: “I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it is the only one where every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.”37This is more than a remembered echo of the revolutionary Virginian; this is also more than an assertion of

36Ellistakes up the question of psychohistory, distancing himself from such practitioners as Erik Erikson while reserving for himself the opportunity “to make some occasional effort at explaining a decision or act without possessing all the direct evidence one would like.” Ellis, American Sphinx, 331. 37Q~~tedin ibid., 184. The Art of Biography 197

faith in reason. It was a profound comment upon Jefferson’s faith in the new American citizenship, a citizenship founded upon a knowl- edge of the law and the courage to defend “the laws” against invasion, a high point for his endorsement of an instrumental view of the law. Embedded in Jefferson’s observation was recognition of the genius of the American Revolution, the distinctiveness of this Amer- ican achievement that captured with precision the American idea of volitional allegiance. In contrast, from time to time Ellis has Jeffer- son angrily objecting to the views of his opposition for failing to sus- tain what Ellis refers to as “the true meaning of the American Revolution.’’38Aside from Ellis’s willingness to use this as a catchall for Jefferson’s reaction to principled opposition, the interpretation lacks clarity, for he never explains “the true meaning.” More impor- tantly, Ellis suggests by this that Jefferson remained somehow stuck in 1776-that his constitutional and legal thought was best charac- terized as static. This is in stark contrast to two separate and impor- tant Jefferson events. The first came with Jefferson’s willingness to be constitutionally flexible enough to acquire Louisiana, an action for which “the true meaning of the American Revolution” might well have been silent. At least Jefferson himself admitted as much in an 1810 letter to John Colvin that Ellis cites: “It is incumbent on those who accept great charges to risk themselves on great occasions, . . . to lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written laws, would be to lose the law itself.” In defining his presidency Jefferson viewed executive uses of power as dependent in certain ways upon the exi- gencies of the moment, special occasions when distinctive leaders had to take certain laws into their own hands in order to preserve the law for others. Ellis states that Jefferson “violated his most cher- ished political principles” in order to acquire territory, a question on which the Constitution remained silent. On the contrary, Mayer, viewing this letter more appropriately from a constitutional rather than a political perspective, emphasized the constitutional void. Mayer noticed also Jefferson’s subsequent uses of executive power, particularly in diplomatic affairs, where he continued to hold to an expansive view of executive prerogative. It was Jefferson’s aspira- tion that Louisiana should serve as an opportunity for a constitu- tional amendment that would provide a cure for the original defect, not the violation Ellis poses.39 The other constitutional question that Ellis must address is Jef- ferson’s thoughts on the judiciary, and here again the biographer distances himself from both Malone and Mayer. The image that

’“Ellis,American Sphinx, 222. ”Jefferson’s letter to Colvin is quoted in ibid., 208. See also Mayer, Constitu- tional Thought, 242-56. For a fuller treatment of the diplomatic and geographic sig- racance of the see Robert W. Tucker and David Hendrickson,: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1990). 198 Indiana Magazine of History emerges is of a person enraged with both the agents of the judicia- ry, particularly John Marshall, and with the institution itself. Ellis presents Jefferson as both single dimensional in his views and on the verge of irrationality whenever he addressed the place of the judi- ciary in the new American constitutional order. At this point Ellis exhibits his inexperience with American legal history, asserting that Jefferson considered that “the original American revolutionaries had not envisioned a national judiciary at all.” Of course, this is disin- genuous, given that most participants and leaders during the years 1774 to 1776 gave very little, if any, thought to “national” institu- tions of any kind. Conversely, Mayer presents a more complex Jef- ferson, whose views changed in response to both the historical development of American constitutional institutions and the stated institutional ambitions of those who differed from his federalism. Again, it is important to distinguish Jefferson in power with Jeffer- son out of power. Mayer views Jefferson as part of the Whig, or oppo- sition, constitutional tradition, a sigmficant window into the Jeffersonian world that is unopened by Ellis. But those Whig views were a part of Jefferson when he was in opposition, as he was so much of the time when the federal judiciary was making such great institution- al strides during Marshall’s tenure as chief justice of the Supreme Court. From almost the beginning, according to Mayer, Jefferson main- tained a jealousy of the jurisdiction claimed by Marshall, preferring to emphasize the resolution of constitutional disputes either at the state level or in the elected branches of the national g~vernment.~~ Several biographers and constitutional historians have noted the importance of Jefferson’s contributions to the American discus- sion of sovereignty. Beginning with his political opposition to the crown and continuing during his initial contributions as a legislator and governor, Jefferson in both his private and public correspon- dence joined others in the patriot cause as together they began to frame a new American understanding of governmental power. Using different historical sources from Europe and America, these new con- stitutionalists forged often conflicting definitions of sovereignty dur- ing the final decades of the eighteenth century. As Mayer and others have argued, Jefferson’s views were neither static nor consistent. Even so, his contribution to the constitutionalism of divided sovereign- ty and the limiting of centralized power that he made in the Ken- tucky Resolutions of 1798 receives no attention from Ellis. The reader comes away from this book, then, with no understanding of either Jefferson’s long-standing interest in defining the limits of state power or in establishing new American standards of citizenship. To avoid these considerations is to leave blank a central feature of Jefferson’s public character.

‘OF0r a discussion of Jefferson’s views on the judiciary see Ellis, American Sphinx, 221-27. See also Mayer, Constitutional Thought,257-94. SmTCH OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA BY WILLIAM GOODACRE(183 1)

Edwin M. Betts Collection, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville. Virginia 200 Indiana Magazine of History

In the history of western civilization the American Revolution stands out not only because of the remarkable Declaration of Inde- pendence and the ensuing rush of written constitutions, but also because very quietly added to them was a revolutionary considera- tion of time and space. Jefferson became a knowing participant, indeed an important designer, of this transformation, which explains at least in part why his character and his life remain sphinxlike or lost to some twentieth-century biographers. In contrast, Henry Adams began his history of Jefferson’s presidency with a chapter on the American West, or what he considered America’s future. By 1800 the West beckoned the East forward, not the other way around. The American West became in Jefferson’s mind the remedy for the past with all of its political and legal encumbrances, its artificial barri- ers to the creative energies of individuals. Jefferson’s faith in the promise of the American future was revealed in his drafting of the original , in his willingness to chance the Louisiana Purchase, and in his prompting the expedition of Lewis and Clark. For Donald Jackson in his Thomas Jefferson and the Stony Mountains: Exploring the West from Monticello (19811, this vision that Jefferson carried of American time and space was a central part of his American character. For Ellis this subject remains on the periph- ery-a story that could wait until the end of his biography and be told in bits and snippets without enthusiasm. In his final years Jefferson by most accounts was not happy. The reasons for this vary with the storyteller. For some, such as Ellis, the question of personal happiness is not a question even in the dis- cussion of Jefferson’s earlier years. Perhaps biographers are inclined to accept the notion that happiness should be an attribute of the declining years, a compensation for the unwelcome demise of other emotions. The bright spot in Jefferson’s last chapter, of course, was the construction of the University of Virginia, according to Ellis a fitting finale for his idealism. Jefferson, too, valued this accom- plishment, electing to remind the future as he chose it to conclude his epitaph. Ellis is not so sure of this ranking. For him there is very lit- tle of Jefferson’s dark side in Jefferson’s other choices for his tomb- stone, the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia statute of religious liberty. But in the founding of the University of Virginia “several old and familiar Jeffersonian patterns also presented themselves, like characters in a play reappearing for a final encore.”41 Up until his end, Jefferson continued to live for the grand ideal while suffering from the slings and arrows of the outrages visited by a fortune more practical. With his eye focused on the end design, Jef- ferson got caught up in such details as surveying the site for the uni- versity; developing a catalog for the library; drawing up architectural

“Ellis, American Sphinx, 282. The Art of Biography 201

details and gadgets; calculating ungovernable financial minutiae; and recruiting faculty-always the conflicting dichotomy between the ideal and the real, the speculative and the administrative. In short, Ellis wonders whether these conflicts defeated Jefferson’s best self, the public figure he labored so hard to construct. At the end, there was also a dark note on Jefferson’s commitment to liberty. He became intensely involved in the development of the curriculum for the new college. Long a supporter of new courses on practical subjects and new identifications for professorial positions, Jefferson became adamant on the subject of barring theology from the curriculum. This denial, masked as a tribute to academic freedom and individual lib- erty of choice, failed to hide the assault upon inquiry into ideas and convictions central to the quest for liberty throughout much of the his- tory of western civilization. In the final analysis it was not what Jef- ferson promoted but what he denied that put a particular stamp on his legacy. This concept of a state-sponsored university possessed of such power to limit and control inquiry surfaced with great force by the end of the nineteenth century. It is a design that has provided a guiding star for the direction of the secular public university in mod- ern times. From his observation post at a private college, Ellis is dis- inclined to comment upon the consequences of this side of Jefferson’s character and so depicts a Jefferson still unfocused, robbing the subject of his own story and American readers of clear historical memory.