Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

Transcriber's note: The second edition is still under copyright, but contained a few corrections. The quote attributed to Jefferson on pages 80-82 is from Thomas Paine and has a different plate. The text on pages 82-85 and in the introduction were significantly revised. The last paragraph on page 375 was reworded to be less critical of John Adams.
Volney et L'Amérique Jefferson et les Idéologues Les Réfugiés Huguenots en Amérique The Commonplace Book of Thomas Jefferson Les Amitiés Françaises de Jefferson The Literary Bible of Jefferson

BUST OF THOMAS JEFFERSON BY HOUDON In the possession of the New York Historical Society
Copyright, 1929 , By Little, Brown, and Company All rights reserved Published September, 1929

This study of Jefferson's mind is the indirect outcome of an ambitious undertaking on which I launched about ten years ago. My original purpose had been to determine more exactly than had heretofore been done the contribution of the French thinkers to the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson.
The points of similarity were obvious: the parallelism between the theory of natural rights and the Déclaration des droits de l'homme is patent; the American statesman shared with the French doctrinaires the same faith in the ultimate wisdom of the people, the same belief in the necessity of a free press and religious freedom. Many of his utterances had a sort of French ring and countless Gallicisms could be discovered in his letters. He spent in France the five years immediately preceding the Revolution of 1789; he knew Madame d'Houdetot, Madame Helvétius, Lafayette, Condorcet, Cabanis, Du Pont de Nemours, l'Abbé Morellet and Destutt de Tracy. He was accused of bringing back from France the infidel doctrines of the philosophers and to some of his contemporaries he appeared as the embodiment of Jacobinism. How could such a man have failed to be influenced by the political, social and economic theories which brought about the great upheaval of the end of the eighteenth century?