GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA—THE "NOTES ON VIRGINIA"
Jefferson served two years as Governor of the Commonwealth and when he wrote his "Autobiography" he gave only a short paragraph to this episode of his eventful career, referring for more details to Girardin's continuation of Burk's "History of Virginia." The student of law, the erudite jurist, and classical scholar was by the choice of the Assembly entrusted with the duties and responsibilities of a war chief, and it cannot be said that Jefferson enjoyed the experience. The duties of governor were not only exacting but almost impossible to fulfill satisfactorily. For more than two years, Virginia, without money, with a poorly equipped militia reënforced with an inadequate number of Federal troops, had been overrun by the enemy and had known all the atrocities of the war. The governor had to honor the continuous requests of the general in chief for more ammunition, more equipment and provision, and at the same time had to keep under arms, and as much as possible in fighting condition, militiamen anxious to go back to their farms for the harvest or the plowing, so as to protect the territory of the State against the raids of the invader and prevent Indian uprisings on the western border. Last, but not least, he had to take into consideration the general attitude of the people of the State and the measures adopted by the legislature. Jefferson's correspondence with Lafayette during the first months of 1781 is most illuminating in this respect. When, after Arnold's treason, Lafayette was sent by Washington to apprehend the traitor and give some assistance to the Old Dominion, he found that there were neither boats, wagons, nor horses to carry his equipment from Head of Elk to the siege of operations. The treasury was empty, the Assembly most chary in granting impressment warrants, and practically all the governor could offer in the way of help was his unlimited good will. Lafayette had to use oxen for his artillery and to mount cannon on barges; but even after powers of impressment were granted to the Marquis, Jefferson had to remind him of the necessity of not impressing stallions or brood mares, so as not to kill the "goose with the golden eggs."[69]
Jefferson's attitude in these critical circumstances reveal his true character to a degree, and without entering into a detailed account of the campaign, a few illustrations may be included here. It may be remembered that four thousand British troops, taken prisoners at the battle of Saratoga, had been ordered by Congress to Charlottesville. The problem of housing and feeding them soon became acute, and Jefferson was called upon to assist in finding a proper solution. The life imposed upon the captive soldiers was comparatively mild. Barracks were erected, while the officers, well provided with money, rented houses in the vicinity of the camp and bought some of the finest horses in Virginia. For most of them the Charlottesville captivity was a very pleasant villégiature. On the other hand, some of the inhabitants did not view without alarm this sudden increase in the population of the county, and application was made to Governor Patrick Henry to have at least part of the prisoners removed to another section of the State. This, according to Jefferson, would have been a breach of faith, since the articles of capitulation provided that the officers should not be separated from their men. On this occasion he wrote a very vehement letter to the governor, March 27, 1779, protesting that such a measure "would suppose a possibility that humanity was kicked out of doors in America, and interest only attended to." Yet the governor could not entirely neglect interested consideration, and Jefferson once more revealed that curious mixture of high principles and hard, practical common sense, to which we already called attention. He was aware that the circulation of money was increased by the presence of these troops "at the rate of $30,000 a week at least." The rich planters, "being more generally sellers than buyers", were greatly benefited by these unexpected customers, although the poor people were much displeased by inroads made by them upon the amount of supplies and provisions available in the county.
Never were prisoners better treated or made more welcome, and if Jefferson reflected the feelings of his neighbors there was no animosity against the soldiers in the field:
The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot weaken national efforts. To contribute by neighbourly intercourse and attention to make others happy is the shortest and surest way of being happy ourselves. As these sentiments seem to have directed your conduct, we should be as unwise as illiberal, were we not to preserve the same temper of mind.[70]
Truly this was a war of philosophers and gentlemen, and the courtly generals of Louis XV would not have expressed more elegantly their consideration for the enemy. Jefferson's declaration was no mere gesture, for he struck up lasting friendships with several of the prisoners. He was particularly interested in a young German officer, Louis de Unger, who showed a remarkable talent for philosophy, in Baron de Geismer with whom he kept up a correspondence for more than ten years,[71] and in Major General Baron de Riedesel who, with his wife, was a frequent guest at Monticello. To many of them Jefferson opened his house, his library, and his dining room. He discussed philosophy and agriculture with them, played duets on his violin, and sincerely regretted the loss of that pleasant society when he had to leave after his appointment as governor.[72]
Yet a sterner trait in his character was soon to be revealed. While the British prisoners were described as "having thus found the art of rendering captivity itself comfortable, and carried to execution, at their own great expense and labor, their spirits sustained by the prospect of gratifications rising before their eyes", the American prisoners and noncombatants were receiving harsher treatment at the hands of the British. War had become particularly atrocious after Indian tribes had been encouraged to attack the insurgents, and this was an offense that Jefferson could not condone. When Governor Hamilton of Kaskakias, with his two lieutenants, Dejean and Lamothe, who had distinguished themselves by their harsh policy, surrendered to Clark and were brought to Virginia, Jefferson ordered them confined in the dungeon of the public jail, put in irons and kept incommunicado. On General Philips' protest Jefferson wrote to Washington to ask him for advice, but added that in his opinion these prisoners were common criminals and that he could "find nothing in Books usually recurred to as testimonials of the Laws and usages of nature and nations which convicts the opinion I have above expressed of error."[73] To Guy Carleton, Governor of Canada, he answered that "we think ourselves justified in Governor Hamilton's strick confinement on the general principle of National retaliation", and no punishment was too severe for a man who had employed "Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an indiscriminate butchery of men, women and children."[74]
When a few weeks later, upon Washington's request, the irons were taken from the prisoners and a parole offered to them, Jefferson obeyed very reluctantly and informed the general that "they objected to that part of it which restrained them from saying anything to the prejudice of the United States" and insisted on "freedom of speech"; they were in consequence remanded to their confinement in the jail, "which must be considered as a voluntary one until they can determine with themselves to be inoffensive in words as well as deeds."[75]
Even when the prisoners were freed, Jefferson wrote again to Washington:
I shall give immediate orders for having in readiness every engine which the Enemy have contrived for the destruction of our unhappy citizens captivated by them. The presentiment of these operations is shocking beyond expression. I pray heaven to avert them: but nothing in this world will do it but a proper conduct in the Enemy. In every event I shall resign myself to the hard necessity under which I shall act.[76]
Writing the same day to Colonel George Mathews, Jefferson defined with more precision what he understood by these "operations" when he declared that "iron will be retaliated by iron, prison ships by prison ships, and like for like in general."[77]
The faults of his own people did not find him any weaker, for he declared: "I would use any powers I have for the punishment of any officer of our own who should be guilty of excesses injustifiable under the usages of civilized nations." He was not slow either in punishing mutineers, in having the ringleaders seized in their beds "singly and without noise" and in recommending cavalry, "as men on horseback have been found the most certain Instrument of public punishment."[78]
This trait of Jefferson's character, hardly ever noticed, was no passing mood. It was little apparent in ordinary circumstances, but it was to reappear with the same stern inflexibility during the prosecution of Aaron Burr twenty-five years later. The dreamer, the theorist, the "philosopher" does not appear in the letters written by Jefferson during his governorship. He was punctual, attentive to details and careful to abide by the measures taken by the legislature. Yet he was subjected to bitter criticism and a sort of legend grew up about his lack of efficiency. He was approaching the end of his second term, which expired on June 2, 1781, and the legislature, feeling that the present danger required desperate action, was thinking of appointing a temporary dictator. Although most decidedly opposed to the creation of such an office, Jefferson believed that the appointment of a military leader was highly desirable (Letter to Washington, May 28), and according to his wishes General Nelson in command of the State troops was elected in his place. But before the Assembly could come to a decision an unexpected incident happened. It has been related at great length, and I am afraid with some embellishments, by Randall, who reconstructed it from Jefferson's papers and from the family traditions. Virginia was literally overrun by the enemy, and the raids of the British cavalry were a common occurrence. During one of these raids Tarleton attempted to capture the legislature and almost succeeded in taking the governor. The account of the incident, as I found it written by Jefferson, is far less picturesque, but probably more reliable than the highly colored narration of the biographer:
This was the state of things when, his office having expired on the 2d June, & his successor not yet in place, Col. Tarlton, with his regiment of horse, was detached by L. Cornwallis, to surprise him (supposed to be still governor) & the legislature now sitting in Charlottesville, the Speakers of the two houses, & some other members of the legislature, were lodging with him at Monticello. Tarleton, early in the morning of June 4. when within 10 miles of that place, detached a company of horse to secure him & his guests, & proceeded himself rapidly with his main body to Charlottesville, where he hoped to find the legislature unapprised of his movement. notice of it however had been brought both to Monticello & Charlottesville about sunrise, by a Mr Jouett from Louisa, who seeing them pass his father's house in the evening of the 3.d and riding through the night along by-ways, brought the notice. The Speakers, with their Colleagues returned to Charlottesville, & with the other members of the legislature, had barely time to get out of the way.[79]
A few days later Jefferson left Amherst and returned to Monticello which he found practically undamaged; it was then that, riding to Poplar Forest, he was thrown from his horse and so seriously hurt that he could not ride horseback for several months. Shortly afterwards he learned that some members of the legislature, probably irked by the humiliation of having fled before the British raiders, not once, but several times, were not unwilling to accuse the governor of having neglected to take proper measures of defense. As I have found nowhere any indication to contradict Jefferson's account of the incident, it had better be given here in his simple words:
I returned to Monticello July 26. & learning some time after that Mr George Nicholas, than a young man, just entered into the legislature proposed to institute some enquiry into my conduct before the legislature, a member from my county vacated his seat, & the county elected me, in his room, that I might vindicate myself on the floor of the house. thro' the intervention of a friend, I obtained from Mr. Nicholas a written note of the charges he proposed to bring forward & I furnished him in return the heads of the answers I should make. on the day appointed for hearing his charges he withdrew from the house; & no other undertaking to bring them forward, I did it myself in my place, from his paper, answering them verbatim to the house. the members had been witnesses themselves to all the material facts, and passed an unanimous vote of approbation, which may be seen on their journals. Mr. Nicholas was an honest and honorable man, & took a conspicuous occasion, many years after, of his own free will, & when the matter was entirely at rest, to retract publicly the erroneous opinions he had been led into on that occasion, and to make just reparation by a candid acknowledgment of them.[80]
This unfortunate incident revealed another fundamental trait of Jefferson's character,—his total incapacity to accept public criticism with equanimity. It was not until December 19, 1781, that he had the opportunity of presenting his case before the legislature and of receiving the vote of thanks intended "to obviate and remove all unmerited censure." In the meantime, and because he did not wish to leave a free field to his enemies, he had to decline a new appointment from Congress, when on the fifteenth of June he was designated to join the four American plenipotentiaries already in Europe. The letter was transmitted through Lafayette, and to Lafayette alone Jefferson confided his deep mortification at having to
lose an opportunity, the only one I ever had and perhaps ever shall have, of combining public service with public gratification, of seeing countries whose improvements in science, in arts and civilization it has been my fortune to admire at a distance but never to see and at the same time of lending further aid to a cause which has been handed on from it's first organization to its present stage by every effort of which my poor faculties were capable. These however have not been such as to give satisfaction to some of my countrymen & it has become necessary for me to remain in the state till a later period, in the present year than is consistent with an acceptance of what has been offered me.[81]
A letter written to Edmund Randolph hints at other considerations which "that one being removed, might prevent my acceptance." The family record shows that Mrs. Jefferson was then expecting a child who was born on November, 1781, and died in April of the following year. Jefferson himself was far from being well and had not yet recovered from his accident; but there is little doubt that he would have gladly seized the opportunity to fulfill one of his earliest dreams and to visit Europe, had he been free to go. However this may be, it was on this occasion that he reiterated once more, but not for the last time, his wish to return entirely and definitively to private life:
Were it possible for me to determine again to enter into public business there is no appointment whatever which would have been so agreeable to me. But I have taken my final leave of everything of that nature. I have retired to my farm, my family and books from which I think nothing will evermore separate me. A desire to leave public office with a reputation not more blotted than it deserved will oblige me to emerge at the next session of our assembly & perhaps to accept of a seat in it, but as I go with a single object, I shall withdraw when that has been accomplished.[82]
I must confess that Jefferson's determination can scarcely be understood or excused. He was not yet forty and, for a man of that age, his achievements were unusual and many, but he had by no means outlived his usefulness or fulfilled the tasks he had mapped out for himself. Even supposing he had done enough for the United States and did not feel any ambition to return to Congress, there was much to be done in Virginia. For one thing the war was not over and the situation of his native State, his "country", as he still called it, was as precarious as ever. Even supposing the war to be of short duration and destined to end in victory, the work of reconstruction loomed considerable upon the horizon. Not only had plantations been burned, houses destroyed, cattle killed off, Negroes decimated in many places, but the financial resources of Virginia were nil, the currency depreciated and valueless. Above all, republican institutions were far from secure, Jefferson was not at all satisfied with the Constitution as adopted, there remained many bills on the Revised Laws to be presented, defended, and approved. The laws adopted so far might have laid the foundations of true republican government, but the task was still enormous. Was Jefferson irritated and despondent at the ingratitude of his fellow citizens who had not rejected at once the charges made by Nicholas? Was he so alarmed by the health of his wife that he did not feel that he could leave her even for a few days? Was he not rather a victim of overwork and overexertion? He had been severely shaken by his accident and seems to have suffered at the time a sort of nervous breakdown, for on October 28, 1781, when writing to Washington to congratulate him on Cornwallis' capitulation at Yorktown he deplores the "state of perpetual decrepitude" to which he is unfortunately reduced and which prevents him from greeting Washington personally.
Several of his best friends were unable to understand or condone his retirement. Madison himself wrote to Edmund Randolph:[83]
Great as my partiality is to Mr. Jefferson, the mode in which he seems determined to revenge the wrong received from his country does not appear to me to be dictated either by philosophy or patriotism. It argues, indeed, a keen sensibility and strong consciousness of rectitude. But his sensibility ought to be as great towards the relenting as the misdoings of the Legislature, not to mention the injustice of visiting the faults of this body on their innocent constituents.
Monroe, ardent friend and admirer of Jefferson's, was even more direct when writing to acquaint his "master" with the criticism aroused by his retirement. To which Jefferson answered with a letter in which he poured out the bitterness of his heart. He first recited all his different reasons for making his choice; the fact that after scrutinizing his heart he had found that every fiber of political ambition had been eradicated; that he had the right to withdraw after having been engaged thirteen years in public service; that his family required his attention; that he had to attend to his private affairs. But the true reasons came only in the next paragraph:
That however I might have comforted myself under the disapprobation of the well-meaning but uninformed people, yet that of their representatives was a shock on which I had not calculated.... I felt that these injuries, for such they have been since acknowledged, had inflicted a wound on my spirit which only will be cured by the all-healing grave.
The man who wrote these lines had an epidermis far too sensitive to permit him to engage in politics and least of all in local politics. Jefferson in these particular circumstances forgot the lesson of his old friends the Greek and Latin philosophers—truly he was no Roman.
Yet we cannot regret very deeply Jefferson's determination to retire from public life at that time, since to his retirement we owe his most extensive literary composition, one of the first masterpieces of American literature. During the spring of 1781 he had received from the secretary of the French legation, Barbé-Marbois, a long questionnaire on the present conditions of Virginia. During his forced inactivity, he drew up a first draft which was sent to Marbois, but extensively corrected and enlarged during the following winter. A few manuscript copies were distributed to close friends, but the "Notes on Virginia" were not published until 1787 and after they had been rather poorly translated into French by Abbé Morellet.[84]
No other document is so valuable for a complete conspectus of Jefferson's mind and theories at that time. But two important observations must be made at the very outset. First of all the "Notes" were not intended for publication, and as late as 1785 Jefferson wrote to Chastellux that:
the strictures on slavery and on the constitution of Virginia ... are the parts I do not wish to have made public, at least till I know whether their publication would do most harm or good. It is possible that in my own country these strictures might produce an irritation which would indispose the people towards the two great objects I have in view, that is the emancipation of their slaves & the settlement of their constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis.[85]
The second point is that the "Notes" were written for the use of a foreigner of distinction, in answer to certain queries proposed by him. Jefferson, therefore, is not responsible either for the plan of the work, or the distribution into chapters, and he necessarily had to go into more details than if he had written solely for his fellow countrymen.
The twenty-three Queries cover such an enormous range of information and contain such a mass of facts that it would have been physically impossible for any one to complete the work in so short a time, if it had been an impromptu investigation. We can accept without hesitation the statement of the "Autobiography" on the methods of composition employed in the "Notes":
I had always made a practice whenever an opportunity occurred of obtaining any information of our country, which might be of use in any station public or private to commit it to writing. These memoranda were on loose papers, bundled up without order, and difficult of recurrence when I had occasion for a particular one. I thought this a good occasion to embody their substance, which I did in the order of Mr. Marbois' queries, so as to answer his wish and to arrange them for my own use.
The book was printed in France, in England, in Germany, and went through many editions in America. It probably did more than any other publication to propagate the doctrine of Americanism, for, in his retreat of Monticello, Jefferson formulated the creed and gave final expression to the hopes, aspirations, and feelings that were to govern his country for several generations. It also gives a complete picture of the mind of Jefferson at that date, when he thought he had accomplished the task assigned to him and felt he could stop to take stock, not merely of his native "country", but of the whole United States of America.
Unimaginative, unpoetical, unwilling to express personal emotions as he was, he had always been deeply moved by certain natural scenes. His description of the Natural Bridge, the site of which he owned, is well remembered.
You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet, and peep over it. Looking down from this height about a minute, gave me a violent head ache. If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime to be felt beyond what they are here; so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven, the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable!
The "passage of the Patowmac through the Blue ridge" is even more famous, and the broad, peaceful, almost infinite scene is painted by the hand of a master:
It is a true contrast to the foreground. It is as placid and delightful as that is wild and tremendous. For the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of small blue horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach to the calm below.
Only Bartram a few years later, and Chateaubriand at the beginning of the next century, with much longer and more elaborate descriptions, could equal or surpass these few strokes of description. Jefferson was truly the first to discover and depict to Europeans the beauty of American natural scenery, and to proclaim with genuine American pride that "this scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic—and is perhaps one of the most stupendous in nature." It matters little that he followed Voltaire in the origin of fossils, to decide timidly in 1787 that we must be contented to acknowledge that "this great phenomenon is as yet unsolved." I shall not even remark on the completeness and exactness of his list of plants, "medicinal, esculent, ornamental or useful for fabrication", of which he gives the popular names as well as the Linnæan, "as the latter might not convey precise information to a foreigner", or on his list "of the quadrupeds of North America"; nor shall I mention his long dissertation on "the bones of Mamoths" found on the North American continent and his refutation of Buffon. Far more interesting is his protest against the assertion of the great French naturalist that "the animals common both to the old and new world are smaller in the latter, that those peculiar to the new are in a smaller scale, that those which have been domesticated in both have degenerated in America." He composed with much tabulation a complete refutation of Buffon's error, and demonstrated that plants as well as animals reached a development hitherto unknown under the new conditions and the favorable circumstances of the American climate.
When it came to the aborigines, he had little to say of the South American Indians, but of North American Indians he could speak "somewhat from his own knowledge" as well as from the observations of others better acquainted with them and on whose truth and judgment he could rely.
Not only they are well formed in body and in mind as the homo sapiens Europaeus, but from what we know of their eloquence it is of a superior lustre.... I may challenge the whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and of many more prominent orators, if Europe has furnished any more eminent, to produce a single passage, superior to the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, to Lord Dunmore when Governor of this State.
But his temper was thoroughly aroused when he discovered that Abbé Raynal had undertaken to apply the theory of Buffon to the white men who had settled in America.
If this were true and if climateric conditions were such as to prevent mental and physical growth there would be little hope for the newly constituted country to ever become a great nation. Nature itself pronouncing against the Americans what chance could they have to be able to ever come up to the level of the older nations. Sentenced to remain forever an inferior race, this struggle to conquer independence would have proved futile, and sooner or later, they would fall the prey of superior people.
Never before had Jefferson been so deeply stirred and moved, never before had he felt so thoroughly American as in his spirited answer to Raynal, when he claimed for the new-born country not only unlimited potentialities, but actual superiority over the mother country:
"America has not yet produced one good poet." When we shall have existed as a people as long as the Greeks did before they produced a Homer, the Romans a Virgil, the French a Racine and Voltaire, the English a Shakespeare and Milton, should this reproach be still true, we will inquire from what unfriendly causes it has proceeded, that the other countries of Europe and quarters of the earth shall not have inscribed any name in the roll of poet. But neither has America produced "one able mathematician, one man of genius in a single art or science." In war we have produced a Washington, whose memory will be adored while liberty shall have votaries, whose name will triumph over time, and will in future ages assume its just station among the most celebrated worthies of the world, when that wretched philosophy shall be forgotten which would have arranged him among the degeneracies of nature. In Physics we have produced a Franklin, than whom no one of the present age has made more important discoveries, nor has enriched philosophy with more, or more ingenious solutions of the phaenomena of nature.... As in philosophy and war, so in government, in oratory, in painting, in the plastic arts, we might show that America, though but a child of yesterday, has already given hopeful proofs of genius, as well as of the nobler kinds, which arouse the best feelings of man, which call him into action, which substantiate his freedom, and conduct him to happiness, as of the subordinate, which serve to amuse him only. We therefore suppose that this reproach is as unjust as it is unkind: and that, of the geniuses which adorn the present age, America contributes her full share.... The present war having so long cut off all communications with Great Britain, we are not able to make a fair estimate of the state of science in the country. The spirit in which she wages war, is the only sample before our eyes, and that does not seem the legitimate offspring either of science or civilization. The sun of her glory is fast descending to the horizon. Her Philosophy has crossed her channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herself seems passing to that awful dissolution whose issue is not given human foresight to scan.
This is the fullest and most complete expression of national consciousness and national pride yet uttered by Jefferson. The American eagle was spreading her wing and preparing to fly by herself. The American transcended the Virginian and looked confidently at the future.
In Query VIII, we come again to a question of national importance. The country being what it is, it would take at least one hundred years for Virginia to reach the present square-mile population of Great Britain. The question then arises whether a larger population being desirable, the State should not encourage foreigners to settle in as large numbers as possible. To unrestricted immigration, Jefferson, fearful for the integrity of the racial stock, fearful also for the maintenance of institutions so hardly won and yet so precariously established, was unequivocally opposed. In a most remarkable passage he stated the very reasons that after him were to be put forth again and again, until a policy of selective and restrictive immigration was finally adopted. I would not say that he was a hundred and fifty years ahead of his time, but a hundred and fifty years ago he formulated with his usual "felicity of expression", feelings and forebodings which existed more or less confusedly in many minds. When he spoke thus he was more of a spokesman than a prophet of America:
Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet from such we are to expect the greatest number of immigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its directions, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.... Is it not safer to wait with patience 27 years and three months longer for the attainment of any degree of population desired or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable? Suppose 20 millions of republican Americans [were] thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here.... I mean not that these doubts should be extended to the importation of useful artificers.... Spare no expence in obtaining them. They will after a time go to the plough and to the hoe; but in the mean time they will teach us something we do not know.
Everything is there! That America is essentially and should remain an Anglo-Saxon civilization; the fear that unassimilated immigration may corrupt the institutions of the country and bring into it uneradicable germs of absolutism; the admission even that America needs a certain class of immigrants, of specialists to develop new arts and new industries. In 1781, Jefferson was not only an American, but a hundred per cent. American, and the sentiments he expressed then were to reëcho in the halls of Congress through the following generations whenever the question was discussed.
The government as it was presently organized was far from perfect—it even had "very capital defects in it." First of all, it was not a truly representative government since, owing to the representation by counties, it happened that fourteen thousand men living in one part of the country gave law to upwards of thirty thousand living in another; in spite of the theoretical separation of powers, all the powers of government, legislature, executive, and judiciary, were vested in the legislative body. "The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government." Assuming that the present legislators of Virginia were perfectly honest and disinterested, it would not be very long before a change might come, for "mankind soon learn to make interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume."
"With money we will get men," said Caesar, "and with men we will get money." ... They should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of the government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same in every side of the Atlantic and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time to guard against corruptions and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us.
Before proceeding any further, it may be well to pause, in order to analyze more carefully these statements of Jefferson's. It will soon appear that they do not form a perfectly logical construction and are not part of an a priori system. He had proclaimed his faith in the ultimate recognition of truth, but he did not believe that unaided truth should necessarily prevail, for human nature being very imperfect, very narrow and very selfish, the best institutions have a permanent tendency to degenerate. Jefferson had already clearly in mind the famous maxim "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." It is this curious combination of unshakable faith in the ultimate triumph of truth and healthy pessimism as to the present possibilities, that distinguishes Jefferson from the "closet politicians" and theoretical philosophers. It is an alliance of the contraries which seems absurd to many Frenchmen, but is often found in English statesmen, and is probably more common in America than in any other nation. In this respect as in many others Jefferson was typically American.
His criticism of the legislature came clearly from two different motives. He attempted first of all to demonstrate to himself that the Assembly that had listened to charges against him was not a truly representative body, not only because the attribution of two delegates to each county, irrespective of the population, was iniquitous, but also because, owing to emergencies, the Assembly had come to decide themselves what number would constitute a quorum. Thus an oligarchy or even a monarchy could finally be substituted for a regular assembly by almost imperceptible transitions. "Omnia mala exempla a bonis orta sunt; sed ubi imperium ad ignaros aut minus bonos pervenit novum illud exemplum ab dignis et idoneis ad indignos et non idoneos fertur."
This is nothing but a re-affirmation of the aristocratic doctrine of the "Literary Bible." Once more, the aristocrat of mind revolts, for "when power is placed in the hands of men who are ignorant or not so good, it may be taken from those who are deserving and truly noble to be transferred to unworthy and ignoble men." This is the constant undercurrent which runs through Jefferson's political theories and unexpectedly reappears at the surface from time to time. A government of the best minds, elected by a populace sufficiently enlightened to select the best minds,—such is at that time Jefferson's ideal of government.
On the other hand his attitude towards dictatorship, as it appears in the "Notes on Virginia", is no less significant for a true estimate of his character. Unless the views expressed there are carefully considered and kept well in mind, we might fall into the common error of attributing to some mysterious influence of the French Revolution and the French philosophers the opinions expressed by Jefferson on presidential tenure, during the debate on the Constitution and his famous quarrel with Hamilton. As a matter of fact, he had expressed the very same views already and even more emphatically on a previous occasion, when George Nicholas had proposed in the Assembly "that a Dictator be appointed in this Commonwealth who should have the power of disposing of the lives and fortunes of the Citizens thereof without being subject to account"; the motion seconded by Patrick Henry "been lost only by a few votes."[86] One may even wonder if the accusation of inefficiency against Jefferson had not been introduced by the same George Nicholas, in order to clear the way for the appointment of a dictator. Hence the impassioned tone of Jefferson's refutation. Deeply stirred and deeply hurt in his amour-propre, Jefferson incorporated in the "Notes on Virginia" the speech he would have made on the occasion had he been an orator.
How must we find our efforts and sacrifices abused and baffled, if we may still, by a single vote, be laid prostrate at the feet of one man. In God's name, from whence have they derived this power?
Is it from any principle in our new constitution expressed or implied? Every lineament of that expressed or implied, is in full opposition to it.... Necessities which dissolve a government, do not convey its authority to an oligarchy or monarchy. They throw back into the hands of the people the powers they had delegated, and leave them as individuals to shift for themselves. A leader may offer, but not impose himself, nor be imposed on them. Much less can their necks be submitted to his sword, their breath be held at his will or caprice.... The very thought alone was treason against the people; was treason against mankind in general; as rivetting forever the chains which bow down their necks, by giving to their oppressors a proof which they would have trumpetted through the universe, of the imbecillity of republican government, in times of pressing danger, to shield them from harm. Those who assume the right of giving away the reins of government in any case, must be sure that the herd, whom they hand on to the rods and hatchet of the dictator, will lay their necks on the block when he shall nod to them. But if our assemblies supposed such a resignation in the people, I hope they mistook their character.... Searching for the foundations of this proposition, I can find none which may pretend a colour of right or reason, but the defect before developed, that there is no barrier between the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments.... Our situation is indeed perilous, and I hope my countrymen will be sensible of it, and will apply, at a proper season, the proper remedy; which is a convention to fix the constitution, to amend its defects, to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.
This is much more than an occasional outburst written under a strong emotional stress. Jefferson had discovered in his own country the existence of a group of men stanchly opposed to the republican form of government, ready in an emergency to go beyond the powers that had been delegated to them—not necessarily dishonest men, but dangerous because they did not have a correct conception of their rights and duties. All the controversy with the Federalists already exists in germ, in this declaration, and Jefferson from the very first had taken his position. The immediate effect was to sever the last bonds which still tied him to the aristocratic spirit of the social class to which he belonged by birth, and to make him raise a protest against the fact that, "the majority of men in the state, who pay and fight for its support are unrepresented in the legislature, the roll of freeholders entitled to vote, not including generally the half of those on the roll of militia, or of the tax gatherers."
"It has been thought that corruption is restrained by confining the right of suffrage to a few of the wealthier people"; but experience has shown, irrespective of any consideration of justice or right, that a truly republican form of government is not safe in their hands. What will be the conclusion? That suffrage must be extended so as to become universal. The people themselves are the only safe depositories of government. "If every individual which composes this mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe; because the corruption of the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth." But if the people are the ultimate guardians of their liberties, they must also be rendered the safe guardians of it. Hence the necessity of providing for them an education adapted to the years, the capacity, and the conditions of every one, and directed toward their freedom and happiness. On this occasion Jefferson reproduced the view already expressed in the Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, as well as the tenor of the first section of the Bill for Religious Freedom, but with new considerations which could scarcely be incorporated in a statute.
Then comes a conclusion unexpected and revealing, a sort of pessimism little in accordance with the supposed democratic faith of the writer; there is no inherent superior wisdom in the people, but it happens that under stress they so rise as to be superior to themselves, and it is for those who direct the course of the State to make the best of this fugitive opportunity:
The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutions, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall go down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten therefore and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.
Is this a dreamer, a philosopher, a mere theorician, or a very alert and keen politician with a high ideal and an exact realization of the people's limitations? This pessimistic view of human nature and human society did not make Jefferson entirely cynical, since he kept his faith in his ideal and never questioned the eminent superiority of the republican form of government. But he knew men too well to have faith in their collective intelligence and disinterestedness, the naïve faith of so many French philosophers. If in this passage Jefferson reminds one of any French writers, it is not Rousseau, nor Helvétius, nor even Montesquieu, but of Montaigne, the Mayor of Bordeaux, who after the pestilence retired to his "Library" and composed his famous "Essais." One may well understand why Jefferson took such care to recommend his friends not to let the "Notes" out of their hands, and not to permit it to be published in any circumstances. The French like to say "toutes les vérités ne sont pas bonnes à dire"—these were truths that should not be permitted to leak out and to circulate broadcast among the people: at most they were good only to be disclosed to this élite who had at heart the gradual betterment of the "plain people."
Jefferson's opposition to slavery rests on the same calculating motives. The existence of slavery is as degrading for the master as for the slave; it is destructive of the morals of the people, and of industry.
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?... It is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil.
But it does not ensue that Negroes should ever be placed on a footing of equality with the whites. To pronounce that they are decidedly inferior would require long observation, and we must hesitate
to degrade a whole race of men from the work in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given them.... I advance it therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstance, are inferior to the whites in the endowment both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history then, one who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them.
However the case may be, the blacks cannot be incorporated into the State, and the only solution after they are emancipated and educated is to "colonize them to such places as the circumstances of the time shall render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of household and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful animals, etc., to declare them a free and independent people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired strength." But the freed slave "is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture", and the purity of the white stock must be preserved.
Throughout the book Jefferson untiringly harps on the fact that American civilization is different from any other that has developed in Europe, and that principles of "economy" which apply to European nations should not be transferred "without calculating the difference of circumstance which should often produce a difference of results." The main difference lies in the fact that while in Europe "the lands are already cultivated, or locked up against the cultivator, we have an immensity of land courting the industry of the husbandman." America is essentially agricultural, and agricultural it must remain:
Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phaenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example.... While we have land to labour then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our work-shops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to work men there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles.
This vision of an American entirely given to agricultural pursuits may look Utopian in the extreme, and would be Utopian if Jefferson had really believed that it was susceptible of becoming an actual fact. But, in practice, this ideal was on the contrary subject to many adjustments and modifications.
Jefferson's relativism is even more clearly marked in the last chapter, which forms the real conclusion of the book. It outlines the future policy of the United States with regard to foreign nations; it formulates a peaceful ideal which has remained on the whole the ideal of America. Once more it illustrates that curious balancing of two contrary principles so characteristic of the philosopher of Americanism as well as of the country itself.
Young as we are, and with such a country before us to fill with people and with happiness, we should point in that direction the whole generative force of nature, wasting none of it in efforts of mutual destruction. It should be our endeavour to cultivate the peace and friendship of every nation, even of that which has injured us most, when we shall have carried our point against her. Our interest will be to open the doors of commerce, and to knock off all its shackles, giving perfect freedom to all persons for the want of whatever they may choose to bring into our ports, and asking the same in theirs. Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which has been employed to persuade nations that it is their interest to go to war. Were the money which it has cost to gain, at the close of a long war, a little town, or a little territory, the right to cut wood here, to catch fish there, expended in improving what we already possess, in making roads, opening rivers, building ports, improving the arts and finding employment for their idle poor, it would render them much stronger, much wealthier and happier.
"This," adds Jefferson, "I hope will be our wisdom." But it is only a hope and circumstances which cannot be changed by pious hopes exist and have to be confronted. In order to avoid every cause of conflict it would be necessary to abandon the ocean altogether, and "to leave to others to bring what we shall want, and to carry what we shall spare." This unfortunately is impossible, since a large portion of the American people are attached to commerce and insist on following the sea. What then is the answer?—Preparedness.—"Wars then must sometimes be our lot; and all the wise can do, will be to avoid that half of them which would be produced by our own follies, and our own acts of injustice; and to make for the other half the best preparations one can."
One would not have to search long in the speeches of Woodrow Wilson to find the same idea expressed in almost identical terms. Even a Republican president such as Mr. Coolidge did not speak differently, when he simultaneously proposed conferences of disarmament and recommended that appropriation for the navy be enormously increased. This combination of will to peace, these reiterations of the pacific policies of the United States have been since the early days combined with the fixed determination to maintain a naval force adequate to cope with any attacking force. For such is the policy advocated by Jefferson. One should not be deceived by his very modest statement, "the sea is the field on which we should meet an European enemy. On that element it is necessary that we should possess some power." What he proposes is simply the building in one year of a fleet of thirty ships, eighteen of which might be ships of the line, and twelve frigates, with eighteen hundred guns. And he significantly adds, "I state this only as one year's possible exertion, without deciding whether more or less than a year should be thus applied." But, so as not to leave any potential aggressor in doubt as to the resources of America, he mentions that this naval force should by no means be "so great as we are able to make it."
After stating categorically his principles, Jefferson did not object to minor modifications when it came to practice. As early as the winter of 1781 he had found and determined the main tenets of his political philosophy. It was essentially American and practical. The idea never entered his mind that in order to establish an American government it was necessary to make a tabula rasa of what existed before. As a matter of fact, Americans had certain vested rights through several charters enumerated by Jefferson in answer to Query XIII; they had revolted in defense of these rights, but the principles of their government, "perhaps more peculiar than those of any other in the universe", were simply "a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason." Essentially "founded in common law as well as common right", it was not necessarily the best possible form of government or the only one imaginable, "for every species of government has its specific principle." But despite its imperfections, it was better adapted to American conditions than any other that could be devised. At that time, at least, Jefferson did not seem to suspect that it could be taken as a model by any other nations, or that its main principles would prove so "contagious." The situation of America was unique. Unlimited agricultural lands extended to the west, and one could estimate that it would take at least a century to reach a density of population comparable to that of the British Isles. For a long time America would remain mainly agricultural, with a population scattered in farms instead of being concentrated in large cities, and would keep many of the virtues inherent in country life. In addition, the country would be practically free from any attack by land, as she had no powerful neighbors. She was geographically isolated from the rest of the world, and even if she were attacked by sea, it would be by a fleet operating far from its base and therefore at a disadvantage. No permanent army had to be maintained and a comparatively small fleet would suffice for protection. Free from the ordinary "sores" of civilization, not yet wealthy but prosperous, for, says Jefferson "I never saw a native American begging in the streets or highways", a country peaceful and with hatred towards none, not even to "that nation which has injured us most",—such is the ideal picture of America drawn by Jefferson for himself and his French correspondent during the winter of 1781-1782.
Whatever faults existed would be corrected in time. If slavery could be abolished and the last vestiges of an hereditary aristocracy eradicated, little would be left to be desired. Yet it would not be a complete Arcadia, for Jefferson did not believe that a state of perfection once reached could be maintained without effort. Several dangers would always threaten America. The influx of foreigners might alter the character of her institutions. In spite of her peaceful ideals, dangers from the outside might threaten her prosperity. But on the whole, the country, even in its "infant state", was in no wise inferior to any European nation. In all the sciences it gave promise of extraordinary achievements. In architecture, to be sure, it seemed that "a genius has shed its malediction over this land", but artists and artisans could be induced to come, and even if America never reached the artistic proficiency of some European nations, it was and would remain more simple, more frugal, more virtuous than nations whose population congregate in large cities.
Such, briefly told, is the conception of Americanism reached by Jefferson when he wrote the "Notes on Virginia." He had not had any direct contact with Europe, but he had read enormously and he had come to the conclusion that, reasonably secure against foreign aggressions, keeping her commerce at a minimum, America could develop along her own lines and, reviving on a new land the old Anglo-Saxon principles thwarted by kingly usurpations and church fabrications, bring about an Anglo-Saxon millennium which no other country might ever dream of reaching. It now remains to see to what extent and under what influences Jefferson came to modify certain of his conclusions, following his prolonged contact with Europe.