Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

by Gilbert Chinard

I do then, with sincere zeal, wish an inviolable preservation of our present federal Constitution, according to the true sense in which it was adopted by the States ... and I am opposed to the monarchising its features by the forms of its administration, with a view to conciliate a first transition to a President and Senate for life, and from that to an hereditary tenure of these offices.... I am for preserving to the States the powers not yielded by them to the Union, and to the legislature of the Union its constitutional share in the division of powers; and I am not for transferring all the powers of the States to the General Government, and all those of that Government to the executive branch. I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans.... I am for relying, for internal defence, on our militia solely, till actual invasion ... and not for a standing army in time of peace, which may overawe the public sentiment; nor for a navy, which by its own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public burthens, and sink us under them. I am for free commerce with all nations; political connections with none; and little or no diplomatic establishment ... I am for freedom of religion, and against all manoeuvres to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another: for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints of criticism, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents. And I am for encouraging the progress of science in all its branches; and not for raising a hue and cry against the sacred name of philosophy....[374]

Jefferson ended with a paragraph in which he solemnly proclaimed the integrity of his American nationalism, although he admitted that he was a well wisher to the success of the French Revolution and still hoped that it would succeed; but he added at once: "The first object of my heart is my own country. In that is embarked my family, my fortune, my own existence. I have not one farthing of interest, nor preference of any one nation to another, but in proportion as they are more or less friendly to us."

The man who drew up that program in the midst of an unprecedented political strife and the riotous scenes of the streets of Philadelphia was a political leader of the first rank. The letter to Gerry is more than a letter from one individual to another; it transcends the circumstances of the moment. It is the result of mature reflection; the conclusions reached by Jefferson after almost thirty years of political life. It is really the first program of his party and the first complete definition of Government and of Americanism; for it was distinctly American. I fail to perceive in it the influence of any foreign political thinker except in so far as such principles as freedom of the press, separation of the Church and the State may have been ideas common to a great majority of political thinkers of the eighteenth century. Even if Jefferson's request to Gerry to keep the communication absolutely secret was obeyed, there is little doubt that we have here the gist of the communication made orally by Jefferson to his friends and to the leaders of the Republicans in Congress.

For the moment the letter contained a strong appeal to Gerry to place every evidence at his disposal before the public, since the Government refused to do it, and to publish in full the report on his mission. He alone could save the situation by coming forward independently. But even if Gerry acceded to this wish, some one else would have to present a brief synopsis of the evidence and draw up a judicial arraignment of the administration. At this juncture Jefferson thought of his old master Pendleton, at whose feet he had sat in Williamsburg, and with whom he had worked in the revision of the statutes of Virginia. He alone could give the "coup de grâce" to the ruinous principles and doctrines; he alone could recapitulate all the vexations and disgusting details of the Stamp Act and the Direct Tax. A small handbill would be printed and they could "disperse ten or twelve thousand copies under letter covers, through all the United States, by the members of Congress when they return home."[375] To make Pendleton's coöperation more certain, Jefferson even drew up the plan of the indictment and inclosed all the necessary documents.

February was for Jefferson a period of hectic activity. During all the first part of the month he multiplied his entreaties to Pendleton to gird up his loins and enter the fight. If he still refused to write for the press he was not averse to communicating to the editors papers written by his friends, and he begged these for expressions of opinion to be sent to the press.

The engine is the press. Every man must lay his purse and his pen under contribution. As to the former it is possible I may be obliged to assume something for you. As to the latter, let me pray and beseech you to set apart a certain portion of every post day to write what may be proper for the public. Send it to me while here, and when I go away I will let you know to whom you may send, so that your name shall be sacredly secret.[376]

The propaganda was beginning to bear its fruits. John Ogden was writing from Litchfield that "many publications in the Aurora have reached Connecticut, within four weeks, which have opened the eyes of the dispassionate" and he was asking for more pamphlets.[377] But a week later Ogden was arrested and to Jefferson he sent a letter "From Lichtfield Goal (sic) at the suit of Oliver Wolcott Esq", to affirm that "prison has no horror to the oppressed, inspired and persecuted." To Aaron Burr in New York Jefferson wrote very affectionately and very familiarly to acquaint him with the state of public affairs.[378] To Monroe he was sending pamphlets, asking him to distribute them where they would do most good, adding as usual "Do not let my name be connected in the business." He never tired of repeating that the proper argument to strike the voters was the enormous increase in the budget of the United States: a loan authorized for five millions at eight per cent., another of two millions to follow and that was just a beginning. All these measures were accepted by Congress in the teeth of Gerry's communications with Talleyrand, showing the French Government willing to continue the negotiations.

Then on February 18 came "the event of events." While all the war measures were going on, while the Government of the United States was blockading the French West Indies and French vessels were captured, while there were in several instances cases of actual warfare, the President had had in his hand for several weeks letters exchanged between Pichon, the French chargé at the Hague, and Vans Murray, declaring that the French Government was ready to receive "whatever plenipotentiary the Government of the United States should send to France to end our differences and that he would be received with the respect due to the representative of a free, independent, and powerful nation." Adams, almost on the eve of the adjournment of Congress, had decided, as it seems, against the advice and without the knowledge of his Cabinet, not only to communicate the Vans Murray-Pichon papers, but to recommend that Murray be appointed as plenipotentiary to France. The Federalists in the Senate were appalled and at first did not know what to do.[379] But they were not lacking in strategy; not daring to come out openly, they appointed on the President's recommendation, not only Murray but Oliver Ellsworth and Patrick Henry, the last two "not to sail from America before they should receive from the French Directory assurances that they should be received with the respect due to the law of nations, to their character, etc."

This, as Jefferson noticed at once, was a last effort to postpone the patching-up of difficulties and also a last effort to provoke the French, since they had already given such an assurance to Murray.[380] "The whole artillery of the phalanx was played secretly on the P. and he was obliged himself to take a step which should parry the overture while it wears the face of acceding to it," he wrote to Madison.[381] But the war party was defeated, the Federalists had received a fatal blow; victory already was in sight when Congress adjourned at the beginning of March.

Then Jefferson repaired to Monticello, while in the back counties assessors clashed with farmers, troopers with small-town editors, while Duane was flogged in the street after being dragged from his office by militiamen. But he was not idle, although for some mysterious reason several of the letters he published during the summer have never been printed. He received many visitors, wrote to friends, proclaimed his faith in ultimate victory for "the body of the American people is substantially Republican, but their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction. They have been the dupes of artful manoeuvres and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves."[382] He encouraged Bache and Venable to publish a gazette, for unfortunately "the people of Virginia were not incorruptible and offices there as elsewhere were acceptable", so that the situation was neither safe nor satisfactory. To William Greene he wrote a truly splendid letter on "progress" in which he expressed his belief "with Condorcet, that man's mind is perfectible to a degree of which we cannot as yet form any conception", and predicted limitless discoveries in the field of science. The present convulsions could only be temporary, for it was impossible, he maintained, that "the enthusiasm characterizing America should lift its parricidal hand against freedom and science. This would be such a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot place among possible things in this age and in this country."