Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

by Gilbert Chinard

When April came, he thought that it would be desirable for the Republicans to come out with a public declaration, stating their program and their ideals. "As soon as it can be depended on," he said, "we must have a Declaration of the principles of the Constitution, in the nature of a Declaration of Rights, in all points in which it has been violated."[396]

If the plan had been put to execution we would have had the first presidential "platform" as early as 1800, and Jefferson would thus have hastened the formation of distinct political parties. But more commonplace measures were not to be neglected. Discussing the situation in North Carolina, still a very doubtful State, he advised that "the medicine for that State must be very mild and secretly administered. But nothing should be spared to give them true information." We would like Jefferson better if he had shown more discrimination in the choice of the men selected to disseminate this true information. For at that time, at least, he was still employing Callender in Richmond—an amusing scoundrel not much better than Cobbet, the Peter Porcupine of the Federalists. But Callender was a useful tool, who was doing his utmost to publish the second volume of the Prospect and to catch up with Federalist propaganda. One could condone much in a man then writing: "I had entertained the romantic hope of being able to overtake the Federal Government in its career of iniquity. But I am now satisfied that they can act much faster than I can write after them."[397]

Fortunately he had the approval and indorsement of much more respectable characters. Samuel Adams had already written him; then it was John Dickinson, the Revolutionary hero, who wrote, when sending his thanks for a copy of the late "Resolutions of the Legislature of Virginia": "It is an inestimable contribution to the cause of Liberty.... How incredible was it once, and how astonishing is it now, that every measure and every pretense of the stupid and selfish Stuarts, should be adopted by the posterity of those who fled from this madness and tyranny to the distant wilds of America."[398]

Such letters, the congratulations of George Wythe, who urged him to publish the "Manual of Parliamentary Practice", those of Pendleton, who consented to revise the final text and to "freely cast his mite into the treasury", were indeed balm on the wounds made by the fierce attacks of the Federalist press.[399]

The end of the session was approaching and the most earnest desire of the Federalists was to adjourn as soon as possible, for fear that the envoys to France should announce the conclusion of a treaty. Their power seemed on the wane, but Jefferson was still very doubtful of ultimate victory. To Livingston he wrote that his knowledge of the art, industry, and resources of the other party did not permit him to be prematurely confident. The tide had turned, to be sure, and the Federalists were losing ground constantly, but the main question whether "that would insure a Republican victory was still undecided and it might take one or two elections more."[400]

Congress adjourned on May 14. During the session congressional caucuses had nominated for the Federalists John Adams, and General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina; the choice of the Republicans could only be Jefferson, and for candidate to the vice presidency they selected Aaron Burr of New York.

In the course of the summer, Adams and his wife moved to the new Federal City laid out by Major Lenfant, which boasted of one tavern, the Capitol, the President's house, and a few boarding houses,—a capital in the midst of the woods, in a veritable wilderness of trees, with impassable paths,—a town unable to lodge Congress except at Georgetown, which was connected with the new city by a clay road. Jefferson, according to his custom, had hurried back to his "farm" and was apparently absorbed by his domestic occupations, his children, and grandchildren.

During the whole campaign he remained almost absolutely silent, not daring to write, because his letters might have been intercepted and used against him, receiving few visitors and reading without comment the newspapers filled with the insults and abuse of the Federalists. He broke his silence on few occasions, but these occasions are worth studying in some detail. In a letter to Monroe, written from Eppington, he discussed the best plans for assisting Callender, then jailed under the Sedition Act, who "should be substantially defended whether privately or publicly" and whose case should be laid before the legislature.[401] These efforts did not avail since in August the publicist wrote from his Richmond jail that he was in very bad health "owing to the stink of the place."[402] There is not much that can be said for Callender, and Jefferson might have better chosen his friends; but when one reflects on the accusations commonly circulated against Jefferson at the time, the interest taken by the Republican leader in the pamphleteer seems less astonishing. If Callender had certainly insulted Adams and Hamilton, had not the Reverend Cotton Mather Smith accused Jefferson of "having robbed a widow and fatherless children of an estate of which he was executor?" To Gideon Granger, who had called his attention to the attacks of the clergyman, Jefferson easily justified himself and seized the opportunity to discuss with his friend a problem of general politics of far greater importance. It had very little to do with the details of the election and for his remarkable capacity to rise above contingencies Jefferson truly deserves the title of "political philosopher." To incidents which he deemed without permanent significance he paid little attention, but when dealing with a phenomenon which seemed to him to indicate an important change in the orientation of national policies, he always tried to penetrate beyond the surface and reach the core of the question.

The thing that now disturbed him more than the possible victory of Adams and Pinckney was the fact that political divisions seemed to correspond to a geographical division. Not without reason had he written to Colonel Benjamin Hawkins: "those who knew us only from 1775 to 1793 can form no better idea of us than of the inhabitants of the moon."[403] The North and the South had never been in complete harmony; economically they were different and had different interests, but something new had developed during the seven or eight years just passed. There was evidently a rift in the Union; on several occasions talks of secession had been heard. These rumors did not correspond to any real danger, but if the elections proved that the Union was formed of two solid blocks of States, if the North remained Federalist and the South were Republican, the very existence of the nation would be put in question. Yet this seemed to be a probable eventuality. In these circumstances, a victory of the South would mean a defeat of the North, the country would be divided against itself and the Union would be destroyed. This was particularly to be feared if the powers of the Federal Government were enlarged. Leaving aside all question of principle as to the moral merit of the questions under dispute, Jefferson tried to show, on the one hand, that it was impossible ever to organize a centralized form of government for the simple reason that the United States were too big and covered a territory much too large. If a centralized government were established on paper, it would be necessary to have many agents of the Federal Government with extensive powers distributed over all the States, and because of their very remoteness they would be beyond the possibility of continuous control. This could only mean corruption, plunder, and waste. On the other hand, since on fundamental questions it was impossible to bring into accord the North and the South, the true and only remedy was to minimize the chances of conflict and to reduce to a minimum the powers and attributes of the Federal Government. "The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations." Once more, therefore, he came back to the original theory of 1776 that, in forming a social compact, liberty is exchanged for security and only those rights are given up which the members of the new society have not full power to enforce. Thus his theory of State rights was not only well founded in theory but proved by practice and experience. Any other system would almost necessarily conduce to a secession. The man who wrote these lines in the summer of 1800, more than half a century before the Civil War, was certainly not an ordinary politician; his was the clear farsightedness of a great statesman and true political philosopher.

Furthermore, in the controversy which had been going on since 1793, Jefferson had been submitted to fierce criticism on every possible ground: as he wrote to McGregory, "the floodgates of calumny had been opened upon him." It had been particularly distressing to him to see that the religious issue had been injected into politics. There is no doubt that his Bill for Religious Freedom proceeded, not from hostility to religion, but from a deep and sincere conviction, reached after careful study of the evidence available that "in law" there ought to be no connection between the Church and the State and that if any had ever been established, it was due to monkish fabrications and usurpations. That he had turned against himself some of the Episcopalian clergy of Virginia was quite natural, but before he went to France these attacks were necessarily limited and did not extend beyond the borders of the State or take the aspect of a national question.