Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

by Gilbert Chinard

The banks, bankrupt laws, manufactures, Spanish treaty are nothing. These are occurrences which, like waves in a storm, will pass under the ship. But the Missouri question is a breaker on which we lose the Missouri country by revolt, and what more God only knows. From the Battle of Bunker's Hill to the treaty of Paris, we never had so ominous a question.... I thank God that I shall not live to witness its issue.[538]

No New Englander had done more to promote the cause of abolition than Jefferson; on two occasions he had proposed legislative measures to put an end to the scourge of slavery and he had never ceased to look for a solution that would permit the emancipation of the slaves without endangering the racial integrity of the United States. But this was no longer a question of humanity. What mattered most was not whether slavery would be recognized in Missouri or not. Slavery had become a political question; it had created a geographical division between the States, and the very existence of the Union was at stake. As on so many other occasions, the old statesman had a truly prophetic vision of the future when he wrote to John Adams early in 1820:

If Congress has the power to regulate the conditions of the inhabitants of the States, within the States, it will be but another exercise of that power to declare that all shall be free. Are we then to see again Athenian and Lacedemonian confederacies? To wage another Peloponesian war to settle the ascendency between them? Or is this the tocsin of merely a servile war? That remains to be seen; but not, I hope, by you or me.[539]

The whole question was fraught with such difficulties that Jefferson refused to discuss the abolition of slavery with Lafayette when the Marquis paid him a last visit at Monticello. With his American friends he was less reserved. When, as early as 1811, James Ogilvie asked him to suggest an important and interesting subject for a series of lectures he intended to deliver in the Southern States, Jefferson could think of nothing more momentous than a discourse "on the benefit of the union, and miseries which would follow a separation of the States, to be exemplified in the eternal and wasting wars of Europe, in the pillage and profligacy to which these lead, and the abject oppression and degradation to which they reduce its inhabitants."[540]

Jefferson has so long been represented as the champion of State rights, he stood so vigorously against all possible encroachments of the States' sovereignty by the Federal Government, that we have a natural tendency to forget this aspect of his policies and to see in him only the man who inspired the Kentucky resolutions. It must be remembered, however, that he never ceased to preach the necessity of the union to his fellow countrymen, that when President he lived in a constant fear of secession by the New England States, that he stopped all his efforts in favor of abolition lest he should inject into the life of the country a political issue which might disrupt national unity. While he claimed that theoretically the States had a right to secede, he could no more consider actual secession than he would have approved of any man breaking the social compact in order to live the precarious life of the savage.

From these dangers nothing could preserve the United States except what Du Pont de Nemours called once "the cool common sense" of their citizens. It was the only foundation on which to rest all hopes for the future, for American democracy is not a thing which exists on paper, it is not a thing which can be created overnight by law, decree or constitution, it is not to be looked for in any document. "Where is our republicanism to be found," wrote Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval. "Not in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our people. Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our constitution all things have gone well."[541]

One of the most reassuring manifestations of this spirit was seen in the willingness of the people to choose the best qualified persons as their representatives, executives and magistrates. But if the Republic was to endure, it was necessary to enlighten and cultivate the disposition of the people, and it was no less important to provide a group of men qualified through their natural ability and training, to discuss and conduct the affairs of the community. Thus Jefferson was induced to take up again in his old days one of his pet schemes, the famous bill for the diffusion of knowledge.

As a matter of fact, he had never abandoned it completely, and its very purpose had been explained already in the "Notes on Virginia":

In every government on earth there is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy.... Each government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are therefore its only safe depositories. And to render even them safer, their minds must be improved to a certain degree. This is not all that is necessary, though it be essentially necessary.

During his stay in Europe, Jefferson had become acquainted with great universities, particularly those of Edinburgh and Geneva, and after coming back to America he shifted somewhat the emphasis. It was not so immediately necessary to improve the minds of all the citizens as to form an élite, a body of specialists who might become the true leaders of the nation. This seems to have been the object of his plan, to bring over to America the whole faculty of the University of Geneva to establish a national university at Richmond or in the vicinity of Federal City. This scheme was only defeated because of the opposition of Washington who, with great common sense, realized how incongruous it would be to call National University an institution where the teaching would be conducted entirely in a foreign language and by foreigners.