Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

by Gilbert Chinard

On April 23, 1795, he wrote to James Madison to refuse categorically any resumption of office high or low. That was already his firm resolution when he had left Philadelphia and it was even stronger then, since his health had broken down during the last eight months: "My age requires that I should place my affairs in a clear state. The question is forever closed with me." To propose his name would only mean a division of votes in the party and that was to be avoided before everything.[321] To Giles he repeated that his days "were busy with now and then a pious ejaculation for the French and Dutch, returning with due despatch to my clover, potatoes, wheat, etc."[322] In the meantime Jay had returned with the treaty surrendering practically all the claims of the United States, placing the country in a position of constant inferiority with reference to England, opening the Mississippi to the British trade and forbidding American vessels to carry molasses, sugar, and cotton to any ports except their own. It was laid in special session before the Senate on June 8, ratified on June 24, and sent to the President without the contents being known to any one. It would have remained secret if Thomson Mason of Virginia had not taken a copy of it to Bache, who published it the next day in the Aurora. It was a most humiliating and scarcely defensible transaction: Jay had been outgeneraled at every step by Grenville and, in a way, betrayed by Hamilton. But although it was distinctly a Federalist victory, it offered good campaign material for the Republicans.[323]

On August 30, Jefferson sent to Thomas Mann a sort of apologia, telling him how, "while all hands were below deck, every one at his own business and the captain in his cabin attending to the log book a rogue of a pilot had run the ship into an enemy's port." Not that he wanted to express any opinion of his own but, "metaphor apart, there is much dissatisfaction with Mr. Jay and his treaty.... For my part, I consider myself now but as a passenger leaving the world and its government to those who are likely to live longer in it."[324]

With H. Tazewell he was more outspoken: a glance at the treaty had been enough to convince him that the United States would be much better without any treaty than with a treaty of that sort. "Acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape war," and he could only hope that the Executive's sense of public honor and spirit would be awakened. To Madison he gave the benefit of his advice. There was no leader in the camp of the Republicans to take advantage of the situation; rioting in the streets could not influence favorably the judgment of Washington, who had not yet signed, and there was always Hamilton, who had retired to be sure, but was "a host in himself"; the Federalists were in a defile, but "too much security will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them." He ended with an appeal to Madison: "We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth, when he comes forward, there is nobody but yourself who can meet him.... For God's sake take your pen, and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillus."[325]

With real perspicacity Jefferson had put his finger on the fundamental weakness of the Republicans. They were only the yeomanry; they counted a number of very honest and distinguished men; some of them were even brilliant in debates and could flatter themselves that they were victorious, as long as the Federalist chieftain did not appear in person on the battlefield. When he did, however, they had no outstanding man with the same capacity for work, the same ability to marshal facts, to present cogent arguments and to use biting sarcasm. Jefferson alone, with his great felicity of expression and his mastery of style, could have opposed successfully the Federalist leader, but, as he wrote to Rutledge: "after five and twenty years' continual employment (in the service of our country), I trust it will be thought I have fulfilled my tour, like a punctual soldier and may claim my discharge."[326]

That he would have been a redoubtable opponent, had he chosen to be so, appears in a letter he sent at the time to William B. Giles. The treaty once ratified by the Senate and signed by the President, it was thought that the House, on which fell the duty of making the necessary appropriations for the enforcement of the different articles, might possibly pass in their turn on the merits of the document. Randolph had been requested by the President to give his opinion on the subject and did it in one of those written consultations which Jefferson had so often been asked to prepare himself, when in the official family of Washington. To Giles, who was to attack the treaty in the House with Gallatin and Madison, Jefferson sent an elaborate and cruel dissection of Randolph's opinion:

The fact is that he has generally given his principles to one party, and his practice to the other, the oyster to one, the shell to the other.... On the precedent now to be set will depend the future construction of our Constitution, and whether the powers of legislation shall be transferred from the President, Senate, and House of Representatives to the President and Senate, and Piamingo or any other Indian, Algerine, or other chief.[327]

Clearly he was getting back into his stride and when thoroughly aroused, as he had been once or twice in his career, he could also hit back or rather pierce with rapid thrust of the rapier. And yet he was not really thinking of reëntering the arena, for at the same time he was offering to George Wythe to superintend an edition of the laws of Virginia, of which he had made as complete a collection as he could, "either the manuscripts crumbling into dust or printed."[328] Yet he had an eye upon the budding geniuses of the Democratic party. Soon he realized the value of Albert Gallatin, who had undertaken a thorough analysis and demolition of Hamilton's administration:

Hamilton's object from the beginning was to throw them into forms which would be utterly undecypherable.... If Mr. Gallatin would undertake to reduce this chaos to order, present us with a clear view of our finances, and put them in a form as simple as they will admit, he will merit an immortal honor. The accounts of the United States ought to be, and may be made as simple as those of a common farmer, and capable of being understood by common farmers.[329]

With such sentences, simple and easily remembered, such felicity of expression and of thought, one can make a lasting impression on the people, without addressing directly the Indians of Tammany Hall or participating in whisky riots. One can also throw suspicion of intentional dishonesty on one's adversaries, coin mottoes which, repeated in a political campaign, fix themselves easily in the unsophisticated minds of the common people. But it does not ensue necessarily that Jefferson was an arch plotter, pulling the strings and laying plots to explode years later. He was quite sincere in his dislike of Hamilton's budgets, for the simple reason that he did not understand them himself. The master financier and expert was beyond Jefferson's comprehension; in many respects he was even far ahead of his own time, while Jefferson, in matters of finance at least, remained all his life an eighteenth-century man. But the young Swiss-American who had made his mark in the whisky insurrection must have felt himself elated at Jefferson's approval. By such appropriate compliments and encouragements, great tacticians create and foster party and personal loyalty, and Jefferson was a past master in this difficult art.

As he had encouraged Gallatin, he encouraged Giles, kept in touch with him and through him sent a word of congratulation to a new Republican recruit, Doctor Leib: "I know not when I have received greater satisfaction than on reading the speech of Doctor Leib in the Pennsylvania Assembly. He calls himself a new member. I congratulate honest republicanism on such an acquisition, and promise myself much from a career which begins on such elevated ground."[330] He reminded him that Democratic societies were proscribed in England and that it would be interesting to know the terms of the bill proposed by Pitt against them. Gallatin again called for his commendation for a speech printed in Bache's Aurora, the sole organ of the Republicans since Freneau had discontinued his Gazette: "It is worthy of being printed at the end of the Federalist, as the only rational commentary on the part of the law to which it relates."[331] Then Jefferson raved over the indignities heaped upon the country by the treaty, over the point made by the Federalists that the House had nothing to say in the matter, and in his fury he even went so far as to treat Washington more severely than he had ever done before. "Curse on his virtues," he exclaimed; "they have undone his country." This political advice was naturally buried under rural news: "Mercury at twenty degrees in the morning. Corn fallen at Richmond to twenty shillings." But this bucolic note stopped short and the political thermometer was consulted again and indicated that "Nicholas was sure of his election, R. Joue and Jo. Monroe, in competition for the other vote of the county."