Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

by Gilbert Chinard

Monroe, on the contrary, had attempted to resume the Jeffersonian tradition. A disciple of the former minister, a true Liberal, and friendly to the French Revolution, he had been enthusiastically received at once, in spite of the many difficult problems he had to present to the government. But the Jay treaty had proved a bitter pill to swallow, and the Directory had made strong representations to the American minister: America was accused of having violated the treaties of Alliance and Commerce, and when Monroe was recalled, the Directory not only refused to receive the successor that had been appointed but even ordered him to leave the French territory at once.

Without entering into the merits of the question, we may say that Jefferson was still decidedly for peace, although somewhat doubtful of Adams' intentions. Shortly after the inauguration he analyzed his position as follows:

I sincerely deplore the situation of our affairs with France. War with them, and consequent alliance with Great Britain, will completely compass the object of the Executive Council, from the commencement of the war between France and England; taken up by some of them from that moment, by others more latterly. I still, however, hope it will be avoided. I do not believe Mr. Adams wishes war with France; nor do I believe he will truckle to England as servilely as has been done. If he assumes this front at once, and shows that he means to attend to self-respect and national dignity with both the nations, perhaps the depredations of both on our commerce may be amicably arrested. I think we should begin first with those who first began with us, and, by an example on them, acquire a right to re-demand the respect from which the other party has departed.

An ideal policy, but hardly enforceable with a man of Adams' temperament and with the Cabinet he had inherited. Immediately after taking oath of office, Jefferson had repaired to Monticello and was getting acquainted with his duties as presiding officer of the Senate; in January he asked his old master George Wythe to send him all possible information on parliamentary procedure "whether in books or scraps of paper",[340] and he was working on his "Parliamentary Manual." Early in April news of the refusal of the Directory to receive Pinckney arrived in Philadelphia, Adams proclaimed at once a day of fasting and prayer and called an extraordinary session of Congress for May 15. It was to be feared that a declaration of war would be the order of the day, for "the President did not need the assistance of Congress to continue in peace."[341]

As soon as he reached Philadelphia, Jefferson studied the situation and summed it up in a letter to Elbridge Gerry even before the opening of Congress. He had already come to the conclusion that a rapprochement between Adams and himself would prove impossible. There was really no way to convince Adams that Jefferson had not coveted the first place and did not nourish some rancor at his alleged failure to obtain it. Furthermore, it was quite certain that the Hamiltonians would do everything in their power to poison the mind of the President. This was most unpleasant but of little import to politics. Jefferson considered himself part of the legislative and not of the executive, and he had not even the right to be heard in consultation. It was his duty as well as his inclination to sit back, without trying to meddle in any way with the conduct of government.

On the other hand, he had not given up the right of expressing an opinion as a private citizen on matters of importance to the nation, and after stating that he had no concern in the present situation, he launched out on a long exposé of the political situation as he saw it on the eve of the special session. With reference to foreign relations his wish and hope was that "we should take our stand on a ground perfectly neutral and independent towards all nations." This was particularly true with respect to the English and the French, but more easily said than done, since the English, not satisfied with equal treatment, wanted special privileges. Then Jefferson drew up a very impressive picture of the hold on the United States maintained by Great Britain through her commerce. Without domestic industries the United States had to go to England; she was the workshop of America. Goods were largely transported in English bottoms; British merchants, some of them fictitiously naturalized, were in every American port and in all the cities and towns of the interior, occupying strategic positions. The British also were dominating American banks and American finance and, through finance, could exert a powerful influence on American political life. Finally, they were accused of attempting to break the Union by advocating in their subsidized press a scission between the North and the South. If difficulties came to such a point that the only way to avoid a secession was to go to war with Europe, Jefferson, much as he abhorred war, was willing to become embroiled with Europe. He still hoped, however, that it would be possible to find some means to keep out of European quarrels and in the meantime gradually to free America from all foreign influence, "political, commercial, or in whatever form it may be attempted."

One might say that this was no original point of view to develop. It was to a certain extent the policy advocated by Washington in his Farewell Address. Curiously enough, it was not absolutely remote from Hamilton's theory, for these two men who, temperamentally, could never come together, held about the same view of the situation. That England had the larger share of American commerce and that English manufactures had a sort of monopoly of the American market had been repeatedly pointed out by Hamilton. And on this Jefferson agreed completely. If one objected to that condition, the obvious remedy according to the Hamiltonian doctrine was, not to take measures to exclude English goods from the market, but to encourage American manufactures so as to enable them to compete with imported products. In this Jefferson differed from Hamilton, but while complaining of the situation, he did not propose any remedy, except perhaps to protect American inventors and thus stimulate them to establish new manufacturing plants. One must admit that at this point he let his "philosophy" interfere with realities.

As a matter of fact, he was thoroughly opposed to the development of manufacturing plants, to the creation of large industrial cities housing thousands of salaried workers. As we have said, his vision of America was a sort of Arcadia where every man would live on his own farm, off the products of his own land. In some respects it may seem perfectly absurd, and yet it was very natural and to a certain extent quite logical. It was purely and simply the extension of the Monticello type of organization to the whole country. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt had been struck by the fact that Monticello was practically a self-supporting economic unit. Jefferson was raising his own horses and just enough sheep to provide the wool spun by the women slaves to clothe the workers and sometimes the masters. On the plantation lived smiths, carpenters, cabinet makers, brick makers, and layers; some grain was sold, some nails were manufactured and sold to the neighbors. Selling comparatively little, buying practically nothing, Jefferson's estate came as close to being a sort of Robinson Crusoe island as was possible in a modern country. Thus the Virginia planter had come to develop a philosophy of society not unlike the ideal society described by Rousseau in the "Nouvelle Héloise" and more feudal than he himself realized, since, after all, if serfdom had been abolished, it rested essentially on slavery. He was unequivocally against great agglomerations, although he had not visited any of the large industrial cities of England except London; but at least he knew London and Paris, he had lived in Philadelphia and New York, and he felt that it was not good for men to herd too closely together. Work in factories was both unhealthy and immoral, for in congested centers of population there developed a spirit of discontent aggravated by the fact that industrial workers, who generally did not own a particle of land, were footloose, unattached, and free to move from one city to another at any time; they constituted a restless and dangerous element. It mattered little that, for the present, they gave their support to the Republicans and had joined the Democratic clubs; Jefferson knew too well that they would be easily influenced in their views by a good orator, by passions of the moment, and could not be relied upon in an emergency.

It would be easy to point out the close resemblance of certain features of this ideal of Jefferson with the theories of the Physiocrats. Such a parallelism, however, can be easily exaggerated and to a great extent is very misleading. Whether all riches came from the soil, or were the product of labor in any form, or both, Jefferson did not know and did not care. He was no more a disciple of Quesnay than of Adam Smith, simply because he was not an economist but a sociologist. Hamilton, who was an economist of the first rank, was primarily interested in the development of production and in the circulation of wealth, and paid little attention to the social modification that an industrialization of the country would probably bring about. Jefferson, on the contrary, was solely interested in protecting and preserving a certain pattern of civilization which was essentially an agricultural pattern—the only safe foundation for the political and private virtues of vital importance in a democracy. Manufactures meant surplus production, which meant, in turn, the necessity of exporting. If America became a great industrial nation, she would have, sooner or later, to export her surplus production and in turn to import many products from Europe. But if the country maintained extensive trade connections with Europe she would be necessarily caught in the maze of international politics. Her commercial interests would clash with the interests of Europe, and this would ultimately result in wars or at least in a constant threat of war. It would also mean the building of a strong navy to protect American commerce, perhaps the establishment of a permanent army; at any rate, the immediate consequence would be an enormous increase in taxes, the necessity of resorting to internal taxation, the burden of which would fall on the backs of the farmers. Numerous tax collectors would have to be appointed; Federal employees and officials ready to act at the beck and call of the Government would swarm all over the country. State rights and individual rights would be restricted and invaded, and liberty would exist only in name. On the other hand, foreign commerce was not to be entirely suppressed. Commerce was a natural and desirable thing with one's neighbors. Geographically the West Indies had closer connections with America than with Europe, and it was in that direction that the United States could develop their trade. This was a natural law and a natural right, and any obstacle put to the natural flow of trade between the islands and the American continent was unjust and to be fought persistently.