American Sphinx (52 page)

NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS

The notes that follow represent my attempt to adopt a commonsensical approach to the customary rules of scholarly citation. Jefferson presents a daunting challenge in this regard, in part because he himself left such a massive trail of literary evidence, in part because he subsequently attracted so many biographers and historians that the secondary literature on his life is truly imposing, and in part because his life crossed over virtually all the major political, social, cultural and intellectual developments of revolutionary America, each of which has generated substantial scholarly literatures in its own right. A full accounting of all the sources consulted, in short, would require another book as long as this one. This strikes me as silly, as well as a course vulnerable to the charge of conspicuous erudition. I have tried to cite all the primary sources from which I quote in the text. I have also tried to cite those secondary works and those titles that had a decided impact on my thinking. When it comes to Jefferson, the unspoken truth is that no mere mortal can read everything, and no sane reader would want an exhaustive account of all that has been consulted. In partial compensation for my sins of omission, I have littered the notes below with interpretive assessments of the sources cited, thereby giving the endnotes the occasional flavor of a bibliographic essay.

PROLOGUE. JEFFERSONIAN SURGE: AMERICA, 1992–93

1. Merrill Peterson,
The Jefferson Image in the American Mind
(New York, 1960), 395–420.

2.
Ibid.,
375–76.

3.
Ibid.,
377–78.

4. Information on the number of visitors to the Jefferson Memorial was provided by the National Park Service.

5. Jim Strupp, ed.,
Revolution Song: Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy
(Summit, N.J., 1992).

6. Mary Jo Salter to Joseph Ellis, February 5, 1993, author’s personal correspondence.

7. Mary Jo Salter to Joseph Ellis, May 5, May 10, May 12, 1993.

8. Mary Jo Salter,
Sunday Skaters
(New York, 1994), 79–93.

9. Merrill Peterson,
Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography
(New York, 1970), viii.

10. Susan R. Stein,
The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1993).

11. See the review of the exhibit by Garry Wills, “The Aesthete,”
New York Review of Books
(August 12, 1993), 6–10.

12. Douglas L. Wilson, “Thomas Jefferson and the Character Issue,”
Atlantic Monthly,
CCLXX (November 1992), 62–64.

13. Frank Shuffleton,
Thomas Jefferson: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him, 1826–1980
(New York, 1983) and, by the same author,
Thomas Jefferson, 1981–1990: An Annotated Bibliography
(New York, 1990).

14. Leonard Levy,
Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side
(Cambridge, 1963); Winthrop Jordan,
White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812
(Chapel Hill, 1968).

15. Eric McKitrick, “The View from Jefferson’s Camp,”
New York Review of Books
(December 17, 1970), 35–38.

16. Paul Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: ‘Treason Against the Hopes of the World,’ ” in Peter S. Onuf, ed.,
Jeffersonian Legacies
(Charlottesville, 1993), 181–221.

17. Scot A. French and Edward L. Ayers, “The Strange Career of Thomas Jefferson,” in Onuf, ed.,
Jeffersonian Legacies,
449–50;
Washington Post,
October 17, 1992, D-1, D-4.

18. Peter S. Onuf, “The Scholars’ Jefferson,”
WMQ,
L (October 1993), 673–75.

19.
Ibid.,
671–99.

20. Gordon Wood, “Jefferson at Home,”
New York Review of Books
(May 13, 1993), 6–9.

21.
New York Times,
June 24, 1994, B-1, 3.

22.
Washington Post,
April 13, 1994, E-1.

23. E. A. Foster
et al.,
“Jefferson Fathered Slave’s Last Child,”
Nature,
November 5, 1998, 27–28; see also Eric S. Lander and Joseph J. Ellis, “DNA Analysis: Founding Father,”
ibid.,
13.

24.
U. S. News and World Report,
November 9, 1998, 58–69, which contains the fullest account of the DNA story as well as the popular response to it. My summary of the popular reaction is also based on the interviews that a group of my students at Mount Holyoke conducted with tourists at the Jefferson Memorial and Monticello as well as a reasonably thorough survey of the television talk shows the week following the
Nature
story.

1.
PHILADELPHIA: 1775–76

1.
Boyd,
I, 169;
Randall,
I, 112;
Malone,
I, 202–03. The quotation about “haughty sultans” is from
Rivington’s Gazette,
February 9, 1775.

2. On Jupiter, see
Farm Book,
17;
Garden Book,
269;
Family Letters,
182–83.

3. For recollections of Jefferson’s general appearance, see the comments by Isaac and Bacon in James A. Bear, ed.,
Jefferson at Monticello
(Charlottesville, 1967), 4, 11, 83. The pen-and-ink drawing by du Simitière is reproduced as the frontpiece in Silvio A. Bedini,
Declaration of Independence Desk: Relic of Revolution
(Washington, D.C., 1981). Most leading authorities question the authenticity of this drawing, believing it to be of someone else.

4. Bear, ed.,
Jefferson at Monticello,
13, 18, 72–73, for the erect posture and “incessant singing.” Other vivid firsthand descriptions are available in Margaret Bayard Smith,
The First Forty Years of Washington Society,
ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York, 1906), 69; Richard Beale Davis, ed.,
Jeffersonian America
(San Marino, 1954), 10–12; E. S. Maclay, ed.,
Journal of William Maclay, 1789–91
(New York, 1891), 113. The different portraits are gathered in Fiske Kimball,
The Life Portraits of Jefferson and Their Replicas
(Philadelphia, 1944) and Alfred L. Bush,
The Life Portraits of Thomas Jefferson
(Charlottesville, 1987). The best secondary accounts of Jefferson’s physical appearance are
Malone,
I, 48, and Garry Wills,
Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence
(New York, 1978), 14–15. See also the files on “Jefferson’s Physical Appearance” in the Research Department, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, Monticello. A nice summary of the contested character of Jefferson’s appearance is in Peterson,
Jefferson Image,
244–45.

5. This concise synthesis of the early years is drawn from the standard biographies. The best ones for this period are Marie Kimball,
Jefferson: The Road to Glory, 1743–1776
(New York, 1943);
Malone,
I, 3–112; Willard Sterne Randall,
Thomas Jefferson: A Life
(New York, 1993), 1–31, which engages in intriguing speculation about Jefferson’s attitude toward his mother, all of it highly conjectural. The quotation about being carried by a slave to Tuckahoe is in
Randall,
I, 11. The matter of the Shadwell fire is nicely summed up in John Dos Passos,
The Head and Heart of Thomas Jefferson
(Garden City, 1954), 159.

6. Frank L. Dewey,
Thomas Jefferson, Lawyer
(Charlottesville, 1986).

7. On the decision to build Monticello and the earliest efforts at construction, see Jack McLaughlin,
Jefferson and Monticello: Biography of a Builder
(New York, 1988), 146–76; see also
Malone,
I, 143–52. For the political decision to enter the House of Burgesses, see
Malone,
I, 128–42. A concise summary of the political context in the Virginia House of Burgesses is in Jack P. Greene, “Foundations of Power in the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1720–1776,”
WMQ,
X (1959), 485–506. Efforts to explain the reasons why the wealthy planters of Virginia were nearly unanimous in opposing British authority from 1765 to 1776 have moved past crudely economic explanations (i.e., indebtedness to English creditors). The most sophisticated overview of the political psychology within the Tidewater elite is T. H. Breen,
Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of the Revolution
(Princeton, 1985). The best review of the issues is Herbert Sloan and Peter Onuf, “Politics, Culture and the Revolution in Virginia: A Review of Recent Work,”
VMHB,
XCI (1983), 258–84.

8.
Malone,
I, 153–65;
Boyd,
I, 86–88. Douglas L. Wilson, “Thomas Jefferson’s Early Notebooks,”
WMQ,
XLII (1985), 433–52.

9.
Ford,
I, 6, for Jefferson’s recollection of listening to Henry in his autobiography.

10. Jefferson to Thomas Adams, June 1, 1771,
Boyd,
I, 71–72, for the piano quotation; Jefferson to Archibald Cary and Benjamin Harrison, December 9, 1774,
ibid.,
I, 154–56, for the sashed windows.

11. This summary follows the general interpretive line of
Malone,
I, 182–96.

12. The quotations by Ward and Adams are most conveniently available in
Boyd,
I, 675–76, which is part of Boyd’s note on
Summary View.

13. For the best analysis of
Summary View,
see H. Trevor Colbourn,
The Lamp of Experience: Whig History and the Intellectual Origins of the American Revolution
(Chapel Hill, 1965), 158–64. The most recent appraisal, with an exhaustive account of the secondary literature, is Stephen A. Conrad, “Putting Rights Talk in Its Place:
The Summary View
Revisited,” Onuf, ed.,
Jeffersonian Legacies,
254–80. The original draft of
Summary View
is in
Boyd,
I, 121–34.

14.
Boyd,
I, 125, for the quotations.

15. For the constitutional context of Jefferson’s argument about parliamentary power, see Anthony Lewis, “Jefferson’s
Summary View
as a Chart of Political Union,”
WMQ,
V (1948), 34–51.

16.
Boyd,
I, 129–31.

17.
Ibid.,
I, 121–23.

18. On the “expatriation” theme, see Colbourn,
Lamp of Experience,
158–64; there is also an excellent discussion in Wills,
Inventing,
84–89. Jefferson’s draft of the document designed to “prove” the purity of the original migration is in
Boyd,
I, 277–85.

19.
Ford,
I, 10, for Jefferson’s autobiographical recollection.

20. The authoritative account of the episode is by Benjamin W. Labaree,
The Boston Tea Party
(New York, 1964); for a hilarious juxtaposition of Jefferson’s version in
Summary View
with the real story, see Wills,
Inventing,
27–28.

21. The quotation is from Jefferson to John Randolph, August 25, 1775,
Boyd,
I, 241; for Jefferson’s childlike demeanor in building Monticello, see McLaughlin,
Monticello,
373–74.

22. Jefferson to John Page, December 25, 1762, then again on January 20, 1763,
Boyd,
I, 3–8, for the anticipation of Rebecca’s interest; then Jefferson to John Page, October 7, 1763,
ibid.,
I, 11–12, for the disillusionment with his rejection. On the stilted and adolescent prose style, see
ibid.,
I, 80–81. The best appraisal of Jefferson’s sentimentalism is the excellent new book by Andrew Burstein,
The Inner Jefferson: Portrait of a Grieving Optimist
(Charlottesville, 1995).