American Sphinx (53 page)

23. One catches a provocative glimmering of these tendencies in Richard K. Matthews,
The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson: A Revisionist View
(Lawrence, 1984).

24. Lyman Butterfield, ed.,
The Diary and Autobiography of John Adams
(4 vols., Cambridge, 1961), II, 121, 173, 182. My version of the Adams temperament is more fully available in Joseph Ellis,
Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams
(New York, 1993).

25. On Pendleton, see David John Mays,
Edmund Pendleton, 1721–1803
(2 vols., Cambridge, 1952).

26. The best descriptions of Lee are in Edmund Randolph,
History of Virginia,
ed. Arthur Shaffer (Charlottesville, 1970). See also Wills,
Inventing,
3–4.

27. William Henry Wirt,
Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches
(3 vols., New York, 1891) is the fullest account of Henry’s life and career. The best recent study is Richard R. Beeman,
Patrick Henry: A Biography
(New York, 1974). The quotations from Randolph and Jefferson are reproduced in Beeman,
Patrick Henry,
192, 133.

28. Butterfield, ed.,
Diary and Autobiography,
III, 335.

29. Douglas L. Wilson, ed.,
Jefferson’s Commonplace Book
(Princeton, 1989), for specific entries and explicit examples of Jefferson’s note-taking habits.

30. The cost accounting of the war is in
Boyd,
I, 182–84; the prediction of a short war is in Jefferson to John Randolph, November 29, 1775,
ibid.,
I, 269.

31. There is an excellent discussion of the awkward disjunction in the Continental Congress by the summer of 1775 in Wills,
Inventing,
48. The quotations are from Jefferson to Francis Eppes, June 26, 1775, and Jefferson to John Randolph, August 25, 1775,
Boyd,
I, 174–75, 242. The authoritative modern study of the Continental Congress is Jack N. Rakove,
The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress
(New York, 1979).

32.
Boyd,
I, 199–92. The quotations are taken from Jefferson’s draft rather than from the copy adopted by the Congress.

33. The full draft is in
ibid.,
I, 199–204. The earliest account of Jefferson’s strong proclivity towards dichotomies is in Jordan,
White over Black,
476–77.

34. Livingston’s remarks are reproduced in
Boyd,
I, 189.

35. See the long note, containing all the quoted material, in
ibid.,
I, 187–92.

36. The final version of
Causes and Necessities
is in
ibid.,
I, 213–19.

37.
Ibid.,
I, 225–30, 276–77. The Adams quotation is from John Adams to Timothy Pickering, April 11, 1822, Charles Francis Adams, ed.,
The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States
(10 vols., 1850–56), II, 513.

38. On Jefferson’s activities at Monticello, see
Malone,
I, 215–16. On the situation in Virginia, see Thad W. Tate, “The Coming of the Revolution in Virginia: Britain’s Challenge to Virginia’s Ruling Class, 1763–1776,”
WMQ,
XIX (1962), 323–43.

39. The remark on his mother is from Jefferson to William Randolph, May–June, 1776,
Boyd,
I, 409.

40. Jefferson to Thomas Nelson, May 16, 1776,
ibid.,
I, 292.

41.
Jefferson,
I, 216–17; Bedini,
Declaration of Independence Desk,
4–5. Jefferson eventually gave the desk to his granddaughter Ellen Randolph Colledge as a wedding present in 1825, predicting that “its imaginary value will increase with the years . . . , as the relics of the Saints are in those of the Church.”

42. John Adams to Abigail Adams, March 17, 1776, Lyman Butterfield, ed.,
Adams Family Correspondence
(3 vols., Cambridge, 1963), I, 410; John Adams to Abigail Adams, June 2, 1776,
ibid.,
II, 3.

43. Jefferson’s three drafts of the Virginia constitution are reproduced in
Boyd,
I, 329–65.

44.
Ibid.,
I, 362–63, for the most progressive features in Jefferson’s third and final draft.

45.
Ibid.,
I, 357.

46.
Ibid.,
I, 312–14, provides Jefferson’s notes on the debate in the Continental Congress. The story told here has several contested features, the chief one being the reasons for selecting Jefferson over Lee. The fullest discussion of the controversy is in
Randall,
I, 145–62. Dumas Malone’s synthesis in
Malone,
I, 217–19, is a model of fairness. Lee’s resolution of June 7 is reproduced in
Boyd,
I, 298–99.

47. Butterfield, ed.,
Diary and Autobiography,
III, 335–37, offers the classic Adams account, which mixes the truth with his own personal need to show posterity that he, not Jefferson, was in charge. For a discussion of Adams’s persistent claim that the Declaration was no more than an elegant ornament to the crucial business in the Continental Congress, see Ellis,
Passionate Sage,
64–65, 99–100.

48. The two authoritative studies of the chronology and different drafts of the Declaration are: Julian Boyd,
The Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text
(Princeton, 1945) and John H. Hazelton,
The Declaration of Independence
(New York, 1906). Pauline Maier’s forthcoming book,
Sacred Scriptures: Making the Declaration of Independence
(New York, 1997), which she graciously allowed me to read in draft form and which helped me in the final stages of my own revisions, will unquestioningly become the new standard work. The Adams recollection is from Butterfield, ed.,
Diary and Autobiography,
III, 336. Boyd attempts to hold open the possibility that the signing occurred on July 4, as Jefferson claimed, but the scholarly consensus is that Jefferson’s memory was wrong. See
Papers,
I, 306–07. For a convenient summary of the many myths about the signing ceremony, see Charles Warren, “Fourth of July Myths,”
WMQ,
II (1945), 242–48.

49. Jefferson’s recollections are in Jefferson to James Madison, August 30, 1823,
Smith,
III, 223; Edmund Pendleton to Jefferson, July 22, 1776,
Papers,
471.

50. Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, July 8, 1776,
Boyd,
I, 455–56. Boyd’s discussion of the revisions made by the Congress is the standard account, summarized in the long editorial note in
ibid.,
I, 413–17. But Boyd’s account sometimes loses sight of the substantive issues at stake in ways that seem unnecessarily tedious. I found the account in Wills,
Inventing,
306–17, most sensible.

51.
Boyd,
I, 314–15, 426.

52. Wills,
Inventing,
72–73, provides a nice comparison of what Jefferson wrote in his drafts of the Virginia constitution and in the Declaration. It also provides reactions to this specific grievance by the British press, which did not fail to note the moral contradictions of slaveowners trumpeting liberty.

53.
Boyd,
I, 426.

54.
Ibid.,
I, 426–27;
Ford,
I, 21.

55.
Boyd,
I, 423; the most elegant version of the reverential interpretation is by Dumas Malone in
Jefferson,
I, 224–25. The Lincoln quotation, which dates from 1859, is cited in Wills,
Inventing,
xxi.

56. Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, May 8, 1825,
Ford,
XVI, 118.

57. On Mason’s role in the Virginia convention, see
Boyd,
I, 335.

58. For a convenient summary of the scholarly debate over the phrase “pursuit of happiness,” see Wills,
Inventing,
240–41. For the debate over Mason’s language and its implications for slavery in Virginia, see Beeman,
Patrick Henry,
100–02.

59. The classic statement of this liberal interpretation is Carl Becker,
The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas
(New York, 1922).

60. The seminal statement of this republican or collectivistic interpretation is Wills,
Inventing.
For a convincing critique of the Wills argument that also reviews the evidence and implications of the Becker-Wills disagreement, see Ronald Hamowy, “Jefferson and the Scottish Enlightenment: A Critique of Garry Wills’s Inventing America . . . ,”
WMQ,
XXXVI (1979), 503–23.

61. Jay Fliegelman,
Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance
(Stanford, 1993). For the enthusiastic scholarly reaction to Fliegelman’s novel thesis, see Peter Onuf, “The Scholars’ Jefferson,”
WMQ,
L (1993), 683–84.

62.
Boyd,
I, 78–81, for Jefferson’s book list in 1771.

63. Jefferson to Edmund Pendleton, June 30, 1776; Jefferson to Francis Eppes, July 15, 1776; Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, July 29, 1776,
Boyd,
I, 408, 458–59, 477.

64.
Ford,
I, 21–28, for his latter-day expression of disappointment in the Congress and reprinting of his own version alongside the official version.

65. Edmund Pendleton to Jefferson, August 10, 1776; Richard Henry Lee to Jefferson, July 21, 1776; John Page to Jefferson, July 20, 1776,
Boyd,
I, 488–89, 471, 470.

66. Jefferson to William Fleming, July 1, 1776; Jefferson to Edmund Pendleton, August 26, 1776,
ibid.,
I, 411–12, 503–07.

67. Jefferson to John Page, August 5, 1776,
ibid.,
I, 485–86.

68. Butterfield, ed.,
Diary and Autobiography,
III, 336, for Adams’s remarks on the political efficacy of silence. This was a popular Adams theme in old age; Jefferson was linked with Franklin and Washington as the “silent trinity.” See John Adams to John Quincy Adams, July 15, 1813,
The Microfilm Edition of the Adams Papers
(608 reels, Boston, 1954–59), Reel 95.

69. Jefferson to John Hancock, October 11, 1776,
Boyd,
I, 524.

2.
PARIS: 1784–89

1. Marie Kimball,
Jefferson: The Scene of Europe, 1784–1789
(New York, 1950), 5–9, offers the best descriptions of Jefferson’s arrival in France and, more generally, the fullest coverage of the Paris years. See also
Malone,
II, 3–6. The forthcoming book by Howard Adams on Jefferson’s years in Paris, which he has graciously allowed me to see in manuscript, promises to become the authoritative account.

2. Jefferson to William Templeton Franklin, August 18, 1784,
Boyd,
VII, 400. Howard C. Rice,
Thomas Jefferson’s Paris
(Princeton, 1976) is splendid on the city as it looked when Jefferson arrived.

3. Kimball,
Scene of Europe,
17–18.

4.
Malone,
I, 301–69, for the best narrative of Jefferson’s years as governor, which at times takes on the tone of a defense attorney’s brief for the accused.

5. Jefferson to James Monroe, May 20, 1782,
Boyd,
VI, 184–86.

6. The story of the deathbed promise first appeared in print in George Tucker,
The Life of Thomas Jefferson
(2 vols., Philadelphia, 1837), I, 158.

7. Edmund Randolph to James Madison, September 20, 1782,
Boyd,
VI, 199;
Family Letters,
63.

8. For the best accounts of his reform efforts in Virginia, see
Malone,
I, 261–73; Peterson,
New Nation,
79–107; John E. Selby,
The Revolution in Virginia
(Williamsburg, 1988), 14–99.

9. Jefferson to Jean Nicholas Démeunier, June 1786,
Boyd,
X, 63. For an overview of his work in the Congress, see
Malone,
I, 373–423; Peterson,
New Nation,
241–96.

10. For Jefferson’s views on the proper powers of the federal government over foreign affairs, see the long note by Julian Boyd in
Boyd,
VII, 463–70; Jefferson to James Monroe, June 17, 1785,
ibid.,
VIII, 230–31.

11. Jefferson to James Monroe, March 18, 1785,
Boyd,
VIII, 43.

12. The remark by John Quincy Adams is from his
Memoirs
and refers to a dinner party conversation in 1804. It is reproduced in
Boyd,
VII, 383.

13. Howard C. Rice,
L’Hôtel de Langeac, Jefferson’s Paris Residence
(Charlottesville, 1947); for the map of Jefferson’s various residences in Paris, see
Boyd,
VII, 453; for the cost, see
ibid.,
VIII, 485–88. A convenient summary is available in Kimball,
Scene of Europe,
110–13.

14. Kimball,
Scene of Europe,
11–15, for the most succinct treatment of the entourage. Jefferson to William Short, September 24, 1785,
Boyd,
VIII, 547, for the terms of Short’s appointment. For Humphreys, see Francis L. Humphreys,
Life and Times of David Humphreys
(2 vols., New York, 1917), I, 2–9. For Patsy at Panthemont, see Jefferson to John Lowell, December 18, 1784,
Boyd,
VII, 576–77.

15. The quotation is from Jefferson to James Madison, December 8, 1784,
Boyd,
VII, 558–59. Good examples of the “listening post” syndrome as it was established are: James Madison to Jefferson, September 7, 1784, and Jefferson to William Short, April 2, 1785,
Boyd,
VII, 416–17; VIII, 68. On the friendship between Jefferson and Madison, see Adrienne Koch,
Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration
(New York, 1950). See also the splendid introduction in
Smith,
I, 1–36.

16. Adams’s observations on Jefferson are reproduced in
Boyd,
VII, 382–83. See also the editorial remarks in
Cappon,
I, xxxix–xl.

17. John Adams to Jefferson, January 22, 1825,
Cappon,
II, 606.

18. Jefferson to Abigail Adams, September 25, 1785, and Abigail Adams to Jefferson, February 11, 1786,
ibid.,
I, 69–70, 119–20. The best recent study of Abigail’s career and character is Edith B. Gelles,
Portia: The World of Abigail Adams
(Bloomington, 1992).