Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (70 page)

F
RO
M
HIS
QUARTERS
Quarles, “Lord Dunmore as Liberator,”
WMQ,
494.

IS
SUED
A
PROCLAMATION
Ibid. See also McDonnell,
The Politics of War,
133–34.

DECLARED
MARTIAL
LAW
McDonnell,
The Politics of WaR,
134.

ANY
SLAVE
OR
INDENTURED
SERVANT
Ibid. Dunmore proclaimed: “And I do hereby further declare all indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to the Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear arms [and join] His Majesty's Troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper sense of their duty, to His Majesty's crown and dignity.” (IBiD.)

SAW
THEIR
MOST
FEVERED
PTJ,
I, 266–67. In a letter to the Virginia delegates in Philadelphia, Robert Carter Nicholas wrote of “the unhappy situation of our country.” It was worse than ever, Nicholas said: “A few days since was handed to us from Norfolk Ld. D's infamous proclamation, declaring the law martial in force throughout this colony and offering freedom to such of our slaves, as would join him.” Dunmore allies were “plying up the rivers, plundering plantations and using every art to seduce the negroes. The person of no man in the colony is safe, when marked out as an object of their vengeance; unless he is immediately under the protection of our little army.” (IbID.)

“I
HAV
E
WRITTEN
TO
P
ATTY
”
Ibid., 264.

S
WEPT
UP
AND
DOWN
Quarles, “Lord Dunmore as Liberator,” 494–97. On December 8, 1775, Edward Rutledge wrote that Dunmore's proclamation had done “more effectually to work an eternal separation between Great Britain and the Colonies, than any other expedient, which could possibly have been thought of.” (Ibid., 495.)

“F
O
R
G
OD
'
S
SAKE
”
PTJ,
I, 265–66.

“S
OME
R
ASCALS
,
ALL
FOREIGNER
S
”
Ibid., 271.

“N
O
COUNTRY
EVER
REQUIRED
”
Ibid., 268. Jefferson was committed to doing all he could to prepare for the worst. For him, the period between the end of August, when he wrote John Randolph his calculated letter about American determination, and late November was one of unremitting strife. Sitting down to write Randolph again on November 29, 1775, three months after his first charming message, Jefferson held out less hope that there was anything London might do to reach reconciliation.

He opened with a rosy account of American success in Canada, noting “in a short time we have reason to hope the delegates of Canada will join us in Congress and complete the American Union as far as we wish to have it completed.” He then turned to Dunmore, blaming him for the violence in Virginia. “You will have heard before this reaches you that Lord Dunmore has commenced hostilities in Virginia,” Jefferson wrote. “That people bore with everything till he attempted to burn the town of Hampton. They opposed and repelled him with considerable loss on his side and none on ours. It has raised our country into [a] perfect frenzy.” He spoke of George III. “It is an immense misfortune to the whole empire to have a king of such a disposition at such a time. We are told and everything proves it true that he is the bitterest enemy we have. His minister is able, and that satisfies me that ignorance or wickedness somewhere controls him.” Unlike August, this time Jefferson's message was more militant. “Believe me, Dear Sir, there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a Union with Great Britain than I do,” he said. “But by the God that made me I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose and in this I think I speak the sentiments of America. We want neither inducement nor power to declare and assert a separation. It is will alone which is wanting and that is growing apace under the fostering hand of our king.” (
PTJ,
I, 269.)

N
AMED
TO
A
COMMITTEE
Ibid., 272–75.

“
THE
C
ONTINENTAL
FORCES
BY
SEA
AND
LAND
”
Ibid., 272.

E
THAN
A
LLEN
HAD
BEE
N
CAPTURED
Ibid., 276–77.

“W
E
DEPLO
RE
THE
EVENT
”
Ibid., 276.

C
ONGRE
SS
DEFERRED
ANY
DECI
SION
Ibid., 277.

L
EAVING
P
HILADE
LPHIA
MB,
I, 411.

OPENED
A
CAS
K
OF
1770 M
ADEIRA
Ibid., 413.

RECEIVE
D
A
NEW
PAMPHLET
PTJ,
I, 286.

“T
HE
CAUSE
OF
A
MERICA
”
Craig Nelson,
Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations
(New York, 2006), 85.

NINE
·
THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS

“F
OR
G
OD
'
S
SAKE
”
PTJ,
I, 287.

T
HE
BELLS
RU
NG
Harlow Giles Unger,
John Hancock: Merchant King and American Patriot
(New York, 2000), 242.

ABOUT
SEVEN
O
'
CLOCK
MB,
I, 415.

ASKED
THE
R
EV
EREND
C
HARLES
C
LAY
Ibid.

BU
RIED
AT
M
ONTICELLO
Kern,
Jeffersons at Shadwell,
243–44.

AN
“
ATTACK
OF
MY
PERIODICAL
HEADACHE
”
TDLTJ,
184.

HE
WAS
“
O
BLIGED
TO
AVOID
READ
ING
”
PTJ,
VI, 570.

STRANGE
TIME
Ibid., I, 297. A week after his mother's death, Jefferson received letters from Williamsburg about declaring independence. “The notion of independency seems to spread fast in this colony,” said James McClurg on April 6, 1776. (Ibid.)

L
IVED
WITH
THE
HEADA
CHE
Ibid., 296.

PAYING
A
MIDWIFE
TO
DELIVER
MB,
I, 416.

COLLEC
TED
MONEY
Ibid.

LEFT
M
ONTI
CELLO
FOR
P
HILADELPHI
A
Ibid., 417.

ARRIVING
SEVEN
DA
YS
LATER
Ibid., 418.

“I
AM
HERE
”
PTJ,
I, 292.

O
N
M
AY
23
HE
TOOK
Ibid., 293. See also
MB,
I, 418.

THREE
-
STORY
BOARD
INGHOUSE
Thomas Donaldson,
The House in Which Thomas Jefferson Wrote the Declaration of Independence
(Philadelphia, 1898), examines the sundry claims of different houses but concludes Graff's establishment was home to Jefferson as he wrote. For details about the house, see John H. Hazelton,
The Declaration of Independence: Its History
(New York, 1970), 149–54.

H
E
INI
TIALLY
FELT
OUT
OF
P
HASE
PTJ,
I, 293. “I have been so long out of the political world that I am almost a new man in it,” Jefferson wrote Page on May 17, 1776. (Ibid.) But he knew this: Not every colony was in the same place in terms of its determination to declare independence, an irrevocable step. Foreign alliances were essential to the success of the American cause, and “for [independence] several colonies, and some of them weighty, are not yet quite ripe. I hope ours is and that they will tell us so.” (Ibid., 294.)

THAT
THE
“U
NITE
D
C
OLONIES
”
Ibid., 298–99.

BEGAN
THE
NEXT
DAY
Ibid., 309.

S
OME
REPR
ESENTATIVES
ARGUED
Ibid. Jefferson heard John Dickinson and James Wilson of Pennsylvania, Robert Livingston of New York, Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, and others argue for delay. The chief issue lay with the middle colonies—Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. (South Carolina, too, was reluctant.) Recording the thrust of the argument, Jefferson wrote that they said the time was not yet right, for they believed the Congress should not “take any capital step till the voice of the people drove us into it.” (Ibid.) The reaction had been bad enough the previous month with John Adams's May 15 resolution “for suppressing the exercise of all powers derived from the crown [which] had shown, by the ferment into which it had thrown these middle colonies, that they had not yet accommodated their minds to a separation from the mother country.” (Ibid.)

A
PRECIPITOUS
DECLARATION
Ibid., 309–10.

“
FOREI
GN
POWERS
WOULD
”
Ibid., 310. There was an even darker possibility: How could the Congress be confident that Britain's rivals would be inclined to throw themselves in the balance with a newly independent America? Surely, the anti-declaration members suggested, “France and Spain had reason to be jealous of that rising power which would one day certainly strip them of all their American possessions,” which could mean that “it was more likely they should form a connection with the British court, who, if they should find themselves unable otherwise to extricate themselves from their difficulties, would agree to a partition of our territories, restoring Canada to France, and the Floridas to Spain, to accomplish for themselves a recovery of these colonies.” (Ibid.)

J
OH
N
A
DAMS
, R
ICHARD
H
ENRY
L
E
E
, G
EORGE
W
YTHE
Ibid., 311.

“
NO
GE
NTLEMAN
”
Ibid. Arguing that the only truly problematic colonies were Pennsylvania and Maryland, the pro-declaration delegates suggested “the backwardness of these two colonies might be ascribed partly to the influence of proprietary power and connections, and partly to their having not yet been attacked by the enemy.” (Ibid., 312.)

A
COMPROMISE
WAS
PROPOSED
Ibid., 313. Adams, Wythe, Lee, and their allies were practical men. Understanding how quickly opinion was moving, they did not try to force their will on the Congress—at least not that day.

WERE
“
NOT
YET
MATURED
”
Ibid.

A
DA
MS
THOUGHT
J
EFFERSON
SHOULD
DO
IT
Kaminiski,
Founders on the Founders,
287–88.

A
SE
CRET
CONVERSATION
Hazelton,
Declaration of Independence,
9–11.

“W
E
WERE
ALL
SUSPECTED
”
Ibid., 10.

“T
HIS
WAS
PLAIN
DEALING
”
The Works of John Adams,
II, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston, 1856), 513.