Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (87 page)

TO
MARCH
THROUGH
U.S.
TERRITORY
Ibid., 128–29.

“
A
MIDDLE
COURSE
”
Ibid., 130.

“
WAR
IS
FUL
L
OF
CHANCES
”
Ibid., 129.

CAMPAI
GN
AGAINST
THE
S
HAWNE
E
AND
M
IAMI
I
NDIANS
Ibid., 131–32.

S
HOULD
KEEP
THE
I
NDIAN
MISSION
Ibid., 131.

A
LEXANDER
H
AMILTON
HAD
ALREADY
Ibid., 133.

G
EORGE
B
ECKWITH
,
WHO
HAD
PLAYED
A
ROLE
Scheer and Rankin,
Rebels and Redcoats,
379–84, is a general account of the Arnold treason. See Frank T. Reuter, “ ‘Petty Spy' or Effective Diplomat: The Role of George Beckwith,”
Journal of the Early Republic
10 (Winter 1990), 471–92, for more on Beckwith.

H
AMILTON
'
S
RELATIONSHIP
WITH
B
EC
KWITH
As the title suggests, Julian P. Boyd's
Number 7: Alexander Hamilton's Secret Attempts to Control American Foreign Policy
offers a considered indictment of Hamilton's conduct. See also Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton,
294–95, for a kinder interpretation than Boyd's.

“I
HAVE
ALW
AYS
PREFERRED
”
Boyd,
Number 7,
24. At stake, perhaps, were the British West Indies, which Hamilton noted would be protected in an alliance with London but endangered if the Americans were more closely linked with France. (Ibid., 24–25.)

A
ME
RICA
'
S
“
NAVAL
EXERTIO
NS
”
Ibid., 25.

“
MAY
BE
DEPENDED
UPON
”
Ibid. One of the questions raised by the Nootka Sound episode was about control of the British forts along the western borders of the United States. Despite the provisions of the Treaty of Paris, London had refused to give them up. Now the British were interested in taking advantage of any fighting related to Nootka Sound to secure their hold on the forts and possibly expand their influence within the United States—a sign that the war between America and Britain was not fully and forever over. (Ibid., 34–35.)

“M
R
. J
EFFERSON
 … 
IS
GREATLY
TOO
DEMOCRATIC
”
Ibid., 27.

“M
R
. J
EFFER
SON
 … 
IS
A
MAN
”
Ibid., 32.

SPAIN
BACKED
DOWN
JHT,
II, 310.

STOPPED
AT
M
OUNT
V
ERNON
PTJ
, XVIII, 2. In August 1790 Jefferson had joined Washington for a journey to Rhode Island. Beginning on August 15, 1790, they enjoyed “a very pleasant sail of two days going and two days returning” through Long Island Sound, and at Newport and Providence the president was received with what Jefferson called “great cordiality.” (
PTJ,
XVII, 402.)

“T
HE
RICHE
ST
GROUND
”
Ibid., 45. “The grain, though small, is always plump,” Jefferson wrote. “The President is so excellent a farmer that I place full confidence in his recommendation.” (Ibid.)

L
EASING
A
FOUR
-
STORY
BRICK
HO
USE
FROM
T
HOMAS
L
EIPER
PTJ
, XVII, 309–10.

ORDERED
WINE
FOR
HIMSELF
Ibid., 493.

THREE
SEPAR
ATE
BUT
RELATED
ISSU
ES
See
PTJ,
XVIII, 220, 310, 369.

T
HE
PROPOSAL
F
OR
A
NATIONAL
BANK
EOL
, 143–45.

J
EFFERSON
AND
M
ADISON
OBJECTED
JHT,
II, 338. See also
PTJ,
XIX, 275–82.

THE
BANK
BILL
'
S
CONSTIT
UTIONALITY
PTJ,
XIX, 281.

“T
O
TAKE
A
SINGLE
STEP
BEYON
D
”
Ibid., 276.

“I
F
THE
PRO
AND
TH
E
CON
HANG
SO
EVEN
”
Ibid., 280.

H
AMILTON
REPLIED
BRILLIANTLY
JHT,
II, 347.

“
AN
ADHE
RENCE
TO
THE
LETTER
”
Ibid.

W
ASHINGTON
HAD
M
ADIS
ON
DRAFT
A
VETO
MESS
AGE
EOL,
144.

“C
ONGRESS
MAY
G
O
HOME
”
JHT,
II, 340.

RECORDED
TH
E
BURST
OF
COLORS
PTJ,
XX, 250.

“W
E
ARE
RUINED
, S
IR
”
Ibid., 236.

“M
RS
. T
RIST
HAS
OB
SERVED
”
Ibid.

J
ONATHAN
B. S
MIT
H
,
A
P
HILADELPHIA
MERC
HANT
Ibid., 290. Also see ibid., 268–313. In defense of his father in the face of Jefferson's “heresies” remark, John Quincy Adams launched a counterattack (“took up the cudgels,” in Jefferson's phrase) in the newspapers under the pseudonym Publicola.
PTJ,
XX, 298–301. Adams himself was long believed to be the author, but it was his son's work, and the Publicola assaults on Jefferson were powerful. Publicola, Madison reported to Jefferson, “is probably the manufacture of his son out of materials furnished by himself.… There is more of method also in the arguments, and much less of clumsiness and heaviness in the style, than characterize [the senior Adams's] writings.” (Ibid., 298–99.)

By midsummer 1791 the controversy over Jefferson's attack on Adams had expanded to include the secretary of state's antagonism to Hamilton as well. The tensions at the highest levels of government were palpable. “A host of writers have risen in favor of Paine, and prove that in this quarter at least the spirit of republicanism is sound,” Jefferson told Monroe on July 10, 1791. “The contrary spirit of the high officers of government is more understood than I expected. Col. Hamilton, avowing that he never made a secret of his principles, yet taxes the imprudence of Mr. Adams in having stirred the question and agrees that ‘his business is done.' ” (Ibid., 297.)

Jefferson was flummoxed. What to do about Adams, whom he had unquestionably attacked in the note about the
Rights of Man
? He wanted to explain himself to the vice president but wavered about how to go about it. “I have a dozen times taken up my pen to write to you and as often laid it down again, suspended between opposing considerations,” Jefferson wrote Adams on July 17, 1791. “I determine however to write from a conviction that truth, between candid minds, can never do harm.”

Yes, he had written the words attributed to him; and yes, he believed Adams's views to be among the “heresies” he mentioned. What Jefferson regretted most, he told Adams, was how they had been “thrown on the public stage as public antagonists. That you and I differ in our ideas of the best form of government is well known to us both: but we have differed as friends should do, respecting the purity of each other's motives, and confining our difference of opinion to private conversation. And I can declare with truth in the presence of the Almighty that nothing was further from my intention or expectation than to have had either my own or your name brought before the public on this occasion.” (Ibid., 302.)

Adams accepted the thrust of Jefferson's explanation, but his anguished reply shows how far-reaching the implications of the affair had become. The publisher who printed Jefferson's note, Adams said, “has sown the seeds of more evils than he can ever atone for. The pamphlet, with your name … was generally considered as a direct and open personal attack upon me, by countenancing the false interpretation of my writings as favoring the introduction of hereditary monarchy and aristocracy into this country.”

Adams's sensitivity about
Davila
was self-evident. “The question everywhere was what heresies are intended by the Secretary of State?” he told Jefferson. “The answer in the newspapers was, the Vice President's notions of a limited monarchy, an hereditary government of king and lords, with only elective commons.” The charge had set off a “hue and cry [among] all my enemies and rivals,” Adams said. “It is thought by some, that Mr. Hancock's friends are preparing the way, by my destruction, for his election to the place of Vice President, and that of Mr. Samuel Adams to be Governor of this Commonwealth, and then [the anti-Adams faction] will be sure of all the loaves and fishes in the national government and the state government as they hope.” In sum, it had been a miserable summer for the vice president. (Ibid., 305–7.)

All in all, Jefferson drew some comfort from the episode, for the public reaction tended to favor Paine over
Davila
or Publicola. The people, Jefferson wrote Paine on July 29, 1791, “appear firm in their republicanism, notwithstanding the contrary hopes and assertions of a sect here, high in names, but small in numbers.” (Ibid., 308.)

HE
WAS
“
EXTREMELY
P
LEASED
”
Ibid., 290.

“T
HAT
I
HAD
IN
MY
VIEW
”
Ibid., 291.

“
TO
TAKE
OF
F
A
LITTLE
OF
THE
DR
YNESS
”
Ibid., 293.

“
OPPOSITION
T
O
THE
GOVERNMENT
”
Ibid., 294.

“
M
EANT
FOR
THE
ENEMIES
OF
THE
GOVERNMENT
”
Ibid.

“I
HAVE
REASON
TO
THINK
”
Ibid., 300.

A
CONTEST
BETWEEN
J
EF
FERSON
AND
H
AMILTON
See, for instance, Claude G. Bowers,
Jefferson and Hamilton: The Struggle for Democracy in America
(Boston, 1966).

“W
E
WERE
EDUCATED
IN
ROYA
LISM
”
Ibid., XIV, 661.

“C
OURTS
LOVE
TH
E
PEOPLE
ALWAYS
”
Ibid., 431.

“I
F
THE
D
UKE
OF
A
NGOULEME
”
Ibid., XII, 220–21.

“I
N
SHORT
,
MY
DEAR
FRIE
ND
”
Ibid., 221.