Madison and Jefferson (121 page)

14.
“Address to the States,” April 26, 1783,
PJM
, 6:494; Hamilton was already resorting to the authorship of anonymous newspaper essays to advance his aims. Our interpretation of Madison’s differences with Hamilton at this early moment in their relationship draws significantly on Lance Banning, “James Madison and the Nationalists, 1780–1783,”
William and Mary Quarterly
40 (April 1983): 227–55.

15.
Stuart Leibiger,
Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic
(Charlottesville, Va., 1999), 20–25; Washington to JM, April 22, 1783; JM to Washington, April 29, 1783,
PJM
, 6:484–85, 505. McHenry of Maryland would eventually serve as U.S. secretary of war.

16.
Madison’s Notes on Debates for January 23, 1783,
PJM
, 6:62ff.; Brant, 2:242–46, 288–90. The editors of
PJM
suggest that Madison considered the titles owned by Reverend Madison, John Witherspoon, and Theodorick Bland, in addition to those of Jefferson.

17.
JM to TJ, April 22, 1783; TJ to JM, April 14 and May 7, 1783,
RL
, 1:242, 244–45; Brant, 2:283–87.

18.
JMB
, 1:531.

19.
The tone of one letter should suffice to give evidence of Mason’s attitude. When recruited for state office, he delivered his firm refusal on grounds of “don’t call me, I’ll call you,” regarding the attempt as “an oppressive & unjust Invasion of my personal Liberty.” Mason to Martin Cockburn, April 18, 1784,
The Papers of George Mason
, ed. Robert A. Rutland (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1970), 2:799.

20.
TJ to Clark, November 26, 1782,
PTJ
, 6:204–5.

21.
TJ to JM, June 17, 1783,
RL
, 1:252–60; Adrienne Koch,
Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration
(New York, 1950), 11–13; David N. Mayer,
The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson
(Charlottesville, Va., 1994), 60–65;
PTJ
, 6:283, 308–16; “Resolutions on Private Debts Owed to British Merchants,” and R. H. Lee to JM, November 20, 1784,
PJM
, 8:58–63, 144–45; Sylvia R. Frey,
Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age
(Princeton, N.J., 1991), 211–12.

22.
Theodore Bolton, “The Life Portraits of James Madison,”
William and Mary Quarterly
8 (January 1951): 25–27; JM to TJ, August 11, 1783,
RL
, 1:262.

23.
JMB
, 1:536–42; Lucia Stanton,
Free Some Day: The African-American Families of Monticello
(Charlottesville, Va., 2000), 104.

24.
Madison’s notes indicate that he felt little concern for his own safety in Philadelphia. The troops at large did not seem prone to violence, he wrote, “individuals only occasionally uttering offensive words and wantonly pointed their Muskets to the Windows of the Hall of Congress.” But the wide availability of “spirituous drink from
the tippling houses” made him worry that the combustible combination of muskets and alcohol might lead to what he termed “hasty excesses.” For his part, Jefferson considered the event “a very trifling mutiny of 200 souldiers.” Why he believed that two hundred armed men did not constitute a threat is not entirely clear.

25.
Madison’s Notes on Debates for June 21, 1783; Brant, 2:294–95; TJ to Martha (Patsy) Jefferson, November 28, 1783,
The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson
, ed. Edwin Morris Betts and James Adam Bear, Jr. (Charlottesville, Va., 1966), 19–20; Francis Hopkinson to TJ, January 4, 1784; TJ to Chastellux, January 16, 1784,
PTJ
, 6:444–45, 466; Malone, 1:404–5.

26.
TJ to JM, February 20, 1784; JM to TJ, March 16, 1784,
RL
, 1:297–303.

27.
Jefferson’s appeals on paper were always crafted with sensitivity to the temperament of the other party. Just as he knew how to tap into George Rogers Clark’s insecurity about his reputation back in Virginia by feeding antagonism toward Patrick Henry and promising to protect the frontiersman’s interest, he knew Madison well enough to engineer an approach based on his friend’s cautiousness—thus the allusion to “rational society.” The only chance he had was to convince Madison that he would be looking after his own best interest when he established himself in Albemarle. JM to TJ, March 16, 1784,
RL
, 1:305;
PTJ
, 7:82. On Jefferson’s epicurean side, see Andrew Burstein,
Jefferson’s Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello
(New York, 2005).

28.
JM to TJ, December 10, 1783,
RL
, 1:286; TJ to Carr, December 11, 1783; Francis Hopkinson to TJ, February 23, 1784; Randolph to TJ, May 15, 1784,
PTJ
, 6:379–80, 556, 7:260.

29.
Richard H. Kohn, “The Inside History of the Newburgh Conspiracy: America and the Coup d’Etat,”
William and Mary Quarterly
27 (April 1970): 187–220; Kohn,
The Eagle and the Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783–1802
(New York, 1975), chap. 2; C. Edward Skeen,
John Armstrong, Jr., 1758–1843: A Biography
(Syracuse, N.Y., 1981), 8–17; Leibiger,
Founding Friendship
, 25–28.

30.
TJ to Harrison, November 11, 1783; and “George Washington’s Resignation as Commander-in-Chief,”
PTJ
, 6:351–53, 402–7; Ronald Byrd, “George Washington and Wellness,” in Kevin L. Cope, ed.,
George Washington in and as Culture
(New York, 2001), 249–67; Joseph J. Ellis,
His Excellency: George Washington
(New York, 2004), 144–46; John E. Ferling,
The First of Men: A Life of George Washington
(Knoxville, Tenn., 1988), 263–65. For a nuanced reading of Washington’s symbolic value during his lifetime, as well as insights into his intellectual life, see Paul K. Longmore,
The Invention of George Washington
(Berkeley, Calif., 1988), 213–26 and passim.

31.
TJ to Chastellux, January 16, 1784,
PTJ
, 6:467.

32.
“The Virginia Cession of Territory North of the Ohio,”
PTJ
, 6:571–617; Onuf,
Origins of the Federal Republic
, chap. 7; Richard P. McCormick, “The ‘Ordinance’ of 1784?”
William and Mary Quarterly
50 (January 1993): 112–22; JM to Monroe, May 29, 1785,
PJM
, 8:285–86; Harry Ammon,
James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity
(Charlottesville, Va., 1971), 41–45, 51–54.

33.
Another promoter of the new America was Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College and a Congregationalist minister, who published a popular sermon just months before passage of the 1784 Land Ordinance, in which he proclaimed: “The whole continent is activity, and in the lively vigorous exertion of industry.” Owing to the “enterprising
spirit of Americans for colonization and removing out into the wilderness,” an invigorated population would “soon overspread the vast territory from the
Atlantic
to the
Mississippi.
” See Andrew Burstein,
Sentimental Democracy
(New York, 1999), 38–39, 88, 162–64; Stiles,
The
UNITED STATES
Elevated to
GLORY
and
HONOUR
(Worcester, Mass., 1785), 12–13.

34.
Peter S. Onuf,
Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance
(Bloomington, Ind., 1987), chap. 1; Onuf,
Origins of the Federal Republic
, 17, 99–102; TJ to JM, November 11, 1784,
RL
, 1:350.

35.
TJ to JM, May 8 and May 11, 1784,
RL
, 1:315–16.

36.
TJ to JM, May 7, 1783; JM to TJ, May 15 and July 3, 1784,
RL
, 1:245, 318, 322. Underscoring Henry’s dangerousness as an opponent, David A. McCants has written of how Virginia’s model orator succeeded: “Henry pleaded causes, not cases; he presented dramas, not arguments.” See McCants,
Patrick Henry, the Orator
(New York, 1990), 103.

37.
Printers in Boston and Virginia picked up the story and reprinted it verbatim, which is what newspapers of this era typically did. The original dateline is Providence, June 19, 1784, but available copies are in Boston’s
American Herald
, June 28, 1784;
Salem Gazette
, June 29, 1784; and
Virginia Journal
, July 15, 1784. On the definition of
civilian
, see Johnson’s
Dictionary
(Philadelphia, 1813); on uses of
politician
, see the progression in various American newspapers between 1706 and 1786, including
Boston News-Letter
, September 9–16, 1706,
American Weekly Mercury
[Philadelphia], February 13–20, 19–26, 1722,
New-England Courant
, July 2–9, 1722,
Boston Evening-Post
, December 26, 1743,
Boston Gazette
and
New-York Mercury
for 1756,
Political Intelligencer
[New Brunswick, N.J.], May 11, 1784,
Independent Journal
[New York] issues of 1785,
Charleston Evening Gazette
, June 9, 1786. The
New-Hampshire Gazette
[Portsmouth], February 18, 1786, reprints an address by Benedict Arnold, from London, using the word dismissively to belittle the republican pretensions of Congress and the states: “The Americans are certainly the most extraordinary politicians in the world.”

38.
TJ to JM, November 11, 1784,
RL
, 1:350–51.

39.
As early as May 1783, Jefferson had let Madison know that he considered Short an ideal person for him to work with in Paris: “You may know my high opinion of his abilities and merits,” he said. “I will therefore only add that a peculiar talent for prying into facts seems to mark his character as proper for such a business.” TJ to JM, May 7, 1783,
RL
, 1:245. Short took quite a chance, sailing to France before he had any assurance that he would be officially compensated by the U.S. government.

40.
George Green Shackelford,
Jefferson’s Adoptive Son: The Life of William Short, 1759–1848
(Lexington, Ky., 1993), 5–16.

41.
JM to TJ, July 3, 1784; TJ to JM, December 8, 1784,
RL
, 1:322–23, 353–54; Brant, 2:322–23.

42.
JM to TJ, April 27, 1785,
RL
, 1:367–71.

43.
Louis Gottschalk,
Lafayette between the American and the French Revolution, 1783–1789
(Chicago, 1950), 23–25, 38–39, 63, 69, 73, 83–84.

44.
JM to JM, Sr., September 6, 1784,
PJM
, 8:112; JM to TJ, October 17, 1784,
RL
, 1:347–49; TJ to JM, March 18, 1785, and February 8, 1786,
RL
, 1:365, 411; Gottschalk,
Lafayette between the American and the French Revolution
, chap. 8; Ketcham, 155–57.

45.
Leibiger,
Founding Friendship
, 53–56; “Deed of Gift of Orange County Lands,” August 19, 1784; JM to Randolph, July 26, 1785; to Monroe, March 14, 1786,
PJM
, 8:99, 328, 497; JM to TJ, August 12, 1786,
RL
, 1:432–33; Brant, 2:328–35, 340–41; Ketcham, 145–47. The Madison-Monroe purchase of nine hundred acres was not concluded until 1790, when they made their final payment—having only been able to raise $675 in 1786. See Monroe to JM, July 19, 1789,
PJM
, 12:297.

46.
“Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments,” ca. June 20, 1785,
PJM
, 8:295–304; Ketcham, 162; Koch,
Jefferson and Madison
, 27–30.

47.
William Peden, ed.,
Notes on the State of Virginia
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1954), Query XVII, 159.

48.
Virginia Journal
[Alexandria], April 14, 1785; JM to TJ, January 22, 1786,
RL
, 1:402–3; Ketcham, 163–68. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom became law in January 1786.

49.
George Green Shackelford,
Thomas Jefferson’s Travels in Europe, 1784–1789
(Baltimore, 1995), chap. 1; William Howard Adams,
The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson
(New Haven, Conn., 1997); Malone, 2:3–20, 44, 213.

50.
Lafayette to McHenry, December 3, 1785, in Gottschalk,
Lafayette between the American and the French Revolution
, 208; TJ to Chastellux, January 16, 1784,
PTJ
, 6:467.

51.
For modern commentary on the
Notes
, see Douglas L. Wilson, “Jefferson and the Republic of Letters,” in Peter S. Onuf, ed.,
Jeffersonian Legacies
(Charlottesville, Va., 1993), 53–57, 63–64; Charles A. Miller,
Jefferson and Nature: An Interpretation
(Baltimore, 1988), 15–19; Henry Steele Commager,
Jefferson, Nationalism, and the Enlightenment
(New York, 1975), 36–39; and Kevin J. Hayes,
The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 2008), chap. 17.

52.
TJ to JM, May 11, 1785; JM to TJ, November 15, 1785,
RL
, 1:372, 392; Rev. JM to TJ, March 27, 1786, and February 10, 1789,
PTJ
, 9:357, 14:534. In 1786 Reverend Madison was first shown a copy of the
Notes
by James Madison, Sr., and was not given time to read in depth. For a good analysis of Jefferson’s self-conscious concern about the personal and political dimensions of publishing
Notes
on a large scale, see Douglas L. Wilson, “The Evolution of Jefferson’s ‘Notes on the State of Virginia,’ ”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
112 (2004): 98–133.

53.
TJ to JM, February 8, 1786; JM to TJ, May 12, 1786,
RL
, 1:410, 419; “Autobiography,”
TJP-LC.

54.
See Introduction to Peden, ed.,
Notes on Virginia.
For an examination of Jefferson’s take on Virginia in the context of various published perspectives, see Jack P. Greene, “The Intellectual Reconstruction of Virginia,” in Onuf, ed.,
Jeffersonian Legacies
, 225–53.

55.
Peden, ed.,
Notes on Virginia
, Queries II, IV, VI, VII; on plants and power, see Richard Drayton,
Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the “Improvement” of the World
(New Haven, Conn., 2000), esp. 44–49.