The American Chronicle 1 - Burr (27 page)

We exchanged compliments.

“Mr. Madison is ill!” Henrietta announced gaily to the company.

“So you must make do with me.” Jefferson gave her a fond look. “One Virginian is very like another, according to Mr. Hamilton.”

Henrietta defended Hamilton. She knew nothing of politics but everything of politicians.

Jefferson discussed at length his recent trip to New England. “A botanical excursion,” he said quite seriously. “Mr. Madison and I have been fascinated by what we have seen and learned, particularly about the mating habits of the Hessian fly.”

Jefferson affected great interest in my views. Wanted to know my estimate of Governor Clinton whom he had briefly met at Albany. Betrayed a detailed knowledge of my election. Wanted to know my precise relations with the Livingston family. Since the Chancellor was at the other end of the table, my decorous praise of him was no doubt repeated.

In my view Jefferson wrote rather less well than he talked, but no less copiously. From the colour of Negroes (the result, he felt, of a peculiarly virulent form of leprosy) to the proper building of walls, Jefferson not only had an opinion on everything but was driven to express it. Indiscreet letters of his will one day delight and trouble unborn historians. Certainly his letters to me (most of them lost at sea) were marvels of wit and good sense.

Unfortunately Jefferson did not always know when to be silent. A few months before our meeting at Mrs. Colden’s, Tom Paine’s
The Rights of Man
was published, with words of praise from Jefferson on its cover. Since the author had been recently indicted for treason by the British government, it was thought tactless of the American Secretary of State not only to praise the traitor but, gratuitously, to remark upon the danger to the United States from “heresies” of the sort Paine was indicting.

The Hamiltonian
Gazette of the United States
promptly published an attack on Jefferson by one “Publicola,” thought to be John Adams. Actually Publicola was the Vice-President’s son, John Quincy Adams.

“I cannot for the life of me think why Mr. Adams should be so distressed.” Jefferson was disingenuous.

“Possibly because he is a heretic.” This from Philip Freneau who was then writing savage indictments of Hamilton and Adams for the
Daily Advertiser
.

I later discovered that Jefferson had expressly asked Henrietta to invite Freneau to dinner. Respecting ideas not men, Freneau was not the sort of prickly person Jefferson usually liked in attendance. But two months after our dinner party Freneau was drawing a good salary as clerk of foreign languages in Jefferson’s State Department at Philadelphia, and editing for Jefferson a new anti-Administration newspaper called the
National Gazette
.
Everyone was shocked. It is not usual to give government money to an editor whose policy is the destruction of that government. Quite sensibly, if maliciously, Hamilton proposed that both Jefferson and Freneau resign if they did not approve of the government which paid their salaries. From time to time, Jefferson would deny that he had any connection with Freneau’s newspaper, but then he had the fortunate gift of believing implicitly anything he himself said at the moment he said it.

For our benefit, Jefferson spun his version of the quarrel with Adams. “I confess that when I wrote of heresies in my letter—which I never gave the publisher permission to use ...” True or false? With Jefferson one could never be certain. “... those heresies I referred to were the ones to which Mr. Adams inclines. He is a monarchist through and through, and has told me as much.”

This was later denied to me by Adams himself. “I never in my life had a serious conversation with Mr. Jefferson on any subject,” said Adams two years later. “But if I
were
a secret monarchist, Mr. Jefferson would be the last person I would confide in. He knows of course I am no such thing nor is that Creole bastard. But Mr. Jefferson does know that the surest way for him to rise is to excite the people against Hamilton and me by pretending that we want a king when all we want is a strong federal government.” Of the sort Jefferson himself was to achieve some years later.

Chancellor Livingston wondered if perhaps the Secretary of State was exaggerating.

The bright hazel eyes grew round as a child’s and the voice dropped so low that we were all leaning forward across our Madeira glasses to hear his sudden warning. “Gentlemen, there is—I assure you—a plot at the highest level of this country to change our institutions. To make them over in England’s image. Once, in my presence, Hamilton described our Constitution as a ‘shilly-shally affair.’ Oh, his contempt for this republic is as brazen as that of any Catiline!”

Little did I know then that in time’s womb the classic traitor’s name would be used to describe me, with Jefferson himself as happy midwife at that so unnatural birth. But ignorant of the future, I listened raptly to the beautiful low voice describe Hamilton’s habit of giving speculator friends secret Treasury information, all the while attempting to set up a monarchy with British gold. In retrospect, this sort of talk sounds perfect madness. At the time, it sounded perfectly plausible.

Freneau was obviously much taken with this discourse. So was I. There was something in Jefferson’s manner that
held
me as no other man was ever able to do. Even after I came to know well his recklessness with the truth, I never failed to respond to that hushed voice, to those bright child’s eyes, to his every fanatical notion, to his every rich slander. He was a kind of wizard, no doubt of it.

The Chancellor teased Jefferson about his famous remark during Shays’s rebellion—that from time to time the tree of liberty’s proper manure is blood. Jefferson responded with all seriousness. “I meant only that we should congratulate ourselves that in two hundred years we have had only one such internal uprising. It is a tribute to our sense of justice that redress comes before rebellion.”

“Even so, you are now the hero of all the Shaysites.” At heart the Chancellor was a Federalist, forced to pose as a Republican. Had he not been passed over for chief justice, he would have found the ideas—if not the company—of Jefferson most uncongenial.

“We met many of these poor men in New England.” Jefferson looked mournful. “They were misled by Shays. They had too little faith in our ability to set things right ...”

“Like forty-per-cent interest rates? like crushing taxes? like thousands of men in prison for debt?” Eyes fixed on Jefferson, Freneau resembled a doctor who is waiting to see if the patient will recover or succumb to a radical dosage of mercury.

“Of course many of their complaints are justified. I find it a frightful business imprisoning men for debt.” As well he might! The one thing that Jefferson, Hamilton and I had in common was indebtedness. We all lived beyond our means and on the highest scale. Hamilton died owing money. Jefferson died a pauper, with Monticello collapsing about his head. Fortunately, unlike the average farmer or mechanic, we could not be jailed for debt. We could indefinitely collect signers and co-signers to our notes until the sordid conditions of our borrowings entirely vanished under the scrolls and flourishes of those wealthy magnates who are always anxious to befriend a man of state.

Freneau added to the dosage. “In Massachusetts, ninety per cent of those in prisons are debtors. Well, Sir, if I had been a poor man in that state, I would have marched with Daniel Shays.”

“Mr. Freneau!” The Chancellor was appalled. “Surely you do not favour what that man favoured? Surely you do not want
all
property evenly divided among the citizens?”

There was an expectant moment at the table. From the drawing-room we could hear the harsh rather unlovely laughter of the lovely Mrs. Colden.

Jefferson slumped down on his spine, shoulders hunched, head to one side, freckled hands covering the lower part of his face. He did not intervene.

Freneau chose lightness. “I would let your family keep Clermont, Chancellor. But Mr. Jefferson would have to give up Monticello for he believes in democracy and you do not.”

Jefferson laughed a bit too merrily. The others pretended to enjoy a joke that amused no one present. Two years later such a joke would have been impossible; by then the excesses of the French Revolution had made of the dream of Daniel Shays a nightmare. In fact, with the murders in Paris, no serious person in the United States has ever again suggested a division of wealth.

When the party ended, Jefferson and I walked out into Hanover Square. A waning moon was visible in the west. In the pale glow, Jefferson seemed to hang over me like a tree or like the sharp rise of some cliff (yes, and wait for the avalanche to bury you alive). He suffered from chronic headache, and used to wonder why. “Perhaps,” I said in response to the familiar complaint, “it is your height. You are too close to heaven, to the thunder and lightning.” Instead of smiling at this pleasantry, he frowned. “Do you think so? I must ask Dr. Rush.”

Jefferson walked loosely, in a shambling way—he was, I should note, very much the French exquisite during this period. His clothes were sumptuous; there was always a good deal of red, of silver, of lace about his long person, and a huge golden topaz on his finger. Later when he became president and the leader of the democracy, he took to wearing old slippers and frayed jackets in the presidential palace. Like Napoleon, he was a fascinating actor but far more subtle than the Corsican and ultimately far more successful.

“You speak of Montesquieu,” said Jefferson, taking my arm. “At worst he is a bit too English in his bias. Yet on most issues I find him congenial and wise. Certainly he is a true republican.” We made our way around a family of sleeping pigs in the Broad Way. Darkness was almost total; the moon had gone; the streets were empty.

I mention Jefferson’s comment on Montesquieu’s
Esprit des Lois
because twenty years later he was to turn fiercely on its author who had maintained that a true republic of the democratic order can exist only on a small scale. Certainly this “ideal” form of government is not practical for an empire of the sort Jefferson gave us when he illegally bought Louisiana—thereby doubling the size of the United States and putting an end once and for all to any hope of our society evolving into a true republic of the sort dreamed of by the Baron de Montesquieu and proclaimed by Jefferson. To justify himself, Jefferson turned on his old idol and attacked him for (favourite and characteristic Jefferson word) “heresy.” But of course it was Jefferson who was the heretic, and Montesquieu the true believer in democracy.

I got the subject onto political matters. It was already apparent that Adams would succeed Washington. But then what? I feared Hamilton would succeed Adams. The only alternative was Jefferson. I did not rule out myself as leader of the anti-Federalist faction but I was practical enough to realize that as a Virginian, Jefferson would have first call on the presidency once Massachusetts had been served by Adams. But no matter what the future held, I was necessary to Jefferson that summer night as we slipped in the garbage, and tried not to step on sleeping pigs whose shrieks could awaken the dead.

“We are apparently doomed to political faction.” Jefferson sounded melancholy. “I put the blame on Hamilton. He is corrupt through and through.”

I did not disagree although my personal feeling for Hamilton was most friendly. (I did not know to what extent he was slandering me even then.) But Jefferson had no illusions about our enemy. “He is driven to make a monarchy out of this republic.”

“With himself as Alexander the Great?”

Jefferson had no humour. “With Adams as king, I should think, and himself as permanent prime minister, another Walpole. I must warn you, Colonel Burr, Hamilton is treachery incarnate!”

I changed the subject. “How did you find Governor Clinton at Albany?” Jefferson tended to obsession on the subject of monarchy, a vice he attributed to anyone who stood in his way. It was Jefferson’s conceit that he alone represented democracy and that all the rest of us from Washington to Adams to Hamilton wanted to wear crowns and tax his cup of tea. Fortunately George Clinton was always a safe subject. He was not a monarchist—he was simply the absolute ruler of New York, and an enemy to the Federalists.

Jefferson’s soft voice purred when he discussed his meeting with Clinton. “A vigorous man, don’t you think? With unusual theories about the Hessian fly. Of course your governor is not exactly a man of learning but there is something likeable in his roughness. You know, he is much pleased with your election.”

“Yes, I know.”

A night-coach nearly ran us down in front of Trinity Church.

“I must confess that the loss of Senator Schuyler pleased me quite as much as the knowledge that such a distinguished supporter of the democracy as you would be joining us in Philadelphia.” When Jefferson wanted one’s support, he was shameless in his flattery. “Hamilton may lose his majority in the Senate.”

“He still has the President.”

Jefferson sighed. “Our good President thinks that Hamilton is the cleverest man in the world.”

“Let us hope, Mr. Jefferson, that the President is wrong.”

Even in the darkness I was aware that those bright eyes were looking down upon me. He did not answer immediately.

“Perhaps,” he said at last, “it might be useful to form a series of clubs or associations, for those who are devoted to the democracy.”

“There is the Society of St. Tammany.” Tammany had been founded four years earlier as a patriotic club where solid New York greengrocers and upholsterers pretended to be Indians.

“But the Tammany membership is mostly Federalist.” Jefferson’s pursuit of the dread Hessian fly had not entirely distracted him from the political realities of the small but crucial New York electorate.

“Not entirely. Anyway, I have friends in the Society. They can be guided.”

“It might be useful if our friends were to set up Democratic societies, particularly now when the revolution in France is so popular.”

I agreed. As we parted, in the dark, Jefferson took my hand in both of his. “We have, dear Colonel Burr, so much to do. So many battles to fight, so many heresies to refute. We must stand by one another.”