Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (59 page)

H
E
LOVED
SCIENCE
Ibid., 30–32. “With some allowance he was everything that could have been wished for by Virginia under a royal government,” the Virginia chronicler John Daly Burk wrote in a history published in 1804. “Generous, liberal, elegant in his manners and acquirements, his example left an impression of taste, refinement, and erudition on the character of the colony, which eminently contributed to its present high reputation in the arts.” (Ibid., 30.)

T
H
E
STORY
WAS
TOLD
Ibid., 31. According to Burk, Fauquier “was but too successful in extending the influence of this pernicious and ruinous practice.” When not in residence at the Palace, it was reported, Fauquier “visited the most distinguished landholders in the colonies, and the rage for playing deep, reckless of time, health, or money, spread like a contagion among a class proverbial for their hospitality, their politeness, and fondness of expense.”

F
A
UQUIER
'
S
FATHER
WAS
A
H
UGUENOT
PHYSICIAN
JHT,
I, 76. I am indebted to Malone for this short portrait of Fauquier. See also Parton,
Life,
27–29; and “Francis Fauquier (bap. 1703–1768),”
The Dictionary of Virginia Biography,
http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Fauquier_Francis_bap_1703–1768 (accessed March 24, 2012).

BECAME
A
FELLO
W
OF
THE
R
OYAL
S
OCIETY
JHT,
I, 76.

AN
UNUSUAL
J
ULY
HAILSTORM
Ibid., 77.

A
SCIENTIFIC
PAPER
“Francis Fauquier (bap. 1703–1768).”

THE
LAWYER
G
EORGE
W
YTHE
Imogene E. Brown,
American Aristides: A Biography of George Wythe
(Rutherford, N.J., 1981) was helpful on Wythe, as was Bruce Chadwick's
I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation
(Hoboken, N.J., 2009).

H
A
WK
-
NOSED
Chadwick,
I Am Murdered,
7–9, offers a fine descriptive section on Wythe.

“
OF
THE
MIDDLE
SIZE
”
TDLTJ,
30.

A
HOUS
E
NEAR
B
RUTON
P
ARISH
Imogene E. Brown,
American Aristides,
87.

“M
R
. W
YTHE
CONTINUED
”
TDLTJ,
28.

EXPENSI
VE
TASTES
Imogene E. Brown,
American Aristides,
81–82.

“M
RS
. W
YTH
E
PUTS
”
Ibid., 82. See also
MB,
I, 328.

INTRODUCED
J
EFFERSON
TO
THE
PRA
CTICE
OF
LAW
Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 46.

“A
PAR
T
FROM
THE
INTELLECT
UAL
”
Ibid., 31.

J
EFFERSON
ALSO
INCLUDED
HIS
COUSIN
Ibid., 22.

R
ANDOLPH
WAS
“
OF
AN
A
FFABLE
”
Ibid., 51.

HE
ALSO
“
COMM
ANDS
”
Ibid.

“U
NDER
TEMPTATI
ONS
AND
DIFFICULTIES
”
Ibid., 22.

“
VERY
HIGH
STANDIN
G
”
Ibid.

MET
P
ATRICK
H
ENRY
John P. Kaminski,
The Founders on the Founders: Word Portraits from the American Revolutionary Era
(Charlottesville, Va., 2008), 260–61.

CONCEIVED
OF
LIFE
IN
SOCIAL
TERMS
Gordon S. Wood,
The Creation of the American Republic
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1998), ix, and
Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different
(New York, 2006), 104–7. See also Jack Rakove,
Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America
(Boston, 2010), 299–302. With industry and skill, Jefferson studied much, but he was no cloistered intellectual or lonely scholar. We often think of him as a grand, solitary figure, alone with his thoughts and his pen and his inventions, shut off in his chambers at Monticello or upstairs in the President's House. He was very rarely alone, however, and would have thought it odd if he had found himself long in isolation.

“I
AM
CONVINCED
”
TDLTJ,
284. The quotation, from a letter to his daughter Polly Jefferson Eppes, continues: “and that every person who retires from free communication with it is severely punished afterwards by the state of mind into which he gets, and which can only be prevented by feeding our sociable principles.” (Ibid.)

A
SECRE
T
SOCIETY
MB,
I, 338.

LONGED
F
OR
INTELLIGENCE
PTJ,
I, 5.

A
YOUNG
WOMAN
NAMED
R
EB
ECCA
Ibid., 6.

THE
EPISODE
I
S
CHIEFLY
INTERESTIN
G
For the basic details, see ibid.; for analysis, see
JHT,
I, 80–86.

RATS
AND
RAIN
PTJ,
I, 3–6.

COMPARED
HIMSELF
TO
J
OB
Ibid., 3–5.

“A
LL
THING
S
HERE
”
Ibid., 7.

“W
E
MUST
FALL
”
Ibid., 15.

J
EFFERSON
DECIDED
TO
DECLARE
Ibid., 11–12.

THE
A
POLL
O
R
OOM
OF
THE
R
ALEIGH
T
AVERN
Lyon Gardiner Tyler,
Williamsburg: The Old Colonial Capital
(Richmond, Va., 1907), 232–35.

“I
WAS
PREPAR
ED
”
PTJ,
I, 11.

H
E
TRIED
TO
SPE
AK
Ibid.

A
CONVERSATION
Ibid., 13–14.

“I
ASKED
NO
QUESTION
”
Ibid., 14.

“
ABOMINABLY
IN
DOLENT
”
Ibid., 16.

A
LETTER
TO
A
FRIEND
Ibid., 15–17.

HIS
“
SCHEME
”
TO
MARRY
Ibid.

THE
WEALT
HY
J
ACQUELIN
A
MBLER
Alfred J. Beveridge,
The Life of John Marshall,
I (Boston, 1916), 149.

“M
ANY
AND
GREAT
ARE
THE
COMFORTS
”
PTJ,
I, 16. E. M. Halliday,
Understanding Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 2001), thinks it unlikely that Jefferson would have availed himself of the obvious means of satisfying his sexual desires (Ibid., 16–17), but his views are as speculative as those suggesting Jefferson might well have done so. Such activity in the elite of his time was hardly unknown.

Kathleen M. Brown,
Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996), 319–66, offers a compelling account of issues of sexuality and power in the world in which Jefferson grew up and ultimately lived. William Byrd II, the prominent planter, left a diary that included accounts of his sexual designs on women of inferior rank, both white and black. “On one of his first trips to Williamsburg as a councillor,” Brown wrote, “Byrd ‘sent for the wench to clean my room and when I came [to the room] I kissed her and felt her, for which God forgive me.' Several days later, Byrd kissed Mrs. Chiswell with excessive passion in front of his wife ‘until she [Chiswell] was angry and my wife also was uneasy.' After that incident, Byrd confined his philandering to private encounters with women who were clearly his social inferiors: He tried unsuccessfully to entice a chambermaid to his room in Williamsburg, engaged in some group ‘sport' with a drunken Indian woman along with members of his militia, and kissed various women he and his male companions met during their visits to Williamsburg.” After Byrd's wife died, Brown wrote, “Byrd began to visit prostitutes and initiated several longer affairs with white women who were not of his social rank.” Ultimately these included enslaved women. (Ibid., 331–32.)

For his part, Halliday found it more likely that Jefferson resorted to masturbation. (Halliday,
Understanding Thomas Jefferson,
20–21.) Andrew Burstein,
Jefferson's Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello
(New York, 2005), explores the influence of contemporary medical thought about human sexuality on the mature Jefferson. In Burstein's interpretation, masturbation would have been seen as an exercise in depletion, whereas moderate sexual activity was essential to give “a healthy balance to the body's internal forces,” Burstein wrote. “Sex was seen much as diet was, part of a regimen of self-control, and important to understand if one was to enjoy a productive life.” (Ibid., 157; see especially 151–88.) In my view, it is as likely that Jefferson, like William Byrd II, took advantage of available women—those in dependent stations such as service or slavery—to experiment sexually.

THREE
·
ROOTS OF REVOLUTION

“
O
UR
MINDS
WERE
CIRCUM
SCRIBED
”
Jefferson,
Writings,
5.

“M
AY
WE
OU
TLIVE
OUR
ENEMIES
”
MB,
I, 283.

J
EFFERSON
SENT
TO
L
ONDON
Ibid., 16.

“N
O
LI
BERTY
,
NO
LIFE
”
Ibid.

T
HE
D
EFINITION
OF
LIBERTY
I am indebted to many sources for my analysis of the intellectual, political, and cultural background to the American Revolution. In general, see Bailyn,
Origins of American Politics
(New York, 1968), and
Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
; Wood,
Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787,
The Radicalism of the American Revolution
(New York, 1993),
The American Revolution: A History
(New York, 2003), and
The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States
(New York, 2011); Lawrence Henry Gipson,
The British Empire Before the American Revolution:
vol. XIII,
The Triumphant Empire: The Empire Beyond the Storm, 1770–1776
(New York, 1967), 171–224, which offers a valuable “Summary of the Series”; Gipson, “The American Revolution as an Aftermath of the Great War for the Empire” in Colbourn and Patterson,
American Past in Perspective,
I, 103–20; Clinton Rossiter, “Political Theory in the Colonies,” in ibid., 121–31; Page Smith, “David Ramsay and the Causes of the American Revolution,” in ibid., 132–60; T. H. Breen,
American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People
(New York, 2010); Taylor,
American Colonies;
Esmond Wright, ed.
Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution
(Chicago, 1966); Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan,
The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1995), 6–7; John Ferling,
Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free
(New York, 2011), 8–51; Morgan,
Birth of the Republic,
15–60; Charles M. Andrews, “The American Revolution: An Interpretation,”
American Historical Review
31, no. 2 (January 1926): 219–32; and Don Higginbotham,
War and Society in Revolutionary America: The Wider Dimensions of Conflict
(Columbia, S.C., 1988).