Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (71 page)

“
Y
OU
INQUIRE
WHY
SO
YOUNG
A
MAN
”
Ibid.

THE
ENS
UING
CONVERSATION
WI
TH
J
EFFERSON
Ibid.

WAS
“
NOT
TO
FIND
OUT
”
TJ to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825 (LOC). Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).

SECOND
-
FLOOR
ROOMS
Hazelton,
Declaration of Independence,
149–51. Robert G. Parkinson, “The Declaration of Independence,” in Cogliano, ed.,
A Companion to Thomas Jefferson,
44–59, is a valuable essay; it is particularly good on the (necessarily, given the practical demands of the political moment) collaborative nature of the writing of the Declaration.

HE
SLEPT
IN
ONE
ROOM
Hazelton,
Declaration of Independence
, 149–51.

“N
EITHER
AIMING
AT
ORIGINAL
ITY
”
TJ to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825 (LOC). Extract published at Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series Digital Archive, www.monticello.org/familyletters (accessed 2011).

“
W
HEN
IN
THE
COU
RSE
OF
HUMAN
EVENTS
”
PTJ,
I, 315, 413–33.

“
SELF
-
EVIDENT
”
WAS
F
RANKLIN
'
S
Isaacson,
Benjamin Franklin,
312.

BE
SENT
“
TO
THE
SEVER
AL
ASSEMBLIES
”
Maier,
American Scripture,
130.

C
ON
STITUENCIES
INCLUDED
READERS
Ibid., 130–32.

MANY
OF
WH
ICH
WERE
OBSCURE
Ibid., 107.

J
E
FFERSON
'
S
INFLUENCES
WERE
MANIFOLD
See, for instance, Maier,
American Scripture;
Garry Wills,
Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence
(Garden City, N.Y., 1978); and Carl Becker,
The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas
(New York, 1970).

J
AMES
W
ILSON
'
S
PAMPHLET
Hatzenbuehler, “Growing Weary in Well-Doing,” 12–14.

G
EORGE
M
ASON
'
S
D
ECLARA
TION
OF
R
IGHTS
Ibid., 14–20.

“T
HE
E
NCLOSED
PAPER
”
PTJ,
I, 404.

WHOS
E
GOUT
AND
BOILS
Isaacson,
Benjamin Franklin,
310.

“
A
MEETING
WE
ACCORDIN
GLY
HAD
”
The Works of John Adams,
II, ed. Charles Francis Adams, 514.

INTRODUCED
ON
F
RIDAY
, J
UNE
28
PTJ,
I, 313–14.

“T
HE
PUSILLANIMOUS
IDEA
”
Ibid., 314.

“T
HE
CLAUSE
,
TOO
,
REPROBATI
NG
”
Ibid., 314–15.

H
E
FAIRLY
WRITHE
D
Isaacson,
Benjamin Franklin,
313.

F
RANKLIN
TRIED
TO
SOOTHE
HIS
YOUNG
COLLEAGUE
Ibid. Franklin deployed an old anecdote about a hatmaker who had wanted a sign that read “John Thompson, hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,” with a picture of a hat. His friends so pecked away at the sign it wound up with only the hatmaker's name and the picture of a hat. (Ibid.)

“I
HAVE
MAD
E
IT
A
RULE
”
Ibid., 310.

VOTED
T
O
ADOPT
THE
RESOLUTI
ON
William Hogeland,
Declaration: The Nine Tumultuous Weeks When America Became Independent, May 1–July 4, 1776
(New York, 2012), 173.

THE
TEMPERATUR
E
WAS
76
JHT,
I, 229.

O
VERNIGHT
TH
E
P
HILADELPHIA
PRINTE
R
J
OHN
D
UNLAP
Transcript of Publishing the Declaration of Independence, LOC, http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/journey/declaration-transcript.html (accessed 2012).

B
ENJAMI
N
T
OWNE
,
PUBLISHER
OF
T
HE
P
ENNSYLVANIA
E
VENING
P
O
ST
Ibid.

THE
NEWS
WAS
ANNOUNC
ED
JHT,
I, 229.

IN
FRONT
OF
THE
S
TATE
H
OUSE
Hogeland,
Declaration,
179.

“G
OD
BL
ESS
THE
FREE
STATES
”
Ibid.

H
ORSEFLIES
BUZZED
T
HROUGH
Parton,
Life,
191.

“
THE
SILK
-
STOCKINGED
LEGS
”
Ibid.

J
EF
FERSON
ALWAYS
LOVED
Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 153.

“G
ERRY
,
WHEN
THE
HA
NGING
COMES
”
Ibid.

“
A
THEA
TRICAL
SHOW
”
Kaminski,
Founders on the Founders,
315.

“J
EFFE
RSON
RAN
AWAY
”
Ibid.

B
ENTH
AM
SCOFFED
David Armitage,
The Declaration of Independence: A Global History
(Cambridge, Mass., 2007), 173–86, reprints the text of Bentham's “Short Review of the Declaration,” which was originally published in London in 1776.

“
ABSUR
D
AND
VISIONARY
”
Ibid., 173.

“
‘
A
LL
MEN
' ”
Ibid., 174.

“Y
OU
WILL
JUDGE
”
PTJ,
I, 456. The colleague was Richard Henry Lee. In reply, Lee said that he wished “the manuscript had not been mangled as it is. It is wonderful, and passing pitiful, that the rage of change should be so unhappily applied. However the
thing
is in its nature so good, that no cookery can spoil the dish for the palates of freemen.” (Ibid., 471.)

“I
AM
HIGHLY
PLEASED
”
Ibid., 470. See also Robert M. S. McDonald, “Thomas Jefferson's Changing Reputation as Author of the Declaration of Independence: The First Fifty Years,”
Journal of the Early Republic,
19, no. 2 (Summer, 1999): 169–95.

TEN
·
THE PULL OF DUTY

“
I
PRAY
YOU
TO
COM
E
”
PTJ,
I, 477.

“
R
EBELLION
TO
TYR
ANTS
”
Ibid., 677–79.

SUFFERED
A
DIS
ASTROUS
MISCARRIAGE
Scharff,
Women Jefferson Loved,
118. By now Patty's health was a perennial issue for Jefferson. “I am sorry the situation of my domestic affairs renders it indispensably necessary that I should solicit the substitution of some other person here in my room,” Jefferson wrote on June 30, 1776. “The delicacy of the House will not require me to enter minutely into the private causes which render this necessary: I trust they will be satisfied I would not have urged it again were it not necessary.” (
PTJ,
I, 408.)

“I
WISH
I
COULD
”
PTJ,
I, 458.

“
A
FAVORITE
WITH
”
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/martha-wayles-skelton-jefferson (accessed 2012).

T
HE
ONSLAUGHT
OF
MILITAR
Y
REPORTS
PTJ,
I, 433–74.

FRAUGHT
WITH
FEARS
Ibid., 475–76, describes the case of Carter Braxton, a Virginia politician who had fallen from popular favor. Braxton's wife's family, the Corbins, included three brothers with sympathies to the Crown. Rumors in Williamsburg, William Fleming reported to Jefferson, alleged unspecified instances of “extreme[ly] imprudent, and inimical conduct” on the part of Mrs. Braxton, which “affected his political character exceedingly.” (Ibid., 475.) The conduct appears to have been remarks protesting the imprisonment of her brother in Williamsburg. (Alonzo Thomas Dill,
Carter Braxton, Virginia Signer: A Conservative in Revolt
[Lanham, Md., 1983], 69–73.)

A
L
OYAL
IST
PLOT
IN
N
EW
Y
ORK
Ibid., 412–13. “One fact is known of necessity, that one of the General's lifeguard being thoroughly convicted was to be shot last Saturday,” wrote Jefferson on July 1. (Ibid., 412.)

T
HE
MAYOR
OF
N
EW
Y
ORK
Chernow,
Washington,
903–4.

T
HE
B
RITISH
,
MEANWHILE
,
WERE
PTJ,
I, 412. “General Howe with some ships (we know not how many) is arrived at the Hook, and, as is said, has landed some horse on the Jersey shore,” wrote Jefferson. (Ibid.)

“O
UR
CAMPS
REC
RUIT
SLOWLY
”
Ibid., 477. There was a delay in the flow of British troops to serve under Howe, but Jefferson noted that “our army [in] Canada” was “in a shattered condition.” He was frustrated by the pace of the Congress's post-declaration business of forming a government. “The minutiae of the Confederation have hitherto engaged us; the great points of representation, boundaries, taxation etc being left open,” he told Lee. It was time, he said, for Lee to relieve him. “For God's sake, for your country's sake, and for my sake, come.” (Ibid.) There was one welcome piece of news from Virginia: the defeat of Dunmore at Gwynn's Island. “This was a glorious affair,” John Page told Jefferson on July 15, 1776. “Lord Dunmore has had a most complete Drubbing.” (Ibid., 462.) Richard Henry Lee cheered the “disgrace of our African Hero at Gwynn's Island.” (Ibid., 471.)

“I
T
IS
A
PAINFUL
SITUATION
”
Ibid., 412.

“I
F
ANY
DOUBT
”
Ibid., 412–13. The vicissitudes of politics were much in evidence, and the defeat of two Virginia delegates for reelection to the Congress troubled some observers. “We are now engaged beyond the power of withdrawing, and I think cannot fail of success in happiness, if we do not defeat ourselves by intrigue and canvassing to be uppermost in offices of power and lucre,” Edmund Pendleton wrote Jefferson. There was, Pendleton said, “much of this” in the sessions at Williamsburg in which Benjamin Harrison and Carter Braxton were denied new terms. (Ibid., 471–72.) Harrison was eliminated for fairly mundane reasons: He had championed the appointment of an official physician opposed by another faction, and his foes took him out. (Ibid., 475.)