Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (83 page)

“
THE
WORLD
HA
S
AT
LENGTH
”
Ibid., 356.

“W
E
HAVE
HAD
13
STATES
”
Ibid., 356–57.

“T
HE
WAN
T
OF
FACTS
”
Ibid., 357.

HE
REACT
ED
TO
THE
C
ONSTITUTIO
N
Ibid., 438–43.

“
FREEDOM
OF
RELIG
ION
”
Ibid., 440.

“A
FTER
ALL
,
IT
IS
MY
PRINCIPLE
”
Ibid., 442.

J
EFFE
RSON
SUGGESTED
THAT
Ibid., 569–70. “I sincerely wish that the 9 first conventions may receive, and the 4 last reject it,” he wrote Madison in February 1788. “The former will secure it finally, while the latter will oblige them to offer a declaration of rights in order to complete the union. We shall thus have all its good, and cure its principal defect.” (Ibid.) Madison disagreed. He believed full ratification was the essential first step.

Some in Virginia wanted a conditional ratification like the one Jefferson had suggested earlier or a call for a new convention to take matters up again. “In either event, I think the Constitution and the Union will be both endangered,” Madison wrote Jefferson in April 1788. (
PTJ,
XIII, 98.)

“T
HERE
ARE
INDEED
SOME
FAULTS
”
Ibid., XIII, 174. Jefferson was brought into the debate over the ratification of the Constitution by proxy on Monday, June 9, 1788, by Patrick Henry, who sought to turn Jefferson's skepticism about parts of the Constitution into wholehearted opposition. (Ibid., 354–55.)

“I might go farther,” Henry told the Virginia ratifying convention, “I might say, not from public authority, but good information, that his opinion is, that you reject this government. His character and abilities are in the highest estimation; he is well acquainted, in every respect, with this country.… This illustrious citizen advises you to reject this government till it be amended.… At a great distance from us, he remembers and studies our happiness. Living in splendor and dissipation, he thinks yet of bills of rights—thinks of those little, despised things called
maxims
. Let us follow the sage advice of this common friend of our happiness.” (Ibid., 354.)

Madison had had enough of Henry. “I believe that, were that gentleman now on this floor, he would be for the adoption of this Constitution. I wish his name had never been mentioned. I … know that the delicacy of his feelings will be wounded when he will see in print what has and may be said concerning him on this occasion.” (Ibid., 355.)

The problem was that Henry's interpretation of Jefferson's position was plausible—but Henry was interpreting Jefferson's
February
position in
June,
after Jefferson had moved to an affirmative view of the Constitution. Jefferson was now largely in agreement with Francis Hopkinson, who observed: “Whether
this
is the best possible system of government, I will not pretend to say. Time must determine; but I am well persuaded that without an efficient federal government, the states must in a very short time sink into contempt and the most dangerous confusion.” (Ibid., 370.) Because of the distance, however, no one could know that Jefferson had reached this conclusion, which made Madison's rescue mission all the more difficult. But the mission succeeded.

J
EFFERSON
FOLLOWED
THE
POLITI
CS
OF
RATIFICATION
Ibid., 159–61.

T
HE
SIGNIFICANCE
OF
THE
PR
ESIDENCY
Ibid., 352.

GLIMPSED
M
A
RIA
C
OSWAY
'
S
HANDWRIT
ING
Ibid., 103–4.

“A
T
H
EIDELBERG
I
WI
SHED
”
Ibid., 104.

H
E
SHARED
A
JO
KE
WITH
HER
Ibid. See also Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
281–82.

FASCI
NATED
BY
A
1699
PAINTING
Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
281–83. Fawn Brodie was the first observer to point out the implications of Jefferson's interest in an image of a patriarchal figure being given a young slave woman for sexual purposes while Sally Hemings was living with Jefferson in Paris. (Ibid.)

T
HE
PICTURE
,
HE
SA
ID
,
WAS
“
DELICIOUS
”
PTJ,
XIII, 103.

“P
ARIS
IS
NOW
BECOME
”
Ibid., 151.

TWENTY
-
TWO
·
A TREATY IN PARIS

“
H
E
DESIRED
TO
BRING
MY
MOTHE
R
”
Lewis and Onuf,
Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson,
256.

THERE
WAS
S
ALLY
H
EMINGS
Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
326–28.

HAD
BEEN
P
AID
SOME
SMALL
WAGES
Ibid., 236.

TWELVE
LIVRES
A
MO
NTH
FOR
TEN
MONTHS
Ibid., 236–41.

HAD
BOUGHT
CLOTHING
Ibid., 259–60.

HAD
HER
INOCULATED
Ibid., 213–23.

J
AMES
WAS
T
RAINED
AS
A
CHEF
Ibid
.
, 169–90.

MAY
HAVE
SERVED
THE
J
EFFERSON
DAU
GHTERS
Ibid., 211–13.

“
THE
STRONGE
ST
OF
HUMAN
PASSIONS
”
Burstein,
Jefferson's Secrets,
171.

“
LIGHT
COLORED
A
ND
DECIDEDLY
GOOD
LO
OKING
”
http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/appendix-h-sally-hemings-and-her-children (accessed 2012).

AT
THE
TIMES
SHE
WAS
LIKELY
TO
HA
VE
CONCEIVED
Ibid.

ENSLAVE
D
PERSONS
COULD
APPL
Y
FOR
THEIR
LIBERTY
Ibid., 172–82.

HE
HAD
ONCE
ADVISED
A
FELLO
W
SLAVE
OWNER
Ibid., 182–83.

“M
R
. J
EF
FERSON
'
S
CONCUBINE
”
Lewis and Onuf,
Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson,
256.

WAS
PREGNANT
WHEN
J
EFFERSON
WAS
PREPARI
NG
Ibid.

“S
HE
WAS
JUST
BEG
INNING
”
Ibid.

S
HE
,
NOT
HE
,
W
AS
IN
CONTROL
Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
339. “Whether she had had time in her young life to learn this fact about him or not, the truth is that few things could have disturbed the very thin-skinned, possessive, and controlling Jefferson more deeply than having persons in his inner circle take the initiative and express their willingness to remove themselves from it,” wrote Gordon-Reed. (Ibid.)

“T
O
INDUCE
HER
TO
DO
SO
”
Lewis and Onuf,
Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson,
256.

“I
N
CONSEQUENCE
OF
HIS
PROMISE
”
Ibid.

T
HEIR
FATHER
KEPT
THE
PROMISE
Ibid.

“W
E
ALL
BEC
AME
FREE
”
Ibid., 256. Here is a summary of the Jefferson-Hemings children and their fates, from Lucia C. Stanton, Shannon Senior Research Historian at Monticello:

Sally Hemings had at least six children, who are now believed to have been fathered by Thomas Jefferson years after his wife's death. According to Jefferson's records, four survived to adulthood. Beverly (b. 1798), a carpenter and fiddler, was allowed to leave the plantation in late 1821 or early 1822 and, according to his brother, passed into white society in Washington, D.C. Harriet (b. 1801), a spinner in Jefferson's textile shop, also left Monticello in 1821 or 1822, probably with her brother, and passed for white. Madison Hemings (1805–1878), a carpenter and joiner, was given his freedom in Jefferson's will; he resettled in southern Ohio in 1836, where he worked at his trade and had a farm. Eston Hemings (1808–ca. 1856), also a carpenter, moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, in the 1830s. There he was a well-known professional musician before moving about 1852 to Wisconsin, where he changed his surname to Jefferson along with his racial identity. Both Madison and Eston Hemings made known their belief that they were sons of Thomas Jefferson. (TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/sally-hemings [accessed 2012].)

THE
CALLIN
G
OF
THE
E
STATES
-G
ENER
AL
JHT,
II, 193.

“I
IMAGINE
YOU
HA
VE
HEARD
”
PTJ,
XIII, 358.

THE
TWO
M
EN
MET
IN
A
MSTERDAM
JHT,
II, 187–92, and Peterson,
Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation,
367–68, are useful on these issues.

THE
FIRST
TREATY
TO
BE
RATIFIE
D
JHT,
II, 199–202;
PTJ,
XIV, 66–180.

W
ASHINGTON
WAS
TO
BE
PRESIDENT
PTJ,
XIV, 3–4. To Jefferson, William S. Smith reported on a (failed) anti-Federalist scheme to roil the new government. The purported plan: Have Virginia refuse to vote for Washington for president, which would then, in this scenario, make Adams president. It was a result, Smith told Jefferson, “which would not be consistent with the wish of the country and could only arise from the finesse of antifederal electors with a view to produce confusion and embarrass the operations of the Constitution, against which many have set their faces.” (Ibid., 559–60.)

“I
T
IS
 … 
DOUBTFUL
”
Ibid., XIII, 502.

“H
ANCOCK
IS
WEAK
”
Ibid., XIV, 17.

AN
“
ILL
UNDERSTANDING
”
Ibid., 275.

“
WHO
HAD
BEEN
UTTER
LY
AVERSE
”
Ibid., 301. Humphreys concluded: “Still, all the more reasonable men saw that the remedy would be infinitely worse than the disease.” (Ibid.)