Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (85 page)

H
E
ALSO
SET
OUT
“
ROVING
THROUGH
”
Ibid., 509.

“O
N
OUR
RETURN
”
Ibid.

PURCHASING
“
A
CHIENNE
BERGERE
”
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/dogs (accessed 2012).

“
THE
MOST
C
AREFUL
INTELLIGENT
D
OGS
”
Ibid.

TWENTY
-
THREE
·
A NEW POST IN NEW YORK

“W
E
HAVE
B
EEN
FELLOW
-
LABORERS
”
PTJ,
XVI, 179.

“I
N
GENERAL
, I
THINK
IT
NECESSARY
”
Ibid., 493.

“
FINE
AUTUMN
WEATHE
R
”
Ibid., XV, 552.

AT
A
QUARTER
TO
O
NE
Ibid., 560.

AN
OFFER
FROM
TH
E
PRESIDENT
Ibid., 519. “In the selection of characters to fill the important offices of government in the United States,” George Washington wrote Jefferson, “I was naturally led to contemplate the talents and disposition which I knew you to possess and entertain for the service of your country.” (Ibid.)

Madison underscored Washington's message. “I take for granted that you will … have known the ultimate determination of the President on your appointment,” he wrote Jefferson on January 24, 1790. “All that I am able to say on the subject is that a universal anxiety is expressed for your acceptance; and to repeat my declarations that such an event will be more conducive to the general good, and perhaps to the very objects you have in view in Europe, than your return to your former station.” (Ibid., XVI, 126.) Madison had been consistent. “It is of infinite importance that you should not disappoint the public wish on this subject,” he had written when the nomination was approved. (Ibid., 169.)

“
CRITICISMS
AND
CENSURES
”
Ibid., XVI, 34.

W
ASHINGTON
LEFT
THE
TACTICAL
WO
RK
Ibid., 118. All in all, Jefferson said, he preferred to return to France. “But it is not for an individual to choose his post,” Jefferson wrote Washington. “You are to marshal us as may best be for the public good.… [B]e so good only as to signify to me by another line your ultimate wish, and I shall conform to it cordially.” (Ibid., 34–35.)

WAS
NOT
TO
BE
IN
CHARGE
OF
ALL
DOMESTIC
AFFAIRS
Ibid. “I was sorry to find him so little biased in favor of the domestic service allotted to him,” Madison wrote Washington on Monday, January 4, 1790, “but was glad that his difficulties seemed to result chiefly from what I take to be an erroneous view of the kind and quantity of business annexed to that which constituted the foreign department.” There was a domestic component to the job, but Madison expected it to be minimal. (Ibid.)

A
STRONG
CASE
FOR
THE
CABINET
Ibid., 116.

W
ASHINGTON
WANTED
AN
ANSWER
Ibid., 118. As Jefferson considered his course, he replied to an “Address” the people of Albemarle County had presented to him expressing their thanks and respect on his return from abroad. (Ibid., 167–80.) “At an early period of your life and a very critical era of public affairs we elected you our representative in the general Assembly.… In that station your virtues and talents became known to your country, by whom they were afterwards made more extensively beneficial to the community at large.” (Ibid., 177.)

As noted above, his reply encapsulated the creed he had forged through experience and contemplation in the quarter century since his first session of the House of Burgesses:

We have been fellow-laborers and fellow-sufferers, and heaven has rewarded us with a happy issue from our struggles. It rests now with ourselves alone to enjoy in peace and concord the blessings of self-government, so long denied to mankind: to show by example the sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs and that the will of the majority, the natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err. But its errors are honest, solitary and short-lived.—Let us then, my dear friends, forever bow down to the general reason of the society. We are safe with that, even in its deviations, for it soon returns again to the right way. These are lessons we have learnt together. (Ibid., 178.)

H
E
ACCEPTED
W
ASHINGTON
'
S
OFFER
Ibid., 184.

SPOKE
IN
P
RACTICAL
POLITICAL
T
ERMS
Ibid., 228–29.

DECIDED
TO
MAR
RY
HER
THIRD
COUSIN
Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr.
JHT,
II, 250–52. See also Kierner,
Martha Jefferson Randolph,
76–82.

T
HEY
HAD
MET
WH
EN
P
ATSY
WAS
A
CHILD
Kierner,
Martha Jefferson Randolph,
76–77.

A
MBITIOUS
,
WELL
EDUCATED
,
AND
BLAC
K
-
HAIRED
Ibid., 77. “My daughter, on her arrival in Virginia, received the addresses of a young Mr. Randolph, the son of a bosom friend of mine,” Jefferson wrote Madame de Corny. (
PTJ,
XVI, 290.)

“T
HOUGH
H
IS
TALENTS
”
PTJ,
XVI, 290.

TO
ARRA
NGE
P
ATSY
'
S
MARRIAGE
SETTLEMENT
Ibid., 182.

T
HE
WEDD
ING
TOOK
PLACE
Ibid., 189–91.

WAS
PERHAPS
REACTING
TO
HER
FATHER
'
S
LIAISON
Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
422. For Gordon-Reed's complete discussion of Patsy's courtship and marriage—including the fact that Jefferson did not follow custom and give Sally Hemings, a familiar figure, to either of his daughters on the occasions of their marriages—see ibid., 414–27.

R
ANDOLPH
WAS
INT
ERESTED
IN
FARMING
PTJ,
XVI, 370. “The necessity I am under of turning my attention to the cultivation of my little farm has inclined my thoughts of late towards agriculture,” Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., wrote Jefferson. “To one as fond as I am of physical research, and so much accustomed to exercise, such an inclination might be dangerous: but however enticing the subject, however pleasing the employment, I am resolved it shall never seduce me from the study of the law, and the attempt to acquire political knowledge.” (Ibid.)

Jefferson was intimately engaged with the lives of his daughters. Patsy's marriage did not change that. Randolph's father gave the couple an estate southeast of Richmond, called Varina. Both of the newlyweds came to prefer Edgehill, a place near Monticello, but they could not yet afford it. Jefferson offered his counsel, but his own financial affairs were such that he could not offer much more. (Ibid., 386–87. See also
JHT,
II, 252–53.) “No circumstance ever made me feel so strongly the thralldom of Mr. Wayles's debt,” he told his eldest daughter. “Were I liberated from that, I should not fear but that Col. Randolph and myself … could effect fixing you there.” (
PTJ,
XVI, 387.) The Randolphs ultimately bought Edgehill.

THE
CARE
AND
TENDING
Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
247–48.

T
HE
PRECISE
LOCATION
OF
HER
LIV
ING
QUARTERS
IS
UNKN
OWN
I am indebted to Monticello's Lucia Stanton and Susan Stein for this information.

MULBERRY
ROW
I am indebted to Susan Stein for this description of Mulberry Row.

S
LOW
AND
AT
TIMES
SNO
WY
PTJ,
XVI, 277–78.

“T
HE
C
ONGRESS
UND
ER
THE
NEW
CONSTITUT
ION
”
Ibid., XV, 91.

J
EFFERSON
COULD
NOT
FIND
QUARTERS
Ibid., XVI, 278–79.

“
AN
INDIFFERENT
ONE
”
Ibid., 300.

“M
R
. J
EFFERSON
IS
HERE
”
Cappon,
Adams-Jefferson Letters,
xxxix.

THEN
–
RELA
TIVELY
REMOTE
NEIGHB
ORHOOD
JHT,
II, 259.

L
EOPOLD
II,
THE
H
OLY
R
OMAN
E
MPEROR
Jeremy Black,
From Louis XIV to Napoleon
(London, 1999), 159.

THE
D
ECLARATION
OF
P
ILLNITZ
Ibid.

DECLARED
WAR
ON
A
US
TRIA
Ibid., 160.

A
THIRTEEN
-
YEA
R
SERIES
OF
WARS
EOL,
175.

D
REW
B
RITAIN
AND
S
PAIN
INTO
WAR
For a very general overview, see U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, “The United States and the
French Revolution, 1789–1799,” http://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/
FrenchRev (accessed 2012).

O
N
S
UNDAY
, M
ARCH
21, 1790
PTJ,
XVI, 288.

A
“
DAILY
,
CONF
IDENTIAL
AND
CORDIAL
”
PTJRS,
VII, 103.

AFTER
W
ASHINGTON
S
AT
FOR
A
PORTRAIT
JHT,
II, 259.

“N
OTHING
CAN
EXCEL
M
R
. J
EFF
ERSON
'
S
ABILITIES
”
PTJ,
XIV, 223.

“I
HAVE
FOUND
M
R
. J
EFFERSON
”
Ibid., XV, 498.

“Y
OU
CAN
SCARCELY
HAV
E
HEARD
”
Ibid., VII, 383.

“H
E
WAS
INCA
PABLE
OF
FEAR
”
PTJRS,
VII, 101.

“H
IS
MIND
WAS
GREAT
”
Ibid.

“H
IS
TEMPER
WAS
NATURALLY
”
Ibid.

WAS
STRUCK
BY
See
PTJ,
XVI, 416; 432; 435–36; 487.