Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (73 page)

“
SPIRITUAL
TYRANNY
”
Jefferson,
Writings,
34.

“
OUR
S
AVIOR
CHOSE
NOT
TO
PROPAGATE
”
PTJ,
I, 544.

J
EFFERSON
'
S
NOTES
ON
THE
IS
SUE
Ibid., 537.

PETITIONED
THE
ASSEMBLY
FOR
RELIEF
JHT,
I, 274–80.

“
BROUGHT
ON
THE
SE
VEREST
CONTESTS
”
Jefferson,
Writings,
34.

“
HONEST
MEN
,
BUT
ZEALO
US
”
Ibid.

STATUTE
FOR
RELI
GIOUS
LIBERTY
Ibid., 40. See also John A. Ragosta, “The Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom,” in Cogliano, ed.,
A Companion to Thomas Jefferson,
75–90.

“
ME
ANT
TO
COMPREHEND
”
Jefferson,
Writings,
34.

AN
AMENDMENT
STIPUL
ATING
“
THE
FREEDOM
”
Ibid., 44. See also Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 227, and Miller,
Wolf by the Ears,
19–22.

“I
T
WAS
FOUND
THAT
”
Ibid.

“Y
ET
THE
DAY
IS
NOT
DISTANT
”
Ibid. Two acts did succeed in 1778 and in 1782 in Virginia: an abolition of the slave trade and a liberalization of manumission laws—what Miller called “the only concrete legislative achievements of the war years with a direct bearing upon slavery. For Jefferson, it was a disappointing performance: He had hoped that Virginia would take the lead among the states in providing for the eventual abolition of slavery and in arranging for the resettlement of the freed blacks outside the United States after peace had been restored.” (Miller,
Wolf by the Ears,
22.)

“T
HE
E
NEMY
”
PTJ,
I, 659.

“N
O
MAN
 … 
EVER
HAD
”
Ferling,
Almost a Miracle,
167.

REPORTS
T
HAT
G
ERMANY
PTJ,
II, 13–14.

“10,000
MEN
CH
IEFLY
G
ERMANS
”
Ibid., 14.

“T
HE
S
OU
THERN
AND
M
IDDLE
COLO
NIES
”
Ibid.

GAVE
BIRTH
TO
A
SON
MB,
I, 447.

LIVED
ONLY
S
EVENTEEN
DAYS
Ibid.

I
F
TH
E
J
EFFERSONS
GAVE
HIM
A
NAME
Ibid.

A
T
HOME
ON
THE
FIRST
OF
A
UGUST
Ibid., 468.

RECORDING
THE
DOMESTIC
D
ETAILS
Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson Account Book.

HANDWRITING
WAS
STRONG
AND
CLEAR
Author observation.

T
HERE
ARE
DOODLES
,
TOO
Ibid.

“
FREE
FROM
BLOT
”
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/martha-wayles-skelton-jefferson (accessed 2012).

“
TOLD
OF
NEATNESS
”
Ibid.

TO
SEW
CLOTHES
AND
SUPPLY
THE
ARMY
PTJ,
III, 532. See also Scharff,
Women Jefferson Loved,
134–35. Scharff reported that at least one additional letter from Mrs. Jefferson on the subject has been located in recent years, which changes the historical consensus that the communication to Eleanor Conway Madison was the only surviving letter of Patty Jefferson's. (Ibid., 419.)

“M
RS
. W
ASHINGTON
HAS
”
Ibid.

“C
OULD
WE
BUT
GET
”
Ibid., II, 3.

“T
HE
Y
PLAY
THE
VERY
D
EVIL
”
Ibid.

“W
E
HAVE
PRETTY
CERTA
IN
”
Ibid., 264. See also Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 245. A different kind of war was at hand. “I am of opinion the enemy have pretty well lost sight of conquering America by arms; for instead of drawing their force to a point, and making an effort against our grand army, it seems to be their plan to carry on a kind of piratical war in detached parties, by burning our towns, plundering our sea coasts, and distressing individuals,” William Fleming wrote Jefferson on May 22, 1779. (
PTJ,
II, 268.)

ELECTED
GOVE
RNOR
OF
V
IRGINIA
Ibid., 277–78.

“I
N
A
VIRTUOUS
AND
FREE
STATE
”
Ibid.

T
HE
BALLOTING
HAD
PITTED
Ibid.

J
EFFERS
ON
AND
J
OHN
P
AGE
WERE
COMPELLED
Ibid., 278–79.

“A
S
THIS
I
S
THE
FIRST
”
Ibid., 279.

I
SAAC
J
E
FFERSON
RECALLED
Bear,
Jefferson at Monticello,
4.

TWELVE
·
A TROUBLESOME OFFICE

“
T
HEY
CERTAINLY
ME
AN
”
PTJ,
II, 236.

“
I
AM
THOROUGHLY
”
Ibid., III, 405.

“
T
HEY
FORMED
IN
LINE
”
Bear,
Jefferson at Monticello,
8.

THE
THREAT
AND
T
HEN
THE
REALITY
Overall, optimism about America's military prospects grew in 1779–80. France and Spain were now with the United States; these allies were able to pressure Britain in the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. The British faced wars as far away as southern India. (Jeremy Black,
Crisis of Empire: Britain and America in the Eighteenth Century
[London, 2008], 159.) The difficulties Britain confronted globally, though, did not immediately translate into fatal weakness in America. By turning more attention and force to the South—to Georgia, to the Carolinas, and to Governor Jefferson's Virginia—the British were able to bring terror to the American interior.

For a revisionist view of Jefferson's performance as governor, see Emory G. Evans, “Executive Leadership in Virginia, 1776–1781: Henry, Jefferson, and Nelson,” in
Sovereign States in an Age of Uncertainty,
ed. Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville, Va., 1981), 185–225.

G
EORGIA
HAD
COLLAPSED
Ferling,
Almost a Miracle,
384–85.

S
OUTH
C
AROLINA
WAS
NEX
T
Ibid.

A
TWO
-
FRONT
WAR
PTJ,
III, 29–30. As Richard Henry Lee told Jefferson: “In Virginia we have properly two frontiers, one bordered by a wilderness, the other by a sea. Into both of these issue savages, and into the latter the most savage.” (Ibid.)

YEARS
OF
“
INTENSE
LA
BOR
”
PTJ,
II, 298.

“I
WILL
NOT
CONG
RATULATE
YOU
”
Ibid., III, 11.

CAPTUR
E
OF
H
ENRY
H
AMILTON
PTJ,
II, 287. See also ibid., 292–95, for the actual orders about the irons. Under attack from the British about the treatment of Hamilton, Jefferson, who detested such attacks, put the matter to George Washington. “The importance of this question in a public view, and my own anxiety under a charge of a violation of national faith, [as] the Executive of this Commonwealth, will I hope apologize for my adding this to the many, many troubles with which I know you to be burdened,” Jefferson wrote Washington on July 17, 1779. (Ibid., III, 41.) Washington's reply was moderate in tone. “Whether it may be expedient to continue him in his present confinement from motives of policy and to satisfy our people, is a question I cannot determine; but if it should, I would take the liberty to suggest that it may be proper to publish all the cruelties he has committed or abetted … and the evidence in support of the charges.” (Ibid., 61.)

“
THE
H
AIR
B
UYER
G
ENERAL
”
Ibid.

I
N
M
AY
1778
HE
HAD
DRAFTED
A
BILL
OF
ATTAINDER
Ibid., 189–93. See also W. P. Trent, “The Case of Josiah Philips,”
American Historical Review
1, no. 3 (April 1896): 444–54.

FOR
“
COMMITTING
MURDERS
”
Ibid., 190. As Jefferson recalled the episode, “Philips was a mere robber, who availing himself of the troubles of the times, collected a banditti, retired to the Dismal swamp, and from thence sallied forth, plundering and maltreating the neighboring inhabitants, and covering himself, without authority, under the name of a British subject.” (Ibid., 191.)

AN
EXTRAORDINARY
EXP
RESSION
OF
POWER
Ibid., 191–93. In
PTJ,
Julian P. Boyd wrote:

The Bill that TJ drew, though it was indeed an attainder limited by the condition that Philips surrender himself before a certain date to be tried according to regular judicial procedure, nevertheless was an assumption by the legislature that (1) Philips was a common criminal and was not acting under a British commission, and (2) that the legislature could of right make such a distinction affecting the life and liberty of an individual. Since this was assuming to the legislature a power over the rights of an individual usually regarded as belonging within the province of the judiciary and under protection of established legal procedures, the least that can be said about the Bill of Attainder of 1778 is that it was an extreme violation of TJ's belief in the principle of the separation of powers of government. (Ibid., 192.)

Leonard Levy uses the case in his argument against Jefferson's record on civil liberties. (Leonard W. Levy,
Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side
[Chicago, 1989].)

“
COMMUTE
A
GOOD
PART
”
PTJ,
II, 194. The problem of recruitment was a recurring one. Jefferson's tendency to cast reality in congenial ways at the price of strict accuracy was on display in a letter he wrote to Benjamin Franklin. At a time of disturbing rumors about the commitment of different American states to the cause of an independent nation, Jefferson wanted to impress Franklin with Virginia's fealty. “With respect to the state of Virginia in particular, the people seem to have deposited the monarchial and taken up the republican government with as much ease as would have attended their throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes,” Jefferson said on August 13, 1777. “Not a single throe has attended this important transformation.” (Ibid., 26.)