Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (94 page)

T
HE
CER
EMONIAL
PROCEEDINGS
IN
C
ONGRESS
H
ALL
McCullough,
John Adams,
467–70.

DE
LIVERED
A
SHORT
SPEE
CH
PTJ,
XXIX, 310–12. Should any lawmaker find fault with his rulings from the chair, Jefferson said, he would “rely on the liberality and candor of those from whom I differ to believe that I do it on pure motives.” (Ibid., 311.) Faced with his primary duty—that of presiding over the Senate—he turned to his oldest teacher for guidance on his newest work, writing George Wythe for thoughts on parliamentary procedure. (Ibid., 275–76.)

TO
THE
MORTALIT
Y
OF
THE
PRESIDENT
Ibid., 311.

PRESIDENTIAL
INAUGURATION
OF
J
OHN
A
DAMS
McCullough,
John Adams,
466–70.

W
ASHINGTON
SEEMED
CHEERFUL
Ferling,
Adams vs. Jefferson,
98.

“T
HE
P
RES
IDENT
IS
FORTUNATE
”
PTJ,
XXIX, 255. Washington's retirement from power was an epochal event for the country and for those who had fought for him and with him in war and peace. Jefferson assessed his old chief with a cold eye:

Such is the popularity of the President that the people will support him in whatever he will do, or will not do, without appealing to their own reason or to any thing but their feelings towards him: his mind had been so long used to unlimited applause that it could not brook contradiction, or even advice offered unasked. To advice, when asked, he is very open. I have long thought therefore it was best for the republican interest to soothe him by flattery where they could approve his measures, and to be silent where they disapprove, that they may not render him desperate as to their affections, and entirely indifferent to their wishes; in short, to lie on their oars while he remains at the helm, and let the bark drift as his will and a superintending providence shall direct. (Ibid., 252.)

“T
HE
SECOND
OFFICE
”
Ibid., 362. “When I retired from this place and the office of Secretary of State, it was in the firmest contemplation of never more returning here,” Jefferson told Gerry. “There had indeed been suggestions in the public papers that I was looking towards a succession to the President's chair. But feeling a consciousness of their falsehood, and observing that the suggestions came from hostile quarters, I considered them as intended merely to excite public odium against me. I never in my life exchanged a word with any person on the subject till I found my name brought forward generally in competition with that of Mr. Adams.” (Ibid.)

From Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry wrote of his pleasure at Jefferson's election and offered the kind of wisdom most readily available from those familiar with politics but distant from the unfolding drama of the day. “Thus circumstanced, give me leave to express my apprehensions that the consequence of this election will be repeat[ed stratagems, to] weaken or destroy the confidence of the P and VP in each other, from an assurance that if it continues to the end of the President's administration the VP will be his successor and perhaps from a dread of your political influence.” (Ibid., 326.)

A
DAMS
AND
J
EFFERSON
DINED
Ibid., 552.

“H
E
IMMEDIATELY
SAI
D
”
Ibid. Responding specifically to the suggestion that there might be tensions between him and Adams, Jefferson said: “These machinations will proceed from the Hamiltonians by whom he is surrounded, and who are only a little less hostile to him than to me.… I cannot help fearing that it is impossible for Mr. Adams to believe that the state of my mind is what it really is; that he may think I view him as an obstacle in my way.” (Ibid., 362.)

HE
FOUGHT
T
O
KEEP
THE
PEACE
EOL,
272–75.

T
HE
Q
UASI
-W
AR
WITH
F
RANC
E
Ibid., 245–46.

“
THE
HALF
WAR
WIT
H
F
RANCE
”
Ibid., 245.

RETAINED
W
AS
HINGTON
'
S
CABINET
McCullough,
John Adams,
471–72.

T
HIS
PROVED
PROBLEMATIC
It was, McCullough wrote, “one of the most fateful steps of his presidency.” (Ibid., 471.)

R
EFLECTING
ON
THE
E
VENING
CONVERSATION
Ibid.

P
ATSY
R
ANDOLPH
HAD
T
HREE
CHILDREN
Kierner,
Martha Jefferson Randolph,
102.

“
CO
NSTANTLY
RESIDES
WIT
H
HER
FATHER
”
Anne Hollingsworth Wharton,
Social Life in the Early Republic
(Williamstown, Mass., 1970), 110.

T
HE
NEXT
YEAR
P
OLLY
MARRI
ED
J
OHN
W
AYLES
E
PPES
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/maria-jefferson-eppes (accessed 2012).

N
INE
MONTHS
AND
TWO
W
EEKS
LATER
Gordon-Reed,
Hemingses of Monticello,
530–36. As Gordon-Reed noted, the original William Beverley had been a great Virginian who had known Peter Jefferson and had negotiated the Treaty of Lancaster, the instrument by which Virginia took vast swaths of lands in the West from the Six Nations of the Iroquois. Naming his son Beverly honored Virginia and two other things of immense importance to Jefferson: his father and his vision of a boundless West. (Ibid.)

“I
HAVE
BEEN
FOR
SOME
TIME
”
Ibid., XXX, 129.

“A
FEW
INDIVIDUALS
OF
NO
FIXED
SYSTEM
”
Ibid., XXIX, 437–38. Yet Jefferson still sought a degree of harmony and civility. “Political dissension is doubtless a less evil than the lethargy of despotism: but still it is a great evil, and it would be as worthy the efforts of the patriot as of the philosopher, to exclude its influence if possible, from social life,” he wrote. (Ibid., 404.)

“A
DE
TERMINATION
NEVER
TO
DO
”
Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 22–23
.

“W
HEN
THIS
I
S
IN
RETURN
”
Ibid.

A
CATAC
LYSMIC
REACTION
IN
F
R
ANCE
EOL,
239.

“I
ANTICIPATE
T
HE
BURNING
”
PTJ,
XXIX, 404–5.

M
AZZEI
PUBLICIZED
THE
W
ASHIN
GTON
LETTER
Ibid., 73–88.

“T
HE
PAS
SIONS
ARE
TOO
HIGH
”
Ibid., 456.

USING
A
NEW
YELLOW
FEV
ER
EPIDEMIC
PTJ,
XXIX, 592. “Ambition is so vigilant, and where it has a model always in view as in the present case”—Madison and Jefferson thought that Adams saw himself in a monarchial light—“is so prompt in seizing its advantages, that it cannot be too closely watched, or too vigorously checked.” (Ibid.)

“D
AMN
'
E
M
, D
AMN
'
EM
”
Ibid., 593.

“
‘F
OR
MY
P
ART
 … 
I
AVOW
MYSE
LF
A
MONARCHIST
' ”
Ibid., 596.

TWENTY
-
NINE
·
THE REIGN OF WITCHES

“N
O
, I
THINK
A
PARTY
IS
NECESSARY
”
PTJ,
XXX, 420.

A
DISTURBING
STORY
ABOUT
1787
Ibid., 13–14.

THE
FAILURE
OF
THE
NEW
GOVERNME
NT
Ibid. “They wished things to get more and more into confusion to justify the violent measure they proposed.” (Ibid., 14)

SPAT
IN
THE
FACE
OF
ANOTHER
James Morton Smith,
Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1966), 223–24. See also
EOL,
227–30.

AFT
ER
G
RISWOLD
INSULTED
L
YON
'
S
COURAGE
James Morton Smith,
Freedom's Fetters,
223–24.

A
N
EFFORT
TO
EXPEL
L
YON
Ibid.

ATTACKED
L
YON
WITH
A
CANE
EOL,
229.

SEIZED
SOME
FIREPLAC
E
TONGS
Ibid.

BRAWLED
ON
THE
H
OUSE
FLOOR
Ibid.

A
DI
PLOMATIC
MISSION
TO
F
RANCE
HAD
FAILED
Ibid., 243.

“
P
RODUCED
SUCH
A
SHOCK
”
Ibid.

A
MESSAGE
CALLING
ON
A
MERICANS
John Adams, “Special Message,” March 19, 1798,
The American Presidency Project
, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=65650 (accessed 2012).

“
ADOP
T
WITH
PROMPTITUDE
”
Ibid.

“
OUR
SEAFARING
AND
C
OMMERCIAL
CITIZENS
”
Ibid.

KNOWN
AS
THE
A
LIEN
AND
S
EDI
TION
A
CTS
EOL
, 249, 259. See also Risjord,
Jefferson's America,
292–96.

“
WRITE
,
PRINT
,
UTTER
OR
PUBLI
SH
”
Ibid., 259.

“E
VERYONE
HAS
A
R
IGHT
”
PTJ,
XXX, 434–35.

“H
OW
INCREDIBL
E
WAS
IT
”
PTJ,
XXXI, 445.

FINES
UP
TO
$2,000
AND
UP
TO
TWO
YEA
RS
IN
PRISON
EOL,
259.

“F
OR
M
Y
OWN
PART
”
PTJ,
XXX, 560.