JEFFERSON NOTES Jefferson Notes is a publication of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society Richard Dixon Editor jeffersonnotes@earthlink.net Fall 2009 No. 7
JEFFERSON PLACES
JEFFERSON ROCK
H
igh above the confluwas the first sentence of the essay Crisis, by ence of the Shenandoah Thomas Paine. Paine was an aide to Nathaniel Greene in the Conti- and Potomac rivers, Thomas Jef-
nental Army and wrote this stirring appeal to patriotism during the retreat across the Delaware. George Washington had it read to his men to rally them for the attack on Trenton. There would be 12 more essays, the last appearing in 1783. They would be later compiled as The American Crisis. Paine became the voice of the revolution. Paine had arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1774, with a background of failed ventures, and nothing to suggest he stood on the edge of world acclaim as a political philosopher. Armed with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, he was immediately swept up in the fervor to separate the American colonies from the British crown. In January 1776, he published Common Sense, which attacked George III and became part of the increasing debate over independence and a new republican form of government Although Paine would become one of the most widely read advocates of enlightenment thought, he would remain on the edge of poverty his entire life. He donated the proceeds from his writings to the American cause. Paine was also an inventor, and one endeavor to make his fortune was a new concept for a portable iron bridge, which he hoped to erect over the Schuylkill River. Unfortunately, he could not entice investors in America, so in 1887 he returned to England. His design was used to construct a bridge across the Wear River but he received no payment. He unsuccessfully sought investors in London and Paris, and finally abandoned the bridge venture in 1791. In that year, in response to Edmund Burke’s condemnation of the French Revolution, he published Part One of the Rights of Man and outlined the principles of the social welfare state. His attack on monarchies was considered a libel of George III and Paine was forced to flee to France. The later American edition had a preface by Thomas Jefferson, who had befriended Paine in Philadelphia. John Adams felt Jefferson had attacked him and this added to the growing estrangement between these two old friends. It also added to the conflict between the pro-British FedThomas Paine Born Thetford, England 1-28-1737 eralists and the pro-French Jeffersonian ReDied New Rochelle, NY 6-8-1809 publicans. Paine accepted the hospitality of the Marquis de Lafayette and finished Part Two of the Rights of Cont’d on page 5
ferson stood and watched them
join as they rolled east through the mountains. He would later write in the Notes on the State of Virginia that it was “perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.” This was in October 1783. Jefferson was accompanied by his daughter Martha and they passed through Harpers Ferry (now West Virginia) on the way to Philadelphia for a meeting of the Continental Congress. The hill where Jefferson stood is a short but steep walk above the town. Apparently, Jefferson's insatiable curiosity led him to the highest point above the rivers. Jefferson was able to climb up on a shale slab that rested on a stone foundation. That later became unsafe and between 1855 and 1864 the Armory superintendent had sand stone pillars inserted under the slab to stabilize it. Today, visitors may approach the rock, but may not emulate Jefferson Cont’d on page 5
A
Resemblance Claim Unsupported
bsent any direct evidence that Thomas Jefferson had a relationship with Sally Hemings, the paternity believers seek to snare Jefferson in a web of circumstances. One of these is the claimed resemblance to Jefferson of Eston Hemings. This is apparently based on an anecdote in a Chillicothe, Ohio newspaper in 1902. A group of men from Chillicothe thought a statue of Jefferson on the lawn of the White House bore a striking resemblance to Eston Hemings. While these men may have thought Eston looked like the statue, there is some conflict whether the statue looked like Jefferson. To peruse the portraits and statues made of Jefferson during his lifetime is to see a thin thread of resemblance (of course, we know that all are supposed to be JefferTHE JEFFERSON STATUE ERECTED BY PRESIDENT JAMES POLK ON THE son) among a widely diverWHITE HOUSE LAWN IN THE 1840'S. gent set of faces. The “resemblance argument” was first created by James Callender in his September 1,1802 claim in the Richmond Recorder that Jefferson had a slave son. He asserts that “Tom,” who was about 12 years old, bore a “striking although sable resemblance” to Jefferson, who would have been 59. This claim evaporated along with Tom when the DNA tests proved that the descendants of the slave family who claim descent from Tom were not the descendants of Thomas Jefferson. Ten years after he published his biography of Jefferson, Henry Randall wrote a letter in 1868 to James Parton, who was preparing a new biography of Jefferson. Randall related a conversation that he had 16 -17 years earlier with Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Jeff e rs o n ’s g r a n d so n . R a n d a l l h a s BY Randolph say “she had children which ENGRAVING VERNOR AND resembled Mr. Jefferson,” and that a HOOD WHEN JEFFERSON WAS dinner guest was “startled” at the resem- 58 blance of a servant. But the circumstance of time make it highly unlikely Randall has correctly conveyed the context of Randolph’s remarks. The “servant” is not identified, nor is the “startled” guest. If it were Hemings’s oldest son Beverley even at age 10, Jefferson would have been 65. There WAX BAS-RELIEF would have been little apparent resemSCULPTURED FROM LIFE BY VALAPEERTA blance between the two; certainly not a WHEN JEFFERSON WAS 73 startling one. By the time the youngest son Eston was 10, Jefferson was 75. The disparity in appearance would become more pronounced as Jefferson ages. There is also the unproved assumption that Sally Hemings was Martha Jefferson’s half-sister. This leads some writers to fantasize that LIFE PORTRAIT BY Thomas Jefferson saw in Hemings a THOMAS SULLY JEFFRSON resemblance to his dead wife. In the WHEN WAS 78 recent The Hemingses of Monticello, author Annette Gordon-Reed has Jefferson see himself in the little Beverley running about the floors of Monticello. This turns circumstantial evidence inside out, in which the circumstances can only be true if the ultimate fact of paternity is first believed. Jefferson Notes page 2
The Madison Hemings interview was published in the Pike County (Ohio) Republican on March 13, 1873, almost 50 years after Hemings left Monticello. This interview is important to the paternity believers because it is the only declaration by a Jefferson relative, acquaintance, or slave, that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings. We will continue in Jefferson Notes to examine it.
In the interview, Hemings recalls that “unlike Washington [Jefferson] had but little taste or care for agricultural pursuits.” If we are to believe that Hemmings knew that Jefferson was his father and each maintained an unspoken awareness of the other, Hemings could not have failed to observe Jefferson’s extensive activities in the gardens and fields around Monticello. Jefferson’s meticulous notes on the progress of his plantings, vegetables, fruits, and ornamentals, were recorded in his garden book. In addition, there were four or five letters a year to friends on the aspects of gardening. He planted seeds from the Lewis and Clark expedition, from friends in other countries and from his own collection while he was in Europe. ”More than 150 varieties of fruit trees and 350 varieties of vegetables might be growing at one time.” The gardens and landscaping at Monticello were all supervised by Jefferson. He corresponded with a wide circle of friends exchanging details of planting seasons, methods of fertilizing and harvesting. In spite of his many other accomplishments, Jefferson considered himself to be a gardener. All of this activity took place during Madison’s youth. It is also odd that Hemings would compare Jefferson to Washington who had been dead more than a decade before Hemings was a young boy. The structure of this interview in many ways suggests that details were embroidered by the writer. What it does indicate to us is that after Hemings began to assume jobs as a young boy, he had little contact or interest in Jefferson’s activities around Monticello. The awareness of either that they were father and son was never manifested.
THE JEFFERSON IMAGE JEFFERSON and SLAVERY Slavery in Virginia The first record of people in a form of servitude in the American colonies were 20 blacks brought to Jamestown in 1619 by a Dutch ship, who were exchanged for tobacco. It is unclear whether they were treated as indentured servants since the term “slaves” does not appear in the Virginia records until 1656. In 1661 the General Assembly legalized slavery and in 1662 declared that all children born of a slave mother were slaves. The manumission by slave owners began sometime prior to 1691. In that year, an act provided that “no Negro or mulatto” could be set free unless the person emancipating provided that the freed man was sent out of the country within six months. After a 1723 law, emancipation could only be granted by the governor and council. By 1680 slaves were treated as chattel, property that could be bought, sold or willed to another and had no legal rights, such as owning property or voting. Virginia passed its first anti-miscegenation law in 1691 forbidding intermarriage between a free “white man or woman... (and) any negroe, mulatto, or Indian man or woman bond or free,” on pain of banishment. In the development of “black codes,” slaves were declared to be real estate in 1705, in order to facilitate inheritance. After the War of Spanish Succession, the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 awarded the Spanish slave trade to Great Britain which made it the dominant slave trader in the western hemisphere. At the time of Thomas Jefferson’s birth in 1743, slavery was pervasive throughout the Atlantic world.
Jefferson’s Early Efforts Against Slavery As a member of the General Assembly in 1769, Jefferson was able to influence an older member to propose the emancipation of the slaves. Jefferson recorded later in his autobiography that he “made one effort... for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected.” Early in Jefferson’s legal career he represented Samuel Howell, a man of mixed race who was bound out (placed in servitude) under a 1705 law. This law provided that a child born out of wedlock to a white woman and a negro or mulatto would be bound out to the churchwardens until the person reached 31 years. A subsequent amendment in 1723 provided that if such a person in servitude also had a child out of wedlock, that child shall also be “bound out.” Howell’s grandmother had been bound out, and when 18 she gave birth to an out of wedlock daughter, who at 19 gave birth out of wedlock to Howell. Jefferson argued that the law did not extend to the third generation. However, the court decided against Howell. Although this was not a slave case, Jefferson’s argument did encompass the law designating whether a child was slave or free depended on the condition of the mother. He also commented, “(U)nder the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person...” Jefferson’s law practice lasted about eight years. Soon after he retired in 1774, he wrote a Summary View of the Rights of British America, which was submitted to the first Continental Congress. He presented a detailed legal and historical argument that
British Americans were entitled to all of the civil rights of British citizens developed in the long conflict with the English crown. He provided a catalogue of the usurpations of power by George III, including a condemnation of the slave trade. “The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies...and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice.” That year the Continental Congress did place a ban on imports/exports with Great Britain that included the slave trade in order to force a rescission of the Intolerable Acts. Jefferson submitted a draft in 1776 for the new Virginia Constitution, which was not adopted. It contained the phrase “No person hereafter coming into this country shall be held within the same in slavery under any pretext whatever.” Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 restated his condemnation of George III. “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere.” Georgia and South Carolina would not agree to this language and it was removed. In 1782, Virginia provided a general right of manumission without approval of the governor or Council. Many Virginians were not in favor of the law and launched a vigorous, but unsuccessful, campaign to repeal it in 1785. When Jefferson left Congress to return to the Virginia legislature, he was appointed to a committee for the revision of the colonial laws. The committee retained the existing laws on slavery and there was no reference to future emancipation. In his 1821 autobiography, Jefferson explained that “it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.” Jefferson also noted in his autobiography that he had brought a bill to prevent the “further importation” of slaves in 1778. “This passed without opposition, and stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication.” He later noted in “a memorandum (Services To My Country) as one of those services: “the act prohibiting the importation of slaves.”
Notes on the State of Virginia In 1780 Francois Marbois, Secretary of the French legation to the United States, distributed a list of 22 questions to various persons, one of whom was Joseph Jones, a member of the Continental Congress and the uncle of James Monroe. Jones thought Jefferson, then governor of Virginia and also a member of the young American Philosophical Society, was best suited to respond. Jefferson worked on this project over the next several years, through the death of his wife in 1782, and his move to Paris. It was there in 1785 that he published his research as Notes on the State of Virginia. This book contains the most detailed account of Jefferson’s feelings about slavery and its affect on the slave owning society. Jefferson doubted that Cont’d on page 4
Jefferson Notes page 3
JEFFERSON and SLAVERY Cont’d from page 3
Slave Uprisings
slavery could endure. He felt that freedom for the slaves was inevitable, but he was never clear how their emancipation could be structured. His anguish is apparent in Query XVIII: “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . . ." Jefferson discusses in Query XIV the revision of the colonial laws, and states that one of the “variations” was “to emancipate all slaves born after passing the act.” Jefferson explains that this was an amendment to be prepared, which included their education at public expense, to declare them “a free and independent people” and provide for their emigration to other countries. He explained why integration of the slaves into the current society was not possible. “Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; 10,000 recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other race.” Jefferson only manumitted two slaves during his life, and five more in his will, all men he felt had the skills to support themselves. He sold slaves during his life and at his death those who remained at his several properties were sold into further slavery to satisfy his debts.
In the year of Jefferson’s election to the presidency, Virginia experienced one of its worst fears – a slave uprising. Gabriel, a free black, organized a band of slaves and devised a plan to attack Richmond, slaughter the residents, burn the city, and escape to the west. Someone revealed the plot and hundreds of slaves were quickly arrested and more than 30 executed. By 1802 the slave uprising in San Domingo (Haiti) had driven Napoleon’s army from the island and the white population was slaughtered. There was no further talk of emancipation for the slaves of Virginia. In 1806, the Virginia General Assembly amended the manumission law of 1782 to require freed blacks to leave the state within one year. Jefferson sensed that the opportunity for emancipation had passed. He wrote, “I have long since given up the expectation of any early provision for the extinguishment of slavery among us. [T]here are many virtuous men who would make any sacrifices to affect it, many equally virtuous persuade themselves either that the thing is not wrong or that it cannot be remedied.” Many of the states had banned the importation of slaves, and in 1808, in one of his last acts as president, Jefferson signed a bill banning importation into the United States. Jefferson continued to write and express his hope that a method could be found for emancipation. Jefferson commented in his autobiography in 1821 “nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, then these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.”
Northwest Ordinance As a member of the Continental Congress, Jefferson drafted and submitted a Report on the Government of the Western Territories which has been referred to as the Northwest Ordinance of 1784. This provided that the existing states would not be expanded but that new states would be added. The Report provided that “after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude... otherwise in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty.” This prohibition would not have applied to the original 13 colonies, but would have abolished slavery in the rest of the United States. The Articles of Confederation required the affirmative vote of seven states, but a delegate from New Jersey was ill and that state’s vote could not be cast. In his 1821 autobiography Jefferson remembered: “The voice of a single individual of the state which was divided ... would have prevented this abominable crime from spreading itself over the new country. Thus, we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and Heaven was silent in that awful moment! But it is to be hoped it will not always be silent, and that the friends to the rights of human nature will in the end prevail.” In the same year that the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. When the 13th amendment was added to the Constitution in 1865, the language was lifted from the Northwest Ordinance. “"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Missouri Compromise Missouri was to be cut out of the Louisiana Territory. Slavery had existed throughout the Louisiana Territory before it was acquired by the United States, but opposition arose over the admission of Missouri as a slave state. It was argued that the Founding Fathers did not intend the extension of slavery beyond the original states, since Congress had banned slavery in the Northwest Territory in 1787. Up to this time, slavery had been a state issue, not a condition for admission to the Union. By tradition, new states had been admitted with the same privileges as the original states. Anti-slavery groups in free states raised the threat of secession. At this time, the northern portion of Massachusetts sought admission as the new state of Maine. This provided a compromise to admit Missouri with no restrictions on slavery, and Maine as a free state. The balance in the Union would be kept equal - twelve slave and twelve free. It was agreed that future states carved from the rest of the Louisiana Territory north of 36E36' N (Missouri's southern border) would be free. Thomas Jefferson heard the Missouri Compromise as a “fire bell in the night.” To him, it was “the knell of the Union.” In spite of his earlier effort to ban slavery by the Northwest Ordinance, he now opposed a line that would divide the United States into free and slave territories. He continued to feel that “a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go.” By Richard E. Dixon
Jefferson Notes page 4
The mysterious death of Meriwether Lewis
THESE ARE THE TIMES... Cont’d from page 1
Man. It was a commercial success in Europe, but again, Paine had donated his profits. He became enthused with the revolutionary excitement in France and was elected to the National Convention, but was imprisoned during the reign of terror. He escaped the guillotine and was finally released by the intervention of James Monroe, then Minister to France. While imprisoned, Paine began work on The Age of Reason. This was an affirmation of Deism and a rejection of Christianity. While his arguments were not original, his attack on the churches and denial of the Bible as the revealed word of God provoked outrage on both sides of the Atlantic. He remained in Paris active in his quest to overthrow all the monarchies of Europe. Jefferson’s offer to return him to America on a naval vessel met strong opposition in the American press. He finally returned in 1802 in the face of Federalist outrage for an earlier attack on George Washington for not intervening in his imprisonment. It was Paine’s desire to return to Paris as an envoy to Napoleon, but Jefferson ignored his request. Paine was interested in the rights of the people in the new Louisiana Territory and wanted Jefferson to help mediate the turmoil in Haiti. In ill health, and without funds, he applied to Congress for compensation for the contribution he had made to the American Revolution. Rebuffed, isolated from his friends, he continued to joust with the Federalists in the press and to write on constitutional and civil issues. He died in 1809 in New York City. An admirer removed his bones with the intent to bury them in England, but his burial place is unknown. He is now remembered as the Apostle of Freedom and the Father of the American Revolution. THERE IS A CURRENT EXHIBIT AT THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, 8TH AND F STREETS, NW, WASHINGTON, DC, “ONE LIFE: THOMAS PAINE, THE RADICAL FOUNDING FATHER” WHICH DISPLAYS PAINE’S LIFE THROUGH PAINTINGS, CARTOONS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS. ADMISSION IS FREE. 202/633-8300 WEB WWW.NPG.SI.EDU JEFFERSON ROCK Cont’d from page 1
and climb up on it. Harper's Ferry would later gain added importance for Jefferson as a departure point for the Lewis and Clark expedition. It was here in 1803 that Meriwether Lewis began organizing the famous western exploration that became known as the Corps of Discovery.
F
or 200 years, the death of Meriwether Lewis has remained a mystery. After completing the great exploration we now call the Corps of Discovery, Lewis was appointed governor of the Louisiana territory by Thomas Jefferson. He died two years later on October 11, 1809. Lewis’s life began to unravel after his appointment as governor. He had an ongoing feud with one of his officers, his personal hygiene deteriorated, he was often agitated and he developed a fear that the administration in Washington did not trust him. The tension created by the separatist intrigues of Aaron Burr and James Wilkinson still hovered over the future of the territory and Lewis worried that he might also be viewed as a traitor. The vouchers for his official expenses were not being honored by the government and he was troubled by his financial condition. Against the advice of his good friend William Clark, who had been appointed by Jefferson as the Indian agent for the territory, he decided to go to Wash- Meriwethr Lewis ington and personally defend him- By Charles Wilson Peale self. While traveling up the Missis- 1807 sippi, he became concerned about patrolling English ships and got off at Fort Pickering at Chickasaw Bluffs (now Memphis). He determined to continue the trip overland on the Natchez Trace to Nashville. Because Lewis seemed so disoriented, Captain Russell, the officer in charge of the fort, confined Lewis for five days, but when he seemed to recover, he released him. He tried to convince him that he was not strong enough to make the trip by horseback. Lewis insisted on going on, and another officer, Neely, agreed to accompany him. Lewis sought shelter at an inn after the pack horses bolted away during a driving rainstorm. During the night Lewis was shot twice. The innkeeper’s wife could see him through the cracks in the door as he pleaded for help, but was fearful of going to his aid. The others in his party found him at dawn, but he died shortly after that. His death was ruled a suicide but speculation over the years has raised a number of questions. Was he carrying further information on Wilkinson’s treachery to Washington? The officer who quarreled with him constantly in New Orleans was a friend of James Wilkinson. Maj. Neely was also close to Wilkinson and he was strangely away during the night when Lewis was shot. It was his testimony, along with Russell, that Lewis was drinking and in a deranged condition, that seemed to support a suicide. Russell had been appointed to his position at the fort by Wilkinson. After Lewis’s death, Wilkinson returned as governor of the territory. The innkeeper, supposedly away when his wife offered Lewis a place to stay, was later the subject of a court of inquiry for murder, but was acquitted for lack of evidence or motive. Lewis was born on November 17, 1779 in Albemarle County, Virginia, spent his early years in Georgia, but graduated from Liberty Hall school (now Washington and Lee University). He joined the Army in 1795 and was appointed in 1801 as a personal secretary to President Jefferson. Two years later, Jefferson appointed him to lead the most demanding expedition in American history. When Cont’d on page 6 he returned, Jefferson appointed him
Jefferson Notes page 5
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THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH… Cont’d from page 5
governor of the territory. None of this seems to support a suicidal personality, but Jefferson did not challenge Lewis’s death as a suicide. He did later write of his selection of Lewis to lead the expedition: Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction, ... honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves, with all these qualifications as if selected and implanted by nature in one body for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him Lewis was buried in the yard of the house where he died. It is now part of the Natchez Trace Parkway maintained by the National Park Service.
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