JEFFERSON NOTES Jefferson Notes is a publication of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society Richard Dixon Editor jeffersonnotes@verizon.net Spring 2011 No. 10
BOOK NOTES Liberty, State, & Union The Political Theory of Thomas Jefferson Luigi Marco Bassani Mercer University Press 2010
Perhaps the most widely recognized feature of Jeffersonian architecture is the dome. It commemorates him in the graceful memorial in Washington and is the iconic image of Monticello and the University of Virginia. When Thomas Jefferson left for Paris in 1784, his hilltop home, Monticello, was nearly finished. It had two stories with a pedimented two-tiered portico. Then, in one of his morning walks through the Tuileries Gardens, he saw across the Seine the construction of the dome on the Hôtel de Salm. It created the appearance of a one-story structure. Domes were not a new architectural feature. There was the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (which would later become a model for the U.S. Capitol). But Jefferson was much intrigued that the Hotel de Salm was to be a private residence. Jefferson would likely have visited the restoration of the church of Sainte GeneviPve in Paris (today called the Pantheon) and the church of Saint Phillipe du Roule. He also monitored the construction at that time of the Halle au Bleds, a grain market in Paris, roofed by what Jefferson described as “a noble dome.” All were capped by the vaulting techniques of Philibert DeLorme. Jefferson returned to the United States with DeLorme’s 1561 treatise Pour Bien Bastir. He served as Secretary of State until 1794, before returning to Monticello. He tore down the two-story structure and created the first domed residence in America. It has been suggested that the Temple of Vesta, from the Forum in Rome, might have been the “model” for the Monticello Dome. However, it is clear from the x-ray study that was conducted on the dome in 1981 that it was designed by Jefferson based on his study of Cont’d on page 2
It
has become a conventional exercise in recent years to see Thomas Jefferson through the prism of slavery, as though that were the cornerstone on which his political and social philosophy should be examined. It has become almost mandatory for historians to pronounce Jefferson as ambivalent over slavery and conclude that was a trait of his character. There is little mention of slavery in this exploration of the underlying principles in Jefferson’s political theory which Luigi Marco Bassani finds philosophically consistent. He places Jefferson in a solid Lockean tradition that man is born with certain natural rights, which include liberty and property. He has a civil right within the structure of government for those rights to be protected. Jefferson is often cited as an architect of democracy. Yet, Jefferson had little experience with democracy. To him, the Constitution created a republic with power residing in the citizens at the local level, an empire for liberty. Jefferson foresaw the need to restrain the natural gravitational pull toward central power. Bassani argues that the Kentucky Resolutions is the most detailed exposition by Cont’d on page 5
Jefferson Domes
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the DeLorme construction techniques. Jefferson’s most famous domed structure was the Rotunda at the University of Virginia. Although he never saw it, his model was the Pantheon in Rome, which he reduced in scale by one half. The center of the dome of the Pantheon is open, but here Jefferson installed an oculus, sealed against the weather, which permits day light. The Pantheon is completely
The Rotunda burns open from the floor to the dome, in 1895 but Jefferson installed two floors in the Rotunda. This was the last building constructed of his “academical village.” It was to be the “great library” which he envisioned as part of the education system he proposed to the General Assembly 40 years before. A fire in 1895 started by faulty wiring burned out of control and gutted the interior of the Rotunda. The gorgeous centerpiece of the academical village was now lonely brick walls. When the Rotunda was repaired, a number of changes were made to Jefferson’s design, including a portico on the north elevation, and in the Dome room, a substitution of a single large column for The Rotunda today each of Jefferson’s slender double columns. This was the Rotunda for three quarters of a century, not quite the building Jefferson had left behind. The Rotunda was restored in 1976 to Jefferson’s original vision.
FREE SPEECH BARRED AT THE JEFFERSON MEMORIAL On Jefferson’s birthday in 2008, close to midnight, a group at the Jefferson Memorial began a silent, expressive dance. They refused to stop and were arrested. A suit filed by the dancers against the National Park Service was dismissed. The court found on appeal that “the government has dedicated a space with a solemn commemorative purpose that is incompatible with the full range of free expression that is permitted in public forums.” Oberwetter v. Hilliard, 680 F. Supp. 2d 52 (D.D.C. 2010). Another group of dancers reappeared on Memorial Day 2011. They were forcibly arrested. Although Thomas Jefferson’s legacy embodies the spirit of free expression of opinion, it is denied at the Memorial to his thoughts and ideals. Jefferson Notes page 2
The Madison Hemings interview with a newspaper reporter occurred about forty-five years after he left Monticello. This interview is important to the paternity believers because it is the only declaration by a Jefferson relative, acquaintance, or slave, that Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings. We will continue in Jefferson Notes, to examine it.
NOT A MEMOIR When Fawn Brodie resurrected the 1873 Madison Hemings newspaper interview in her 1974 book Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, she referred to it as the “Reminiscences of Madison Hemings.” Annette Gordon-Reed in Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy further elevated the importance of this account by elevating it to “Memoirs.” The article was the first in a project intended by the editor/reporter S. F. Wetmore to chronicle the recollections of former slaves in a series he titled “Life Among the Lowly.” He wrote in the first person Madison Hemings voice which has led to the euphemisms that characterize these as the actual words of Madison Hemings. Of course, even a cursory review makes it clear that these are not the statements of an uneducated former slave. In the very first line Wetmore uses the verb “bore.” Later in the first paragraph, there is “acknowledging her fatherhood,” and “thwarted in the purpose,” and “compunctions of conscience.” This type of language occurs constantly throughout the article. But it is not that Wetmore dressed up what Hemings may have told him. It raises the more crucial question of what was actually said. How much is Hemings and how much is Wetmore? For example, Thomas Jefferson is described as having “studied law with Geo. Wythe, and practiced law at the bar of the general court of the Colony.” Now, Jefferson studied under Wythe in the 1760s. He resigned from the General Court in 1774. Hemings was born in 1805. It is so unlikely that Hemings would have command of this history, which predated his birth by more than 30 years, the conclusion is inevitable that Wetmore padded the interview with his own historical research. A careful reading of the interview article leads to the inevitable question of where did Hemings end and Wetmore began. It is impossible to know and the entire document becomes suspect. There are no recollections which support the central Hemings’ claim that Jefferson was his father. In a document so clearly not the words of Madison Hemings, it is inconsistent to place any weight on his bare assertion of paternity.
THE JEFFERSON IMAGE FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
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n March 1809, Thomas Jefferson rode away from the White House never to return. He was 65 years old and had completed two terms as president of the United States, and wanted nothing more than to retire to his beloved home at Monticello and be a farmer. When he died 17 years later, he left instructions on the three accomplishments he wished placed on his tombstone. He asked to be remembered for his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, both of which he had authored as a young man. The third was the endeavor which filled those final years, as the “father” of the University of Virginia. Early Plans As a member of the Committee of Revisers, Jefferson submitted in 1778 a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge. Jefferson saw an educated citizenry as the greatest protection of their rights and liberties. The system devised by Jefferson provided for primary schools and colleges for the older students, with the better students eventually attending the College of William & Mary. There was resistance to this plan because William & Mary was not central to the state and was controlled by Episcopalians. Also, the requirement that local taxes support the primary schools was not popular.
ously pursued. A charter was obtained in 1803, but it was not until 1814 that the five surviving trustees took a renewed interest in moving forward. Apparently, Jefferson stopped by chance at the stone tavern where the trustees were meeting and wound up on the reformed Board of Trustees. Jefferson’s subsequent letter to the chairman Peter Carr on his detailed plans for public education and his sketch of a series of pavilions for the different schools was widely published. It is likely Jefferson was already looking beyond the limited purposes of a local academy toward his grander view of a great University. He had written Joseph Priestley in 1800 that “we wish to establish, in the upper and healthier country, and more centrally for the state, a University..” Later in 1816, he described his vision, that “instead of one immense building, to have a small one for every professorship, arranged at proper distances around a square, to admit extension, connected by a piazza, so they may go dry from one school to another. This village form is preferable to a single great building..”
Jefferson’s ally in the legislature was Joseph Cabell, the senator from Albemarle Jefferson’s “academical village” from the County who secured a bill for engraving by Peter Maverick 1825 establishing Central College on February 14, 1816. Jefferson struggled with the lack of funds through the whole construction process. Cabell was to be an unWhile he was governor and a member of the Board of tiring supporter of Jefferson’s vision. He took over Visitors in 1779, Jefferson did establish a school of the petition for funds and the request to convert the history and a law school at the College. He was conAcademy into a college. cerned that students left Virginia for better schools. However, the conflict over location and the EpiscoAt the next session, a bill for “a complete system of pal influence continued. Once Jefferson left for native education, and embracing a university” was France in 1784, the issue of public education was passed by the House of Delegates but failed to get set aside Senate approval. Jefferson had already prepared drawings for the layout of Central College and on Central College October 6, 1817, in the presence of Jefferson, Creation of an academy in Albemarle County probaJames Madison and President James Monroe, bly had its genesis before Jefferson left for France, among “a large Cont’d on page 4 but over 3 decades would pass before it was seriJefferson Notes page 3
Father of the University of Virginia
tional student rooms.
Cont’d from page 3
company of citizens,” the cornerstone for Pavilion VII was set. Shortly after the cornerstone was laid, three other buildings were scheduled for erection and the task of obtaining professors had begun. Financing remained a constant problem, but Jefferson was anxious to get the buildings up and professors obligated in order that Central College could be considered for the new university. In the bill passed on February 21, 1818, the second part of Jefferson’s plan, that of the district colleges or academies was abandoned, but support was given for the local schools and for a new state university. Jefferson had included in his bill for general education the adoption of Central College as the new university, but this was ignored by the General Assembly, although the establishment of a new state university was authorized, and a commission was designated to select a site. University of Virginia The General Assembly had designated one commissioner from each senatorial district in the state to select a site for the new university. The commission met at Rockfish Gap on August 1, 1818. The three contenders were Washington College, Staunton and Central College. By this time, the buildings at Central College and the cash assets and endowments, either collected or promised, exceeded the value of Washington College. Jefferson was chosen as chairman of the commission. He had prepared a detailed analysis of the population distribution in the state as well as a map to show that Central College was closer to the center point of the population and to its geographical center.
On the open north end of the two rows, he would place his magnificent Rotunda, a domed structure modeled on the Pantheon in Rome. Cabell was still concerned that final approval might not pass the General Assembly. Washington College continued to dispute Jefferson’s calculation that showed Charlottesville as the center of the state. There were also the delegates from Tidewater who continued to support William and Mary. They argued that Charlottesville was only a small village and would be unattractive to the new professors. In spite of ill health, Cabell remained in Richmond for the holidays and encouraged others from remote areas to do the same to be present when the General Assembly reconvened. The location of the University of Virginia was finally approved by the General Assembly on January 18, 1819. The first board of visitors was Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John H. Cocke, Joseph C. Cabell, Chapman Johnson, James Breckenridge and Robert B. Taylor. Jefferson was appointed rector. The Marquis de Lafayette dined with Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe in the unfinished Rotunda in 1824. Here, Lafayette first named Jefferson "Father of the University of Virginia". The University opened for classes in 1825 with a faculty of eight, five of whom were found in England and three in the United States and a student body numbering sixty-eight. Instruction was offered in ancient languages, modern languages, mathematics, moral philosophy, natural philosophy, chemistry, law, and medicine.
Before his death, Jefferson commitJefferson’s description became the ted the care of the University to report of the commission when it James Madison, and recalled “the approved Central College as the site friendship which has subsisted befor the new University. Jefferson’s tween us, now half a century.” After design featured a wide expanse of Jefferson's death, Madison became lawn, flanked by two parallel rows of rector of the University, the last of buildings. At intervals in the rows the three Virginia presidents who Jefferson set pavilions, two story Jefferson’s line drawing of had laid its cornerstone in 1817. He structures which were occupied by the Rotunda 1819 always gave credit to Jefferson as the the professors and where the stucreator of the University that “bears dents attended class. Between the the stamp of his genius, and will be a noble monupavilions were the student rooms which opened ment of his fame.” onto a colonnaded arcade that ran the length of the row and protected the students from the weather as In 1976, the American Institute of Architects they walked to the pavilions for class and meals. deemed the University “the proudest achievement This design permitted the row to be extended for of American architecture in the past 200 years.” additional pavilions and student rooms as the population of the school increased. Parallel to these rows separated by gardens were the “ranges” of addiBy Richard E. Dixon Jefferson Notes page 4
Liberty, State, Union Cont’d from page 1
Jefferson of the need for parity of power between the state and federal governments. Bassani believes the struggle between federal and state
the trajectory of Jefferson’s vision was permanently altered by the American Civil War power was an issue in doubt during the first half of the 19th century, but that the trajectory of Jefferson’s vision was permanently altered by the American Civil War. So far, Bassani’s thesis has received a quiet reception in the American academic community. In view of its timely emphasis on states rights, it should slowly gain traction with the public.
SCHOLARS COMMISSION STUDY TO BE PUBLISHED
In
November 1998, the journal Nature published an article headlined, “Jefferson Fathered Slave’s Last Child.” Although a later Nature article admitted that the headline was not true, it stirred a renewed interest in the relationship of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. A rumor had been launched in 1801, again by a false newspaper article, that a son of Sally Hemings had been fathered by Jefferson and was living at Monticello. The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society sponsored the creation of a Scholars Commission to look at all the evidence on this controversial issue. Chaired by Robert Turner, a professor at the University of Virginia, more than a dozen senior scholars spent a year studying all the available evidence relating to whether Jefferson could have been the father of a child by Sally Hemings. It was their “unanimous view that the allegation is by no means proven; and we find it regrettable that public confusion about the 1998 DNA testing and other evidence has misled many people into believing that the issue is closed.” A summary of the Report is available on the TJHS website (TJ Heritage.org), but the long-awaited publication of the full study is expected to be released in the fall of 2011. Titled The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission, and exceeding 400 pages in length, with over 1400 footnotes, this report examines in detail all of the evidence and arguments in this more than 200-year-old controversy. The book is being published by Carolina Academic Press in Durham, NC and may be ordered on Amazon.com.
JEFFERSON’S 268TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED AT THE VIRGINIA CAPITOL
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he Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society celebrated the 268th birthday of Thomas Jefferson in the restored Jefferson Room at the Virginia Capitol building in Richmond, adorned by a massive copy of the Declaration of Independence. The birthday committee chairman Edward Leake introduced Ken Wallenborn, president of TJHS who welcomed the guests and introduced the four speakers. Thomas E. Camden, Director of Virginia Library Special Collections, recounted the history of the construction of the Capi- The Maison Carrée in Nîmes, tol. Jefferson was in France which served as the France when he sent inspiration for Jefferson’s the plans for the pro- design of the Virginia capitol posed capitol to Richmond. He based his design on the Maison Carrée, a Roman temple in Nîmes France. It was to be the first introduction of the classical architecture to American public buildings.
Harrison Ruffin Tyler, who is the grandson of former Virginia Governor John Tyler entertained the guests with his lineage. He may be the only grandson in the country with a grandfather who died during the civil war. His great-grandfather roomed with Jefferson in the Wren building at the College of William and Mary. A direct descendent of Thomas Jefferson, 5th great grandson John Works served as president of the Monticello Association and was the first president of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, He discussed Jefferson's life long opposition to slavery and his unsuccessful efforts to ban slavery from the Northwest territory. Jefferson’s language in that ordinance was ultimately incorporated in the 13th amendment abolishing slavery. Gov. McDonnell, through his Director of Education, Gerard Robinson, presented proclamations of appreciation to Wallenborn, Works and Tyler. Robinson spoke of Jefferson’s lifelong interest in education, noting that he served on the District of Columbia school board while president. The celebration was concluded in Meriwether's at the Capitol by the cutting of the traditional birthday cake by 10-year-old Turner Payne of Richmond.
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BOOK NOTES IN DEFENSE OF JEFFERSON By William D. Hyland Jr
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JEFFERSON MUZZLES SINCE 1992, THE THOMAS JEFFERSON CENTER FOR THE PROTECTION OF FREE EXPRESSION HAS CELEBRATED THE BIRTH AND IDEALS OF ITS NAMESAKE BY CALLING ATTENTION TO THOSE WHO IN THE PAST YEAR FORGOT OR DISREGARDED MR. JEFFERSON’S ADMONITION THAT FREEDOM OF SPEECH ‘CANNOT BE LIMITED WITHOUT BEING LOST.’
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Building a replica of Monticello is a unique and exciting project for admirers of Thomas Jefferson. This is a 1/100 the scale paper model of Monticello designed from the measured plans in the 1992 American Historic Building Supply. SEE http://www.monticellomodel.com/index2/Home.html
Visit the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society at www.TJHeritage.org for other articles on Thomas Jefferson and discussions on the Hemings paternity claim and exactly what the DNA tests proved.
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