




                   *The Riverside Biographical Series*

                                 NUMBER 5

                             THOMAS JEFFERSON

                                    BY

                           HENRY CHILDS MERWIN

                      [Illustration: Th. Jefferson]





                            THOMAS JEFFERSON

                                   BY

                           HENRY CHILDS MERWIN


                           [Publisher's emblem]


HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue
*The Riverside Press, Cambridge*





                   COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY HENRY C. MERWIN

                           ALL RIGHTS RESERVED





                                 CONTENTS


 CHAP.                                        PAGE
    I.   YOUTH AND TRAINING                      1
   II.   VIRGINIA IN JEFFERSON'S DAY            16
  III.   MONTICELLO AND ITS HOUSEHOLD           28
   IV.   JEFFERSON IN THE REVOLUTION            36
    V.   REFORM WORK IN VIRGINIA                45
   VI.   GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA                   59
  VII.   ENVOY AT PARIS                         71
 VIII.   SECRETARY OF STATE                     82
   IX.   THE TWO PARTIES                        98
    X.   PRESIDENT JEFFERSON                   114
   XI.   SECOND PRESIDENTIAL TERM              130
  XII.   A PUBLIC MAN IN PRIVATE LIFE          149






                             THOMAS JEFFERSON





                                    I


                            YOUTH AND TRAINING


Thomas Jefferson was born upon a frontier estate in Albemarle County,
Virginia, April 13, 1743. His father, Peter Jefferson, was of Welsh
descent, not of aristocratic birth, but of that yeoman class which
constitutes the backbone of all societies. The elder Jefferson had
uncommon powers both of mind and body. His strength was such that he could
simultaneously "head up"--that is, raise from their sides to an upright
position--two hogsheads of tobacco, weighing nearly one thousand pounds
apiece. Like Washington, he was a surveyor; and there is a tradition that
once, while running his lines through a vast wilderness, his assistants
gave out from famine and fatigue, and Peter Jefferson pushed on alone,
sleeping at night in hollow trees, amidst howling beasts of prey, and
subsisting on the flesh of a pack mule which he had been obliged to kill.

Thomas Jefferson inherited from his father a love of mathematics and of
literature. Peter Jefferson had not received a classical education, but he
was a diligent reader of a few good books, chiefly Shakespeare, The
Spectator, Pope, and Swift; and in mastering these he was forming his mind
on great literature after the manner of many another Virginian,--for the
houses of that colony held English books as they held English furniture.
The edition of Shakespeare (and it is a handsome one) which Peter
Jefferson used is still preserved among the heirlooms of his descendants.

It was probably in his capacity of surveyor that Mr. Jefferson made the
acquaintance of the Randolph family, and he soon became the bosom friend
of William Randolph, the young proprietor of Tuckahoe. The Randolphs had
been for ages a family of consideration in the midland counties of
England, claiming descent from the Scotch Earls of Murray, and connected
by blood or marriage with many of the English nobility. In 1735 Peter
Jefferson established himself as a planter by patenting a thousand acres
of land in Goochland County, his estate lying near and partly including
the outlying hills, which form a sort of picket line for the Blue Mountain
range. At the same time his friend William Randolph patented an adjoining
estate of twenty-four hundred acres; and inasmuch as there was no good
site for a house on Jefferson's estate, Mr. Randolph conveyed to him four
hundred acres for that purpose, the consideration expressed in the deed,
which is still extant, being "Henry Weatherbourne's biggest bowl of Arrack
punch."

Here Peter Jefferson built his house, and here, three years later, he
brought his bride,--a handsome girl of nineteen, and a kinswoman of William
Randolph, being Jane, oldest child of Isham Randolph, then
Adjutant-General of Virginia. She was born in London, in the parish of
Shadwell, and Shadwell was the name given by Peter Jefferson to his
estate. This marriage was a fortunate union of the best aristocratic and
yeoman strains in Virginia.

In the year 1744 the new County of Albemarle was carved out of Goochland
County, and Peter Jefferson was appointed one of the three justices who
constituted the county court and were the real rulers of the shire. He was
made also Surveyor, and later Colonel of the county. This last office was
regarded as the chief provincial honor in Virginia, and it was especially
important when he held it, for it was the time of the French war, and
Albemarle was in the debatable land.

In the midst of that war, in August, 1757, Peter Jefferson died suddenly,
of a disease which is not recorded, but which was probably produced by
fatigue and exposure. He was a strong, just, kindly man, sought for as a
protector of the widow and the orphan, and respected and loved by Indians
as well as white men. Upon his deathbed he left two injunctions regarding
his son Thomas: one, that he should receive a classical education; the
other, that he should never be permitted to neglect the physical exercises
necessary for health and strength. Of these dying commands his son often
spoke with gratitude; and he used to say that if he were obliged to choose
between the education and the estate which his father gave him, he would
choose the education. Peter Jefferson left eight children, but only one
son besides Thomas, and that one died in infancy. Less is known of
Jefferson's mother; but he derived from her a love of music, an
extraordinary keenness of susceptibility, and a corresponding refinement
of taste.

His father's death left Jefferson his own master. In one of his later
letters he says: "At fourteen years of age the whole care and direction of
myself were thrown on myself entirely, without a relative or a friend
qualified to advise or guide me."

The first use that he made of his liberty was to change his school, and to
become a pupil of the Rev. James Maury,--an excellent clergyman and
scholar, of Huguenot descent, who had recently settled in Albemarle
County. With him young Jefferson continued for two years, studying Greek
and Latin, and becoming noted, as a schoolmate afterward reported, for
scholarship, industry, and shyness. He was a good runner, a keen
fox-hunter, and a bold and graceful rider.

At the age of sixteen, in the spring of 1760, he set out on horseback for
Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia, where he proposed to enter the
college of William and Mary. Up to this time he had never seen a town, or
even a village, except the hamlet of Charlottesville, which is about four
miles from Shadwell. Williamsburg--described in contemporary language as
"the centre of taste, fashion, and refinement"--was an unpaved village, of
about one thousand inhabitants, surrounded by an expanse of dark green
tobacco fields as far as the eye could reach. It was, however, well
situated upon a plateau midway between the York and James rivers, and was
swept by breezes which tempered the heat of the summer sun and kept the
town free from mosquitoes.

Williamsburg was also well laid out, and it has the honor of having served
as a model for the city of Washington. It consisted chiefly of a single
street, one hundred feet broad and three quarters of a mile long, with the
capitol at one end, the college at the other, and a ten-acre square with
public buildings in the middle. Here in his palace lived the colonial
governor. The town also contained "ten or twelve gentlemen's families,
besides merchants and tradesmen." These were the permanent inhabitants;
and during the "season"--the midwinter months--the planters' families came
to town in their coaches, the gentlemen on horseback, and the little
capital was then a scene of gayety and dissipation.

Such was Williamsburg in 1760 when Thomas Jefferson, the frontier
planter's son, rode slowly into town at the close of an early spring day,
surveying with the outward indifference, but keen inward curiosity of a
countryman, the place which was to be his residence for seven years,--in
one sense the most important, because the most formative, period of his
life. He was a tall stripling, rather slightly built,--after the model of
the Randolphs,--but extremely well-knit, muscular, and agile. His face was
freckled, and his features were somewhat pointed. His hair is variously
described as red, reddish, and sandy, and the color of his eyes as blue,
gray, and also hazel. The expression of his face was frank, cheerful, and
engaging. He was not handsome in youth, but "a very good-looking man in
middle age, and quite a handsome old man." At maturity he stood six feet
two and a half inches. "Mr. Jefferson," said Mr. Bacon, at one time the
superintendent of his estate, "was well proportioned and straight as a
gun-barrel. He was like a fine horse, he had no surplus flesh. He had an
iron constitution, and was very strong."

Jefferson was always the most cheerful and optimistic of men. He once
said, after remarking that something must depend "on the chapter of
events:" "I am in the habit of turning over the next leaf with hope, and,
though it often fails me, there is still another and another behind." No
doubt this sanguine trait was due in part at least to his almost perfect
health. He was, to use his own language, "blessed with organs of digestion
which accepted and concocted, without ever murmuring, whatever the palate
chose to consign to them." His habits through life were good. He never
smoked, he drank wine in moderation, he went to bed early, he was regular
in taking exercise, either by walking or, more commonly, by riding on
horseback.

The college of William and Mary in Jefferson's day is described by Mr.
Parton as "a medley of college, Indian mission, and grammar school,
ill-governed, and distracted by dissensions among its ruling powers." But
Jefferson had a thirst for knowledge and a capacity for acquiring it,
which made him almost independent of institutions of learning. Moreover,
there was one professor who had a large share in the formation of his
mind. "It was my great good fortune," he wrote in his brief autobiography,
"and what probably fixed the destinies of my life, that Dr. William Small,
of Scotland, was then professor of mathematics; a man profound in most of
the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication and
an enlarged liberal mind. He, most happily for me, soon became attached to
me, and made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and
from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science,
and of the system of things in which we are placed."

Jefferson, like all well-bred Virginians, was brought up as an
Episcopalian; but as a young man, perhaps owing in part to the influence
of Dr. Small, he ceased to believe in Christianity as a religion, though
he always at home attended the Episcopal church, and though his daughters
were brought up in that faith. If any theological term is to be applied to
him, he should be called a Deist. Upon the subject of his religious faith,
Jefferson was always extremely reticent. To one or two friends only did he
disclose his creed, and that was in letters which were published after his
death. When asked, even by one of his own family, for his opinion upon any
religious matter, he invariably refused to express it, saying that every
person was bound to look into the subject for himself, and to decide upon
it conscientiously, unbiased by the opinions of others.

Dr. Small introduced Jefferson to other valuable acquaintances; and, boy
though he was, he soon became the fourth in a group of friends which
embraced the three most notable men in the little metropolis. These were,
beside Dr. Small, Francis Fauquier, the acting governor of the province,
appointed by the crown, and George Wythe. Fauquier was a courtly,
honorable, highly cultivated man of the world, a disciple of Voltaire, and
a confirmed gambler, who had in this respect an unfortunate influence upon
the Virginia gentry,--not, however, upon Jefferson, who, though a lover of
horses, and a frequenter of races, never in his life gambled or even
played cards. Wythe was then just beginning a long and honorable career as
lawyer, statesman, professor, and judge. He remained always a firm and
intimate friend of Jefferson, who spoke of him, after his death, as "my
second father." It is an interesting fact that Thomas Jefferson, John
Marshall, and Henry Clay were all, in succession, law students in the
office of George Wythe.

Many of the government officials and planters who flocked to Williamsburg
in the winter were related to Jefferson on his mother's side, and they
opened their houses to him with Virginia hospitality. We read also of
dances in the "Apollo," the ball-room of the old Raleigh tavern, and of
musical parties at Gov. Fauquier's house, in which Jefferson, who was a
skillful and enthusiastic fiddler, always took part. "I suppose," he
remarked in his old age, "that during at least a dozen years of my life, I
played no less than three hours a day."

At this period he was somewhat of a dandy, very particular about his
clothes and equipage, and devoted, as indeed he remained through life, to
fine horses. Virginia imported more thoroughbred horses than any other
colony, and to this day there is probably a greater admixture of
thoroughbred blood there than in any other State. Diomed, winner of the
first English Derby, was brought over to Virginia in 1799, and founded a
family which, even now, is highly esteemed as a source of speed and
endurance. Jefferson had some of his colts; and both for the saddle and
for his carriage he always used high-bred horses.

Referring to the Williamsburg period of his life, he wrote once to a
grandson: "When I recollect the various sorts of bad company with which I
associated from time to time, I am astonished I did not turn off with some
of them, and become as worthless to society as they were.... But I had the
good fortune to become acquainted very early with some characters of very
high standing, and to feel the incessant wish that I could ever become
what they were. Under temptations and difficulties, I would ask myself
what would Dr. Small, Mr. Wythe, Peyton Randolph do in this situation?
What course in it will assure me their approbation? I am certain that this
mode of deciding on my conduct tended more to correctness than any
reasoning powers that I possesed."

This passage throws a light upon Jefferson's character. It does not seem
to occur to him that a young man might require some stronger motive to
keep his passions in check than could be furnished either by the wish to
imitate a good example or by his "reasoning powers." To Jefferson's
well-regulated mind the desire for approbation was a sufficient motive. He
was particularly sensitive, perhaps morbidly so, to disapprobation. The
respect, the good-will, the affection of his countrymen were so dear to
him that the desire to retain them exercised a great, it may be at times,
an undue influence upon him. "I find," he once said, "the pain of a little
censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of
much praise."

During his second year at college, Jefferson laid aside all frivolities.
He sent home his horses, contenting himself with a mile run out and back
at nightfall for exercise, and studying, if we may believe the biographer,
no less than fifteen hours a day. This intense application reduced the
time of his college course by one half; and after the second winter at
Williamsburg he went home with a degree in his pocket, and a volume of
Coke upon Lytleton in his trunk.





                                    II


                       VIRGINIA IN JEFFERSON'S DAY


To a young Virginian of Jefferson's standing but two active careers were
open, law and politics, and in almost every case these two, sooner or
later, merged in one. The condition of Virginia was very different from
that of New England,--neither the clerical nor the medical profession was
held in esteem. There were no manufactures, and there was no general
commerce.

Nature has divided Virginia into two parts: the mountainous region to the
west and the broad level plain between the mountains and the sea,
intersected by numerous rivers, in which, far back from the ocean, the
tide ebbs and flows. In this tide-water region were situated the tobacco
plantations which constituted the wealth and were inhabited by the
aristocracy of the colony. Almost every planter lived near a river and had
his own wharf, whence a schooner carried his tobacco to London, and
brought back wines, silks, velvets, guns, saddles, and shoes.

The small proprietors of land were comparatively few in number, and the
whole constitution of the colony, political and social, was aristocratic.
Both real estate and slaves descended by force of law to the eldest son,
so that the great properties were kept intact. There were no townships and
no town meetings. The political unit was the parish; for the Episcopal
church was the established church,--a state institution; and the parishes
were of great extent, there being, as a rule, but one or two parishes in a
county.

The clergy, though belonging to an establishment, were poorly paid, and
not revered as a class. They held the same position of inferiority in
respect to the rich planters which the clergy of England held in respect
to the country gentry at the same period. Being appointed by the crown,
they were selected without much regard to fitness, and they were
demoralized by want of supervision, for there were no resident bishops,
and, further, by the uncertain character of their incomes, which, being
paid in tobacco, were subject to great fluctuations. A few were men of
learning and virtue who performed their duties faithfully, and eked out
their incomes by taking pupils. "It was these few," remarks Mr. Parton,
"who saved civilization in the colony." A few others became cultivators of
tobacco, and acquired wealth. But the greater part of the clergy were
companions and hangers-on of the rich planters,--examples of that type
which Thackeray so well describes in the character of Parson Sampson in
"The Virginians." Strange tales were told of these old Virginia parsons.
One is spoken of as pocketing annually a hundred dollars, the revenue of a
legacy for preaching four sermons a year against atheism, gambling,
racing, and swearing,--for all of which vices, except the first, he was
notorious.

This period, the middle half of the eighteenth century, was, as the reader
need not be reminded, that in which the English church sank to its lowest
point. It was the era when the typical country parson was a convivial
fox-hunter; when the Fellows of colleges sat over their wine from four
o'clock, their dinner hour, till midnight or after; when the highest type
of bishop was a learned man who spent more time in his private studies
than in the duties of his office; when the cathedrals were neglected and
dirty, and the parish churches were closed from Sunday to Sunday. In
England, the reaction produced Methodism, and, later, the Tractarian
movement; and we are told that even in Virginia, "swarms of Methodists,
Moravians, and New-Light Presbyterians came over the border from
Pennsylvania, and pervaded the colony."

Taxation pressed with very unequal force upon the poor, and the right of
voting was confined to freeholders. There was no system of public schools,
and the great mass of the people were ignorant and coarse, but morally and
physically sound,--a good substructure for an aristocratic society. Wealth
being concentrated mainly in the hands of a few, Virginia presented
striking contrasts of luxury and destitution, whereas in the neighboring
colony of Pennsylvania, where wealth was more distributed and society more
democratic, thrift and prosperity were far more common.

"In Pennsylvania," relates a foreign traveler, "one sees great numbers of
wagons drawn by four or more fine fat horses.... In the slave States we
sometimes meet a ragged black boy or girl driving a team consisting of a
lean cow and a mule; and I have seen a mule, a bull, and a cow, each
miserable in its appearance, composing one team, with a half-naked black
slave or two riding or driving as occasion suited." And yet between
Richmond and Fredericksburg, "in the afternoon, as our road lay through
the woods, I was surprised to meet a family party traveling along in as
elegant a coach as is usually met with in the neighborhood of London, and
attended by several gayly dressed footmen."

Virginia society just before the Revolution perfectly illustrated Buckle's
remark about leisure: "Without leisure, science is impossible; and when
leisure has been won, most of the class possessing it will waste it in the
pursuit of pleasure, and a _few_ will employ it in the pursuit of
knowledge." Men like Jefferson, George Wythe, and Madison used their
leisure for the good of their fellow-beings and for the cultivation of
their minds; whereas the greater part of the planters--and the poor whites
imitated them--spent their ample leisure in sports, in drinking, and in
absolute idleness. "In spite of the Virginians' love for dissipation,"
wrote a famous French traveler, "the taste for reading is commoner among
men of the first rank than in any other part of America; but the populace
is perhaps more ignorant there than elsewhere." "The Virginia virtues,"
says Mr. Henry Adams, "were those of the field and farm--the simple and
straightforward mind, the notions of courage and truth, the absence of
mercantile sharpness and quickness, the rusticity and open-handed
hospitality." Virginians of the upper class were remarkable for their
high-bred courtesy,--a trait so inherent that it rarely disappeared even in
the bitterness of political disputes and divisions. This, too, was the
natural product of a society based not on trade or commerce, but on land.
"I blush for my own people," wrote Dr. Channing, from Virginia, in 1791,
"when I compare the selfish prudence of a Yankee with the generous
confidence of a Virginian. Here I find great vices, but greater virtues
than I left behind me." There was a largeness of temper and of feeling in
the Virginia aristocracy, which seems to be inseparable from people living
in a new country, upon the outskirts of civilization. They had the pride
of birth, but they recognized other claims to consideration, and were as
far as possible from estimating a man according to the amount of his
wealth.

Slavery itself was probably a factor for good in the character of such a
man as Jefferson,--it afforded a daily exercise in the virtues of
benevolence and self-control. How he treated the blacks may be gathered
from a story, told by his superintendent, of a slave named Jim who had
been caught stealing nails from the nail-factory: "When Mr. Jefferson
came, I sent for Jim, and I never saw any person, white or black, feel as
badly as he did when he saw his master. The tears streamed down his face,
and he begged for pardon over and over again. I felt very badly myself.
Mr. Jefferson turned to me and said, 'Ah, sir, we can't punish him. He has
suffered enough already.' He then talked to him, gave him a heap of good
advice, and sent him to the shop.... Jim said: 'Well I'se been a-seeking
religion a long time, but I never heard anything before that sounded so,
or made me feel so, as I did when Master said, "Go, and don't do so any
more," and now I'se determined to seek religion till I find it;' and sure
enough he afterwards came to me for a permit to go and be baptized.... He
was always a good servant afterward."

Another element that contributed to the efficiency and the high standard
of the early Virginia statesman was a good, old-fashioned classical
education. They were familiar, to use Matthew Arnold's famous expression,
"with the best that has ever been said or done." This was no small
advantage to men who were called upon to act as founders of a republic
different indeed from the republics of Greece and Rome, but still based
upon