The making of the man:

  What kind of a man was Thomas Jefferson - as the author of the Declaration of Independence - as one of the founding fathers - as President. In "American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson," Joseph Ellis grapples with a subject of great contradictions.
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  Jefferson was a man of lofty aspirations but mundane foibles - of vast intellectual talent and literary eloquence but hopeless naiveté - of earnest yearning for "republican simplicity" but possessed by "acquisitive instincts" that drove him to accumulate a "massive trove of expensive collectibles" - of boundless political ambition but disdain for public life.
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"His ideas, or at least the ideas for which he became the most eloquent spokesman," define the ideals of the young republic and resonate down to modern times.

Jefferson did more than just help create the concepts. He communicated them - in prose that, like poetry, sang with the music in the words.

  Jefferson remains the most relevant of the founding fathers to modern American concerns. "His ideas, or at least the ideas for which he became the most eloquent spokesman," define the ideals of the young republic and resonate down to modern times. For most of two centuries, he has been the subject of worshipful history by those inspired by his words.  However, in recent decades he has come under sometimes vicious attack for his several personal failings. Ellis attempts - successfully - "to steer an honorable course between idolatry and evisceration" of his subject, and provides an insightful account of the controversies of those times that Jefferson embodies.
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  A record of racial prejudice and slavery contrast markedly with Jefferson's ideals. Gross failures of policy - such as his failure as governor to mobilize the Virginia militia during the Revolution, and his disastrous 1807 embargo of trade with Great Britain - contrast with great achievements - such as his contributions to the Declaration of Independence and later the Louisiana Purchase when he was president.
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  The result has been that, in the scholarly community at least, Jefferson's iconic status has been abandoned. Ellis determined to bridge the gap - to understand and present the realities of Jefferson's character - that lay between iconic veneration and modern revisionist dogma.

  "[There] really was a living, breathing person who walked the earth between 1743 and 1826 and was more than a figment of posterity's imagination. He did not realize, until late in his life, that he was destined to become an American demigod, just as he did not realize, again until late in his life, that the political legacy most closely associated with his name would be called democracy. Unlike Washington, he was never a legend in his own time, always a controversial figure who combined great depth with great shallowness, massive learning with extraordinary naiveté, piercing insights into others with daunting powers of self-deception."

  He was a real man of his times, with faults both common and idiosyncratic. However, his accomplishments and eloquently expressed ideals were real and well deserving of the veneration they inspire. Jefferson did more than just help create the concepts. He communicated them - in prose that, like poetry, sang with the music in the words.
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"Jefferson's statements during the last years of life, far from being aberrant ramblings, represented a consistent rededication of his visionary principles. All compromises with political power were pacts with the devil. All efforts at political consolidation were treasonable acts."

  Ellis' view is that Jefferson was more a political visionary than a political thinker. "[His] message - - - defied all traditional assumptions about what was possible in politics." Even as he actively pursued his vision of "pure republicanism," he could offer no practical idea as to how it might all work out. Nor did that bother him. He was a rebel in 1776, and remained one to the end of his days.

    "[Jefferson] regarded himself as the untamed essence of the original revolutionary impulse, uncontaminated by any implicit understandings of 1776 -- here he parted with Adams -- or any explicit compromises with political power in 1787-1788 -- here he parted with Madison --. Indeed, what his two old friends regarded as realistic limitations designed to assure the stability of the republican experiment, he believed betrayals of the true meaning of the American Revolution, which was not to harness individual energies but to release them. Even such intimate collaborators as Adams and Madison might consider his vision alluringly irresponsible, the kind of dangerously romantic aversion to established authority that one needed to get over. But Jefferson's statements during the last years of life, far from being aberrant ramblings, represented a consistent rededication of his visionary principles. All compromises with political power were pacts with the devil. All efforts at political consolidation were treasonable acts."

  How Jefferson's vast strengths and often equally vast weaknesses played out as he "managed his way through life" constitutes the essence of the history that Ellis relates. 
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He rode in a fancy phaeton, with four horses and three liveried slaves - befitting a member of the Virginia gentry.

  In 1775, Jefferson arrived in state in Philadelphia. At 32 years of age, he was the youngest member of the Virginia delegation to the Continental Congress. He rode in a fancy phaeton, with four horses and three liveried slaves - befitting a member of the Virginia gentry - the "haughty sultans of the South" as one newspaper described them.

  "The man who, precisely a year later, was to draft the most famous and eloquent statement of human rights in American -- and perhaps world -- history entered national affairs as a conspicuous aristocratic slave-owner."

  Because of a fire in 1770 that destroyed most of his early papers, we know few of the details of how Jefferson became this Virginia grandee. Ellis describes Jefferson's father as "a moderately successful planter" - strong and adventuresome - living in Albermarle County, Virginia, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His mother was a member of the influential Randolph family.
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  By the time Jefferson went to William and Mary College, his father had died leaving six daughters, two sons, his widow, and an estate that included sixty slaves. At college, Jefferson's reputation was as "an obsessive student" who put long hours into his studies - a serious young man.
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  In 1762, Jefferson studied law with George Wythe. As a young lawyer, he dealt mainly with cases involving land claims and titles. He was an indifferent speaker in court, but was always well prepared and a formidable legal scholar.
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  By 1768, at 25 years of age, he decided to build Monticello on land he had inherited, and to run for the Virginia House of Burgesses. The former reflected his passion for retreat - the latter his political ambition and growing local reputation. When he entered the House of Burgesses in 1769, he found influential mentors in an uncle, Peyton Randolph, and Edmund Pendleton, a shrewd defender of the planter way of life. In 1772, he (like Washington) married well. Martha Wales Skelton was "an attractive and delicate young widow whose dowry more than doubled his holdings in land and slaves."
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  Politically, he followed the predominant trends in the House of Burgesses. He opposed Parliamentary taxation and supported non-importation resolutions directed against British mercantile trade regulations. Nevertheless, he would not permit himself to be personally inconvenienced by these causes. He imported a fine piano and "sashed windows" for Monticello during such embargo periods, salving his conscience by storing these items during the embargoes. (This conveniently ignored the fact that it wasn't the use of imported items but the payment for them that the embargoes were meant to disrupt.)
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  Ellis uses the words "reticence and marginality" to describe Jefferson's role at this time in the House of Burgesses. Jefferson "could not speak in public." He remained mainly on the sidelines while members like Patrick Henry tossed off "extempore oratorical thunderbolts" befitting the passions of the times.
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  Jefferson was already expressing his dislike for the political stage and his intention to leave politics - sentiments he would continue to express right up to his election as President. His inclusion in the Virginia delegation to the Continental Congress was something of an afterthought - as a replacement for his uncle, Peyton Randolph, who felt that political activities in Virginia were more important than those in Philadelphia.

  "It would be fair to say that Jefferson made the list of acknowledged political leaders in the Old Dominion, but just barely, and largely because of his ties by blood and patronage with the Randolph circle. If his arrival in Philadelphia in June 1775 marked his entry into national affairs, he entered by the side door."

  But Jefferson already had a reputation in Philadelphia for eloquence and radicalism. In 1774, he had written a proposed draft of radical instructions for the Virginia delegation. His draft was rejected at that time in favor of a moderate posture toward Great Britain. However, some friends published the draft as a pamphlet, "Summary View of the Rights of British America." It highlighted Britain's tyrannical oppression of the colonies and rejected Parliament's exercise of authority over them. Not only taxation, but trade regulation, the quartering of troops - all Parliamentary impositions were attacked.
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  Others - like John Adams of Massachusetts and James Wilson of Pennsylvania - were by this time reaching the same conclusion. Jefferson's pamphlet, however,  expressed the thoughts concisely and matter-of-factly - like a legal brief - but "with the epigrammatic force of a political sermon."
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  The pamphlet revealed much else about the young Jefferson's political beliefs and ideals. Not yet as noticed as the attack on Parliamentary authority was an indictment of the monarchy that would ultimately take up two-thirds of the Declaration of Independence two years later.
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  George III was viewed as just a chief officer of the people with legal authority limited to the service of the people. Thus, the monarch's actions were viewed as complicit with those of his ministers in oppressing the colonials, sending armies against them, putting down lawful demonstrations, restraining their natural westward migration and - a charge that would be deleted by the Congress from the Declaration of Independence - perpetuating the slave trade.
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He expressed a "Whig" version of history. This was typical utopian mythology based on belief in some pure past of Germanic Saxon political freedom and individual rights - "an idyllic time and place that accorded with his powerful sense of the way things were meant to be" - conditions subsequently suppressed in England by the Norman Conquest.

"This affinity for idealized or idyllic visions, and the parallel capacity to deny evidence that exposed them as illusory, proved a central feature of Jefferson's mature thought and character."

"Rather than adjust his expectations in the face of disappointment, he tended to bury them deeper inside himself and regard the disjunction between his ideals and worldly imperfections as the world's problem rather than his own."

  The pamphlet also revealed Jefferson's utopian predilections. He expressed a "Whig" version of history. This was typical utopian mythology based on belief in some pure past of Germanic Saxon political freedom and individual rights - "an idyllic time and place that accorded with his powerful sense of the way things were meant to be" - conditions subsequently suppressed in England by the Norman Conquest.

  "[The Whig histories] were influential precisely because they told a story that fitted perfectly with the way his mind worked. Their romantic endorsement of a pristine past, a long-lost time and place where men had lived together in perfect harmony without coercive laws or predatory rulers, gave narrative shape to his fondest imaginings and to utopian expectations with deep roots in his personality. The Whig histories did not create his romantic expectations. They put into words the visionary prospects he already carried around in his mind and heart."

  Jefferson sought to prove that the original colonists had in fact migrated without English help. It had been an escape from England. This was the "expatriation" theory of colonial history - a gross simplification and misrepresentation of the varied and complex circumstances of early colonial history.

  ""The Jefferson impulse to invent and then embrace such seductive fictions was not a deliberate effort at propaganda. Jefferson believed what he wrote. True, he could consciously play fast and loose with historical evidence on behalf of a greater cause. Jefferson's intellectual dexterity in assigning blame for the slave trade on George III, for example,  could be explained as a clever ploy. No one in his right mind believed it, but it could be endorsed as a politically useful misrepresentation. - - -
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  "The Saxon myth and the doctrine of expatriation, however, were a different matter. They were not clever and willful distortions. They were complete fabrications. And Jefferson clearly believed they were true. Their distinguishing feature was an otherworldly, almost fairy-tale quality. History is full of wise and great figures whose greatness derived from the will to believe in what eventually proved to be a set of illusions. But Jefferson's illusions possess a sentimental and almost juvenile character that strains credulity. Since this affinity for idealized or idyllic visions, and the parallel capacity to deny evidence that exposed them as illusory, proved a central feature of Jefferson's mature thought and character, it seems necessary to ask where it all came from."

  Ellis' answer to this key psychological question rests on Jefferson's lifelong adolescent yearning for utopian perfection - most conspicuously manifested in his constant "putting up and pulling down" of his mansion at Monticello.

  "Both the expectations that Jefferson harbored for his private life in his mansion on the mountain, as well as his way of trying to design and construct it, suggested a level of indulged sentimentality that one normally associates with an adolescent."

  This "juvenile romanticism" is also evident in Jefferson's few early surviving letters.

  "[These letters] offer glimpses of a very vulnerable young man accustomed to constructing interior worlds of great imaginative appeal that inevitably collided with the more mundane realities. Rather than adjust his expectations in the face of disappointment, he tended to bury them deeper inside himself and regard the disjunction between his ideals and worldly imperfections as the world's problem rather than his own." (He grew up sufficiently privileged so that he didn't have to face unpleasant realities.)

  Jefferson was committed to the principles of his idyllic invention. He was thus committed to the cause of American Revolution which offered the prospect of a recreation of this utopia in America. He thus viewed English efforts at suppression with "an unsullied sense of righteous indignation," reflected in his work for the Continental Congress. He was thus readily welcomed into the ranks of the radicals then pushing delicately for a declaration of independence by the Constitutional Congress.
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The Declaration of Independence:

  The Virginia delegation to the Continental Congress was loaded with high caliber oratorical artillery. Edmund Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry could each with different styles dominate debates.
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Every action by the British ministry to suppress the colonies simply strengthened the radicals and undercut the diminishing moderate faction that was still desperately holding on to hope for reconciliation.

  Jefferson apparently never spoke in these debates. Nor was he influential in behind the scenes activities. Diffident and young, he remained in the background. He preferred solitary study and contemplation and the writing desk, where he could "work out his private perspectives without interference and without the unpredictability of an improvisational debate."
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  However, nobody doubted his radical credentials - or his formidable talents as a literary craftsman. He was soon selected to draft an address ultimately entitled "Declaration of the Causes and Necessities for Taking up Arms." This was a major assignment. A previous attempt had floundered because of disagreements about language. But the war was already well under way, and every action by the British ministry to suppress the colonies simply strengthened the radicals and undercut the diminishing moderate faction that was still desperately holding on to hope for reconciliation.
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  Jefferson's letters at this time expressed his firm conviction that compromise was no longer possible. He calculated overoptimistically that a single half year campaign - costing about $3,000,000 in new taxes - would suffice to settle the matter.

  "The question as Jefferson saw it was no longer whether the American colonies would declare independence, but when and how."

Jefferson highlighted the recognized change in British colonial administration - from "salutary neglect" prior to the French and Indian Wars to active intrusion in colonial matters after the war as England sought funds to cover some of the costs of the conflict.

  He was becoming the chief draftsman for the revolutionary cause. However, moving the debate along to this conclusion remained a delicate matter. At this time, while involved in frantic wartime legislation and administration, the members of the Congress still wished to avoid an open rupture and continued to pledge loyalty to George III.

  "Somehow these incompatible political postures, which reflected the split between the radicals and moderates in the Congress, had to be stitched together rhetorically. And although the official audience was the English ministry, the actual audience was the American people, or at least the different colonial legislatures that needed to be provided with a way of explaining to themselves why the formerly unthinkable had now become inevitable."

  Jefferson thus at this time had to accommodate the moderate views by compromising on his own more radical views. Parliament could be accorded some authoritative role in colonial governance "thro' warmth of affection." The expatriation theme was muted and the Saxon myth and the myth of Norman captivity of traditional English right were omitted from his writing for the Congress.
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  Instead, Jefferson highlighted the recognized change in British colonial administration - from "salutary neglect" prior to the French and Indian Wars to active intrusion in colonial matters after the war as England sought funds to cover some of the costs of the conflict. (British mercantilist trade regulations were truly repressive, but taxation to cover defense expenses was, of course, quite reasonable if nevertheless widely resented in the colonies.)

  "Jefferson showed a flair for, and an intuitive attraction toward, a narrative structure built around moralistic dichotomies. The empire 'then and now' set the theme. The story became a clash between British tyranny and colonial liberty, scheming British officials and supplicating colonists, all culminating in the clash at Lexington and Concord between General Thomas Gage's 'ministerial army' and 'the unsuspecting inhabitants' of Massachusetts. All this was conveyed in what we might call the sentimental style of the innocent victim."

  It also didn't explain how the "unsuspecting" colonials happened to be drawn up in military order when the British arrived.
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"Jefferson was, then, a quintessential Whig, but the Whig values were so appealing because they blended so nicely with his own quintessentially Jeffersonian character."

  The sources and Whig style of this political argumentation are explained by Ellis as running back to the English Civil War in the 1640s. It was "coded language familiar to Jefferson and his contemporaries but strange to our modern ears and sensibilities." Jefferson's library  contained the works of the chief eighteenth century Whigs in England - Henry St. John Bolingbroke, Thomas Gordon who wrote under the pseudonym "Cato," and James Burgh.

  "What strikes our modern ears as hyperbolic and melodramatic both in its tone and its posture toward political authority -- virtually any expression of government power is stigmatized -- was in fact part of a venerable Whig tradition of opposition. It was an acceptable and familiar style of political argumentation that had proved extremely useful in the previous decade of protest against British taxation. It had enormous polemic potential in simplifying the bewildering constitutional complexities facing both the colonists and the British ministry. Even its quasi-paranoid attitude toward the motive of decision-makers in London and Whitehall enjoyed at least the appearance of cool reason during the spring of 1776, as George III and his ministers seemed bent on behaving like villains in the Whig script."

  Even though the modern style of expression is different, this type of political polemic is unfortunately not so unfamiliar today. It can be seen in the perfervid conservative opposition to the Clinton administration and the equally perfervid liberal opposition to the administration of Bush (II).

  But Jefferson was totally sincere, Ellis assures us. He earnestly believed his own propaganda (a common hazard for ardent propagandists).

  "What some delegates in the Congress considered as a conveniently useful distortion that would help mobilize colonial opinion in the direction that destiny required, Jefferson regarded as an accurate characterization of the essential elements of the political situation. Whether or not he had acquired the primal categories of his political thinking from the Whig historians and Country Party theorists, by the  spring of 1776 he had thoroughly absorbed their style and substance into his own personality, where they only served to buttress his extreme aversion to explicit expressions of authority and his instinctive tendency to think in terms of moralistic dichotomies. Jefferson was, then, a quintessential Whig, but the Whig values were so appealing because they blended so nicely with his own quintessentially Jeffersonian character."

  Some substantial improvements in Jefferson's draft were made by John Dickinson who inserted some matter-of-fact tone into Jefferson's dramatic dichotomies. However, Jefferson - as always - resented all alterations in his work. The draft, nevertheless, was predominantly Jefferson, and was another "dress rehearsal" for the Declaration of Independence.
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"The golden haze around the Declaration of Independence had not yet formed. The sense of history we bring to the subject did not exist for those making it."

Jefferson contributed his own concept in a provision for complete religious freedom.

  Other writing assignments followed - committee reports, drafts of the "Resolutions of Congress on Lord North's Proposal" offering a half-hearted compromise, and the "Declaration on the British Treatment of Ethan Allen" who was eventually hung as a spy.
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  That winter, Jefferson returned to Monticello. Virginia was in the midst of drafting the state constitution and fending off  "a ragtag army of former slaves and loyalists" raised by the royal governor, Lord Dunmore. These affairs were widely considered far more important than anything going on in Philadelphia. However, Jefferson busied himself instead with stocking his cellar with wine, his private park with domesticated deer, and his stable with thoroughbred foals.
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  But Thomas Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense" had hit the streets in Philadelphia that winter and soon spread across the country. By the time Jefferson got back to Philadelphia on May 14, 1776, "America's most miraculous moment" was well under way. Ellis perceptively describes this moment.

  "[It] is the beginning of all genuine wisdom to recognize that neither Jefferson nor any other of the participants foresaw the historical significance of what they were doing at the time. What's more, within the context of the Philadelphia in the summer of 1776, the writing of the Declaration of Independence did not seem nearly so important as other  priorities, including the constitution-making of the states and the prospect of foreign alliances with France or Spain. The golden haze around the Declaration had not yet formed. The sense of history we bring to the subject did not exist for those making it."

  Even as historically aware a figure as John Adams was more impressed by the drafting of the state constitutions that was then taking place and for which he had already provided extensive recommendations. That spring, while in Philadelphia, Jefferson produced three separate drafts of the constitution for Virginia. Influenced by John Adams' pamphlet, "Thoughts on Government," the Jefferson drafts emphasized separation of powers, an independent judiciary and a bicameral legislature. But Jefferson envisioned a weak executive - called an "administrator" - reflecting his life-long aversion to the powers exercised by the royal governors.
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  Jefferson included property qualifications for voters, but also included a land distribution provision for allocating 50 acres to each resident. He urged ratification by special convention rather than the state legislature - another Adams idea. However, he contributed his own concept in a provision for complete religious freedom.
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  Thus, we know what was predominantly on Jefferson's mind at this time, Ellis concludes.

  "He was not thinking, as some historians have claimed, about John Locke's theory of natural rights or Scottish commonsense philosophy. He was thinking about Virginia's new constitution."

  Two of his three drafts for the Virginia constitution included lengthy indictments - condemnations against George III. These were yet more drafts of this most lengthy segment of the Declaration of Independence. In the constitution drafts, however, he charges George III with both perpetuating the slave trade and causing the slaves "to arise against us." This was one of the many circles about slavery that Jefferson would never succeed in squaring.
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Those at the Congress believed that the key decisions had already been made when the colonies had been directed to draft state constitutions.

Jefferson deeply resented every revision and deletion.

  The committee selected to draft the Declaration of Independence included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman as well as Jefferson. It was formed in response to Richard Henry Lee's June 7 Resolution "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states." The vote was put off until July 1.
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  Jefferson was chosen to do the actual drafting for two reasons, Ellis explains. First, drafting such documents was what Jefferson did for the Congress. Second, the other eligible authors had more important things with which they were occupied. However, Adams and Lee would lead the debates.
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  For the rest of his life, Adams would reflect on that decision to leave this task to Jefferson. This role, Ellis notes, became Jefferson's "major ticket into the American pantheon" as the Declaration grew in importance and public esteem. However, those at the Congress believed that the key decisions had already been made when the colonies had been directed to draft state constitutions.
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  More important was the ongoing wartime planning and military decisions. A great British fleet had been sighted off the coasts of New York and South Carolina. Under these circumstances, Jefferson was sufficiently insignificant to have time for such contemplative drafting efforts. And, it was the perfect task for him.

 "The work had to be done alone, isolated from the public debates. It needed to possess an elevated quality that linked American independence to grand and great forces that transcended the immediate political crisis and swept the imagination upward toward a purer and more principled world. Finally, it needed to paint the scene in bright, contrasting colors of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, 'ought' and 'is' without any of the intermediate hues or lingering doubts. It is difficult to imagine anyone in America better equipped. by disposition and experience, to perform the task as well."

  The draft was completed in just a few days. Franklin and Adams made a few changes. The Congress debated the Declaration, made several major changes, and (fortunately) shortened it by about 25%. They deleted among other things the charges about slavery, the dubious Whig views based on Jefferson's favorite expatriation beliefs, and "a rousingly emotional passage with decidedly sentimental overtones that condemned 'our British brethren''' for sending British armies and foreign mercenaries against the colonies.
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  Jefferson deeply resented every revision and deletion. His work had been "mangled," he asserted. He circulated his original version noting the changes that had been made, and disowned the final result throughout the rest of his life.
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"The explicit claim is that the individual is the sovereign unit in society; his natural state is freedom from and equality with all other individuals;  this is the natural order of things. The implicit claim is that all restrictions on this natural order are immoral transgressions.

  Jefferson's draft of the natural rights section expressed "a more spiritual vision" than the final version.

  "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and unalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 

  The final, more eloquent version benefited from the editorial efforts of others at the Congress. Franklin notably removed "sacred and undeniable" and substituted "self evident." As edited, it is "in all probability, the best-known fifty [six] words in American history." It is as close to political poetry as anyone in America has ever gotten.

  "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness; That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, - - -."

  Jefferson's version makes two monumental claims when "stripped of the patriotic haze, read straightaway and literally."

  "The explicit claim is that the individual is the sovereign unit in society; his natural state is freedom from and equality with all other individuals;  this is the natural order of things. The implicit claim is that all restrictions on this natural order are immoral transgressions, violations of what God intended; individuals liberated from such restrictions will interact with their fellows in a harmonious scheme requiring no external discipline and producing maximum happiness."

   Of course, the whole of natural rights philosophy is just ideological propaganda. There are no such things as rights that are "natural." People in this world have only the rights they are willing to fight for and defend. Indeed, the extent of freedom of speech has been placed at issue in Europe as this book review was being written. The natural rights section is a statement of the minimum - most basic - of the rights the American revolutionaries were fighting for and the people should defend.

  However, the Declaration was not "an operational blueprint," Ellis properly points out. It was brilliant political rhetoric and vision.

  "The genius of his vision is to propose that our deepest yearnings for personal freedom are in fact attainable. The genius of his rhetoric is to articulate irreconcilable human urges at a sufficiently abstract level to mask their mutual exclusiveness. Jefferson guards the American Creed at this inspirational level, which is inherently immune to scholarly skepticism and is a place where ordinary Americans can congregate to speak the magic words together. The Jeffersonian magic works because we permit it to function at a rarefied region where real-life choices do not have to be made."  (The U.S. Supreme Court does not treat the Declaration as a source for the nation's laws.)

  Thus, Jefferson's expressed ideals are amorphous - available to support inconsistent modern creeds, both those requiring government intervention and those demanding freedom from government intervention. Those diverse creeds still battle over his image. He has become, Ellis notes, "the Great Sphinx of American history, the enigmatic and elusive touchstone for the most cherished convictions and contested truths in American culture." As we attempt to dissect and analyze his concepts, we find that they are still alive and evolving.

  "The entire history of liberal reform in America can be written as a process of discovery, within Jefferson's words, of a spiritually sanctioned mandate for ending slavery, providing the rights of citizenship to blacks and women, justifying welfare programs for the poor and expanding individual freedoms."

"Efforts on the part of scholars to determine whether Jefferson's prescriptive society was fundamentally individualistic or communal can never reach closure, because within the Jeffersonian utopia, such choices do not need to be made. They reconcile themselves naturally."

  Afterwards, Jefferson claimed neither originality nor prescience about the significance of his achievement. He asserted that he had merely drawn the ideas from the well known classics and contemporary political philosophy, and harmonized them with the sentiments of the day.
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  Indeed, Ellis points out, "virtually all of the ideas found in the Declaration and much of the specific language, especially the grievances against George III," had already appeared in Jefferson's earlier writings. He was also clearly influenced by George Mason's preamble to the Virginia constitution, adopted June 12, 1776, and published that same day in Philadelphia. It included the words: "All men are created equally free and independent and have certain inherent and natural rights - - -, among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."
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  Jefferson's much analyzed deletion of "property," "the conventional third right memorialized in Locke's 'Second Treatise on Government,'" is explained by Ellis as a means of blurring the contradictions between slavery and the natural rights section of the Declaration. Ellis reviews the contemporary influences on Jefferson - George Mason, Locke, and the Scottish Enlightenment philosophers like Francis Hutcheson, among others. These undoubtedly contributed to the final product. But the chief contribution, Ellis convincingly asserts, came from the character of Jefferson himself.

  "It was the vision of a young man projecting his personal cravings for a world in which all behavior was voluntary and therefore all coercion unnecessary, where independence and equality never collided, where the sources of all authority were invisible because they had already been internalized. Efforts on the part of scholars to determine whether Jefferson's prescriptive society was fundamentally individualistic or communal can never reach closure, because within the Jeffersonian utopia, such choices do not need to be made. They reconcile themselves naturally."

  The United States was built by men of hard, practical frames of mind - men of action like Washington and John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. However, it was based on a dream - the dream of Jefferson. That dream has - ever since - slowly - generation by generation - been spreading across the globe.
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  Of course, the practical men were pursuing the dream of self government - and the dreamer was concerned with the practical politics of the effort. The difference is one of degree - but the degree is substantial. It is this unique combination that was the collective genius of the founding fathers - and it continues to characterize the American political and economic experiment in self government, economic freedom and individual liberty to this day.

  Jefferson was under considerable personal stress at this time. His wife was having a difficult pregnancy with a baby she would lose, and he was anxious to get back to Monticello. He requested earnestly that a substitute delegate be sent. Since some of the other Virginia delegates were in Williamsburg taking part in the more important business of the state constitution, his presence in Philadelphia was required to maintain a quorum for the Virginia delegation.
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  Thus, Jefferson stayed loyally at his post. As usual, he remained on the sidelines of the debates and political efforts. These involved important matters, including prospective foreign alliances and the shape of the national government under the Articles of Confederation. His extensive notes on what others said constitutes the fullest historical record available of these debates.
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  Ironically, Ellis notes, Jefferson was present on August 2, 1776, to sign the document on which his fame would be based only because "he had been forced against his will to sustain Virginia's official presence in the Congress." He was able to hurry back to Monticello in September, 1776.
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  In Virginia, Jefferson came under attack. He had not engaged in the military opposition to Governor Dunmore, and the natural rights section of the Declaration raised the specter of direct democracy. He thus by correspondence had to defend his revolutionary credentials and assert his commitment to republican government.

  "I have ever observed," he wrote Edmund Pendleton, "that a choice by the people themselves is not generally distinguished for its wisdom [and that the] first secretion from them is usually crude and heterogeneous."

  He also wrote in favor of a ruthless campaign against Britain's Indian allies, advocating that they be pushed clear across the Mississippi.
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  Ellis concludes that these were overstatements of his real feelings, offered to counter the attacks his sudden prominence was inevitably drawing from lesser men. In time, he would learn to fend off such attacks with an imperturbable silence, but the attacks did wound the sensitive young man. Jefferson had not yet developed the "enigmatic masks he eventually learned to wear [as] essential additions to his public personality."
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  When asked in October to join Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane as part of the important commission seeking an alliance with France, he regretfully declined due to his personal problems at home.
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State and national political office:

  As the new Virginia and national governments began to take shape, Jefferson was active in both theaters. However, he was predominantly a man ahead of his times - better at proposing what should be done than at getting his proposals enacted.
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His effort to include a provision requiring the end of slavery in all new states admitted after 1800 was rejected by one vote. This would constitute his most substantive attack on slavery during his long political career.

  He proposed extensive reform of the Virginia legal code, but succeeded only with the abolition of the feudal era laws of primogeniture and entail. These were proving unenforceable in America in any event. Left for the future were his proposals to limit the application of the death penalty, expand suffrage to more of the independent yeomen of the western counties, expand the public school system, and separate church and state by elimination of the establishment status of the Anglican church.

  "[The] thrust of his political thinking was clear: to remove all legal and political barriers to individual initiative and thereby create what he called 'an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent.' It was in effect an attempt to implement the ideals articulated in the natural rights section of the Declaration. Just as clearly, his favorite ideas were several steps ahead of public opinion. He was more a prophet than a politician."

  As a member of Congress in 1784, Jefferson successfully backed the adoption of decimal monetary units based on the dollar, but was unsuccessful in gaining adoption of metric standards as replacement of the English system of weights and measures. (The nation would idiosyncratically continue to reject the science-based metric  system.)
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  Most important, he wrote the Ordinance of 1784 establishing that all new states would be admitted on an equal basis. However, his effort to include a provision requiring the end of slavery in all new states admitted after 1800 was rejected by one vote. This would constitute his most substantive attack on slavery during his long political career. He remarked of this defeat that "the fate of millions unborn [was] hanging on the tongue of one man, and Heaven was silent in that awful moment."
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  In between, his experience as governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781, was not auspicious. The revolutionary war was winding up on Virginia soil. Jefferson sent his best troops to join a futile expedition against Detroit, and was helpless as British forces under Benedict Arnold arrived to capture and burn the state capital of Richmond. A cavalry force chased him ignominiously from Monticello. The state's economy was devastated, and it failed to meet its quota of men for the Continental Army.
 &
  As Ellis points out, this was the wrong time for a man of scholarly and "refined sensibilities" to be the chief executive of a state. Jefferson readily admitted that his experience as governor had been traumatic.
 &
  However, he had begun to recognize some of the benefits of an effective national government - at least with respect to foreign affairs and commerce. He subsequently expressed his belief that treaties of amity and commerce would by implication give the national government jurisdiction over the nation's commerce. A decade later, this endorsement of implied powers would be used against him.
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  In 1782, the death of his wife, Martha, bearing their seventh child - only three of whom survived - was a heavy blow for Jefferson. He spent months in inconsolable grief. He never remarried.
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  Ambassador to France:

  Jefferson arrived in Paris in August, 1784, as minister plenipotentiary to France. He was now the mature Jefferson, hardened by his recent experience both in political office and his personal life.
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Between Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, Jeffersonian political leaders would hold the presidency of the young republic for the first 24 years of the nineteenth century.

  He established himself ultimately at the Hôtel de Langeac on the Champs-Élysées then on the outskirts of Paris near the present-day Arc de Triumph. He rented the whole three story spacious building, "complete with several salons, three separate suites, stables, a garden and a full staff of servants, maids, cooks, plus a coachman and gardener." This cost him more than his salary of $9,000.
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  His staff included two assistants. He also employed an interpreter as needed. With him was his daughter, Patsy, 12 years of age, whom he placed in a convent school, and a young mulatto slave, James Hemings, tasked with learning the arts of fine French cooking.
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  Jefferson was already seen by many as a rising political star - possibly the successor to Washington as the nation's premier political figure. He used this renown shrewdly and gathered around himself a number of bright politically active young Virginia men. These included James Madison, James Monroe and William Short. Short was one of his assistants in Paris. The others kept him apprised of events through an active correspondence, and took care of his political interests back home.
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  Between Jefferson and the first two, Jeffersonian political leaders would hold the presidency of the young republic for the first 24 years of the nineteenth century.
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  Also in Paris at this time were Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. Franklin returned home in the summer of 1785.
 &

  Adams and Jefferson had mutual objectives as diplomats, so their relationship was one of friendship, mutual admiration and collaboration. This was maintained by correspondence after Adams became the first American ambassador to the Court of St. James in London nine months after Jefferson arrived in Paris. Ellis describes at some length the depth of their relationship at this time, which would contrast so sharply with their bitter political conflict a decade later.
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  However, the kernel of future differences in political philosophy revealed itself in their different attitudes towards dealings with the Barbary pirate states in the Mediterranean. Jefferson was incensed and proposed the organization of an international fleet to deal with the depredations on peaceful commerce. Adams responded coolly that Congress was broke and would never approve the 500,000£ needed to support an American fleet for that purpose. Paying the required tribute to the pirate states was thus all that could be done. Adams proved to be correct.
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  Both Adams and Jefferson labored long and skillfully, but as the representatives of a small, young republic with a notoriously weak national government, they had no diplomatic leverage, and they achieved little. Ellis describes the utter ineptness and weakness of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, and the haughty dismissive attitude of the British towards the young republic and its ministers. Even Jefferson was moved to exclaim upon the need for stronger action by the Congress. The new nation desperately needed treaties of amity and commerce to promote trade, but mercantilist obstructions were impenetrable almost everywhere. A bank loan from Amsterdam obtained by Adams was their only important accomplishment.

  "All the forward-looking Jeffersonian visions of a liberal international community, comprised of open markets and national cooperation, had foundered on the rocks of European intransigence. From a historical perspective, his lifelong recognition that American foreign policy was the one area requiring a strong federal government congealed at this time. It was also becoming clear that his own idealistic instincts worked best when surrounded by more realistic and tough-minded colleagues."

The European nations were "a hopeless sinkhole of avarice, ignorance and abject poverty" he wrote to an American correspondent.

  But Jefferson became wildly popular in France - a fitting successor to Franklin. He, in turn, was thoroughly captivated by French culture. That he truly loved France and hated England added to his appeal. He energetically arranged numerous cultural exchanges. His growing stature in Paris in turn added to his stature in America.
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  Jefferson was not blind to the cruder realities of Europe in general and France in particular. The European nations were "a hopeless sinkhole of avarice, ignorance and abject poverty" he wrote to an American correspondent. He ascribed these pervasive ills to the governing European monarchies and aristocracies. When the Virginia Assembly passed his bill guaranteeing religious freedom, he drew scathing comparisons between the possibilities for enlightenment in America and the hopeless narrow-minded oppression in Europe. Of course, these thoughts were only expressed to American correspondents.

  "The psychological agility required to sustain a sincere and highly visible affection for all things French, especially while simultaneously denouncing European decadence with equivalent sincerity, depended upon mysterious mechanisms inside Jefferson that prevented his different voices from hearing one another. In his letters, he could modulate his message to fit his different audiences."

He expressed recognition that the time was not ripe for acting against slavery, so that the problem would simply have to be passed along for solution to the next generation of American statesmen.

"He had the kind of duplicity possible only in the pure of heart."

  "Notes on the State of Virginia," written by Jefferson in 1881, was published in Paris at this time. It added immensely to French knowledge about America, and to the reputation in France of its author. However, it included philosophic remarks on slavery that Jefferson feared might be held against him back in Virginia. He had even expressed apocalyptic apprehensions in the book about a future race war - "convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race." Its most famous passage suggested that god would not be on the side of the whites in this conflict.

  "Indeed I tremble for my country. When I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest."

  However, Jefferson's feelings on slavery were already well known from his prior writings, and his book had little additional impact in Virginia. Nevertheless, this book was both his first and last. He henceforth adopted a very strategic posture with respect to slavery. He expressed recognition that the time was not ripe for acting against it, so that the problem would simply have to be passed along for solution to the next generation of American statesmen. (Indeed, they, too, would fail to find a peaceful resolution to the problems of slavery in America.)
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  This stance permitted Jefferson to appear to possess both mature wisdom and practical savvy while not compromising his principles by inaction. Ellis sums up the mature Jefferson.

  "What his critics took to be hypocrisy was not really that at all. In some cases it was the desire to please different constituencies, to avoid conflict with colleagues. In other cases it was an orchestration of his internal voices, to avoid conflict with himself. Both the external and internal diplomacy grew out of his deep distaste for sharp disagreement and his bedrock belief that harmony was nature's way of signaling the arrival of truth. More self-deception than calculated hypocrisy, it was nonetheless a disconcerting form of psychological agility that would make it possible for Jefferson to walk past the slave quarters on Mulberry Row at Monticello thinking about mankind's brilliant prospects without any sense of contradiction. Though it made him deaf to most forms of irony, it had the decided political advantage of banishing doubt or disabling ambiguity from his mental process. He had the kind of duplicity possible only in the pure of heart."

The Constitutional Convention:

  Jefferson took part in the Constitutional Convention by means of correspondence, principally with Madison. This led to a rather strange situation.
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The Federalists favored the granting of such powers, but put a lot of effort into establishing an architecture of government that would minimize the inevitable abuses of such powers.

  Madison was a federalist at this time. He had experienced first hand the futility of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, and entertained no doubts about the need for a strong national government. He plunged into a study of David Hume and Montesquieu - the works of the former ironically shipped to him from Europe by Jefferson. This prepared Madison to play his role as the principal architect of the Constitution and has been viewed as "the most consequential act of scholarship in American history."
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  However, his mentor, Jefferson, was a committed anti-federalist. Everywhere in continental Europe, Jefferson could see monarchies using their centralized powers to abuse their people. Jefferson even viewed Shays rebellion in America as a positive sign of popular opposition to government - a continuance of the revolutionary spirit. Jefferson wrote:

  "What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

  Federalists like Madison were just as wary of a powerful national government as the anti-federalists. They just accepted as a practical matter the need for a national government empowered to act for the national interests. So they favored the granting of such powers, but put a lot of effort into establishing an architecture of government that would minimize the inevitable abuses of such powers. (This widespread skepticism about government is one of the defining characteristics - a vital part of the genius - of the founding fathers of the Constitution.)
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Jefferson thought that a few reform articles added to the Articles of Confederation to strengthen the national government's hands in foreign affairs and commerce would suffice. 

  Jefferson expressed alarm and opposition as he began to learn of the reform plans at the Convention. He actually inhabited, Ellis notes, "a more rarified region where governments themselves were rendered irrelevant." He thought that a few reform articles added to the Articles of Confederation to strengthen the national government's hands in foreign affairs and commerce would suffice. Ellis sums up the views expressed by Jefferson at this time.

  "The Jefferson ideal, in short, was not a specific version of balanced republican government. It was a world in which individual citizens had internalized their social responsibilities so thoroughly that the political architecture Madison was designing was superfluous. Though prepared to acknowledge the need to make necessary compromises with his ideal for practical reasons -- the size of the American population and the vastness of its territory obviously demanded some delegation of authority beyond the sovereign itself -- he did so grudgingly. And the elaborate reasoning about constitutional structure that so captivated political thinkers like Madison and the other delegates at the Constitutional Convention never animated the best energies of his mind, which drew its inspiration from a utopian vision of the liberated individual resisting all external coercion and regarding all forms of explicit government power as a necessary evil."

"Madison's entire emphasis on social balance was at odds with Jefferson's commitment to personal liberation."

Ultimately, Jefferson joined with many others - both federalist and anti-federalist - in accepting the expanded Constitutional powers for the national government on the proviso that they would be limited by a Bill of Rights protecting the individual from government oppression.

  Madison dealt delicately with Jefferson. Jefferson had become an influential figure, and Madison had to counter anti-federalist claims that Jefferson opposed the new Constitution.
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  Madison first declined to provide Jefferson with the details of the Convention's deliberations, asserting the oath of secrecy binding the Convention delegates. At the end, he provided Jefferson with a full account of the completed proceedings along with an insightful explanation and justification for the provisions strengthening the national government.

  "Madison then went on to analyze the intricate and purposefully ambiguous layering of jurisdiction by the different branches of government and the different versions of representation. 'Those who contend for a Simple Democracy, or a pure republic, actuated by a sense of the majority, and operating within narrow limits,' he observed, 'assume or suppose a case which is altogether fictitious.'"

  However, his explanation to Jefferson omitted a key purpose of the proposed Constitution - its intentional dilution of majoritarian power. Indeed, the Constitution was everything Jefferson opposed. Not only was it meant to strengthen the national government, Ellis explains, it was also designed to subvert mere majority rule on the assumption that the chief threat to individual liberty in America was likely to come from that direction.

  "Jefferson would have found such an argument unintelligible, since he found it impossible to regard popular majorities as dangerous or to think about the powers of government in positive ways. Madison's entire emphasis on social balance was at odds with Jefferson's commitment to personal liberation."

    Fortunately for Jefferson - for his relationship with Madison - and for the new Constitution - Jefferson was far away in Paris and his true views were communicated only to a few close correspondents. Shying away as usual from direct confrontation, he permitted himself to become convinced by Madison to endorse ratification and leave matters of detail in Madison's hands.
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  Jefferson's correspondence - filled with inconsistencies and contradictions - provided Madison with enough expressions of support so that Madison could claim during debates on ratification that Jefferson supported ratification. Jefferson did not contradict him. When Madison sent Jefferson a copy of the Federalist Papers - articles written by Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in support of ratification - Jefferson praised it as "the best commentary on the principles of government which were ever written."
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  Ultimately, Jefferson joined with many others - both federalist and anti-federalist - in accepting the expanded constitutional powers for the national government on the proviso that they would be limited by a Bill of Rights protecting the individual from government oppression. He also favored term limits for the President (something that would not be added until the middle of the twentieth century).

  "[Jefferson's] lifelong attitude toward the constitutional settlement of 1787-88 remained ambiguous and problematic. - - - [His] mind and heart longed for a world where government itself had disappeared. Given the terms of the constitutional debate that raged in America in 1788, the one issue that best embodied his political convictions was the insistence on a bill of rights that transcended all the Madisonian complexities. That is pretty much what he chose to emphasize."

The French Revolution:

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  The French Revolution was viewed by Jefferson with extreme, determined, and ultimately blind optimism. Jefferson's rapidly evolving early correspondence was filled with optimism and calm assurances that moderates were in control and that France's "internal affairs will be arranged without blood." He believed that the "contagion of liberty" loosed by the American Revolution would quickly spread across Europe - beginning with France. Ellis covers these views in some detail.
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Broad concepts of civil rights rather than the practical architecture of government is what filled Jefferson's mind.

  The savage violence that broke out in July, 1789, shocked Jefferson, but did not undermine "his belief in the essential rightness of the cause or the ultimate triumph of its progressive principles." He remained optimistic about "the prospect for an enduring and peaceful political settlement." He remained oblivious about the "deep and irreconcilable class resentments" driving the mobs deeper into bloody slaughter. Repeatedly he expressed his belief that the worst was over and that the  future looked bright. He wrote on August 5, 1789:

  "The National Assembly are wise, firm and moderate. They will establish the English constitution, purged of its numerous and capital defects."

  It is at this time - concurrent with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution and the ongoing French Revolution - that Jefferson began to express his belief in the benefits of periodic revolutions - at generational intervals of about 19 years. Most famously, he wrote to an unreceptive Madison:

  "I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living."

   Madison gently rebuffed this prescription for periodic anarchy, and Jefferson never attempted to act on it, but Jefferson continued to express this belief in his correspondence and discourse for the rest of his life. This, Ellis contends, reveals the core of Jefferson's fantasy world - concerned with broad utopian concepts of what ought to be and oblivious to the requirements for a sustainable system for self government that so deeply concerned Madison. Broad concepts of civil rights rather than the practical architecture of government is what filled Jefferson's mind. This was his response to the pervasive inequities of European feudalism with its mass impoverishment of the peasantry and equally glaring opulence of the privileged.
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  Indeed, during the drafting in France of a Declaration of Rights, this concept of the rights of succeeding generations was actively debated by members of the Patriot Party - including the Marquis de Lafayette, the mathematician the Marquis de Condorcet, and Dr. Richard Gem, with involvement by Jefferson. It was "in the air" in France in 1789 much as "natural rights" concepts were "in the air" in revolutionary America during the drafting of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
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  Vast debts accumulated by nations and individuals, and the heavy burdens they imposed, were a driving force for such views. Revolutionary France, the young United States, and Jefferson himself, staggered under the increasing burdens of debt. Why should the present be so burdened by the debts of the past?

  "The belief that 'the earth belongs to the living,' in short, was another blow struck in behalf of Jefferson's most cherished dream: a society devoid of contaminating institutions and laws; an effort to routinize their removal so that the deadening hand of history was regularly slapped away in order to make room for a pristine encounter with what he believed to be the natural order."

  Of course, Jefferson could never have lived the life he lived if he had not been able to borrow money from those who had confidence in ultimate repayment. Nor, as President, could he have financed the Louisiana Purchase.

  By September, 1789, just before leaving for home, Jefferson's general correspondence remained optimistic about events in Paris, but his official correspondence contained warnings of the possibilities for further violence in the event of bread riots or a worsening of the fiscal crisis.
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Partisan politics:

  Inevitably, new precedent was established by every action taken by the Washington administration.
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  An architecture of government that was intentionally ambiguous in many important respects left many questions of overlapping jurisdiction to be resolved by political practice.

  "The Constitution, in short, did not resolve the long-standing political disagreements that existed within the revolutionary generation so much as establish a fresh and more stable context within which they could be argued out."

Jefferson was actively involved in the political division of the nation into contesting parties that thus naturally and wholly unexpectedly began to evolve.

  As Secretary of State, Jefferson was a member of the first administration. Having been away in Paris during the debates, he had not played a direct role in the compromises and accommodations involved in forming and ratifying the Constitution. All his revolutionary values remained intact. He was still "psychologically and ideologically unprepared" for surrender of any of them, Ellis notes.
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  Jefferson and Madison were the most prominent opponents of the policies of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and the other Federalists in the administration. They naturally attracted others who opposed those policies. As a member of that administration, Jefferson was quickly labeled a traitor. There was at that time no concept anywhere in political philosophy of a loyal opposition.
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  The criticism stung Jefferson. However, his response was to encourage others to attack the Federalists in turn. He even put one of the anti-federalist publishers on the Secretary of State's payroll. He himself - in typical fashion - avoided direct confrontation. However, he was actively involved in the political division of the nation into contesting parties that thus naturally and wholly unexpectedly began to evolve.
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  Jefferson was generally the strategist behind the scenes, while Madison, as a leading Congressman, took the lead, openly handling the details. Indeed, Jefferson's conduct during this period was so inconsistent as to give rise to a reputation for duplicity.
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  There fortunately was no dispute as to the nation's interest. It had to concentrate on internal consolidation and development while avoiding international entanglements. Jefferson was thus able to function well as Secretary of State. He forcefully negotiated his country's interests while avoiding any partisanship that might draw the U.S. into the wars between the European powers.
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  However, there were bitter disputes as to whether England or France constituted the primary threat at that time, and there were other disputes over tactics. While these did not undermine the consensus over the basic principle of non-involvement, they did have an impact on Jefferson's diplomacy.
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England was in fact still the primary threat. Its troops remained along the western frontier, and it used its formidable economic powers to constrain U.S. trade. It still entertained the belief that the errant colonies would fail and seek to rejoin the British Empire.

  Jefferson's hatred of England remained intact even almost two decades after drafting his indictments against George III, the English government and the English people.

  "Had not George III confirmed that the loathing was mutual by ceremoniously turning his back on him and Adams before the entire English court? Before that Cornwallis's soldiers had burned his crops, carried off his livestock and slit the throats of those animals they could not take with them. During the Paris years he had also been exposed to the routinized arrogance of the English press, which seemed incapable of digesting the awkward fact that the American colonies had actually won their war for independence."

  This hatred of England obstructed Jefferson's ability to negotiate with England over questions remaining from the Peace Treaty of Paris and over disputes involving British Canada. However, England was in fact still the primary threat.
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  Its troops remained along the western frontier, and it used its formidable economic powers to constrain U.S. trade. It still entertained the belief that the errant colonies would fail and seek to rejoin the British Empire. Most personally threatening, Jefferson and other members of the planter class remained deeply indebted to English and Scottish creditors and dependent on the London market for the sale of tobacco - their primary cash crop.
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Jefferson was ready to excuse any level of terror and bloodshed to retain his hopes for a favorable outcome of the events in France.

Whatever his misjudgment about prospects in revolutionary France, Jefferson was prescient about the impact of the American dream of individual liberty and political freedom. "This ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll around the globe," he wrote.

  Jefferson remained favorably inclined towards France, on the other hand. Even as the French Revolution lurched from one bloody episode to another, Jefferson maintained friendly and uncritical diplomatic relations. The efforts of the French minister, Edmund Genêt, to bring the U.S. onto France's side against England, were tolerated by Jefferson until Genêt was discredited by his conduct. Jefferson was ready to excuse any level of terror and bloodshed to retain his hopes for a favorable outcome of the events in France.

  "Such an extreme version of what might be called revolutionary realism, which conjures up comparisons to the twentieth-century radicals in the Lenin or Mao mold, exposes a chilling side of Jefferson's character that seems so thoroughly incongruous with his temperament and so resolutely ideological. But his casual response to the atrocities of the French Revolution was in fact an integral part of a rather rarefied but deeply felt sense of where history was headed."

  Whatever his misjudgment about prospects in revolutionary France, Jefferson was prescient about the impact of the American dream of individual liberty and political freedom. "This ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll around the globe," he wrote. That the process would be uneven and occasionally violent was to be expected. (While overoptimistic about the pace of these events, his view continues to be confirmed two centuries later.)

  "All specific decisions about American foreign policy needed to be informed by this overarching, almost cosmic pattern. In practice this meant, as it usually did for Jefferson, fitting the intricate complexities of foreign policy into a simple moral dichotomy. This one cast England in the role of counterrevolutionary villain and France in the role of revolutionary hero."

Jefferson and Hamilton became increasingly bitter rivals, "engaged in a bitter fight for the ear and mind of Washington and for what each man regarded as the very soul of the American republic."

  In domestic policy, Jefferson and Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, fell out with each other within about a year of the start of the Washington administration. In June of 1790, they could still agree to a compromise that gained passage of Hamilton's plan for federal funding of state debts in return for establishing the capital on the Potomac near Virginia. After that, they became increasingly bitter rivals, "engaged in a bitter fight for the ear and mind of Washington and for what each man regarded as the very soul of the American republic."
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  Ellis goes at some length into the differing characters of these two founding fathers and the increasingly bitter personal assaults launched by Hamilton and Jefferson against each other. "Jefferson himself never entered the public debate, always preferring to work through surrogates" like Madison, Monroe and Congressman William Branch Giles. Giles launched an investigation into trumped up charges of financial impropriety against Hamilton. Ellis notes that Jefferson was "so skillful at covering his tracks that the extent of his involvement in the Giles investigation was not discovered for almost two hundred years."
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  Ellis explains that this perfervid manner of conducting political disputes was not unique to Hamilton and Jefferson. It was common in England and among all the early political leaders in the U.S. - except Washington who was immune to all such temptations. And the stakes appeared to be enormous. Both Hamilton and Jefferson earnestly viewed the other as a threat to the success of the American experiment in self government.

  "Hamilton's plans for a proactive federal government empowered to shape markets and set both the financial and political agendas were certainly not monarchical in character -- if anything, they were more a precocious precursor of twentieth-century New Deal values than an archaic attempt to resuscitate the arbitrary authority of medieval kings and courts -- but in Jefferson's mind these distinctions made no appreciable difference. Energetic government of any sort was intolerable because it originated outside the individual; it therefore violated his romantic ideal of personal autonomy. - - - Hamilton did not just conjure up bad memories of English oppression; he directly threatened the primal core of Jefferson's wistful world."

Plantation farmer and slave owner:

  Jefferson's personality contradictions extended to every aspect of his life, Ellis explains. His ideals and words were not matched by his actions, and his actions frequently failed to achieve practical results.
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His words condemned slavery in eloquent and perceptive terms, and slavery was clearly repulsive to his ideals, yet Jefferson remained dependent on slaves for every aspect of his practical existence to the end of his days.

  Jefferson was back at Monticello after resigning from the Washington administration in 1794. He continued to fill his correspondence with his agricultural enthusiasms and plans. After the first year home, however, Jefferson spent very little time supervising actual farming operations, and his plans ultimately failed to achieve practical results, leaving his income insufficient to make a dent in his debts. He spent most of his time on his other concerns, such as his saw mill, the manufacture of nails for sale, and, most important to Jefferson, the reconstruction of the mansion.
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  His words condemned slavery in eloquent and perceptive terms, and slavery was clearly repulsive to his ideals, yet Jefferson remained dependent on slaves for every aspect of his practical existence to the end of his days. Unlike for so many other policy issues, Jefferson insisted on consideration of various practical obstacles to abolition. He could not envision how masses of freed slaves could be accommodated into American society. Also, as Ellis points out, "during the latter phase of his French experience Jefferson became more intensely aware how much his own financial well-being depended upon the monetary value and labor of his slaves."
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  All the evidence indicates that Jefferson was "benevolent and generous" in his relations with his slaves and the supervision of their work. They were always genuinely glad to see him return from his extended absences during which they had been under the supervision of various overseers. Many of his household slaves were of mixed blood. He so arranged matters at the mansion as to render them almost invisible. This, Ellis explains, is a physical manifestation of his mental agility in keeping unpleasant realities from intruding into his utopian ideals.
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Presidential politics:

  Jefferson's interest in politics could be seen slowly reviving within a year of his retirement. But the event that brought him decisively back into the fray was the Jay Treaty.
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  John Jay negotiated a treaty with Great Britain - America's primary trading partner - that kept the peace but offered few other benefits and essentially recognized Britain's dominant position in the relationship. It did provide for the withdrawal of British troops from the western frontier - something Britain had been obliged to do under the Paris Peace Treaty. However, it also affirmed the legitimacy of pre-revolution commercial debts - most of which were owed by Virginia planters. English tariffs on American goods were to remain, while efforts that Jefferson had made to impose tariffs on British goods were repudiated.

  "It accepted the fact of English commercial and naval supremacy and thereby endorsed a pro-English version of American neutrality, just the opposite of Jefferson's pro-French version of 'fair neutrality.'"

  Jefferson's infatuation with the revolutionary France would remain steadfast until Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor and declared the revolution over.

  Ellis points out that the Jay Treaty was as much as the weak young U.S. could have gotten, and achieved several important objectives. It kept the peace with England for a vital two additional decades and began the process of betting on the Royal Navy as the ultimate shield for 19th century America. However, Jefferson saw none of this.

  "In effect, as Jefferson saw it, the Jay Treaty was a repudiation of the Declaration of Independence, the Franco-American alliance, the revolutionary movement sweeping through Europe and all the political principles on which he had staked his public career as an American statesman."

  Ellis examines some of Jefferson's correspondence about the Jay Treaty. Jefferson's cavalier attitude towards the constitutional structure governing treaties contrasts with Madison's careful framing of the actual opposition to fit within that architecture.
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  The key for the opposition was to assert a role for the Republican controlled House in the approval of the treaty. Madison carefully based that effort on the need for funding for certain treaty provisions. However, Jefferson was willing to simply have the House assume full jurisdiction. The Constitution and its provisions for Senate jurisdiction over treaties could be brushed aside if that stood in the way of popular opposition to the treaty.

  "Upsetting delicate constitutional balances or setting dangerous precedents did not trouble him in such moments."

  Ultimately, Madison failed to hold his Republican majority together in the House. It was a devastating defeat for Madison. He attributed this to Western members who wanted removal of those British troops so that the Mississippi Valley would be open to settlement. Jefferson, for once more perceptive than Madison, attributed the defeat to Washington, who had supported the treaty. He advised patience, as only the presence of Washington now supported the Federalist cause. (The Jay Treaty was widely unpopular. France considered it an act of war and began capturing American merchant ships.)
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  In 1796, sensing a chance for victory, the Republicans brought Jefferson in as the presidential candidate of the party. However, the loss to Adams that fall by three electoral votes was viewed as acceptable both philosophically and strategically by Jefferson. Adams had always been his senior in their collaborations, and Jefferson remained personally fond of him.
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  More important, Adams would be no puppet of the Federalists, and Adams disliked Hamilton almost as much as Jefferson did. Moreover, Jefferson shrewdly calculated that the prospects for anyone tasked with succeeding Washington was grim indeed, and that a failed Adams presidency would deliver the government into Republican hands. As Vice President, Jefferson refused to collaborate with the Adams administration, putting party prospects ahead of friendship and directing increasingly virulent partisan assaults on Adams and his administration. (See, McCullough, "John Adams," sections on "Vice President John Adams" and "President John Adams" for an account of the political schism between Adams and Jefferson.)
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  As Vice President, Jefferson was not entirely inactive, however. In opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, he and Madison drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions - passed in those states in 1798 and 1799. These recognized "the right of a state to nullify a federal law within its own borders, even describing federal intrusion in state matters as interference by a foreign government."

  These policy beliefs would play a major role in the disputes that led to the Civil War. The appropriate balance between state and federal sovereignty continues as a regular feature of constitutional law litigation to this day.

President Jefferson:

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  Jefferson did indeed win the presidency in 1800. However, it was a remarkably close multi-candidate race that had to be resolved in the House - a process that took 36 ballots and six contentious days.

  Hamilton was ironically ultimately forced to choose between his two hated enemies - Jefferson and the notoriously amoral Aaron Burr - a brilliant and ambitious New York politician. Hamilton decided wisely that Jefferson would be the far better President, continuing a rivalry with Burr that would ultimately lead to Hamilton's death three years later in a duel.

Despite the elevated passions of the political moment and the contentious struggle during the campaign and in the House, the constitutional apparatus worked as intended and the result was accepted without violence.

  A Federalist, John Marshall, as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Aaron Burr, the Vice President, were also in the government but outside the administration.
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  The things that didn't happen, however, were the most remarkable aspects of Jefferson's victory. Despite the elevated passions of the political moment and the contentious struggle during the campaign and in the House, the constitutional apparatus worked as intended and the result was accepted without violence. Jefferson's inaugural in the rustic, unfinished new Capitol was routine. This was indeed a rare virtue in those days that the new political system would continue to enjoy (with the notable exception of the Civil War). 
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The address also established the vital tradition of conciliatory healing and moderation during such transfers of political power. "We are all republicans - are all federalists," Jefferson famously said.

  Jefferson's first inaugural address was delivered in so soft a voice as to be inaudible to any but those in the first rows of the audience. The written version, however, was published that same day and was another Jeffersonian masterpiece. It included a pledge of conscientious stewardship  and "a classic rendering of the principle of free speech."

  "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

  It included an elegant, concise statement of domestic and foreign policy goals.

  "Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship, with all nations -- entangling alliances with none."

  As Ellis points out, the foreign policy was that of Washington, but the words about avoiding "entangling alliances" that best described the policy were, once again, those of Jefferson.
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  The address also established the vital tradition of conciliatory healing and moderation during such transfers of political power. "We are all republicans - we are all federalists," Jefferson famously said.

  "But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle."

  There would be no "radical break with Federalist policies or - - - dramatic repudiation" of constitutional architecture, Ellis notes. Nevertheless, Jefferson remained true to his minimalist government proclivities. Ellis points out that Jefferson still viewed the struggle between the Federalists and Republicans as "a moral struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness."
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  To Jefferson, his victory began a second revolution. In his words, it was "as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form." However, "democracy" was not what he meant, and not a word that he used. Ellis points out that he meant a return to "republican" principles - a recovery of the "pure republicanism" of the Revolution - a restoration of revolutionary austerity.

  "In Jefferson's mind great historical leaps forward were almost always the product of a purging, which freed societies from the accumulated debris of the past and thereby allowed the previously obstructed natural forces to flow forward into the future. Simplicity and austerity, not equality or individualism, were the messages of his inaugural march. It was a minimalist statement about a purging of excess and a recovery of essence."

  Ellis emphasizes some of the revealing passages in the Inaugural Address. Among other blessings listed by Jefferson was:

  "[A] wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them free to regulate their pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."

The freedom possible under a minimalist government was viewed by Jefferson as its greatest source of strength.

  "The very notion of government itself was the core problem. In that sense he remained true to the Whig tradition, which stigmatizes all forms of political power as inherently corrupt, as well as to his own ideal of personal autonomy, which regarded any explicit exercise of authority that was not consensual or voluntary as inherently invasive. - - - [This] meant that Jefferson was declaring that his primary responsibility as president was to render ineffectual and invisible the very government he was elected to lead."

  Indeed, the freedom possible under a minimalist government was viewed by Jefferson as its greatest source of strength. The people, themselves, recognizing their own self interests in remaining free, "would fly to the standard of the law" whenever needed and "meet invasions of the public order" as their "own personal concern." Ellis sums up the differences between this Jeffersonian view and that of the Federalists.

  "[Jefferson thus suggested] that the true, indeed only source of energy in a republic was not the government per se but the voluntary popular opinion on which it rested. The traditional presumption, which was a bedrock conviction among all Federalists, was that an active federal government was necessary to embody authority and focus national policy. In the absence of such governmental leadership, it was assumed that the American republic would spin off into a series of factions and interest groups and eventually into separate regional units. Without a strong central government, in short, one could not have a coherent American nation. In Jefferson's formulation, however, which must have seemed counterintuitive to the Federalists, the release of national energy increased as the power of the government decreased. Whereas the Federalist way of thinking about government concerned itself with sustaining discipline, stability and balance, the Jeffersonian mentality bypassed such traditional concerns and celebrated the idea of liberation. Lurking in his language about what makes a republican government strong was a belief in the inherent coherence of an American society that did not require the mechanisms of the state to maintain national stability."

  Of course, in essential ways, both of these apparently contradictory views happen to be correct - and are part of the genius of the American experiment in self government.
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  Indeed, the ease with which the federal government retained control over its rapidly broadening western territories during the 19th century, and the attractiveness of achieving statehood for the peoples in those territories, was precisely because the federal government offered many benefits and imposed few obligations during that time.

Jefferson chose brilliantly for his cabinet - gathering into it "one of the ablest and most stable collection of executive advisors" in presidential history.

  Typically, however, Jefferson had few practical plans for purging the government of its accumulated excess institutional baggage. All he had to do was point the ship of state in the right direction, and these matters would develop naturally.
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  The nation was prosperous, stable and at peace as a result of the policies of the Washington and Adams administrations. Adams' unpopular decision to seek peace with France had born fruit - just too late to help Adams in the 1800 election. More important, Britain and France had called a truce in their titanic struggle for world supremacy. Trade with Europe and the West Indies that had been blocked by the conflict had revived. Matters couldn't have looked better for the new Jefferson administration.
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   Among Jefferson's first acts was a non-action. He permitted the Alien and Sedition Acts to lapse according to their terms.
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  Jefferson chose brilliantly for his cabinet, Ellis notes. He gathered into it "one of the ablest and most stable collection of executive advisors" in presidential history. It was headed by James Madison as Sec. of State and Albert Gallatin as Sec. of Treasury. Others included Attorney General Levi Lincoln, Sec. of War Henry Dearborn, Postmaster General  Gideon Granger, and Sec. of Navy Robert Smith. This last post seemed destined for insignificance due to Jefferson's intention to scuttle the American fleet - much to the distress of Adams - and eventually to the nation.
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  With excellent lieutenants, Jefferson was able to govern as the hub of the wheel. His lieutenants dealt with matters within their authority, keeping Jefferson informed in writing on a daily basis, and consulting with him individually as needed. There were much fewer cabinet meetings.
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  Thus, typically, Jefferson would exercise power in a practically invisible manner. Indeed, rather than have disagreements brought to him or thrashed out in meetings, Jefferson requested his lieutenants to resolve their disputes among themselves so that harmony would reign in his cabinet and during its occasional meetings. The abilities and loyalty of his lieutenants enabled this system to work.
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  Except for his two inaugural addresses, Jefferson apparently gave no speeches. His annual messages to Congress were delivered in writing. For personal outreach, he relied on regular informal dinner parties for between 12 and 20 guests including his lieutenants and members of Congress and the diplomatic corps and their wives. Political discussions were forbidden at these affairs in the interests of the harmony in which Jefferson sought to envelop his administration. However, he soon was thus forced to give up inviting Federalist and Republican congressmen to the same parties.

  "The chief business of the executive branch under Jefferson was done almost entirely in writing. Indeed, if we wish to conjure up a historically correct picture of Jefferson as president, he would not be riding or walking toward Capitol Hill for his inauguration but would be seated at his writing table about ten hours a day. He usually rose before daybreak, around five o'clock, worked at his desk alone until nine, when cabinet officers and congressmen were permitted to visit. He went riding in the early afternoon, returning in time for dinner at three-thirty. He was back at his desk between six and seven o'clock and in bed by ten. - - - In his first year as president he received 1,881 letters, not including internal correspondence from his cabinet, and sent out 667 letters of his own. This reclusive regimen made him practically invisible to the public."

  With all this composing of drafts and writing of letters and reports, the Jefferson administration remains more visible to historians than any other.
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Jefferson was forced to recognize that it was Hamilton's financial system - the national bank and the customs collectors - that enabled him to achieve everything else.

  Jefferson's highest priority was retiring the national debt of $112 million. Annual revenues were at first only $9 million, primarily from customs duties and the sale of public lands. The need to reduce the debt justified the rigorous pursuit of his second priority, the reduction of the size of the federal government. It justified significant cuts in the army, the navy, and the civilian departments. There were 130 federal employees in Washington in 1801.
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  Ellis provides a lengthy explanation of Jefferson's obsessive concern over the debt. Personally, ideologically, and in his career as a diplomat, the specter of debts had loomed ominously over his world.
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  Peace in Europe and booming trade and customs receipts made Jefferson's policy look initially like a roaring success. However, he was forced to recognize that it was Hamilton's financial system - the national bank and the customs collectors - that enabled him to achieve everything else.

  Jefferson borrowed money in London - arranged by Barings Bank - for the Louisiana Purchase. The nation's credit had fortunately been established by Hamilton's financial program as well as by Jefferson's determined efforts to pay down the debt.

While admiring the Indians and grieving for their harsh fate, Jefferson set in motion the policies that would push them across the Mississippi.

  The essential disconnect between Jefferson's heartfelt moral and intellectual convictions and his actions now extended far beyond slavery and his personal debts. Despite eschewing partisanship, he energetically purged New England Federalist office holders. While admiring the Indians and grieving for their harsh fate, he set in motion the policies that would push them across the Mississippi.
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  Like the Federalists, the Indians were viewed as a doomed species - both of which could survive only by assimilating fully into Republican America. "In short, Indian culture could survive by ceasing to be Indian, just as Federalists could survive by ceasing to be Federalists."

  "Those Indians who resisted assimilation, again like the recalcitrant Federalist leaders in Connecticut and Massachusetts, deserved nothing less than extermination or banishment. Like the Federalist ideologues in New England, Indian leaders who clung tenaciously to tribal mores and insisted on inculcating 'a sanctimonious reverence for the custom of their ancestors' must be shown no mercy. Jefferson believed that banishment to the currently unoccupied lands west of the Mississippi was only a temporary solution since white migration would eventually overflow these lands too and pose the same questions at a later date. - - - Just as he found it impossible to imagine a pluralistic American politics in which competing convictions about the meaning of the American Revolution coexisted, he had no place in his imagination for an American society of diverse cultures in which Native Americans lived alongside whites while retaining their own Indian values."

Executive action:

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  A small fleet of frigates was available - thanks to John Adams - so that Jefferson could respond to the Barbary pirate states with force two months into his administration. Jefferson's efforts to enlist the assistance of an international force proved futile, so the small U.S. task force in the Mediterranean had to try to deal with the problem alone. This conflict continued into Jefferson's second term with some tactical success, but decisive strategic results would come only after the War of 1812. See, Boot, "The Savage Wars of Peace," segment on "The Barbary Wars."
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  The Louisiana Purchase for $15 million - about 3¢ per acre - fell into Jefferson's hands in 1803 and doubled the size of the new nation. Ellis properly views this as the highlight of the Jefferson presidency, and one of the "most consequential executive actions in all of American history." For Jefferson, concepts of minimalist government applied to domestic matters, not to foreign affairs.
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  Ellis concedes the good fortune involved in this great accomplishment. The Napoleonic Wars had roared back to life, and Napoleon had bigger fish to fry. Napoleon's efforts to regain control of the colony of Santo Domingo from rebellious slaves had been a disaster. He had to concentrate on Europe and wanted to cut his losses in the Western Hemisphere.
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  However, Ellis stresses the prescience with which Jefferson reacted to the French acquisition of New Orleans and the vast regions west of the Mississippi river, and the determination with which he initiated and pursued the negotiations. These were conducted by Madison and the ambassador to France, Robert Livingston. Jefferson - like Washington - had long known that the future of the nation lay in western expansion, and nothing could be permitted to get in the way.
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  Spain was an impotent non-threatening neighbor on the North American continent, and could be brushed aside in due time as the U.S. population grew and pressed outwards. Napoleonic France, however, posed much more formidable problems. Failure of the negotiations would have made France a mortal enemy of the young U.S. and would have forced the U.S. to make common cause with Great Britain - reversing all of Jefferson's inclinations.
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Jefferson arranged for Congress to add imperial powers of presidential authority with which he would rule over the people who might reside in the new territories.

  Suddenly, an apparently pragmatic Jefferson brushed aside all his doubts about the constitutional powers of the presidency and all his ideals of minimalist government and avoidance of debt to seize this opportunity. He pushed the treaty quickly through a compliant Republican Congress and arranged for Congress to add imperial powers of presidential authority with which he would rule over the people who might reside in the new territories.

  "The old enemy of George III now wielded more arbitrary power over the residents of Louisiana than any British king had wielded over the American colonists."

  Actually, Jefferson was neither suddenly power hungry nor pragmatic as President. Instead, Ellis attributes this apparent seizure of power and abandonment of republican principles to the "special, indeed almost mystical place the West" had in Jefferson's mind. In almost every other policy matter, Jefferson maintained executive discipline and deference to Congress. On such vital issues as the national debt and later a vastly unpopular embargo, "he clung tenaciously to Jeffersonian principles despite massive evidence that they were at odds with reality."
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The press:

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  The vicious press attacks against Pres. Jefferson are discussed at some length by Ellis. These attacks were greater and more vicious even than those against Pres. Adams. There was some poetic justice in