Thomas Jefferson, The First Partisan

Editorial

Jefferson is one of the most famous of the Founding Fathers because of his writing the Declaration of Independence and voluminous writings. Everyone is a Jeffersonian today-Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Liberals, Conservatives. To suggest Jefferson is unworthy of adulation is to be thought without patriotism. Yet, I suggest that the present adulation is extreme and the cause of harm.

Jefferson did not have universal adulation until the 1930s when FDR promoted the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The memorial was a tool to advance the New Deal. In his 1932 campaign for the presidency, FDR accused Republicans of being disciples of Hamilton who opposed popular government. FDR put himself in the tradition of Jefferson and Jackson who advocated popular government against the minority of the wealthy who thought the people should be led by their betters. He associated himself with Jefferson as "a gentleman and great commoner," saying that Jefferson

. . . lived, as we live, in the midst of a struggle between rule by the self-chosen individual or the self-appointed few and rule by the franchise and approval of the many.

The Lincoln Memorial linked Jefferson to Washington and Lincoln as the country's trinity of immortals. The Memorial was a triumph of politics and its effect of worldwide consequence, including political comment today.

The first cabinet of the United States under the presidency of George Washington was of four men: Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, Edmund Randolph as Attorney General, and Henry Knox as Secretary of War. Hamilton was the genius behind the establishment of order in the new government, towering over the others because of his understanding of the need, and a clear intelligence that could put into practice what he understood. Washington trusted him and all respected him. By the United States assuming the war obligations of the states, and the payment of debts to foreign nations, plus interest, Hamilton confirmed the existence of the new country and earned respect at home and abroad. He advocated a strong central government and the establishment of manufactures so that the new country would become independent. He established the framework for what the United States became.

Jefferson joined the Washington cabinet March 21, 1790, after being Minister to France. He would have preferred to stay in France because of his devotion to France and support for revolution. When war broke out between France and England, threatening to entangle the United States, Washington and Hamilton determined to be neutral, being more sympathetic to England than to the tyranny of France. England had recently been the enemy, and France the friend, but now, of a sudden, the attachments of the country were reversed. Washington and Hamilton were well aware of the stupidity of the English government, but they considered it civilized rather than wild as France had become, and that the English government was the best in Europe, save for the stupidity that caused the American revolution. The new country wanted to preserve English traditions, purged of what did not apply here. Hamilton loathed the bloody tyranny of France and respected the stability of England.

Respect for England and loathing for France did not sit well with Jefferson. He accused Hamilton and Washington of being Monarchists, Monocrats, Anglomaniacs, Anglomen, betrayers of the U.S. Constitution, determined to destroy the freedom recently won, wanting to establish a monarchy on American soil. Such charges in the temper of the time were similar to a charge of being a Communist in our day. The charges were nonsense, resulting from a concept of government held by Jefferson akin to the government of the Native Americans rather than one of European tradition; but emotions ran high and the country was divided between those desiring order and those desiring freedom. Washington and Hamilton believed order was a prerequisite to freedom, else the country could have only anarchy.

War between France and England precipitated a crisis in America, a crisis made acute by the French Ambassador to the United States, Edmond Genet, who was light-headed and vain, full of zeal for the enthusiasm for the French Revolution, determined to enroll the United States in the war against England. While the United States declared for neutrality between France and England, the boat in which Genet came to this country was capturing British ships in American waters, with Genet's approval. As he journeyed north, he was met by crowds enthusiastic for the French cause. At a banquet in Philadelphia, the guests sang the Marseillaise, passed around liberty caps, and referred to each other as citizen.

Jefferson described to Monroe his pleasure at the enthusiasm for the French cause and never could condemn the excesses of the French Revolution.

My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause; but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated; were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is.

Bonaparte was a mass murderer in Jefferson's thinking, and, indeed, he caused great suffering, but he also reestablished France from the wild madness of the French Revolution. Jefferson could not bring himself to speak positively of the vain Emperor who gave France a rebirth.

Throughout the French episode, Jefferson showed himself a shrewd politician. He believed in the common man, putting his trust in him, not seeing a contradiction in his assumption that they would elect aristocrats, such, as himself, to rule. Taking the extreme democratic side, it was to his advantage to approve of Genet's promotion of the French cause on American soil. When Genet's arrogance became absurd and an embarrassment, he quickly withdrew support. The use of Genet, however, established Jefferson's position in opposition to Washington and Hamilton.

Hamilton and Jefferson were opponents during the early years of the country, and their divergent principles divide us today. Writing to George Washington in 1813, when he had time to reflect on basic principles, Jefferson said he had more confidence in the wisdom of the people than the president. Writing to Judge Johnson in 1823, when he had even more time to reflect on basic principles, he accused all of his opponents of having little trust in the common people.

Hamilton, and most of the Founding Fathers, had a critical view of pure democracy, believing rather in what we call republicanism. Hamilton said,

Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many. Both therefore ought to have power that each may defend itself against the other.

Balancing one against the other was established by having two houses and a judiciary that would overrule aberrations of the legislators. The goal was the preservation of republicanism and lessening its imperfections. Hamilton feared that demagogues could get the loyalty of the people by flattery and promises of rewards with the money and property of others. Sadly, Hamilton's belief in the restraint of the judiciary was not fulfilled. Hamilton believed that members of the Supreme Court would exercise restraint because of life-long tenure and laborious absorption in the study and practice of law. We have lived to see the judiciary as politicized as the legislature.

Forrest McDonald, an authority on Hamilton, claimed it was Hamilton who sought a social revolution to overturn the power and privileges of the "oligarchs who dominated the American republic." Hamilton was far more radical than his Virginia contemporaries, beneficiaries of a highly stratified class system resting on slave labor. Jefferson "idealized the serene, secure life of the plantation gentry," and

. . . the only privilege he ever seriously opposed was privilege that threatened the security of his own little world.

Hamilton sought to transform an America where "status . . . derived from birthright" was replaced by status based on "the marketplace, where deeds and goods and virtues could be impartially valued."

Hamilton championed economic reform by saying that the federal government should transform America into an economic power, ending reliance on Europe for manufactured goods, enabling the United States to provide military supplies and all services essential for national defense. Jefferson and Madison defeated these proposals-though, long after his presidency and when Hamilton had died, Jefferson admitted manufactures were desirable.

Jefferson believed in the agrarian economy:

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.

Were I to indulge my own theory, I should wish them to practice neither commerce nor navigation. . . . We should thus avoid wars, and all our citizens would be husbandmen.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there.

Notwithstanding Jefferson's adulation of the agrarian society, and his characterization of cities as cancerous sores, when he was in France he had no interest in living in semirural retreat as did Franklin and Adams, but chose to live in the heart of Paris, delighting in luxurious shopping, architecture, painting, music, theater, fine wine, and the most cultivated society he had ever known-and where he spent so foolishly he begged Adams to get him loans in Holland.

In personal finances, Jefferson made careful calculations of every purchase, but he never balanced expenses against income and was always in debt, dying a bankrupt. A similar confusion could be seen in his understanding of social finances. He opposed Hamilton's creation of a bank to pay national expenses, blind to the importance to the country. Those who invested in the bank prospered by their investment, but it was extreme, because of this, to define banking as

. . . an instrument to burthen all the interchanges of property with swindling profits, profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs.

The Bank of the United States, said Jefferson, "is one of the most deadly hostility existing, against the principles and form of our Constitution."

Jefferson made many fine observations about national debt, centering around his eloquent statement that the world belongs to the living, not the dead. As a consequence of this theory, no individual and no society should borrow money, he said, that cannot be repaid in 34 years, a figure Jefferson estimated based on life expectancy at his time. The theory is pretty but silly; obligations are complicated and vary according to circumstances. There are and always have been times when one generation obligates future generations, for the sake of the present and future. This will occur in time of war and other unavoidable tragedies. Debt may be unfortunate but there are times when it is unavoidable, and perhaps desirable.

Jefferson laid down the fundamental axiom that the will of the majority must be the law of the land. "This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force." This principle undermines his views on education. Society is to be led by those who are educated, by the "natural aristocracy." Every county is to be divided into wards five or six miles square where there will be a free school for reading, writing, and arithmetic. The best will be selected from these schools for further education, and again at a higher level, until the very best enter the universities under what we call scholarships. These educated ones, the superior ones of every generation, are the natural aristocrats who will be leaders of the common people. In a harsh statement, exceeding in severity anything said by Hamilton, Jefferson said, "by this means twenty of the best geniuses will be raked from the rubbish annually." One cannot believe in the wisdom of the common man and, at the same time, regard them as rubbish. One cannot have ultimate faith in the common man and, at the same time, believe they need to be governed by aristocrats such as Mr. Jefferson. If you believe in the supremacy of the common man, you must govern by opinion polls. Mr. Jefferson did not believe in this, of course, which illustrates the confusion in his thinking.

Jefferson was a master letter-writer, and rarely if ever spoke in public. Rather than go to the Capitol to speak before Congress, he submitted his annual message in writing. He had a poor voice and did not want to argue in public. Write he did, wonderfully, to everyone, and this was the source of his power. A black mark of the time by Jefferson and his friends, and their opponents, was the public abuse of opponents. Jefferson's use of Genet in the Washington presidency was pure, partisan politics, but it was nothing to the abuse of Adams when Jefferson continued in that administration as Vice President.

In the battle for the presidency in 1800 President Adams was competing against Vice-President Jefferson, the first and last time a President and Vice President competed against each other. James Callender came on the scene and busied himself writing on behalf of Jefferson, who paid Callender for his efforts, surreptitiously. "Do not let my name be connected with the business," he wrote to Madison. President Adams, as vice president to President Washington, believed he should support the work of the president of the country and wished Jefferson had the same attitude to him; but it was not so.

Callender became the popular mouthpiece of Jefferson in his campaign for president, a campaign conducted from the White House. Callender wrote Adams was a "repulsive pedant," a "gross hypocrite," and "in his private life, one of the most egregious fools upon the continent." Adams was "that strange compound of ignorance and ferocity and weakness," a

. . . hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.

The historian will ask

. . . why the United States degrades themselves to the choice of a wretch whose soul came blasted from the hand of nature, of a wretch that has neither the science of a magistrate, the politeness of a courtier, nor the courage of a man?

Jefferson was a ladies' man and charmed Abigail Adams when both of them lived in Paris. She was delighted with his learning and the attention he paid her. Abigail thought Jefferson "hollow" yet there was

. . . a little corner of my heart where once he sat. . . from which I find it hard wholly to discard him.

She was outraged by his abuse of her husband through Callender. When Jefferson became president and refused Callender's request for a job as postmaster but sent him $50, Callender was insulted and turned the fury that had been directed to Adams on Jefferson. Callender died in a couple of years, in three feet of water, presumably wandering around in a drunken state. Abigail wrote,

The serpent you cherished and warmed, bit the hand that nourished him, and gave you sufficient specimens of his talents, his gratitude, his justice, and his truth. When such vipers are let loose upon society, all distinction between virtue and vice are leveled, all respect for character is lost.

Adams could easily have lashed out at Jefferson for the treatment he received through Callender, for Jefferson's hypocrisy and immorality; but he did not. He could easily have exploited the reports of Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. He wrote to a friend,

I never wrote a line against my enemies nor contributed one farthing to any writer for vindicating me or accusing my enemies.

Adam's only comment was

Callender and Sally will be remembered as long as Jefferson as blots on his character. The story of the latter is a natural and almost unavoidable consequence of that foul contagion in the human character, Negro slavery.

Jefferson's presidency went smoothly. John Adams had left him a full treasury and Hamilton had organized the country. Jefferson took credit for this good fortune. He made no changes from the previous administrations and ruled his party with an authority his predecessors never used, for he was without critics in his administration as he had been the critic in theirs. His influence was indirect, through his giving suggestions and opinions to those who believed in him. He was always obeyed by disciples who thought him a great and good statesman who always spoke wisely and thought virtuously. The army wasted away. Internal taxes were abolished. The national debt disappeared. Four years of peace and prosperity left little cause for discontent. The Federalists, Jefferson's enemies, practically disappeared. The Republicans became uneasy calling themselves by that name and changed their name to Democrats, believing in the people rather than republican principles-balancing of powers, an independent judiciary, and obedience to the Constitution.

The great triumph of the Jefferson presidency was the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, six hundred million acres for less than three cents an acre. The area was the better part of thirteen states between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Napoleon planned a French empire in North America, but when the army he sent to San Domingo to crush a slave revolt was wiped out by war and yellow fever, he offered to sell. Had John Adams not kept peace with France, the sale would not have been possible. Many in Congress believed the Constitution did not authorize the purchase of foreign territory. Jefferson, who believed the government should do less than more, set aside his principles and told his supporters in Congress "what is practicable must often control what is pure theory." The majority agreed. Jefferson believed, correctly, that the possession of the heart of North America would be the key to the future of the United States.

Thomas Jefferson was a complex man. A brilliant penman who wrote much that we believe, and an outstanding supporter of the American Revolution, he was also the father of partisanship. Washington, Hamilton, and Adams deplored "faction," preferring cooperation and good manners to bitter divisions. Once a decision has been made, all should put their shoulders to the wheel to get the job done.

Partisanship would probably have evolved without Jefferson's example, but he gave the first example, and he did so with a technique practiced to this day. We can give Jefferson the benefit of the doubt and say he believed in a republic but preached pure democracy as a technique to gain power and as a technique to criticize those who advocate what they thought to be correct, true, decent, honest, whether popular or not.

We must preserve freedom if the majority want a dictatorship. Sometimes we must preserve dictatorship if a democracy is determined to destroy freedom, as would be the case in Pakistan today. We must preserve contracts, property, individual responsibility, and the right of inheritance. These are the fundamentals of a civilized society. To ignore these fundamentals is the habit of one who rejects being a statesman and is happy to be a politician.