The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson

It looks like Thomas Jefferson is about to take a well-deserved beating over slavery.  A new article at Smithsonian.com, The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson, previews a book by Henry Wiencek scheduled for release on October 16th entitled Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves.  I haven't read the book and don't know the reputation of Mr. Wiencek, but if his conclusions are accurate they are pretty devastating.

And if the article and book are accurate, Jefferson isn't going to be alone in the woodshed.  At least one historian allegedly omitted the ugly details when editing Jefferson's writings, and others then credulously relied on the sanitized results to paint Jefferson in rosy hues:

It was during the 1950s, when historian Edwin Betts was editing one of Colonel [Thomas Mann] Randolph’s plantation reports for Jefferson’s Farm Book, that he confronted a taboo subject and made his fateful deletion. Randolph reported to Jefferson that the nailery was functioning very well because “the small ones” were being whipped. The youngsters did not take willingly to being forced to show up in the icy midwinter hour before dawn at the master’s nail forge. And so the overseer, Gabriel Lilly, was whipping them “for truancy.”

Betts decided that the image of children being beaten at Monticello had to be suppressed, omitting this document from his edition. He had an entirely different image in his head; the introduction to the book declared, “Jefferson came close to creating on his own plantations the ideal rural community.” Betts couldn’t do anything about the original letter, but no one would see it, tucked away in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The full text did not emerge in print until 2005.

Betts’ omission was important in shaping the scholarly consensus that Jefferson managed his plantations with a lenient hand. Relying on Betts’ editing, the historian Jack McLaughlin noted that Lilly “resorted to the whip during Jefferson’s absence, but Jefferson put a stop to it.”

“Slavery was an evil he had to live with,” historian Merrill Peterson wrote, “and he managed it with what little dosings of humanity a diabolical system permitted.” Peterson echoed Jefferson’s complaints about the work force, alluding to “the slackness of slave labor,” and emphasized Jefferson’s benevolence: “In the management of his slaves Jefferson encouraged diligence but was instinctively too lenient to demand it. By all accounts he was a kind and generous master. His conviction of the injustice of the institution strengthened his sense of obligation toward its victims.”

Joseph Ellis observed that only “on rare occasions, and as a last resort, he ordered overseers to use the lash.” Dumas Malone stated, “Jefferson was kind to his servants to the point of indulgence, and within the framework of an institution he disliked he saw that they were well provided for. His ‘people’ were devoted to him.”

H/T Boing Boing: Thomas Jefferson, enthusiastic, brutal slaver

Buffon's Beasts and Jefferson's Moose

Via Boingboing, I found this wonderful entry at BiblioOdyssey featuring illustrations from "a 1753 work called 'Collection des Animaux Quadrupèdes' which forms part of an enormous 36-volume series ('Histoire Naturelle') issued over a forty year period by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon."

The name "Buffon" was familiar, and sure enough upon checking I confirmed that it was Buffon who had claimed that something about North America produced small, weak and degenerate plants and animals - including human animals. At American Scientist Keith Thomson describes Buffon's assertions:

Buffon was not the first to assert American degeneracy, and this idea was not based on natural history alone: Politics also played a part. Buffon's immediate source was a book by a Spanish naval officer, Don Antonio d'Ulloa (Relación histórica del viaje hecho de orden de su Majestad a la América Meridional, 1748). d'Ulloa's thesis was that the human condition in the Americas was degenerate as a result of a long history of colonialism, slavery, exploitation of natural resources and subjugation of the native peoples. To d'Ulloa, it was natural that America lacked the large mammals of the Old World and was rife with noxious insects and poisonous reptiles.

Buffon, focusing on North America, developed d'Ulloa's observations into a complex theory in which climate played a central role. In his ninth volume, published in 1761, Buffon compared mammalian species and noted examples in which the same species lived on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. He claimed the New-World versions were always smaller and weaker. European livestock exported to America were always stunted. Species indigenous to the New World were always smaller than comparable species in the Old World (the largest American mammal was the tapir, nowhere near the size of an elephant). Of American Indians, he wrote, "the organs of generation (of the savage) are small and feeble. He has no hair, no beard, no ardour for the female. Though nimbler than the European, his strength is not so great. His sensations are less acute; and yet he is more timid and cowardly." And so on.

All of which roused a perturbed Thomas Jefferson to refute Buffon's claims by, among other thing, arranging to have the carcass of a moose shipped to Paris:

When he arrived [in Paris], Jefferson sent Buffon a copy of [his] Notes [on the State of Virginia] and the skin of a large panther, and was subsequently invited to dine with Buffon at the Jardin du Roi, Paris's magnificent botanical garden. Of that meeting Jefferson later wrote, "in my conversations with the Count de Buffon . . . I find him absolutely unacquainted with our Elk and our deer. He has hitherto believed that our deer never had horns more than a foot long." So Jefferson decided to show him a full-grown American moose. He wrote to General John Sullivan, president (governor) of New Hampshire, for help in getting a large specimen, instructing him that the bones of the head and legs should be left in the skin so that it could be mounted in a life-like manner. Eventually a "seven-foot tall" moose was collected in Vermont and shipped to Paris.

Many years later, Daniel Webster told the story that Jefferson had had the moose set up in the hall of his apartment and invited Buffon to see it. Confronted with that stark refutation of his earlier thesis, Buffon was said to have exclaimed, "I should have consulted you, Monsieur, before I published my book on natural history, and then I should have been sure of my facts." It would be nice if this story were true. In fact, Buffon, by this time old and sick, was away from Paris when the moose arrived in October 1787. Jefferson sent it to Buffon's long time associate, zoologist Louis-Jean-Marie D'Aubenton, for the great man to see when he returned. Although most of the hair had fallen off the hide, the antlers sent by Sullivan were from a smaller animal and the whole carcass was probably rancid, Jefferson was "in hopes that Monsieur de Buffon will be able to have it stuffed, and placed on his legs in the King's Cabinet."

The illustration at the top is courtesy of peacay's Flickr photostream.

Addendum: If you're looking for more detail, try Keith S. Thompson's longer paper, Jefferson, Buffon, and the European View of America.

Robert J. Evans Writes Thomas Jefferson on Slavery, 1819

Following up on my last post, I thought I'd transcribe and post the June 3, 1819 and October 2, 1819 letters that Robert J. Evans sent to Thomas Jefferson, seeking the latter's thoughts on how to eradicate slavery. Presumably Evans's letters to James Madison and John Adams were similar. The Sage of Monticello sent a non-substantive reply in November 1819, pleading illness and old age as his excuses.

Evans's first letter to Jefferson is dated June 3, 1819. The letter makes clear that the two men did not know one another:

Philadel[phia] June3.1819.

His Excellency Thomas Jefferson

Honoured Sir,

Deeply impressed with a sense of the dreadful atrocity of Slavery and its eventual evil consequences to the prosperity and happiness of the Nation, I am endeavouring with a consciousness of my inability to do that justice to that subject which its great importance demands to call the attention of the American People to it, through the medium of the National Intelligencer under the assumed signature of "Benjamin Rush."

Knowing from your Notes on Virginia as well as from the whole tenour [?] of your publick life what your sentiments on this subject are, I have taken the liberty of soliciting from you such hints relative to a plan for it's [sic] total abolition as may have occurred to you in your reflections on the subject which you may suppose calculated to promote this great object. I am aware of your advanced age and your increasing love of retirement but hope the great importance of the subject will plead my excuse.

Entirely unknown to you and to the world, but convinced of the importance of your opinions, and believing with the rest of the american family that they are the property of your country, as one of them I feel a proportionate interest and have ventured to make this request.

If this application should be considered as impertinent be pleased to consign it to oblivion and seek for my excuse in the motive which has given rise to it.

With profound respect and gratitude for your services to your country. I am your fellow citizen

Robert J. Evans

Not having received a response, Evans sent a follow-up letter on October 2, 1819:

Philadel[phia] October 2nd.1819.

His Excellent Thomas Jefferson

Honoured Sir,

With that undissembled and profound respect, which every American should feel, for the illustrious author of the declaration of Independence; I ventured some months since, to address you on a subject, of the very first importance to this nation, and to the cause of liberty: - that of the untimate extirpation of Slavery from the land. As endeavours were making to awaken the earnest attention of our fellow citizens to it, through the medium of the National Intelligencer, under the assumed signature of “Benjamin Rush”; it was hoped by the writer, that as your opinions connected with it, were known to all the world, some useful hints calculated to promote the great object, the result of reflection, might be signally beneficial to our country, whose best interests, it is now generally acknowledged by all parties, you have uniformly consulted, and laboured to promote. To this communication I have not been honoured with a line in reply. Perhaps it did not get to hand. The tremendous importance of the subject will continue, till measures of an efficient character shall be adopted, to remove or avert the approaching disastrous effects. Will you be pleased to pardon the liberty again taken, of respectfully enquiring, whether any mode of successfully accomplishing so desirable a purpose, other than those, which have been already laid before the publick, has occurred to you. If there has, should it not be the property of your country?

With sentiments of gratitude & respect I am your obedient servant

Robert J. Evans

Robert J. Evans Questions the Fathers on Slavery

In his essay "The Missouri Compromise and Sectionalism", found in Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism, Robert Pierce Forbes discusses this remarkable June 15, 1819 letter from former president James Madison to Robert J. Evans. I will quote the letter in full and without interruption, but in a nutshell the Sage of Montpelier advocates that the federal government spend $600,000,000 to purchase all (or substantially all) slaves from their masters and to finance their voluntary transportation to Africa. The funds would be obtained from land sales. An amendment to the Constitution would be necessary:

Sir,

I have recd. your letter of the 3d instant, requesting such hints as may have occurred to me on the subject of an eventual extinguishment of slavery in the U. S.

Not doubting the purity of your views, and relying on the discretion by which they will be regulated, I cannot refuse such a compliance as will at least manifest my respect for the object of your undertaking.

A general emancipation of slaves ought to be 1. gradual. 2. equitable & satisfactory to the individuals immediately concerned. 3. consistent with the existing & durable prejudices of the nation.

That it ought, like remedies for other deeprooted and wide-spread evils, to be gradual, is so obvious that there seems to be no difference of opinion on that point.

To be equitable & satisfactory, the consent of both the Master & the slave should be obtained. That of the Master will require a provision in the plan for compensating a loss of what he held as property guarantied by the laws, and recognised by the Constitution. That of the slave, requires that his condition in a state of freedom, be preferable in his own estimation, to his actual one in a state of bondage.

To be consistent with existing and probably unalterable prejudices in the U. S. the freed blacks ought to be permanently removed beyond the region occupied by or allotted to a White population. The objections to a thorough incorporation of the two people are, with most of the Whites insuperable; and are admitted by all of them to be very powerful. If the blacks, strongly marked as they are by Physical & lasting peculiarities, be retained amid the Whites, under the degrading privation of equal rights political or social, they must be always dissatisfied with their condition as a change only from one to another species of oppression; always secretly confederated agst. the ruling & privileged class; and always uncon-troulled by some of the most cogent motives to moral and respectable conduct. The character of the free blacks, even where their legal condition is least affected by their colour, seems to put these truths beyond question. It is material also that the removal of the blacks be to a distance precluding the jealousies & hostilities to be apprehended from a neighboring people stimulated by the contempt known to be entertained for their peculiar features; to say nothing of their vindictive recollections, or the predatory propensities which their State of Society might foster. Nor is it fair, in estimating the danger of Collisions with the Whites, to charge it wholly on the side of the Blacks. There would be reciprocal antipathies doubling the danger.

The colonizing plan on foot, has as far as it extends, a due regard to these requisites; with the additional object of bestowing new blessings civil & religious on the quarter of the Globe most in need of them. The Society proposes to transport to the African Coast all free & freed blacks who may be willing to remove thither; to provide by fair means, &, it is understood with a prospect of success, a suitable territory for their reception; and to initiate them into such an establishment as may gradually and indefinitely expand itself.

The experiment, under this view of it, merits encouragement from all who regard slavery as an evil, who wish to see it diminished and abolished by peaceable & just means; and who have themselves no better mode to propose. Those who have most doubted the success of the experiment must at least have wished to find themselves in an error.

But the views of the Society are limited to the case of blacks already free, or who may be gratuitously emancipated. To provide a commensurate remedy for the evil, the plan must be extended to the great Mass of blacks, and must embrace a fund sufficient to induce the Master as well as the slave to concur in it. Without the concurrence of the Master, the benefit will be very limited as it relates to the Negroes; and essentially defective, as it relates to the U. States; and the concurrence of Masters, must, for the most part, be obtained by purchase.

Can it be hoped that voluntary contributions, however adequate to an auspicious commencement, will supply the sums necessary to such an enlargement of the remedy? May not another question be asked? Would it be reasonable to throw so great a burden on the individuals distinguished by their philanthropy and patriotism?

The object to be obtained, as an object of humanity, appeals alike to all; as a National object, it claims the interposition of the nation. It is the nation which is to reap the benefit. The nation therefore ought to bear the burden.

Must then the enormous sums required to pay for, to transport, and to establish in a foreign land all the slaves in the U. S. as their Masters may be willg. to part with them, be taxed on the good people of the U. S. or be obtained by loans swelling the public debt to a size pregnant with evils next in degree to those of slavery itself?

Happily it is not necessary to answer this question by remarking that if slavery as a national evil is to be abolished, and it be just that it be done at the national expence, the amount of the expence is not a paramount consideration. It is the peculiar fortune, or, rather a providential blessing of the U. S. to possess a resource commensurate to this great object, without taxes on the people, or even an increase of the public debt.

I allude to the vacant territory the extent of which is so vast, and the vendible value of which is so well ascertained.

Supposing the number of slaves to be 1,500,000, and their price to average 400 drs, the cost of the whole would be 600 millions of dollrs. These estimates are probably beyond the fact; and from the no. of slaves should be deducted 1. those whom their Masters would not part with. 2. those who may be gratuitously set free by their Masters. 3. those acquiring freedom under emancipating regulations of the States. 4. those preferring slavery where they are, to freedom in an African settlement. On the other hand, it is to be noted that the expence of removal & settlement is not included in the estimated sum; and that an increase of the slaves will be going on during the period required for the execution of the plan.

On the whole the aggregate sum needed may be stated at about 600 Mils, of dollars.

This will require 200 mils, of Acres at 3 dolrs. per Acre; or 300 mils, at 2 dollrs. per Acre a quantity which tho' great in itself, is perhaps not a third part of the disposable territory belonging to the U. S. And to what object so good so great & so glorious, could that peculiar fund of wealth be appropriated? Whilst the sale of territory would, on one hand be planting one desert with a free & civilized people, it would on the other, be giving freedom to another people, and filling with them another desert. And if in any instances, wrong has been done by our forefathers to people of one colour, by dispossessing them of their soil, what better atonement is now in our power than that of making what is rightfully acquired a source of justice & of blessings to a people of another colour?

As the revolution to be produced in the condition of the negroes must be gradual, it will suffice if the sale of territory keep pace with its progress. For a time at least the proceeds wd. be in advance. In this case it might be best, after deducting the expence incident to the surveys & sales, to place the surplus in a situation where its increase might correspond with the natural increase of the unpurchased slaves. Should the proceeds at any time fall short of the calls for their application, anticipations might be made by temporary loans to be discharged as the land should find a Market.

But it is probable that for a considerable period, the sales would exceed the calls. Masters would not be willing to strip their plantations & farms of their laborers too rapidly. The slaves themselves, connected as they generally are by tender ties with others under other Masters, would be kept from the list of emigrants by the want of the multiplied consents to be obtained. It is probable indeed that for a long time a certain portion of the proceeds might safely continue applicable to the discharge of the debts or to other purposes of the Nation. Or it might be most convenient, in the outset, to appropriate a certain proportion only of the income from sales, to the object in view, leaving the residue otherwise applicable.

Should any plan similar to that I have sketched, be deemed eligible in itself no particular difficulty is foreseen from that portion of the nation which with a common interest in the vacant territory has no interest in slave property. They are too just to wish that a partial sacrifice shd. be made for the general good; and too well aware that whatever may be the intrinsic character of that description of property, it is one known to the constitution, and, as such could not be constitutionally taken away without just compensation. That part of the Nation has indeed shewn a meritorious alacrity in promoting, by pecuniary contributions, the limited scheme for colonizing the Blacks, & freeing the nation from the unfortunate stain on it, which justifies the belief that any enlargement of the scheme, if founded on just principles would find among them its earliest & warmest patrons. It ought to have great weight that the vacant lands in question have for the most part been derived from grants of the States holding the slaves to be redeemed & removed by the sale of them.

It is evident however that in effectuating a general emancipation of slaves, in the mode which has been hinted, difficulties of other sorts would be encountered. The provision for ascertaining the joint consent of the masters & slaves; for guarding agst. unreasonable valuations of the latter; and for the discrimination of those not proper to be conveyed to a foreign residence, or who ought to remain a charge on Masters in whose service they had been disabled or worn out and for the annual transportation of such numbers, would Require the mature deliberations of the National Councils. The measure implies also the practicability of procuring in Africa, an enlargement of the district or districts, for receiving the exiles, sufficient for so great an augmentation of their numbers.

Perhaps the Legislative provision best adapted to the case would be an incorporation of the Colonizing Society or the establishment of a similar one, with proper powers, under the appointment & superintendence of the National Executive.

In estimating the difficulties however incident to any plan of general emancipation, they ought to be brought into comparison with those inseparable from other plans, and be yielded to or not according to the result of the comparison.

One difficulty presents itself which will probably attend every plan which is to go into effect under the Legislative provisions of the National Govt. But whatever may be the defect of existing powers of Congress, the Constitution has pointed out the way in which it can be supplied. And it can hardly be doubted that the requisite powers might readily be procured for attaining the great object in question, in any mode whatever approved by the Nation.

If these thoughts can be of any aid in your search of a remedy for the great evil under which the nation labors, you are very welcome to them. You will allow me however to add that it will be most agreeable to me, not to be publickly referred to in any use you may make of them.

So who was Robert J. Evans? Prof. Forbes refers to him an a "Pennsylvania antislavery author." Looking around for more information about him, I discovered that he apparently sent an anti-slavery letter to John Adams at about the same time, occasioning an oft-cited response from the former second president:

Quincy, 8 June, 1819.

I respect the sentiments and motives, which have prompted you to engage in your present occupation, so much, that I feel an esteem and affection for your person, as I do a veneration for your assumed signature of Benjamin Rush. The turpitude, the inhumanity, the cruelty, and the infamy of the African commerce in slaves, have been so impressively represented to the public by the highest powers of eloquence, that nothing that I can say would increase the just odium in which it is and ought to be held. Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States. If, however, humanity dictates the duty of adopting the most prudent measures for accomplishing so excellent a purpose, the same humanity requires, that we should not inflict severer calamities on the objects of our commiseration than those which they at present endure, by reducing them to despair, or the necessity of robbery, plunder, assassination, and massacre, to preserve their lives, some provision for furnishing them employment, or some means of supplying them with the necessary comforts of life. The same humanity requires that we should not by any rash or violent measures expose the lives and property of those of our fellow-citizens, who are so unfortunate as to be surrounded with these fellow-creatures, by hereditary descent, or by any other means without their own fault. I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in such abhorrence, that I have never owned a negro or any other slave, though I have lived for many years in times, when the practice was not disgraceful, when the best men in my vicinity thought it not inconsistent with their character, and when it has cost me thousands of dollars for the labor and subsistence of free men, which I might have saved by the purchase of negroes at times when they were very cheap.

If any thing should occur to me, which I think may assist you, I will endeavor to communicate it to you; but at an age, when

* “From Marlborough’s eyes the streams of dotage flow,
* And Swift expires a driveller and a show,”

very little can be expected from, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.

Evans seems to have been a persistent and determined activist. He also wrote Thomas Jefferson twice from Philadelphia in 1819, on June 3 and October 2.

Jefferson did not respond until November 7, 1819, when he sent this non-substantive reply. I'm not familiar with the timeline of Jefferson's health. Were his protestations about his infirmities excuses to avoid having to discuss an awkward subject?

Monticello Nov.7.[18]19

Dear Sir,

I am just now recovering from the third long & dangerous illness which I have had within the last 12 months. While I was able I answered all letters punctually. But age, it's [sic] ordinary infirmities, & extraordinary visitations of sickness have so broke me down that I am not longer able to maintain any correspondence by letters but such as my own affairs render indispensable. I hope you will receive this as an apology for my not having answered your first letter with the assurance my respect.

"Children Writhing on a Pike"

I still think the J.Q. Adams-Andy Jackson contest of 1828 should get the nod for the nastiest presidential election, but Reason makes the case for the 1800 race between TJ and Quinzy's dad.

The Pathetic Decline of Thomas Jefferson

At the beginning of his new book A Slaveholders' Union: Slavery, Politics, and the Constitution in the Early American Republic, George William Van Cleve juxtaposes earlier and later letters of Thomas Jefferson on slavery.

Jefferson wrote the first letter on August 7, 1785 to Richard Price, an English radical. Price had published a pamphlet earlier that year, entitled Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, in which he had, among other things, argued that the logic of the American Revolution required the abandonment of slavery:

The negro trade cannot be censured in language too severe. It is a traffic which, as it has been hitherto carried on, is shocking to humanity, cruel, wicked, and diabolical. I am happy to find that the united states are entering into measures for discountenancing it and for abolishing the odious slavery which it has introduced. Till they have done this, it will not appear they deserve the liberty for which they have been contending. For it is self-evident that if there are any men whom they have a right to hold in slavery, there may be others who have had a right to hold them in slavery. I am sensible, however, that this is a work which they cannot accomplish at once. The emancipation of the negroes must, I suppose, be left in some measure to be the effect of time and of manners. But nothing can excuse the united states if it is not done with as much speed, and at the same time with as much effect, as their particular circumstances and situation will allow. I rejoice that on this occasion I can recommend to them the example of my own country. In Britain, a negro becomes a freeman the moment he sets his foot on British ground.

In writing to Price, Jefferson positioned himself as a sympathetic ally who expected that most enlightened Americans would eventually come to see the correctness of Price's argument (paragraph breaks added):

From my acquaintance with that country [America] I think I am able to judge with some degree of certainty of the manner in which it [Price's pamphlet, in which he argued that the continued existence of slavery was inconsistent with the American Revolution] will have been received. Southward of the Chesapeak it will find but few readers concurring with it in sentiment on the subject of slavery.

From the mouth to the head of the Chesapeak, the bulk of the people will approve it in theory, and it will find a respectable minority ready to adopt it in practice, a minority which for weight and worth of character preponderates against the greater number, who have not the courage to divest their families of a property which however keeps their consciences inquiet.

Northward of the Chesapeak you may find here and there an opponent to your doctrine as you may find here and there a robber and a murderer, but in no great number. In that part of America, there being but few slaves, they can easily disencumber themselves of them, and emancipation is put into such a train that in a few years there will be no slaves Northward of Maryland.

In Maryland I do not find such a disposition to begin the redress of this enormity as in Virginia. This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression: a conflict wherein the sacred side is gaining daily recruits from the influx into office of young men grown and growing up. These have sucked in the principles of liberty as it were with their mother's milk, and it is to them I look with anxiety to turn the fate of this question.

Thirty-five years later, however, in his famous April 22, 1820 letter to John Holmes, Jefferson was inveighing against those who advocated restriction of slavery in Missouri as guilty of "treason against the hopes of the world":

If they [the advocates of restriction] would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves and of treason against the hopes of the world.

And the following year, in a February 13, 1821 letter to John W. Taylor (which I cannot find online), Jefferson was reduced to fulminating against advocates of restriction as "Northern bears [who] seem bristling up to maintain the empire of force."

The illustration, entitled Smelling Out a Rat, "shows Richard Price seated at a desk, he turns to look over his right shoulder at a vision of an enormous Edmund Burke, his spectacles, nose, and hands emerge from the haze, a crown in one hand and a cross in the other, on his head an open copy of his 'Reflections on the Revolution in France....' Hanging on the wall is an illustration of the beheading of Charles I titled, 'Death of Charles I, or the Glory of Great Britain.'"

Thomas Jefferson and Internal Improvements

Drew R. McCoy's The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America barely touches on the subject of “internal improvements.” But Prof. McCoy offers an intriguing hint that federal funding of internal improvements was not necessarily anathema to Jeffersonian Republicanism – or to Thomas Jefferson himself.

First, as I suggested in an earlier post, commerce formed a crucial element of Republican political economy. True, the term “commerce” was hopefully limited to the international export of America's agricultural surplus. But even so, American farmers could not export their bounty unless they could get it to a port; and they could not get those goods to port without adequate roads and canals and navigable rivers. Does that not suggest that the federal government had a role to play in building those roads and maintaining those rivers and ports?

Prof. McCoy implies that the answer to this question was “yes” (emphasis added):

Like most Americans . . . [James] Madison always realized that the viability of landed expansion in America was contingent on the ability of new settlers to get their surpluses to market. If frontier farmers had no way of marketing what they produced, there was little incentive to emigrate to the West at all. A non-existent or inaccessible market would turn those who did settle the frontier into lethargic subsistence farmers instead of industrious republicans . . . [and] they would degenerate into a socially and politically dangerous form of savagery. Expressions of this concern often accompanied appeals for the construction of “internal improvements” - roads and canals – that would rescue the fringes of American settlement from this danger by integrating them into a commercial economy.

Even more startling (to me at least) is Prof. McCoy's quotation from a remarkable letter from Thomas Jefferson himself to Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours. The letter, dated April 15, 1811, makes fairly clear that Jefferson believed that the federal government should fund internal improvements (emphasis added):

We are all the more reconciled to the tax on importations [i.e., tariffs], because it falls exclusively on the rich [Jefferson assumes that imported goods are luxuries purchased only by the wealthy], and with the equal partition of intestate's estates, constitute the best agrarian law. In fact, the poor man in this country who uses nothing but what is made within his own farm or family, or within the United States, pays not a farthing of tax to the general government, but on his salt; and should we go into that manufacture as we ought to do, we will pay not one cent. Our revenues once liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, &c., and the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spare a cent from his earnings. The path we are now pursuing leads directly to this end, which we cannot fail to attain unless our administration should fall into unwise hands.

"Jefferson unequivocally opposed Henry Clay's 'American System,' which called for the creation of an integrated economy based on a national bank, a protective tariff for manufactures, and a program of federally sponsored internal improvements." But this does not eliminate the possibility that Jefferson's objection was not to the internal improvements aspect of Clay's program. Certainly the Hamiltonian national bank and tariffs designed to foster English-style manufactures were guaranteed to raise Jeffersonian hackles. Were internal improvements guilty only by association?

"Contemporary Americans , , , presume an unjustified familiarity with their Revolutionary forbears"

I was taken by the opening sentences of the Introduction to Drew R. McCoy's The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America:

Contemporary Americans all too often presume an unjustified familiarity with their Revolutionary forbears. It is easy to assume that our basic concerns were theirs, and especially that our understanding of the American Revolution and its legacy accurately reflects the meaning and significance they attached to it. While most of us recognize that our modern world of experience would be utterly foreign to the eighteenth-century mind, few acknowledge how frightening and utterly distasteful twentieth-century America might appear to the members of a Revolutionary generation that was steeped in the values and assumptions of a quite different age. It may be reassuring to think that modern America represents the fulfillment of the original spirit of the Revolution, but such a presumption is both dubious and dangerously misleading.

The illustration, entitled The Prairie Dog sickened at the sting of the Hornet – or a Diplomatic Puppet exhibiting his Deceptions!, has nothing to do with the post other than the fact that it refers to Thomas Jefferson. I saw a copy of the illustration at Frances Hunter's American Heroes Blog (highly recommended) about a week ago and have been hunting for an excuse to reproduce it here ever since:

James Akin's earliest-known signed cartoon, "The Prairie Dog" is an anti-Jefferson satire, relating to Jefferson's covert negotiations for the purchase of West Florida from Spain in 1804. Jefferson, as a scrawny dog, is stung by a hornet with Napoleon's head into coughing up "Two Millions" in gold coins, (the secret appropriation Jefferson sought from Congress for the purchase). On the right dances a man (possibly a French diplomat) with orders from French minister Talleyrand in his pocket and maps of East Florida and West Florida in his hand. He says, "A gull for the People." . . . The print was probably published in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where Akin was working in 1804-6.

Martin Van Buren's Report on Nullification: The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions

In my most recent post on the New York Report on Nullification, written by Martin Van Buren, I ended with the vice president-elect turning to address “the claim which is advanced, that a single State has a right to withdraw herself, against the wishes of her co-States, from the Union, whenever, in her sole judgment, the acts of the Federal Government shall be such as to justify the step.”

Van Buren pulled no punches as to his conclusion:

The Committee cannot approve this doctrine. Anxious as they are to sustain the sovereignty of the States in its full force, they do not feel it to be less their duty to "preserve," in the language of Mr. Jefferson, "the General Government, in its whole constitutional vigor." There is no conflict of duty between these sentiments; so far from it, that, in the opinion of the Committee, no man can be a good citizen, who is disloyal to either. No apprehension too alarming, can be entertained as to the injurious consequences which may result from the principles attempted to be established.

The structure of Van Buren's discussion of the reasoning that supported this conclusion may frustrate the logician, but its political appeal is undeniable. Advocates of nullification and secession inevitably pointed first to the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798-1799, authored by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison respectively. The Resolves, advocates asserted, demonstrated that these revered founders were the source of their doctrines.

Van Buren the politician understood that it was essential at the outset to cut this link and destroy the connection. The Resolves, properly understood, neither advocated State nullification nor supported single-state secession. He therefore began his argument with a lengthy analysis of the Resolutions.

The somewhat tortuous nature of Van Buren's discussion suggests that he had no easy task. Entire books have been written analyzing the Resolutions, and I do not propose to do so here, nor even to describe in detail Van Buren's exegesis of the texts. In outline, however, Van Buren placed principal reliance on the Report of 1800, drafted by Madison and adopted by the Virginia legislature in January of that year.

The Report of 1800, Van Buren asserted, demonstrated that Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions did not advocate nullification or secession. Statements in the Resolutions declaring federal laws unconstitutional were mere “expressions of opinion, unaccompanied with other effect than what they may produce on opinion by exciting reflection.”

Likewise, statements in the Resolutions urging other States to adopt “necessary and proper measures” to “maintain[] unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties reserved in the States respectively, or to the people” were not invitations to refuse to execute federal laws. “Far, very far from it.” As John Taylor of Caroline, a member of the Virginia committee that produced the Report of 1800 and a leading Old Republican, explained in debates over the Report, these statements were simply references to the amendment process contained in Article Five of the Constitution, which gave the States the right to call a constitutional convention if Congress rebuffed their pleas:

In reply to these predictions [that the Resolutions advocated nullification and were “the harbinger of civil commotion"], he [John Taylor of Caroline] said, "Suppose a clashing of opinion should exist between Congress and the States, respecting the true limits of the constitutional territories, it was easy to see that if the right of decision had been vested in either party, that party deciding in the spirit and interest of party, would inevitably have swallowed up the other. The Constitution must not only have foreseen the possibility of such a clashing, but also the consequence of a preference on either side as to its construction; and out of this foresight must have arisen the fifth article, by which two-thirds of Congress may call upon the States for an explanation of any such controversy as the present, by way of amendment to the Constitution, and thus correct an erroneous construction of its own acts, by a minority of the States; whilst two-thirds of the States are also allowed to compel Congress to call a convention, in case so many should think an amendment necessary, for the purpose of checking the unconstitutional acts of that body. Thus, so far as Congress may have power, it might exert it to check the usurpations of a State, and so far as the States may possess it, an union of two-thirds in one opinion might effectually check the usurpations of Congress. And under this article of the Constitution, the incontrovertible principle before stated might become practically useful, otherwise no remedy did exist for the only case which could possibly destroy the Constitution, namely, an encroachment by Congress or the States upon the rights of the other.

In short, Van Buren argued, the Resolutions advocated, not nullification or secession, but appeal to the amendment process. “Such was the understanding of the import and the intent of the resolutions by him who introduced them; by those who supported them; by the Committee to which they were at a subsequent session referred; and by the Legislature which adopted their exposition.”

Having established this conceptual framework, Van Buren tackled his thorniest problem. Neither the Kentucky nor the Virginia Resolutions as promulgated by those states' legislatures used the word “nullification.” After Jefferson's death in 1826, however, a draft of the Kentucky Resolutions was found among his papers. That draft did contain the toxic term:

8th. Resolved, . . . that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the general government being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but, where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy; that every state has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non foederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits; that, without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them . . ..

(In Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and Their Legacy, William J. Watkins, Jr. explains that John Breckinridge [the grandfather of the John C. Breckinridge known to Civil War era history buffs], who received the draft indirectly from Jefferson, “struck the term 'nullification”' from the Kentucky Resolutions,” presumably “to aid [their] passage.”)

Carolinian nullifiers and their allies, as you might expect, pounded on this revelation as proof that Jefferson and the Resolves embraced their position, and that they were expounding the true meaning of the Constitution. It was to this argument that Van Buren next turned.

Van Buren led with several subsidiary arguments. First, even assuming that the language of the “unpromulgated draft” represented Jefferson's considered judgment at the time, nullification was not the remedy for “the revenue laws” the Carolinians were complaining about, which represented at most “an abuse of delegated power,” not “a subject upon which [Congress's] action is expressly inhibited, or upon which [Congress] had no authority to legislate at all”:

The Committee are well aware that the advocates of nullification have attempted to sustain that doctrine by expressions contained in an unpromulgated draft of the Kentucky resolutions found among his papers, in which is set forth the right of a State to nullify an act of Congress, passed in respect to a subject upon which its action is expressly inhibited, or upon which it had no authority to legislate at all. A suggestion which, if it were possible to make a paper so circumstanced whenever it may be found, the basis of so solemn an act, is clearly inapplicable to the case under consideration, inasmuch as it expressly declares, that for "an abuse of delegated power," (the most that could by possibility be made of the revenue laws) "the members of the General Government being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the Constitutional remedy."

At all events, Van Buren maintained, Jefferson's later writings made clear that he did not endorse single-state nullification or secession. Citing correspondence from 1811 and 1812, Van Buren asserted that “the published writings of that great man are replete with the evidences of his avowed opinions, inconsistent with the supposition that he believed in the right of a single State either to make constitutional resistance to the laws of the United States or to dissolve the Union by withdrawing herself from it, when in her sole judgment, the circumstances were sufficient to justify the act.”

Following these preliminary observations, Van Buren moved to his principal argument. If Jefferson did not believe in single-state nullification, what, then, was he getting at when he used that term in his draft? He was not referring to a constitutional remedy, but rather to the extra-constitutional right of all people to “redress intolerable grievances” by re-assuming the powers of government through revolution. Van Buren's point seems to me to be well taken and is worth quoting in full. I have added a paragraph break to make the prose more readable:

Let it not, however, be supposed that the Committee are the advocates of unconditional submission. Such are not their views. They concur fully in the sentiment, "that the authority of constitutions over governments, and of the sovereignty of the people over constitutions, are truths which are at all times necessary to be kept in mind." Or, in the language of our own State, "that the powers of Government may be re-assumed by the people, whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness." In respect to State governments, this control can be constitutionally exercised by a bare majority of the people; and in the Federal Government, by a specified number of the States.

But this is not the only mode by which the people can redress intolerable grievances. There is another, which cannot be better described than has been done by Mr. Madison. "And in the event (says he) of the failure of every constitutional resort, and an accumulation of usurpations and abuses, rendering passive obedience and non-resistance a greater evil than resistance and revolution, there can remain but one resort, the last of all – an appeal from the cancelled obligations of the compact, to original rights and the law of self-preservation. This is the ultima ratio under all governments, whether consolidated, confederated, or a compound of both. And it cannot be doubted that a single member of the Union, in the extremity supposed, but in that only, would have a right, as an extra and ultra-constitutional right, to make the appeal."

It was to this species of separation, which God in his infinite mercy avert! that the Committee understand Mr. Jefferson as referring, when he alluded to the farther measure of redress which might be resorted to in extreme cases, and spoke of Virginia's “standing by her arms.” It was this great calamity that he sought to avoid, when he so eloquently and feelingly invoked his native State never to think of it, until the sole alternatives left, were a dissolution of the Union, or submission to a Government, without limitation or power.

"Even the fisherman of Massachusetts and New England demand and receive . . . a pure bounty"

Last week, I published a post explaining why I believed that the term “bounties” contained in Article I, Section 8 of the Confederate Constitution referred to payments made to specified industries to offset tariffs, and particularly to the codfish industry to offset the tariff on salt. Now that I have access to my books, I am writing to amplify upon that post.

As I explained, the very first Tariff, enacted in 1789, contained a provision for payments to exporters of dried and pickled fish. However, the real furor over “bounties” did not erupt until early 1792, when Congress debated a law that repealed the 1789 payments and replaced it with direct payments to cod fishermen and their crews.

Ironically, it was Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson who set in motion a series of events that caused the 'bounty” issue to explode. On February 1, 1791, Jefferson issued a Report on the Cod and Whale Fisheries in which he concluded that the New England codfish industry remained in financial distress. The industry's continued problems were the result of “heavy duties on their produce abroad, and bounties on that of their competitors; and duties at home on several articles particularly used by the fisheries.” The earlier rebate on salt duties was inadequate, and the rebate was paid to the exporters rather than to the fishermen.

Jefferson's proposed solution targeted his favorite whipping boy: the British. In the words of David P. Currie:

Jefferson saw this occasion as an opportunity to impose retaliatory regulations and duties to counteract British restrictions on American trade. The crux of his recommendation was the Government should fulfill “its obligation of effectuating free markets” for exporting fish by making “friendly arrangements towards those nations whose arrangements are friendly to us.” He did not have to add that the result would be arrangements that were less friendly toward Great Britain.

Jefferson's Brit-bashing project went badly awry. Although Congress agreed there was a problem, it decided to fashion a remedy entirely different from that envisioned by the Sage of Monticello. On January 11, 1792, the Senate passed and sent to the House a bill entitled An Act for the encouragement of the bank and other cod fisheries, and for the regulation and government of the fishermen employed therein. The Senate bill proposed to repeal the 1789 system of payments and provided (Prof. Currie again) “for paying to the owners of vessels employed in the cod fisheries a 'bounty' based upon the size of their boats and the quantity of fish they landed, to be divided among all their crew.”

As Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick have described, “the term 'bounty' touched off an uproar” in the House (paragraph breaks added):

William B. Giles of Virginia was “averse to bounties in almost any shape”; they were in a class with “exclusive rights, monopolies, &c.”; “occupations that stand in need of bounties, instead of increasing the real wealth of a country, rather tend to lessen it”; and the authority to grant them, if admitted, “would lead to a complete system of tyranny.”

Hugh Williamson of North Carolina warned: “Establish the doctrine of bounties, [and] . . . . all manner of persons – people of every trade and occupation – may enter at the breach, until they have eaten up the bread of our children.”

Even the members of from Massachusetts – those most directly concerned to get the bill passed – found themselves squirming at the word. [Elbridge] Gerry urged that “in reality it is no bounty,” and [Fisher] Ames protested that “instead of asking bounties . . . we ask nothing but to give us our money back.” “The word 'bounty'” lamented Benjamin Goodhue, “is an unfortunate expression, and I wish it were entirely out of the bill.”

Once again irony intervened, for it was James Madison who stepped into the breach to fashion a compromise that exalted form over substance. Congress did not have power under the Constitution, Madison gravely declared, to grant bounties.

The happy solution [in the words of Elkins and McKitrick] was to substitute “allowance” every time the word “bounty” appeared, and to pass the bill. This sophistry had the effect of recognizing the fisheries as a special case, and at the same time giving the coup de grace to that entire aspect of [Alexander] Hamilton's report [on manufactures] which envisioned a comprehensive system of bounties on industrial products. “This is the Virginia style,” wrote the long-suffering Fisher Ames to a friend back home. “It is chiefly aimed at the report of the Secretary of the Treasury [Hamilton] on the subject of manufactures.”

The bill, now entitled An Act concerning certain Fisheries of the United States, and for the Regulation and Government of the Fishermen employed therein, was enacted February 16, 1792.

Seventy years later, the codfish industry "bounty" continued to exist in modified form, and it continued to rankle secessionists as a prime example of Northern robbery. As Georgia Senator Robert Toombs argued to his state's legislature in his speech of November 13, 1860 (which may be found in Secession Debated: Georgia's Showdown in 1860):

Even the fishermen of Massachusetts and New England demand and receive from the public treasury about half a million of dollars per annum as a pure bounty on their business of catching codfish. The North, at the very first Congress, demanded and received bounties under the name of protection, for every trade, craft, and calling which they pursue . . ..

Did President Washington Lie in Office?

Last Monday, Brian Tubbs at the American Revolution & Founding Era authored a post entitled Did President Washington Lie in Office?. Although Brian did not answer the question directly, the suggestion was that he did not.

Now I am a tremendous admirer of George Washington, but the historical evidence seems fairly clear that on at least one occasion during his presidency he was not, let us say, entirely forthcoming. The following comes from Stanley Elkins's and Eric McKitrick's wonderful book, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800.

The story begins on July 16, 1790, when President Washington signed into law An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States. Among other things, the Act authorized the president to locate the ten-mile square Federal District along the Potomac River.

Six months later, on January 24, 1791, President Washington issued a Proclamation Defining the Boundaries of the District of Columbia, in which he announced the location he had selected.

The Act empowered three commissioners, to be appointed by the president, to "purchase or accept" land in the District and directed the commissioners to "provide suitable buildings for the accommodation" of the government before the 1st Monday of December 1800. The Act did not, however, provide funding for these activities. To the contrary, Section 4 stated that, "for defraying the expense of such purchases and buildings, the President of the United States be authorized and requested to accept grants of money," suggesting that funds would be obtained from sources other than Congress.

President Washington did not request funds from Congress or even mention funding in his Proclamation, nor did he seek funding thereafter. This omission was intentional. At the urging of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Washington determined that financing would not involve the use of funds obtained from Congress. "Asking Congress for an appropriation, or for any other kind of assistance, might reopen the entire question of the residence."

Virginia and Maryland had promised to contribute funds totaling $192,000, but these would clearly be insufficient for the grandiose plans that Jefferson was developing. To defray anticipated costs, Washington adopted a two-part plan.

First, to acquire the land at the end of March 1791 Washington personally worked out a deal with local landowners. They would cede thousands of acres to the United States.

[U]pon its being laid off in lots the proprietor of each tract would retain every other lot. Such land remaining in private hands as might be taken for public purposes (excluding streets) would be paid for at a stipulated rate. The benefit to the proprietors, of course, was that the land they retained would be steadily enhanced in value with the unfolding of the golden future.

Second, to pay for the land to be taken for public purposes, and to fund construction, the government would auction off those lots it determined it did not need as soon as possible.

It would not be prudent to start borrowing money, at least until a sale should determine the value of the lots, and not without legislative authority. The proprietors should not be paid for public squares taken out of their property until the money for it should be raised from the sale of their own lands.

"It was at about this point, however, that everything began falling to pieces." Although Washington, Jefferson and Rep. James Madison personally attended, the first auction, held in October 1791, was a disaster. Only thirty-five of ten thousand lots were sold, "four of them taken by the Commissioners themselves in order to keep up the bidding; and the actual cash receipts came to little more than $2,000."

Faced with a result that cast serious doubt on the viability of the District of Columbia project, "Washington in his annual message to Congress referred to the affairs of the Federal City in a manner that was anything but candid":

Pursuant to the authority contained in the several Acts on that subject, a district of ten miles square for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States has been fixed, and announced by proclamation; which district will comprehend lands on both sides of the River Potomack, and the towns of Alexandria and George Town. A City has also been laid out agreeably to a plan which will be placed before Congress: And as there is a prospect, favoured by the rate of sales which have already taken place, of ample funds for carrying on the necessary public buildings, there is every expectation of their due progress.

A second sale, held a year later in October 1792, was likewise "a failure, and Washington knew it." This time he told Congress nothing in his annual message.

A third auction held in September 1793 "fared even worse than had the previous two." Washington "suspended all further public sales," but "not a word to Congress."

Facing disaster, Washington apparently approved what seems to have been an extra-legal scheme to avoid having to go to Congress:

[T]he Commissioners with Washington's approval furtively began borrowing money, or rather trying to borrow it, though not authorized by law to do so. A syndicate was formed by three men of acknowledged standing in financial circles . . . to purchase several thousand lots, pay for them in seven annual installments, sell a portion to private buyers at the enhanced prices which would presumably be created by their activities, provide the Commissioners with a monthly sum for operating expenses, and negotiate a large loan abroad, using the lots (title to which had been transferred to the syndicate before they were paid for) as collateral. The promoters, however, could not sell their lots, could not meet their installments, and could not interest any investors, foreign or domestic, in a loan of any such nature. Their entire structure collapsed, and by the fall of 1797 all three were in debtor's prison.

Having run out options, Washington "finally faced the bitter choice early in 1796 of asking Congress for authority to borrow money openly on the security of public property." Elkins and McKitrick characterize Washington's message as "a true masterpiece of evasion." Washington

transmitted a memorial from the Commissioners praying that an act to this effect be passed, and he told the House and Senate that in such an enterprise as the building of a capital "difficulties might naturally be expected; some have occurred; but they are in a great degree surmounted, and I have no doubt if the remaining resources are properly cherished, so as to prevent the loss of property by hasty and numerous sales, that all the buildings required . . . may be compleated in season, without aid from the Federal Treasury." But Washington and the Commissioners understood full well that what they were asking for was not really a loan after all, but "aid from the Federal Treasury," and the reason was the same as that for which all the other schemes had failed.

The key phrase in the memorial was the final one: "that, in case the property so pledged shall prove inadequate to the purpose of repayment, the United States will make good the deficiency." . . . The question was dragged out for four months before a loan of $500,000 [sic; the statute states $300,000] was finally authorized.

About the illustration:

In July 1790 Congress decided to move the seat of the federal government from its original site in New York to Washington, with Philadelphia as an interim capital. The unidentified satirist gives a cynical view of the profit opportunity which this presented for Philadelphians. A three-masted ship with a smaller boat in tow sails toward a fork in a river. It is being lured by a devil toward the lower fork (eventually leading to Philadelphia), which falls precipitously in a rocky cataract, and away from the fork which leads to the "Potowmack" river. A devil beckons them on, saying, "This way Bobby" (referring to Robert Morris, the alleged instigator of the move). A man in the bow of the ship remarks of the figurehead, "This looks more like a goose than an eagle's head." Behind him another says through a bullhorn, "Starboard your helm Coffer-- don't you hear your friend on the Rock." Another passenger waves a hat and shouts "Huzza for Philadelphia." A man (possibly Morris) holding the helm says, "I will venture all for Philadelphia." In the boat in tow the following conversation is in progress: "Cut the Painter [tow line] as soon as you see the Ship in danger." "I wonder what could have induced the Controller to sign our Clearance." "Self gratification I suppose for it cannot be any advantage to the owner." "If they had come round in the S. Union the constitution would not have been lost." "They might have known that the Ship would have been in danger by comeing this way." "Ay, Ay, I had best do it [cut the rope] now for I believe she is going to the devil." Below the falls, three men in a dinghy say, "If we can catch the cargo never mind the Ship," "Keep a sharp look out for a majority and the treasury," and "Ay, Ay that's what we are after."

The Washington-Jefferson Snow Storm January 1772

Some news articles about the blizzard now hitting Washington and environs are referring to the Washington-Jefferson snow storm of late January 1772, so called because both Washington and Jefferson referred to it in their diaries.

The Jefferson reference occurs in his Garden Book (click on page 35).

Washington refers to the storm in his diary, noting on January 29 "the snow being up to the breast of a [?] horse everywhere."

The 1807 Embargo Says, "Ouch!"

Bradford Perkins' analysis of the policies pursued by the British and Americans in the period leading up to the War of 1812 is a model of subtlety. Reviewing each decision, he carefully looks at the facts and assumptions that underlay it, turning them over to show how a closer examination might make them seem to appear very different, leading to a different decision.

At the same time, subtle analysis can produce rather brutal conclusions. Here are Prof. Perkins' closing thoughts on the Jeffersonian Embargo of 1807-1809:

[Jefferson's] most ambitious venture in foreign policy had failed, save only in perhaps delaying the outbreak of war with England - and that, until a less favorable time. The Embargo imposed many of the disadvantages of war on the nation by destroying trade; it secured none of the prospective advantages, such as the conquest of territory or the capture of enemy ships and commerce at sea. Diplomatically, Jefferson failed either to coerce or seduce the European belligerents. Economically, the Embargo proved ruinous at home. Politically, it encouraged fissiparous tendencies in Republicanism and temporarily reinvigorated the most unpleasant forms of Federalism. If Jefferson had acted strongly at the opening of his last Congress [in December 1807], he might have achieved an acceptable substitute for the Embargo. By his inertia he was negatively responsible for its continuation until February, 1809, and for the disgraceful scenes of humiliation and panic which sullied America's reputation for years.

About the illustration:

In this satirical [1809] cartoon, "Intercourse or Impartial Dealings," President Jefferson is depicted as being held up for money by Napoleon and King George. Critics of Jefferson believed that he had paid too much for Louisiana and was prepared to pay too much for the Floridas. This cartoon also satirizes the failure of Jefferson's use of the embargo and restrictions on trade as a curb on French and British depredations of American shipping.

"Congress must legalize all means . . . necessary to obtain it's ends"

In Prologue to War: England and the United States 1805-1812 author Bradford Perkins is most interested in the development of policies that contributed to tensions between the two countries. As a result, he pays scant attention to the violations of civil liberties that accompanied the Embargo of 1807-1809. Even so, he makes pretty clear that Thomas Jefferson was knee deep in the enforcement policies that created the worst excesses. He references in particular the hair-raising correspondence exchanged between the president and his Secretary of State Albert Gallatin in the summer of 1808:

If the Embargo was considered as a prelude to war, a precaution, or shock treatment of European psyches – Jefferson talked of all these – occasional violations did not much matter. In any event all risk would be borne by the transgressing shipowner [whose vessel might be seized by the British or French]. As the coercive emphasis [i.e., the rationale that the embargo was intended to coerce the British and the French into respecting American rights] increased in the spring of 1808, becoming the only possible excuse for the continuation of a policy that had demonstrably failed in its other aims, airtight enforcement of the Embargo assumed new importance. The President devoted most of the energies of his last year in office to this task.

* * *

In the summer of 1808, after gathering much information during a visit to New York, [Secretary of the Treasury Albert] Gallatin wrote to the President that “if the embargo must be persisted in any longer,” new legislation must be passed to “invest the Executive with the most arbitrary powers & sufficient force” to execute them. He suggested that not a single vessel be permitted to move without presidential approval, that collectors be permitted to seize goods “any where” and to remove rudders and rigging from any suspected vessels, and that “a little army” be collected along the Canadian frontier.

Here is the relevant passage from Gallatin's letter, dated July 29, 1808:

With those difficulties we must struggle as well as we can this summer; but I am perfectly satisfied that if the embargo must be persisted in any longer, two principles must necessarily be adopted in order to make it sufficient: 1st, that not a single vessel shall be permitted to move without the special permission of the Executive; 2d, that the collectors be invested with the general power of seizing property anywhere, and taking the rudders or otherwise effectually preventing the departure of any vessel in harbor, though ostensibly intended to remain there; and that without being liable to personal suits. I am sensible that such arbitrary powers are equally dangerous and odious. But a restrictive measure of the nature of the embargo applied to a nation under such circumstances as the United States cannot be enforced without the assistance of means as strong as the measure itself. To that legal authority to prevent, seize, and detain must be added a sufficient physical force to carry it into effect; and although I believe that in our seaports little difficulty would be encountered, we must have a little army along the Lakes and British lines generally.

Perkins then describes and characterizes Jefferson's response:

These suggestions, perhaps designed as much to shock the President into a reconsideration of his policy as to make the Embargo effective, did not shake the Chief Executive, who replied [in a letter dated August 11, 1808], “I am satisfied with you that if the orders & decrees are not repealed, & a continuance of the embargo is preferred to war (which sentiment is universal here), Congress must legalize all means which may be necessary to obtain it's [sic] end.”