Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

by Jon Meacham

How unfortunate … that whilst we are encompassed on all sides with avowed enemies and insidious friends, that internal dissensions should be harrowing and tearing our vitals.1 —GEORGE WASHINGTON

A sign of public dissatisfaction with the Federalist leadership in New York came with the organization and popularity of what were called Democratic-Republican societies, which were led by the working and middle classes and which had a strong immigrant presence.36

As Congress gathered in the late autumn of 1794, lawmakers who attended Washington’s delivery of his annual message heard the president’s account of the Whiskey Rebellion—and an unapologetic attack on the Democratic-Republican societies.54

Though the rebellion collapsed, the violence was connected in Washington’s mind with the political agitation of the Democratic-Republican societies, and he attacked both the Whiskey Rebellion and the societies in 1794.59 Jefferson took

John Jay’s mission to London had not produced the result Jefferson had hoped. Far from it: The treaty, which President Washington received on Saturday, March 7, 1795, appeared to concede too much to London, essentially codifying the economic ties between the two nations that Hamilton had been nurturing for years.84 The political reaction was swift and, for Washington, brutal. Angry crowds burned Jay in effigy; there was even talk of impeaching Washington.85,86 Jefferson despised the treaty as a Hamiltonian document, and much of the country joined him.87 “From North to South this monument of folly or venality is universally execrated,” Jefferson told Thomas Mann Randolph in August 1795.88

The treaty was nevertheless narrowly ratified. Washington believed, as did a bare two-thirds majority of the Senate, that the pact was preferable to going to war.

The price of this diplomatic and political victory, however, was high, for the approval of the Jay Treaty by the Federalists gave the nascent Republicans a palpable and energizing sense of purpose. They knew where to turn, and to whom.

There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him.1 —THOMAS JEFFERSON

THE PUBLICATION OF WASHINGTON’s farewell address on Monday, September 19, 1796, set off America’s first contested presidential election.

After the Jay Treaty, the next president faced the rising prospect of war with France—a possibility that imbued the election with an even greater sense of urgency than it already had.12

think a party is necessary in a free state to preserve its freedom—the truly virtuous should firmly unite and form a party capable at all times of frustrating the wicked designs of the enemies of the doctrine of equality and the rights of man.1 —Jefferson friend JOHN PAGE

The alien laws collectively invested the president the authority to deport resident aliens he considered dangerous. The sedition bill criminalized free speech, forbidding anyone to “write, print, utter or publish … any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either House of the Congress of the United States, with intent to defame … or to bring them … into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States.”16

Adams and the Federalists believed they were limiting liberty’s excesses in order to preserve liberty itself. The danger of war was real, and war called for extraordinary measures.21 (And the Sedition Act was set to expire in 1801.) To Adams and his allies, the combination of foreign aliens within the United States and a brutal press calling into question the legitimacy of the administration was a possibly lethal one. Madison described the state of play

The prosecutions under the new laws were egregious. Republican editors were arrested, indicted, and tried for publishing pieces the Adams administration deemed seditious. Among the most notable cases were those of Benjamin Franklin Bache of the Aurora in Philadelphia and James Thomson Callender of the Examiner in Richmond.47,48 Editors were not

The Gazette of the United States told voters to choose GOD—AND A RELIGIOUS PRESIDENT or impiously declare for “JEFFERSON—AND NO GOD.”13 Jefferson’s views on religious liberty, however, appealed to many more moderate voters. New Jersey Republicans charged that Jefferson’s enemies used religion as a means of assault “because he is not a fanatic, nor willing that the Quaker, the Baptist, the Methodist, or any other denominations of Christians, should pay the pastors of other sects; because he does not think that a Catholic should be banished for believing in transubstantiation, or a Jew, for believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”14

passing the Judiciary Act of 180120 in February. If Jefferson or Burr prevailed, who knew when the Federalist interest might again have the power to act? Taking advantage of the hour, then, the Congress approved, and President Adams signed, a bill that increased the number of federal judicial officers, strengthened and expanded the circuit courts, and reduced the number of Supreme Court justices from six to five, thus depriving any Republican president of at least one appointment. “The Judiciary bill has been crammed down our throats without a word or letter being suffered to be altered,” wrote Senator Stevens Thomson Mason of Virginia, a Republican.21 Jefferson believed the law, coming so late in Adams’s term, was a “parasitical plant engrafted at the last session on the judiciary body” and that the Federalist appointees to the new positions had “retired into the judiciary as a stronghold … and from that battery all the works of republicanism are to be beaten down and erased.”22,23 Such appointees became colloquially known as Adams’s “midnight judges,” and there were “midnight appointments” to lesser offices as well.24

Jefferson is a man of too much virtue and good sense to attempt any material change in a system which was adopted by our late beloved Washington, and has been since steadily pursued by Mr. Adams, and which has preserved our country in peace and prosperity for 12 years, during which period almost the whole civilized world has been deluged in blood,” William Fitzhugh, a Virginia Federalist who had been close to George Washington, wrote in January 1801.56

William Scales, took a more optimistic view: “Many declare you an atheist,” Scales wrote to Jefferson, “but be it so, I much rather a liberal atheist should govern the people, than a bigoted saint, who knows not God.”71

Excellent point in 2018 too.

Adams never returned to Washington.

though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.31 Let

Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.

The presidency Jefferson left in 1809 was rich in precedent for vigorous, decisive, and often unilateral action. It is not too much to say that Jefferson used Hamiltonian means to pursue Jeffersonian ends. He embraced ultimate power subtly but surely. Open political warfare was not for him; he preferred

government that seemed less intrusive and overbearing than the one Washington and Adams had created. In his eight years in office Jefferson brought the national debt down from $83 million to $57 million.49 He cut taxes and spending. In a new time of peace—the Quasi-War ended six months before his inauguration—Jefferson reduced military spending to prewar levels and downsized the Navy to thirteen frigates.50,51,52,53 For the moment, he believed, it was impossible for the United States to attempt to rival the naval powers of Europe.54 His maritime strategy was one of defense, except in regard to the Barbary pirates, whom he continued to pursue and combat.55,56 Jefferson had long cared about two

“Her understanding is good; she is as well informed as most young ladies; she is perfectly simple and unaffected; she loves me and she is a pretty good democrat.”

He believed in constant conversation between the president and lawmakers, for Jefferson thought that “if the members are to know nothing but what is important enough to be put into a public message … it becomes a government of chance and not of design.”24 The president had to be able to trust lawmakers with insights and opinions that he might not offer a broader audience, creating a sense of intimacy and common purpose. Making speeches at other politicians—or appearing to be only making speeches at them—was not the best way to enlist their allegiance or their aid, nor to govern well.

“Why are these libels allowed?28 Why is not this libelous journal suppressed, or its editor at least, fined and imprisoned?” The question gave Jefferson a perfect opening. “Put that paper in your pocket, Baron, and should you hear the reality of our liberty, the freedom of our press, questioned, show this paper, and tell where you found it.”29

At a cabinet meeting in the middle of May 1801, Jefferson and his advisers debated the Barbary States.38 At issue was whether the United States ought to dispatch a squadron under Commodore Richard Dale to the Mediterranean in a display of power to discourage further piracy against American shipping. “All concur in the expediency of [the] cruise,” Jefferson noted. He wanted to make sure they concurred in something else, too: that the naval forces were authorized—by executive, not legislative, authority—to “search for and destroy the enemy’s vessels wherever they can find them.”39 Should Dale find that any of the Barbary States had declared war on the United States, he was to “place [his] ships in a situation to chastise them.”40 Should he find that all of them had declared war, he was told to distribute his force in such a manner “so as best to protect our commerce and chastise their insolence—by sinking, burning, or destroying their ships and vessels wherever you shall find them.”

“Jefferson is the supreme director of measures—he has no levee days—observes no ceremony—often sees company in an undress, sometimes with his slippers on—always accessible to, and very familiar with, the sovereign people.”

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”57

Benjamin Rush had helped inform Jefferson’s views on church and state in 1800. “I agree with you likewise in your wishes to keep religion and government independent of each other,” Rush had told Jefferson.58 “Were it possible for St. Paul to rise from his grave at the present juncture, he would say to the clergy who are now so active in settling the political affairs of the world: ‘Cease from your political labors your kingdom is not of this world. Read my epistles. In no part of them will you perceive me aiming to depose a pagan emperor, or to place a Christian upon a throne. Christianity disdains to receive support from human governments.’ ”

Wow!

“The men of the different parties do not associate intimately.”6 Yet another observer said, “No tavern or boarding house contains two members of opposite sentiments.”7 Jefferson did try. “Nothing shall

The story of the Louisiana Purchase is one of strength, of Jefferson’s adaptability and, most important, his determination to secure the territory from France, doubling the size of the country and transforming the United States into a continental power. A slower or less courageous politician might have bungled the acquisition; an overly idealistic one might have lost it by insisting on strict constitutional scruples. Jefferson, however, was neither slow nor weak nor overly idealistic.

Now that Napoleon was in the picture, Jefferson understood what had to be done. “The day that France takes possession of New Orleans … we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.”12 With

giving the United States the Louisiana Territory—a landmass so vast the borders were unclear even to the buyers and the sellers—for about $15 million, or three cents an acre.28 Word reached Jefferson on Sunday evening,

What he had done thus far by allowing his representatives to negotiate and sign the treaty with France was, in his current view, beyond the scope of his powers. “The Executive in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advanced the good of their country, have done an act beyond the Constitution.47 The legislature in casting behind them metaphysical subtleties, and risking themselves like faithful servants, must ratify and pay for it, and throw themselves on their country for doing for them unauthorized what we know they would have done for themselves had they been in a situation to do it.” He used a lawyerly analogy to underscore his point. “It is the case of a guardian investing the money of his ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory; and saying to him when of age, I did this for your good; I pretend to no right to bind you.48 You may disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape as I can. I thought it my duty to risk myself for you.”

With such momentous things afoot, it was foolish to worry over constitutional niceties. Alexander Hamilton could not have put it better.

Jefferson’s decision to acquire Louisiana without seeking a constitutional amendment expanded the powers of the executive in ways that would likely have driven Jefferson to distraction had another man been president. Much of his political life, though, had been devoted to the study and the wise exercise of power. He did what had to be done to preserve the possibility of republicanism and progress. Things were neat only in theory. And despite his love of ideas and image of himself, Thomas Jefferson was as much a man of action as he was of theory. Indian tribes knew

The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder, [and] it pains me to an unspeakable degree.”

on the last day of October 1803, the U.S. frigate Philadelphia had been captured by Tripolitan forces.58 Three and a half months later, in the middle of February 1804, Commodore Stephen Decatur led a courageous expedition to destroy the Philadelphia in order to keep it from being turned against the United States.59 In British vice admiral Horatio Nelson’s view, Decatur’s mission was “the most bold and daring act of the age,”

Never since the battle of Lexington have I seen this country in such a state of exasperation as at present, and even that did not produce such unanimity.1 —THOMAS JEFFERSON, on the British attack on the USS Chesapeake

Twenty-two shots struck the Chesapeake before the Americans managed to get off a single rejoinder. Barron and seventeen others were wounded. Three men were killed. It was an act of war

Jefferson grasped the import of the moment, issuing a proclamation banning armed British ships from U.S. waters.9 At a cabinet meeting he decided to call on the governors of the states to have their quotas of one hundred thousand militiamen ready, and he ordered the purchase of arms, ammunition, and supplies.10,11 The president gave the order unilaterally, without congressional

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest,” he wrote after he left office.14 “The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.” A ship—the USS Revenge—was dispatched to England to receive an answer from the British government about the Leopard’s attack.15 Outrage came upon outrage: A revenue cutter was also fired upon; its most prominent passenger, Vice President George Clinton, later told Jefferson that the emotion generated by the British depredations was unsettling even the most extreme of Federalists. “To the Tories or British Federalists,” Clinton said, “this is a mortifying circumstance as they cannot but perceive that in case of war they will be deserted by their electioneering allies and left to shift for themselves.”16 Anti-British feeling was

He knew America could not build a navy to compete with Britain’s soon enough to make a difference in the struggle at hand. His experience of the past two decades in foreign policy had also taught him that time often resolved the issues of the hour. From Nootka Sound to St. Domingue, shifting strategic concerns abroad—the fall of a government in London, the decision of an emperor in Paris, the outcome of a battle in a far-off place—could settle (or complicate) the problems facing the United States.

Informing Congress that two of the world’s great powers were increasing the pressure on American interests, Jefferson proposed that the United States order its own ships to remain in port in the United States while “making every preparation for whatever events may grow out of the present crisis.”29,30 What came next? Politically, war seemed impossible at the moment. The emotional intensity that had grown out of the Chesapeake affair in summer had faded. “The war fever is past,” Jefferson wrote Patsy in November.31 For now, the answer was

“What is good in this case cannot be effected,” he wrote Gallatin; “we have, therefore, only to find out what will be least bad.”33 Jefferson was guided in part by republican ideology: The end of war and the reign of reason was a dream of the age. War led to monarchy and aristocracy and evils that tended to destroy the liberty of the many while empowering the few. Yet Jefferson was no pacific purist. He had waged war in the Mediterranean, and he was willing to wage it against Britain and possibly against France. But not yet.

The legislation had passed quickly, and Jefferson signed the embargo on Tuesday, December 22, 1807.35 It was a breathtaking bill, a projection of governmental power that surpassed even the hated Alien and Sedition Acts. After signing it, Jefferson was struck by “a tooth-ache … which brought on a very large and hard swelling of the face, and that produced a fever which left me last night,” he wrote Patsy on Tuesday, December 29.36 He felt the burdens of office as never before.

“Our embargo, which has been a very trying measure, has produced one very happy, and permanent effect,” Jefferson wrote Lafayette.41 “It has set us all on domestic manufacture, and will I verily believe reduce our future demands on England fully one half.”

The embargo succeeded in the sense that it postponed war with Britain, though neither it nor any other policy finally prevented what became known as the War of 1812. The diplomat William Pinkney probably had it right when he told Madison in 1809: “Any other measure than the embargo would have been madness or cowardice.47 For no others were in our choice but war with both aggressors, or submission to both; with the certainty, too, that that submission would in its progress either lead to war, or to a state of abject degradation.”

“I asked Col. R[andolph]118 why on earth Mr. Jefferson did not put these slaves who looked like him out of the public sight by sending them to his Bedford estate or elsewhere,” Randall wrote Parton. “He said Mr. Jefferson never betrayed the least consciousness of the resemblance—and although he (Col. R[andolph]) had no doubt his mother would have been very glad to have them removed, that both and all venerated Mr. Jefferson too deeply to broach such a topic to him. What suited him, satisfied them.” What suited Jefferson was the code of denial that defined life in the slave-owning states. It was his plantation, his world, and he would live as he wished. “The secrets of an old Virginia manor house,” wrote Henry Randall, “were like the secrets of an Old Norman Castle.”119 And such secrets were to be spoken of as little as possible.