Trevor Burrus: Welcome to Free Thoughts for
Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute.
I’m Trevor Burrus.
Aaron Ross Powell: And I’m Aaron Powell.
Trevor Burrus: Joining us today is Robert
McDonald, a professor of history at US Military
Academy at West Point, an adjunct scholar
at the Cato Institute, and the author of the
forthcoming Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson’s
Image in His Own Time.
Welcome to Free Thoughts, Rob.
Robert McDonald: Yeah, thank you Trevor.
Trevor Burrus: So this is – we’re talking
mostly about Jefferson today and sort of the
founding era but that’s your big passion
is for Jefferson.
I think your son is named Jefferson, correct?
Robert McDonald: Yeah, that is true.
Trevor Burrus: So he’s not lying.
He puts his money where his mouth is.
Robert McDonald: My wife and I met at Monticello.
I got my job teaching at West Point.
And I’m supposed to say by the way, my views
don’t necessarily represent those.
Trevor Burrus: The US Military?
Robert.
But yeah, I got my job teaching at West Point.
It was fantastic.
But I was single and there wasn’t great
dating scene at the United States Military
Academy for professors.
And I met my wife who is a researcher at Monticello.
The following summer, I got a research fellowship
and my joke is she is the first and last person
upon whom my – I study Thomas Jefferson
pick-up line and actually worked, and yeah.
Trevor Burrus: I guess, yeah.
That’s probably good.
And Monticello is a good place to meet.
Robert McDonald: That’s right.
That’s right.
Trevor Burrus: Excellent.
So why were you so fascinated with Thomas
Jefferson do you think?
Robert McDonald: I think there are a lot of
different reasons why a person might be fascinated
by Thomas Jefferson.
I mean Thomas Jefferson was a true polymath.
He was a person who was interested in a lot
of different things and he was able to develop
specialized knowledge and expertise in a lot
of different fields.
Jefferson, of course, was a statesman but
he was an architect.
He was a musician.
He was …
Trevor Burrus: What did he play?
Robert McDonald: He played the violin or the
fiddle.
Trevor Burrus: I’m picturing like Sherlock
Holmes kind of playing the violin.
Robert McDonald: He and his family, they’d
have jam sessions and that’s how he courted
his wife.
I mean I think she was very impressed by his
ability.
Trevor Burrus: Well, his wife, it has always
been the case.
He picked up the guitar or the string as he
picked up women.
Aaron Ross Powell: So he’s the other guy
who did Jefferson pick-up worked.
Robert McDonald: I guess so.
I guess so.
Yeah.
He could just play that violin really, really
well.
So he’s in many ways somebody who thought
deeply but also broadly.
And I admire that.
I also admire Jefferson’s statements about
liberty and that that is the source of my
initial fascination.
But it doesn’t take long once you start
reading about Thomas Jefferson to realize
that his deeds didn’t always measure up
to his words and he lived as we do in a complicated
time, oftentimes, where the principles will
compete with one another.
On side of an equation, a certain set of principles
might be in the balance but there are other
principles that are competing with those.
And seeing him deal with those conflicts I
think is really fascinating.
Another thing that’s fascinating about Jefferson
is that he was in an era where the rules of
political engagement were very much in flocks.
And the way politics were practiced in 1776,
they weren’t practiced the same way 50 years
later.
And he’s in the middle of that transition
and how he grapples with those changing rules
as sort of a political athlete I think is
fascinating as well.
Aaron Ross Powell: What does that change look
like?
So what were he transitioning from and towards
as well as the middle of?
Robert McDonald: Yeah.
So in many respects during the colonial era,
America is still an aristocratic society and
we have politics that emphasized things like
the difference of the public toward the people
they entrust with positions of power.
People who stay in for office, I almost had
run for office.
But no one does that in the 18th century.
You don’t campaign, right?
Trevor Burrus: I’ll forego the dentistry
and the antibiotics discovery back to a time
where no one was running for office.
Robert McDonald: So people might realize that
they are candidates for office, that they
are being put forth for office but by no means
will they campaign and say, “If you vote
for me, I will do this for you.”
I mean that was considered to be the definition
of corruption.
Voters in the 18th century largely were entrusted
to assess the characters of the people who
stood for office and to judge the wisdom of
someone, the impartiality of someone, the
ability of someone to make a sound decision
based on what was the just thing to do, what
was the right thing to do.
And once you entrusted that person with power,
the ethic was that you were going to preserve
that trust and allow them to make the decisions
that they wish to make.
Things get much more democratic with a small
D during the course of Jefferson’s lifetime.
Politics become much more competitive as a
result of the fact that we have this new government
under the Constitution.
We have people like Alexander Hamilton who
are arguing for essentially an expansion of
federal power during the Washington administration.
And people like Jefferson and his chief ally,
James Madison, are doing far more strict interpretation
of the Constitution.
Hamilton and his party, if you want to call
it that, The Federalists, are going to increasingly
do battle with Jefferson and Madison and their
party, The Republicans.
And a lot is at stake.
I mean the future of America is at stake.
And Jefferson and Madison in some respects
view Hamilton and Adams and other Federalists
as counterrevolutionaries who are going against
the spirit of ’76 and want to roll back
all the progress that has been made and fought
for at great cost to people’s lives and
fortunes.
And yet, Hamilton, I think he views his project
as consolidating this new nation that he and
Washington have hoped to establish and secure.
And the fear of the Federalists is the Jefferson
and Madison might in fact be more like French
revolutionaries than American revolutionaries.
Trevor Burrus: And they were kind of fans
of the French Revolution, at least Jefferson
was a pretty big fan of it.
He was there right when it started happening.
Robert McDonald: Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean – and who wouldn’t be a fan?
I mean in this world where the new United
States has the geo-political significance
of a fairly minor country, France and Britain
are the world’s two great superpowers.
And to see one of them turn away from absolutism
and apparently embrace liberty and fraternity
and equality, I mean that’s quite a wonderful
development.
And it makes the American revolutionaries
feel as if their ideas are spreading.
Aaron Ross Powell: So how does someone like
Jefferson get to revolution?
Because I mean – so we, at the Cato Institute,
gripe about the state of government all the
time.
Trevor Burrus: But I haven’t taken up arms
yet.
Aaron Ross Powell: Well, we’re pretty down
on it.
And a lot of our complaints, I mean in a lot
of ways, we think it’s worst today than
it was when the colonies decided to rebel.
But we don’t – no one seems, no matter
how mad people seem to get about politics,
we never jump to, “OK, let’s take up arms
or let’s strike out on our own.”
And it’s such a big jump.
So how do you get there?
Trevor Burrus: Or even, “Let’s take up
arms against the most powerful military on
the planet,” which at the time was the British
and would be the American government.
It seems also crazy.
Robert McDonald: Well, in a way, it was crazy.
But in another way, they thought that it would
be crazy not to.
And I’ll make the problem even more complicated.
Sure, Britain was the most powerful nation
on the planet especially after the Seven Years’
War.
That was pretty clear.
It was also the richest.
And what’s more, it was also the freest.
I mean Britain and I don’t think that those
two things are unrelated by the way; freedom
and prosperity and power I think you could
argue go hand in hand.
And to decide to divorce America from Great
Britain was not an easy decision to make.
And it wasn’t one that was made at the spur
of the moment.
I mean there was a long extended imperial
crisis that really begins in the aftermath
of the French and Indian war.
This war that the British win ant yet it causes
the British to double their deficit – I’m
sorry, their dead doubles during the course
of the French and Indian war known globally
as the Seven Years’ War.
The British would like to avoid a future expensive
war and so they draw the Proclamation Line
of 1763 telling the colonies that they can’t
set a West of the Appalachian Mountains.
They also …
Trevor Burrus: What was the – that was to
keep them out of conflict?
Robert McDonald: It was – yeah, exactly.
It was to keep them out of conflict with the
Native Americans.
I mean the French military is vanquished from
North America after the French and Indian
war as the Seven Years’ War is known.
But the Native Americans who were the allies
largely of the French, they’re still here
and the British wanting to avoid a future
expensive realize that colonies if they move
West, they’re going to come to conflict
with those Indian nations.
And good fences made good neighbors.
That’s essentially their thought.
They also think that maybe it’s time to
start raising some revenue from the colonies
so the Stamp Act is passed followed by the
Townshend Duties.
These taxes were not all that burdensome upon
the colonies and yet, the colonies, they were
represented in parliament.
They had their own legislators.
They had, in Virginia, the House of Burgesses
or the Massachusetts Assembly or what have
you.
They understood that they could be taxed by
those local assemblies but to be – when
people – what do we call it when someone
takes your money without asking?
Trevor Burrus: Theft.
Robert McDonald: Yeah.
It’s stealing, right?
So the parliament can’t ask them.
There’s no one to ask in parliament.
They haven’t consented to the election of
members of parliament.
So they’ve viewed it as theft.
And the whole point of government as good
British people believe in the 18th century,
as John Locke says when he explains the Glorious
Revolution of 1688 that’s legitimate because
government’s function is to protect life
and liberty and property.
And if government is not protecting their
property but instead stealing their property,
it’s not doing the job of government.
And if government is sending troops to live
among them as the British government does
when they arrive in Boston, if those troops
are leaving Boston and going out to Lexington
on their way to concord to take their weapons
away, it’s imposing tyranny upon them.
When the British government in response to
the Boston Tea Party in 1773 a couple of months
later, it passes what the British government
calls The Coercive Acts, what the colonies
called The Intolerable Acts, shutting down
Boston Harbor, banning their local town meetings,
preventing the Massachusetts Assembly for
meeting.
What Patrick Henry down in Virginia said is
we’re in a state of nature.
It’s like there isn’t a government.
It’s as if the British have declared independence
from us because they’re not performing those
essential functions, the protection of life
and liberty and property that government is
supposed to protect.
Trevor Burrus: So how did Jefferson himself
experience those?
Where was he at those times?
How did he get revolutionized and radicalized
I guess would be the term now?
At some point, he decided that it was time
to break away.
But what was his thought process like?
Robert McDonald: Yeah, that’s a great question.
I mean I think in some respects, Jefferson
is born at just the right time to be a revolutionary.
He comes of age as a young man in Williamsburg,
as a student at the College of William & Mary.
He is mentored by George Wythe who is a noted
Virginia jurist and a professor of law at
William & Mary.
He is fully immersed in the principles of
British liberty and law and constitutionalism.
And so, it’s very clear to Jefferson as
it’s clear to other political thinkers in
America, as it’s clear I think to many Americans,
regular Americans that what we thought the
British government stood for, the British
government no longer stands for.
And the liberties that we thought were guaranteed
to us as Englishmen are now jeopardy.
And if we really value these liberties, if
we really want to preserve our rights, it’s
not going to be under the authority of the
British government.
It’s only going to be if we seize authority
for ourselves and declare independence.
Trevor Burrus: And of course, Jefferson writes
the Declaration of Independence, which is
…
Robert McDonald: Right.
Trevor Burrus: Why was he chosen before that
of all the people at the Continental Congress?
Robert McDonald: Yeah, right.
And so I mean it seems an unlikely choice.
Jefferson was 33 years old.
He was one of the youngest members.
He was fairly obscure.
He’s not among the more well-known.
The committee that is selected by the Congress
to draft the Declaration includes him probably
because he’s a Virginian.
They were looking for some geographical diversity.
You have Ben Franklin, the most famous member
of the Continental Congress from Pennsylvania,
there is John Adams from Massachusetts, Roger
Sherman from Connecticut, Robert Livingston
from New York.
Jefferson thinks John Adams should write the
Declaration.
And Adams has been a strong advocate for independence
for months.
But according to Adams when Jefferson makes
that suggestion, Adams response that there
are three reasons why Jefferson should do
it.
He said, “Number one, you’re a Virginian,
and a Virginian ought to be at the head of
this business.”
In other words, the blood of people from Massachusetts
has been spilled.
New Englanders were very much involved in
the war for independence that began in 1775.
New England had lots of skin in the game.
But a Virginian perhaps could cause other
delegates to the Congress to see this truly
as a continental struggle.
In addition, Adams said, “You could write
ten times better than I can.”
Trevor Burrus: Which is kind of interesting
because Adams was not a humble person.
Robert McDonald: He wasn’t a humble person
and he wasn’t a bad writer.
He was a great writer.
So that’s a great compliment.
The other one he paid was sort of – he was
being quite humble when he said, “Hi, John
Adams.
I’m obnoxious, suspected and unpopular.
And you are very much otherwise.”
And I think he meant that he was obnoxious
in pursuing independence that maybe people
were tired of hearing his arguments within
the Continental Congress and that Jefferson
would bring sort of a freshness to this process
that might be beneficial.
Aaron Ross Powell: On the Declaration, I mean
one of the things – we recently had episodes
with our colleague, Roger Pilon and just yesterday,
we recorded an episode with Legal Scholar,
Randy Barnett and both of them made the argument
that the Declaration, the opening of the Declaration
contains kind of the core founding political
philosophy of the United States and that there’s
a very coherent argument about the origins
of legitimacy of government and how that legitimacy
operates.
Is that representative – so is that contrast
– was Jefferson setting out to articulate
a coherent political philosophy from which
to then derive the need for a new system of
government?
And if he was, how shared was that?
Is there such a thing as like this is the
core founding idea or principles of America
or was this more his thing and everyone else
was like, “OK.
What we’re really concerned about is the
litany of abuses and why we should rebel.”
Robert McDonald: Yeah.
Jefferson later wrote that he wrote the Declaration
to be an expression of the American mind.
And when you think about it, this is a corporate
document.
This is a statement made in behalf of the
Continental Congress.
And when finally New York could receive instructions
to vote for independence and the Declaration
was inscribed on parchment, it was described
the Unanimous Declaration of the United States
of America.
So it’s not Jefferson’s opinion.
This is a shared opinion and he’s trying
to in some ways been truly politicized the
American people.
We know that not all Americans supported independence.
Adams guessed that about a third were still
loyalist, maybe a third sat on the fence.
But this was designed to try to cause Americans
to rally around that proposition.
And when you think about, Jefferson has essentially
two test of legitimacy.
Everyone knows the famous sentence about how
all men are created equal.
They’re endowed by their Creator with certain
and unalienable rights and that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
What follows is a statement that, “To secure
these rights, governments are instituted among
men deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed.”
So there are two tests of legitimacy; to be
legitimate, a government has to secure these
rights and it also has to derive its powers,
its just powers form the consent of the governed.
So a government that protects people’s individual’s
rights and is based upon their consent, if
those two things are present, it’s legitimate.
What Jefferson is arguing is that for the
colonies, soon to be free independent Americans,
their rights are not being secured and their
consent is not being sought.
They don’t have the representation that
would render government in America legitimate.
Trevor Burrus: Do we know or do you know,
I actually have never encountered this in
all my historical reading, how the Declaration
was delivered to the King?
I mean there were some things about what the
King said when he read it.
But did they make a copy and put it on a ship
and say, “Take this to the King,” or anything
or did they just let him find out himself
or do you know?
Robert McDonald: Yeah.
Well, I mean the Declaration says that a decent
respect for the opinions of mankind is one
of the things that bring about the need to
make this Declaration.
George the III is a member of mankind.
I’m he is one of the people who reads.
He has a compelling interest in it.
But he rejects it of course.
He has been rejecting all of their petitions.
Trevor Burrus: All the branches?
Robert McDonald: Yeah, all of the branch petition
from a year earlier or something that he initially
didn’t even think it was necessary to issue
a response because he didn’t recognize the
legitimacy of the Continental Congress.
Trevor Burrus: Oh, interesting.
Now, during the war, Jefferson, does he pick
up a gun at all or is he doing other things
during the war?
Robert McDonald: So Jefferson like John Adams
is someone who is going to leave Philadelphia
after the Declaration is passed, not immediately
but shortly thereafter.
And Adams goes back to Massachusetts and he
helps to write the Constitution.
Jefferson goes back to Virginia.
Trevor Burrus: The Massachusetts Constitution.
Robert McDonald: Right.
That’s right.
Yeah, which in fact our Constitution is in
some ways modeled.
But Jefferson goes back to Virginia.
He reforms the laws of Virginia.
I mean this is an amazing moment of creativity.
I mean this is an opportunity for people in
all of the 13 state capitals to make things
right, to throw off the yoke of British government
under which they had been forced to labor
and to republicanize, with a small arch, republicanize
their laws and their constitutions.
Jefferson is going to serve as the wartime
governor of Virginia.
So for two years including when Virginia is
invaded by the British, Jefferson will be
the governor.
He’ll relocate the capital to Richmond in
part because he thinks it’s a more defensible
location than Williamsburg.
That’s probably true.
But it wasn’t defensible enough.
The British take Richmond.
The Virginia Assembly retreats inland.
They meet for a while in Charlottesville,
Jefferson’s hometown.
As the British marched West, Jefferson sends
the legislature to Staunton, Virginia further
to the West.
He can see through his handheld telescope
the British coming.
Trevor Burrus: From Monticello.
Robert McDonald: Yeah.
I mean he’s standing on top of Monticello.
Virginia has its own pole rear viewer, a guy
named Jack Jouett who alerts people that the
British are on their way.
Jefferson doesn’t wait too much time.
As the British are at the foot of his little
mountain, he mounts his horse and rides away.
He’s not going to be captured.
He’s nobody’s fool.
So that’s sort of the closest he ever comes
to combat.
But yeah, I mean he’s very much in the thick
of things.
Trevor Burrus: Now, Monticello winded – he
was born close but not on Monticello, correct?
Robert McDonald: That’s right, yeah.
So his father’s plantation is called Shadwell
and it’s on property that Jefferson inherited
that’s essentially at the base of the mountain.
Jefferson increases his land holdings.
Building Monticello on top of a mountain,
building a house on top of the mountain is
somewhat impractical thing to do.
There are a lot of practical considerations
that would mitigate against that or militate
against that, the idea that bringing up water
supplies.
But it’s a very practical location for Jefferson
at the moment that the British are coming
because he has the high ground and he could
see them.
Aaron Ross Powell: On Monticello, how did
he get involved in – he was the architect
of it.
Robert McDonald: Yes.
Aaron Ross Powell: So I just earlier this
year visited Monticello for the first time
and had shortly before that been to Mountain
Vernon with my daughter on a field trip and
it’s striking how different the two homes
are and how much Jefferson’s home feels
modern and feels – it feels much more like
the kind of place you’d want to live than
Washington’s home.
And it’s just so radically different from
what was common at the time.
But at the same time like most people feel
like, “I’m going to design my own home.”
I mean being an amateur architect, we’d
say, “That’s probably not a good idea.”
So how does he get just involved in doing
that and where does that sense of – I mean
it just feels very contemporary to us come
from?
Robert McDonald: So yeah, Jefferson described
Monticello as his essay in architecture.
And I think it is an essay in that the rooms
worked together.
They fit together almost like the paragraphs
in a finely crafted essay.
And the house has a flow to it and an energy
to it.
And you’re right, it has sort of a modern
sensibility to it.
It has skylights.
Aaron Ross Powell: Yeah, it feels very spacious
and light.
Robert McDonald: It’s fantastic.
And you know it’s interesting house.
And Jefferson wrote a lot about it but there’s
a lot that’s left unsaid.
It’s interesting because when you took the
tour and entered, you entered through the
side that most people would enter Monticello
when Jefferson lived there, the east front,
and if you stand on the steps of the portico
there and you look to the east, you have what
Jefferson called his sea view because you
look into the land, the flat land that goes
out toward Richmond and Williamsburg and it
kind of disappears in this bluish haze.
It almost looks like you’re looking at the
ocean and you’re looking back at civilization,
because Monticello was built essentially on
the edge of the wilderness.
And when you walk into that eastern side of
the house, you’re confronted with a bunch
of artifacts from the American West, Lois
& Clark brought the mounted antlers of various
animals and Indian artifacts, native American
objects that were put on display.
The room that is opposite that on the western
side of the house, this is the front of the
house that’s on the nickel, is a room that
in some ways, very much brings the east to
the west.
It brings Western civilization to the American
frontier.
And Jefferson has hangings on the walls of
his parlor a number of portraits of Great
Enlightenment Thinkers including the three
he called his Trinity of Mortals.
There was Bacon, and Newton, and Locke.
There are portraits of Washington and Benjamin
Franklin and others.
And yet from that side of the house when you
look out, you take in the vista of the Blue
Ridge Mountains and all that is beyond, which
I think for Jefferson was really the future.
Trevor Burrus: During the – after the Continental
Congress, a lot of people don’t realize,
I, often when I teach I often have to correct
people and say that Jefferson was not at the
Constitutional Convention.
He had no direct hand in writing The Constitution.
Where was he during that time?
And then also, do we have an idea what he
thought of The Constitution at least immediately
after when he heard about it and read it and
what his idea of whether that was a good constitution?
Robert McDonald: Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
So Jefferson had – he was the person who
succeeded Benjamin Franklin as our Ambassador
to France.
People in France sometime said to Jefferson,
“Oh, you are Franklin’s replacement.”
But they love Franklin by the ways.
And Jefferson really ingratiated himself to
them by saying, “No one can replace Franklin.
I’m merely his successor.”
Trevor Burrus: Well, Franklin loved being
in France.
Robert McDonald: Yes, he did.
Trevor Burrus: Bon vivant is a good word for
what he did when he was there.
Robert McDonald: And Jefferson did two, I
mean interestingly.
I mean he as a man, very much a Virginia and
in some ways, his sensibilities are very provincially.
He thinks very highly of Virginia but he’s
thrilled to be in France and to be exposed
to the culture and the knowledge of enlightenment
in Europe.
Sure.
He’s in correspondence with James Madison
throughout his time in France.
And Madison of course, the Father of the Constitution,
is decisively engaged in the process of shaping
that that document.
And ultimately, he’s going to send a copy
of it to Thomas Jefferson and Jefferson reads
it and he writes back to Madison that he thinks
it’s fantastic.
He has done an excellent job and he is very
pleased with this and he hopes that it will
be ratified.
He has two principle objections to it.
One is that the president originally was perpetually
re-electable.
And Jefferson really feared that we would
develop a tradition where our presidents will
presidents for life.
So he called for some sort of amendment that
would limit the president’s time in office.
The other thing that Jefferson objected to
was initially the Constitution lacked the
Bill of Rights and he hopes that a Bill of
Rights would be added.
So, both of Jefferson’s objections frankly
have been answered.
We now do limit the president’s time in
office and we have a Bill of Rights that was
added in 1791.
So I think you could say, you can make the
claim at least that through his association
with Madison and because of his influence
upon Madison, he helped to shape the Constitution
as well.
Trevor Burrus: You mentioned this earlier.
We’re talking about the politics that emerged
after the Constitution was ratified.
Robert McDonald: Right.
Trevor Burrus: What is Jefferson’s role
in the new government when he takes over?
And then if you could elaborate a little bit
on that debate that starts emerging between
– would it be safe to say that Jefferson
hated Alexander Hamilton by the end?
I mean I have to take – I’ve always wondered
that and then how did that develop?
Robert McDonald: Hate is a strong word.
But maybe in this case it would apply.
I think you could certainly say that Alexander
Hamilton hated Thomas Jefferson.
The book I finished that is just coming out
called Confounding Father, one of the reasons
that Jefferson is a confounding father in
the eyes of Americans is that opinions of
him are so divided.
The book is really about this dual image of
Thomas Jefferson that begins to emerge in
the 1790s when Jefferson becomes a member
of Washington’s administration and Secretary
of State.
Hamilton of course is Secretary of the Treasury.
And initially, Hamilton will start to propose
measures that Jefferson is hesitant about.
Soon he’s going to become outright hostile
to him.
He thinks that Hamilton is hatching a plan
that is counterrevolutionary in nature that
is going to make the United States government
unlike the way that it was set out to be in
the Constitution that will cause it to become
more like the British government.
Hamilton, for example, proposes a national
bank that’s not explicitly authorized in
the Constitution.
And Jefferson and Madison too were going to
take up the charge against Hamilton’s measures,
and that leads to a bunch of fights in the
newspapers.
Hamilton will try to describe Thomas Jefferson
as un-American, as more of a French revolutionary
than an American revolutionary.
The fact that Hamilton embraces for himself
and his allies the term “Federalist” is
interesting because the Federalist of course
in the 1780s had been people who were in support
of the ratification of the Constitution, chief
among them, James Madison, as Hamilton well
knew and Thomas Jefferson as well.
Now he’s implying, Hamilton is, that Jefferson
and Madison were somehow against the Constitution,
opposed to the Constitution.
The charge of Jefferson being somehow un-American
is answered by the Jeffersonian Republicans
in I think a pretty convincing way although
it certainly didn’t convince all the Federalists.
This is when it became revealed that this
corporate document, this document that Jefferson
wrote for the Continental Congress, the Declaration
of Independence was in fact drafted by Thomas
Jefferson.
Trevor Burrus: Oh, they didn’t know that?
Robert McDonald: They didn’t know.
And when you think about …
Trevor Burrus: I’ve never heard that.
So when it was issued that they never said
who actually wrote it.
Robert McDonald: Right.
Trevor Burrus: And they brought it up in the
1790s as to counter this un-American …
Robert McDonald: Yeah, especially in the election
of 1796.
I think you could say that that’s when many
Americans first heard that Thomas Jefferson’s
hand drew the Declaration of Independence.
Hamilton and others were trying to charge
that Jefferson was really French revolutionary,
a dangerous, radical, French revolutionary.
What better response to that?
And what better way to establish his sort
of American revolutionary chops than to take
note that he in fact was the author of the
Declaration of Independence.
Increasingly, that word and that claim is
going to be made.
Aaron Ross Powell: On this fight on the newspapers
between Hamilton and Jefferson, we hear a
lot today about how dirty and ugly politics
is and how people are fighting with each other
and we long for this return to when things
were better.
And so, is politics – are these fights at
the time like the charge of un-Americanism,
is it better, more civil, mover elevated back
then?
Robert McDonald: I think it would be difficult
to sustain that view.
One of the reasons that politics back then
were so dirty, I mean they were really dirty
and they were really personal, is that so
much seem to be at stake.
I mean these were a number of people who – and
I think Trevor, you’re the one who used
the word crazy.
I mean was it crazy to declare independence
from Great Britain?
At one level, maybe it was.
And yet, they had done it and a great risk
to their lives and their fortunes.
They had secured independence.
And yet now, this experiment seemed to be
in danger of unraveling.
If you were a Federalist, you feared that
the Jefferson and Republicans were going to
take us in a radical, new direction along
the lines of the French revolution.
If you were a Jeffersonian Republican, you
feared that the Federalists were really crypto
monarchist, counterrevolutionaries who want
to roll back the clock to before 1776 and
model this new government under the Constitution
after that of Great Britain.
So a lot was at stake.
And this two-party system that has existed
in America for so long was then a very new
thing.
The Constitution did not anticipate partisanship.
The legitimacy of partisanship was something
that was very much up in the air.
I think that Jefferson didn’t even consider
himself to be a partisan.
He thought that the Federalists were a party
or a faction.
I think the Federalist considered the Jeffersonian
Republicans to be a party or a faction.
But everyone, every person, considered himself
to be a representative of America as a whole
and the good of America as a whole.
Aaron Ross Powell: You mentioned at the beginning
that people didn’t run for office.
They stood for office and then the public
judge them not on, “I’ve got to set up
policies I’m going to lay out,” but on
their character.
And so, did that – if we’re going to judge
people – candidates on their character,
does that then – how does that play into
the dirtiness of it?
Because if I’m going to attack your character
if I don’t win as opposed to saying as we
might now ideally that specific policies you’d
like aren’t going to be as effective?
Robert McDonald: Absolutely.
I mean it personalizes politics.
It personalizes the charges against people
who are put forth as candidates for office.
One of the charges that was frequently made
against Thomas Jefferson was that he was hostile
to Christianity, that he was an atheist.
And the evidence that Federalists had for
this charge were some of Jefferson’s own
writings.
He published a book called Notes on the State
of Virginia.
And in that book, he makes arguments for religious
toleration.
He argues for example that, “It does mean
no injury if my neighbor believes that there
is no God or that there are 20 gods.
It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
So we could read that as a classic statement
of live and let live as long as someone else
doesn’t violate my rights, they have the
right to do whatever they wish to do and believe
whatever they wish to believe.
But for a Federalist, that’s a radical statement,
to have such disregard for the souls of your
countrymen, they said, was itself a very dangerous
thing.
And of course, the French Revolution which
began in many respects, an anti-Catholic movement
because the Catholic Church had been in leagued
with the French monarchy spiraled into an
anti-religious movement.
And so, Jefferson’s association with that
fairly or unfairly seemed to bolster their
claim that he was hostile to religion in America.
Aaron Ross Powell: Was he an atheist or at
least a non-Christian?
Robert McDonald: He I think can best be described
as Deist and that he did believe in God.
He did not seem to believe that God intervened
in the affairs of men.
He questioned things like – here’s another
thing that got him in trouble in his Notes
of the State of Virginia, he wrote about the
story of Noah’s Arc and he calculated that
if all the water vapor that was in the atmosphere
somehow was converted into liquid that it
would raise sea levels maybe a few dozen feet
but it wouldn’t cover all of the mountains.
It wouldn’t cover the entire surface of
the planet.
And I again, I mean this was viewed as sort
of a radical stuff.
Jefferson described himself as a Christian
but he did it in a very idiosyncratic way.
Jefferson said that he thought that Jesus
was the greatest philosopher who ever lived.
And later in his life, he wrote to his friend,
Benjamin Rush that he subscribed to Jesus
every human excellence believing that he never
claimed any other.
So Jefferson calls himself a Christian but
he seems to reject a pretty basic tenant of
what most people would describe as the foundational
philosophy of Christianity that Jesus is divine.
Trevor Burrus: As we’re getting into the
1790s era, we are discussing attacks and how
politics was pretty vicious, that’s seem
like the right time to get into especially
in the 1790s and getting into election of
1800 right after that when the Sally Hemings’
allegations really start coming out.
And I’m not sure if it’s actually true
that James Callender as a pamphleteer, you
can talk about that, very strange interesting
guy but was the first person who publicly
raised these allegations that Jefferson had
been sleeping with his young enslaved, Sally
Hemings.
And I guess another sort of factor in this
is I mean Jefferson’s wife had died in – what
year did she die?
Aaron Ross Powell: I think it was 1780.
Trevor Burrus: 1780, yeah.
Robert McDonald: He was about 40 years old
when his wife died.
Jefferson and his wife, Martha, had a very
– so far as we can tell, a very intense,
very loving marriage.
In 10 years of marriage, she was pregnant
6 times and we know that he was very much
grief-stricken when she died.
He soon thereafter accepted the appointment
as our Ambassador to France.
I mean he left for France.
He first worked as Benjamin Franklin’s understudy
and then eventually he was elevated to that
post.
Trevor Burrus: And he brought Sally Hemings
to France, correct?
Robert McDonald: Yeah, basically, that’s
correct.
He first brought his eldest daughter and he
left his younger two daughters behind in Virginia.
I said that his wife was pregnant 6 times.
Not all those pregnancies were successful.
It was basically complications of childbirth
that caused his wife to die so far as we can
tell.
But back in Virginia, his youngest daughter
then died.
And so, Jefferson sees his family just falling
apart and he wants to reunite what’s left
of it.
So he writes home to the relatives in Virginia
who were watching after his surviving daughter
in Virginia and he asked that she be sent
to France.
And by name, he requests an elderly and slaved
woman to accompany her on the ocean voyage
and she is not available.
She is ill.
And so, the family in Virginia decides that
as a babysitter, they’re going to send along
Sally Hemings.
Now, Sally Hemings has even before Thomas
Jefferson is introduced into the story, she
has an interesting connection to the Jefferson
family.
Sally Hemings is Jefferson’s late wife’s
half-sister.
So relationships between black people and
white people, between white people and especially
in enslaved black people they owned are not
uncommon.
They’re not uncommon in Virginia.
They’re not uncommon wherever slavery exists.
And so, Jefferson’s father-in-law, his late
father-in-law is …
Trevor Burrus: Who is a Randolph, correct?
The family for Martha’s, they were Randolph’s?
Robert McDonald: Well, they’re all Randolph’s,
yeah.
Trevor Burrus: Yeah, that’s a big Virginian
name so …
Robert McDonald: His wife’s father is John
Wayles.
Trevor Burrus: John Wayles, OK.
Robert McDonald: And John Wayles has relationship
it seems with a Elizabeth Hemings who was
the mother of Sally Hemings.
And Elizabeth Hemings herself is according
to the Hemings family and their knowledge
of their lineage, she is half white and half
black.
So Sally Hemings is three quarters white,
one quarter black.
She is Jefferson’s late wife’s half-sister.
By some accounts, she resembles Jefferson’s
late wife.
His wife, according to Jefferson’s family
on her deathbed asked Jefferson that he would
never remarry.
In part, because John Wayles did remarry after
his first wife died, Martha’s mother, and
it seems as if she was not treated as well
as the daughters that that woman had through
a previous marriage.
Trevor Burrus: So is that a pact?
Did she ask him not to marry?
Robert McDonald: Well, it’s a longstanding
tradition that’s documented within Jefferson’s
white family, his descendants.
Trevor Burrus: OK.
Robert McDonald: So that – if we accept
that as a given, Jefferson is never going
to remarry.
Here comes along Sally Hemings with whom it
seems at some point, he begins a relationship,
he cannot legally marry Sally Hemings because
she is legally black.
But maybe she resembles his wife.
And certainly, when we think about what interest
Thomas Jefferson and what interest Thomas
Jefferson about women, he seems to like women
who have an uncommon degree of sophistication.
And I think a lot of people unfairly discount
the degree of sophistication that Sally Hemings
is able to gain while she is in France.
Most Virginia women, white or black, slave
or free probably never go more than 20 miles
from the place where they’re born.
Here is Sally Hemings who is with Thomas Jefferson
in Paris.
She is legally free while she is in France.
The relationship probably begins while she
is with Thomas Jefferson in France.
There’s a little bit of uncertainty about
when their first child is born because if
they have a first child who is conceived in
France, that child doesn’t survived.
But the children that they do appear to have
together are born over the span of years and
it appears as if this is an ongoing monogamous
relationship.
Thomas Jefferson was a very eligible bachelor.
He could have married lots of different women
had he chosen to break that pledge he had
made to his wife.
The fact that he stopped with Sally Hemings,
I think that says something about the nature
of their relationship.
Trevor Burrus: And when does this become an
item that was discussed by people of the day.
Robert McDonald: Well you brought up James
Callender and Callender is an interesting
character.
So he is born in Scotland.
He comes over to America and is initially
a Jeffersonian Republican.
And he writes some very critical pieces against
the administrations of both George Washington
and John Adams.
He is jailed under the Adams’ administration
Sedition Act.
When Jefferson becomes president, he is released.
He believes that Jefferson owes him something
more than just his freedom.
He asked for a job as Post Master in Richmond,
Virginia.
Jefferson denies him that job.
That’s when he seems to turn his back on
Thomas Jefferson and he starts writing in
behalf of the Federalists.
So in September of 1802, that calendar in
a newspaper called The Richmond Recorder launches
these charges.
He says the people in the vicinity of Charlottesville
have long known that the man whom – that
the light of the people to honor for many
years has kept as his concubine one of his
slaves, her name is Sally.
And those charges were vibrated throughout
the Federalists press.
Jefferson never really issued a response.
Silence was a pretty strong response.
He responded also by returning to Washington,
D.C. from Monticello, his two surviving daughters
soon joined him.
Jefferson sometimes would miss church services
before.
He seemed never to miss them after, always
with his daughters in tow.
The presence of his daughters within the small
society of the small fledgling capital of
Washington, D.C., I think put a damper on
some of the gossip.
And in the election of 1804, it wasn’t really
a big issue.
It was one that had passed.
Aaron Ross Powell: What should we today looking
back and judging Jefferson’s legacy and
his historical significance and knowing the
words that he wrote in the Declaration make
of both the Sally Hemings relationship but
then more broadly, his ownership of slaves?
Robert McDonald: Sure.
I mean it’s worth saying that it’s difficult
to know what to make of the Sally Hemings
relationship because we don’t know definitively
what that relationship entailed.
I mean master-slave relationships could quite
easily be and oftentimes were raped.
A slave did not have the ability to refuse
her master.
On the other hand …
Trevor Burrus: She was very young too when
they started.
Robert McDonald: Well, when she arrived in
Paris, she was 14.
We don’t know exactly when the relationship
began.
But she was in her late teens.
And there was a disparity in age although
again, we shouldn’t be too confused by her
own modern sensibilities.
When Madison was 31 years old, he was engaged
to a 15-year-old.
Trevor Burrus: And Madison married – Dolley
was 17 years younger than him I believe.
Robert McDonald: That’s maybe the case,
yeah.
The 15-year-old he was engaged to essentially
dumped him.
And then later on, he became engaged to Dolley
Payne Madison.
So yeah, I mean to whatever degree this relationship
was consensual, the more consensual it was,
the more loving it was.
I think that might reflect well upon Thomas
Jefferson.
I mean we know for a fact that Thomas Jefferson
was a slave holder.
I don’t think he gets much worse than that.
If Thomas Jefferson actually had a capacity
or developed a capacity to see very fully
the humanity of someone like Sally Hemings
maybe even to feel some real affection for
Sally Hemings.
I think that would reflect well on him, not
negatively.
The fact that he was a slave holder is for
me the thing that is maybe most troubling.
And it’s troubling for me in part because
I have the good fortune to live in the 21st
century.
And Jefferson is a literal product of the
18th century.
His first memory as a 3-year-old is being
carried on a pillow and looking up into the
face of an enslaved man who was carrying him.
I mean it was a part of his life.
It was a part of his family.
It was a part of his world.
I wish that Jefferson did more to prioritize
ending slavery.
But he at least did something.
He did some things to try to diminish the
influence of slavery in Virginia and within
the United States.
I mean as President, he signed the law that
ended the legal importation of new slaves
from Africa.
As a member of Congress under the Articles
Confederation, he proposed in his Ordinance
of 1784 a provision that would ban slavery
in all of the Western territory, all the territory,
West of the Appalachian Mountains, East of
Mississippi from the Great Lakes all the way
down to the Gulf of Mexico.
If Jefferson had his way in 1784, slavery
would not be allowed to take root there.
When he was in Virginia, he proposed a bill
for gradual emancipation that was defeated
his first public act.
As a freshman member of the House of Burgesses
in 1769, was the co-sponsor of bill that would
have made it legal to emancipate your own
slaves.
That wasn’t allowed in Virginia until much
later.
So he did do some things.
But did he do enough?
And did he prioritize slavery as highly as
he should?
I think that people of Jefferson’s generation
oftentimes compromise on slavery because they
think it’s more important first to secure
independence from Great Britain then they
will compromise on slavery because they think
it’s more important to sustain the union.
They’ll think it’s more important to hold
together their partisan alliance as the do
battle against the Federalists.
They think it’s more important to pursue
other goals, and slavery is always this can
that they seem to kick down the road.
Trevor Burrus: And a big thing looming over
them that’s very hard to just address in
a very simple way.
But the end of his life though, do we know
– I mean by the last decade or so around
the Missouri Compromise and things like this,
did he see bad things coming?
Did he write – did he think about slavery
in 1820s or anything about what was going
to happen?
Robert McDonald: Sure.
Right.
So the Missouri Crisis, when many Northerners
did not want to admit to the Union, Missouri
which was applying for admission as a slave
state, Jefferson wrote that he saw that it
was like a fire bell on the night.
And think about in 18th or early 19th century,
how terrifying a fire bell, a fire alarm,
and the night would be – I mean this is
a world made of wood and we don’t have modern
fire departments that are going to rush to
the scene.
This, he thought, was the knell of the Union,
the death knell of the Union.
There’s some question about the degree to
which Jefferson was sincere in statements
like that.
At the same time that the Missouri Crisis
in unfolding, Jefferson is trying to establish
in Virginia a university, what would become
the University of Virginia.
And Jefferson oftentimes writes to Virginians
letters that make panic pronouncements about
the dangers of sectionalism.
One of the arguments that he makes for the
University of Virginia was that, “We’re
sending our sons to these Northern seminaries,
to Harvard and Yale and our children are developing
these Yankee principles.”
When he writes to people who aren’t Virginians,
when he writes to people on other states and
especially when he writes to foreigners, he
tends to minimize these sectional differences
and describe them as ripples on the sea of
liberty.
So there’s some question about exactly what
Jefferson thought and how panicked he truly
was.
But certainly, sectionalism was a rising problem
and it was one that troubled him.
Trevor Burrus: After his presidency, which
is an interesting presidency, he has the Louisiana
Purchase which of course is quite a huge deal,
to say the least.
He also I think strangely embargoes most of
New England …
Robert McDonald: Right.
Trevor Burrus: … which is probably a bad
idea thinking that he can hurt the British
by making it illegal for New England to trade
with the British, which is – but it’s
interesting.
But does he just go home then after in 1808
and just kind of retire from public?
Does he ever do a public life thing again
after 1808?
Robert McDonald: So he retires under truly
the best of circumstances because James Madison
who has been his key ally, his best political
friend, their relationship begins in 1776,
he is able to pass the baton to James Madison,
his successor.
When Madison is inaugurated on March 4, 1809,
there is a reception afterwards that Jefferson
attends.
And Jefferson was friends with a woman named
Margaret Bayard Smith who was the wife of
Samuel Harrison Smith.
He was the editor of the Jeffersonian Republican
National Intelligence or the big newspaper
in D.C. at the time.
And according to Margaret Bayard Smith, Jefferson
had a big smile on his face and she said to
Jefferson, “You look like a man much relieved
in his responsibilities.”
“Yes, I am.
And at this moment, I am much, much happier
than my friend.”
So Madison was the one who got to assume this
burden.
And I think Jefferson really tried to respect
Madison’s independence and he had a lot
of trust in James Madison as well he should
have.
Aaron Ross Powell: Did Jefferson have a sense
of his historical significance?
Robert McDonald: I think he did.
I think one of the things that you perhaps
noticed when you visited Monticello and when
you stood in the suite of rooms that Jefferson
called his sanctum sanctorum, it’s his library
and his office and his bedchamber.
You see on his desk this really neat contrivance,
this machine that he called a polygraph.
And essentially, it allows him to make copies
of his letters.
You write with one pen and then it’s connected
to another pen through a series of pulleys
and it makes an exact duplication of the letter
the Jefferson would write.
And he did that because if you didn’t have
a copy when you send your correspondence out,
you lose it forever.
But he was able to keep his correspondence,
not only the letters that he received but
also copies of the letters that he sent.
And I think he did that in part because he
understood his place in history.
He understood that he was central to this
American experiment, that he was a central
figure in the revolutionary project.
And I think he hoped at least that future
generations would take great interest in the
revolutionary generation and the nation that
they established.
Trevor Burrus: What kind of lessons, I mean
for you having studied Jefferson so much and
admire him so much, what kind of lessons do
you think we can learn individually and even
maybe as a nation from him?
Robert McDonald: So yeah, I think it’s fair
to say that I do admire Thomas Jefferson on
many levels.
But I’ll say this.
The more you study Thomas Jefferson, the more
you study anyone, the more you realize that
they are flawed people and Thomas Jefferson
wasn’t perfect.
I’m not sure that Thomas Jefferson always
made the right decision.
But I do believe that Thomas Jefferson carefully
weighed his decisions.
He tried to do what was right.
He tried to do his best.
And he lived in an imperfect world and he
dealt with a number of different challenges
and a lot of times, he found that his principles
were in conflict.
I mean you mentioned Louisiana and the embargo,
the Louisiana Purchase is a fantastic opportunity
for America to double the size of the country
without firing a shot.
And yet, the Constitution doesn’t contain
a provision that allows the national government
to add new territory.
If that’s the case, how do you do this the
right way?
I mean Jefferson thought about it.
He drafted a Constitution Amendment that would
explicitly authorize the purchase of Louisiana.
Albert Gallatin, his Treasury Secretary, James
Madison, his Secretary of State, ultimately
talked to him out of it.
They said, “Look, we appreciate your constitutional
scruples.
We share them.
But if we delay this, if France reneges on
this deal, if it’s not authorized by three
quarters of the States, this opportunity will
be lost forever.”
And this is an opportunity not only to double
American territory.
This is an opportunity to keep, they thought,
they hope America at peace just as the Atlantic
Ocean was a moot separating us from the troubles
of Europe.
This would be a land moot in the West that
would insulate us from invasion and international
strife.
And this land would allow our nation which
was doubling in population every 20 years
to continue on as a nation of virtuous farmers
who were their own bosses, who were self-sufficient
and self-reliant.
So there is a lot good arguing for Louisiana.
But then there was the Constitution.
And Jefferson I think ultimately, he had to
swallow hard and make the best decision that
he could.
So, I appreciate the fact that he truly grapples
with those decisions.
Again, maybe he made the right choice, maybe
he made the wrong one, but he was very thoughtful
about how he made it.
Trevor Burrus: And in Jefferson’s last years
to the – something we hadn’t brought up
actually was that Jefferson-Adams’ correspondence
which is an interesting …
Robert McDonald: Yes.
Trevor Burrus: I assumed you read most of
those or a lot of those letters.
Robert McDonald: There are a lot of letters
to read, I’ll tell you that.
Trevor Burrus: Yeah.
Robert McDonald: But they’re fun to read
because Jefferson and Adams write about all
the things that we’re not supposed to discuss,
right?
We’re not supposed to talk about politics
or religion or what have you.
And they talked about all of it and they talked
about history and they talked about the future.
And these guys are classic sort of frenemies.
They were close allies in the Continental
Congress.
They were friends as understudies to Benjamin
Franklin and France as diplomats.
Their relationship came under great strain
during the partisanship of the 1790s.
They were opponents in the elections of 1796,
1800.
When Jefferson was inaugurated, Adams has
left town the night before.
He wasn’t even present for Jefferson’s
inauguration.
But they patched up their relationship and
resumed their correspondence after Jefferson
retired from office.
And I think they saw their attempt to reunite
and reconcile not only as a way to validate
their friendship, but also to validate the
American Union, to validate the fact that
people from the North and people from the
South could rally around the shared cause
of liberty.
And I think it’s fair to say too that they
were writing to each other but they knew that
they were preserving their letters.
I think it’s fair to say that they knew
that they’d be writing to us as well.
So yeah, I recommend that people read the
letters.
They’re really great.
Trevor Burrus: Thank for listening.
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