Jefferson under the Microscope: Finding the Common Ground of History?

   

Some three decades ago the literary idea that a text should be read independently and apart from the thoughts and intentions of its author sparked quite a controversy among historians. History is not literature and to understand the how and the why of a particular artifact of the past requires a careful consideration of the factors of its creation and that of necessity demands attention to the motives and thoughts of authors. But to recognize this is not to deny that a text has a life of its own once it is composed and released into the world.

My interest in Thomas Jefferson has been largely the product of my interest in his ability to articulate and synthesize the ideas that gave life to the movement for American independence. In doing so, he had to rise above the immediate context of his own state, and even that of the North Atlantic or the British Empire. By focusing on the specific set of ideas by which he was able to effectuate this goal, what I called the micro details of his early studies, we can come to more fully appreciate the power of the document that is the Declaration of Independence.

Once achieved, however, we may find ourselves disappointed, even discouraged by the author’s conduct afterwards. But as historians we should not be surprised if the cares and incentives of one’s specific situation come back into play to pull the author back down from the lofty heights of the ideal. In fact, the power and importance of context is illustrated precisely in the compelling nature of the impositions of the everyday and commonplace.

That said, the fact that Jefferson was able to compose such a document is also what makes the Declaration such a singular achievement on its own. This achievement went well beyond Jefferson’s influence in his immediate community. It led subsequent generations to call for greater and more consistent applications of the idea of freedom and equal rights. Having arrived at the conclusion early in his education that slavery was a moral wrong, Jefferson never relinquished that position, even though many others eventually would. Much of this, I would argue, was owing to Jefferson’s commitment to intellectual freedom, and is well illustrated in the other approaches taken here to study the long arc of Jefferson’s life.

Cara Rogers Stevens has set out the main issues to be addressed as they relate specifically to the slavery issue. That Jefferson’s opposition was real, has been clearly set forth, especially as that opposition pertains to his first endeavors against the institution, but even more interesting is how this issue continued to haunt his conscious thoughts right to the end of his life. It will be in the details of this narrative that Rogers will be able to find the answer to the question, “Could Jefferson have done more?”  This will be a challenging narrative to write however, because it will touch on that most controversial of issues about the role of the historian. Is it our objective to judge the past, or to understand it? Some consideration of the theory of history will be needed, it seems to me, but historians are often loath to engage in such speculation.

On the other hand, an invitation to “condemn and praise” is to open the door to moral philosophy and ethics. When is such called for? Rogers states emphatically, only after situating him in “his proper context,” and yet that will require some attention to the standard of judgement being applied. Is that standard to be of Jefferson’s time, or of ours? Of the time before, during or after the Revolution? Or something else entirely? Those are fascinating questions, but they will not be easy to answer.

On the question of Jefferson’s view on religious liberty, Christine McDonald has touched on much of the same ground, noting the powerful and early influence of Jefferson’s mentors, William Small and George Wythe. On this theme, one can see a similar commitment to conclusions early drawn, but also more consistently lived. As McDonald recounts, Jefferson was particularly keen to insist that “religious rights shall never be infringed by any act of mine.”

But of greater interest, perhaps, is the degree to which Jefferson entertained more deeply held convictions of a life to come. Here, again, there is attention to those micro-level details that reveal just how complex and interesting actual history is, and just how deeply and irreducibly complicated is every individual life.

Turning then to Jefferson’s constitutional thought, Todd Estes has illuminated Jefferson’s nuanced and changing attitude towards the handiwork of the Philadelphia Convention. Not entirely in favor of the final product, Jefferson was nevertheless adamant that he was not of the Antifederalist persuasion. That is an interesting point because some of the most articulate commenters on the issues that most concerned Jefferson were generally regarded as Antifederalists.

Jefferson was troubled by the concentrated nature of the powers of the office of the president and he was especially concerned about the omission of rotation in office. This was a particularly egregious oversight in his view that would be the harbinger of future monarchy. And he was also quite adamant about the need for a bill of rights “against every government on earth.”  More interesting still, when pressed to explain his orientation to the debates over ratification, Jefferson contended for only a few particular alterations in the original Articles—a signal feature of the Antifederalist camp.

What then did Jefferson actually count as “Antifederal?” Unpacking that term with respect to the details of Jefferson’s thinking might pose a very promising endeavor. Did he perhaps mean it literally as standing against any federal relations among the states?

And finally, Estes remarks that Jefferson seemed not to have any settled opinions with respect to the interpretation and application of the Constitution until the question of the Bank. Indeed, until that time, he seemed very willing to cut deals with that “host within himself,”[1] Alexander Hamilton, both with respect to Revolutionary debts and the location of the capital.. Here, I would suggest a somewhat different reading.

Rather than having no prior views on the application of written fundamental law, I would suggest that Jefferson entertained the standard views of common law lawyers on the strict reading of statutes and that he had been well prepared by James Madison to accept the basic argument of Publius: what was not strictly granted in the document was in fact reserved.

Yes, Jefferson did insist that a bill of rights was necessary, but that in no way subtracted from the essential nature of the instrument being proposed. It was rather a reinforcement of the idea of enumeration, of reserved and delegated powers. This is how I would read Jefferson’s letter to Madison of November 18, 1788, in which he credited his friend with being the primary writer of the Federalist Papers. And on the point of enumeration, Madison had remained very adamant both during the period of the Articles and that of the Constitution.

But all of these comments are only by way of suggestions for continuing the avenues of research that each has put forward. It was an ideal of Enlightenment science, both natural and social, that conclusions would merge when studying a common empirical base. I think it is a promising sign that our approaches appear to align so well.

[1] Jefferson to Madison, September 21 1795, see https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-28-02-0375