Jefferson the President: Reclaiming the Republic in Europe’s Long Shadow

“We are all republicans: we are all federalists,” Thomas Jefferson famously said in his first inaugural address. For Jefferson, these were architectonic principles of free government with broad ramifications, not soothing platitudes intended to reassure Americans after the bitter partisan campaign of 1800. He saw his election as a popular mandate to return to “antient whig principles” in order to reclaim the federal government as a true republic. His first two years as president are covered by the volumes of his papers reviewed here. The events of those years exhibit both Jefferson’s great strengths and his difficulties as a leader. The period covers a time of success, as Jefferson shaped the “revolution of 1800.” Yet it was also a time when he struggled in secret to find the right course in the face of gathering clouds that augured embroilment in European war—one of his greatest political dreads.

The meticulous work of the volumes’ editors deserves our praise. They have done a thorough job of assembling Jefferson’s papers from early 1801 through the end of 1802 and of combining them with significant correspondence to him. Their textual editing and transcription has been performed scrupulously. The volumes contain useful annotations, informative editorial notes such as one on Jefferson’s first inaugural address, helpful translations of foreign language documents, period illustrations, and indices of far higher than usual quality. We have considerable reason to be grateful for their efforts, whose utility will increase as the volumes are digitized. But how can these papers help historians better understand the first two years of Jefferson’s presidency?

Understanding Jefferson has been a challenge for historians since Henry Adams, who had access to many of Jefferson’s papers (which he thought predominantly, if not always, “only hid the truth”) in writing a leading early history of his presidency. In his view, “Jefferson could be painted only touch by touch, with a fine pencil, and the perfection of the likeness depended upon the shifting and uncertain flicker of its semi-transparent shadows.” After many years of study, historian Merrill Peterson described Jefferson as “finally, an impenetrable man.” Jefferson’s character has proven exceptionally hard to grasp, and, as historian Francis Cogliano concluded, “this is as Jefferson would have wished it.”¹

At the same time, Jefferson was one of the most graceful political writers America has ever produced. He was a master at shaping opinion, creating powerful frameworks for thought, and pithily and forcefully communicating his views in letters to carefully selected audiences. But these exceptional skills and his strong ideological commitments could create difficulties when he faced dissonant realities. His papers should be read with these aspects of his personality in mind. They can be newly informative if we read them in the light of our increasing knowledge of Jefferson’s strong desire to shape both the historical record and his own legacy.²

To appreciate Jefferson’s republican goals fully, it is important to understand that he had a strongly ideological explanation for his election, which he gave confidentially to friends and allies. He offered this explanation in his correspondence and, to protect confidences, through use of a personal emissary, Congressman John Dawson, for whom he wrote special letters of introduction. In the years just before the election, he wrote to the Comte de Volney, Federalist “principles and pursuits were then brought forward, the most adverse to those of the nation in it’s [sic] sound state of...