The Lamp of Experience

Chapter VIII. Thomas Jefferson and the Rights of Expatriated Men

LAMP_151-200.indd 43 5/27/11 1:27 PM CHAPTER VIII ThomasJifferson and the Rights ofExpatriated Men The earth Belongs always to the living generation," Jefferson reminded James Madison.1 Thomas Jefferson is perhaps best known for his commitment to this belief. Dedicated to the proposition that man had·a right to happiness and fulfillment in this world, Jefferson strove to emancipate the present from the tyranny of the past. The dead hand ofcustom and habit were not forJefferson. It was to the tyranny ofthe past that Jefferson was opposed, not to the past itself. He rejected oppressive custom, but not custom. Convinced of the intrinsic virtue of his fellow man, Jefferson searched for an explanation for the seeming corruption ofthat virtue. He saw history as an extension ofpolitical experience, as a guide to a perfectible future through a heightened awareness ofthe blemished past. I Jefferson probably read his first history book in the modest library of his father. In PeterJefferson's collection young Thomas found Rapin's History ofEngland in a two-volume folio edition, and he never ceased I. Jefferson to James Madison, Sept. 6, 1789, Boyd et al., eds.,Jq{erson Papers, XV, 396. 193 LAMP_151-200.indd 44 5/27/11 1:27 PM THE REVOLUTIONARY USE OF HISTORY singing its praises? When he started buying books for himself, history soon emerged as his favorite category. The Virginia Gazette Day Books show Jefferson purchasing in March 1764 his first copy of David Hume's History of England (which he soon learned to detest), along with William Robertson's History ofScotland. Between 1762 and 1767 Jefferson studied law under the wise tutelage ofGeorge Wythe, gaining familiarity with works which combined historical and legal scholarship. When admitted to the bar he was well advanced in his studies of the Reports of Salkeld and Raymond and the Institutes of Coke.3 But his reading had indeed barely begun. By 1771, when he advised young Robert Skipwith on his book buying, Jefferson was able to include Sidney's Discourses, Bolingbroke's Political Works, Rollin 's Ancient History, Stanyan's Grecian History, the Gordon translations of Tacitus and Sallust, as well as works by Clarendon, Hume, and Robertson. Into his Commonplace Book went passages from Dalrymple's Essay on Feudal Property, Spelman's De Terminis ]uridicis , Kames's Historical Law Tracts, Sullivan's Feudal Laws, Blackstone's Commentaries, Molesworth's Account of Denmark, and the (to Jefferson ) anonymously written Historical Essay on the English Constitution.4 He had his own copies of William Petyt's Ius Parliamentum, Thorn2 . Jefferson to George Washington Lewis, Oct. 25, 1825, Lipscomb and Bergh, eds., Writings ofJefferson, XVI, 125. The inventory of PeterJefferson's property (including his library), filed after his death in Aug. 1757, is in the Albemarle County Will Book No. 2 which Marie Kimball cites inJefferson: The Road to Glory, IJ. J. The Virginia Gazette Day Books disclose considerable book buying by Jefferson between 1764 and 1766; they are transcribed in William Peden's Thomas Jefferson: Book Collector. See also Peden's "Some Notes concerningThomasJefferson's Libraries," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., r (1944): 265-74. Marie Kimball, by analysis ofJefferson's changing handwriting and identification ofthe "Pro Patria" paper used in his commonplacing , has deduced that the first 174 entries were made in 1766; see Kimball,Jefferson: The Road to Glory, 85-88. 4· Jefferson to Robert Skipwith, with a List of Books for a Private Library, Aug. J, 1771, Boyd et a!., eds., Jefferson Papers, I, 76-81. Jefferson's notes are in Chinard, ed., Commonplace Book, as follows: Dalrymple: 135-62; Spelman: r86-87, 189; Kames: 95-135; Sullivan: 233-34, 236-57; Blackstone: 193, 364-68; Molesworth: 213, 225-26; Hulme's Historical Essay: 296-98. 194 LAMP_151-200.indd 45 5/27/11 1:27 PM ThomasJefferson and the Rights ofExpatriated Men hagh Gurdon's History of Parliament, and Anthony Ellis's Tracts on Liberty.5 Later he acquired copies of Henry Care's English Liberties, Rushworth's Historical Collections, Acherley's Britannic Constitution, Atkyn 's Power of Parliament, Catherine Macaulay's popular History of England, Trenchard and Gordon's Cato's Letters, and-of courseBurgh 's Political Disquisitions.6 The list is not quite endless. But it is extraordinary for the representation Jefferson accorded the "True Whigs." These were books Jefferson bought not once but twice or three times, books he found essential...