Bibliographical Note

THE Memorial Edition of Mr. Jefferson’s writings contains an excellent bibliography down to twenty-five years ago. There seems no need to reproduce it here. Of later books that are easily available, Mr. Muzzey’s short biography is very competent. Mr. Bowers’s Jefferson and Hamilton gives a capital account of political history in the decade 1790-1800. If any one wishes to know the worst that a good attorney can make of Mr. Jefferson, it is to be found in Mr. Beveridge’s biography of John Marshall. The sharply divergent views of two Englishmen appear in Mr. F. S. Oliver’s Life of Alexander Hamilton and Mr. F. W. Hirst’s Life and Letters of Thomas Jefferson.

This book is not meant to be a biography of Mr. Jefferson or to take the place of one. It is a mere study—a study in conduct and character—and therefore it takes no account of long stretches of biographical material which is otherwise most valuable, but contributes nothing to this special purpose. Being neither a biographer nor a historian, I feel quite free to say that Parton’s biography seems to me still by far the best for the purposes of a general reader. The trouble is, of course, to get hold of a copy, for it was published half a century ago and is out of print. One’s best chance is to leave an order with a dealer in second-hand books, and be patient. James Parton is not now in favour with professional historians, for some reason; there seems to be a kind of fashion in these matters. Mr. Hirst says he is less accurate than his predecessors, Randall and Tucker. This is probably true; still, his inaccuracies are neither specious nor misleading, and I never found them serious enough to weigh heavily on a non-professional conscience in recommending his book. There are qualities that outweigh occasional and trivial inaccuracy, and Parton has them, while the other biographers of Mr. Jefferson, as far as I can see, have not; and the worth of his book should be assessed accordingly. Indeed, if one were condemning books on the strength of minor inaccuracies, Mr. Hirst himself would get off badly. I noticed more inaccuracies in one very casual reading of his book than I ever saw in my close readings of Parton. But Mr. Hirst’s errors of fact, like Parton’s, are not important enough that one should think of them. The thing to think of is that a foreigner and an Englishman should have done as well as Mr. Hirst has done with a subject of uncommon difficulty, even for a native critic. His book should be judged on the scale of its major qualities, and so, I think, should Parton’s. “Let us never forget that we are all pedants,” said Benjamin Constant to his literary associates; which may be all very well for those who live to read, but hardly for those who read to live.

My best thanks are due for courteous assistance to several libraries and historical associations, and to individual collectors of manuscripts. The New York Society Library has been especially patient under heavy requisitions. If ten per cent of the patriotic pride now frittered away on silly and vicious objects were engaged upon our finest national possession, the Library of Congress, we should have a new civilization. What an incomparable instrument it is, and how little general appreciation it gets! When one remembers that Mr. Jefferson’s private library formed its nucleus, one sees a depressing allegory in its present state of practical encystment in our culture.

Many of my acquaintance have given me help and encouragement. Mr. Edgar Speyer read my fifth and sixth chapters in manuscript, with particular reference to Mr. Jefferson’s economics. Miss Suzanne La Follette brought the best editorial mind I know so effectively to bear upon the whole of my first draught, that my publishers think I am a very good critic of my own work. I hope that Mr. Charles A. Beard will look indulgently on the freedom of an old friend who has helped himself wholesale to the contents of his work on the Constitution and on the economic origins of Jeffersonian democracy. What is one to do? If the development of intelligence in America goes on at its present rate, no more than four or five centuries will elapse, probably, before it will be generally seen that any one dealing with the political history of the Jeffersonian period must deal with it on the lines laid down by Mr. Beard. Meanwhile, one who wishes to deal with it under the handicap of a certain unhandiness with fable, convention and journalism, has little choice but to anticipate the judgment of that time.