Conclusion

When assessing Jefferson’s presidency, it is worthwhile to reconsider what his old rival, Alexander Hamilton, said of him seven weeks before he took office:

Nor is it true that Jefferson is zealot enough to do anything in pursuance of his principles which will contravene his popularity or his interest. He is as likely as any man I know to temporize, to calculate what will be likely to promote his own reputation and advantage; and the probable result of such a temper is the preservation of systems, though originally opposed, which, being once established, could not be overturned without danger to the person who did it. To my mind, a true estimate of a temporizing rather than a violent system.[98]

While slightly overdrawn, Hamilton’s prophecy is a fairly accurate prediction of the course of Jefferson’s presidency, and it offers a plausible explanation of why Jefferson would shrink from truly revolutionary measures. It certainly helps to explain why Jefferson never tried to repeal the Judiciary Act of 1789, repeal the charter of the national bank, or abolish the navy. The Old Republicans were certainly disappointed that Jefferson did not go further in reversing Federalist innovations and creating safeguards against future encroachments by a government controlled by consolidationists and neomercantilists. John Taylor of Virginia summed up Jefferson’s presidency in 1810:

There were a number of people who soon thought and said to one another that Mr. Jefferson did many good things, but neglected some better things; and who now view his policy as very like compromise with Mr. Hamilton’s. . . . Federalism, indeed, having been defeated, has gained a new footing by being taken into partnership with republicanism. It was this project which divided the Republican party by changing its principles from real to nominal.[99]

That was harsh, but it was also true. The “good things” to which Taylor was referring were undoubtedly the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801, the abolishment of the internal taxes, the reduction in the number of federal officials, the reduction of the regular army, the shrinking of the navy, the paying down of the national debt, and the addition of New Orleans and Louisiana to the Union. These were real and solid accomplishments. However, as Taylor pointed out, Jefferson “neglected some better things.” He did not try to repeal the Judiciary Act of 1789 or revoke the charter of the national bank. He left most of the ocean-going navy in service. He did not appoint a Spencer Roane or a St. George Tucker, both intellectually powerful and consistent states’-rights’ Republicans, to the Supreme Court. And worst of all, he did not push for constitutional reform in the form of amendments that would have checked the power of the federal judiciary by negating the power of judicial review and making federal judges removable by Congress and by inhibiting the ability of the federal government to make use of general phrases in the Constitution to expand its powers at the expense of the states.

Jefferson’s compromises with Federalism were as follows: the retention of the navy and the national bank; the appointment of quasi-Federalists to the Supreme Court; his administration’s broad reading of the treaty-making power; and perhaps worst of all, his choice of the neo-Federalist James Madison to be his successor. Another Old Republican from Virginia, John Randolph, was equally harsh in his assessment of Jefferson’s presidency:

It had my hearty approbation for one-half of its career. As to my opinion of the remainder of it, it has been no secret. The lean kine of Pharaoh devoured the fat kine. The last four years, with the embargo in their train, ate up the rich harvest of the first four, and, if we had not some Joseph to step in, and change the state of things, what would have been now the condition of the country? I repeat it; never has there been any administration which went out of office and left the country in a state so deplorable and calamitous as the last.[100]

While most of Jefferson’s sins were those of omission, the embargo was his one great sin of commission. It led to other sins: the tripling of the standing army in 1808, the precedent of turning the regular army and navy against American citizens to enforce an unpopular law of dubious constitutionality, and the violations of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments under the enforcement acts—not a record of which any president claiming to be a Republican can be proud. In fact, as Taylor pointed out, Jefferson’s adoption of increasingly harsh measures to enforce his embargo policy recalled the Federalist excesses of the 1790s: Washington’s calling out of the militia in 1794 to crush the “whiskey insurrection,” the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, and Adams’s calling out militia and regulars to suppress “Fries rebellion” in 1799.

Ultimately, Jefferson’s failure to institutionalize his “revolution” was due to his misplaced faith in the good sense of the people. He simply could not believe that they would ever discard the federal Constitution and its restraints on power for the allure of an energetic state that could accomplish “great” things. He was wrong. Jefferson’s faith in self-government turned out to be stronger than his faith in constitutionalism or liberty, to the long-term detriment of all three.

After two hundred years, what can we conclude about Jefferson’s presidency? He advanced the cause of liberty in many concrete ways, and his state papers include some of the most eloquent defenses of federalism, constitutionalism, and liberty in our political literature.

However, he did little for the cause of constitutionalism, and he may even have harmed it. He had an opportunity to perfect America’s federal constitutional order, but through a misplaced faith in the wisdom and watchfulness of the people, he let it pass by. The lesson by now should be clear to all: In the long run, democracy cannot be relied upon to protect liberty and the rule of law.

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[1] Jefferson to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819, Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: Library of America, 1984), p. 1425.

[2] Albert Jay Nock, Mr. Jefferson (Tampa, Fla.: Hallberg Publishing [1926] 1983), p. 116.

[3] Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1056; see also, Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, ibid., pp. 1078–79.

[4] Jefferson, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1801, ibid., p. 494.

[5] Jefferson, “First Annual Message,” December 8, 1801, ibid., pp. 504–05.

[6] Jefferson to Madison, September 6, 1789, ibid., pp. 959–64.

[7] Davis R. Dewey, Financial History of the United States (New York: Longmans, Green, 1903), pp. 111, 120, 124.

[8] Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

[9] Dewey, Financial History, pp. 120, 122; Paul Studenski and Herman E. Krooss, Financial History of the United States: Fiscal, Monetary, Banking, and Tariff (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952), p. 67; Alexander Balinky, Albert Gallatin: Fiscal Theories and Policies (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1958), pp. 116–19, 122–25.

[10] Jefferson, “Second Inaugural Address,” March 5, 1805, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 519.

[11] Dewey, Financial History, p. 121; Studenski and Krooss, Financial History, p. 68; Balinky, Gallatin, pp. 116, 120–21.

[12] Dewey, Financial History, pp. 124–26; Studenski and Krooss, Financial History, pp. 69–71; Balinky, Gallatin, pp. 90, 107.

[13] Jefferson, “First Inaugural Address,” Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 494.

[14] Ibid., p. 503.

[S]ound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not perhaps but from the temptations offered by that treasure.

[15] Jefferson to Thomas Lomax, March 12, 1799, ibid., p. 1063; Jefferson to the Special Envoy to France (Monroe), January 13, 1803, ibid., p. 1111; Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, July 5, 1806, ibid., p. 1164; Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Leib, June 23, 1808, ibid., p. 1188.

[16] Jefferson, “Second Inaugural Address,” Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 519.

[17] Jefferson, “First Annual Message,” December 8, 1801, ibid., p. 504.

[18] Henry Adams, History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, 2 vols. (New York: Library of America, 1986), vol. 1, p. 358.

[19] On Levi Lincoln’s opinion, see Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), pp. 312 and 321; Gallatin to Jefferson, January 13, 1803, quoted in Everett S. Brown, Constitutional History of the Louisiana Purchase (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1920), pp. 20–22.

[20] Jefferson to John Dickinson, quoted in ibid., pp. 23–24.

[21] Jefferson to John C. Breckinridge, August 12, 1803, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1139.

[22] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, pp. 360–61.

[23] Brown, Constitutional History, pp. 62–65.

[24] Jefferson to Wilson Cary Nicholas, September 7, 1803, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, pp. 1140–41.

[25] Ibid., p. 1141.

[26] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, p. 363.

[27] Quoted in Brown, Constitutional History, p. 32.

[28] From John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, vol. 5, pp. 364–65, 401, quoted in ibid., p. 30.

[29] Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1056.

[30] Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, ibid., p. 1078.

[31] Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, ibid., p. 1079.

[32] Jefferson, “First Annual Message,” ibid., p. 504.

[33] Ibid., p. 509.

[34] Jefferson, “First Inaugural,” ibid., p. 495.

[35] Jefferson to Abigail Adams, September 11, 1804, quoted in Dumas Malone’s Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 155.

[36] Ibid., p. 156; Malone offers a good discussion of this whole issue, pp. 152–56.

[37] William J. Quirk and R. Randall Bridwell, Judicial Dictatorship (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1995), pp. 10–15.

[38] Jefferson, “Draft of Kentucky Resolutions,” Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 449.

[39]The Constitution of the United States (1788), Art. VI, 2nd par.

[40] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, pp. 174–75.

[41] Quoted in Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, p. 119.

[42] Quoted in Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President: Second Term, 1805–1809 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), p. 119.

[43] Jefferson to John Dickinson, December 19, 1801, quoted in Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, p. 175.

[44] Ibid., p. 187.

[45] Ibid., p. 177.

[46] Ibid., p. 187.

[47] Wythe Holt, “The Judiciary Act of 1789,” in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, Kermit L. Hall, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 472–74.

[48] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, pp. 174–75.

[49] Edmund Pendleton, “The Danger Not Over,” October 5, 1801, reprinted in Life and Letters of Edmund Pendleton, 1734–1803, David John Mays, ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967), pp. 695–99.

[50] Ibid., p. 698.

[51] Ibid., p. 695.

[52] Ibid., pp. 698–99.

[53] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, pp. 173–74.

[54] Ibid., p. 177.

[55] For an excellent short discussion of Tucker and his edition of Blackstone, see St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States: With Selected Writings, Clyde Wilson, ed. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 1999), pp. vii–xvii.

[56] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, pp. 398–99.

[57] Quoted in ibid., vol. 2, pp. 401–02.

[58] Ibid., pp. 402–03.

[59] M.E. Bradford, “Samuel Chase: Maryland Vesuvius,” in Against the Barbarians and Other Reflections on Familiar Themes (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), pp. 110–12.

[60] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, pp. 451–66.

[61] Ibid., p. 463.

[62] Ibid.

[63] Jefferson to William Branch Giles, April 20, 1807, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1175.

[64] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, pp. 174, 176, 178.

[65] Jefferson to P.S. Dupont de Nemours, January 18, 1802, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, pp. 1099–1101.

[66] Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, March 29, 1801, ibid., pp. 1088–89; Jefferson to C.F. de C. Volney, February 8, 1805, ibid., p. 1158; Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, July 5, 1806, ibid., p. 1163.

[67] Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, ibid., p. 1078.

[68] Jefferson, “Second Inaugural Address,” ibid., p. 519.

[69] Jefferson, “Sixth Annual Message,” December 2, 1806, ibid., p. 529.

[70] Ibid., p. 530.

[71] Ibid.

[72] Jefferson to Joel Barlow, February 24, 1806, ibid., p. 1160.

[73] Jefferson, “Eighth Annual Message,” November 8, 1808, ibid., p. 549 (emphasis added).

[74] Jefferson, “Eighth Annual Message,” ibid., p. 549.

[75] Malone, Jefferson the President: Second Term, 1805–1809, p. 510; Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, p. 205.

[76] Malone, Jefferson the President: Second Term, p. 556.

[77] Jefferson, “Proclamation of April 19, 1808,” Annals of Congress (1808–09), p. 580.

[78] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, pp. 1111–13.

[79] Ibid., pp. 1112–13.

[80] Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1079.

[81] Gallatin to Jefferson, December 18, 1807, quoted in Adams, History of Jefferson’s Second Administration, vol. 2, pp. 1043–44.

[82] Condy Raguet, “On the Principles of Free Trade,” Free Trade Advocate (January 1829): 2.

[83] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, p. 1116.

[84] Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, p. 1081; Malone, Jefferson the President: Second Term, pp. 512, 515.

[85] John Randolph referred to the Republican desire to incorporate Canada during his famous speech on Gregg’s Resolutions in March 1806, quoted in Russell Kirk, John Randolph of Roanoke (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Press, 1978), p. 326; see also Malone, Jefferson the President: Second Term, pp. 427, 508–09. Ten days after the United States Congress declared war on Great Britain, Jefferson expressed the hope that his countrymen would invade and conquer Canada and thus “strip her [Great Britain] of all her possessions on this continent.” Jefferson to General Thaddeus Kosiusko, June 28, 1812, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1265. A year and a half later, he repeated his desire that the American army would “remove them [the British] fully and finally from our continent.”

[86] Jefferson to Madame de Tesse, December 8, 1813, ibid., p. 1316.

[87] Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Leib, June 23, 1808, ibid., pp. 1188–89.

[88] Jefferson remarked thus on his program:

The course the Legislature means to pursue, may be inferred from the act now passed for a meeting in May, and a proposition before them for repealing the embargo in June, and then resuming and maintaining by force our right of navigation. [Should France and Great Britain not relent in the spring], we must again take the tented field, as we did in 1776 under more inauspicious circumstances. (Jefferson to Colonel James Monroe, January 28, 1809, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1199)

After Nicholas’s resolution was defeated, Jefferson wrote in evident disappointment:

I thought Congress had taken their ground firmly for continuing their embargo till June, and then war. But a sudden and unaccountable revolution of opinion took place the last week, chiefly among the New England and New York members, and in a kind of panic they voted the 4th of March for removing the embargo, and by such a majority as gave all reason to believe they would not agree either to war or non-intercourse. (Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, February 7, 1809, quoted in Adams, History of the United States, vol. 2, pp. 1230–31)

[89] Adams, ibid., pp. 1204–07.

[90] See Adams’s summary of these meetings, ibid, pp. 1209–13.

[91] Ibid., pp. 1210–11.

[92] Ibid., pp. 1213–14.

[93] Ibid., p. 1215.

[94] Ibid., pp. 1214–15.

[95] Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, February 2, 1816, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, p. 1381.

[96] Jefferson, “First Inaugural Address,” ibid., p. 494.

[97] Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, ibid., pp. 1079–80.

[98] Hamilton to Bayard, January 15, 1801, quoted in Adams, History of the United States, vol. 1, pp. 188–89.

[99] John Taylor to James Monroe, October 26, 1810, quoted in Richard Ellis, Jeffersonian Crisis: Courts and Politics in the Young Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 235.

[100] Quoted in Kirk, John Randolph of Roanoke, p. 92.