Thoughts From the Lawn

by John Ragosta 

I had a wonderful time this weekend, not only meeting a lot of fine folks, but also learning some things.

Thinking back briefly on the conference, I had a few immediate thoughts. First, in a conference about Jefferson’s love of the written word, one might have more methodically explored his famous texts – Summary View, the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (his version), the Declaration, Notes on the State of Virginia, the Head and Heart Letter, or the Adam and Eve Letter – and the historiography concerning each. We really only dug into the particular words and arguments concerning Summary View, the most obscure and disparaged of his major works.

Instead, we took an expanded view of Jefferson’s love of the written word and its significance. We saw his words in letters to children and grandchildren (and their observations on him); the correspondence with his private secretary, an “adoptive son,” provides another perspective on his use of words; we studied Jefferson’s treatment of scripture, some of the words of which he loved; the power of some of his most precious written words to affect policy even today was considered, and the power and beauty of written words that were intended to be spoken. All of these are interesting ways to understand more fully Jefferson’s love of the written word.

This divergent approach reflects the efforts of modern historians to take our understanding beyond idolization of a Founding Father, what Peter Onuf might refer to as fetishizing the Founders. Rather, looking at those around the Founders, and the influences on them and that they had on contemporaries, is equally important to understanding the early modern world. This trend of expanding our vision is both good and essential. Bringing back into our historic perspective women, African Americans, Natives, children, different classes of people, … is essential for any valid understanding of history.

Yet, in expanding our vision, we need to be careful not to forget why we honor the Founders in the first place. This weekend, while walking the Grounds before breakfast, I came each day upon the monument to Jefferson just north of the Rotunda, dedicated to preserving the teachings of the Founders. On that monument are representations of liberty breaking the bonds of tyranny, a blind justice with scales, law preserving religious freedom.

Returning our focus to those things might make some uncomfortable. After all, in honoring those Founders, for too long we forgot, or attempted to hide how unjust they could be, how tyrannical, bigoted, small minded…how human. For years, Monticello guides would not even mention the slaves who built the plantation and lived and worked there, perhaps in passing referring to “servants.”

Jefferson, too, was painfully aware of his and his generations’ many shortcomings. Slavery, obviously, and I do not even attempt to defend Jefferson in that regard, a discussion for another day. As a lawyer, he was aware of injustices in his world. He saw the same for religious liberty, writing “if the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, truth will prevail over fanaticism,…” He knew that his vision of religious freedom, however passionately he felt about it, had not been achieved, but he never shrunk from the vision.

Recognizing and studying those failings and injustices is extremely important. But to stop with that is to miss a powerful point. If we allow the failings to obscure the principles, it is we who are diminished and impoverished.

Peter Onuf, on Thursday evening, I think was speaking to why we gather to study the words of Jefferson and his love of the written word. Jefferson, through a republic of letters, through his own words and letters in a new world of equality, saw that, as Peter said, “what is beautiful is what can be.”

Jefferson’s words, and actions, and life remind us not of how wonderful and perfect life was in the late 18^th century. It was a time of human experience with the good and the bad, the sweet and the bitter. What he sees, though, what he tells us, is that America’s greatness lies not in its history, but in its promise.

Lincoln, who was weighted with almost unbearable challenges and the obvious failure of principles, was deeply dedicated to those principles nonetheless, and he honored the Founders for having declared the principles, even as he struggled to preserve them. Lincoln wrote: “All honor to Jefferson–to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”

Truths, expressed in powerful words, matter.

by Laura Voisin George

My Spring 2012 history seminar, “The Worlds of William Short,” confronted U.Va. students with the words of Thomas Jefferson and William Short, his private secretary and close friend, and challenged them to learn what these words do – and do not – mean.  The students worked with microfilms of Short’s correspondence, the originals of which are in the Library of Congress (alas, still not formally published), and each student was required to transcribe at least one letter pertaining to their research topic.  They soon learned about epistolary conventions of the era – with letters dated as ultimo and instant, courteous self-references as being a humble and obedient servant, and a myriad of abbreviations and superscripts that stand in for titles, measures, and frequently-used words (such as “would” being written wld, and “which” as wch).  At a time halfway between Shakespeare’s day and our own, these expositions from the Republic of Letters show how the language itself was transitioning, through Jefferson’s and Short’s masterful use of it.

Beyond these technicalities, through studying William Short’s long life (1759-1849) and his experiences in Europe as well as in the burgeoning United States, the students were able to bring into focus the changes not only in Short’s relationship with Jefferson, but also in the world around them.  Their research enabled the students to explore motivations and influences that affected Short’s choices and strategies, and in his voluminous correspondence they explored  imprints showing the common (and sometimes contrasting) ideas he shared with Thomas Jefferson.  These reflections and sidelights show Jefferson from the perspective of his “adoptive son.”

The students also learned what Jefferson’s and Short’s written words do not say.  In cases of sensitive diplomatic matters, the perils of a letter’s long passage between them sometimes caused Jefferson and Short to either write in cypher or in euphemisms, promising to relate the matter fully when next they saw one another or a trusted representative face-to-face.  And in some matters – those held close to the bosom, er, heart – one can feel how carefully each word was chosen, and how far each boundary could be pushed and stretched, without going too far.

In this game of diplomatic and Jeffersonian words, William Short was remarkably successful.  To him, late in life Jefferson shared his early ideas about the morals and teachings of Jesus.  Given the atheist brush with which Jefferson was painted in advance of the election of 1800 and his life-long public insistence that his religion was a matter between God and himself, he had considerable trust in William Short to open this door to him.

The third- and fourth-year U.Va. students’ insights about Short’s role in diplomacy abroad, his convictions about abolition and support for the colonization of freed slaves, his interests in land development and successful investments in the canals and railroads that connected the rapidly-expanding new nation – showing the balance between the ideals he shared with Jefferson and the pragmatic concerns of their age – will contribute to the holdings of the Jefferson Library at Monticello and to future research about Thomas Jefferson and the world and relationships of which he was a part.

We can look forward to exploring the careful use of words in Jefferson’s correspondence with Short in June at the Summer Jefferson Symposium.

Laura Voisin George

by Lisa Francavilla

While reading just about anything these days, it’s not unusual to come across a Jefferson quote –  sometimes real, sometimes not – but how often do you get what appears to be a complete Jefferson letter in the mail?

While serving as president, in November 1803, Jefferson wrote from Washington to ask Craven Peyton if a $558.14 note coming due in December could be put off or broken into smaller payments until the entirety was satisfied. If you’ve only ever heard a little about Jefferson’s income, debts, and spending habits you would probably not find the content of this letter very surprising.

But, in the midst of the Great Depression in 1936, Gary M. Underhill of the Morris Plan Bank of Richmond, Virginia, saw this letter as the perfect advertising gimmick. The bank directed the Richmond printing firm of Whittet & Shepperson to create 30,000 facsimiles on specially aged paper to use as part of a mass mailing promoting the Bank’s loan services. 

The facsimile letter, a modern-type envelope on the front of which was a facsimile of Jefferson’s address cover, and an accompanying letter from the Morris Plan Bank, identifying the letter as a “reproduction,” were mailed out together. But it seems that hundreds of the recipients discarded the advertising letters and kept the cool facsimiles, putting them away in trunks, cupboards, and file cabinets where they were discovered years later by unknowing family members.

The occasional discovery of these facsimiles began within just a few years of the original mailing in 1936 and they’ve continued ever since, generating a great deal of excitement for the discoverer and sometimes garnering the attention of local and national newspapers and magazines.     

At least once every year I have the unpleasant task of having to tell someone that what they’ve got is not an original Jefferson document, but one of these facsimile letters.

Understandably, everyone is disappointed. Some get angry – but whether it’s with me or with their family member (“why on earth did he keep this silly thing then?”), I cannot always tell. My favorite response though was several months ago when a gentleman told me that he and his wife found the Morris Plan Bank story interesting, had a good laugh about it all, and have retained the facsimile as a conversation piece.

If you’re interested, the original documents – both Craven Peyton’s received copy and Jefferson’s retained file copy – are in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia.

I have often been amused at the “modern” use of the Founders, their likenesses, and their words for the promotion of a wide variety of products. So, for me, the Craven Peyton letter facsimiles, together with their history as recorded in a variety of newspaper stories over the last 70 years or so, provide an intriguing glimpse into the Depression Era and one bank’s creative attempt to attract business.

We thought you would find this article of interest about Jefferson’s eyeglasses.  It appears he spent at least two years corresponding with an optician in hopes of receiving the perfect eye glasses to ensure he would be able to continue writing and reading.

“Thomas Jefferson’s Spectacles”
(Feb/Mar 2012 Issue of Albemarle Magazine)

Thomas Jefferson may have made a name for himself as a great thinker, reader and writer, however this did not exempt him from vision problems. Despite having declared his vision to be his faculty least impaired by age, Jefferson had a history of using eyeglasses for reading. It is not hard to imagine why: the hours on end he must have spent reading and writing by candlelight at Monticello would exhaust even those with twenty-twenty vision. He went through numerous pairs of glasses in his lifetime, searching for the perfect fit. During the second term of his presidency, he enlisted the help of Philadelphia optician John McAllister, from which a two-year correspondence grew. It would take about two weeks to produce a frame, which Jefferson would at times reject. In an effort to create a pair that would satisfy him, he began to become actively involved in the spectacle’s design. After exchanging ideas with McAllister, a design was reached that would effectively achieve the benefit of trifocals.

More resources on Jefferson’s spectacles:

www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/eyeglasses
http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Eyeglasses&printable=yes

Jefferson’s Use of the Legal Word

by John Ragosta

In trying to understand someone’s arguments and conclusions, I generally find that it is useful to remember if they were trained as a lawyer, and this holds no less true in the case of Thomas Jefferson. While Jefferson had an extraordinary vision, and his thoughts and ideas often rambled beyond careful legal paths (not infrequently to be recalled by the ever-cautious legal draftsman, James Madison), Jefferson’s training as a lawyer is evident in much of his work and central to his vision of the new American republic.

I was reminded of this recently while reviewing the actions of the First Continental Congress (which Jefferson did not attend). One of the important disputes in Philadelphia in the late summer of 1774 was whether a remonstrance on the rights of the colonies should be based on natural rights, the rights of British citizens, or colonial charter rights. Not surprisingly, the new national politicians reached a political compromise, resolving to protest in the name of “the immutable laws of Nature, the principles of the English Constitution, and the several charters or compacts.” Had Jefferson been there, his Summary View of the Rights of British America suggests that he would have urged the congress to rely primarily on natural rights.

Summary View, Jefferson’s first significant literary and political composition, was intended as instructions for the Virginia delegation to the Continental Congress. It was not used for that purpose largely because it was too radical: insisting that Parliament had no authority over the colonies and that many recent British laws were not simply improper, but void. Rescued from obscurity when published as a pamphlet, Summary View had an important impact on public opinion and helped to propel Jefferson to prominence. While historians are undoubtedly correct to note that Summary View evidences a developing and sometimes confusing mix of arguments based on British and natural rights, the focus – as Jefferson insisted in retirement – clearly seems to be the latter. (more…)

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t hear or see Thomas Jefferson referenced for some piece of wisdom concerning a modern problem. Jefferson, who spent so much time working against the “dead hand of the past,” would likely be alternately pleased and chagrined by the modern fixation on his words.

Far be it from me to suggest that Jefferson does not have much to teach us, even about how we might approach complex modern problems that he could not possibly have contemplated. Yet, to seek a Jeffersonian perspective on such problems directly requires great care in translating Jefferson (or any of his Founding colleagues) for a modern debate. A deep appreciation of context is generally a prerequisite, and programs like the UVA Summer Jefferson Symposium are excellent places to gain such an appreciation.

As an initial matter, one should start by insisting upon accurate quotation. Seemingly simple enough, but as Anna Berkes, a librarian at the International Center for Jefferson Studies reminded attendees at the Virginia Forum conference last week, pages are filled with spurious Jefferson quotations, some benign, some less so. (I must confess to using a spurious quote in passing once while on a fellowship at Monticello, unfortunately found on an .edu website – a transgression for which I was promptly (and repeatedly) called to task.) Even more instances exist of taking Jefferson completely out of context. As Anna points out, it is essential to ask if a particular quotation seems entirely out of character for Jefferson (or any other historic figure being cited). I recently saw Jefferson, erroneously referred to as a “gunsmith,” suspiciously quoted in the context of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. Whatever ones views on gun rights, it is a topic on which Jefferson does not seem the most likely protagonist and, sure enough, the quotation, while nominally accurate, was being taken entirely out of context. Jefferson was referring to a political dispute with Alexander Hamilton when he suggested that while “one loves to possess arms, … they hope never to have occasion for them,” and the only “arms” that he was referring to were trenchant arguments.

History is a fascinating subject, and one can spend hours pleasantly wandering the idylls of the Founding Fathers. A deeper appreciation, though, has greater benefits. Learning about Jefferson’s love of the written word is, we hope, an exercise in understanding.

Over the next several months, we hope to find an opportunity to send thoughts on various aspects of Jefferson that might garner some attention at this summer’s Symposium, and, as time permits, respond to comments.

Mostly, we hope to see you in Charlottesville in June!

John Ragosta