Madison and Jefferson (21 page)

The most significant matter Jefferson took up in Annapolis was the disposition of western land. This was the final stage in the debate over land cessions, and his communication with Madison was critical in giving Jefferson full confidence in the road that lay ahead. With the largest claimant, Virginia, ready to cede its rights to the Northwest, an efficient, government-controlled process of settlement could begin, moderating the lawless speculation that had muddied the waters for years. Imposing order on a certain hypothetical westerner, the unruly “adventurer,” was now the consensus view. Federal land would be sold in stages, to avert a land rush and keep prices relatively high. All parties to the negotiation figured that by preventing the haphazard settlement of widely separated communities, the likelihood of armed conflict with Indians would also be reduced.

As Virginia’s historic claim to the West, based on its seventeenth-century charter, dissolved as an issue, peace among the states appeared to be at hand. But below the surface, sectional problems remained, because New England expected Ohio to be settled by northerners, who would impart their values to the new West, while Virginia expected the majority of new states to be politically and commercially aligned with it, as its offspring Kentucky was. Not until the Constitutional Convention of 1787 would the large state–small state rivalry be conclusively dealt with; and by then there would be nothing left to mask the intense, competing visions of North and South.

Congress passed the interim Land Ordinance in April 1784. As chair of the committee that formulated the draft resolution, Jefferson was instrumental in drawing up a plan to divide the new western territories into distinct forms with known boundaries. After reaching an established level of population, each would then attain statehood on an equal basis with the original thirteen. Without detracting from Jefferson’s efforts, it can be said that the 1784 ordinance was no less the culmination of Madison’s previous work in Congress to federalize expansion without compromising Virginia. Congressman Monroe was on board too, taking the issue so seriously that, after the close of the congressional session, he traveled to westernmost New York State and as far north as Montreal. The next year he visited Pittsburgh and then floated down the Ohio to Kentucky, where he himself had land interests.

Madison regularly compared notes with Monroe on western affairs. He saw immediate prospects for adding new states to the republic, writing in May 1785 of the possibility that Kentucky might be the first, its delegates
to the Virginia Assembly having already been instructed to propose “the separation of that Country from this, and its being handed over to Congress for admission into the Confederation.” In Madison’s estimation, as soon as the Kentuckians went through the process, others would see how smoothly it could be done: “They will not only accomplish it without difficulty but set a useful example to other Western Settlemts. which may chuse to be lopped off from other States.”

This did not make Madison and Monroe clones of each other. Madison was, at this point, the more comfortable with prompt and decisive action. He considered the “lopping off” a natural act of evolutionary growth; and when a congressional committee proposed setting up an established church in each township of the newly created western territories—“smelling so strongly of an antiquated Bigotry”—he groaned audibly, finding Monroe ambivalent, if not sympathetic, to the friends of religious establishment. There was no other subject on which Madison took so unconditional a stand. When it came to the cause of religious liberty, Madison and Jefferson alike never relented. They were merely waiting for the moment to be right.

Madison and Monroe did see eye to eye on the enlargement and improved management of land. On his travels in 1784, Monroe had learned firsthand about Indian affairs and protested ongoing British interference along the ill-maintained frontier. When he observed land-redistribution methods under federal guidelines, he took heart. In 1785, then, Monroe followed in Jefferson’s footsteps and chaired the committee assigned to reexamine the 1784 ordinance.

Fortune smiled on Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. Though none of them was present when the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 passed and Congress finally and firmly established the means for new state formation, the document was to a significant degree the product of the three Virginians’ collaborative efforts. Not only did the ordinance contain Jefferson’s stricture against slavery’s expansion; it also marked the first time that the third, fourth, and fifth presidents, whose terms would collectively comprise the “Virginia Dynasty,” worked closely together.
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It was much more than the Virginians’ land hunger that made the West central to political discourse. Americans’ sense of their future greatness as a people had been tied to the land for some time. During the French and Indian War, in
The New American Magazine
, “Sylvanus Americanus” (literally, “American Woodsman”) sang the praises of the happy, neighborly cultivator, “boast of our nation.” The
Boston Gazette
told readers that agriculture was “the most solid Foundation on which to build Wealth,” ensuring “the
political Virtue of a Common Wealth.” In 1775 Alexander Hamilton found a “dawning splendour” in the “boundless extent of territory we possess, the wholesome temperament of our climate, the luxuriance and fertility of our soil.” And in 1784 the author John Filson made a national hero of the pioneering Daniel Boone, who spoke of Kentucky as “a second paradise.” Western settlement was seen as regenerative.
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The new nationalism involved a certain amount of hypocritical thinking. The “virtuous” Washington had been, for years, among the hungriest of the speculators, a typical land-loving American ever on the make. He was now cautioning others to avoid rampant speculation, as if recognizing, belatedly, that the public’s interest was always meant to supersede private gain. Jefferson, whose land was inherited, insisted that he did not profit from speculation. In a letter to Madison, he vehemently denied that he deserved to be classed with the speculators. He had withdrawn from a land company a few months after his wife’s death, he said, thinking it a conflict of interest if he should go to Europe and be party to negotiations over the disposition of western lands. He had, he noted further, taken “a single step” toward speculating in the West, only to “retract” at the “threshold” of opportunity. Madison was in a less certain position, and he clearly did not share in Jefferson’s moral outrage. His father was deep in speculation, and he himself wanted to cross that “threshold,” in order to free himself from dependence upon his family. Yet being Madison, he would not enter into any venture unsystematically.
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In the middle of 1784 an ocean came between Madison and Jefferson. From Annapolis that May, Jefferson notified his friend in Orange that Congress had authorized him to join Franklin and Adams in Paris as a commercial negotiator. Not knowing how long his mission would last, he set terms for Madison and himself: “I pray you to continue to favor me with your correspondence … On my part I shall certainly maintain the correspondence.” He repeated his desire to operate as a purchasing agent for Madison, employing words that sound formal to us but were, in fact, entirely unceremonious: “If moreover you can at any time enable me to serve you by the execution of any particular commission I shall agree that my sincerity may be judged by the readiness with which I shall execute it. In the purchase of books, pamphlets, etc. old and curious, or new and useful I shall ever keep you in my eye.”

Moreover, Jefferson wanted to make certain that the plan he had in mind for his closest political colleagues bore fruit. “I think Col. Monroe will be of the Committee of the states,” he related to Madison, underscoring the line that came next: “
He wishes a correspondence with you.
” Keeping secrets was one key to Jefferson’s political style, which is what he was referring to as he recommended Monroe. “The scrupulousness of his honor will make you safe in the most confidential communications,” he told Madison. “A better man cannot be.”
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There was still time for several more exchanges, as Jefferson took to the road and headed north. From the General Assembly in Richmond, Madison related his intention to sound out his colleagues on the merits of Jefferson’s revised state constitution. Whether the political climate in Virginia proved friendly or unfriendly, Madison wanted “license,” he said, “to make use of the ideas you were so good as to confide in me.” He would carry on, regardless of impediments. In the Madison-Jefferson political playbook, opposition was real but temporary.

The question at hand, Virginia’s constitution, hinged on two men above all others: the generally positive Richard Henry Lee and the ever-wavering Patrick Henry. The eloquent Lee had yet to arrive in Richmond, so his mood could not be characterized. The influential Henry was another story. As Madison put it to Jefferson after a short conversation with Henry, “I find him strenuous for invigorating the federal Government though without any precise plan, but have got no explanation from him as to our internal Government. The general trend of his thoughts seemed to suggest favorable expectations.” As things turned out, Madison was too optimistic. Just as Jefferson set sail for Europe, the matter of changing the constitution was brought before the legislature. On that day Lee unexpectedly took ill, and Madison, trying to read Henry, figured he had best remain silent. It was a wise move, for as he subsequently reported to Jefferson, “Mr. Henry shewed a more violent opposition than we expected.”

Jefferson would not have been surprised. Taking the pulse of Virginia’s leaders on another matter sometime earlier, he had complained to Madison: “Henry as usual is involved in mystery: should the popular tide run strongly in either direction, he will fall in with it.” Henry had a knack for keeping people on edge, which Jefferson hated. He certainly refused to credit Henry’s political abilities, distinguishing between principled secrecy in defense of just causes (his and Madison’s way) and a barren lack of principles (Henry’s demagoguery) that manifested itself through underhandedness.
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Jefferson would not have a chance to see Virginia respond to his ideas
for an improved state constitution. No convention was ever called, which he naturally attributed to Henry’s opposition. In fact, the constitution adopted in 1776 was to remain in force until after Jefferson’s death. He did, however, take such pride in his 1783 plan that he decided to include it as an appendix in his
Notes on Virginia
, under the title “Draught of a Fundamental Constitution.”

He picked up Patsy in Philadelphia. From there, waited on by the Hemings brothers, Bob and James, father and daughter traveled through New York to New Haven and from there to Rhode Island. The Providence newspaper reported the visit in the most complimentary terms: “Governor Jefferson, who has so eminently distinguished himself in the late glorious revolution, is a gentleman of a very amiable character … a mathematician and philosopher as well as a civilian and politician.”

The word
civilian
retained a meaning we no longer recognize: a legal scholar, conversant in the laws of classical antiquity as well as those of the modern world. Jefferson’s role as law tutor to James Monroe is one way of seeing his “civilian” rank. And the word
politician
referred not so much to one who campaigned for elective office as to a student of government who was potentially a statesman. In the early and mid-eighteenth century,
politician
denoted a refined breed of Roman, but it could also be used satirically in referring to ravenous colonial officials who were more ambitious than wise. By calling him a politician, the Providence notice clearly meant to honor Jefferson as a man of elegance and experience.
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Civilian
and
politician
, seemingly generic terms, actually tell us a lot about Jefferson’s reputation on the eve of his assignment abroad. For possibly the first time in a public paper, his name was directly linked to authorship of the Declaration of Independence. The statement was cast in the passive voice by an editor whose knowledge was secondhand: “the memorable Declaration of American independence is said to have been penned by him.” The former Virginia governor was seldom in the news outside his native state, so when the Rhode Island newspaperman wanted to make him known to readers, he added the noteworthy line associating the new “minister plenipotentiary” with the famous Declaration. The Fourth of July was annually celebrated and the final text of the Declaration widely heralded, but few beyond the elite circle of Revolutionary leaders could have connected Jefferson to the document. His signature did not stand out as John Hancock’s did, and the act of Congress overshadowed the contribution of any one individual, penman or not. Not until the 1800 campaign would Jefferson’s supporters broadcast his authorship nationally. As late
as the 1810s, his actual role would still come into question, one of the many annoyances he would have to contend with in a partisan environment.

In Boston, the vessel
Ceres
awaited. Bob Hemings was to return south, bearing a businesslike letter for Madison, while James Hemings accompanied the Jeffersons to Europe. He had no time to provide details, Jefferson explained to Madison, noting only that he had taken down his observations of the “commerce and other circumstances” of the northeastern states. Experiencing New England for so short a time was a kind of cultural limbo for him, a way station, as his first ocean crossing loomed.

As well read as Jefferson was, his spoken French was halting, and until he arrived in Paris, the only notable French contacts he had had were those titled gentlemen who had attached themselves to America’s cause: Lafayette, Chastellux, and Marbois. He had left his most trusted allies, Madison and Monroe, with gentle directives. He also left behind in Philadelphia a surrogate family, including the upright Mary House and her amiable daughter, Eliza House Trist, proprietors of the boardinghouse to which Madison had introduced him. And he had deposited his two youngest daughters with his late wife’s relatives in Virginia.