The Jefferson Allegiance

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

THE JEFFERSON ALLEGIANCE by Bob Mayer

COPYRIGHT © 2011 by Bob Mayer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author (Bob Mayer, Who Dares Wins) except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

THE JEFFERSON ALLEGIANCE

Bob Mayer

The Historical Facts

If a book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it.  But for God’s sake, let us freely hear both sides if we choose.”
 
 Thomas Jefferson.  1814.

In May of 1783, the Society of the Cincinnati was founded. A leading member was Alexander Hamilton, and the first President of the Society was George Washington, before he was President of the United States. The Society of the Cincinnati is the oldest, continuous military society in North America. Its current headquarters is at the Anderson House in downtown Washington, DC. Besides the Society of the Cincinnati, Hamilton founded the Federalist Party, the first political party.

“Can a democratic assembly . . . be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy. Their turbulent and changing disposition requires checks.”
Alexander Hamilton. 1787.

Thomas Jefferson was not allowed membership in the Society of the Cincinnati.

“Your people, sir, are a great beast.” Alexander Hamilton. 1792.

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson, well known for his strong opposition to a standing army, established the United State Military Academy, the oldest Military Academy in the Americas. In 1819, he founded the University of Virginia, the first college in the United States to separate religion from education.

In 1745, the American Philosophical Society (APS), the oldest learned society in North America was founded. Thomas Jefferson was a member for 47 years and its President for 17 years. He subsequently established the adjunct United States Military Philosophical Society (MPS) at West Point with the Academy Superintendent as its first leader. The APS has its current headquarters in Philosophical Hall on Liberty Square in Philadelphia. The MPS appears to have disappeared.

“I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.”
Thomas Jefferson. 1816.

Besides the APS and MPS, Jefferson founded the Anti-Federalist Party.

“The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, not a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the Grace of God.” Thomas Jefferson. 1826.

The 4
^th
 of July 1826

“Is it the Fourth?” In debt, dying, and with only his favorite slave as companion, Thomas Jefferson still had one last duty to discharge.

“Yes, it is, sir,” Sally Hemings said, “but it’s still dark. Dawn is a half-hour off.” She wiped a cool cloth across the wide forehead of the man who owned her. Not tenderly like a lover, but with the touch of a favored servant, an occasional confidant, and primarily with the suppressed and paradoxical hope of freedom at the price of her master’s passing. She put the cloth back in the bowl and walked over to the drapes. She parted them and looked out into the darkness, seeing the oil lamps scattered around Monticello flickering in the pre-dawn gray.

“Is he here?” Jefferson’s voice was a rasp, barely audible.

“He’s been here for a week,” Hemings replied, irritation creeping into her voice. “He’s waiting in the Parlor.”

“It’s time.”

Her eyes went wide at the implication. “Are you sure, sir?”

Jefferson didn’t have the energy to speak again. His thinning gray hair—still holding a touch of red—was highlighted against the pillow. He made a slight twitch in the affirmative.

Hemings escorted in a frail young man with black hair and even darker eyes. His hands shook. He seemed afraid to approach the ex-President’s alcove bed as if by doing so, he might bring to completion the act he was here for. Jefferson’s eyes were closed. He whispered something and Hemings and the man had to come closer until they were both hovering above the President.

“Poe. It’s time.” Jefferson nodded toward the headboard ever so slightly. “It’s there.”

Edgar Allan Poe’s tongue snaked across his dry and cracked lips, deprived of alcohol this long week, a sign of how serious he took this event. “Yes, sir.”

Poe reached behind Jefferson’s pillow and retrieved a leather bag. Something inside rattled, and Poe glanced inside, and then closed it. He held the bag with his shaking fingers.

“Sir—“Poe paused.

Jefferson’s head twitched in the affirmative once more.

“Sir, where is the rest?”

“Safe,” Jefferson whispered. “With an old enemy who became a friend. He will pass what he has on to the head of the Military Philosophical Society, whom you must contact. You must go to the Military Academy next.”

“I understand, sir. But the Military Academy. I do not think I--”

Jefferson wasn’t listening. “Hide it.”

“And what is the Key phrase that unlocks it, sir?” Poe asked.

Hemings watched him lean close, his ear almost brushing Jefferson’s lips. Jefferson whispered something that she couldn’t make out.

Poe straightened and nodded. “Yes, sir.” He glanced at Hemings, who tilted her head toward the door, wishing her master would not exhaust any more of his strength.

“Sir, you look well,” Poe said. “Perhaps—“

“Leave now. Before it is light,” Jefferson ordered, a surge of strength putting force behind the words. “We have enemies. The Cincinnatians are everywhere.”

Poe swallowed hard. He reached down with his right hand and placed it on Jefferson’s. “It has been the greatest honor, sir.” He took the leather bag, and Hemings escorted him out of the bedroom, to the rear door, where a saddled horse awaited. He leapt onto it and galloped off into the darkness. She saw that he was reaching into his saddlebag for a bottle as soon as he was on the road.

She returned to the bedroom. Jefferson had closed his eyes and for a moment she wondered if he had passed, but noted the slight rise and fall of his chest.

His lips parted and he said something. She moved closer. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Do you remember Paris?” Jefferson asked.

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Maria,” Jefferson whispered, a forlorn smile creasing his lips. “I should have followed my heart, not my head.” His last breath rattled through his throat, and then he was still.

Sally Hemings slid the blanket up over the slack face of the third President of the United States.

***********

“Independence forever.”

Five hundred miles to the northeast, the dawn came slightly earlier to Quincy, Massachusetts, than it did to Monticello in the hills of middle Virginia. John Adams needed assistance to hold up the crystal glass to give his toast to the fiftieth birthday of the country he helped found, and of which he had been the first Vice President and second President. Even that minor effort exhausted him and he barely wet his lips with the alcohol as the others in the room drained their glasses. He slumped back on the bed, his gaze raking over those hovering around his bed.

He thought it a strange group, reflecting the diverse life he’d led. Politicians, judges, businessmen, writers, thinkers, even clergy. Come to pay reverence to one of the few remaining Founding Fathers of this young country. Over the years many had forgotten that despite his speeches against the Stamp Act in the 1760s, and his fight for the Declaration of Independence in 1776, that in 1770 he’d defended the British soldiers accused of firing on the crowd during the ‘Boston Massacre.’ His arguments to a Boston Jury had been so persuasive, that six of the accused had been acquitted. The law, always the law, was his guiding force.

His gaze fixed on a man hovering near the doorway to the bedroom in a mud-splattered uniform. “Let me speak with Colonel Thayer alone,” he ordered. The crowd shuffled out with many a curious glance, leaving the officer standing alone.

He nodded Thayer toward the mantle above the fireplace. “There. Behind the painting.”

Stiff and sore after his hard ride from West Point, New York, Thayer walked over. In an alcove behind the portrait of a young woman was a packet wrapped in oilskin.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Adams said.

“Yes, sir,” Thayer replied as he took the package and slid it into the messenger pouch draped over one shoulder.

“Abigail,” Adams whispered to himself. “I miss you so.”

Thayer didn’t react to the comment. He spun on his heel like the Superintendent of the US Military Academy ought to, and made for the door, a soldier on a mission.

“Philosopher.” Adams mustered the energy to call out, causing Thayer to halt and spin about on his heel once more, stiff at attention.

“Sir?”

“To be used only as a last resort. When all other means have failed. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Split the disks you have there with two other Philosophers. Jefferson will send the next Chair to you with further instructions. Make sure all the Philosophers who follow in your footsteps understand. It’s a very, very powerful thing you are guarding. A dangerous, but necessary thing Jefferson and Hamilton did so many years ago.”

Thayer nodded, his face grave. “I understand very well, Mister President.”

“Power cuts both ways, Philosopher.”

“I know, sir.” Thayer paused. “And the remaining seven disks?”

“In the Chair’s hands,” Adams told the young lieutenant colonel. “You’ll be contacted. The Chair is always a civilian.” The voice was slight, drained.