184251Editorial Note: The Virginia Constitution (Jefferson Papers)
The three drafts of Jefferson’s proposed bill outlining the “fundamental constitutions of Virginia,” here brought together for the first time, are so important in the light they cast upon Jefferson’s early ideas of government and upon the drafting of the Declaration of Independence that they require special comment and a particular form of presentation. Each of the three drafts printed below...
184252Editorial Note: The Declaration of Independence (Jefferson Papers)
A full analysis of the many textual changes made in the Declaration of Independence from the time it was drafted by Jefferson to the time of its final adoption by Congress has been made in the following: John H. Hazelton, The Declaration of Independence: Its History , N.Y., 1906; Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence. A Study in the History of Political Ideas , N.Y., 1922 and 1942; and...
184253Editorial Note: Notes and Proceedings on Discontinuing the Establishment of the Church of England (Jefferson Papers)
The importance of Jefferson’s legislative activity in 1776 in behalf of religious tolerance and the confused state of his own documentary records of this effort, together with the paucity of the legislative record, make it necessary to present the documents in a different arrangement and with a more particular comment than has hitherto been attempted. All of the documents listed above and...
184254Editorial Note: Bills for Dividing Fincastle County (Jefferson Papers)
The involved and at times impenetrable legislative history of these two Bills requires special comment. For this was not merely another county division: it was the first great collision between Jefferson and the powerful land speculators. During the two years preceding this session of the Assembly, Jefferson’s statements in the Summary View , in his correspondence with Pendleton, and in his...
184255Editorial Note: Drafts of Bills Establishing Courts of Justice (Jefferson Papers)
The remodeling of the judiciary was among Jefferson’s first objects as he embarked in Oct. 1776 on one of the most far-reaching legislative reforms ever undertaken by a single person. His ideas concerning an independent judiciary for the new commonwealth had been set forth in his proposed Constitution. Though the principal elements of his judicial system had at least been recognized in the...
184256Editorial Note: The Petition of Thomas Johnson (Jefferson Papers)
The documents brought together in this grouping require special comment. The issue with which they deal resulted directly from the inclusion in the Virginia Constitution of 1776 of an article drawn from colonial experience. That Constitution (q.v. under date of 13 June 1776) contained the following provision: “All laws shall originate in the House of Delegates, to be approved or rejected by...
184257Editorial Note: Notes and Documents relating to the Transylvania and Other Claims for Lands under Purchases from the … (Jefferson Papers)
The documents here presented, together with many others in Jefferson’s papers concerning land claims and policies in the West, were gathered by Jefferson partly because of his aim to use the great tracts of land “on the western waters” for the benefit of small farmers, for encouragement of immigration and population, for stabilization of credit, and for strengthening the bonds of union (see...
184258Editorial Note: Bills for Establishing a Land Office and for Adjusting and Settling Titles (Jefferson Papers)
These two Bills, despite the attention they have received from careful historians, remain a neglected milestone in public land policy. Abernethy has asserted that “the land office act of 1779 was a colossal mistake. In 1776 Jefferson had advocated the granting of tracts of fifty acres to each family lacking that amount. This would have been an improvement on the colonial head-right system, and...
184259Editorial Note: Revisal of the Laws 1776–1786 (Jefferson Papers)
It is an extremely difficult task to bring into proper focus, to say nothing of fully encompassing, the far-reaching revision of the laws that Jefferson and other leading Virginians embarked upon in the autumn of 1776. This is chiefly because the revision of the laws itself never came into focus. It was a long-drawn-out movement, ending in something of an anti-climax, and never became embodied...
184260Editorial Note: Notes and Documents Relating to the British Invasions in 1781 (Jefferson Papers)
The documents here gathered together, though covering a long span of time, are so gathered and given special annotation because of their close interrelationship and because the events they deal with had a profound effect both upon Jefferson’s reputation as governor and upon his own feelings. The events they record led directly to the legislative motion of 12 June 1781 to investigate...
184261Editorial Note: The Case of Mace Freeland (Jefferson Papers)
This case, along with others that came to him during 1782, reveals Jefferson as turning seriously to the practice of the law. Perhaps the fact that the case of Mace Freeland seemed to offer an opportunity to reinforce those “principles of moderation and justice which principally endear a republican government to it’s citizens” may have induced him to accept it. At any rate on 12 Feb. 1782,...
184262Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Contemplated Mission to Europe (Jefferson Papers)
The documents here grouped together have no special unity beyond the fact that all of them relate to Jefferson’s mission to France in 1783—a mission never carried out because provisional articles of peace between the United States and Great Britain had been signed at Paris on 30 Nov. 1782. They can, however, be advantageously presented as a group in order to show Jefferson’s activities during...
184263Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Proposed Revision of the Virginia Constitution (Jefferson Papers)
When Jefferson stopped off in Richmond in May on his way back to Monticello, his discussions with various political figures led him to the conclusion that a convention to revise the Virginia Constitution was imminent. No doubt remembering his experience in 1776 when his earlier draft of a fundamental law arrived almost too late, he lost no time in drafting a text for a new constitution. He...
184264Editorial Note: Documents Concerning the Residence of Congress (Jefferson Papers)
Except for Document iii in this series, all of the notes and memoranda pertaining to the embittered question of finding a permanent seat for Congress were printed by Ford, iii , 458–62, as if they proceeded entirely from Jefferson’s hand, and were assigned the conjectural date of 13 Apr. 1784 on the belief that they were drafted at the time of the renewed discussion of the question. But most...
184265Editorial Note: George Washington’s Resignation as Commander-in-Chief (Jefferson Papers)
Washington’s surrender of his commission at a formal audience granted by Congress was a symbolic event of the highest significance. The documents presented in the present series are evidence enough that Congress as well as the Commander-in-Chief fully appreciated the nature of the occasion. Nevertheless, though this event at Annapolis on 23 Dec. 1783 has not received the attention accorded...
184266Editorial Note: The Connecticut-Pennsylvania Territorial Dispute (Jefferson Papers)
The far-reaching dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania over their conflicting charter claims was one that Jefferson became acquainted with on first entering Congress in 1775 (see Vol. 1: 248). The reports that he drew up eight years later came at a climactic moment of the controversy. These reports and related documents printed in the present group require particular comment for several...
184267Editorial Note: Report on the Powers of the Committee of the States (Jefferson Papers)
In his Autobiography Jefferson gave the following account of the steps leading to the creation of a Committee of the States: “The remissness of Congress, and their permanent session, began to be a subject of uneasiness and even some of the legislatures had recommended to them intermissions, and periodical sessions. As the Confederation had made no provision for a visible head of the government...
184268Editorial Note: The Virginia Cession of Territory Northwest of the Ohio (Jefferson Papers)
With the acceptance by Congress of the Virginia cession on 1 Mch. 1784, the national domain came into existence. Jefferson, in what was for him a rare disclosure of his methods of guiding an important measure through a legislative body, recounted to Benjamin Harrison the last-minute maneuvers in Congress by which a single vote determined the outcome ( TJ to Harrison, 3 Mch. 1784 ). But this,...
184269Editorial Note: Plan for Government of the Western Territory (Jefferson Papers)
On 1 Mch. 1784, immediately after the acceptance of the Virginia Deed of Cession, Jefferson presented his report of a plan for the government of the territory embraced by the newly created national domain and by other territories that would be ceded. But this report, the foundation stone of American territorial policy which, as amended, became known to history as the Ordinance of 1784, had...
184270Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Notes on Coinage (Jefferson Papers)
Since Jefferson’s proposals concerning coinage in 1784 were in part inspired by a desire to defeat the plan set forth in 1782–1783 by Robert Morris and his assistant, Gouverneur Morris, as well as by a desire Jefferson had entertained at least as early as 1776 to base the money system on decimal reckoning, these proposals need to be presented with those of the Morrises to which they were...
184271Editorial Note: To G. K. van Hogendorp, with Papers (Jefferson Papers)
The papers that Hogendorp left with Jefferson when he departed from Annapolis for a visit to General Washington at Mt. Vernon cannot be precisely identified (see TJ to Washington, 6 Apr. 1784 ). But one or more of the present papers on American subjects must have been included with this letter of 4 May 1784 along with other known enclosures (see notes). All are to be found in the Hogendorp...
184272Editorial Note: Notes on Commerce of the Northern States (Jefferson Papers)
Among Jefferson’s well-ordered archives at Monticello was one category labeled “Rough draughts, notes &c. while Member of Congress and Minister Plenipo. at Paris” (Vol. 1: xiii). The present series of documents must have been systematically arranged in that or a similar group, along with others pertaining to the same subject (see Neil Jamieson to TJ, 12 and 14 July 1784 ; Ralph Izard to TJ, 10...
184273Editorial Note: Jefferson’s “General Form” of a Treaty (Jefferson Papers)
“I am now to take my leave of the justlings of states,” Jefferson wrote Madison on the day he was appointed minister, “and to repair to a feild where the divisions will be fewer but on a larger scale‥‥ I shall pursue there the line I have pursued here” ( TJ to Madison, 7 May 1784 ). What he meant is thrown into sharper relief by what he did or attempted to do at the time the three American...
184274Editorial Note: Documents Pertaining to the Mission of Barclay and Lamb to the Barbary States (Jefferson Papers)
The documents in this group were prepared by Adams and Jefferson during September and early October. Each of the agents was furnished with a full set of the documents, their texts varying in respect to names of persons and countries, sums of money, and other particulars. In addition to the increased paper work resulting from their separation, Adams and Jefferson were obliged to make revisions...
184275Editorial Note: Negotiations for a Treaty of Amity and Commerce with Portugal (Jefferson Papers)
The articles of the proposed treaty with Portugal were drawn up, as Jefferson later declared, “almost in the precise terms of those of Prussia” ( TJ to Dumas, 6 May 1786 ; TJ to Humphreys, 7 May 1786 ). It is true that the projet was based on the “General Form” of a treaty as prepared in 1784 (see Vol. 7: 463–79), but the draft that Adams caused his secretary of legation, William Stephens...
184276Editorial Note: The Article on the United States in the Encyclopédie Méthodique (Jefferson Papers)
On 25 Oct. 1786 William Short wrote to William Nelson: “You speak of the Encyclopedia. It will be a valuable work Sir in as much as all human science will be there brought together and arranged in a methodical manner. The different parts of the work are allotted to different persons to execute, and as it is impossible to find a sufficient number of learned men fit for and willing to engage in...
184277Editorial Note: Polytype and Other Methods of Printing (Jefferson Papers)
New discoveries and inventions in the arts and sciences had a powerful appeal for Jefferson because of their promise of the improvement of society in general, but none had so immediate or so personal an impact as those affecting the multiplication of copies of the written word. The enthusiasm with which he presented to friends in America and Europe copying presses for making duplicates or...
184278Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Comments on François Soulés’ Histoire (Jefferson Papers)
The assistance that Jefferson gave to the French historian François Soulés (1748–1809) was assumed by Ford, iv ;, 300, to have been based on “the MSS. or proof-sheets … which he submitted to Jefferson.” Sowerby, i , 223, seems to imply that Jefferson employed page-proofs in making his comments, since he “probably had bound the two volumes that the author sent him for his corrections.” There...
184279Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Proposed Concert of Powers against the Barbary States (Jefferson Papers)
This remarkable proposal, which ran counter to the realities of 18th century political and commercial rivalries, was foredoomed to failure, but for a time it seemed promising. Jefferson’s account of it in his Autobiography, together with the methods he employed in urging it upon the attention of Congress, has caused some confusion about the plan, its evolution, and its background. “Our...
184280Editorial Note: Documents on the American Tobacco Trade (Jefferson Papers)
The documents in this group reveal what a powerful ally Jefferson had in Simon Bérard and the mercantile firm to which he belonged in the effort to make the farmers-general live up to the agreement reached at Berni in May 1786 and given the approval of the ministry in Calonne’s letter to Jefferson of 22 Oct. 1786. The blunt, forthright challenge here presented to the farmers-general to meet...
184281Editorial Note: Further Documents Concerning American Trade (Jefferson Papers)
The preceding letter and the following documents present further aspects of the thoroughgoing investigation of American trade in general and the tobacco trade in particular that Lambert insisted upon when he became controller-general. This was carried out by Lambert, as Jefferson was careful to indicate in his Observations on the Whale-Fishery , “with a patience and assiduity almost...
184282Editorial Note: The Consular Convention of 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
The Consular Convention of 1788 was the last of nine treaties to be signed by authority of the Continental Congress and the Confederation, and the first to be ratified under the new Constitution. None of the nation’s international agreements in the formative period was so long in preparation or had a history so filled with potentially disruptive sources of friction between the United States...
184283Editorial Note: Proposals for Funding the Foreign Debt (Jefferson Papers)
The documents here presented are a part of the neglected story of Jefferson’s insistent appeals made from 1786 on to the secretary for foreign affairs, to the commissioners of the treasury, to members of Congress, and to leading public figures in America in the hope of buttressing national credit abroad by consolidating and funding the foreign debt (see TJ to Jay, 26 Sep . and 12 Nov. 1786 , 1...
184284Editorial Note: Documents Concerning the Whale Fishery (Jefferson Papers)
Jefferson’s review of the American whale fishery as a political institution is a classic example of his method as a diplomat, as a political strategist, and as a devotee of intellectual inquiry. As was the case with most of his published writings and state papers, Observations on the Whale-Fishery was preceded by a long period of preparation and study, evidences of which may be traced in notes...
184285Editorial Note: The Mirabeau Incident (Jefferson Papers)
More than once Jefferson expressed, with obvious sincerity, the same characteristic feeling that he voiced in the preceding communication to his fellow Americans in Paris: “To glide unnoticed thro’ a silent execution of duty, is the only ambition which becomes me, and it is the sincere desire of my heart.” The ink was scarcely dry on these words when the Comte de Mirabeau in the National...
184286Houdon: Proposal I (Jefferson Papers)
Mr. Houdon requires for the execution of an Equastrian Statue of General Washington in Bronze the Sum of £1,000,000 and the Pedestal in Marble and the term of eight years from the present instant for the finishing of it, in Case the bargain Shou’d be Signed by both party’s in the Course of the present year. The price being agreed on he Submits the distribution of the payments to the...
184287James Madison to Wilson Cary Nicholas, 2 August 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
Note: The letter from James Madison of 2 August 1789, published in Volume 15 of the letterpress edition, as sent to Jefferson, has been suppressed for the digital edition. It was a letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas rather than to Jefferson. See Robert A. Rutland and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison (Charlottesville, 1979), 12:320–1. (Click on the page icons to see the document as it...
184288Editorial Note: The Earth Belongs in Usufruct to the Living (Jefferson Papers)
Sometime during the first week in September, Jefferson suffered an incapacitating illness of six days—perhaps one of his violent periodic headaches that seemed so often to be preceded or followed by bursts of intellectual activity. It was about this time that he was also seized by an idea that exerted a compelling influence over him for the remainder of his life. This was the belief that “ the...
184289Editorial Note: Documents on the Rice Trade (Jefferson Papers)
When Jefferson wrote Washington a conditional letter of acceptance of the office of secretary of state, he pointed out that “The ground I have already passed over enables me to see my way into that which is before me. The change of government, too … seems to open a possibility of procuring from the new rulers some new advantages in commerce which may be agreeable to our countrymen.” In the...
184290Editorial Note: The Debt to Farell & Jones and the Slave Ship The Prince of Wales (Jefferson Papers)
Most of the documents presented in this group were discovered recently among the Ended Cases of the United States Court for the Middle Circuit, Virginia District, and were involved in the case of Jones v. Wayles’ Executors concerning the slave ship The Prince of Wales , a suit begun in 1790 by Richard Hanson as attorney for William Jones, surviving partner of Joseph Farell of the house of...
184291Editorial Note: Notes on American Medals Struck in France (Jefferson Papers)
Among the several attributes of sovereignty that Congress assumed during the period of confederation was that of authorizing commemorative medals by which, in keeping with the practices of nations in all ages, public gratitude to exalted characters would be expressed, the virtues of patriotism inculcated, and the memory of great actions perpetuated. This was an undelegated authority, but the...
184292Madison on “The Earth Belongs to the Living” (Jefferson Papers)
I. TEXT AS RECEIVED BY JEFFERSON, 1790 II. TEXT AS REVISED BY MADISON LATE IN LIFE EDITORIAL NOTE In the well-known exchange between Jefferson and Madison on the concept that one generation cannot bind another in perpetuity, both men adhered in substance to the views as first expressed and then later revised the form of this expression (see Vol. 15: 384–99). Madison’s rephrasing, however, took...
184293Editorial Note: The Holy Cause of Freedom (Jefferson Papers)
It is surprising that, except for contemporary newspaper publication, the text of this lofty summation of Jefferson’s “attachment to the general rights of mankind” has been so long neglected. Tucker and Randall gave extended accounts of the welcome to Jefferson by the slaves of Monticello, but were silent as to that by the citizens of Albemarle. Neither Thomas Jefferson Randolph nor any of the...
184294Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Alliance in 1790 with Fenno’s Gazette of the United States (Jefferson Papers)
In the summer of 1790 Washington told the Comte de Rochambeau that Americans had learned to discount English reports of events in France. “Happily for you,” he wrote, “we remembered how our own armies, after having been all slain to a man in the English News Papers, came to life again and even performed prodigies of valour against that very Nation whose News-papers had so unmercifully...
184295Editorial Note: Report on Copper Coinage (Jefferson Papers)
On Wednesday, 7 Apr. 1790, a “member from South Carolina presented to the House a letter addressed to him from John H. Mitchell … reciting certain proposals of Matthew Boulton of the kingdom of Great Britain for supplying the United States with copper coinage to any amount that government shall think fit to contract with him for, upon the terms therein mentioned,” whereupon the letter and...
184296Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Policy Concerning Presents to Foreign Diplomats (Jefferson Papers)
Soon after taking office, Jefferson was obliged to address himself to the task of terminating relations, diplomatic and otherwise, that he had thought on leaving France to be only temporarily suspended. One unavoidable duty was that of making “the accustomary present … to the Introducteur des Ambassadeurs and to Sequeville their Secretary,” through whom notice usually came of the king’s...
184297Editorial Note: Cabinet Opinions on the Resolutions Concerning Arrearages in Soldiers’ Pay (Jefferson Papers)
This, as Alexander Hamilton stated, was “a case of inconsiderable magnitude.” In respect to the sum of money involved, this was a correct appraisal. At the close of the previous session of congress, the secretary of the treasury had been called upon to furnish estimates of funds needed for the civil list, for the department of war, and for satisfying unpaid warrants drawn by the board of...
184298Editorial Note: Documents on American Commercial Policy (Jefferson Papers)
The documents printed below were employed by Jefferson and Madison in a renewal of the bitter fight of the preceding session of congress when, according to Senator Maclay, Madison’s effort to counter the effect of British commercial policy was defeated by “villainous amendments … for doing away with the discrimination between foreigners in and out of treaty with us.” The two men had been...
184299Editorial Note: Report on Weights and Measures (Jefferson Papers)
Jefferson’s report on weights and measures is an almost perfect embodiment of his dual allegiance to Newtonian physics and to Lockean concepts of government. The idea of using the pendulum as an invariable and universal standard came straight from Newton’s Principia , and the aim of constructing a system of weights and measures “bringing the principal affairs of life within the arithmetic of...
184300Editorial Note: The War Crisis of 1790 (Jefferson Papers)
On 1 May 1790 Gouverneur Morris reported to Washington his most recent discussion with the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He was as unaware at the time as any Londoner that in the crucial cabinet meeting the night before William Pitt boldly took the risk of general war by seizing upon the Nootka Sound incident to deliver the first effective challenge to Spanish claims to exclusive...