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This study of Jefferson's mind is the indirect outcome of an ambitious undertaking on which I launched about ten years ago. My original purpose had been to determine more exactly than had heretofore been done the contribution of the French thinkers to the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson.

The points of similarity were obvious: the parallelism between the theory of natural rights and the Déclaration des droits de l'homme is patent; the American statesman shared with the French "doctrinaires" the same faith in the ultimate wisdom of the people, the same belief in the necessity of a free press and religious freedom. Many of his utterances had a sort of French ring and countless Gallicisms could be discovered in his letters. He spent in France the five years immediately preceding the Revolution of 1789; he knew Madame d'Houdetot, Madame Helvétius, Lafayette, Condorcet, Cabanis, Du Pont de Nemours, l'Abbé Morellet and Destutt de Tracy. He was accused of bringing back from France the "infidel doctrines" of the philosophers and to some of his contemporaries he appeared as the embodiment of Jacobinism. How could such a man have failed to be influenced by the political, social and economic theories which brought about the great upheaval of the end of the eighteenth century?

A rapid survey of the Jefferson papers in the Library of Congress and in the Massachusetts Historical Society soon convinced me that the subject had scarcely been touched, notwithstanding the controversy that had been raging about the origin of Jefferson's political ideas for more than a century. Hundreds of letters written to Jefferson by French correspondents were preserved in the precious archives, and had apparently never been consulted. Many days were spent in the rotunda of the Manuscript Division, turning the leaves of the two hundred and thirty volumes of the Jefferson papers. Documents after documents threw a new light on the mind of the great American—letters hastily written, rough drafts corrected and recorrected, press copies blurred and hardly decipherable, yellowed scraps of paper crumbling to pieces but piously restored; more letters in a regular, precise hand, the hand of a man who had been a surveyor and who drew rather than wrote. Fifty years of the most eventful period of American history, told by the chief participants, rose from the old documents, and day by day was revealed more clearly the clean-cut figure of Jefferson the American.

First of all, the tall, lanky boy, born in a frame dwelling by the Rivanna—not a farmer boy by any means, but the son of an ambitious, energetic and respected surveyor, a landowner and a colonel in the militia, and of a mother in whose veins ran the best blood of Virginia. The stern and pious education received in the family, the reading of the Bible and Shakespeare, the lessons of Reverend Maury, the son of a Huguenot who took the boy as a boarding student, the years at William and Mary College in the brilliant, animated, but small capital of Virginia, the conversations with Mr. Small, Mr. Wythe and Governor Fauquier, the Apollo tavern, the first love affair, and the long roamings in the hills surrounding Shadwell. More years as a student of law and as a law practitioner, quickly followed by his marriage with a Virginia "belle", and Thomas Jefferson had settled down, a promising young man, a talented lawyer, a respectable landowner, an omnivorous reader who culled from hundreds of authors moral maxims, bits of poetry, historical, legal and philosophical disquisitions and copied them in a neat hand in his commonplace books. But curiously enough during these formative years, the direct influence of the French philosophers was almost negligible. He knew Montesquieu's "Esprit des Lois" and Voltaire's "Essai sur les mœurs", but he used both books as repertories of facts rather than as founts of ideas. His masters were the Greeks of old, Homer and Euripides, then Cicero and Horace, finally Bolingbroke and above all the historians of the English law in whose works he studied the principles, development and degeneration of free institutions.

The choice of the abstracts made by this young Virginian who was still in his twenties already reveals an extraordinary capacity for absorbing knowledge and a most remarkable independence of thought. As he had planned to build a house according to his own plans, he had likewise decided to construct for himself, with material just as carefully chosen, the intellectual house in which he intended to live. Had not the Revolution intervened, Thomas Jefferson would probably have spent his years in his native colony, become a successful member of the Virginia bar, perhaps a judge learned and respected, a wealthy landowner adding constantly to the paternal acres. He had no ambition and little suspected his own latent genius, and yet, during all these years which he might have passed in leisurely and pleasant idleness, he never ceased, unknowingly as it were, to prepare himself for the great part he was to play.

When the call came he was ready. The ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence were common property, but their felicitous wording was not due to a sudden and feverish inspiration. The young Virginian expressed only the definite conclusions he had slowly reached in reading the historians and the old lawyers. The principles there proclaimed were not abstract and a priori principles; they were distinctly the principles that had directed his Saxon forefathers in their "settlement" of England. They were the legitimate inheritance of their descendants and continuators who had brought over with them to America the rights of their ancestors to settle in sparsely inhabited land, there to live freely and happily under institutions chosen by themselves. To go back to a primitive past, to the good old times, had been the dream of many political philosophers; but Jefferson's vision of that ancestral past was no dream, for it had originated in the only part of the inhabited earth where it could become a reality. This was the true background of the Declaration of Independence, the background of Jeffersonian democracy—a curious justification of the pioneer spirit by a student of history who cared little for abstract reasoning and philosophical constructions.

Thus far the national consciousness of Thomas Jefferson had been somewhat hazy. Born in Virginia and intensely devoted to the Old Dominion, he had never left his native habitat until he was sent as a delegate to Congress. There only did he realize the divergences of the different colonies and the imperious necessity for them to organize their life and to agree to some sort of a permanent compact. No dealings with foreign nations could be transacted, no efficient measures of protection against the common foe could be devised, unless the several States were held together by some sort of a common bond and had achieved some sort of a unity. While the Articles of Confederation were being discussed, he puzzled over the essence and meaning of these "natural rights" so often mentioned in the different committees on which he sat, and he preserved the result of his meditations in an unpublished document I had the good fortune to discover in the Library of Congress. First of all, he was led to establish a distinction between the fundamental natural rights, which the individual can exercise by himself, and another class of rights which cannot be safely enjoyed unless society provides adequate protection. In forming a society and in accepting a social compact, the first rights were to be reserved and to remain inalienable; rights of the second class, on the contrary, were partly given up in exchange for more security. This very simple distinction enabled the young delegate to do away with the old antinomy so perplexing to many political philosophers and to solve the difficulty against which Rousseau had vainly struggled in his Contrat social. The individual remained in full possession of certain rights; society was granted only part of the others, a part to be determined strictly in forming a social compact: the citizen no longer had to sacrifice all his rights on the altar of the country; he remained sovereign in a sovereign society.

What was true of individuals was true of the States coalescing to form a union or confederation. Each individual State remained sovereign and yielded only part of certain rights in order to obtain more security against foreign aggressors. To the right of expatriation for the individual corresponded the right of secession for the State. But from this recognition of the right to denounce the compact, it did not follow that Jefferson would have encouraged either the individual or the States to withdraw from the society thus formed in order to resume a precarious life by themselves. Even if he had been an anarchistic instead of being a truly "socialistic" political thinker, a few meetings of the committees on which he sat would have sufficed to demonstrate that, to the necessity of society for the individuals, corresponded the necessity of a union for the individual States. The Virginian had developed into a true American. Jefferson was thinking nationally and not sectionally; he was ready for the great rôle he was about to assume.

His five-year stay in Europe confirmed him in the opinion that there existed in America the germ of something infinitely precious, if somewhat precarious, and he realized that his country had really become the hope of the world. He was too fond of good music, good architecture, good dinners, good wines and long conversations not to appreciate fully the good points of life while in Paris. He praised the French for their achievements in the arts and sciences, and formed with many of them long-enduring friendships; but neither France, nor England, and even less Italy or Spain, were countries toward which men could turn their eyes when looking for a political "polar star." Traditions were too deeply rooted, prejudices of too long standing, class distinctions too sharply defined to leave room for any hope of ever seeing them establish within a reasonable time a tolerable form of government. On the contrary, unhampered by such hoary traditionalism and free to shape her destinies, America, provided she carefully avoided the dangers under which Europe was laboring, could not only establish the best possible form of government, but set an example to be followed by the rest of mankind.

These dangers were patent; they resulted from the existence of privileged classes or hereditary aristocracies, of State religions, censorship of the press and books, centralization and concentration in a few hands of all the financial and economic resources of the country. Anything that smacked of the European system was to be fought with the utmost energy, not only for the sake of America, but for the sake of the world. Such were the real reasons that justify the fight waged by Jefferson after his return from Europe against the tendencies represented by Hamilton. Not out of any sympathy for the Jacobins did he seem to favor the French Revolution; but, since America herself had become the battlefield of two opposed ideals, he sided with the one which, in his opinion, presented the smaller danger for the existence of his country.

Throughout the long-drawn-out battle, he remained convinced that only by avoiding any entanglement with European politics could America fulfill her destiny. The great obstacle to such an isolation was foreign commerce, for Jefferson clearly understood that economic and commercial bonds or dependence would necessarily entail political bonds and political dependence. America was to live in her own world, to pay her debts as soon as possible, to become industrially independent of Europe, to manufacture at home enough for her own consumption "and no more." She was also to seize every opportunity to eliminate dangerous neighbors, not that she really coveted any territory or colony held by foreign powers, not that she needed new land for a surplus of population; but she could not keep out of European politics if Europe remained at her doors and used her colonies as a "fulcrum for her intrigues." Spain was so weak that nothing had to be feared directly from her, but her colonies could be seized at any time by more powerful enemies; France should not be permitted again to set her foot on the American continent. As to England, she was to be expelled from her continental dominions whenever America would be strong enough to enforce the "American jus gentium", and the sea was to be neutralized.

Having removed all causes for foreign frictions and aggressions, America would be free to develop along her own lines. She was to remain for long years to come an agricultural nation; she would grow towards the west by attaching to herself new territories as their population increased. The Federal Government was to retain a minimum of power and attributions. It was to be carefully and constantly watched for fear of concentrating too much power in a few hands and in one place. Federal legislation was to be kept down, for the more laws, the worse the republic—"plurimae leges, pessima republica." There was nothing intangible, however, in the government which had been hastily put together at the close of the Revolution. It was desirable and necessary to preserve the main principles embodied in the Constitution in so far as they expressed the permanent and inalienable rights of the people and the States, but each generation had a right to determine anew the details of the legislation and how they chose to be governed. The different articles adopted in 1787 were not to be considered as sacred as the Tables of the Law, they were the work of fallible and changing human beings, and the essence of the American government did not rest on a written document but on the dispositions of the individual citizens and on enlightened public opinion.

This being the case, it became necessary to prepare each citizen for the part he was called upon to play in the life of the country. The great mass of the American people had a "cool common sense" and a certain degree of instruction which fitted all of them to do certain things, but not everything. A farmer could not overnight and by virtue of the popular choice become qualified to judge of fine legal points, to settle complicated economic problems, or to conduct difficult diplomatic negotiations with foreign courts. All this required more than ordinary common sense and ordinary education: the country needed leaders and experts to be carefully trained in special institutions—in a national university or, if this proved impossible, in State universities. As to the great mass of the common people, they could be trusted to judge of facts and to sit on a jury; they were also good judges of men and properly could choose between candidates for the different offices. A free press would keep them informed of the conduct of the men thus selected; primary and secondary schools would help in the diffusion of knowledge, and enlightened self-interest would prevent them at any time from making grievous mistakes.

Such a system constituted the best form of government ever established by man; but it did not ensue that it was immediately to be adopted by all the nations of the earth. It embodied certain permanent principles susceptible of general application, for they did nothing but express the unalienable rights of man. All men, however, were not to be intrusted at once with the full enjoyment of their rights. There were certain countries which for generations had been priest-ridden and king-ridden and in which men unaccustomed to use their judgment were swayed by emotions, hatreds and prejudices. A time might come when the sacred contagion of liberty would spread to these unfortunate populations, but it would take many revolutions, much bloodshed and a slow and painful process of education to enable them to shake off their shackles and to enjoy the full benefits of self-government. America, on the contrary, because of her geographical remoteness from Europe, because of the quality of the people who had settled in the English colonies, had fought, not to destroy an old order of things, but to preserve and to extend already existing liberties. Among the nations of the world she stood as an example and a hope. She was the living evidence that under a free government a large nation could grow prosperous and powerful, simply by existing, and without preaching any new gospel she fulfilled her duty to mankind.

Whatever may be the shortcomings of this political philosophy, it was distinctly an American doctrine; one cannot imagine it to have originated in any European country, for what would have been a Utopian and chimerical dream in the Old World was within the reach of man in America. Whether it corresponds to present conditions is still another question; it is nevertheless true that by emphasizing the uniqueness of America and the political superiority of his native land for more than fifty years, Thomas Jefferson did more than any other man of his generation to formulate the creed of Americanism. The man who was accused of being denationalized stands as the most integrally and truly American among his contemporaries.

This does not mean, however, that Jefferson did not occasionally depart from the policies he had thus drawn. No man can remain in public life for half a century without ever falling into contradictions and inconsistencies. Only "closet politicians" and mere theorists never accept any compromise, and Jefferson was a very practical politician with a keen sense of possibilities and realities. Trained as a small-town lawyer, then placed on many committees in Congress, forced to wrest war measures out of a reluctant Assembly, even managing to hold his own with the resourceful diplomats of Europe, Thomas Jefferson knew how to handle men and how "to take things by their smooth handle." There was nothing quixotic about him and he never tried to fight against windmills, nor did he break his head against blank walls. But he was singularly apt to bide his time, to wait for a favorable opportunity and, whenever he saw a chance, he never failed to come back to his original line of conduct and to his original policies.

He seldom indulged in undue display of emotions and personal feelings, but he was no mere thinking machine. In his youth he loved and suffered; later he was perplexed by the riddle of the world; he studied the old philosophers in order to find the moral props which religion could no longer give him and, in his older age, came back to the morals of Jesus. His encyclopedic curiosity and the versatility of his mind won for him the admiration of his contemporaries, and, in that sense—the eighteenth-century sense—he was truly "a philosopher." But he was too practical-minded to waste much time in mere theorizing or in theological and metaphysical "disquisitions." Firmly convinced that the business of life was with matter, he considered science as an instrument and a tool to master the blind forces of nature. He was more interested in applications than in disinterested research, and in that respect, as in many others, he was not only an American, but, above all, an eighteenth-century man. Intensely nationalistic as he was when it came to politics, he was truly cosmopolitan in the realm of intellectual achievements, and thus was created the legend of a denationalized Jefferson; for the popular mind, fond of generalizations, is unable to recognize such distinctions. Among his friends he counted all the leading scientists of the time and through them—particularly through his French friends of the Museum—he exerted an influence of which he himself was perhaps not fully aware. To his European correspondents he appeared the embodiment of what was best in the American character. His influence on the development of liberalism and democratic ideas throughout the world can hardly be estimated, and separate investigations will have to be carried out before his exact contribution to the growth of democracy can be rightly estimated. Through his letters he encouraged his friends to keep their faith, but better still he demonstrated that self-government and democracy, as he understood it, were practical and workable schemes and not the idle dreams of philosophers shut in their closets.

I hardly dare mention here the names of the many friends and colleagues who gave me most generously their assistance and encouragement. To Doctor J. C. Fitzpatrick, untiring, most patient and helpful in his suggestions, I owe a particular debt. Mr. W. C. Ford afforded me all possible facilities for consulting the letters of Jefferson in the Jefferson Coolidge Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. I discussed more than once with Professors Willoughby, Latané and Lovejoy and with President Goodnow of the Johns Hopkins University the perplexing problems that confronted me, and submitted several hypotheses to the History of Ideas Club of the University. Doctor L. P. Shanks gave me his time and friendly assistance in the revision of the manuscript. But none of my counselors and friends are to be held responsible for the ideas here expressed, some of which they would probably refuse to indorse.

In the course of this investigation I consulted too many books to list them all. Randall is still very useful and has not been completely superseded by more modern biographies. I found the books of Beveridge fascinating though having somewhat of a tendency, and could not completely agree with Mr. Beard on the economic origins of the Jeffersonian democracy. I naturally made use of Mr. Becker's study of the Declaration of Independence. I read the biography of Mr. Hirst with great interest, though our points of view were very different, and I almost decided to abandon my undertaking when the more recent work of Mr. Nock appeared. Incomplete and unsatisfactory as they are in some respects, the Ford Edition and the Memorial Edition are very useful tools, the best available at the present time. Much to my regret, I had to omit many documents still unpublished which are preserved in the Jefferson papers.

The collections of the Library of Congress and the Massachusetts Historical Society constitute the richest treasure house of historical information ever left by a single man. It would take several lives and a fortune to edit them properly; but since Monticello has now become again a national shrine and will be safely preserved, it may not be out of place to express the wish that the day will soon come when a national association will undertake to publish an integral edition of the Jefferson papers—a most fitting monument to the greatest political philosopher of America and one of her greatest sons.

Gilbert Chinard