Gilbert Chinard

Protected against foreign entanglements and having survived the convulsions that had shattered the old structures of Europe, America was at last free to pursue her development along her own lines. The philosopher of Monticello could sit back, take a more disinterested view of the situation and make a forecast of the future of his country. He could also advise, not only his immediate successors, but the generations to come and take up again the part of "counsellor" which had always suited him better than the part of the executive. He believed too much in the right of successive generations to determine their own form of government, to attempt to dictate in any way the course to follow. But he was none the less convinced that certain principles embodied in the Constitution had a permanent and universal value, and during the years at Monticello he formulated the gospel of American democracy.

As it finally emerged from the several crises that threatened its existence, the American Government was, if not the best possible government, at least the best government then on the surface of the earth. It was at the same time the hope and the model of all the nations of the world.

We exist and are quoted—wrote Jefferson to Richard Rush—as standing proofs that a government, so modelled as to rest continuously on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government. Were we to break to pieces, it would damp the hopes and efforts of the good, and give triumph to those of the bad through the whole enslaved world. As members, therefore, of the universal society of mankind, and standing high in responsible relation with them, it is our sacred duty to suppress passion among ourselves and not to blast the confidence we have inspired of proof that a government of reason is better than a government of force.[522]

Some dangers, however, were threatening to disturb the equilibrium of the country. The most pressing was perhaps the extraordinary and unwholesome development of State and local banks, which suspended payment in great majority in September, 1814. The deluge of paper money and the depreciation of the currency became, for Jefferson, a real obsession and strengthened him in his abhorrence of commercialism. He did not cease to preach the necessity of curbing the fever of speculation that had accumulated ruins upon ruins and the return to more sound regulations of the banks. "Till then," he wrote to John Adams, "we must be content to return, quoad hoc, to the savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange of our property, for want of a stable, common measure of value, that now in use being less fixed than the beads and wampum of the Indians."[523]

His banking theories, however, had scarcely any influence upon his contemporaries, and even Gallatin was little impressed by them. But the evident danger of inflation turned his mind back to the days when he had fought the Hamiltonian system and gave him once more an opportunity to pass judgment upon his opponent of the old days:

This most heteregeneous system was transplanted into ours from the British system, by a man whose mind was really powerful, but chained by native partialities to everything English; who had formed exaggerated ideas of the superior wisdom of their government, and sincerely believed it for the good of the country to make them their model in everything, without considering that what might be wise and good for a nation essentially commercial and entangled in complicated intercourse with numerous and powerful neighbors, might not be so for one essentially agricultural, and insulated by nature, from the abusive governments of the old world.[524]

From this and many other passages it might be surmised that Jefferson still held to the old antimercantile theories that had crystallized in his mind when he was in Europe. If this were true, the contradiction between his conduct as President and his personal convictions would be so obvious that his sincerity might be questioned. As a matter of fact, on this point as on many others, he had undergone a slow evolution. He was certainly sincere when, shortly after leaving office, he wrote to Governor John Jay in order to make his position clearer:

An equilibrium of agriculture, manufacture, and commerce, is certainly become essential to our independence. Manufactures, sufficient for our own consumption (and no more). Commerce sufficient to carry the surplus produce of agriculture, beyond our own consumption, to a market for exchanging it for articles we cannot raise (and no more). These are the true limits of manufacture and commerce. To go beyond is to increase our dependence on foreign nations, and our liability to war.[525]

This can be taken as the final view of Jefferson on a subject on which he is often misquoted and misunderstood. That he was fully aware of the change that had taken place in his own mind can be seen in a declaration to Benjamin Austin, written in January, 1816. Between 1787 and that date, and even earlier, Jefferson had seen the light and realized that to discourage home manufactures was "to keep us in eternal vassalage to a foreign and unfriendly people." He had no patience with politicians who brought forth his old and now obsolete utterances to promote their unpatriotic designs:

You tell me I am quoted by those who wish to continue our dependance on England for manufactures. There was a time when I might have been so quoted with more candor, but within the thirty years which have elapsed, how circumstances changed.... Experience since has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort; and if those who quote me as of different opinion will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to the difference of price, it will not be our fault if we do not soon have a supply at home equivalent to our demand.[526]

Desirable as it was to promote the industrial development of the United States, it was no less desirable not to encourage it beyond a certain point. Jefferson saw quite clearly that, under existing conditions, a great industrial growth of the country would have as an unavoidable result the perpetuation of slavery in the South and the even more undesirable creation of a proletariat in the North. He had always held that slavery was a national sore and a shameful condition to be remedied as soon as conditions would permit. He was looking forward to the time when this could be done without bringing about an economic upheaval; but all hope would have to be abandoned if slavery were industrialized and if slave labor became more productive. As to the other danger of industrialism, it was no vague apprehension; one had only to consider England to see "the pauperism of the lowest class, the abject oppression of the laboring, and the luxury, the riot, the domination and the vicious happiness of the aristocracy." This being the "happiness of scientific England", he wrote to Thomas Cooper, "now let us see the American side of the medal":

And, first, we have no paupers, the old and crippled among us, who possess nothing and have no families to take care of them, being too few to merit notice as a separate section of society, or to affect a general estimate. The great mass of our population is of laborers; our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional, being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families. They are not driven to the ultimate resources of dexterity and skill, because their wares will sell although not quite so nice as those of England. The wealthy, on the other hand, and those at their ease, know nothing of what the Europeans call luxury. They have only somewhat more of the comforts and decencies of life than those who furnish them. Can any condition of society be more desirable than this?[527]

Once more Jefferson appears as a true disciple and continuator of the Physiocrats and one might be tempted at first to agree entirely with Mr. Beard on this point. But this is only an appearance. To understand Jefferson's true meaning, it is necessary to turn to his unpublished correspondence with Du Pont de Nemours, and particularly to those letters written after Jefferson's retirement from public life.

The rapid industrialization of the United States had greatly alarmed the old Physiocrat. In his opinion there was a real danger lest the national character of the people be completely altered and the foundation of government deeply shaken. Considering the situation from the "economist's" point of view, Du Pont came to the conclusion that the development of home industries in America would necessarily bring about a permanent reduction in the Federal income, largely derived from import duties. The government could not be run without levying new taxes and the question was to determine what methods should be followed in the establishment of these new taxes. If the United States decided to resort to indirect taxation, that is to say, excise, the unavoidable result would be the creation of an army of new functionaries, as in France under the old rÉgime, and the use of vexatory procedure for the enforcement of the new system. Furthermore, according to the theories of the Physiocrats, indirect taxation was an economic heresy, since it was a tax on labor, which is not a source but only a transformation of wealth. The same criticism applied a fortiori to the English income tax which constituted the worst possible form of taxation.

In the controversy which arose between Jefferson and his old friend, the Sage of Monticello again took a middle course. First of all, he refused to concede that the development of industries could ever change the fundamental characteristics of the United States. They were essentially an agricultural nation, and an agricultural nation they would remain, in spite of all predictions to the contrary. Furthermore, the question was not to determine theoretically what was the best possible form of taxation, but to find out what form the inhabitants of the country would most easily bear. That in itself was a big enough problem and could not be solved in the abstract, since, according to Jefferson: "In most of the middle and Southern States some land tax is now paid into the State treasury, and for this purpose the lands have been classed and valued and the tax assessed according to valuation. In these an excise is most odious. In the Eastern States, land taxes are odious, excises less unpopular."[528]

Finally, Jefferson pointed out that his friend had neglected several important factors, one of them being "the continuous growth in population of the United States, which for a long time would maintain the quantum of exports and imports at the present level at least." Consequently, for several generations, the Government would be able to support itself with a tax on importations, "the best agrarian law in fact, since the poor man in the country who uses nothing but what is made within his own farm or family, or within the United States, pays not a farthing of tax to the general government." With the characteristic optimism of the citizen of a young, strong and energetic country, Jefferson then added:

Our revenue once liberated by the discharge of public debt and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., and the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone without being called on to spare a cent from his earnings. The path we are now pursuing leads directly to this end, which we cannot fail to attain unless our administration should fall into unwise hands.[529]

This point alone should suffice to differentiate Jefferson's system from physiocracy, since the Physiocrats had adopted as their motto the famous laissez faire laissez passer and were certainly in favor of free trade. How far from Du Pont Jefferson remained in other particulars may be gathered from his "Introduction" and notes to the "Political Economy" of Destutt de Tracy, the translation and publication of which he supervised and directed. In it he paid homage to the founders of the science of political economy, and particularly to Gournay, Le Trosne and Du Pont de Nemours, "the enlightened, philanthropic and venerable citizen, now of the United States." But he pointed out that the several principles they had discussed and established had not been able to prevail, "not on account of their correctness, but because not acceptable to the people whose will must be the supreme law. Taxation is, in fact, the most difficult function of the government, and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory. The general aim is, therefore, to adopt the mode most consonant with the circumstances and sentiments of the country."

This is Jefferson's final judgment on the Economists. Another confirmation of his lack of interest in principles and theories not susceptible of immediate application may be seen in it. In matters of government, the important question, after deciding what should be done, was to determine how much could be done under the circumstances, and if a particular piece of legislation was turned down by the public will or only reluctantly accepted, to bide one's time and wait for a more favorable occasion. Even when doubting the wisdom of a popular verdict, it was the duty of the public servant to do the public will. Thus in this correspondence are revealed the two sides of Jefferson's character, or to speak more exactly, the two parallel tracks in which his mind ran at different times.

At the bottom of his heart, he believed that many of the economic doctrines of Du Pont were fundamentally sound; but he also knew that the citizens of the United States were not ready to accept the truth of these principles, and he did not feel that, as an executive, he had the right to attempt to shape the destinies of his country according to his own preferences. Thus he laid himself open to the reproach of insincerity, or at least of inconsistency, for on many occasions one may find a flagrant contradiction between his public utterances and the private letters he wrote to his friends. For this reason, Du Pont de Nemours was never fully able to understand his American friend. This difference between the French theorician and the American statesman will appear even more clearly in the letters in which they exchanged views on democracy and discussed the conditions requisite for the establishment of a representative government.

Jefferson's opinion of the French people with regard to the form of government they should adopt had never varied since the earliest days of the Revolution. Every time he was consulted by his friends on the matter, he invariably answered that they could do no better than to follow as closely as possible the system of their neighbors and hereditary enemies, the British. This answer, which recurred periodically in his correspondence, was made particularly emphatic in 1801, when he again warned Lafayette that France was not ready to enjoy a truly republican government. He went on by categorically stating that what was good for America might be very harmful to another country and that even in America it was neither desirable nor possible to enforce at once all the provisions of the Constitution. Thus, in a few lines, he defined his policies more clearly than any historian has ever done; he analyzed that curious combination of unwavering principles and practical expediency so puzzling to those once called by Jefferson himself "the closet politicians."

What is practicable—he said—must often control what is purely theory and the habits of the governed determine in a great degree what is practicable. The same original principles, modified in practice to the different habits of the different nations, present governments of very different aspects. The same principles reduced to form of practice, accommodated to our habits, and put into forms accommodated to the habits of the French nation would present governments very unlike each other.[530]

Thirteen years later his opinion had not varied one iota. Reviewing the situation in France after the return of the Bourbons, he wrote to Du Pont de Nemours:

I have to congratulate you, which I do sincerely, on having got back from Robespierre and Bonaparte, to your ante-revolutionary condition. You are now nearly where you were at the Jeu de Paume, on the 20th of June 1789. The King would then have yielded by convention freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, habeas corpus and a representative legislation. These I consider as the essentials constituting free government, and that the organization of the executive is interesting, as it may ensure wisdom and integrity in the first place, but next as it may favor or endanger the preservation of these fundamentals.[531]

The same note reappears constantly in the letters written by Jefferson to his French friends, but a rapid survey of his correspondence with Du Pont de Nemours may serve to make his position even more definite.

When, in December, 1815, Du Pont was invited by "the republics of New Grenada, Carthagenes and Caracas" to give his views on the constitution they intended to adopt, he drew up a plan of government for the "Equinoctial republics" and sent it for approval to the Sage of Monticello. Faithful to the principles of the Physiocrats, he had divided the population into two classes: the real citizens or landowners and the "inhabitants", those who work for a salary, possess nothing but personal property, can go any day from one place to another, and make with their employers contracts which they can break at any time. These were entitled to protection, peaceful enjoyment of their personal property, free speech, freedom of religion, habeas corpus, and such natural rights, but Du Pont refused them any participation in the government; for only those who "owned the country" should have the right to decide how it was to be administered. To give the ballot to a floating population of industrial workers, unattached to the soil, who had nothing to sell except their labor, was "to brew a revolution, to pave the way for the Pisistrates, the Marius, the Caesars, who represent themselves as more democratic than they really are and than is just and reasonable, in order to become tyrants, to violate all rights, to substitute for law their arbitrary will, to offend morality and to debase humanity."[532]

This was a doctrine which Jefferson could not accept, for it was in direct contradiction to the tenets he had formulated early in his life and held to during all his career. Because he had read Locke, and more probably because he was trained as a lawyer, he opposed the contractual theory of society to this economic organization. He maintained that society was a compact, that all those who had become signatories to the compact were entitled to the same rights, and consequently should have the same privilege to share equally in the government, except, and this proviso was important, when they freely agreed to delegate part of their powers to elected magistrates and representatives.

This was the theory, the inalienable principle to be proclaimed in a bill of rights, the necessary preamble to any constitution. In practice, however, various limitations to universal suffrage were to be recognized. One could not even think of granting the ballot to minors, to emancipated slaves or to women. It did not follow either that, all citizens being endowed with the same rights, they were equally ready to exercise the same functions in the government. Men are created equal in rights but differ in intelligence, learning, clear-sightedness and general ability. In other words, there are some natural aristoi, and John Adams brought Jefferson to this admission without any difficulty. If this fact be accepted, the next step is to recognize that "that form of government is the best, which provided the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into offices of the government." It was the good fortune of America that all her constitutions were so worded as "to leave the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff. In general, they will elect the really good and wise. In some instances, wealth may corrupt, and birth blind; but not in a sufficient degree to endanger society."[533]

According to this theory, the real function of the people is not to participate directly in all governmental activities, but to select from among themselves the most qualified citizens and the best prepared to administer the country. In a letter to Doctor Walter Jones, who had sent him a paper on democracy, Jefferson made his position even more definite by establishing a very important distinction which gives more than any other statement his true idea of a progressive democracy—an ideal to be striven for, not a condition already reached:

I would say that the people, being the only safe depository of power, should exercise in person every function which their qualifications enable them to exercise, consistently with the order and security of society; that we now find them equal to the election of those who shall be invested with their executive powers, and to act themselves in the judiciary, as judges in questions of fact; that the range of their powers ought to be enlarged....[534]

In these circumstances, Jefferson's reluctance to encourage both his French and Spanish friends to establish at once a government modeled on the American government in their respective countries, is perfectly intelligible. Of all the nations of the earth, England alone could "borrow wholesale the American system."

They will probably turn their eyes to us, and be disposed to tread in the footsteps, seeing how safely these have led us into port. There is no part of or model to which they seem unequal, unless perhaps the elective presidency, and even that might possibly be rescued from the tumult of the elections, by subdividing the electoral assemblage into very small parts, such as of wards or townships, and making them simultaneous.[535]

As for the other nations, they were no more qualified to exercise the duties of a truly representative government than were the inhabitants of New Orleans at the time of the purchase. The French, in particular, had proved in several instances that they could not be intrusted with the administration of their own affairs.

From these declarations, to which many other similar passages could be added, a capital difference between the idealism of Jefferson and the idealism of the French philosophers becomes quite obvious. The author of the Declaration of Independence had proclaimed that all men are born free and equal, but he never thought that women, Indians and newly enfranchized slaves should be admitted to the same rights and privileges as the other citizens. In like fashion, although representative government remains the best possible form of government, he found it desirable that some people, who are still children, should not be granted at once the full enjoyment of their natural rights. Thus self-government, which had become a well established fact and a reality in America, should remain for other peoples a reward to be obtained after a long and painful process of education. It could be hoped that some day, after many disastrous experiments and much suffering, the peoples of Europe and South America might deserve the blessings enjoyed by the American people. But nothing was further from the character of Jefferson than to preach the gospel of Americanism to all the nations of the world. Instead of considering as desirable a close imitation of the American Constitution by the newly liberated nations, he maintained that each people should mold their institutions according to their own habits and traditions. Far from being a Jacobin, a wild radical, or a "closet philosopher", this practical politician had come to the conclusion that each people have the government they deserve, and that durable improvements can come only as a result of the improvement of the moral qualities of every citizen—from within and not from without. Such a moderate conclusion may surprise those who are accustomed to damn or praise Jefferson on a few sentences or axioms detached from their context; but, after careful scrutiny of the evidence, it seems difficult to accept any other interpretation.

Comparatively perfect as it was, the government of the United States presented certain germs of weakness, corruption and degeneracy. The Sage of Monticello did not fail to call his friends' attention to some of the dangers looming up on the horizon. As he had warned them against inflation, he opposed the formation of societies which might become so strong as "to obstruct the operation of the government and undertake to regulate the foreign, fiscal, and military as well as domestic affairs." This might be taken already as a warning against lobbying. He was fully aware that a time might come when the speeches of the Senators and Representatives "would cease to be read at all" and when the Legislature would not enjoy the full confidence of the people. He deplored the law vacating nearly all the offices of government nearly every four years, for "it will keep in constant excitement all the hungry cormorants for office, render them as well as those in place sycophants to their Senators, engage in eternal intrigue to turn out and put in another, in cabale to swap work, and make of them what all executive directories become, mere sinks of corruption and faction."[537]

Serious and pressing as these dangers were, they could be left to future generations to avoid, but at the very moment he wrote another fear obsessed his mind:

No New Englander had done more to promote the cause of abolition than Jefferson; on two occasions he had proposed legislative measures to put an end to the scourge of slavery and he had never ceased to look for a solution that would permit the emancipation of the slaves without endangering the racial integrity of the United States. But this was no longer a question of humanity. What mattered most was not whether slavery would be recognized in Missouri or not. Slavery had become a political question; it had created a geographical division between the States, and the very existence of the Union was at stake. As on so many other occasions, the old statesman had a truly prophetic vision of the future when he wrote to John Adams early in 1820:

The whole question was fraught with such difficulties that Jefferson refused to discuss the abolition of slavery with Lafayette when the Marquis paid him a last visit at Monticello. With his American friends he was less reserved. When, as early as 1811, James Ogilvie asked him to suggest an important and interesting subject for a series of lectures he intended to deliver in the Southern States, Jefferson could think of nothing more momentous than a discourse "on the benefit of the union, and miseries which would follow a separation of the States, to be exemplified in the eternal and wasting wars of Europe, in the pillage and profligacy to which these lead, and the abject oppression and degradation to which they reduce its inhabitants."[540]

Jefferson has so long been represented as the champion of State rights, he stood so vigorously against all possible encroachments of the States' sovereignty by the Federal Government, that we have a natural tendency to forget this aspect of his policies and to see in him only the man who inspired the Kentucky resolutions. It must be remembered, however, that he never ceased to preach the necessity of the union to his fellow countrymen, that when President he lived in a constant fear of secession by the New England States, that he stopped all his efforts in favor of abolition lest he should inject into the life of the country a political issue which might disrupt national unity. While he claimed that theoretically the States had a right to secede, he could no more consider actual secession than he would have approved of any man breaking the social compact in order to live the precarious life of the savage.

From these dangers nothing could preserve the United States except what Du Pont de Nemours called once "the cool common sense" of their citizens. It was the only foundation on which to rest all hopes for the future, for American democracy is not a thing which exists on paper, it is not a thing which can be created overnight by law, decree or constitution, it is not to be looked for in any document. "Where is our republicanism to be found," wrote Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval. "Not in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our people. Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our constitution all things have gone well."[541]

One of the most reassuring manifestations of this spirit was seen in the willingness of the people to choose the best qualified persons as their representatives, executives and magistrates. But if the Republic was to endure, it was necessary to enlighten and cultivate the disposition of the people, and it was no less important to provide a group of men qualified through their natural ability and training, to discuss and conduct the affairs of the community. Thus Jefferson was induced to take up again in his old days one of his pet schemes, the famous bill for the diffusion of knowledge.

As a matter of fact, he had never abandoned it completely, and its very purpose had been explained already in the "Notes on Virginia":

During his stay in Europe, Jefferson had become acquainted with great universities, particularly those of Edinburgh and Geneva, and after coming back to America he shifted somewhat the emphasis. It was not so immediately necessary to improve the minds of all the citizens as to form an Élite, a body of specialists who might become the true leaders of the nation. This seems to have been the object of his plan, to bring over to America the whole faculty of the University of Geneva to establish a national university at Richmond or in the vicinity of Federal City. This scheme was only defeated because of the opposition of Washington who, with great common sense, realized how incongruous it would be to call National University an institution where the teaching would be conducted entirely in a foreign language and by foreigners.

Even after this plan had failed, Jefferson did not give up his ambition to establish somewhere in America and preferably in Virginia, an institution of higher learning. On January 18, 1800, he wrote to Joseph Priestley to ask him to draw up the program of a university "on a plan so broad, so liberal, and modern, as to be worth patronizing with the public support. The first thing is to obtain a good plan."

Priestley sent him, in answer, some "Hints Concerning Public Education" which have never been published and probably did not arouse any enthusiasm in Jefferson. The English philosopher had simply taken the main features of the English system, placing the emphasis on the ancient languages and excluding the modern: "For the knowledge of them as well as skill in fencing, dancing and riding is proper for gentlemen liberally educated, and instruction in them may be procured on reasonable terms without burdening the funds of the seminary with them." He ended with a very sensible piece of advice:

At the same time Jefferson had sent a similar request to Du Pont de Nemours. Curiously enough, the Frenchman manifested little enthusiasm for the proposal of his friend. To establish a university was all very well, but first of all one had to provide solid foundations and to place educational facilities within the reach of the great mass of citizens—the university being only the apex of the pyramid. On this occasion Du Pont reminded Jefferson that he had expressed himself to such an intent some fifteen years earlier in his "Notes on Virginia", which developed the excellent view that colleges and universities are not the most important part of the educational system of the State:

By July, 1800, Du Pont de Nemours, who had already proposed a similar scheme to the French Government, had completed his manuscript and sent it to Jefferson at the end of August. This was more speed than Jefferson had expected, and Du Pont's plan was far too elaborate and too comprehensive to be of immediate value. "There is no occasion to incommode yourself by pressing it," wrote Jefferson, "as when received it will be some time before we shall probably find a good occasion of bringing forward the subject."[544]

During his presidency, Jefferson had had to lay aside all his plans and postpone any action for the organization of public education in his native State until after his retirement. In the meantime, he read and studied the project of Du Pont de Nemours and corresponded with Pictet of Geneva; he had in his hands several memoirs of Julien on the French schools, and he looked everywhere for precedents and suggestions. His views were finally formulated in a "Plan for Elementary Schools" sent to Joseph C. Cabell from Polar Forest, on September 9, 1817. The act to be submitted to the Assembly of Virginia was far more comprehensive than the title indicates. It provided for the establishment in each county of a certain number of elementary schools, supported by the county and placed under the supervision of visitors; the counties of the commonwealth were to be distributed into nine collegiate districts, and as many colleges, or rather secondary schools, instituted at the expense of the literary fund, "to be supported from it, and to be placed under the supervision of the Board of Public Instruction."

"In the said colleges," proposed Jefferson, "shall be taught the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian and German languages, English grammar, geography, ancient and modern, the higher branches in numeral arithmetic, the mensuration of land, the use of the globes, and the ordinary elements of navigation."

A third part of the act provided for

Finally, in order "to avail the commonwealth of those talents and virtues which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as among the rich, and which are lost to their country by the want of means of their cultivation", the visitors would select every year a certain number of promising scholars from the ward schools to be sent to the colleges and from the colleges to be sent to the University at the public expense.

This was essentially the Bill for the Diffusion of Knowledge proposed to the Assembly in 1779. Jefferson had incorporated in it such modifications as he may have borrowed from Du Pont de Nemours, but essentially the plan was his own. That Jefferson himself was perfectly aware of it appears in a short mention of the fact that "the general idea was suggested in the 'Notes on Virginia.' Quer. 14."[545]

It was soon realized that neither the Assembly nor the public were ready for such a comprehensive scheme. Part of the plan had to be sacrificed, if a beginning was to be made at all. Jefferson did not hesitate long; the elementary schools could be organized at any time without much preparation or expense; secondary education was taken care of after a fashion in private schools supported from fees; but nothing existed in the way of an institution of higher learning. Young Virginians had to be sent to the northern seminaries, there "imbibing opinions and principles in discord with those of our own country." The university was the thing, and, in order to provide sufficient funds to start it, Jefferson proposed that subsidies from the literary fund to the primary schools be suspended for one or two years. In his opinion this measure did not imply any disregard of primary education, and Jefferson vehemently protested to Breckenridge that he had "never proposed a sacrifice of the primary to the ultimate grade of instruction"; but, "if we cannot do everything at once, let us do one at a time."[546]

The fight in which Jefferson engaged to obtain recognition for his project, to have Central College or, as it was finally to be called, the University of Virginia, located near Monticello, where he could watch its progress and supervise the construction of its buildings, has been told many times and does not need to be recounted here.[547]

On the board of visitors with Jefferson were placed James Madison, James Monroe, Joseph C. Cabell, James Breckenridge, David Watson and J. H. Cocke. Jefferson was appointed Rector of the University at a meeting held on March 29, 1819, at a time when the university had no buildings, no faculty, no students and very small means. Everything had to be done and provided for. It would have been possible to put up some sort of temporary shelter, a few ramshackle frame houses, but Jefferson wanted the university to endure and he remembered that he was an architect as well as a statesman. It was not until the spring of 1824 that he could announce that the buildings were ready for occupancy—the formal opening was to be held at the beginning of the following year—but the master builder could be proud of his work. The university was his in every sense of the word: not only had he succeeded in arousing the interest of the public and the Assembly in his undertaking, but he had drawn the plans himself with the painstaking care and the precision he owed to his training as a surveyor. He had selected the material, engaged the stone carvers, the brick layers and the carpenters, and supervised every bit of their work. After his death he would need no other monument.

Then, as everything seemed to be ready, a new difficulty arose. Ever since 1819, the visitors had been looking for a faculty. Ticknor, with whom Jefferson had gotten acquainted through Mrs. Adams, had refused to leave Cambridge although disgusted with the petty bickerings of his colleagues. Thomas Cooper had proved inacceptable, and the very mention of his name had aroused such a storm among the clergy that the appointment had to be withdrawn. After a long and fruitless search for the necessary talents at home, Jefferson and his fellow members on the board of the university decided to procure the professors from abroad. This time, however, they were not to repeat the mistake of the proposed transplantation of the University of Geneva. Several prominent Frenchmen suggested by Lafayette were turned down as too ignorant of the ways of American youth and the language of the country. There remained only one place from which satisfactory instructors could be obtained; this was England. Their nationality did not raise any serious objection, for, to the resentment of the War of 1812 had succeeded the "era of good feeling", and Francis Walker Gilmer was commissioned to go to England in order to consult with Dugald Stewart and to recruit a faculty from Great Britain, "the land of our own language, habits and manners."[548]

Eighteen months later, the Rector declared the experiment highly successful, and the example likely to be followed by other institutions of learning.

Thus after fifty years, Jefferson was able to make real his educational dream of the Revolutionary period, to endow his native State with an institution of higher learning in which the future leaders of the nation would be instructed. They would no longer have to be sent abroad to obtain the required knowledge in some subjects; nor would they have to study in "the Northern seminaries", there to be infected with pernicious doctrines; above all, they would be preserved from any sectarian influence during their formative years; for no particular creed was to be taught at the university, although the majority of the faculty belonged to the Episcopal Church.

The University of Virginia was the last great task to which Jefferson put his hand, an achievement of which he was no less proud than of having written the Declaration of Independence. To bring it to a successful conclusion this septuagenarian displayed an admirable tenacity, a resourcefulness, a practical wisdom, a sense of the immediate possibilities and an idealistic vision, the combination of which typifies the best there is in the national character of the American people. It would take many pages to study in detail Jefferson's educational ideas, as he expressed them in the minutes of the board and in his many letters to John Adams, Thomas Cooper and Joseph Cabell. The most remarkable feature of the new institution was that, for the first time in the history of the country, higher education was made independent of the Church, and to a large extent the foundation of the University of Virginia marks the beginning of the secularization of scientific research in America. Its "father" certainly gave some thought to the possible extension of the educational system that had finally won recognition in his native Virginia, to all the States in the country; but he was too fully aware of the difficulties to follow his old friend Du Pont de Nemours and to propose a Plan for a National Education. At least he "had made a beginning", he "had set an example", and he built even better than he knew. The man who wished to be remembered as the "father of the University of Virginia" was also, in more than one sense, the father of the State universities which play such an important part in the education of the American democracy.

CHAPTER III