Thomas Jefferson: The American Presidents Series: The 3rd President, 1801-1809

I have read and reviewed most of the volumes in The American Presidents Series for which the late Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. served as general editor at the time when Joyce Appleby's brief biography of Jefferson was first published (2003). In the "Editor's Note," Schlesinger explains that the aim of the series is "to present the grand panorama of our chief executives in volumes compact enough for the busy reader, lucid enough for the student, authoritative enough for the scholar. Each volume offers a distillation of character and career." As is also true of the other volumes, this brief biography one examines the essential events and meaning of Jefferson's life without oversimplification or generalization. The challenges that Appleby faced and somehow overcame were complicated by the fact that, in her words, Jefferson was "the most controversial of presidents...because the contradictions in his ideals still affect Americans profoundly. They touch on natural rights, race, and the proper balance between liberty and equality in democratic rule. Jefferson sought change, innovation, novelty, but he was decidedly not a deracinated intellectual, writing incendiary tracts in a garret like Thomas Paine. Rather, he was an insider, repeatedly elected to high office, by his peers the slave-owning planters of Tidewater Virginia. It's safe to say that rarely if ever has a man with such radical bent won so many elections from such an electorate. Solving this puzzle strains our imagination." With meticulous care but at a brisk pace, Appleby examines the key relationships in Jefferson's life, notably with adversaries such as John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Callender, and (on occasion) John Marshall and George Washington with whom he served for two terms as his nation's first vice president. She also devotes what seems to me to be an appropriate portion of her attention (Pages 73, 74-76, and 140) to Jefferson' relationship with Sally Hemmings. Frankly, I have almost no interest in this subject but was eager to share Appleby's thoughts about Jefferson's ambivalence about slavery. Here is a composite of brief excerpts from her narrative: "There is no doubt that Jefferson considered Negroes inferior to whites. He said so in his one book, Notes on the State of Virginia, but he also blamed slavery for the degradation of the enslaved and explicitly affirmed that human liberty was based on natural rights, not on intelligence...In the abstract, slavery scratched at his conscience, but in practice, Jefferson accepted the institution pretty much as he found it, going along with the norms of his fellow planters. He treated his slaves as possessions, offering their labor to his sons-in-law as gestures of generosity. He personally got rid of slaves whom he considered insubordinate, and he sold slaves when he was short of money." It was not until 37 years after Jefferson's death that President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and not until 195

Joyce Appleby's concise "Thomas Jefferson" is a well-written book mainly about Thomas Jefferson's presidency. Appleby understands Jefferson's place in history and gets the story right. I also recommend R.B. Bernstein's concise "Thomas Jefferson," which covers Jefferson's entire life better. But for a book on the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, Appleby's book is a fine choice.

I disagree that Appleby wrote a PC view of Jefferson - I loved Appleby's style and came away from the book with a balanced and informed view of the topic. Jefferson has blemishes - he practiced the sort of politics that he said he dispised. He had a relationship with a slave that produced children. He personally hurt the man who recommended that he write the Declaration of independence. He also helped establish the idea of the loyal opposition, the peaceful transition of power, of keeping most of what Washington and Adams had put into place so that we would have traditions for our government. he represented an idealism - all of this came across in Appleby's book.

Few American presidents have experienced such a fluctuating reputation as president as has Thomas Jefferson. To a large extent this is also because of his pivotal role in the creation of the American republic. His contributions are by any standard vast: principal author of The Declaration of Independence, governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, ambassador to France following the War, first Secretary of State, second Vice President, third President, creator of the American party system (as well as of the old Republican party, that ironically evolved into the Democratic party under the leadership of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren), and author of a host of documents that have become part of the heart of American political literature. He is also viewed as the principal founder of liberalism in the United States, and is usually contrasted with John Adams, who is perceived as the founder of conservativism (though I personally find that Adams has virtually nothing in common with contemporary conservativism, which has less and less to do with Burkean ideals and concerns). This biography of Jefferson is by Joyce Appleby, one of the most renowned and respected of contemporary historians of the American Revolution and the early republic. In recent years many historians have taken aim at Jefferson to provide unflattering portraits, based either on the mercurial or inconsistent nature of his personality, the hypocrisy of his years as Adams's vice president, or his complex relations to slavery in general and Sally Hemmings in particular. Appleby does not want to ignore the very troubling aspects of Jefferson's career, especially on slavery--and who would want to, since to do so would be to tacitly endorse the "particular institution"--but she definitely wants to remind her readers both of why Jefferson is one of our greatest presidents and of his central role in fashioning some of the finest aspects of American society and political life. It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that Appleby has written a biography that is intended to serve as a corrective to the work of historians like Joseph J. Ellis, who in books like AMERICAN SPHINX, FOUNDING BROTHERS, and PASSIONATE SAGE has been intensely critical of Jefferson on a host of grounds (indeed, Ellis portrays him as a bit of a hypocritical nutcase). Also, with a number of books that have rehabilitated John Adams, it has been inevitable that he be played off Jefferson in a way that is a bit more flattering to Adams than perhaps ought to be the case. The negative reviews of this book are, as a result, utterly incomprehensible. What to make of them? I'm not sure if the one-star reviewers haven't read this biography, or if they haven't read anything else about Jefferson. Several criticize this book for being "PC," whatever that means. Appleby points out that Jefferson remained a slaveholder despite thinking it was evil, that he consistently denigrated women in his writings, and that

I'm shocked at the negative reviews this book has received. I found it to be a brilliant introduction to an incredibly complex thinker and person. Far from bashing Jefferson for his views on blacks and women, Appleby apologizes for him, and basically agrees with her negative reviewers here that we should not judge an eighteenth century figure by twentieth century standards. Appleby has a remarkable feel for the politics of the early Republic, and does a brilliant job of recreating for a modern reader exactly what the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans were fighting over. She makes a strong case that Jefferson stood for democracy, against elitist opponents who sought to exclude common people from voting. The core of her argument is that Jeffersonian republicanism is at the heart of our modern conception of democracy, and that both contemporary political parties -- the Democratic and the Republican -- draw equally on his legacy. An important argument to remember in these partisan times, and it gives us hope that we can overcome our current profound divisions.