Life of Thomas Jefferson

3. Beginning Public Life

Mr. Jefferson came of age in 1764. He had scarcely arrived at his majority when he was placed in the nomination of Justices for the county in which he lived, and at the first election following, was chosen one of its Representatives to the Legislature.

He took his seat in that body in May, 1769, and distinguished himself at once by an effort of philanthropy to which the steady progress of liberal opinions has not brought the tone of public sentiment, at least so far as to reconcile the majority to the personal sacrifices which it involves. The moral intrepidity that could prompt him, a new member and one of the youngest in the House, to rise from his seat with the composure of a martyr and propose amidst a body of inexorable planters a bill "for the permission of the Emancipation of Slaves," gave an unequivocal earnest of his future career. He was himself a slave holder, and from the immense inheritance to which he had succeeded, probably one of the largest in the House. He knew too, that it was a measure of peculiar odium, running counter to the strongest interests and most intractable prejudices of the ruling population; that it would draw upon him the keen resentments of the wealthy and the great, who alone held the keys of honor and preferment at home, besides banishing forever all hope of a favorable consideration with the government. In return for this array of sacrifices, he saw nothing awaiting him but the satisfaction of an approving conscience and the distant commendation of an impartial posterity. He could have no possible motive but the honor of his country and the gratification of his own benevolence.

The announcement of the proposition gave a shock to the aristocracy of the House. It touched their sensibilities at a most irritable point and was rejected by a sudden and overwhelming vote. Yet the courteous and conciliatory account which Mr. Jefferson has left of the transaction ascribes the failure of the bill to the vicious and despotic influence of the government, which, by its unceasing frown, overawed every attempt at reform, rather than to any moral depravation of the members themselves. "Our minds," says he, "were circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country in all matters of government, to direct all our labors in subservience to her interests, and even to observe a bigoted intolerance for all religions but hers. The difficulties with our Representatives were of habit and despair, not of reflection and conviction. Experience soon proved that they could bring their minds to rights on the first summons of their attention." (Autobiogralphy, 1821. ME 1:4)

Indeed, under the regal government, how was it possible to expect success in anything liberal? The Crown had directly or indirectly decreed the appointment of all officers of consequence, even those chiefly of the ordinary Legislature. The King's Council, as they were called, who acted as an Upper House, held their places at the Royal will and cherished a most humble obedience to that will; the Governor too, who had a negative on the laws, held by the same tenure and with still greater devotedness to it: and last of all, the royal negative, which formed the rear-guard to the whole, barred the final passage to every project of melioration. So wanton, indeed, was the exercise of this power in the hands of his Majesty, that for the most trifling reason, and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, he refused his assent to laws of the most salutary tendency. Nay, the single interposition of an interested individual against a law was scarcely ever known to fail of success, though in the opposite scale were placed the interests of a whole country.

This was Mr. Jefferson's first measure of reform; and although rendered abortive, it was but the beginning of a long series of efforts, party successful, in the same benevolent cause. It was the first public movement which he had the honor to originate, and the one, probably, whose spirit and object were most congenial to his heart. A few years after his legislative debut in the cause of slavery, we find him dilating with enthusiasm upon the same subject, in flying "notes" to M. de Marbois of the French legation, and recording that vehement and appalling admonition which recent events have almost ripened into prophecy:

The business of ordinary legislation was drawing to a close in Virginia. The collision between Great Britain and her colonies had arrived at a crisis which suspended the regular action of government and summoned the attention of its functionaries to more imperious concerns. Patrick Henry, who was seven years older than Mr. Jefferson and three or four ahead of him in public life, had hitherto been the master-spirit of the Revolution in the South, and had sustained its principal brunt by his superior firmness. The time had now arrived when he was to divide the burthen and the glory of the distinction with one who was his junior only in years and eloquence, his equal in moral courage, but in everything else his superior. The session of the Legislature that first saw Mr. Jefferson a member, saw him first also in the little council of the brave. The same session (1769) carried Virginia into a new mode of resistance to British tyranny, which he was chiefly instrumental in establishing -- to wit, the system of non-intercourse by which the colonies gradually dissolved all commercial connection with the mother country.

The unequivocal attitude into which Virginia had thrown herself by the opposition to the Stamp Act, which she headed in '65, was imitated with rapidity by all other colonies, and this raised the general tone of resentment to such a height as made Great Britain herself quail before the tempest she had excited. The Stamp Act was repealed: but its repeal was soon followed by a series of parliamentary and executive acts equally unconstitutional and oppressive. Among these were the declaratory act of a right in the British Parliament to tax colonies in all cases; the quartering of large bodies of British soldiery in the principal towns of the colonies at the expense and to the annoyance of the inhabitants; the dissolution in rapid succession of the Colonial Assemblies and the total suspension of the legislative power in New York; the imposition of duties on all teas, glass, paper, and other of the most necessary articles imported into the colonies, and the appointment of commissioners armed with excessive powers to be stationed in the several ports for the purpose of exacting the arbitrary customs. These measures, with others of a similar character, provoked immediate retaliation in the commercial Provinces.

The people of Massachusetts, upon whom they fell with their first and heaviest pressure, were the foremost in resisting their operation. They entered into an association by which they agreed and bound themselves not to import from Great Britain any of the articles taxed or to use them. They also addressed a circular letter to their sister colonies inviting their concurrence and cooperation in all lawful and constitutional means for procuring relief. Petitions, memorials, and remonstrances were accordingly addressed to the King and Parliament by the Legislatures of the different colonies, entreating a revision of the obnoxious measures and blending with their entreaties professions of unwavering loyalty. To these no answer was ever vouchsafed. Yet the non-intercourse proceedings in Massachusetts were of a character too ruinous to the new revenue bill not to excite the attention of the British Court. They immediately called forth a set of joint resolutions and an address from the Lords and Commons. Those resolutions condemned in the severest terms all the measures adopted by the colonies. They re-asserted the right of taxation and of quartering their troops upon the colonies. They even went so far as to direct that the King might employ force of arms sufficient to quell the disobedient, and declared that he had the right to cause the promoters of disorders to be arrested and transported to England for trial.

These resolutions of the Lords and Commons arrived in America in May, 1769. The House of Burgesses of Virginia was then in session, and Mr. Jefferson, as we have seen, was for the first time a member. These menacing papers were principally directed against the people of Massachusetts; but the doctrines avowed in them were too extraordinary to be overlooked in any assembly which contained a Jefferson. They were no sooner made known to the House than he proposed the adoption of counter-resolutions and warmly advocated the propriety of making common cause with Massachusetts at every hazard. Counter resolutions and an address to the king were accordingly agreed to with little opposition, and the determination was then and there formed of considering the cause of any one colony as a common one.

The seed of the American Union was here first sown. By the resolutions which they passed, the Legislature re-asserted the exclusive right of the colonies to tax themselves in all cases whatsoever, denounced the recent acts of Parliament as flagrant violations of the British Constitution, and sternly remonstrated against the assumed right to transport the freeborn citizens of America to England to be tried by their adversaries. The tone of these resolutions was so strong as to excite for the first time the displeasure of the Governor, the amiable Lord Bottetourt. The House had scarcely adopted and ordered them to be entered upon their journals when they were summoned to his presence to receive the sentence of dissolution. "Mr. Speaker," said he, "and gentlemen of the House of Representatives: I have heard of your resolves and augur ill of their effects; you have made it my duty to dissolve you, and you are accordingly dissolved."

However the interference of the Executive had no effect but to encourage the holy feeling it attempted to repress. The next day, led on by Jefferson, Henry, and the two Lees, the great body of the members retired to a room, called the Apollo, in the Raleigh tavern, the principal hotel in Williamsburg. They there formed themselves into a voluntary convention, drew up articles of association against the use of any merchandise imported from Great Britain, signed, and recommended them to the people. They repaired to their several counties, circulated the articles of the league among their constituents; and to the astonishment of all, so popular was the measure that at the call of another Legislature, they were themselves re-elected without an exception.

The impetus thus given to the heroic example of Massachusetts by a remote Province carried it home to the bosom of every colony. The non-importation agreement became general. All the luxuries and many of the comforts of life were sacrificed at once on the altar of colonial liberty. Associations were formed at every point, and a systematic war of interdiction and non-consumption was directed against British merchandise. All ranks, all ages, and both sexes joined in nullifying the unconstitutional tariff. The ladies established a peculiar claim to pre-eminence on this occasion. They relinquished without a struggle all the elegancies, the embellishments, and even the comforts to which they had been accustomed, preferring for their attire the fabric of their own hands to the most gorgeous habiliments of tyranny. In Virginia, the anti-revenue movement was reduced to a system and pursued with unparalleled rigor. A committee of vigilance was established in very county whose duty it was to promote subscriptions to the covenant and to guard the execution of the articles. The powers of these committees being undefined, were almost unlimited. They examined books of the merchant and pushed their inquisitorial search into the sanctity of the fire-side, punishing every breach by fine and public advertisement of the offender, and rewarding every observance by an appropriate badge of merit. Such too was the virtue of popular opinion, that from their decision there was no appeal. All who refused to subscribe the covenant of self-disenfranchisement or proved unfaithful to its obligations underwent a species of social excommunication. But the examples of delinquency were exceedingly rare -- of apostasy rarer; a few old Tories only of the most intractable stamp were sent into gentlemanly exile beyond the mountains.
The dissolution of the House of Burgesses was not attended with any change in the popular representation, except in the very few instances of those who had withheld their assent from the patriotic proceedings. The next meeting of the Legislature of any permanent interest, which was not until the spring of 1773, saw Mr. Jefferson again at his post, intent upon the business of substituting just principles of government for those which prevailed.

A court of inquiry, held in Rhode-Island as far back as 1762, in which was vested the extraordinary power to transport persons to England to be tried for offences committed in America, was considered by him as demanding attention, even after so long an interval of silence. He was not in public life at the time this proceeding was instituted, and consequently had not the power to raise his voice against it; but when an important principle was violated, he deemed it never too late to rally. Acquiescence in such an encroachment would give it the force of precedent, and precedent would soon establish the right. An investigation and protest, too, would rouse the apprehensions of the colonists, which had already relapsed into repose. This appeared to him a more desirable result than the simple assertion of right in that particular case.

No unusual excitement having occurred during the protracted interval of legislative interruption, the people had fallen into a state of insensibility; and yet, the same causes of irritation existed that had recently thrown them into such ferment. The duty on tea, with a multitude of co-existing encumbrances, still pressed upon them, and the Declaratory Act of a right in the British Parliament to bind them by their laws in all cases was still suspended over them, hanging by the thread of ministerial caprice. The lethargy of the public mind under such injustice indicated to Mr. Jefferson a fearful state of things. It presented to his eye a degree of moral prostration but one remove from that which constitutes the proper element for despotism and invites its visitations. It appeared to him indispensable that something should be done to break the dead calm which rested on the colonies and to rouse the people to a sense of their situation. Something, moreover, had been wanting to produce concert of action and a mutual understanding among the colonies.

These objects could only be accomplished, he thought, by the rapid dissemination of the earliest intelligence of events with proper comments. This would keep the excitement alive and spread discontents, many of which were local, from colony to colony. With a view, therefore, to these important objects, and not thinking the old and leading members had gained the requisite point of forwardness, he proposed to a few of the younger ones a private meeting in the evening "to consult on the state of things."

On the evening of the eleventh of March, 1773, we find this little band of Virginia patriots -- Jefferson, Henry, R. H. Lee, F. L. Lee, and Dabney Carr -- assembled in a private room of the Raleigh tavern to deliberate on the concerns of all British America. This conclave at the Raleigh tavern in Williamsburg had the merit of erecting the most formidable engine of colonial resistance that had been devised -- the "Committees of Correspondence" -- between the Legislature of the different colonies; and the first offspring of this measure was a movement of inconceivable consequence, not only to America, but to the world -- the call of a General Congress of all the colonies.

This result was foreseen, it appears, by the meeting, particularly by Mr. Jefferson, who has left us an interesting reminiscence of their doings, avoiding as usual any particular notice of his own agency.

This presentiment of the call of a General Congress as the result of their meeting must have made a powerful impression upon the mind of Mr. Jefferson, for at the age of seventy-three it was still fresh in his memory. In a letter written in 1816 to a son of Dabney Carr, he alludes to it: "I remember that Mr. Carr and myself, returning home together and conversing on the subject by the way, concurred in the conclusion that that measure [for Committees of Correspondence] must inevitably beget the meeting of a Congress of Deputies from all the colonies for the purpose of uniting all in the same principles and measures for the maintenance of our rights." (ME 14:399)

It being decided to recommend the appointment of these committees, Mr. Jefferson proceeded to draft resolutions to that effect and improved the opportunity to insert a special one directing an inquiry into the judicial proceedings in Rhode Island. The resolutions being approved, it was decided to propose them to the House of Burgesses the next morning. His colleagues in council pressed Mr. Jefferson to move them, "But I urged," says he, "that it be done by Mr. Carr, my friend and brother-in-law, then a new member, to whom I wished an opportunity should be given of making known to the House his great worth and talents." (ME 1:7) It was accordingly agreed that Mr. Carr should move them, after which this coterie dissolved.

The resolutions were brought forward in the House of Burgesses the next morning by young Mr. Carr, who failed not to exhibit on the occasion "his great worth and talents" in a speech which electrified the assembly. Mr. Carr was a member from the county of Louisa. He was hailed as a powerful acquisition to the reform party. The members flocked around him, greeted him with praises which spoke fervently in their countenances, and congratulated themselves on the accession of such a champion to their cause. But soon were these proud anticipations blighted. Brief was the career of the eloquent and lamented Carr. In two months from the occasion which witnessed this, his first and last triumph, he was no more.

Nearly half a century afterwards, Mr. Jefferson reverts to the transaction in a letter to Dabney Carr, Jr., with a freshness which shows a heart yet warm with the feeling it excited.

The resolutions were adopted the same day, March 12, 1773, without a dissenting voice. They had been drafted so dexterously and in such guarded terms as not to awaken a suspicion against them in the old and cautious members.

But the House of Burgesses had no sooner placed them upon record than they were dissolved, as usual, by the Governor, then Lord Dunmore. For although clothed in the most plausible and inoffensive language, that watchful Executive had too much sagacity not to perceive that they gave occasion for a more formidable resistance than had yet been apprehended.

Nevertheless, the sentence of dissolution had no effect but to give a popular impulse to the proceedings that led to it, and to excite those who were designated in the resolutions for putting the machine into operation to greater zeal and promptitude. The very next day, the Committee of Correspondence assembled, organized themselves, and proceeded to do business. They adopted a circular letter prepared by Mr. Jefferson to the Speakers of the other Colonies, enclosing to each a copy of the resolutions, and left it in charge with their chairman, Peyton Randolph, to transmit them by express. The chief mover thus had the happiness to see his favorite measure in course of execution.

Although the result of the Raleigh consultation had a more decisive baring upon the subsequent movements of the country, we find no mention of the occurrence in the early histories of our revolution. But the history of the American Revolution has not been written, or so said John Adams in 1815 in a letter to Mr. Jefferson. The latter echoes the sentiment of his correspondent and declares it never can be written. "On the subject," says he, "of the history of the American Revolution, you ask, Who shall write it? Who can write it? And who will ever be able to write it? Nobody, except merely its external facts. All its councils, designs, and discussions were conducted in secret, and no traces of them were preserved. These, which are the life and soul of history, must forever be unknown." (ME 14:343)

The recommendation of the Virginia Legislature was answered with alacrity by the sister Colonies, and similar Committees of Correspondence were appointed by them all. By this means, a channel of direct communication was established between the various provinces, which, by the interchange of opinions and alarms, maintained a steady equalization of purpose and action throughout the Colonies and "consolidated the phalanx which breasted the power of Britain." The operations of this great institution were incalculably beneficial to the American cause. Its precise influence upon the course and management of the Revolution is well worth being critically ascertained. Its mighty cabinet should be broken open, and one might suppose that the publication of its voluminous correspondence will exhibit some of the most interesting productions of Mr. Jefferson's pen, as he bore an active agency in its operations; and there is no doubt that the revelation of its transactions and counsels will unveil to the world the secret causes of many movements, the knowledge of which reflecting accumulated glory on the chiefs of that age.

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