Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address, Part I: Context

            And so we return once more to old T.J. I don’t suppose I ever intended to spend so much of my time in this series discussing the thoughts and writings of a single man, but Jefferson ever proves to be a fascinating subject. Not only did he write voluminously, and preserve seemingly every single letter he wrote from young adulthood until his death, but his contradictions, his idealism, and his at-times shocking radicalism make him very difficult to get a handle on unless one is willing and able to take the long view of his life and career. I say this because Jefferson was, in my view, someone whose opinions seemed to mutate and evolve over time with surprising regularity as he was exposed to new problems and had his prior assumptions tested. What he held as the gospel truth in 1780 he could vehemently disagree with by 1805. Even across a shorter timeline, his capacity to say one thing and do another can be terribly confusing for the scholar who tries to pin him down as being an advocate of this or that ideology or system of belief. His critics thought him inconsistent, though he doubtless regarded himself as a flexible and undogmatic thinker. Perhaps they were both right.

            This is, of course, my rambling way of introducing the next document I’d like to discuss – Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address. Delivered as a written draft to Congress in 1801, Jefferson being a notoriously poor public speaker, it represents the furthest afield I've yet delved into the Sage of Monticello’s public career. Thus far I've shone a light on Jefferson as a young man in his thirties helping to draft the Declaration of Independence, as Governor of Virginia striking a blow for freedom of conscience, and as Vice-President and secret leader of a nation-spanning protest movement. Now I turn to him as President, a mature statesman in the last public office he would ever hold and very intent on making use of the powers he had railed against only a few short years before. Though I obviously won’t be discussing some of the events that defined Jefferson’s troubled second term, when he seemed to abandon all pretence of ideological consistency, I do believe there are hints of what was to come in his First Inaugural and evidence of how his thinking had changed. I’ll be pointing out a few examples myself, but I encourage my readers (all five of you) to go back and review some of the Jefferson documents I’ve covered so far and see for themselves how time and circumstances changed the way he thought and wrote about government, society, and the roles to be fulfilled by each.

            As I recall, we last left Jefferson in 1798 as he seemed intent on pushing the envelope of political resistance in the United States about as close to civil war as it had yet experienced. Luckily for all involved the crisis of the moment that prompted both the passage of the loathsome Alien and Sedition Acts and Jefferson’s radical response in his Kentucky Resolutions was peacefully resolved in relatively short order. In spite of past failed attempts President Adams persisted in his peace overtures towards the belligerent French, and thanks in no small part to the efforts of his envoy, Secretary of State John Marshall, war between France and America was averted. Unfortunately for Adams and his Federalist allies, however, news of the treaty with France came too late to affect the outcome of the presidential election of 1800.

            This brings us, of course, to Jefferson himself. Having lost the election of 1796 to his estranged friend John Adams, and been forced to serve for four years as his Vice-President, Jefferson was keen to try his luck once more in the nation’s highest contest. As in 1796, his running mate in 1800 was a New Yorker named Aaron Burr. I don’t wish to turn too far from the subject at hand, but I feel it important to render a word or two about Burr before I go on. One of the most dynamic figures in early 19^th-century New York politics, Burr remains an exceedingly enigmatic figure. Unlike many of his contemporaries he didn't write extensively (outside of his private journals and correspondence), and seemed content to keep his own counsel on most matters. As a result, colleagues, rivals and modern historians alike have grappled with trying to understand his motivations and what he stood for. I believe this at least partially accounts for the widespread distrust with which many outside his inner circle viewed him; with few concrete opinions to ascribe to him, Burr became a target of rumour, speculation, and libel. What we do know is that his political efforts in New York in the late 1790s proved extremely effective at securing a solid and flexible Republican power base. By creating a robust alliance of workers and recent immigrants, thanks to his efforts to reform land laws and establish a Republican-controlled bank, Burr made New York instrumental to any Republican victory in 1800 and himself instrumental to New York.  It would thus be, I think, going too far to call Jefferson and Burr allies, as the events of 1800 and 1801 would demonstrate. In the moment, however, their interests were aligned.      

            It proved to be a very short moment indeed, however. The understanding between Jefferson and Burr, as many members of the Republican faction were to tell it, was that Jefferson’s name would sit at the top of the ballot, Burr would deliver New York, and in eight years Jefferson would step aside and endorse Burr as his successor. What ended up happening, and which no one seemed to foresee, was that the two men found themselves in a tie. At that time there were 138 electoral votes up for grabs, with 70 needed for a victory. Adams, still the Federalist standard-bearer in spite of tensions within that faction, secured 65 votes. Jefferson and Burr, meanwhile, took 73 each. This deadlock led the election to be turned over to the outgoing House of Representatives, who were to vote as states instead of individual members. This was, understandably, an embarrassing situation all around. Jefferson, veteran politician, was doubtless disconcerted by the upstart Burr’s near-victory and suspected him of taking steps to swing the election away from the venerable Virginian. For his part, Burr seemed completely unwilling to pull his name from contention and honor the prior agreement he’d made with Jefferson. It was, he claimed, not his place to interfere in a free election; the people had spoken, and the chips must fall where they may. The Federalists, stung by the loss of the presidency and both houses of Congress, were in the meantime intent on prolonging the stalemate as long as possible in order to further embarrass the Republicans. Because many of them were also absolutely resistant to the thought of having to vote for Jefferson, a man they regarded as the standard-bearer of Republicanism and their faction’s greatest adversary, six out of the eight states then controlled by the Federalists voted for Burr on the first of what would prove to be thirty-six ballots.

            The rest of the country, meanwhile, did not take the confusion in Washington with good humour. Over the course of the House’s thirty-six ballots, from the 11^th to the 17^th of February, 1801, Republican newspapers called for military intervention in case their Federalist enemies hijacked the occasion to remain in power. The Republican governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania, James Monroe and Thomas McKean, respectively, began the process of readying their state militias for mobilization, and mobs gathered in the nation’s capital and declared that they would take steps to prevent a victor in the presidential contest being declared by the Federalists other than Jefferson or Burr. Correspondence from the period between Jefferson and Monroe indicates that the Republicans were genuine in their threats, and that they were indeed prepared to potentially plunge the country into civil war to prevent a Federalist “usurpation.” Throughout these proceedings Alexander Hamilton, arch-Federalist and staunch opponent of Jefferson and the Republicans, had been engaged in a feverish correspondence with his colleagues in Congress. Rather than instruct them to remain resolute in their resistance to any kind of Republican victory, however, Hamilton actually attempted to convince them to vote for Jefferson. Their political and ideological disagreements aside, and they were many, Hamilton claimed that Jefferson was at least a man of principles and far preferable to someone like Burr, who in his mind possessed none at all. It’s difficult to say how successful Hamilton was, but on the thirty-sixth ballot James A. Bayard, Federalist and sole Representative of Delaware, rendered a blank ballot and convinced his allies from Maryland and Vermont to do the same. The victor needed the support of nine out of the total sixteen states in order to prevail; this action allowed the Republican Congressman from Maryland and Vermont to swing their states in Jefferson’s favor, giving him a final total of ten states to Burr’s four.

            His triumph secure and war averted, Jefferson was understandably in a rather charitable mood by the time of his inauguration. Granted, his feelings toward his now Vice-President Burr would continue to deteriorate over the course of the next eight years, and his conflicts with the Federalists were far from over. But for the moment he could afford to be magnanimous. His First Inaugural Address was very much that, but amidst all the platitudes, the reassurances of America’s place in history and its destiny as one of the world’s great civilizations, there was an undercurrent of irritation aimed at the men he knew to be his critics. Jefferson had long been frustrated by the viciousness of politics. His experiences as Governor of Virginia and Secretary of State had soured him on public service in an environment where men were quick to judge and slow to listen, and would stoop very low indeed to get what they wanted. This same man found himself, in early 1801, the undisputed possessor of the most powerful office in the nation. Though he had railed against the perceived abuses of the Adams presidency and the potentially tyrannical nature of the office itself, he was more than willing to use those same powers to achieve his own goals. The United States, Jefferson believed, needed to be set right again, and damn the critics if they couldn't see it.