"We are all republicans-we are all federalists," Thomas Jefferson told
the American people in his first inaugural address. A "President above
Parties" who believed factionalism jeopardized the safety and security
of republican government, Jefferson was here setting forth the common principles
shared by all patriotic Americans. Jefferson's election-the "Revolution
of 1800"-would, he confidently predicted, put an end to the frenzied, hysterical
party struggles in the 1790s. Moderate Federalists who had voted for John
Adams would soon see the errors of their ways. But "if there be any among
us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form,
let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error
of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." In
contrast to the Adams Federalists, who had sought to suppress their opponents
with the Alien and Sedition Acts and had instead spurred Jeffersonian-Republicans
on toward their electoral revolution-Jefferson would allow his critics
to discredit and disgrace themselves before the sovereign people.1
If, as Richard Hofstadter suggests, the peaceful "transit of power"
from Federalists to Republicans marked an epoch in the history of party
government it does not follow that Jefferson saw a place for a "loyal opposition"
in the new republican order.2 Having vindicated the principles of 1776
-- and of 1798 -- the triumphant Republicans would themselves cease to
be a "party." As Republican party activists had insisted for almost a decade,
they were the true representatives of the sovereign people. When they assumed
the reins of power, the American people at last began to govern themselves.
In perverting and corrupting the power of the federal government, the Federalists
had accentuated the distance between the people and their self-professed
rulers and then sought to bridge the distance with the kind of coercive
force that propped up the monarchies of the Old World. Alexander Hamilton
and his minions were enemies ofthe "republican form," determined to transform
the new American regime into a replica of the British Constitution they
so much admired. But the success of their counter- Page 20 revolutionary
project depended on secret machinations, behind the scenes: the corruption
of the people's representatives by bankers, speculators, and Treasury operatives;
or expansive interpretations ofthe federal Constitution that enhanced executive
power at the people's expense. The Republicans routed the spectre of a
counter-revolutionary monarchical revival not only by driving Adams and
his supporters from office, but more profoundly and lastingly by shining
the bright light of an enraged public opinion on the murky recesses of
Federalist administration.
Jefferson's extraordinary interpretation of his rise to power seems
unwarranted by what had been, after all, a rather narrow victory at the
polls that was only finally secured-on the eve of the inauguration after
thirty-six congressional ballots. But Jefferson, with his already legendary
distaste for the "torments" of political life, was not concerned with the
wheeling and dealing that had broken the congressional stalemate. The people
had already spoken: they had called Jefferson to the presidency, not his
running mate Aaron Burr. And many voters who had supported Adams-because
ofthe habitual submissiveness that sustained monarchical rule, or the all-too-plausible
mystifications of "aristocrats" and "monocrats"-were good, educable republicans
at heart. In bringing the good news to his fellow Americans, then, Jefferson
was not a party leader with a policy agenda, but rather a guardian of liberty,
a patriotic mentor to his people. As the heavy hand of Federalist administration
was lifted-with the end of excise taxes, the reduction of the national
debt, the dismantling of the fiscal-military apparatus that threatened
to plunge the new nation into a never-ending cycle of wars-the American
people would reap the fruits of peace and prosperity. Jefferson would win
the people's favor by doing nothing, or by undoing what the Federalists
had done. Necessarily, increasingly conscious of their good fortune, Americans
would repudiate the few remaining enemies of union and republican government,
leaving them to stand as "monuments" to their own folly.
As Jefferson sought to define the meaning of his election, he looked
back to 1776, to the first principles of a republican revolution that had
toppled despotism in America. From this perspective, Jefferson could be
confident that the "Revolution of 1800" would succeed: if the patriots
of 1776 had overcome the greatest power on earth-despite the Crown's numerous
American Tory supporters-then it should be easy enough to purge the Federalists,
latter-day Tories who sought to reverse the Revolution's outcome. The persistent
identification of the Federalists as "Anglomen," justified by Hamilton's
financial program and a decided Federalist tilt toward Britain in the French
Revolutionary wars, served to exaggerate the Federalist menace as long
as Jefferson and his Republican colleagues remained in opposition. But
this identification served Page 21 equally well to minimize the Federalist
threat once Jefferson was erected It was enough to recognize what the Federalists'
true intentions really were as sufficient numbers of voters finally did
in 1800 -- for these enemies of the Revolution to be cast into the political
wilderness, permanently.3
Jefferson's cast of mind, his sense of the world-historical significance
of his election, make sense to us now in light of the historiographical
reconstruction of Revolutionary American republican thought over the last
generation.4 The great lesson of the "republican synthesis" is that though
Jefferson and his contemporaries were the founders of the American political
tradition and the inventors of the first recognizably "modern" political
parties-they thought, wrote, spoke, and acted in an entirely different
world from ours. In fact, the political and constitutional continuities
between their times and ours have been the greatest obstacles to understanding:
because we still use them, we think we know what all the words mean. But
Jefferson's obsessive fears of "power," "corruption," his notions of "liberty",
"virtue", personal and political "independence", and "equality" were all
embedded in a view of the world astonishingly unfamiliar to modern readers.
The new literature on republicanism helps us understand why Jefferson
saw the American Revolution as a crucial epoch in the great and ongoing
struggle between the forces of despotism and darkness, on one hand, and
of freedom and enlightenment, on the other. Yet this is only part of the
story. In the following pages I want to shift attention away from the first
term in Jefferson's statement-"We are all republicans"-to the second-"we
are all federalists." I will argue that "federal principles", the preservation
of the framers' "more perfect union," was as Important to Jefferson as
vindicating republican government.
ONE REASON why Jefferson's federalism is now obscure to us is that we
have not had the benefit of a "federal synthesis" to balance or, perhaps
more accurately, to extend and elaborate the "republican synthesis".5 But
there are further obstacles to understanding Jeffersonian federalism. Most
daunting is the general belief that Jefferson and Madison only belatedly
turned to states' rights: the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798
were inspired by political desperation as Republican oppositionist sought
to counter Federalist control of the national legislature and executive.
The compact theory of union was grounded not in principle but rather in
political expediency.
Jefferson's celebration of the union in his Inaugural-a union he was
prepared to destroy in 1798 through state "nullification" of federal authority
-- Page 22 thus seems disingenuous, if not downright hypocritical. An unfriendly
critic might conclude that Jefferson was projecting his own disunionist
intentions on to his opponents, whose only "crime" was to attempt to buttress
the authority of the federal government in a period of global political
crisis-and "quasi-war" with France-when national security was in jeopardy.
In calling himself a "federalist" supporter of the union, Jefferson must
therefore be indulging in obfuscatory word-play, perhaps in a sort of revenge
against the nationalists of 1787 who called themselves "federalists." In
other words, it was the spirit of Anti- federalism, not the federalism
of the framers, that Jefferson articulated and exploited in his Inaugural.
Jefferson has never lacked defenders, of course, least of all in these
precincts. But these defenders are clearly most comfortable in speaking
to Jefferson's republicanism, his eloquent statements of natural rights,
his life-long advocacy of equality and government by consent.6 Merrill
Peterson thus attributes Jefferson's recourse to federalism to a temporary
fit of "hysteria" as he sought to vindicate freedom against the Federalists'
"odious laws." But this was a potentially "dangerous" line of defense that
ultimately fostered "delusions of state sovereignty fully as violent as
the Federalist delusions he had combated." Invoking Jefferson's authority,
states' rights advocates would lead the nation into in a bloody civil war.7
My point is that Jefferson's friends have been complicit in an interpretation
of the Inaugural and of his political career generally that systematically
discounts and misrepresents his principled commitment to the American experiment
in federal republican government. Federalism may not-for better or worse-rank
very high in our own scheme of values, and we certainly continue to draw
inspiration from Jeffersonian conceptions of the natural and universal
rights of individuals. But when Jefferson called himself a "federalist,"
he meant what he was saying. It is worth noting that, in the next paragraph
of the Inaugural, when Jefferson returned to the Revolutionary legacy,
he reversed the sequence of the first formulation: "Let us then, with courage
and confidence pursue our own federal and republican principles, our attachment
to our union and representative government."8 Jefferson did not privilege
"republicanism" over "federalism" (as we may), nor would he be willing
to distinguish or dissociate these "principles." Our challenge then is
to try to understand exactly how these principles are related, how one
depends on the other.
The republican synthesis offers a good point of departure. Dissatisfied
with the stripped-down Lockean liberalism that earlier generations of scholars
and commentators found in the Declaration of Independence and other Revolutionary
state papers, republican revisionists have sought to provide richer, alternative
Page 23 readings of early American political thought. These writers and
their critics-have challenged conventional understandings of fundamental
principles of the American regime and illuminated obscure and neglected
corners ofthe founders' conceptual universe. Yet only when republican revisionists
and neo-liberal critics overcome their common liberal presuppositions and
move beyond the classically liberal obsession with the character, rights,
virtue, public-spiritedness, and happiness of individuals will they grasp
the broader concerns of American Revolutionaries and constitution-writers.9
The revolutionaries were not simply founding new republics; they hoped
to construct a new order for the ages, a federal republican regime that
would preserve peace (in the world, among the states), sustain republican
government (in the states), and secure the liberty and natural rights of
individual citizens.
Thomas Jefferson's political thought offers a good point of departure
for a new history of Revolutionary federalism. It is the premise of this
brief essay that neither the response to the Federalists in 1798 nor Jefferson's
supposed reservations about the new federal Constitution a decade earlier
constituted the crucial turn toward federalism in his career. I will argue
instead that a fresh reading of the Declaration of Independence shows that
Jefferson was always a federalist, and that the federal principle was always
preeminent in his thought. The text of the Declaration does not disclose
a fully elaborated theory of federalism, and certainly not an institutional
framework for a functioning federal system. But it does set forth, both
in its ringing phrases and in the silences around them, what I call here
the federal myth, the foundation principles for a new world order.
II
JEFFERSON'S first sustained piece of political writing, "A Summary View
of the Rights of British America" (1774) constituted a "plan for federal
union" in a reformed British empire. "We are willing on our part to sacrifice
every thing which reason can ask to the restoration of that tranquility
for which all must wish," wrote Jefferson. For their part let the British
"be ready to establish union on a generous plan." Jefferson was one of
several writers who, as they denied Parliamentary sovereignty over the
American colonies, emphasized the king's role in sustaining imperial ties.
"This is the important post," Jefferson reminded George III, "in which
fortune has placed you, holding the balance of a great, if a well poised
empire." In effect, Jefferson, John Adams, James Wilson, a nd other patriot
writers argued for a new imperial constitution or treaty-the words were
used interchangeably-that would guarantee the autonomy and fundamental
rights of the empire's far-flung member states in return for a perpetual
alliance, Page 24 or union.10
It is easy to discount the federalism of the "Summary View." The political
situation in 1774 -- like that of 1798 -- put a premium on states' rights;
Jefferson's opposition to central government-imperial or federal-was presented
as a plan for constitutional union, with the threat of revolution or "nullification"
barely concealed. Clearly, Jefferson was in both instances looking ahead,
to one "revolution "or other, and had no real interest in sustaining the
kind of "balance" he urged on George III. The very suggestion that George
"held the balance" was tantamount to a declaration of independence, for
it presupposed the autonomy of the various political communities to be
balanced. After all, it had long been the premise, or conceit, of British
diplomacy that Britain "held the balance" in the European system. It followed
that the free and independent American states, like the sovereignties of
Europe, would be linked to Britain through the mechanisms of the balance
of power.11 Jefferson thus redefined the political and constitutional crisis
that threatened the very survival of the British Empire in inter-national
terms. As a result, he exaggerated the role of royal prerogative (which
included the conduct of foreign policy) in sustaining Anglo-American union.
But to inflate George III's authority-and responsibility-was simply to
prepare the way for the radically deflationary rhetoric, in Thomas Paine's
Common Sense and in Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, that would
mark the final push toward independence.
This reading of the "Summary View" seems plausible enough. But the assumption
that Jefferson and other patriot leaders sought a complete break with Great
Britain in 1774 -- that when Jefferson called for "union" he really meant
"dis-union"-is unwarranted. Americans were by no means eager to make war
against the mother country, even after they proclaimed their "separate
and equal station" among the powers of the earth and they had little choice
in the matter. When Americans sought to reform the imperial constitution
they were trying to construct an Anglo- American "peace plan," a new and
higher level of political association that would eliminate sources of conflict
and banish the use of coercive force among member states.12
When American radicals were at last persuaded that British corruption
and obduracy precluded a constitutional resolution of the imperial crisis,
they turned to the balance of power to secure their rights. The balance
was a progressive mechanism, they believed, capable of sustaining an expanding
regime of law and civility among independent states. Influential Enlightenment
theorists thought of the balance-of- power system as a kind of "federal
republic" or "commonwealth,"an emergent political community constituted
by treaties. The impossibility of a true federal union within the British
Empire thus forced the Page 25 Americans to seek "union" elsewhere, through
alliances with other powers."13
Critics of the liberal, "individualist" reading of the Declaration are
right to emphasize the republican, communitarian context for individual
rights claims, but they fail to take their insight to the limits of Jefferson's
thinking.14 Independence was a means toward union, not an end in itself.
Seen in this light, the continuity between Jefferson's thinking in 1774
and 1776, and beyond, becomes apparent. His commitment to republicanism
proceeded from, and always was predicated on, his commitment to securing
the corporate rights of Virginia and the other American states. But this
does not mean that Jefferson was a "localist" rather than "cosmopolitan."
Jefferson's developing conception of federalism transcended this polarity:
in Jefferson's view, individual freedom depended on republican self- government
which in turn depended on a "more perfect union" of free states in a progressively
more civilized and peaceful world system. This is the underlying logic
of the Declaration of Independence.
III
THE AFFECTIVE ties of allegiance that bound American subjects to their
British king constituted the biggest obstacle to independence. Recasting
those ties in sentimental and familial terms, Jefferson's Declaration emphasized
George III's betrayal of his trust. Just as James II had "abdicated" in
the Glorious Revolution of 1689, now George un-kinged himself. American
independence was instigated by a usurping despot and a bad father. The
juxtaposition of seventeenth- century constitutionalism and eighteenth-century
sentimentalism proved to be a powerful, revolutionary force.15
Commentators turn to the second paragraph for a positive statement of
the Revolutionaries' goals, epitomized by the stirring invocation of "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But the immediate object of the
Declaration, "to dissolve the political bands which have connected . .
. one people . . . with another," is set forth in its opening sentence.
Jefferson is here referring to Americans collectively, but subsequent references
are to the separate "colonies" or "states."16
A portion of Jefferson's draft, excised by Congress, provides the historical
narrative that justifies the focus on states' rights. The respective colonies
were founded "at the expense of our own blood and treasure, unassisted
by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain; that in constituting indeed
our several forms of government, we had adopted one common king, thereby
laying a foundation for perpetual league and amity with them: but that
submission to their parliament was no part of our constitution." The idea
that the colonists founded new Page 26 communities and then "adopted one
common king" was an American variation on the equally implausible myth
of Anglo-Saxon constitutionalism, according to which the existence of the
English nation preceded the institution of monarchy and therefore constituted
a fundamental limit on monarchical authority. The novelty of the Jeffersonian
myth of expatriation, more fully elaborated in the "Summary View," was
that it gave a spatial dimension and contemporary salience to a myth of
origins: the "ancient constitution" survived-but was now threatened-in
Anglo-America.17
Jefferson's colleagues may have rejected this passage because its historical
claims were untenable, perhaps even laughable. But they did not reject
Jefferson's conception of the empire as a federation of free states which
they now, reluctantly, were forced to abandon. Jefferson's version of colonial
history was a bold effort to identify the embattled assemblies with the
corporate integrity of colony communities. The first six substantive charges
against the king in the adopted Declaration all refer directly, and subsequent
charges refer indirectly, to royal interference in the legislative process.
The imminent threat is that the assemblies will cease to exercise any effective
legislative power, if they continue to meet at all. In other words, the
implicit claim that the assemblies-or their ad hoc, revolutionary successors
"represent" the colonies, and that congress can in turn speak for the colonies,
is made in the face of the virtual immobilization of representative government
in Anglo-America.18
It is this identification of representatives with their colony communities
and of congress with the American "people" that constitutes the most crucial
rhetorical move in the Declaration. With the expatriation argument suppressed,
the argument is made-probably more effectively-by ellipsis and indirection.
Jefferson assumes that everyone will agree that the colonies are "states,"
that they possess inviolable corporate rights that the "people" must vindicate.
But, of course, this is precisely what advocates of Parliamentary supremacy
did not accept. In other words, Jefferson silently stipulates that the
empire must be seen as a federal union, not a unitary polity; the universalistic
pretensions of king-in parliament are thus fractured and subverted by the
particular claims of colony communities. Here was an ironic, localistic
counterpoint to the universalistic claims, the "self evident" truths, of
Jefferson's second paragraph. For it was in response to the royal assaults
on their corporate rights and privileges catalogued in the Declaration
that the colonists invoked their"inalienable rights" as free men and took
up arms. The challenge was to frame specific local grievances and customary
claims in all-embracing, universal terms. This was Jefferson's great achievement
in the Declaration, and it depended on his assumption that colonies had
constitutions, that they were "states" that could claim rights.
Page 27 As "sovereignty" was transferred from king to people, it travelled
a circuitous route. Deposing the king created a vacuum of legitimate authority
that representatives of the people quickly filled. The most significant
consequence of this upheaval, and the great unrecognized achievement of
the Declaration, was the invention of the American idea of state sovereignty,
the conception of states as self-constituted, self- sufficient, and autonomous
political communities. In practical, institutional terms, the invention
of state sovereignty marked the final stage in the rise of the assemblies.
Facing an increasingly uncertain future in the last years of imperial rule,
the representatives gained expansive new powers under the first new state
constitutions.19
But it would be a mistake to conclude that securing assembly rights
was Jefferson's sole, or even primary concern in the Declaration. Justifying
Congress's assumption of the authority to declare independence constituted
his most formidable challenge. Anglo- Americans always had had a well-developed
sense of their rights as individuals, and the corporate claims of the new
states grew out of their colonial experience. But the Continental Congress
had no such legitimating pedigree. Its pretensions were most revolutionary,
and therefore most in need of justification.20
Jefferson justified himself, and Congress, by demonstrating that George
III sought to establish "an absolute tyranny over these states." This "long
chain of abuses and usurpations" was directed immediately at the colonial
assemblies, and ultimately at the "inalienable rights" of the people themselves.
According to Jefferson's version, resistance moved in the opposite direction,
beginning with the people-whose "rights" were "self evident"-proceeding
through colonial governments whose "just powers" were based on their "consent"
and culminating with Congress itself. In other words, Congress sought to
take the king's place. But this was pretension could not be openly asserted:
Congress's rule would be seen as legitimate only as long as it made no
claims on its own behalf.21
Jefferson pulled out all the rhetorical stops as he showed George Ill
u..kinging himself. In striking contrast, the Declaration is totally silent
about Congress's succession to royal authority. Jefferson recognized that
saying anything would be saying too much. For Congress could only assume
the king's prerogatives-most notably and pressingly over the conduct of
war and diplomacy-if it was seen as completely different from the George
III depicted in the Declaration. George, the bad father, was Congress's
reverse image: congressmen would never violate the trust of their constituents
by pursuing their own interests at the people's expense. This identification
between governors and governed was, of course, the promise and design of
republican governments. But it also evoked-and, in the Declaration, much
more powerfully-the myth of the Page 28 "good" king, the true father to
his people. Congress would be so completely and transparently identified
with "the people" that they would dissolve into one another. Significantly,
this identification was not assured by the elaborate constitutional mechanisms
favored by radical republicans: the government of the United States only
became"republican"after a protracted series of constitutional crises and
reforms. In 1776, the implicit model for Congress was an idealized conception
of kingship. George III "has abdicated government here BY DECLARING US
OUT OF HIS PROTECTION, AND WAGING WAR AGAINST US." Congress must take his
place.22
Congress could present itself as the legitimate successor to the British
monarchy as long as it was seen to be faithfully representing the new state
governments, and through them the America n "people." This meant, as we
have seen, that the rights of the states, the predicate of congressional
legitimacy, had to be established first. This is why the congressional
resolution of May 10 and 15, 1776, authorizing the rebellious colonies
to institute new governments was so crucial.23 Congressmen feigned surprise
that thirteen colonial clocks should strike as one when the United States
declared independence. But the clockwork had long since been set in motion
by the concerted efforts of patriot leaders. It was important, however,
that the mechanism be concealed, and that the revolting colonists believe-or,
perhaps, in the case of Adams, Jefferson, and other prime movers, convince
themselves-that resistance was the spontaneous and simultaneous expression
of popular grievances and popular will throughout the colonies.
This myth of spontaneous resistance was a crucial prop to congressional
legitimacy. Exploiting an early burst of popular enthusiasm for the war
effort, Congress quickly and successfully assumed a quasi- monarchical
authority. Congress 's dilemma was that any effort to institutionalize
its authority inevitably jeopardized it. Set against the legitimating myth
of spontaneous resistance-"popular sovereignty" in action-any formal assumption
of authority was bound to generate suspicion. This may help explain why
it proved to be so difficult to draft acceptable Articles of Confederation,
and why Congress's prestige plummeted after 1781, when the Articles were
finally ratified and Congress finally became a "constitutional" government.
There are many plausible explanations for Congress's sorry history.
The recalcitrance of the states, intoxicated by visions of their own sovereignty,
is everybody's favorite. But I would suggest that efforts to bolster congressional
authority so often proved counter- productive because Congress was not
an ordinary legislature, and the United States was not an ordinary republic.
The "monarchical" authority of Congress depended on sustaining the myth
of its Page 29 faithful representation of the "people," and of the people's
commitment to the common cause. Any attempt to fix the actual representation
of different states, regions, or interests gave the lie to the myth, unleashing
a competition for relative advantage-the factionalism that so disturbed
contemporary commentators-that was the antithesis of a true and affectionate
union. The template for that union was offered in the Declaration of Independence.
When, according to Jefferson's formula, congressmen "pledge[d] to each
other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor," they were not negotiating
a contract or drafting a constitution. They were instead invoking sacred
ties of honor and friendship, the moral equivalent for liberty-loving republicans
of the allegiance owed to a good father, or a good king. The pledge was
all the more sacred and compelling because it was entered into by equals,
and was not offered in weakness or fear to a superior power.24
Most commentators on the Declaration focus on the tension between the
claims of individual and society implicit in the natural rights doctrine
of the second paragraph. They overlook Jefferson's conception of union,
a fundamental premise in his political and social theory that mediates
between these polarities. Union was grounded in man's natural sociability,
and was constructed and extended through ties of friendship, the most durable
and efficacious "political bands." As a republicanized and sentimentalized
gloss on the monarchical principle of allegiance, Jefferson's idea of union
facilitated the transfer of legitimate authority from king to Congress.
This was the Declaration's most revolutionary implication.
Jefferson linked the consent of individuals-the source of legitimate
authority-to the rights of the new states as political communities and
then to a yet higher level of association, the federal union, embodied
in Congress itself. This is what I call the myth of federalism. The Declaration's
implicit scheme-citizens, states, union-constituted the paradigm or framework
for elaborations of the federal idea in succeeding decades. The highest
level, the union of American republics, represented the most radical departure
from conventional theory and practice. Real Whig republicanism offered
little guidance in constructing a federal regime. Jefferson turned instead
to an idealized version of monarchy and a sentimental notion of revolutionary
brotherhood for a new conception of union, "political bands" among the
states that would never be "dissolved."
IV
WE GENERALLY think of federalism in negative terms, as a constitutional
division of power and a strict constructionist jurisprudence that enables
entrenched Page 30 local interests to resist the encroachments of a "despotic"
central government on states' rights and individual liberties. But there
is another, more positive and forward-looking face to Jeffersonian federalism
as it was first developed in the "Summary View" and Declaration of Independence.
The end of British tyranny would not dissolve or destroy all social ties
or "political bands," thus preparing the way for a possessive individualist
millennium. Instead, Jefferson believed, the corruption and despotism of
the imperial regime obstructed the natural and consensual ties of affection,
principle, and common interest that were bound to draw Americans into ever
closer union. Jefferson's federalism proceeded from this fundamental, hopeful
premise.
It was-and is-easy enough for critics to mock Jefferson's vaulting hopes
for the American union, and to emphasize the fearful and self-regarding
libertarianism and localism that were left in their wake.25 But when Jefferson
said "we are all federalists" in his first Inaugural, he did not mean to
sanction or foster this suspicious defensiveness, or to obstruct the continuing
progress of the American experiment in self-government. To the contrary,
the promise of 1776 -- including the promise of an ever more perfect federal
union-would be at last redeemed. Jefferson's project may have been a great
failure, based on an illusory premise; he may have been betrayed in the
end by his profound aversion to politics and the exercise of power. But
the vision of natural society, of free states in affectionate union, and
of the nations of world working toward harmony and peace continues to exercise
a powerful appeal. If, as Joyce Appleby argues, Jefferson was the apostle
of hope for a democratizing America, his conception of an expanding union
of free states was his most hopeful and visionary-and elusive-legacy.26
This article is part of Essays in History, volume 35, 1993, published
by the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. All
material copyrighted by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia.
