Henry Adams: History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson

Library of America #31

by Henry Adams

One of the greatest histories ever written in English, Henry Adams's History of the United States is remarkable for its fullness of detail, its penetrating insight, and above all its strong, lively, and ironic style. First published in nine volumes from 1889 to 1891, this classic work was out of print for several decades until The Library of America reissued it in two volumes: the first volume on the years of Thomas Jefferson's presidency and the second devoted to those of James Madison.

With a cast of characters including Aaron Burr, Napoleon Bonaparte, Albert Gallatin, John Randolph, Toussaint L'Ouverture, and the complex, brilliantly delineated character of Thomas Jefferson, the first volume is unrivaled in its handling of diplomatic intrigue and political factionalism. Upon assuming office, Jefferson discovers that his optimistic laissez-faire principles--designed to prevent American government from becoming a militaristic European "tyranny"--clash with the realities of European war and American security. The party of small government presides over the Louisiana Purchase, the most extensive use of executive power the country has yet seen. Jefferson's embargo--a high-minded effort at peaceable coercion--breeds corruption and smuggling, and the former defender of states' rights is forced to use federal power to suppress them. The passion for peace and liberty pushes the country toward war.

In the center of these ironic reversals, played out in a Washington full of diplomatic intrigue, is the complex figure of Jefferson himself, part tragic visionary, part comic mock-hero. Like his contemporary Napoleon Bonaparte, he is swept into power by the rising tide of democratic nationalism; unlike Bonaparte, he tries to avert the consequences of the wolfish struggle for power among nation-states.

The grandson of one president and the great-grandson of another, Adams gained access to hitherto secret archives in Europe. The diplomatic documents that lace the history lend a novelistic intimacy to scenes such as Jefferson's conscientious introduction of democratic table manners into stuffily aristocratic state dinner parties. Written in a strong, lively style pointed with Adams's wit, the History chronicles the consolidation of American character, and poses questions about the future course of democracy.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, Politics, 19th Century, Presidents, Biography

1308 pages, Hardcover

First published July 4, 1986

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Noted Henry Brooks Adams wrote his nine-volume History of the United States during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison (1889-1891) and also The Education of Henry Adams , a famous autobiography, in 1918.

This oldest and most distinguished family in Boston produced John Adams and John Qunicy Adams, two American presidents, and thus gave Henry the opportunity to pursue a wide-ranging variety of intellectual interests during the course of his life. Functioning in the worlds of both practical men and affairs as a journalist and an assistant to his father, an American diplomat in Washington and London, and of ideas as a prolific writer, as the editor of the prestigious North American Review, and as a professor of medieval, European, and American history at Harvard, Adams of the few men of his era attempted to understand art, thought and culture as one complex force field of interacting energies.

He published Mont Saint Michel and Chartres , his masterwork in this dazzling effort, in 1904. Taken together with his other books, Adams in this spiritual, monumental volume attempts to bring together into a vast synthesis all of his knowledge of politics, economics, psychology, science, philosophy, art, and literature to attempt to understand the place of the individual in society. They constitute one of the greatest philosophical meditations on the human condition in all of literature.

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adams' history is a must read to understand how fragile the United States was in its infancy during the administration of Thomas Jefferson, who is among the most complex of the Founding Fathers. This book reveals how he made political choices that both contradicted and confirmed his philosophical convictions. Although it was written almost a century and a half ago, Adams prose is comprehensive, relevant, and, especially in the first part, peppered with profound wit.

Three compelling episodes of the Jefferson administration highlight, in my opinion, this wide-ranging history. First, the story of the Louisiana Purchase. Adams deftly describes how Jefferson immediatly grasped the long-term opportunity and value of doubling the size of the nation as well as how Jefferson's pragmatism trumped his belief in a limited national government. The subsequent political intrigue to define the borders of the Purchase is a story that has been largely lost, but thanks to Adams we have a substantial record to draw upon.

The story of Aaron Burr's attempt to build a western empire is riveting. It is hard for us in the present day United States to understand how so many treasonous mercenaries could actually have changed the course of history but for a few resolute individuals combined with the mendacity of the key players. New to me was Andrew Jackson's limited role and how quickly he switched when it was apparent that Burr would fail.

Most profound is Adams' description of Jefferson's theory of peaceable coercion and how he tried to put it into practice. Rather than going to war with England and Napoleon's France over rights of sea passage and economic coercion, the Jefferson administration pushed Congress to enact a comprehensive embargo to change their policies and open up trade. The economic cost to the American population was great. Going to war would have been the cheaper option, but at what cost of American lives? It is a question that has been asked by every subsequent generation, but Jefferson was the only president willing to ask the citizens of the nation to remain firmly opposed to war by enacting economic policies that required personal sacrifice. Although it was ultimately overturned, one cannot help but admire Jefferson's intent. In not going to war, he may have been the most courageous commander in chief this nation has had.

This is largely a history of the proverbial forest—mostly diplomatic—not the trees. Any serious student of early American history must read it, as well as the next volume covering the Madison administration years.

[Eric Byrd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being so full of courteous enmity and suave slights, and pitiless criticism behind polite fronts, the diplomatic history is cousin to the novel of manners, or to “the novel of dissected motivations” – La Princesse de Clèves to Proust – “that is one of our glories,” wrote W.M. Spackman. Instead of social climbing, courtship, or seduction, the principal figures of Adams’ history played more difficult games, for greater prizes, in the turbulent years of Napoleon’s triumphs, Spain’s weakening colonial grip and “long depletion” by France, and England’s high fever of anxious arrogance.* In those years Napoleon beheld in Jefferson a man who was “too proud to fight” (words of his fellow visionary Virginian Woodrow Wilson amidst another world war a century later, when another desperate belligerent preyed upon neutral shipping); in 1808, marveling at a policy of pacificism, Napoleon asked the American minister at Paris: when will you people see that England holds your independence in contempt, and quite plainly makes war on you? The reader can answer him: the Americans see it in 1808, but will not act until June of 1812, in the same week you lead the Grande Armée over the Nieman, meaning to chastise Russia for refusing to submit to your closed commercial system, as the United States refuses to submit to England’s.

I loved Adams’ lengthy extracts from the correspondence in which ministers portray the personalities, analyse the manners, and parse the language of rival governments. (The informality of Jefferson’s White House allowed diplomats to casually question the president and his officials during long dinners and hours over brandy.) Nimble writers and colorful characters: Godoy and Cevallos in the court of King Carlos; Talleyrand in the Tullieries, and close by, General Armstrong, a Newburgh conspirator with a knack for distilling intelligence from rumor; and Yrujo, Pichon, and Turreau, all restless or ill at Washington, D.C., in those years an unpaved prospect of taverns, boardinghouses, and slave markets.

Future US president James Monroe was neither nimble nor colorful, though I enjoyed reading about this phase of his career. After reaping much of the credit for Robert Livingston’s negotiation of the Louisiana Purchase, thereby assuring himself a place in the Republican succession, Monroe was karmically condemned to hapless wandering among the unfriendly capitals, “[i]nsulted by every successive Foreign Secretary in France, Spain, and England; driven from Madrid to Paris and from Paris to London” (Napoleon and Carlos were offended by Jefferson’s brusque demand for Las Floridas, and the Duke of Portland’s Cabinet was a snake pit of hardline Tories who represented “everything in English society that was most impervious to reason,” “creature[s] of royal bigotry trembling on the verge of insanity”). After 1803, Adams wrote, Monroe “was singularly unfortunate in diplomacy. His disasters came not in any ordinary form of occasional defeat or disappointment, but in waves and torrents of ill-luck.”

One of the formative trials of Adams’ Education was his service as private secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams, Lincoln’s (then Johnson’s) minister to England. With Henry watching, Charles defused the Trent affair (a US warship waylaid a Royal Mail steam packet carrying rebel envoys, in a nice inversion of the impressments that troubled Jefferson’s administration), documented the depredations of English-built rebel commerce raiders, cultivated sympathetic politicians and socialites, and generally did whatever he could to sway public opinion against Anglo-French intervention in the US Civil War. I imagine that seven years’ diplomatic service and long immersion in ministerial archives helped to give his historical portraits the tone of a good despatch: a cool appraisal of the players around the table, a shrewd sketch of a counterpart’s strength, weakness, and background. Here is his picture of the special envoy Rose, a graceful herald of aggression:

George Henry Rose was chiefly remembered as the father of Lord Strathnairn; but his merits were quite different from those of his son. Without the roughness which sometimes marked English character, Rose’s manners betrayed a dignified and slightly patronizing courteousness,—a certain civil condescension,—impressive to Americans of that day, who rarely felt at ease in the presence of an Englishman, or were quite certain that an American gentleman knew the habits of European society. Benevolent superiority and quiet assumption, so studied as to be natural and simple, were the social weapons with which George Rose was to impose an unparalleled indignity on a government which, in professing contempt for forms, invited discourtesies. No man could have been chosen with qualities better suited for enforcing Canning’s will on the yielding moods of Jefferson.

Into the background of his portrait of Turreau, Adams added little figures of other rogues on the run from their failures:

The new appointment was not a happy one. Pichon had carried friendliness so far as on several serious questions to take sides with the United States government against his own, and had fallen into disfavor with Napoleon in consequence. The new minister was little likely to repeat this blunder. Napoleon liked military discipline in all things; and he sent as his minister to Washington a former general of the Republic, Louis Marie Turreau, best known for the extreme severities he was charged with having inflicted on the Vendeans in 1794. Like most of the republican generals, including even Moreau and Bernadotte, Turreau accepted the coup d’état of the 18th Brumaire, and was for private reasons anxious to obtain some position far removed from France. According to his own story, he had during the Vendean war been so unfortunate as to be saved from death, in a moment of extreme danger, by a woman’s self-sacrifice. In token of his gratitude he married his preserver; but from that time his life became a long regret. His wife’s temper was terrible; his own was querulous and morbidly depressed. Although he could speak no English, had no diplomatic experience and little taste for general society, he sought the post of minister resident at Washington in order to escape his wife. To his extreme annoyance, she followed him to America; and Washington resounded with the scandal of their quarrels, which reached the extremity of pitched battles. He wrote to his friends in the French Foreign Office that he was almost mad with mortification and despair.

Such a minister was not happily chosen for the difficult task on hand; but Bonaparte loaded him with other burdens, of a kind even more embarrassing to a diplomatist. At best, the position of a French minister in America was not agreeable. The mere difference in habits, manners, amusements, and the want of a thousand luxuries and pleasures such as made Paris dear to every Frenchman, rendered Washington a place of exile. Perhaps nothing but fear of the guillotine could have reconciled even republican Frenchmen to staying in a country where, in the words of Talleyrand, there was no Frenchman who did not feel himself a stranger; but if this were true while France was a republic fighting the battles of American democracy, it became doubly true after Bonaparte had crushed French liberties and made himself the foremost enemy of republican ideas. Turreau arrived at Washington about six months before Bonaparte took the title of Emperor; and he found that as representative of Napoleon I. he could never hope for a friend in the United States, unless it were among a few bankrupt adventurers, who to retrieve their broken fortunes would have liked to see an 18th Brumaire at New Orleans, which should give an imperial crown and the mines of Mexico to Aaron Burr and his troop of embryo dukes and marshals.

_________

* During his diplomatic career Chateaubriand justified the tone of his despatches by explaining that periods of upheaval demand “grave correspondence,” not the “mere tattle” he found in the files of the Ancien régime, adding that the “reign of the commonplace” – bulletins of society news and court gossip – “will return when our extraordinary times have passed.” Of course, they haven’t passed.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Embedded in one of those Goodreads update emails we subscribers get was the noticing of the fact that I had begun this book 170 days before—and it was another four days before I actually finished the last 90 or so of the book’s 1252 pages. So my first note to self was to no longer identify books that I am reading on Goodreads. Suddenly, as I read that email, I was back in 5th grade and the days when Susan Paer, with whom I had an unriciprocated crush, would walk by my desk and comment, “Are you still reading that?” My second note to self was to wait a few months, give or take a year, before I began volume two of the Adams History of the US, the 1300 plus pages that cover the Madison administrations. Adams is a very fine writer and an early practioner of the kind of intense document research that is the now the norm but was radically new then, so this is certainly a classic of both American Literature and of world history. Yet, yet, it’s 1252 pages long.

Jefferson administrations included allies and enemies such as John Marshall, Aaron Burr (he, of the duel that killed Hamilton and the conspiracy to separate the west--Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, etc.--from the coastal states and Jefferson’s first term vice president, was both), Napoleon, various European royalty and ministers, Andrew Jackson (straddling the fence of rebellion), James Madison, James Monroe, John Randolph, and Albert Gallatin. So an intersting cast of characters. Adams makes clear how fragile the country was in these its young years and how much still needed to be figured out if the country would survive. The Republican party was a small Federal government party, fearful that a strong Federal government, one that had a navy and a standing army, would become a tyranny. So Britain and France, two destructive big cats, play with the mouse that is the US, batting it this way and that. Jefferson was the party leader and its spokesperson but even he could not implement successfully a very unpopular non-violent alternative to war, the embargo. It worked as well as Prohibition.

Adams also makes clear that Jefferson, despite his small government leanings, took many steps that strengthened the Federal government, from the Louisiana Purchase to authorizing of national highways, canals, and other major public works in the national interest. He was not always well-served, or served at all by those whose job it was to serve him. Take General James Wilkinson, please. He was the head of the US's small army, stationed in the southwest frontier (shared with Spain’s colonies). He was a long-term paid agent of the Spanish crown. Wilkinson, an interesting if unimpressive figure, was also a conspirator of Burr’s, though he arrested him on Jefferson’s orders—the controversial trial would end with an acquittal, though Burr was blatantly guilty, because too many of the best witnesses would have incriminated Wilkinson and others connected to the government and the facts would have embarrassed the government for its negligence in responding to the very public Burr threat. It was a wild, uncertain time. Several leading Federalists were more than just confidants of the British ministers in the US. So while we often look back at the names of the leaders of our nation in its early years and think Great Men whose like we will never see again, what we see here is a mix of talented but highly flawed leaders and some perfectly mediocre and at time venal, incompetent, and occasionally dastardly individuals. Oh, and the press, the press was a rabid dog compared even to our worst talk radio and cable practioners today. O’Reilly and Obermann could have passed for fair and balanced then, however much they miss that mark now.

Jefferson was one of our giants for his contribution to American political thought and the writing of the Declaration of Independence but, despite the Louisiana Purchase and some other critical accomplishments, a fairly mediocre President. He had big dreams, not the least was the failed idea that peaceful resistance (the embargo) could overthrow military might, but like his recognition of the injustice of slavery and the ideal of an agrarian democracy of republican states, they were not dreams that his leadership could deliver to reality. Adams is a graceful, insightful, engaging writer (though there are dry spots as you might suspect) and despite having to push myself through the final third, I also had to resist taking the second volume off the shelf and begin it immediately.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

At a critical time in American history a significant portion of the American population surrendered to a mono-mania and hatred of their President that was based on emotional feelings that ran contrary to all reason. His religious beliefs were slandered, his national sympathies were called into question, and he was alleged to be in the pay of foreign powers. (I'm glad we're not like that anymore.)

Realization at book's end:
Adams' prose is among the best in American historiography, and there is a case to be made that he is our greatest historian.

Interesting facts within:
For many people in the Early Period, the very idea that all citizens should be allowed to vote in the American republic was considered a radical and dangerous notion. As Thomas Jefferson was the embodiment of all that was democratic, they wrongly believed Jefferson to be the world's most complete radical: an atheist, an agent of the Emperor Napoleon, a tyrant. For the eight years of his presidency, culminating in the Embargo Crisis of 1807-08, these bizarre prejudices motivated his opposition to engage in intrigue and ultimately in unconstitutional conspiracy to thwart Jefferson and his successors. Adams points out that Jefferson was never as radical nor as democratic as his critics feared him to be.

Great Achievement:
Adams makes diplomatic correspondence a joy to read. He succinctly frames issues and then contrasts the same event by showing various perspectives through culling the diplomatic writings from multiple archives. (It's what Wikileaks would be if it had existed in 1809 and it hadn't taken 50 years to be released.)

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing political history of Thomas Jefferson's presidency. In a sense, the title is misleading. It should read "History of the United States and Europe during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson," as a good portion of Adams's narrative is devoted to events in Europe that had a direct impact on the U.S. This book is not for passing fans of history though. It is over 1200 pages long and has some of the the most minute details of political and international history to grace such a large narrative. But for those major league history buffs (such as myself), the joy of reading Adams's history is not just the undercurrent of irony that surrounds a man who pledged to peace and instead left a nation on the edge of war; pledged to small government, but instead expanded it beyond his predecessor's dreams. It is also in the amount of details on U.S.-European relations he is able to include without dragging the overall narrative into drudgery. Definitely one of the best histories of an American presidency I have ever read.

[Ivan Stoner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume 1. Henry Adams is great. Also, Jefferson is a bit of a libertarian nutjob.

Volume 2. The end of Jefferson's first administration. The saga of the Louisiana purchase is really pretty amazing. But I'm really mainly reading because I love how Henry Adams (genius polymath scion of American political royalty) thinks and writes. In this context he's at his best when he's thinking through and describing a society. New England federalists in 1800, or Kentucky farmers, or Haitian rebels. But when it comes to political historical narrative, he's not quite as sparkling. Unfortunately there's more of the latter in Volume 2 than Volume 1.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the greatest pieces of history ever written. Adams, the grandson of John Adams, ironically writes a history that focuses on his greatest political rival and his friend, Thomas Jefferson. One wonders what young Henry Adams must have heard from his father and his grandfather during his formative years, and how their thinking and insights must have shaped this history. Some of his analysis is quite personal. “He [Jefferson] was a deist, believing that men could manage their own salvation without the help of a state church. Prone to innovation, he sometimes generalized without careful analysis. He was a theorist, prepared to risk the fate of mankind on the chance of reasoning far from certain in its details. His temperament was sunny and sanguine, and the atrabilious philosophy of New England was intolerable to him. He was curiously vulnerable, for he seldom wrote a page without exposing himself to attack. He was superficial in his knowledge, and a martyr to the disease of omniscience. Ridicule of his opinions and of himself was an easy task, in which his Federalist opponents delighted for his English was often confused, his assertions inaccurate, and at times of excitement he was apt to talk with indiscretion; while with all his extraordinary versatility of character and opinions, he seemed during his entire life to breathe with perfect satisfaction nowhere except in the liberal, literary, and scientific air of Paris in 1789.” He analyzes Jefferson’s feelings towards his peers as well. “Jefferson…regarded Marshall with a repugnance tinged by a shade of some deeper feeling, almost akin to fear. ‘The judge’s inveteracy is profound,’ he once wrote, ‘and his mind of that gloomy malignity which will never let him forego the opportunity of satiating it on a victim.’” The real treasure of this history, however, is Adams and his analysis of world events. Regarding the early promise of America, he writes, “With all the advantages of science and capital, Europe must be slower than America to reach the common goal. American society might be both sober and sad, but except for negro slavery it was sound and healthy in every part. Stripped for the hardest work, every muscle firm and elastic, every ounce of brain ready for use, and not a trace of superfluous flesh on his nervous and supple body, the American stood in the world a new order of man.” His analysis of the machinations preceding the Louisiana Purchase are incredibly informative. “France still coveted Louisiana, the creation of Louis XIV, whose name it bore, which remained always French at heart, although in 1763 France ceded it to Spain in order to reconcile the Spanish government to sacrifices in the treaty of Paris. By the same treaty Florida was given by Spain to England, and remained twenty years in English hands, until the close of the Revolutionary War, when the treaty of 1783 restored it to Spain. The Spanish government of 1783, in thus gaining possession of Florida and Louisiana together, aimed at excluding the United States, not France, from the Gulf. Indeed, when the Count de Vergennes wished to recover Louisiana for France, Spain was willing to return it, but asked a price which, although the mere reimbursement of expenses, exceeded the means of the French treasury, and only for that reason Louisiana remained a Spanish province. After Godoy’s war with France, at the Peace of Bale the French Republic again tried to obtain the retrocession of Louisiana, but in vain. Nevertheless some progress was made, for by that treaty, July 22, 1795, Spain consented to cede to France the Spanish, or easter, part of St. Domingo,--the cradle of her Transatlantic power, and the cause of yearly deficits to the Spanish treasury. Owing to the naval superiority of England, the French republic did not ask for immediate possession. Fearing Toussaint Louverture, whose personal authority in the French part of the island already required forbearance, France retained the title, and waited for peace.” Unmistakably, Adams also criticizes Jefferson’s misconceptions about the new country. “The republic which Jefferson believed himself to be founding or securing in 1801 was an enlarged Virginia,--a society to be kept pure and free by the absence of complicated interests, by the encouragement of agriculture and of commerce as its handmaid, but not of industry in a larger sense…Such theories were republican in the Virginia sense, but not democratic; they had nothing in common with the democracy of Pennsylvania and New England, except their love of freedom; and Virginia freedom was not the same conception as the democratic freedom of the North.”

This is an amazing work of history. It should be read by all.

See my other reviews here!

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure i finished this book, but read on 50 page spurts over the last year or more. Don't happily read it straight through as the level of detail can be bewildering (but rewarding too). At times reporting so positively about Jefferson, but then recounting personal and professional lows as well, i have to rate this as a model of deep and fine historical analysis. Hard to keep the cast of characters straight though, as this foregoes choosing what to tell of in most stories and just tells all there is to know (or so it seems to this non-specialist). So well written though- engaging and edifying.

[Paul Jellinek · Rating 5 out of 5]

At more than 1200 pages, this is not a quick read, but it is a richly rewarding inside view of a key period of our history that I discovered that I actually knew very little about. Adams is a superb writer, and his dry, caustic wit keeps things moving right to the end. I can't wait to start his next--equally long--volume on the history of the Madison administrations.

[oswald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sassy

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately I was not able to finish this book. I think it is generally well written, and had incredible detail on not only Thomas Jefferson's presidency, but what the environment was like in the new nation at the turn of the century in which he presided. The challenge for me is that it is a very scholarly work, and goes into way too much detail. It also assumes you already know a fair amount about the time period.

For an history aficionado that already has some knowledge of the period, that would like to delve deeper into our third president, this book would be a very good addition. However, for me,it was too deep and too long, given the amount time I have to spend on my efforts to learn about each of our presidents.

So, good book. Not the right book for me at this time.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

While at times Adams' seems at pains to be objective, at other times his tone borders on being contentious or even contemptuous - the issues and the personalities of the period he covers here are still capable of rousing his wrath, and when they do he doesn't hold back.

That just adds to the interest of the book, though. It's on the long side, but once he gets into the story (the introductory chapters, giving the situation of the country and American society at the beginning of the 1800s, are informative but hardly gripping) the book never lags. It's interesting both for its coverage of the subject matter and as a classic of written American history.

[Jim Talbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredibly entertaining history of the Jefferson administration... Henry Adams never fails to find the irony in any situation. Additionally, he addresses his subject with an awe inspiring mastery of the primary sources as well as an iron discipline. Each two year span gets almost exactly 300 pages, and he doesn't waste a bit of them.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I felt the first few chapters really delved thoroughly into the background of the topic matter. Explaining what the early United States was like in the beginning of the 19th century. A good portion of the book dealt with International issues. Until reading this book I did not realize how much of a role the Florida's (East and West Florida) had played in Jefferson's international plan. I especially enjoyed reading how Napoleon felt about the United States and it's reluctance to go to war while he was busy eating up the European landscape. This book has been considered as one of the best written historical books on American History about this period and I can see why. The author, grandson of John Quincy Adam and great grandson of John Adams who both personally knew Thomas Jefferson, covers all aspects of Jefferson's administration including the political bickering that occurred in Congress during much of Jefferson's administration. Personalities come alive and issues are dissected as they were seen by contemporaries from their geopolitical viewpoints. The book explains how Jefferson not only narrowly escaped a war between not one but both world foreign powers (Britain and France) but also miraculously averted a breakup of the union with New England states led by Timothy Pickering and the Essex Junto.
There is a second volume of this book which covers the administration of James Madison which I also intend to read soon. But first I will be reading a biography of James Madison by Ralph Ketcham.

[Esmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tough read. The entire book is well written, no doubt. The author assumes you know some of the people and events mentioned. Some chapters are absolutely engaging and interesting and others completely lost me. I stopped short of the last 300 hundred pages and I couldn't bring myself to finish it. I had originally assumed the book was about Thomas Jefferson, rather it is about the events and happenings during Jefferson's two terms as president. Jefferson makes appearances, but not consistently. There were many details I found interesting, some which were timely based on current events. For example, Jefferson had been served a subpoena while president from Justice John Marshall. He refused to comply because he said the president, as the chief executive, could not be subject to another branch of government. It definitely raised my eyebrows as that is not the narrative now. Other details about the Louisiana Purchase, Aaron Burr, and the Tripoli Pirates are all interesting. Still, the language is Victorian and difficult for a modern audience, especially for the sections in which context is missing. Henry Adams had exclusive access to documents and individuals, so his account can be considered reliable.

[Jdb · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating is really 3.5. This book is not for the casual history reader because of the author 's tendency to take such deep dives into certain events that they approach minutiae.

Those readers who love American history will enjoy this book. I couldn't help see many parallels between events described (1800-1809) and current events of 2017: (1) factious political fights between Federalists/Jeffersonian Republicans and today's Democrat/Republican squabbles. (2) battles between the executive branch and the Supreme Court (3) the influence of special business interests on Congress (4) successes and failures of diplomacy and (5) the United States involvement in international affairs despite misgivings.

One enormous difference between 1809 and today is the change in the role of the USA in the world. During Jefferson's term of office, our new country had no influence, respect, or power internationally and was at the mercy of Napoleonic France and England. Even Spain thumbed her nose at us. What a difference WWII brought, for better and worse.

[Patrick Beagle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding history of Jefferson's administrations

I was first introduced to the writings of Henry Adams in undergraduate "Survey of American Literature" over 25 years ago and read excerpt from "The Education of Henry Adams" which provided an aging historian's views of the pitfalls of then-modern technology in his thoughts on "The dynamo" and it's potential to change then "life as he knew it" and it, and other "new" inventions and their impact on changing society. However, in Adams' "History of the United States during the Administration of Thomas Jefferson, Adams more than lives up to and far exceeds the late David McCulloch's description of Adams as being "the greatest historian the United States has ever known," as his detailed and thoroughly foot noted history gives the reader the distinct impression that the author witnessed the events he writes about with such outstanding detail and clarity...I strongly recommend this outstanding work of American history!!!

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

As thoroughly written a volume of history as has ever been published, and all the more so as it covers just 8 years of the subject's life. The author's personal and profession pedigree gained him access to period documents pertaining to Jefferson' presidency and related international correspondence. Although published a good 80 years after the events described, it feels contemporary in its characterizations, yet the language used is largely non-archaic even today. Not a quick or superficial read, this work of a descendant of two presidents retains a justified reputation as one of the finest history volumes available.

[Joyce Haworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I give this five stars because no doubt it is a solid detailed work of history in this period, and also because I finally finished a book by Henry Adams. I don't know why, but I start them and just -- forget to go back to them. I really enjoyed the granular approach to domestic politics in the first half of this volume. In the second half I started to snooze but muscled through. The Tripoli stuff at the end was a bit interesting.
This was my before-bed book, if you see what I mean. There is a Volume II for Jeff's second administration but I am not embarking on that quite yet.

[MIKE MATTIE · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jefferson as presidency's

Well documented and researched history of the presidency of Jefferson. Wonder what happened to Lewis and Clark and their expedition. Adams sets the background of the Republican revolution. The story of European background was fascinating.

[Andrew Scholes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good information

It had some good information. It dealt more with events around the time of Jefferson and not much about Jefferson himself. It was much longer than it needed to be.

[Steve H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes , Henry Adams is a good US historian especially of the 19th century. I learned a lot. I gave him 4 stars and not 5 because of his writing style.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 5 out of 5]

On this celebration of Independence (not Godlike aseity, by any means--reference Psalms 50 and Richard Alan Farmer's sermon), Adams' great history is a reminder of the fragility of the American experiment, and the enduring miracle of the survival of the Union during those formative years.

Garry Wills' recent resurrection of the historys (reviewed as well) spurred me to go back to the originals of which this is the first half (Madison's administrations to come). I was struck by

--the condecension of British and French diplomats to the admittedly brash and bathetic American efforts.

--the barefaced treason of Aaron Burr, and how nearly he succeeded.

--the equally bold treasonous threats by the New England states (twice during Jefferson's terms) to secede, a fact often conveniently forgotten by Northerners quick to blame the South for the Civil War.

--Napoleon's "shock and awe" political leadership that managed the stage of world politics, diplomacy and war for two decades.

[Gary Land · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have now finished Adams's monumental history of the Jefferson and Madison administrations, though somehow reading the Madison series before Jefferson. This is not light history. It is very detailed and I sometimes got bogged down in the long descriptions of the diplomatic maneuvers. But Adams does an excellent job of describing how circumstances forced Jefferson to abandon most of the political philosophy he brought with him into the presidency. Although I taught college-level U.S. history for many years, I did not realize how disillusioned the country was with him by the time he left office.

[Joseph Durham · Rating 5 out of 5]

The mark of good history is to narrate faithfully about the time written: the interesting, the controversies, the successes and failures of action on the stage of life. Henry Adam's account easily meets these goals.

When you read history of this quality you realize that the times in which we live, with all of its hustle and bustle, its controversies and reveries is not unique.

It is fascinating to read the political events in Jefferson's time, they mirror our own, even though the pace and wonders of technology affecting living certainly have transformed the 21st Century. When you finish reading this work, one gains a meaningful perspective on today's events.

[Graeme Hinde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps not shockingly, this 1200 page account of the Jefferson presidency has some dry patches. I stopped at 300, half way through the first term.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbelievably thorough with respect given to actors and their drive. A first-rate history of the United States during the Jefferson administration.

[Chad Lamb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of the Jefferson administrations. A little tedious when it comes to diplomatic back-and-forths, but then again, that may be my taste. Very good insight into Jefferson, the man.

[Bob Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 75 pages or so about the state of the country around 1800 were very good...