Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805

Jefferson and His Time #4

by Dumas Malone

In the fourth volume of this comprehensive study, Jefferson acquires the vast territory of Louisiana for the United States, challenges the growing power of the federal judiciary, continues to press his opposition to the Hamiltonian doctrine of an overriding central government, assumes the unchallenged leadership of his party, and is universally acknowledged as the preeminent American patron of science and general learning.

Genres: Biography, History, Presidents, American History, Nonfiction, Politics, American

539 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Dumas Malone, 1892–1986, spent thirty-eight years researching and writing Jefferson and His Time. In 1975 he received the Pulitzer Prize in history for the first five volumes. From 1923 to 1929 he taught at the University of Virginia; he left there to join the Dictionary of American Biography, bringing that work to completion as editor-in-chief. Subsequently, he served for seven years as director of the Harvard University Press. After serving on the faculties of Yale and Columbia, Malone retired to the University of Virginia in 1959 as the Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, a position he held until his retirement in 1962. He remained at the university as biographer-in-residence and finished his Jefferson biography at the University of Virginia, where it was begun.

Reviews

[Paul Haspel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Jefferson Administration, over the course of its first term, is the subject of this, the fourth volume of Dumas Malone’s epic six-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson. With his customary thoroughness, Malone examines the first four years of Jefferson’s time as Third President of the United States of America.

Malone, a University of Virginia historian, may well have been the biographer that Jefferson himself would have wanted. In painstaking detail, and with a decided sense of sympathy for Jefferson as subject, Malone had set forth Jefferson’s prior life in three prior volumes. Jefferson the Virginian (1948) treated Jefferson’s early life in the Charlottesville area and his work during the Revolutionary era (1743-84); Jefferson and the Rights of Man (1951) covered Jefferson’s initial post-Revolutionary work in public service, including his time as Minister to France (1784-92); and Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty (1962) centered around Jefferson’s beginnings as a leader of the new Democratic-Republican party, and his opposition to the Federalist policies of the U.S.A.’s second president, John Adams.

Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805 (1970) begins with Jefferson having defeated Adams’s bid for re-election in the exceptionally hard-fought election of 1800 – the first time in American history that control of the U.S. government had passed from one political party to another – and moves forward to examine how Jefferson and his administration addressed the challenges of that time.

Sympathetic to Jefferson as always, Malone writes that Jefferson “was notable in his time, and has been ever since, for his confidence in the common-sense judgment of the people generally.” Malone holds that Jefferson’s approach did not constitute popularity-seeking; rather, he felt that “Governors and government had to be supported, and reliance must be placed on public approbation if it was not placed on force, which he detested….To say that he wanted his government to be popular is another way of saying that he wanted it to be supported” (p. 100).

It was during Jefferson’s first term that the charges of an illicit relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings first came to light, courtesy of one James Thomson Callender, a scurrilous journalist whom Jefferson had employed for his newspaper battles against the Federalists. Nowadays, we are so used to hearing about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings that it is easy to forget that in 1970, when this book was published, entertaining in print the reports of a relationship between the two was almost a taboo.

Malone turns to the subject of the Sally Hemings accusations with evident distaste, and dismisses the charges as “distinctly out of character, being virtually unthinkable in a man of Jefferson’s moral standards and habitual conduct….[W]hile he might occasionally have fallen from grace, as so many men have done so often, it is virtually inconceivable that this fastidious gentleman whose devotion to his dead wife’s memory and to the happiness of his daughters and grandchildren bordered on the excessive could have carried on through a period of years a vulgar liaison which his own family could not have failed to detect” (p. 214).

Here, and in an appendix titled “The Miscegenation Legend,” Malone does his best to dismiss these charges; but even he must acknowledge that, at the time, there was no solid evidence regarding the paternity of Sally Hemings’s children. Much has changed since those times, of course, especially since the 1998 study that provided DNA evidence that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings did indeed have children together. It is probably no accident that women historians like Fawn Brodie (Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, 1974) and Annette Gordon-Reed (Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 1998) took the lead in writing Sally Hemings back into history, even before the results of that DNA study were announced.

The Louisiana Purchase is generally acknowledged as the greatest achievement of the Jefferson Administration. By purchasing the Louisiana Territory from Napoleonic France, Jefferson doubled the size of the young United States of America, adding 828,000 square miles to the young country at a bargain-basement price of $15 million (or $18 per square mile). With the stroke of a pen, American sovereignty extended over part or all of what would one day be the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota – even parts of what are now the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

It was a masterstroke of American foreign policy – even if it happened almost by accident (the Americans wanted only to buy the port of New Orleans), and even if it represented a step away from Jefferson’s traditional policy of limited presidential power. Fortunately for the future history of the world, Jefferson put aside his small-government scruples and made the most of an unexpected but welcome opportunity.

The Louisiana Purchase was a most happy time for President Thomas Jefferson. Malone writes, aptly, that “Jefferson was to meet with other difficulties which would take the edge off his satisfaction, but beyond doubt he was now at the peak of his presidential career” (p. 302)

Those who enjoy reading about the messy “sausage-making” aspect of American politics – the Washington elite engaged in the perpetual local sport of back-biting and back-stabbing along the Potomac – will enjoy reading about the intrigues of Aaron Burr, the thoroughly unscrupulous New Yorker who served as Jefferson’s Vice-President during the great Virginian’s first term.

Knowing, as the election of 1804 drew near, that he was being nudged off the Jefferson ticket, Burr decided to run for governor of the state of New York, making along the way a series of free-lance, seat-of-the-pants alliances with anyone, whether Democratic-Republican or Federalist, who he thought might help him remain in elected office and thus stay in the game. Burr’s allies even included some disgruntled New England Federalists who spoke of taking their six-state region out of the Union!

Jefferson was not the only one who was concerned at Burr’s agent-of-chaos maneuverings: so was Jefferson’s long-time archrival Alexander Hamilton, who “was so alarmed that he actively opposed Burr, using language which occasioned, in the summer, the most famous of American duels and the loss to the Federalist party of its greatest mind” (p. 405). That well-known duel of 11 July 1804 at Weehawken, New Jersey, killed Hamilton and put an effective end to Aaron Burr's career as an elected official.

Yet the duel at Weehawken did not put an end to Burr's ability to cause trouble for Thomas Jefferson. Burr had been a sort of nemesis to Jefferson before: In the 1800 election, Jefferson and Burr, albeit on the same ticket, managed to achieve a first-place tie in the Electoral College, and it took 36 ballots (!) before Jefferson was selected over Burr as Third President of the United States of America. And Burr would be a Jefferson nemesis again, during Jefferson’s second term; Burr's alleged interest in separating Western territories from the U.S.A. and forming a new Southwestern republic resulted in his arrest as a traitor, and in an historic treason trial.

Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805 ends with Jefferson’s resounding victory in the 1804 presidential election, and with the re-elected Jefferson beginning his second term as President. As with many other American presidents, Jefferson’s second term did not go as well as his first – a story that the diligent and conscientious Malone would explore in the next volume of this biography.

[Aaron Million · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dumas Malone picks up Volume IV of the life of Thomas Jefferson by reviewing the closing days of the disputed election of 1800, where the House of Representatives ended up choosing Jefferson over Aaron Burr. Malone continues his penchant for excusing away most of Jefferson's many flaws, and emphasizing his positive attributes whenever possible. I am not sure if it that the deeper I go in the series the more exposed I am to Malone's favorable treatment of Jefferson, or if Malone himself – through studying Jefferson so closely – becomes increasingly enamored with his subject. Malone spends the first few chapters defending Jefferson against any charges of a “deal” to provide quid pro quos to some Representatives in exchange for their votes in his favor regarding the House's responsibility to determine the ultimate winner of the deadlocked election. Once Jefferson takes office, the love-fest continues. On page 61, writing about Jefferson's management of his office and his administration, Dumas comments “...rarely if ever in the history of the presidency has there been equally skillful and successful administration that was based to the same extent on personality.”

But there is no more glaring of a weakness in Malone's overly friendly treatment of Jefferson than when he discusses the possibility of Jefferson impregnating one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. Writing of these, at that time, unfounded charges on page 214 Malone states: “They are distinctly out of character, being virtually unthinkable in a man of Jefferson's moral standards and habitual conduct.... it is virtually inconceivable that this fastidious gentleman whose devotion to his dead wife's memory and to the happiness of his daughters... could have carried on through a period of years a vulgar liaison which his own family could not have failed to detect. It would be as absurd as to charge this consistently temperate man with being, through a long period, a drunkard.” If Jefferson had still been alive when Malone wrote those words, I would seriously question how much Jefferson may have paid him to write such an encomium. If there were any remaining doubt as to whether Malone was able to view Jefferson's actions and the man himself objectively, I think the above passage makes that answer clear. Malone wrote this prior to the DNA testing that did confirm that Jefferson did father children with Hemings. I do not expect Malone to have assumed that Jefferson did this, but as a responsible biographer, I think his penchant for usually bathing Jefferson in sunshine and for almost refusing to even consider that the man may have done something like this is to call into question his ability to write an even-handed biography. I do not question Malone's dedication to his craft, nor that he was the preeminent Jefferson scholar of his time and probably all-time (all of the footnotes in these volumes by themselves prove that). But I do, at times, question his judgment in attempting to provide an accurate portrayal of the man.

Fortunately, when it comes to political matters, Malone, while still favorably disposed to Jefferson, is somewhat more objective in his treatment. Malone does excellent work in describing Jefferson's actions concerning the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson was not completely upfront about some of his motives and some of his behind-the-scenes maneuvering to obtain the vast swath of territory. He knew it was beyond the bounds of his Constitutional authority yet he could not pass up such an excellent opportunity to expand the borders of the young United States. Malone acknowledges that Jefferson was not above partisan feelings and that he knew his overwhelming support in Congress would help smooth the way for the passage of the treaty with France.

Malone handles Jefferson's presidency in a topical fashion, while trying to move along chronologically through his first term. Normally, I do not care for this approach as it tends to isolate what the subject is doing, but obviously Jefferson was engaged in many different things at the same time. However, Malone is so thorough in his treatment of each topic that it works for his style of writing. He also tries to mix policy-laden chapters (Jefferson's dealings with Congress and the Supreme Court, for example) with lighter sides of Jefferson's character, such as his family life. Speaking of the latter, it was sad to read about Jefferson's youngest daughter dying – she never quite recovered from having her seventh child. Jefferson was so guarded with his feelings though that if he did speak at length to anyone about how he felt, it was not recorded or repeated.

Malone's editor(s) must have been asleep at the wheel for a good part of this series. I re-read my review of Volume III and noted that Malone described ad nauseam the lack of a complete roof over Jefferson's house, Monticello. Well, on page 38 of this book, he mentions it again, when comparing it's living standards to that of the Executive Mansion (now known as the White House). Enough already about the roof at Monticello and whether it was on or off! I appreciate a thorough review of someone's life, and the diligent research that Malone clearly conducted on Jefferson, literally spending decades reading and writing about one of the most important figures in American history. But we do not need every single detail about the man's daily life to get an accurate picture of what his life was like. All too frequently in this series, Malone gets bogged down in excessive detail such this; detail that really adds nothing to our understanding of Jefferson.

In the end, like the other volumes in this series, this is a serious piece of scholarship blighted by some serious flaws, which ultimately stem from the subjectivity of the author for his subject. However, anyone wishing to really read and learn about Jefferson would need to read these works. The sheer volume of information that Malone chronicles makes them worthwhile from that point. No one has studied him more closely than Malone. But keep in mind that, while certainly not a hagiographer, many issues and events are strongly interpreted in Jefferson's favor.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://bestpresidentialbios.com/2013/...

“Jefferson the President: First Term” is the fourth volume in Dumas Malone’s monumental biographical work on Thomas Jefferson. This volume was published in 1970 and was followed four years later by volume five, after which Malone received a Pulitzer Prize for the still incomplete series. The final volume was published in 1981 when its author was eighty-nine years old.

Consistent with previous volumes in this series, this book can be read as a stand-alone work – in this instance focusing almost solely on Jefferson’s first term as president – but seems much better read as part of Malone’s complete series. Also consistent with earlier volumes, this book was clearly the result of meticulous and painstaking research and groans under the weight of factual insights and accountings, though not the synthesis and evaluation I would have also appreciated.

Most readers will view this book as even less a biography than earlier volumes, it seeming instead more a historical account of the years 1801-1805. This is primarily due to Malone’s heavy focus on the notable events of the period, rather than Jefferson’s actions themselves. Owing partly to his party’s control of Congress, and the harmony within his cabinet, Jefferson rarely needed (or wanted) to be in the spotlight. As a result, Jefferson’s character recedes into the background for much of the book and we learn little of this man’s innermost-self.

Also receding in this volume is the pro-Jefferson “slant” which the reader may by now expect of Malone. In part, this is a natural result of circumstances of the times: the principal antagonists of the series thus far (the Federalists, and Hamilton in particular) are virtually politically extinct during this period and create relatively few headaches for Jefferson. And owing to a duel he clearly lost with Jefferson’s vice president, Alexander Hamilton does not even survive the first term of Jefferson’s presidency.

Only in the case of Sally Hemings do we get a full dose of Malone’s familiar sympathy with his biographical subject. Here, for the first time in the series, we learn of the controversy surrounding the possible (and, to many, quite likely) “relationship” between Jefferson and Hemings. True to old form, Malone quickly dispatches the issue in Jefferson’s favor. Unfortunately, his defense of Jefferson is so efficiently and narrowly executed that I expect it will leave most modern readers unconvinced.

“Jefferson the President: First Term” is organized thematically by chapter rather than chronologically. Although with most books this causes me significant discomfort (as it has appears to have caused many others who have read this volume), the entirety of this book encompasses just four years. As a result, the timeline is not particularly difficult to reassemble and the events seem relatively easy to consider separately. Causing more pain, in my view, is that this book is not less tedious to read than earlier volumes.

Overall, I came away from this volume feeling quite well-familiarized with the first term of the Jefferson Presidency. I learned a great deal (perhaps even more than I cared to) of Jefferson’s efforts to challenge the Federalist domination of the judicial branch and to negotiate and integrate the Louisiana Purchase. But I learned surprisingly little of Jefferson’s re-election to the highest office; this piece of history is covered in paragraphs while other seemingly trivial matters receive chapters. Nonetheless, I am much wiser for the overall experience and look forward to the next volume of this adventure.

Overall rating: 3¾ stars

[Paul Burkhart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good gracious, this volume covering Jefferson's first term goes at a million miles an hour. It only covers four years, but they were surely event-filled. The same period in single-volume biographies usually covers only a chapter or two. But there's a lot. However, at the same time, I somehow don't know if this book needed to be this long. At times I enjoy the leisurely pace at which Dumas writes, but when I look back at the long book I just read and realized it just covered four years, it's a little mind-boggling.

As continues to be the case through all these biographies, I don't know that I have a fully formed impression of who Jefferson is as a human. He is so aloof, and so frequently moves against the principles and values that he promotes in his writings, philosophy, theoretical declarations that he's so known for, it's difficult to get a read on the guy. He obviously knew that he was going to be well-known throughout this country's history, so it seems that every one of his letters and diaries and journals were written to obscure what is really going on inside of him in favor of what he wants posterity to think of him.

And what further obscures this is that Dumas continues to act as Jefferson's chief apologist to explain and expound upon this man whom he has already deemed to be worthy, good, and righteous.

Nevertheless, it is a fascinating time which is covered in this book. It was the real beginning of party politics in America, where the President was also buying into the machinations and movements of the party spirit. Our first two presidents were very intentional and self-conscious about not giving in to party passions, and deliberately went against them when they could. You could not look at the actions and platforms of Washington and Adams and say they neatly fit either of the emerging parties.

Jefferson, however, is different. He was the first president nominated and elected on the basis of party platforms and affiliations. What's a bit frustrating in these volumes by Dumas is that he vividly portrays the partisanship of every single person and part of the national political culture and institutions, but seems to believe that Jefferson transcends and floats above them. Then when people just happen to do the things he wants or when he makes moves that absolutely further entrench and empower his party and destroy the other, Dumas writes about it as if he was just following his own ideals and trying to be a good president while all these other people were taking advantage of it for their own partisan gain.

Reading other biographies, though, it is clear that Jefferson was rabidly partisan and would sometimes do things just for the sake of party even if it went against his own previously expressed principles. Indeed, much of the Federalist criticisms levied at Jefferson were that he was hypocritical to the very Declaration of Independence he wrote.

This volume covers some exciting events in America's history, including the conflict with the Barbary pirates, the Louisiana purchase, and the removal of Aaron Burr from the vice presidential spot for the 1804 election (although admittedly, this was a much less dramatic affair than one would assume, even without having seen the musical "Hamilton"). And I'll be honest: I'm a little split in how what I think of how Dumas covers these events.

Dumas is good about telling these stories in excruciating detail, at points going day by day, and admirably juggles the acts of different people happening concurrently (especially when it comes to the Louisiana purchase). The artistic side of my brain was a little frustrated that he did not add some novelistic flair and drama to these inherently dramatic ordeals. More contemporary biographers have had fun writing these stories of espionage, war, and intrigue in ways that are far more gripping.

And yet, my more analytical side really does appreciate the way Dumas captures how relatively mundane these things were for the real people as they were happening, and how they were more stressful than exciting for those involved. History often just isn't that dramatic when experienced in real time.

So if you want some of the most comprehensive accounts of these events and their accompanying political intrigues and constitutional arguments, and have an ability to import your own sense of drama into receiving those facts, then you can't do much better than this. But if you need someone to get you excited about history, then maybe look elsewhere.

I will end with my biggest frustration of this particular volume. More than any other, this one seems to have no awareness of any existence of the world other than Thomas Jefferson.

In the introduction, Dumas explicitly says that he wrestles with this. He points out that for biographers, it's always a balancing act, but in the end he had to err on the side of this being the history of one man and not the history of an entire country. But still, the country is just as much a product of Jefferson's person and presidency as he is a product of the country itself. And so throughout the book Dumas makes very odd decisions on the secondary people and events he chooses to zoom in on and those he chooses to ignore all together.

Aaron Burr, for example, is one of the most important people in the political life of Thomas Jefferson, and his actions dramatically shape and guide Jefferson's story for over a decade, and yet Dumas seems to go out of his way to say as little about Burr as a person as possible, perhaps out of a fear that if he starts going down the Aaron Burr rabbit hole he may never come out. (Luckily, the next volume that covers Jefferson's second term will force his hand to discuss Burr at length.)

Yet even as Dumas says so little about Aaron Burr, he goes so much in depth into the impeachment trial of judge Samuel Chase, going through Chase's individual opinions on each partisan thing that contributed to his impeachment, and goes through every partisan move surrounding the impeachment and the speeches and the charges over each day of his trial.

And yet Dumas himself makes it clear that Jefferson was intentional to not have anything to do with this trial. The President made no comments about it, neither public nor private, he was not present for the trial, and he played no role in the impeachment being considered nor tried.

Other than being a headache for his own political party, the impeachment literally has nothing to do with Thomas Jefferson. Yet Dumas chooses to focus in on the granular minutiae and ignore other people and events that were far more influential in Jefferson's life.

Previous volumes have had a lot of information about the world at large--America's earliest days and the cultural and philosophical forces and people that created Thomas Jefferson.

This volume, however, has none of that. You pretty much just follow Jefferson and his discussions with his cabinet members and his partisans arguing in the media. We have no idea who is managing Monticello while he is gone and how that's going. We have no insight into the continuing building and development of Washington DC and how that might be a shaping the politics there. We aren't even given insight into Jefferson's finances or personal relationships and friendships at this time. It's just the political story of Thomas Jefferson for these four years, and an overtly biased apologetic for him at that.

Some sort of eye towards the broader world and how they are experiencing Jefferson's presidency would go a long way in giving insight to the man himself and how aware he was or not of his place in the world. But there's literally no discussion along those lines in this entire volume.

Still, this is still the most comprehensive account of these years of Jefferson's life that have ever been written, and for that they are still valuable, even if I do feel that this is perhaps the weakest volume I've read so far. I'm hopeful for the next one though.

[Andrew Canfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

This biographical saga of the third president's life and times just keeps getting better and better. The level of analysis in the nearly 500 of this masterpiece seems to be par for the course for historian Dumas Malone; the several decades it took him to compose these six books appear to be time well-spent.

This book kicks off with the wacky Electoral College tie between Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson in 1800-31 apiece-a situation which Malone indicates might have come about because of machinations on the part of the latter. It then discusses Alexander Hamilton's incongruous efforts to ensure his rival Jefferson actually ends up being the president when it is thrown to the House of Representatives. The book repeats an oft-mentioned tale of a supposedly bitter President Adams- a man who, despite being the incumbent president, could not even manage to make the two-way runoff in the House-leaving Washington early to avoid Jefferson's inauguration ceremony.

The First Term, as the title implies, covers the first four years of the Jefferson administration (March 1801 through March 1805). A very compelling work, this book looks at his decision to offer a pardon to James Callender due to his alleged sedition under the Sedition Act, only to have the bomb-throwing newspaper editor turn on him when he is not a pure enough republican once assuming office. It discusses the demand for bribes, or "tributes," from the governments of the Barbary states of North Africa; in this, Jefferson, who is not a fan of a deep water navy, decides to use the threat of possible force to create a better bargaining position for his young nation. Readers are also introduced to Meriwether Lewis as Jefferson's new secretary, although his famous journey with Clark will apparently have to wait for coverage of the second term.

Looming large over this book is the third president's main contribution to the U.S.-the pulling off the Louisiana Purchase. This purchase is described in all its painstaking detail: the manner in which the Spanish had yet to technically pass control of the territory over to France prior to it begin agreed to; Jefferson and some of his fellow republicans' hand wringing over the constitutionality of the purchase absent a constitutional amendment; and, finally, Jefferson's choices being limited when he discovers the treaty can be undone if not signed quickly enough, meaning the process of a constitutional amendment to justify territory acquisition could eat up too much time and possibly end up forfeiting this massive gain for the nation. Due to this, he is able to overcome his scruples, an example of the Virginian behaving as a realist while in office (as opposed to his democratic-republican purity while Secretary of State and especially in early "retirement".)

The book also talks about Jefferson's relationship with his two daughters (both of whom were married to men who ultimately became members of Congress). His daughter Maria passed away during his first term, a sad situation which Malone covers with appropriate empathy.

The author does not seem as blindingly supportive of Jefferson and as defensive of the man as he was during the first few books of the series. Malone is more willing to call him out when he makes mistakes, playing the part of a good biographer in the sense that he is unwilling to be a total excuse artist for his subject. Despite this there is still plenty to admire, and Malone overlooks no detail in explaining the complicated Louisiana Purchase situation as well as the trial of Justice Samuel Chase, a trial which at the time was one of the biggest news stories in the United States. The lack of trust between the executive branch and a judiciary which was still finding its way under the still-young Constitution made for some controversy over the course of the book.

If you want to know Thomas Jefferson's first term as president backwards and forwards, this biography is a spectacular place to learn about it.

-Andrew Canfield Denver, Co.

[Jacob Sabin · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5. which I will bump up to 3. Up to this point in the series I have given all the other books a 4. Like the other books, it could have been shorter at points. I appreciate Malone trying to cover so much, but a bit of condensing, even if you still want the full 6 parts, would have been helpful to the reader. Like all of the other books, Jefferson is truly his idol. There is little, if anything, Jefferson can do which is wrong. Which brings me to a quote on page 205. He says this of Jefferson. "We may note, however, the judgment of a scholarly Unitarian clergyman in the middle of the twentieth century that Jefferson's "knowledge" of and admiration for the teachings of Jesus have NEVER (emphasized by myself for the point I will be making) been equaled by any other president.

Um, this is an insult. As a Christian, I find this terribly insulting. Jefferson literally cut the Bible a part, at least the Gospels, to get rid of the miracles in it because he does not believe Jesus is divine. We have had literal Christian presidents (not before Jefferson but certainly after). Presidents who actually believed Jesus was the Son of God and the Bible was real and God does miracles. Jefferson admired the moral teachings of Jesus, some of the other moral and emotional sayings of the Bible but that's it. He did not believe in it and therefore, he could not have had the greatest admiration for it. You can not have the greatest admiration for Jesus over all of the other presidents and not believe Jesus is who He says He is. I would call such thinking asinine. Malone is highly skeptical of Jefferson having children with Hemmings because Jefferson "would not do that" when DNA evidence has shown otherwise (after Malone wrote this, but I digress). Jefferson could of went on a ax mass murder spree and Malone would have had a positive way to spin it. It is fine to have heroes, but if you are writing history, you should paint a more complete picture, one of the things I admire about McCullough is I feel he paints the more complete picture of his subjects, including Jefferson.

[Jdb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is volume 4 of 6 and covers TJ’s first presidential term, which was relatively free of crises and significant events.

The one big exception was the Louisiana Purchase. Before reading Malone’s discussion I always associated the purchase immediately and solely with Jefferson. While TJ certainly provided the vision, it is apparent that Madison, Monroe, and Livingston did the detail work and even exceeded their instructions which added about 400 million acres to the original U.S. diplomatic objective. Luck also played a huge role as Talleyrand and Napoleon fortuitously were focused on European wars and needed the money from the sale to finance them.

Following the agreement, TJ was also faced with one of those characteristic Constitutional issues of our country’s early years: did the Constitution allow the U.S. to acquire by treaty the acquisition of another country’s territory when this power was not expressly stated in the Constitution . Fascinating!

[Dennis Erwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best part were the chapters on the Louisiana purchase. Really well done. And I thought organizing Jefferson's first term by topic worked out well.

He's not an exciting writer. Maybe it's the amount of material, but I think it's his way of explaining events. He tends to circle a major event and spend a lot of time on context, but he never lands the plane and either obliquely describes it, or kind of alludes to it, assuming you are familiar with the major things and he can move on.

And I don't think he's critical enough of Jefferson. He so often explicitly tells you that we should assume the best, that you begin to think something is being missed. Especially in Jefferson's first term, Jefferson as an agent of history almost disappears into Jefferson the symbol of American virtue.

[Robert K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jefferson’s Greatest Accomplishment during his first term was the Lewis & Clark Expedition & the acquisition of the Louisiana territory from France. Ironically against his wishes, chief Justice John Marshall issued his Seminole opinion Maher versus Madison, which established for all time that the Supreme court has the final say and how the three branches of government will exist side-by-side. The decision was probably not recognized for its full significance at the time it was issued, but in later court decisions was referenced consistently to assure that the judicial branch was led by the court of last resort.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Volume 4 of 6. As with the other volumes, this one is not laid out in a strictly narrative manner, but each chapter has a particular focus. This works very well in the sections dealing with the Louisiana Purchase (the best part of the book) or his analysis of the transition from Adams' Federalist administration to his own (Democratic) Republican administration. However, it can be a little annoying when multiple chapters cover the same time frame. Also, as with the other volumes, the excellent scholarship is offset by hero worship. This is most apparent in his treatment of Sally Hemmings.

[Kenneth Lund · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the best book thus far in the series. The writing on the Louisiana purchase, the Yazoo land scandal, the judicial impeachments, and the Merry affair were all particularly interesting. The author still draws all inference strongly in Jefferson’s favor and rejects any implications that Jefferson would do anything wrong or immoral, because, in the author’s view, that wouldn’t be in Jefferson’s character. This book was less slanted than previous ones. But Malone dismisses outright the Hemings allegations, and that conclusion may not have held up well.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough review of the major events of Jefferson's first term as president. Malone covers Jefferson's involvement in each of these, while also fitting his personal events into the larger context, so it does still work like a standard biography. Like the previous volumes, Malone's high regard for his subject is highly apparent on every page. This leads to its biggest flaw, the quick dismissal of the Sally Hemings story, which a majority of historians now agree was true, simply on the basis that Malone doesn't think it's an action Jefferson would have taken.

[Jude Flurry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 7/8 of this book was excellent. It covered Jefferson's ascent to the presidency, his cabinet members, his replacement of John Adams's "midnight appointments," his general character/philosophy/policies, his personal life, Marbury vs. Madison, the Mississippi controversy, the Louisiana Purchase, the Hamilton-Burr duel and its aftermath, and the election of 1804. Then there were two horribly boring chapters at the end about 19th century partisan bickering.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dumas Malone's mammoth 6-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson continues with volume 4 regarding his 1st presidential term. The most striking thing from this volume is that Jefferson is underrated for not letting his ideology and conflict with the federalist compromise a fair presidency, and then of course there is the Louisiana Purchase, but it will be the next volume before the magnitude of that deal is revealed.

[Tim Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Malone's regular penchant to take Jefferson's side cannot be denied, the value Malone does offer is a catalog of events in Jefferson's life no other biography provides. In some cases it seems like a daily diary of his life. For this complete catalog of his life, I read these books. I learn about events and read quotes in context that I see nowhere else, and I have a lot of books on or connected to Jefferson.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable read if you like Jefferson. Very detailed account of various aspects of his first term. Reading the chapter on the Louisiana Purchase I feel like there's enough drama for a movie (France and England and war, Spain and the contention over Western Florida, the pony express shuttling agreements back and forth from DC, the dubious constitutionality of the purchase in the first place).

[Jerry Landry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic detailed book on Jefferson's first term. I did have issues with a couple of Malone's interpretations of events, but for the most part, very insightful, and one cannot help but respect the massive amount of research went into this work.

[Alex Stephenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Least favorite one yet - lots of pages spent on context that would be appreciated in theory, but seem tangential in practice. And as everyone else has said, the Sally Hemings section has not aged well...

[Paul F · Rating 4 out of 5]

History of our country’s government from the early beginnings, how much fighting went on then, and continues to the present day between the parties. Good reading.

[Dayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dumas Malone is THE original biographer of Thomas Jefferson. Three volumes. I only read this one. But plan, one day to read the other two.

[John Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title states, this book covers the events of Jefferson's first term as President. It was a momentous time: the Louisiana Territory became available after Napoleon's dream of a new empire in America fell apart, Jefferson spearheaded its purchase despite his own doubts that the Constitution authorized the federal government to acquire new territory, Lewis and Clark's expedition to the Pacific coast set off, and the party rivalries and questions of foreign trade and international relations which more or less are constantly present in American politics were present.

This also is as good as time as any to discuss Jefferson's alleged relationship with Sally Hemings. Sally Hemings was a Jefferson family slave who served Jefferson in Paris while he served as American minister to France, then returned with him to America even though she could have stayed in France as a free woman, and lived the remainder of her life at Monticello.

The tone of political debate at the time was even more rancid than it is today. During Jefferson's first term in office, a polemicist whom Jefferson previously had employed turned against him, and published a torrent of insults that would have made James Carville blush. Included among these attacks was the allegation that Jefferson had carried on an affair with "Dusky Sally."

With a star witness like this, it is not surprising that historians traditionally have given this story little credence. At the same time, it never completely went away. Visitors to Monticello periodically remarked about what they saw as a familial resemblance between Jefferson and certain of the house servants at Monticello. Moreover, the historical record certainly leaves room for the possibility that Jefferson engaged in a long-term liaison with Hemings. Jefferson spent most of his adult years as a widower. He was a private man who rarely socialized outside his own home, and had only one, brief flirtation with a woman after his wife's death. Hemings was described by diarists as a very beautiful woman, and members of the Hemings family always received favorable treatment at Monticello, which would be consistent with a relationship between Hemings and Jefferson. Malone notes all these facts in his life of Jefferson (in both this volume and others), and one gets the feeling that Malone regarded such a relationship as a possibility, though with one exception he did not directly comment upon it.

In recent years the tide has turned. A genetic test determined that one of Sally Hemings' descendants also was related to the Jefferson family. The technique used for this test focused on a genetic marker that is passed from father to son. As a result, the test was able to determine lineage only where there was an unbroken male line of descent.

Jefferson had no surviving sons, so no living person can claim descent from Jefferson through this test. Rather, the test that was performed showed merely that a known descendant of Sally Hemings also was descended from Jefferson's paternal grandfather. TJ himself was only one of several who could have fathered the child whose offspring ultimately led to the test subject.

The "politically correct" view is that this test conclusively proved that Jefferson was the father of all of Hemings' children. It did nothing of the sort. This, of course, is poppycock, though it does make that possibility somewhat more likely.

Dumas Malone concluded that Jefferson did not father children by Sally Hemings. This conclusion appears to have been based primarily upon Malone's distaste for the possibility that Jefferson, whom he regarded as one of the great figures of history, would have done anything so immoral as to keep a much younger woman as a mistress. Race appears to have had little to do with this conclusion, and he cites no real evidence for it. The politically-correct version, of course, also is not based on the facts, but rather flows from the modern-day Left's desire to tear down the icons of American and Western history.

Ultimately, the possibility that Jefferson had a long-term relationship with a black woman probably is more titillating than significant. There is value in knowing the truth, and in the future improved genetic testing may finally reveal the truth with certainty. Regardless of the result, however, I do not believe the answer will be all that significant to history. Illicit sex sells books, but we should not allow the "National Enquirer" version of history to distract us from what is important about Jefferson, or any other icon of history.

[Beverly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 4 of the 6 book series by Dumas Malone on Jefferson covers Jefferson's first term as President. It is a tough read, not because there is not a lot of good stuff about Jefferson in the book, but because Dumas Malone doesn't seem to know how to write a book that doesn't sound like a textbook.

Malone loves to use big words that the average reader will not know the meaning of. Some examples - perfervid instead of impassioned, diffident instead of shy, equivocal instead of ambiguous, maladroit instead of ineffective or awkward, surreptitious instead of kept secret, philippic instead of bitter attack, and the list goes on. He also has a penchant for French phrases - coup de grace, cause celebre, laissez faire, reduction ad absurdum, coup de main, bette noir, and in one place he quotes a Frenchman in French (so no one knows what the Frenchman actually said). Honestly I'm not sure who Malone thought his audience was.

As for the content of the book, there is a lot of interesting history if you have the patience to persevere. You will need your trusty Google handy. Chapters are arranged thematically which means that it is hard to get a total picture of what was happening in any given year. It is more like reading a series of essays on Jefferson than reading a biography. I much prefer for a story to flow chronologically.

I enjoyed the chapter on his family. Seeing his humanity more clearly has softened my dislike of Jefferson. I enjoy reading about his devotion to his family and his pursuit of knowledge, but I still feel he has somewhat of a duplicity about him. Dumas doesn't help much. He clearly favors Jefferson to the point that he can barely admit Jefferson did anything wrong and he goes to great lengths to justify Jefferson. His animosity towards Callendar blinds him to any possible fault in Jefferson regarding Sally Hemings and the Walker affair.

I did not really see much about Jefferson in the Madison vs Marburg and judicial discussions. They were more focused on Congress and the Chief Justice than Jefferson's thoughts on either. I had to google the Madison vs Marburg and judiciary act of 1801 to get a good understanding of what these were about. Dumas does not introduce the subject well, does not familiarize his audience with the general theme before diving into details. And there are waaaaaaay too many details.

If these books were better written I would give them 4 or 5 stars because the content is well worth the pain of reading them. However they are difficult to read because of the things mentioned above and that significantly reduces my enjoyment of the book.

On to Book 5 which covers Jefferson's second term as President.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The series continues, with little distinction from its predecessors. This is the story of Jefferson's first term, and it might be summed up by the word "difficult". Jefferson's major first-term accomplishments: his early appointments, the purchase of Louisiana, the continuing patronage of art and science, and the clarification and defense of his overarching political philosophy are dogged and nearly overshadowed by the opposition to almost every one of them by the Hamiltonian, pro-federalist factions of early American government. This conflict is, by and large, the theme of this dense and arcane volume. Malone shows us, in painstaking and sometimes laborious detail, that American political discourse has changed little in the the last 210 years: the debates over the proper size and role of government in private life, the acrimonious and sometimes exaggerated accusations, the personal dirt-digging and mud-slinging, all have readily recognizable counterparts in Jefferson's day. While that might not be too terribly encouraging for readers looking to Jefferson's time as some golden era to be pined for, it is quite interesting to note the similarities.

The conflict is about all there is to dealt with here. Malone, as always, keeps an eye on Jefferson's private life: the solace he found in his family, his concerns for their wellbeing and the education of his daughters, the loss of his younger daughter, as well as his enduring and varied intellectual interests: telescopes, steam power, agriculture. In previous volumes, Malone's treatment of the private Jefferson served as a bit of a break from the heavy going of the political chaos; here, unfortunately, it is quite overshadowed.

Closing with the open question of how his appointments would succeed, the uncertain outcome of the political battles, and the aftermath of political scandal, this fourth volume is a piece of a increasingly complex and precarious puzzle. Whether the history-- and Malone's skill as an historian-- will resolve it remains to be seen.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Appenidix on the topic of Sally Hemings presents some information that current historians seem to ignore and asks questions those historians have stopped asking.

[R.G. Ziemer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was actually pretty boring, but that's not TJ's fault. Not really Dumas Malone's fault either, but I was disappointed there wasn't more about Lewis & Clark. Malone defers virtually all discussion of the expedition to the next book I guess.
TJ was just fortunate that his first term was so uneventful. The country was at peace, even though France and England were starting to heat up. The money he got from us helped Napolean fight in Europe, I suppose. The most bellicose action from TJ, even though he wasn't much in favor of building up the navy, was sending the marines to the "shores of Tripoli" to deal with the barbary pirates. (Some things never change.) TJ authorized construction of light gunboats as opposed to big expensive men-of-war ships.
Anyway, all the political crap is maddening to read about - it's bad enough I have to read about it in the paper every day, the Federalists and the Republicans were snipping away at each other just as bad then, maybe worse.
I have to say, Malone doesn't give much space to the Burr-Hamilton duel, either - or to Burr himself. Malone's approach is - if TJ didn't do anything about it, or even go on record about it, Malone will hardly speculate what he thought about it. Which leaves the reader wanting more.
Lucky TJ, though - He had the support of his party (mostly), the country, the Congress; and his enemies were self-destructing. His problems were mostly minor domestic deals. His big international deal for Louisiana had worked out great.
I guess his second term wouldn't be that tranquil.

[James Violand · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review applies to the entire series, Jefferson and His Times.
Anyone who wants to understand a fraction of Jefferson, needs to start here. This work is the source that most academicians use. It is thorough and depends upon Jefferson's correspondence, editorials, reports, day books, conversations and memories. What more could you ever need? Heavily footnoted, this series puts to shame all other works on this great American. Some popular authors have written of Jefferson suggesting what he may have thought, or he may have done (Brody, anyone?) Malone is authoritative and needs not speculate. Read the series and then ask yourself, "Is it more likely than not that Jefferson fathered Sally Hemming's children?" I can only conclude that he did not. I remember when Clinton was president and, when incidents arose which questioned his fidelity, suddenly this old rumor became current. Someone interviewed the descendants of Hemmings and guess what? They all believed they were related to him! Isn't that peculiar? NO! What does a reasonable man expect them to say? Is it not more impressive to be part of a family that was sired by one of the greatest Americans or his philandering nephew, Peter Carr. All resurrected in the hope of distracting the American public from a current political scandal.

[amy francis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly written biography in a series of biographies by Dumas on Thomas Jefferson. HIGHLY recommend for anyone interested in the political history of our country. I'm on a quest to truly understand the details about how the United States was founded, why, and the personalities of the major players in that task. Will be posting about each of the biographies in this series, but cannot state emphatically enough how much I enjoy reading these over and over.

Each book sequentially covers a part of Jefferson's robust life. He was, as many know, not just an enormous influence in American history, but a prolific author and highly educated man. He was also very clinical about his beliefs in life and made no secret of his suspicion of religious ideals.

This would be an incredible summer reading series for someone in high school or college.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Malone's fourth book in his six volume set and he is just now starting to hit his stride. Or maybe that's because Jefferson started hitting his stride during this time period in his life. Odd to say about the man who penned the Declaration, but true. I am not enamored with the man's personal and duplicitous nature, but this tale gave me a better appreciation for his politics, old school though they were,compared to Washington and Hamilton, but nonetheless very much needed during a time of uncertainty regarding a new nation's continued survival. He, like the other founding fathers and mothers was the right man for the time. Without him, Britain would have had a better chance to retake the colonies, or now referred to as the States United.

[Guera25 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the best of the set thus far. Informative and adroit with getting bogged down in ponderous prose, and I'll admit that it was was bleakly hilarious to watch Malone, a white intellectual, sputter and howl with indignation at the mere insinuation that Jefferson had any sort of sex life after his sainted wife's death, let alone with a slave. His high dudgeon says more about him than Jefferson, and since DNA tests have confirmed that the latter did, in fact, father numerous children by Sally Hemings, Malone's vehement protestations are ridiculous, bordering on hysterical. Malone could not have known this in 1969, but his snobby, paternalistic racism on the subject doesn't reflect well on him here.

[Robfussell · Rating 5 out of 5]

white guy #3 vol4