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Thomas Jefferson: Passionate Pilgrim
Eagerly awaited by readers of Alf Mapp's best-selling Thomas A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity, this final volume follows Jefferson from his inauguration as President in 1801 to his death at the age of 83 on July 4, 1826. It embraces the eight years as Chief Executive in which he doubled the size of the United States by his daring Louisiana Purchase, sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on one of the world's greatest expeditions of exploration, and challenged the formidable Chief Justice John Marshall with a major program of judicial reform. It proves the falseness of the stereotype that Jefferson ignored national defense and tried to keep the Navy weak. The book shows him late in life, with ideas that have relevance today, planning a system of public education and founding the University of Virginia, and it reveals, better than any other biography to date, the intimate details of the lonely private battle he fought during his last tortured, but ultimately triumphant, decade.
In Thomas Passionate Pilgrim, Jefferson the human being, passionate in his loves and hates, is never lost in a revealing portrait of the public figure. Witnessing Jefferson's actions in private life as well as in the arena of history, the reader learns why this founding father was abhorred by some but adored by many more.
The book not only is enlightening about Jefferson's personality, character, and career, but also enables us to view America and Europe in the first quarter of the nineteenth century through the eyes of the one person best qualified to see them in all phases. His wide acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic, his richly varied interests, and his life as both scholar and social animal, gave him a unique perspective.
Almost as interesting as Jefferson himself are the many other characters ho enliven the narrative. In addition to such accustomed players in his life drama as Madison, Monroe, and Marshall, there is the President's troublesome cousin, John Randolph, majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives at age twenty-eight, who sometimes entered the chamber in foxhunting togs, followed by a pack of hounds, and gestured with a riding crop as he addressed his colleagues. And there is Margaret Bayard Smith, who boasted that the master of monticello had admitted her to his "sanctum sanctorum" where "any other feet but his own seldom intrude." There was Vice President Aaron Burr, of the hypnotic eyes, who almost founded an empire in the American West. And who could forget Napoleon, completely nude, conducting a conference vital to the fate of both Jefferson and the United States?
Read either separately or in conjunction with Mapp's earlier volume on Jefferson, this book offers an illuminating and absorbing view of the person whom columnist George Will describes as the "Man of the Millennium."
In Thomas Passionate Pilgrim, Jefferson the human being, passionate in his loves and hates, is never lost in a revealing portrait of the public figure. Witnessing Jefferson's actions in private life as well as in the arena of history, the reader learns why this founding father was abhorred by some but adored by many more.
The book not only is enlightening about Jefferson's personality, character, and career, but also enables us to view America and Europe in the first quarter of the nineteenth century through the eyes of the one person best qualified to see them in all phases. His wide acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic, his richly varied interests, and his life as both scholar and social animal, gave him a unique perspective.
Almost as interesting as Jefferson himself are the many other characters ho enliven the narrative. In addition to such accustomed players in his life drama as Madison, Monroe, and Marshall, there is the President's troublesome cousin, John Randolph, majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives at age twenty-eight, who sometimes entered the chamber in foxhunting togs, followed by a pack of hounds, and gestured with a riding crop as he addressed his colleagues. And there is Margaret Bayard Smith, who boasted that the master of monticello had admitted her to his "sanctum sanctorum" where "any other feet but his own seldom intrude." There was Vice President Aaron Burr, of the hypnotic eyes, who almost founded an empire in the American West. And who could forget Napoleon, completely nude, conducting a conference vital to the fate of both Jefferson and the United States?
Read either separately or in conjunction with Mapp's earlier volume on Jefferson, this book offers an illuminating and absorbing view of the person whom columnist George Will describes as the "Man of the Millennium."
464 pages, Paperback
First published November 5, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 18, 2009
It must be difficult to write a biography of Jefferson. Where do you start? Where do you stop? Unlike so many presidents, politics was just one small part of his life. Something he engaged in because it was a part of the responsibility of a man of his class - but not something by which he defined himself.
When you look at the question this way, you understand why it might take Dumas Malone 6 volumes; such tonnage may be the only way to adequately describe at adequate depth all of the things Jefferson was engaged in.
The fact that I make this observation after reading the second and concluding volume of Professor Mapp's biography is no coincidence.
As with his previous volume - The Strange Case of Mistaken Identity (which i believe was thankfully retitled "America's Paradoxical Patriot") - no real sense of Jefferson emerges from this biography. Why? Is it because Jefferson's life was so full that you must choose to either 1) skim the surface (as Mapp does), 2) only elucidate some key illuminating events, 3) spend the entire volume analyzing and assume the reader knows the facts or 4) write a Dumas Malone version?
I don't know. But I do know what I'm looking for, and that, in short: 1) the story of a subject's life 2) a sense of that subject as a person, 3) as objective an analysis of that subject's life as the biographer is capable. This last request is the most difficult; not only because objectivity is often mistaken for disinterest, but because I realize that anyone who dedicates a portion of their life to writing a biography must, by definition, have a profound fascination with that subject. If they weren't fascinated, they wouldn't have written the book. And I expect that, and as a reader of biographies, I try to read through that filter.
What is frustrating about Professor Mapp, however, is that his filter is so strong that his biography often reads like a defense or justification of Jefferson instead of the history of him. Connections are not made. Facts are shaded. Misdirection abounds.
For example:
• Professor Mapp celebrates Jefferson's and Madison's electoral triumphs without pointing out to the reader that the 3/5s rule was in effect (every slave counted for 3/5s of a "white man's vote" - thus giving the south a lopsided population count and corresponding electoral count. Conveniently, Professor Mapp excludes popular vote counts, which would have shown much closer elections).
• Further, Professor Mapp claims at various points during Jefferson's presidency that he enjoyed great popularity - and yet there is no citation substantiating the claim. We are to take it on faith that his second term, which many call a failure, was not viewed as such by the public.
• The Professor consistently refers to Jefferson's slaves as his "servants", effectively blurring the line between those whom the third president employed and those he owned. Indeed, one could read both volumes of the biography and hardly understand that Jefferson owned any slaves at all. And I don't think you can understand Jefferson or his culture without understanding the key role slavery played in allowing it to happen.
• Professor trumpets Jefferson's efforts to outlaw the importation of slaves as a sort of step towards emancipation. At first blush this looks encouraging, until one considers what any economics student will point out - that if you stop the import of a product, all existing products become more valuable - a fact probably not lost on the perennially bankrupt Mr. J. In short, ending the arrival of new slaves made his slaves more valuable.
• But then Professor Mapp whiplashes back and says that while we can praise Jefferson for being so far ahead of his time in so many other things, we are naive to judge him by our time where slavery is concerned. Why? Because he was, after all, merely a man of his time.
• This is probably the reason why he skips the incident late in Jefferson's life when he was visited by an abolitionist starting repatriation in Liberia, who asked for Jefferson's support. Jefferson, it should be noted, demurred.
• And lastly - and I concede that this is something of a personal complaint - Professor Mapp doesn't connect Jefferson's claim that the Constitution should be torn up every 20 years and re-written with the fact that Jefferson was president on the 20th anniversary of the constitution and did nothing to enact his bold claim. Perhaps he was too busy squashing Burr's "rebellion" in Louisiana - another event that would have been ripe for Professor Mapp to discuss in terms of the younger Jefferson's thoughts about revolution. Alas, no...
And through it all, Professor Mapp relies - as he did in the preceding volume - so heavily upon Jefferson's correspondence, that the book often reads like a transcribed day planner. But more regrettably, especially in the sections where the Professor relies nearly exclusively on the correspondence, this does not give us a much needed perspective on our third president. Not until the final chapter which reads like a lawyer's defense, and not an analysis.
Do I reccommend this volume? No. Nor the other. And indeed, I cannot say I would read any other works by Professor Mapp. Very disappointing indeed.
When you look at the question this way, you understand why it might take Dumas Malone 6 volumes; such tonnage may be the only way to adequately describe at adequate depth all of the things Jefferson was engaged in.
The fact that I make this observation after reading the second and concluding volume of Professor Mapp's biography is no coincidence.
As with his previous volume - The Strange Case of Mistaken Identity (which i believe was thankfully retitled "America's Paradoxical Patriot") - no real sense of Jefferson emerges from this biography. Why? Is it because Jefferson's life was so full that you must choose to either 1) skim the surface (as Mapp does), 2) only elucidate some key illuminating events, 3) spend the entire volume analyzing and assume the reader knows the facts or 4) write a Dumas Malone version?
I don't know. But I do know what I'm looking for, and that, in short: 1) the story of a subject's life 2) a sense of that subject as a person, 3) as objective an analysis of that subject's life as the biographer is capable. This last request is the most difficult; not only because objectivity is often mistaken for disinterest, but because I realize that anyone who dedicates a portion of their life to writing a biography must, by definition, have a profound fascination with that subject. If they weren't fascinated, they wouldn't have written the book. And I expect that, and as a reader of biographies, I try to read through that filter.
What is frustrating about Professor Mapp, however, is that his filter is so strong that his biography often reads like a defense or justification of Jefferson instead of the history of him. Connections are not made. Facts are shaded. Misdirection abounds.
For example:
• Professor Mapp celebrates Jefferson's and Madison's electoral triumphs without pointing out to the reader that the 3/5s rule was in effect (every slave counted for 3/5s of a "white man's vote" - thus giving the south a lopsided population count and corresponding electoral count. Conveniently, Professor Mapp excludes popular vote counts, which would have shown much closer elections).
• Further, Professor Mapp claims at various points during Jefferson's presidency that he enjoyed great popularity - and yet there is no citation substantiating the claim. We are to take it on faith that his second term, which many call a failure, was not viewed as such by the public.
• The Professor consistently refers to Jefferson's slaves as his "servants", effectively blurring the line between those whom the third president employed and those he owned. Indeed, one could read both volumes of the biography and hardly understand that Jefferson owned any slaves at all. And I don't think you can understand Jefferson or his culture without understanding the key role slavery played in allowing it to happen.
• Professor trumpets Jefferson's efforts to outlaw the importation of slaves as a sort of step towards emancipation. At first blush this looks encouraging, until one considers what any economics student will point out - that if you stop the import of a product, all existing products become more valuable - a fact probably not lost on the perennially bankrupt Mr. J. In short, ending the arrival of new slaves made his slaves more valuable.
• But then Professor Mapp whiplashes back and says that while we can praise Jefferson for being so far ahead of his time in so many other things, we are naive to judge him by our time where slavery is concerned. Why? Because he was, after all, merely a man of his time.
• This is probably the reason why he skips the incident late in Jefferson's life when he was visited by an abolitionist starting repatriation in Liberia, who asked for Jefferson's support. Jefferson, it should be noted, demurred.
• And lastly - and I concede that this is something of a personal complaint - Professor Mapp doesn't connect Jefferson's claim that the Constitution should be torn up every 20 years and re-written with the fact that Jefferson was president on the 20th anniversary of the constitution and did nothing to enact his bold claim. Perhaps he was too busy squashing Burr's "rebellion" in Louisiana - another event that would have been ripe for Professor Mapp to discuss in terms of the younger Jefferson's thoughts about revolution. Alas, no...
And through it all, Professor Mapp relies - as he did in the preceding volume - so heavily upon Jefferson's correspondence, that the book often reads like a transcribed day planner. But more regrettably, especially in the sections where the Professor relies nearly exclusively on the correspondence, this does not give us a much needed perspective on our third president. Not until the final chapter which reads like a lawyer's defense, and not an analysis.
Do I reccommend this volume? No. Nor the other. And indeed, I cannot say I would read any other works by Professor Mapp. Very disappointing indeed.
July 1, 2014
A pleasant read, but not a scholarly one. More for popular dissemination. No new ground or prospective, just the same old doubts raised about this enigmatic American hero.
January 7, 2014
5 stars. A scholarly, intellectually challenging read.
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