1803

Slave cabin at Monticello.
(Author's photo.)

 

IN EARLY 1803, President Jefferson sent James Monroe to France, to advance efforts to complete the Louisiana Purchase. Monroe let the French know that if his mission failed, then the United States was prepared to receive the “overtures which England did not cease to make.” One French official warned that Monroe had “carte blanche and that he goes to London if badly received in Paris.” 

Even Napoleon said later that his willingness to sell Louisiana had to do with his desire to cement the friendship of the Americans, and keep them from allying with Great Britain. (24/206, 224) 

The “respect,” Monroe once said, “which one power has for another is in the exact proportion of the means which they respectively have of injuring each other with the least detriment to themselves.” (24/235) 

Monroe was impressed, during a trip to Spain, by the contrast with the rest of Europe. The plight of those living in poverty, he said, was proof of the evils of a “government which is perfectly despotic, in which the people count for nothing.” (24/237)

The author at Monticello, during a bicycle ride across the USA, 2007.

 

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April 30: The Louisiana Purchase is agreed to, doubling the size of the United States, at a cost of pennies per acres. 

Van Loon has this to say about the Louisiana Purchase – that Napoleon could read a map, and knew that “the city of New Orleans had great strategic value as the finger that could be held on the great Mississippi funnel” stopping American trade in agricultural products. Jefferson understood, once “let this terrible Napoleon person (who could defeat anybody and anything) get hold of this valuable spot and the entire West would be bottled up for good.” (124/276) 

By a stroke of great good luck, Napoleon’s minister of finance was the son of a former governor of Pennsylvania and had lived for a considerable time in America. This worthy, by the name of Marbois, was just then engaged upon the difficult task of trying to collect a sufficient amount of money for the next war. (124/277-278)

 

Marbois asked for one hundred million francs, or $25 million. Our ambassador haggled, and a price of sixty million francs or $15 million was agreed to.

 

Congressman Timothy Pickering, of Massachusetts “went so far as to talk of secession suggested the founding of a new confederacy of New England states, exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence of the democrats from the South.” Pickering offered up Vice President Aaron Burr as best man to serve as chief executive of the new nation. (124/279) 

“Very soon the new nation was to learn that our common earth is only a fifth-rate little planet and of such small dimensions that what affects one nation must necessarily affect all others.” (124/282)

 

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Students should know: 

1. Why was the decision in Marbury v. Madison so important?

2. What is “judicial review?”

 

Jefferson called impeachment a “scarecrow.” McLaughlin refers to Justice Marshall as “the greatest judge in our history…” Mr. Bryce on the same jurist: “It is scarcely an exaggeration to call him, as an eminent American jurist had done, a second maker of the Constitution…” (56/266)

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I used this lesson on the American Dream at different points during my coverage of U.S. history. Sometimes it served as part of a unit on pioneers, sometimes as part of a unit on the territorial growth of the United States

 

The American Dream

 

What is the American Dream? 

ANSWER ALONG THESE LINES: If you work hard, you can be rich and successful. You can own a good home, with a “white picket fence,” and be well off in terms of material things. You can have a happy family, and live in a good neighborhood. Life will get better and better. America is the “land of opportunity.”

Once the American Dream involved owning your own land - a farm.
Photo not in blogger's possession.

What forces might be killing the American Dream today? 

This will depend on student answers.

 

The “Dream” developed because there was always a frontier in America. 

Frontier: the edge of settlement, “where civilization ends,” as one person wrote. Today: the edge of what is known; some students may recall the opening line from Star Trek. There are frontiers in science, in cancer treatment, etc. – ask students for examples. 

The frontier offers a fresh start: 

If you failed in one place, you could always head West, you could get a fresh start. Daniel Boone, for example, moved repeatedly. 

(We used to talk about “Log Cabin” presidents.) 

You could be born poor and rise to the highest office in the land – kids may know that Lincoln was one. Garfield, Grant, Truman and others all had humble roots. 

Pioneer: a person who goes where no one has gone before.

 

Land (1787): At first, the U.S. government would sell land only in parcels of 640 acres, a square mile. Cost:$1 per acre, but all money down. Rich land speculators tended to buy up huge chunks, then divide their tracts and sell at a profit. 

Land (1800): In an effort to help the ordinary American, a new law reduced the number of acres you had to buy to 320, and required only $160 down. 

Land (1820): A pioneer could now buy 80 acres, but the price was raised to $1.25 per acre, and all money had to be paid down – or $100. 

Land (1862): The Homestead Act offers settlers 160 acres, for free, with the only requirement being that the owner must live there for five years, and build a cabin, and improve the land. 

Ted Morgan once explained, the United States “would be a country where anybody could own land, a pie with a million slices, a country where the buying and selling of acreage was as simple as a day’s shopping.”

 

Most Americans, then, were optimistic. 

Optimism: the belief that the future will be better, that you will get the job you applied for, that your favorite team will win the Super Bowl. I used the example: You could be optimistic, if you asked the girl of your dreams to the dance – and believed she would say, “yes.” (It was fun to pick one of the boys in class, and use him, as the optimist in this example.) 

Pessimism: the belief that the future will be worse, that if you get cancer, it won’t be easy to treat, you expect to be fired, you don’t ask the person of your dreams out on a date, because you expect to get shot down. 

Millions of immigrants have come for the dream. Irish immigrants in 1848, for example, came from a land where the average landholder had three acres. 

“The Big Bear of Arkansas” story: I liked to give a capsule description from this story. The “Big Bear,” is riding a riverboat south, and brags to other passengers about a farm he has just purchased, where the soil is so rich, if you plant corn, you have to jump back, because it explodes out of the ground. One careless cow was blown up in a similar way. He talks about having the best hunting dog, and all the bear meat he can eat. At one point, he has a buyer for his land – but the man comes for a look, while the Big Bear is away. He says he won’t buy, because the land is full of tree stumps and Indian mounds. The Big Bear explains later, those “are tater hills.” Finally, he claims, if you planted ten-penny nails in the morning, you would have railroad spikes by evening. (I liked to have ten-penny nails and a spike for demonstration.)

 

Ray Kroc (as an example of the American Dream): Kroc was a salesman of restaurant equipment. In 1954, he noticed that one restaurant was wearing out milkshake mixers, and went out to find why. The McDonald brothers, Richard and Maurice, explained their simple concept. They had a limited menu – including milkshakes, hamburgers and fried, but they could fill orders quickly, and families could enjoy a meal out, without getting dressed up, or paying a huge price. Kroc convinced the brothers to form a partnership and they began selling franchises, all operated along the same lines. In 1961, he bought the brothers out, and went on to become one of the richest men in America in years ahead. 

You can use all kinds of examples. 

Photo not in blogger's possession.

Charles Van Doren achieved the dream – and then destroyed it. Bright, handsome, articulate, a popular professor at Columbia, he became famous in the early days of television, using his knowledge to win one of the earliest quiz show games, “Twenty One.” 

According to The Commonweal (February 22, 1957, p. 523): 

In song and story, America has ever been the land of unlimited opportunity, where any man could strike it rich, and the pot of gold lay just over the horizon. Our Presidents come from log cabins and our corporation heads once worked as shipping clerks. The American dream of success – material success – is expressed in Franklin’s autobiography and the gospel of work, but also and more accurately, perhaps, in the Horatio Alger tales. Ragged Dick had sterling qualities to be sure, but so did every American boy. The one thing needful, in the Alger version of the myth, was to be in the right place at the right time – to save the millionaire’s daughter from the runaway horse, for example, and thus, through luck and pluck, be made president of the company. This is the pattern of the quiz show success. Fame and fortune lie in the laps of the gods, and the best preparation for the moment of greatness is simply to be alert and ready for the call.

 

Mr. Van Doren’s success is particularly pertinent in this regard, because he has been rewarded not so much for knowledge as for luck and pluck as a gambler. The quiz game which has so far won him $138,000 [equal to $3,101,000 in 2023] (“Twenty One”) is based on the card game vingt-et-un or, as it is more popularly called, blackjack. This is a game requiring shrewdness, courage and the ability to bluff. It is a game Mr. Van Doren learned, presumably, in the army rather than the groves of academe. 

 

Others that I used included Sara Blakely (Spanx); Mark Zuckerberg; LeBron James; Sergey Brin (born in the USSR) and Larry Page (a college dropout) who together founded Google, and became billionaires, and any others who were in the news at the time. 

Students have usually heard the term, “American Dream,” and can give examples themselves. It always worked to ask them to describe their personal version of the Dream – and we had excellent work when I asked them to draw their American Dreams. 

Joe Burrow, who sat on the bench for three years in college, would be a good example now. In 2023, he became the highest paid player in the NFL.

 

Native-American American Dream: Not to get bulldozed by the white and black settlers. Not to be killed. To live in their old ways.

 

Early Ohio (I taught in Ohio, so included this): African American adults were not allowed to vote; their children could not attend public schools. Adults, however, can pay taxes, like anyone else. In the poem, Harlem, by Langston Hughes, he once asked, “What happens to a dream deferred?” Did it, perhaps, “dry up, like a raisin in the sun.”

 

Thomas Jefferson's Slave Son, Madison Hemings, Tells His Story

The following article first appeared in the Pike County Republican, an Ohio newspaper, March 13, 1873. 

The author, Madison Hemings, claimed to be the son of President Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemings.

For more than a century, his claims were ignored.

(I have changed paragraphing in places in the interest of readability.)

The author of this blog poses at Monticello, on the way to bicycling across the United States.

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I never knew of but one white man who bore the name of Hemings; he was an Englishman and my great grandfather. He was captain of an English trading vessel which sailed between England and Williamsburg, Va., then quite a port.

My [great] grandmother was a fullblooded African, and possibly a native of that country. She was the property of John Wales, a Welchman. Capt. Hemings happened to be in the port of Williamsburg at the time my grandmother was born, and acknowledging her fatherhood he tried to purchase her of Mr. Wales, who would not part with the child, though he was offered an extraordinarily large price for her. She was named Elizabeth Hemings.[1]

Being thwarted in the purchase, and determining to own his flesh and blood he resolved to take the child by force or stealth, but the knowledge of his intention coming to John Wales’ ears, through leaky fellow servants of the mother, she and the child were taken into the “great house” under their master’s immediate care. I have been informed that it was not the extra value of that child over other slave children that induced Mr. Wales to refuse to sell it, for slave masters then, as in later days, had no compunctions of conscience [no moral objections] which restrained them from parting mother and child of however tender age, but he was restrained by the fact that just about that time amalgamation [race mixing; combination of races] began, and the child was so great a curiosity that its owner desired to raise it himself that he might see its outcome. Capt. Hemings soon afterwards sailed from Williamsburg, never to return. Such is the story that comes down to me.

Elizabeth Hemings grew to womanhood in the family of John Wales, whose wife dying she (Elizabeth) was taken by the widower Wales as his concubine, by, whom she had six children—three sons and three daughters, viz: Robert, James, Peter, Critty, Sally and Thena. These children went by the name of Hemings.[2]

Williamsburg was the capital of Virginia, and of course it was an aristocratic place, where the “bloods” [bluebloods] of the Colony and the new State most did congregate. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was educated at William and Mary College, which had its seat at Williamsburg. He afterwards studied law with Geo. Wythe, and practiced law at the bar of the general court of the Colony. He was afterwards elected a member of the provincial legislature from Albemarle county. Thos. Jefferson was a visitor at the “great house” of John Wales, who had children about his own age. He formed the acquaintance of his daughter Martha (I believe that was her name, though I am not positively sure,) and intimacy sprang up between them which ripened into love, and they were married. They afterwards went to live at his country seat Monticello, and in course of time had born to them a daughter whom they named Martha.

About the time she was born my mother, the second daughter of John Wales and Elizabeth Hemings was born. On the death of John Wales, my grandmother, his concubine, and her children by him fell to Martha, Thomas Jefferson’s wife, and consequently became the property of Thomas Jefferson, who in the course of time became famous, and was appointed minister to France during our revolutionary troubles, or soon after independence was gained.

About the time of the appointment and before he was ready to leave the country his wife died, and as soon after her interment as he could attend to and arrange his domestic affairs in accordance with the changed circumstances of his family in consequence of this misfortune (I think not more than three weeks thereafter) he left for France, taking his eldest daughter with him. He had sons born to him, but they died in early infancy, so he then had but two children—Martha and Maria. The latter was left home, but afterwards was ordered to follow him to France. She was three years or so younger than Martha. My mother accompanied her as a body servant. When Mr. Jefferson went to France Martha was a young woman grown, my mother was about her age and Maria was just budding into womanhood. Their stay (my mother’s and Maria’s) was about eighteen months. But during that time my mother became Mr. Jefferson’s concubine, and when he was called back home she was enciente [pregnant] by him.

He desired to bring my mother back to Virginia with him but she demurred. She was just beginning to understand the French language well, and in France she was free, while if she returned to Virginia she would be re-enslaved. So she refused to return with him. To induce her to do so he promised her extraordinary privileges, and made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years. In consequence of his promise, on which she implicitly relied, she returned with him to Virginia. Soon after their arrival, she gave birth to a child, of whom Thomas Jefferson was the father. It lived but a short time. She gave birth to four others, and Jefferson was the father of all of them. Their names were Beverly, Harriet, Madison (myself), and Eston—three sons and one daughter. We all became free agreeably to the treaty entered into by our parents before we were born. We all married and have raised families.[3]

Beverly left Monticello and went to Washington as a white man. He married a white woman in Maryland, and their only child, a daughter, was not known by the white folks to have any colored blood coursing in her veins. Beverly's wife’s family were people in good circumstances.[4]

Harriet married a white man in good standing in Washington City, whose name I could give, but will not, for prudential reasons. She raised a family of children, and so far as I know they were never suspected of being tainted with African blood in the community where she lived or lives. I have not heard from her for ten years, and do not know whether she is dead or alive. She thought it to her interest, on going to Washington, to assume the role of a white woman, and by her dress and conduct as such I am not aware that her identity as Harriet Hemings of Monticello has ever been discovered.

Eston married a colored woman in Virginia, and moved from there to Ohio, and lived in Chillicothe several years. In the fall of 1852 he removed to Wisconsin, where he died a year or two afterwards. He left three children.

As to myself, I was named Madison by the wife of James Madison, who was afterwards President of the United States. Mrs. Madison happened to be at Monticello at the time of my birth, and begged the privilege of naming me, promising my mother a fine present for the honor. She consented, and Mrs. Madison dubbed me by the name I now acknowledge, but like many promises of white folks to the slaves she never gave my mother anything. I was born at my father's seat of Monticello, in Albemarle county, Va., near Charlottesville, on the 18th day of January, 1805. My very earliest recollections are of my grandmother Elizabeth Hemings. That was when I was about three years old. She was sick and upon her death bed. I was eating a piece of bread and asked if she would have some. She replied: “No, granny don’t want bread any more.” She shortly afterwards breathed her last. I have only a faint recollection of her.

Of my father, Thomas Jefferson, I knew more of his domestic than his public life during his life time. It is only since his death that I have learned much of the latter, except that he was considered as a foremost man in the land, and held many important trusts, including that of President. I learned to read by inducing the white children to teach me the letters and something more; what else I know of books I have picked up here and there till now I can read and write. I was almost 21 1/2 years of age when my father died on the 4th of July, 1826.[5]

About his own home he was the quietest of men. He was hardly ever known to get angry, though sometimes he was irritated when matters went wrong, but even then he hardly ever allowed himself to be made unhappy any great length of time. Unlike Washington he had but little taste or care for agricultural pursuits. He left matters pertaining to his plantations mostly with his stewards and overseers. He always had mechanics at work for him, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, coopers, &c. It was his mechanics he seemed mostly to direct, and in their operations he took great interest. Almost every day of his later years he might have been seen among them. He occupied much of the time in his office engaged in correspondence and reading and writing.

His general temperament was smooth and even; he was very undemonstrative. He was uniformly kind to all about him. He was not in the habit of showing partiality or fatherly affection to us children. We were the only children of his by a slave woman. He was affectionate toward his white grandchildren, of whom he had fourteen, twelve of whom lived to manhood and womanhood. His daughter Martha married Thomas Mann Randolph by whom she had thirteen children. Two died in infancy. The names of the living were Ann, Thomas Jefferson, Ellen, Cornelia, Virginia, Mary, James, Benj. Franklin, Lewis Madison, Septemia and Geo. Wythe. Thos. Jefferson Randolph was Chairman of the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore last spring which nominated Horace Greeley for the Presidency, and Geo. Wythe Randolph was Jeff. Davis’ first Secretary of War [during the American Civil War] in the late “unpleasantness.”

Maria married John Epps, and raised one son—Francis.

My father generally enjoyed excellent health. I never knew him to have but one spell of sickness, and that was caused by a visit to the Warm Springs in 1818. Till within three weeks of his death he was hale and hearty, and at the age of 83 years walked erect and with a stately tread. I am now 68, and I well remember that he was a much smarter man physically, even at that age, than I am.

When I was fourteen years old I was put to the carpenter trade under the charge of John Hemings, the youngest son of my grandmother. His father’s name was Nelson, who was an Englishman. She had seven children by white men and seven by colored men—fourteen in all.

My brothers, sister Harriet and myself, were used alike. They were put to some mechanical trade at the age of fourteen. Till then we were permitted to stay about the “great house,” and required to do such light work as going on errands. Harriet learned to spin and to weave in a little factory on the home plantation. We were free from the dread of having to be slaves all our lives long, and were measurably happy. We were always permitted to be with our mother, who was well used. It was her duty, all her life which I can remember, up to the time of father’s death, to take care of his chamber and wardrobe, look after us children and do such light work as sewing, and Provision was made in the will of our father that we should be free when we arrived at the age of 21 years.

We had all passed that period when he died but Eston, and he was given the remainder of his time shortly after. He and I rented a house and took mother to live with us, till her death, which event occurred in 1835.

In 1831 I married Mary McCoy. Her grandmother was a slave, and lived with her master, Stephen Hughes, near Charlottesville, as his wife. She was manumitted [set free legally] by him, which made their children free born. Mary McCoy’s mother was his daughter. I was about 23 and she 23 years of age when we married. We lived and labored together in Virginia till 1836, when we voluntarily left and came to Ohio. We settled in Pebble township, Pike County. We lived there four or five years and during my stay in the county I worked at my trade on and off for about four years. Joseph Sewell was my first employer. I built for him what is now known as Bizzleport No. 2 in Waverly. I afterwards worked for George Wolf Senior. and I did the carpenter work for the brick building now owned by John J. Kellison in which the Pike County Republican is printed. I worked for and with Micajah Hinson. I found him to be a very clever man. I also reconstructed the building on the corner of Market and Water Streets from a store to a hotel for the late Judge Jacob Row. [6]

When we came from Virginia we brought one daughter (Sarah) with us, leaving the dust of a son in the soil near Monticello. We have born to us in this State nine children. Two are dead. The names of the living, besides Sarah, are Harriet, Mary Ann, Catharine, Jane, William Beverly, James Madison, Ellen Wales. Thomas Eston died in the Andersonville prison pen, and Julia died at home. William, James and Ellen are unmarried and live at home in Huntington township, Ross County. All the others are married and raising families.[7]

A slave owner could afford fancy silverware
(Picture taken at Andrew Jackson's home; the Hermitage).

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[1] In the original article, Madison Hemings says his grandmother was a fullblooded African in one sentence; he clearly means here, his “great-grandmother.” His actual grandmother was half white.

[2] This would mean Sally Hemings was three-fourths white. As late as 1983 the State of Louisiana listed anyone with one-sixteenth African-American blood as “colored,” the old term for “black” or African-American.

            Susie Guillory Philips, a white woman in her own view (fifteen-sixteenths white) sued the state to force a change.

[3] Madison and his siblings would then be one-eighth black.

[4] With so many laws aimed at limiting the rights of African-Americans, it was not uncommon for mixed-race individuals to “pass” as white. Those of darker complexion might claim to be Italian or Native-American. Beverly’s children would be one-sixteenth African American.

[5] In his will, Jefferson set Sally Hemings’ children free; no other slaves were freed when he died. By comparison, George Washington made it clear in his will that his 123 slaves would be freed upon the death of his wife, Martha, which occurred in 1802. Slaves owned by his wife were not freed and were passed down to her grandchildren.

[6] Like most “free states,” Ohio limited the rights of free blacks. The Ohio Constitution denied blacks the vote. They could not serve on juries or testify against whites. They could not join the militia. Originally, Ohio provided no schools for African American children and they were not allowed to attend white schools. A free black had to show documents proving he or she was free before settling in the state. In 1807, lawmakers added a requirement that a free black person find two whites willing to “guarantee a surety of five hundred dollars for the African Americans’ good behavior.”

[7] Hemings’ son served in the Union Army during the Civil War. For a fuller picture of life in that prison, see The Diary of John Ransom, available at my TpT website.