Thomas Jefferson acquired an extensive law library at Monticello.
On 13 January 1777 he met at Fredericksburg with his legal mentor George Wythe,
Edmund Pendleton, James Mason, and Thomas Ludwell Lee
to begin the work of revising the laws.
Jefferson in his Autobiography explained their process
and how he hoped to improve the language of the common law:
On the 12th I obtained leave to bring in a bill declaring
tenants in tail to hold their lands in fee simple.
In the earlier times of the colony when lands
were to be obtained for little or nothing, some
provident individuals procured large grants, and,
desirous of founding great families for themselves,
settled them on their descendants in fee-tail.
The transmission of this property from generation
to generation in the same name raised up a distinct
set of families who, being privileged by law in the
perpetuation of their wealth were thus formed into
a Patrician order, distinguished by the splendor
and luxury of their establishments.
From this order too the king habitually selected his
Counsellors of State, the hope of which distinction devoted
the whole corps to the interests & will of the crown.
To annul this privilege, and instead of an aristocracy
of wealth, of more harm and danger, than benefit,
to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy
of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided
for the direction of the interests of society, &
scattered with equal hand through all its conditions,
was deemed essential to a well ordered republic.
To effect it no violence was necessary,
no deprivation of natural right, but rather
an enlargement of it by a repeal of the law.
For this would authorize the present holder to
divide the property among his children equally,
as his affections were divided; and would place them,
by natural generation on the level of their fellow citizens.
But this repeal was strongly opposed by Mr. Pendleton,
who was zealously attached to ancient establishments;
and who, taken all in all, was the ablest man in debate
I have ever met with.
He had not indeed the poetical fancy of Mr. Henry,
his sublime imagination, his lofty and overwhelming diction;
but he was cool, smooth and persuasive; his language
flowing, chaste & embellished, his conceptions quick,
acute and full of resource; never vanquished; for if he
lost the main battle, he returned upon you, and regained
so much of it as to make it a drawn one, by dexterous
manoeuvers, skirmishes in detail, and the recovery of small
advantages which, little singly, were important altogether.
You never knew when you were clear of him, but were
harassed by his perseverance until the patience was
worn down of all who had less of it than himself.
Add to this that he was one of the most virtuous &
benevolent of men, the kindest friend, the most
amiable & pleasant of companions, which ensured
a favorable reception to whatever came from him.
Finding that the general principle of entails could not be
maintained, he took his stand on an amendment which
he proposed, instead of an absolute abolition, to permit the
tenant in tail to convey in fee simple, if he chose it: and
he was within a few votes of saving so much of the old law.
But the bill passed finally for entire abolition.
In that one of the bills for organizing our judiciary
system which proposed a court of chancery, I had
provided for a trial by jury of all matters of fact
in that as well as in the courts of law.
He defeated it by the introduction of 4 words only,
”if either party choose.”
The consequence has been that as no suitor will say to his
judge, “Sir, I distrust you, give me a jury,” juries are rarely,
I might say perhaps never seen in that court,
but when called for by the Chancellor of his own accord.
The first establishment in Virginia
which became permanent was made in 1607.
I have found no mention of negroes
in the colony until about 1650….
The seat of our government had been originally
fixed in the peninsula of Jamestown, the first
settlement of the colonists; and had been afterwards
removed a few miles inland to Williamsburg.
But this was at a time when our settlements
had not extended beyond the tide water.
Now they had crossed the Alleghany; and the center of
population was very far removed from what it had been.
Yet Williamsburg was still the depository of our archives,
the habitual residence of the Governor & many other of the
public functionaries, the established place for the sessions of
the legislature, and the magazine of our military stores:
and its situation was so exposed that it might be taken
at any time in war, and at this time particularly an enemy
might in the night run up either of the rivers between which
it lies, land a force above, and take possession of the place
without the possibility of saving either persons or things.
I had proposed its removal so early as October 76,
but it did not prevail until the session of May 79.
Early in the session of May 79 I prepared and
obtained leave to bring in a bill declaring who should be
deemed citizens, asserting the natural right of expatriation,
and prescribing the mode of exercising it.
This, when I withdrew from the house on the 1st of June
following, I left in the hands of George Mason,
and it was passed on the 26th of that month.
In giving this account of the laws of which I was
myself the mover & draughtsman, I by no means mean
to claim to myself the merit of obtaining their passage.
I had many occasional and strenuous coadjutors
in debate, and one most steadfast, able,
and zealous, who was himself a host.
This was George Mason, a man of the first order of wisdom
among those who acted on the theatre of the revolution,
of expansive mind, profound judgment, cogent in argument,
learned in the lore of our former constitution, and earnest
for the republican change on democratic principles.
His elocution was neither flowing nor smooth,
but his language was strong, his manner most impressive,
and strengthened by a dash of biting cynicism
when provocation made it seasonable.
Mr. Wythe, while speaker in the two sessions of 1777
between his return from Congress and his appointment
to the Chancery, was an able and constant associate
in whatever was before a committee of the whole.
His pure integrity, judgment and reasoning powers
gave him great weight.
Of him see more in some notes enclosed in my
letter of August 31, 1821, to Mr. John Saunderson.
Mr. Madison came into the House in 1776,
a new member and young; which circumstances,
concurring with his extreme modesty, prevented his
venturing himself in debate before his removal
to the Council of State in November 77.
From thence he went to Congress,
then consisting of few members.
Trained in these successive schools, he acquired a habit of
self-possession which placed at ready command the rich
resources of his luminous and discriminating mind, & of his
extensive information, and rendered him the first of every
assembly afterwards of which he became a member.
Never wandering from his subject into vain declamation,
but pursuing it closely in language pure, classical, and copious,
soothing always the feelings of his adversaries by civilities
and softness of expression, he rose to the eminent station
which he held in the great National convention of 1787
and in that of Virginia which followed, he sustained
the new Constitution in all its parts, bearing off the palm
against the logic of George Mason,
and the fervid declamation of Mr. Henry.
With these consummate powers were united
a pure and spotless virtue which no calumny
has ever attempted to sully.
Of the powers and polish of his pen,
and of the wisdom of his administration
in the highest office of the nation, I need say nothing.
They have spoken and will forever speak for themselves.
So far we were proceeding in the details of reformation
only; selecting points of legislation prominent in
character & principle, urgent, and indicative of
the strength of the general pulse of reformation.
When I left Congress in 76, it was in the persuasion that
our whole code must be reviewed, adapted to our
republican form of government, and now that we had
no negatives of Councils, Governors & Kings to restrain
us from doing right, that it should be corrected
in all its parts with a single eye to reason & the
good of those for whose government it was framed.
Early therefore in the session of 76 to which I returned,
I moved and presented a bill for the revision of the laws;
which was passed on the 24th of October,
and on the 5th of November Mr. Pendleton,
Mr. Wythe, George Mason, Thomas L. Lee and myself
were appointed a committee to execute the work.
We agreed to meet at Fredericksburg to settle
the plan of operation and to distribute the work.
We met there accordingly on the 13th of January 1777.
The first question was whether we should propose to
abolish the whole existing system of laws and prepare a
new and complete Institute or preserve the general system
and only modify it to the present state of things.
Mr. Pendleton, contrary to his usual disposition
in favor of ancient things, was for the former
proposition in which he was joined by Mr. Lee.
To this it was objected that to abrogate our whole system
would be a bold measure and probably far beyond the views
of the legislature; that they had been in the practice of
revising from time to time the laws of the colony, omitting
the expired, the repealed and the obsolete, amending only
those retained, and probably meant we should now do the
same, only including the British statutes as well as our own:
that to compose a new Institute like those of Justinian
and Bracton or that of Blackstone, which was the model
proposed by Mr. Pendleton, would be an arduous
undertaking, of vast research, of great consideration &
judgment; and when reduced to a text, every word
of that text from the imperfection of human language;
and its incompetence to express distinctly every shade
of idea would become a subject of question & chicanery
until settled by repeated adjudications; that this would
involve us for ages in litigation and render property
uncertain until, like the statutes of old, every word
had been tried and settled by numerous decisions and
by new volumes of reports & commentaries; and that
no one of us probably would undertake such a work,
which to be systematical, must be the work of one hand.
This last was the opinion of Mr. Wythe, Mr. Mason & myself.
When we proceeded to the distribution of the work,
Mr. Mason excused himself as, being no lawyer, he felt
himself unqualified for the work, and he resigned soon after.
Mr. Lee excused himself on the same ground
and died indeed in a short time.
The other two gentlemen therefore and myself
divided the work among us.
The common law and statutes to the 4 James I (when our
separate legislature was established) were assigned to me;
the British statutes from that period to the present day
to Mr. Wythe, and the Virginia laws to Mr. Pendleton.
As the law of Descents & the criminal law fell
of course within my portion, I wished the
committee to settle the leading principles
of these as a guide for me in framing them.
And with respect to the first I proposed to abolish
the law of primogeniture and to make real estate
descendible in parcenary to the next of kin,
as personal property is by the statute of distribution.
Mr. Pendleton wished to preserve the right of primogeniture,
but seeing at once that that could not prevail,
he proposed we should adopt the Hebrew principle
and give a double portion to the elder son.
I observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much
or do double work, it might be a natural evidence of
his right to a double portion; but being on a par
in his powers & wants with his brothers and sisters,
he should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony,
and such was the decision of the other members.
On the subject of the Criminal law all were agreed
that the punishment of death should be abolished,
except for treason and murder; and that for other
felonies should be substituted hard labor in the
public works and in some cases the Lex talionis.
How this last revolting principle came to
obtain our approbation I do not remember.
There remained indeed in our laws
a vestige of it in a single case of a slave.
It was the English law in the time of the Anglo-Saxons,
copied probably from the Hebrew law of
“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,”
and it was the law of several ancient people.
But the modern mind had left it
far in the rear of its advances.
These points however being settled, we repaired to
our respective homes for the preparation of the work.
February 6. In the execution of my part
I thought it material not to vary the diction of
the ancient statutes by modernizing it, nor to
give rise to new questions by new expressions.
The text of these statutes had been so fully explained
and defined by numerous adjudications, as scarcely
ever now to produce a question in our courts.
I thought it would be useful also in all new draughts
to reform the style of the later British statutes and of
our own acts of assembly, which from their verbosity,
their endless tautologies, their involutions of case within case,
and parenthesis within parenthesis, and their multiplied efforts
at certainty by saids and aforesaids, by ors and by ands,
to make them more plain, do really render them
more perplexed and incomprehensible,
not only to common readers but to the lawyers themselves.
We were employed in this work from that time
to February 1779, when we met at Williamsburg,
that is to say, Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe & myself,
and meeting day by day we examined critically
our several parts, sentence by sentence, scrutinizing
and amending until we had agreed on the whole.
We then returned home, had fair copies made of our
several parts, which were reported to the General
Assembly June 18, 1779 by Mr. Wythe and myself,
Mr. Pendleton’s residence being distant and he having
authorized us by letter to declare his approbation.
We had in this work brought so much of the Common law
as it was thought necessary to alter, all the British statutes
from Magna Charta to the present day, and all the laws
of Virginia from the establishment of our legislature
in the 4th Jac. 1 to the present time, which we thought
should be retained within the compass of 126 bills,
making a printed folio of 90 pages only.
Some bills were taken out occasionally from time to time
and passed; but the main body of the work was not entered
on by the legislature until after the general peace in 1785,
when by the unwearied exertions of Mr. Madison,
in opposition to the endless quibbles, chicaneries,
perversions, vexations and delays of lawyers
and demi-lawyers, most of the bills were passed
by the legislature with little alteration.1
In several pages of his Autobiography Jefferson described how
a committee in 1776 had worked on the Articles of Confederation.
Changes were suggested by Samuel Chase, John Adams, Benjamin Harrison,
James Wilson, John Witherspoon, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush,
and Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island in debates that went on for two years.
Virginia’s General Assembly began a session on 5 May 1777.
Jefferson nominated George Wythe as Speaker, and he was elected.
The House of Delegates obtained a quorum on the 8th,
and on the 10th Jefferson presented his bills for regulating
and disciplining
the militia as well as to prepare for invasion and insurrections.
On May 15 the House approved a resolution to suspend
compulsory levies to support the clergy, and the bill was passed.
Jefferson became the chairman of two committees on the military,
and the House passed his bill on disciplining the militia on May 19.
The Assembly adjourned on June 28.
In a letter to Benjamin Franklin in France on August 13 Jefferson wrote,
With respect to the state of Virginia in particular,
the people seem to have deposited the monarchical
and taken up the republican government with
as much ease as would have attended their throwing
off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes.
Not a single throe has attended
this important transformation.
A half dozen aristocratic gentlemen, agonizing under
the loss of preeminence have sometimes ventured
their sarcasms on our political metamorphosis.
They have been thought fitter objects
for pity than punishment.
We are at present in the complete and quiet exercise
of well organized government, save only that
our courts of justice do not open till the fall.
I think nothing can bring the security of our
continent and its cause into danger,
if we can support the credit of our paper.
To do that I apprehend one of two steps must be taken.
Either to procure free trade by alliance with some
naval power able to protect it: or if we find there is no
prospect of that, to shut our ports totally to all the world
and turn our laborers into manufacturers.
The former would be most eligible because more
conformable to the habits and wishes of our people.
Were the British court to return to their senses in time
to seize the little advantage which still remains within
their reach from this quarter, I judge that on
acknowledging our absolute independence and sovereignty,
a commercial treaty, beneficial to them, and perhaps
even a league of mutual offense and defense might be
approved by our people, not seeing the extent or
consequences of such an engagement, if nothing
in the meantime done on your part should prevent it.
But they will continue to grasp at their desperate
sovereignty, till every benefit short of that
is forever put out of their reach.
I wish my domestic situation had rendered it
possible for me to have joined you in the very
honorable charge confided to you.2
A session began on October 30, and on that day they approved
Jefferson’s bills establishing Courts of Appeals and of Chancery an
then on November 7 they accepted a General Court and a Court of Assize.
On the 12th James Madison was chosen to be on the Council of State.
They passed Jefferson’s bill to sequester British property in order to pay their debts.
The Assembly adjourned on 24 January 1778.
On 16 December 1777 Virginia was the first state
to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
South Carolina, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Georgia
ratified it in February 1778 followed by New Hampshire,
Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts in March.
North Carolina ratified on April 5, and New Jersey on November 19.
Delaware did so on 1 February 1779, and finally Maryland
became the 13th state to ratify it on 2 February 1781.
On March 1 the Congress proclaimed the
Articles of Confederation the law of the land.
Jefferson noted that during the Revolutionary War
the English suspended the importation of slaves.
He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 7 October 1776
to 30 May 1779, and he worked on revising the state’s laws.
His bill to regulate the appointment of delegates to the
General Congress was approved on 16 May 1778.
He revised Virginia’s criminal code,
and the first modifications became laws on May 21.
He added 56 new laws by 1786 from the 126 bills he introduced.
Jefferson inherited land and slaves, and in 1784 he had about 200 slaves.
He claimed he treated them well and only purchased
additional slaves to reunite families.
In 1778 he proposed that the Virginia legislature end the importation of slaves,
and he urged gradual emancipation in 1779 and 1782.
In his Autobiography he wrote,
The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship;
after which the English commenced the trade
and continued it until the revolutionary war.
That suspended, ipso facto, their further importation
for the present, and the business of the war
pressing constantly on the legislature, this subject
was not acted on finally until the year 78 when
I brought in a bill to prevent their further importation.
This passed without opposition, and stopped the
increase of the evil by importation, leaving
to future efforts its final eradication.3
In 1778 and 1779 he proposed changes in laws for Proportioning Crimes
and Punishments, and many of these were criticized for being retribution.
Governor Jefferson also promoted the reform of inheritance laws.
In his Autobiography he wrote this about educational reforms:
The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles
of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before,
I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right.
It still met with opposition; but, with some
mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed;
and a singular proposition proved that its protection
of opinion was meant to be universal.
Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure
from the plan of the holy author of our religion,
an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word
“Jesus Christ” so that it should read “a departure from
the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.”
The insertion was rejected by a great majority in proof that
they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection,
the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan,
the Hindu, and infidel of every denomination.
Beccaria and other writers on crimes and punishments
had satisfied the reasonable world of the unrightfulness
and inefficacy of the punishment of crimes by death;
and hard labor on roads, canals and other public works,
had been suggested as a proper substitute.
The Revisers had adopted these opinions; but the general
idea of our country had not yet advanced to that point.
The bill therefore for proportioning crimes and
punishments was lost in the House of Delegates
by a majority of a single vote.
I learned afterwards that the substitute of
hard labor in public was tried (I believe it was
in Pennsylvania) without success.
Exhibited as a public spectacle with shaved heads
and mean clothing, working on the high roads produced
in the criminals such a prostration of character,
such an abandonment of self-respect, as, instead of
reforming, plunged them into the most desperate
& hardened depravity of morals and character.
Pursue the subject of this law.
I was written to in 1785 (being then in Paris)
by Directors appointed to superintend the building
of a Capitol in Richmond, to advise them as to a plan,
and to add to it one of a prison.
Thinking it a favorable opportunity of introducing into the
state an example of architecture in the classic style of
antiquity, and the Maison quarree of Nismes, an ancient
Roman temple, being considered as the most perfect model
existing of what may be called Cubic architecture, I applied
to M. Clerissault, who had published drawings of the
Antiquities of Nismes, to have me a model of the building
made in stucco, only changing the order from Corinthian to
Ionic, on account of the difficulty of the Corinthian capitals.
I yielded with reluctance to the taste of Clerissault,
in his preference of the modern capital of Scamozzi
to the more noble capital of antiquity.
This was executed by the artist whom Choiseul Gouffier
had carried with him to Constantinople, and employed
while Ambassador there, in making those beautiful
models of the remains of Grecian architecture
which are to be seen at Paris.
To adapt the exterior to our use I drew a plan for the
interior with the apartments necessary for legislative,
executive & judiciary purposes, and accommodated
in their size and distribution to the form and
dimensions of the building.
These were forwarded to the Directors in 1786,
and were carried into execution with some variations
not for the better, the most important to which
however admit of future correction.
With respect of the plan of a Prison, requested
at the same time, I had heard of a benevolent
society in England which had been indulged by the
government in an experiment of the effect of labor
in solitary confinement on some of their criminals,
which experiment had succeeded beyond expectation.
The same idea had been suggested in France, and
an Architect of Lyons had proposed a plan of a well
contrived edifice on the principle of solitary confinement.
I procured a copy, and as it was too large for our purposes,
I drew one on a scale, less extensive,
but susceptible of additions as they should be wanting.
This I sent to the Directors instead of a plan of a
common prison, in the hope that it would suggest the idea
of labor in solitary confinement instead of that on the public
works, which we had adopted in our Revised Code.
Its principle accordingly, but not its exact form,
was adopted by Latrobe in carrying the plan
into execution by the erection of what is now called
the Penitentiary, built under his direction.
In the meanwhile the public opinion was ripening by time,
by reflection, and by the example of Pennsylvania,
where labor on the highways had been tried without
approbation from 1786 to 89 & had been followed
by their Penitentiary system on the principle of confinement
and labor, which was proceeding auspiciously.
In 1796 our legislature resumed the subject and passed
the law for amending the Penal laws of the commonwealth.
They adopted solitary, instead of public labor, established
a gradation in the duration of the confinement,
approximated the style of the law more to the modern
usage, and instead of the settled distinctions of murder
& manslaughter, preserved in my bill, they introduced
the new terms of murder in the 1st & 2nd degree.
Whether these have produced more or fewer
questions of definition I am not sufficiently informed
of our judiciary transactions to say.
I will here however insert the text of my bill with the notes
I made in the course of my researches into the subject.
The acts of assembly concerning the College
of William & Mary, were properly within
Mr. Pendleton’s portion of our work.
But these related chiefly to its revenue,
while its constitution, organization and
scope of science were derived from its charter.
We thought that on this subject a systematical
plan of general education should be proposed,
and I was requested to undertake it.
I accordingly prepared three bills for the Revisal, proposing
three distinct grades of education, reaching all classes.
1. Elementary schools for all children
generally, rich and poor.
2. Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, calculated
for the common purposes of life, and such as would
be desirable for all who were in easy circumstances.
And 3. an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences
generally & in their highest degree.
The first bill proposed to lay off every county into
Hundreds or Wards, of a proper size and population
for a school, in which reading, writing, and common
arithmetic should be taught; and that the whole state
should be divided into 24 districts, in each of which
should be a school for classical learning, grammar,
geography, and the higher branches of numerical arithmetic.
The second bill proposed to amend the constitution of
William & Mary College, to enlarge its sphere of science,
and to make it in fact a University.
The third was for the establishment of a library.
These bills were not acted on until the same
year ’96 and then only so much of the first
as provided for elementary schools.
The College of William & Mary was an establishment
purely of the Church of England; the Visitors were
required to be all of that Church; the Professors
to subscribe its 39 Articles, its Students to learn
its Catechism, and one of its fundamental objects
was declared to be to raise up Ministers for that church.
The religious jealousies therefore of all the dissenters
took alarm lest this might give an ascendancy
to the Anglican sect and refused acting on that bill.
Its local eccentricity too and unhealthy autumnal
climate lessened the general inclination towards it.
And in the Elementary bill they inserted a provision
which completely defeated it, for they left it to the
court of each county to determine for itself when this
act should be carried into execution within their county.
One provision of the bill was that the expenses of these
schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county,
everyone in proportion to his general tax-rate.
This would throw on wealth the education of the poor;
and the justices, being generally of the more wealthy class,
were unwilling to incur that burthen, and I believe
it was not suffered to commence in a single county.
I shall recur again to this subject towards the close of my
story if I should have life and resolution enough to reach
that term; for I am already tired of talking about myself.
The bill on the subject of slaves was a mere digest
of the existing laws respecting them, without any
intimation of a plan for a future & general emancipation.
It was thought better that this should be kept back,
and attempted only by way of amendment
whenever the bill should be brought on.
The principles of the amendment however were agreed on,
that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day,
and deportation at a proper age.
But it was found that the public mind would not yet
bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day.
Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it,
or worse will follow.
Nothing is more certainly written in the
book of fate than that these people are to be free.
Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free,
cannot live in the same government.
Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines
of distinction between them.
It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation
and deportation peaceably and in such slow degree
as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place
be pari passu filled up by free white laborers.
If on contrary it is left to force itself on,
human nature must shudder at the prospect held up.
We should in vain look for an example in the
Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors.
This precedent would fall far short of our case.
I considered 4 of these bills, passed or reported,
as forming a system by which every fiber would be
eradicated of ancient or future aristocracy;
and a foundation laid for a government truly republican.
The repeal of the laws of entail would prevent the
accumulation and perpetuation of wealth in select families,
and preserve the soil of the country from being daily
more & more absorbed in Mortmain.
The abolition of primogeniture and equal partition of
inheritances removed the feudal and unnatural
distinctions which made one member of every family rich,
and all the rest poor, substituting equal partition,
the best of all Agrarian laws.
The restoration of the rights of conscience relieved the
people from taxation for the support of a religion not theirs;
for the establishment was truly of the religion of the rich, the
dissenting sects being entirely composed of the less wealthy
people; and these by the bill for a general education would
be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and
to exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government:
and all this would be effected without the violation of
a single natural right of any one individual citizen.
To these too might be added as a further security the
introduction of the trial by jury into the Chancery courts,
which have already engulfed and continue to engulf
so great a proportion of the jurisdiction over our property.4
In 1777 Jefferson began writing on religious freedom,
and his “Statute for Religious Freedom” would
become Virginia law in January 1786.
Also in 1777 he wrote “A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge.”
On 1 September 1777 Lt. Col. George Rogers Clarke went
to Williamsburg and asked Governor Patrick Henry for arms
and permission to attack the British forts in the northwest.
Henry selected Jefferson, George Mason and Richard Henry Lee
so that Virginia could gain territory to open trade on the
Ohio River with the French and Spanish at New Orleans.
Clarke captured the “scalp-buyer” Henry Hamilton
who had been Lt. Governor of Detroit.
Clark wanted to take the fighting from Kentucky into the Indian country,
and in July 1778 he invaded Illinois territory and took the initiative
and captured the town of Kaskaskia south of St. Louis.
French people there learned that France had allied with
the Americans, and they accepted United States citizenship.
Clark in 1779 brought in Hamilton, and the
Assembly in Williamsburg voted him a sword.
On 3 April 1779 James Mason wrote this letter
to Jefferson about their work on land reforms:
The Indiana Company, I hear, are preparing to defend
their Claim under the Indian Purchase, which is to come
before the Assembly on the third Monday in May next;
and will of Course, I suppose, desire to be heard at
the Bar of the House: if it will be agreeable to You to
answer the Arguments of their Counsel, I will undertake
to open the Matter on Behalf of the Commonwealth.
The Treaty with the Six Nations of Indians at Lancaster
in 1744 with the Deed then obtained from them,
and also the Treaty at LogsTown in 1752 with the Deed
of Confirmation then obtained, will I apprehend be very
material: after endeavoring in vain by every Means in my
Power to procure them, I have now applied by Letter to
Mr. Waller and begged the Favor of him if he knows in
what Office they were lodged or recorded, to procure me
either the Originals or authenticated Copies against the
meeting of the Assembly; as You will probably see him
before I shall, I entreat You to remind him of it.
Perhaps our Friend Mr. Wythe can inform You
how they are to be got.
I have since I came up from the last Session,
drawn over again the two Bills for establishing a Land-Office
and for adjusting and settling the Claims to unpatented
Lands under the former Government &c. in which I have
provided for some Omissions and Difficulties in the
Execution; but have made no material Alterations in the plan
which You and I had agreed on in the Bills in January 1778,
except one in the Land-Office Bill; which I will
submit to Your Consideration when we meet,
and be governed in it entirely by Your Opinion.
I have not in these Bills taken any Notice of Escheats;
if You think that Subject may be more properly provided for
in the Land-Office Bill than by a separate Bill, I must beg
the Favor of You to consider it and draw a Clause for the
Purpose before the Assembly meets; for I think it will be
best to push these Laws in the next Session: they have been
too long delayed already to the great Loss of the Public;
and the Confusion among the People in the back Country
will be every Day increasing until Laws are made to settle
the present and remove the Cause of future Disputes.
Having lived always in the Northern Neck, I am
altogether unacquainted with the Mode of Proceeding
in the Case of Escheats under the former Government.
I wish You also to consider what will be a proper Price
to fix the Purchase Money of the back Lands at;
there will be great Variety of Opinion upon the Subject.
I have been thinking of £25 or £30 Per hundred acres;
which I am of Opinion they will readily sell for.
On the other Side are some Remarks
on the Reasonableness of the Demand.
I have been so roughly handled by the Gout this Winter
(having had two Fits since I came from the Assembly,
the last a most dangerous one in my Stomach)
that I believe I should have resolved to quit all public
Business; had I not just before, given my Word to some of
my Constituents that I would serve them another Year.5
Jefferson and Mason revised the bills for establishing
a land office and for settling claims in the West.
After Jefferson became Governor in June 1779, those bills were passed.
They benefited people who had moved in before 1 January 1778.
Jefferson in that January presented a land-office bill that
sequestered property of British subjects in Virginia.
The problem was that Virginia currency had depreciated.
Later Jefferson in a letter to Skelton Jones on 28 July 1809
explained what happened in 1779 writing,
The committee was appointed in the latter part of 76
& reported in the spring or summer 79.
At the first and only meeting of the whole committee
(of 5 persons) the question was discussed whether
we would attempt to reduce the whole body of the law into
a code, the text of which should become the law of the land?
We decided against that, because every word & phrase
in that text would become a new subject of criticism
& litigation until its sense should have been settled
by numerous decisions, & that in the meantime
the rights of property would be in the air.
We concluded not to meddle with the common law,
i.e. the law preceding the existence of the statutes,
farther than to accommodate it to our new principles
& circumstances, but to take up the whole body of statutes
and Virginia laws to leave out everything obsolete or
improper, insert what was wanting, and reduce the whole
within as moderate a compass as it would bear,
and to the plain language of common sense,
divested of the verbiage, the barbarous tautologies &
redundancies which render the British statutes unintelligible.
From this however were excepted the ancient statutes,
particularly those commented on by Lord Coke,
the language of which is simple, & the meaning of every
word so well settled by decisions as to make it safest not to
change the words where the sense was to be retained.6
In May 1779 the British were attacking Virginia, and the House
of Delegates voted to move the capital from Williamsburg to Richmond.
Patrick Henry was the first elected Governor of Virginia,
and he served the limit of three one-year terms.
The two houses of Virginia’s Assembly elected Thomas Jefferson
the Governor of Virginia on 1 June 1779.
He won on the second ballot over two close friends
of his youth—John Page and Thomas Nelson.
Jefferson received 67 votes to 61 for Page.
He was elected for one year, was responsible to
the Assembly, and he did not have a veto.
He could consult with the eight men in the Council of State.
His main advisors were John Page, James Madison, and John Walker.
About this time Jefferson stopped seeing Walker’s wife.
The Assembly had established a board of war and a board of trade
that were supervised by the Governor and the Council.
During this year the boards were abolished.
In a letter to Richard Henry Lee on June 17 Jefferson wrote,
In a virtuous government and more especially in
times like these public offices are what they should be,
burthens to those appointed to them which it would be
wrong to decline, though foreseen to bring with them
intense labor and great private loss….
We have 300 men under Col. Bowman in the Shawnee country,
of whom we hope to receive good account.
The destruction of the villages of the seceding Cherokees
at Chickamauga, and taking their goods &c. has brought
them to sue for peace, but the happiest stroke was the
burning 20,000 bushels of corn collected there for the
use of the expeditions which were to have been
adopted at the great council.
Governor Hamilton had called at the mouth
of the Tennessee, as mentioned in the within paper.
It is a cruel thought that when we feel ourselves
standing on the firmest ground in every respect, the
cursed arts of our secret enemies combining with other
causes, should effect by depreciating our money
what the open arms of a powerful enemy could not.
What is to be done?
Taxation is become of no account, for it is foreseen
that notwithstanding its increased amount
there will still be a greater deficiency than ever.
I own I see no assured hope but in peace
or a plentiful loan of hard money.7
On June 18 he proposed this Bill for the
More General Diffusion of Knowledge:
Whereas it appears that however certain forms of
government are better calculated than others to protect
individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights,
and are at the same time themselves better guarded
against degeneracy; yet experience has shown that even
under the best forms those entrusted with power have
in time and by slow operations perverted it into tyranny;
and it is believed that the most effectual means of
preventing this would be to illuminate as far as practicable
the minds of the people at large and more especially to give
them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits,
that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and
countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all
its shapes and prompt to exert their natural powers
to defeat its purposes; and whereas it is generally true that
that people will be happiest whose laws are best and are
best administered, and that laws will be wisely formed,
and honestly administered in proportion as those who
form and administer them are wise and honest; whence
it becomes expedient for promoting the public happiness
that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius
and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy
to receive and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights
and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be
called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other
accidental condition or circumstance; but the indigence of
the greater number disabling them from so educating
at their own expense those of their children whom nature
has fitly formed and disposed to become useful instruments
for the public, it is better that such should be sought for
and educated at the common expense of all, than that the
happiness of all should be confided to the weak or wicked:
Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, that
in every county within this commonwealth there shall be
chosen annually by the electors qualified to vote for
Delegates three of the most honest and able men of
their county to be called the Aldermen of the county;
and that the election of the said Aldermen shall be held
at the same time and place before the same persons
and notified and conducted in the same manner as by law
is directed for the annual election of Delegates for the county.
The person before whom such election is held shall certify
to the court of the said county the names of the Aldermen
chosen in order that the same may be entered of record
and shall give notice of their election to the said
Aldermen within a fortnight after such election.
The said Aldermen on the first Monday in October,
if it be fair, and if not then on the next fair day, excluding Sunday,
shall meet at the court-house of their county and proceed
to divide their said county into hundreds bounding the same
by water courses, mountains, or limits to be run and marked,
if they think necessary, by the county surveyor
and at the county expense, regulating the size of the said
hundreds according to the best of their discretion so as
that they may contain a convenient number of children
to make up a school and be of such convenient size that
all the children within each hundred may daily attend the
school to be established therein, distinguishing each hundred
by a particular name; which division with the names of the
several hundred, shall be returned to the court of the county
and be entered of record and shall remain unaltered until
the increase or decrease of inhabitants shall render an
alteration necessary in the opinion of any succeeding
Aldermen and also in the opinion of the court of the county.
The electors aforesaid residing within every hundred
shall meet on the third Monday in October after the first
election of Aldermen at such place within their hundred
as the said Aldermen shall direct notice thereof being
previously given to them by such person residing within
the hundred as the said Aldermen shall require who
is hereby enjoined to obey such requisition on pain of
being punished by amercement and imprisonment.
The electors being so assembled shall
choose the most convenient place within
their hundred for building a school-house.
If two or more places having a greater number of votes
than any others shall yet be equal between themselves,
the Aldermen or such of them as are not of the same
hundred, on information thereof shall decide between them.
The said Aldermen shall forthwith proceed to have a
school-house built at the said place, and shall see that
the same be kept in repair, and when necessary that it be
rebuilt; but whenever they shall think necessary that it be
rebuilt, they shall give notice as before directed, to the
electors of the hundred to meet at the said school-house
on such day as they shall appoint, to determine by vote,
in the manner before directed, whether it shall be rebuilt
at the same or what other place in the hundred.
At every of these schools shall be taught reading,
writing, and common arithmetic, and the books which
shall be used therein for instructing the children to read
shall be such as will at the same time make them acquainted
with Grecian, Roman, English, and American history.
At these schools all the free children, male and female,
resident within the respective hundred, shall be entitled
to receive tuition gratis for the term of three years
and as much longer at their private expense as their
parents, guardians or friends shall think proper.
Over every ten of these schools (or such other number
nearest thereto, as the number of hundreds in the county
will admit without fractional divisions) an overseer shall be
appointed annually by the Aldermen at their first meeting,
eminent for his learning, integrity, and fidelity to the
commonwealth, whose business and duty it shall be from
time to time to appoint a teacher to each school, who shall
give assurance of fidelity to the commonwealth and to
remove him as he shall see cause; to visit every school
once in every half year at the least; to examine the
scholars; see that any general plan of reading and
instruction recommended by the visitors of William and
Mary College shall be observed; and to superintend the
conduct of the teacher in everything relative to his school.
Every teacher shall receive a salary of by the year,
which with the expenses of building and repairing the
schoolhouses, shall be provided in such manner
as other county expenses are by law directed to be
provided and shall also have his diet, lodging, and
washing found him, to be levied in like manner,
save only that such levy shall be on the inhabitants
of each hundred for the board of their own teacher only….
Section IX that designates where the overseers for
the grammar schools are to meet within each county,
and Section X and XVI on other business
of the overseers have been omitted.
The said overseers shall forthwith proceed to have a
house of brick or stone for the said grammar school with
necessary offices built on the said lands, which grammar
school-house shall contain a room for the school,
a hall to dine in, four rooms for a master and usher,
and ten or twelve lodging rooms for the scholars.
To each of the said grammar schools shall be allowed out
of the public treasury, the sum of pounds, out of which
shall be paid by the Treasurer on warrant from the Auditors,
to the proprietors or tenants of the lands located,
the value of their several interests as fixed by the jury,
and the balance thereof shall be delivered to the said
overseers to defray the expense of the said buildings.
In these grammar schools shall be taught the
Latin and Greek languages, English grammar,
geography, and the higher part of numerical arithmetic,
to wit, vulgar and decimal fractions, and
the extraction of the square and cube roots.
A visitor from each county constituting the district shall be
appointed by the overseers for the county in the month of
October annually either from their own body or from their
county at large, which visitors or the greater part of them,
meeting together at the said grammar school on the first
Monday in November, if fair, and if not then on the next
fair day, excluding Sunday, shall have power to choose their
own Rector, who shall call and preside at future meetings,
to employ from time to time a master, and if necessary,
an usher for the said school to remove them at their will,
and to settle the price of tuition to be paid by the scholars.
They shall also visit the school twice in every year
at the least, either together or separately at their discretion,
examine the scholars, and see that any general plan
of instruction recommended by the visitors of
William and Mary College shall be observed.
The said masters and ushers before they enter
on the execution of their office, shall give
assurance of fidelity to the commonwealth.
A steward shall be employed and removed at will
by the master on such wages as the visitors shall direct;
which steward shall see to the procuring provisions,
fuel, servants for cooking, waiting, house cleaning,
washing, mending, and gardening on the most reasonable
terms; the expense of which, together with the steward’s
wages, shall be divided equally among all the scholars
boarding either on the public or private expense.
And the part of those who are on private expense,
and also the price of their tuitions due to the master or
usher shall be paid quarterly by the respective scholars,
their parents, or guardians, and shall be recoverable,
if withheld together with costs on motion in any
Court of Record, ten days notice thereof being
previously given to the party and a jury impaneled
to try the issue joined, or enquire of the damages.
The said steward shall also under the direction of
the visitors see that the houses be kept in repair, and
necessary enclosures be made and repaired, the accounts
for which shall from time to time be submitted to the
Auditors, and on their warrant paid by the Treasurer.
Every overseer of the hundred schools shall in the month
of September annually, after the most diligent and impartial
examination and enquiry, appoint from among the boys who
shall have been two years at the least at some one of the
schools under his superintendence, and whose parents are
too poor to give them farther education, some one of the
best and most promising genius and disposition, to proceed
to the grammar school of his district; which appointment
shall be made in the court-house of the county on the
court day for that month if fair, and if not then on the next
fair day, excluding Sunday, in the presence of the Aldermen,
or two of them at the least, assembled on the bench
for that purpose, the said overseer being previously
sworn by them to make such appointment without
favor or affection according to the best of his skill and
judgment, and being interrogated by the said Aldermen,
either on their own motion or on suggestions from the
parents, guardians, friends, or teachers of the children,
competitors for such appointment; which teachers
shall attend for the information of the Aldermen.
On which interrogatories the said Aldermen,
if they be not satisfied with the appointment proposed,
shall have right to negative it; whereupon the said visitor
may proceed to make a new appointment, and
the said Aldermen again to interrogate and negative,
and so toties quoties until an appointment be approved.
Every boy so appointed shall be authorized to proceed
to the grammar school of his district, there to be educated
and boarded during such time as is hereafter limited; and
his quota of the expenses of the house together with a
compensation to the master or usher for his tuition,
at the rate of twenty dollars by the year, shall be paid
by the Treasurer quarterly on warrant from the Auditors.
A visitation shall be held for the purpose of probation
annually at the said grammar school on the last Monday
in September, if fair, and if not then on the next fair day,
excluding Sunday, at which one third of the boys sent thither
by appointment of the said overseers, and who shall have
been there one year only, shall be discontinued as public
foundationers, being those who on the most diligent
examination and enquiry shall be thought to be of the least
promising genius and disposition; and of those who shall
have been there two years, all shall be discontinued, save
one only the best in genius and disposition, who shall be at
liberty to continue there four years longer on the public
foundation, and shall thence forward be deemed a senior.
The visitors for the districts which, or any part of which,
be southward and westward of James river, as known
by that name or by the names of Fluvanna and Jackson’s
River in every other year, to wit, at the probation meetings
held in the years distinguished in the Christian computation
by odd numbers, and the visitors for all the other districts at
their said meetings to be held in those years, distinguished
by even numbers after diligent examination and enquiry as
before directed, shall choose one among the said seniors,
of the best learning and most hopeful genius and disposition,
who shall be authorized by them to proceed to William and
Mary College, there to be educated, boarded, and clothed,
three years; the expense of which annually shall be paid
by the Treasurer on warrant from the Auditors.8
Also on 18 June 1779 Jefferson proposed this Bill
for Establishing a Public Library:
Section I. Be it enacted by the General Assembly,
that on the first day of January in every year there shall
be paid out of the treasury the sum of two thousand pounds,
to be laid out in such books and maps as may be proper
to be preserved in a public library, and in defraying the
expenses necessary for the care and preservation thereof;
which library shall be established at the town of Richmond.
Section II. The two houses of Assembly shall appoint
three persons of learning and of attention to literary matters
to be visitors of the said library and shall remove them
or any of them and fill any vacancies from time to time,
as they shall think fit; which visitors shall have power
to receive the annual sums beforementioned
and therewith to procure such books and maps as
aforesaid, and shall superintend the preservation thereof.
Whensoever a keeper shall be found necessary
they shall appoint such keeper from time to time,
at their will on such annual salary (not exceeding
one hundred pounds) as they shall think reasonable.
Section III. If during the time of war the importation
of books and maps shall be hazardous, or if the rate
of exchange between this commonwealth and any
state from which such articles are wanted, shall from
any cause be such that they cannot be imported to
such advantage as may be hoped at a future day,
the visitors shall place the annual sums, as they become
due, in the public loan office, if any there be, for the benefit
of interest, or otherwise shall suffer them to remain in the
treasury until fit occasions shall occur of employing them.
Section IV. It shall not be lawful for the said keeper
or the visitors themselves or any other person to remove
any book or map out of the said library unless it be for
the necessary repair thereof; but the same shall be made
useful by indulging the researches of the learned and
curious within the said library without fee or reward,
and under such rules for preserving them safe and in
good order and condition as the visitors shall constitute.
The visitors shall annually settle their accounts with
the Auditors and leave with them the vouchers for
the expenditure of the monies put into their hands.9
During the War for Independence Jefferson was elected the
Governor of Virginia in June 1779 and again in June 1780.
About 4,000 English and Hessian troops were captured when
General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga on 17 October 1777.
They were marched to Boston and then to
Albermarle County in Virginia in January 1779.
They were being badly treated and fed spoiled meat.
On March 27 Jefferson wrote in a long letter to Governor Patrick Henry
about the poor treatment of the prisoners that included these thoughts:
A report prevailing here that in consequence of
some powers from Congress the Governor and
council have it in contemplation to remove the
Convention troops either wholly or in part from
their present situation, I take the liberty of troubling
you with some observations on that subject.
The reputation and interests of our country
in general may be affected by such a measure.
It would therefore hardly be deemed an indecent
liberty in the most private citizen to offer his
thoughts to the consideration of the executive.
The locality of my situation particularly in the neighborhood
of the present barracks and the public relation in which
I stand with the people among whom they are situated,
together with a confidence which a personal knowledge
of the members of the executive gives me, that they will
be glad of information from any quarter on a subject
interesting to the public, induce me to hope that they will
acquit me of impropriety in the present representation….
Was it not then wise in Congress to remove
to that field 4000 idle mouths who must otherwise
have interfered with the pasture of our own troops?
And if they are removed to any other part of
the country will it not defeat this wise purpose.
The mills on the waters of James river above
the falls open to canoe navigation are very many.
Some of them are of great note as manufacturers.
The Barracks are surrounded by mills.
There are 5 or 6 round about Charlottesville.
Any two or three of the whole might in the course of
the winter manufacture flour sufficient for the year….
The safe custody of these troops is
another circumstance worthy consideration.
Equally removed from the access of an Eastern
or Western enemy central to the whole state so that
should they attempt an eruption in any direction they
must pass through a great extent of hostile country,
in a neighborhood thickly inhabited by a robust and
hardy people zealous in the American cause, acquainted
with the use of arms and the defiles and passes
by which they must issue, it should seem that in this
point of view no place could have been better chosen.
Their health is also of importance.
I would not endeavor to show that their lives are valuable
to us, because it would suppose a possibility that humanity was
kicked out of doors in America and interest only attended to.
The barracks occupy the top and brow of a very high hill
(you have been untruly told they were in a bottom).
They are free from fog, have four springs which
seem to be plentiful, one within 20 yards of the picket,
2 within 50 yards, and another within 250, and
they propose to sink wells within the picquet.
Of 4000 people it should be expected according to the
ordinary calculations that one should die every day.
Yet in the space of near 3 months there
have been but 4 deaths among them.
2 infants under three weeks old, two others by apoplexy….
But is an enemy so execrable that though
in captivity his wishes and comforts are to be
disregarded and even crossed?
I think not.
It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate
the horrors of war as much as possible.
The practice therefore of modern nations of treating
captive enemies with politeness and generosity
is not only delightful in contemplation but really
interesting to all the world, friends foes and neutrals….
To conclude.
The separation of these troops would be a breach
of public faith, therefore I suppose it impossible.
If they are removed to another state, it is the fault
of the commissaries; if they are removed to any
other part of the state it is the fault of the commissaries;
and in both cases, the public interest and public security
suffer, the comfortable and plentiful subsistence of our
own army is lessened, the health of the troops neglected,
their wishes crossed and their comforts torn from them,
the character of whim and caprice or, what is worse,
of cruelty fixed on us as a nation, and to crown the
whole, our own people disgusted with such a proceeding.
I have thus taken the liberty of representing to
you the facts and the reasons which seem to militate
against the separation or removal of these troops.
I am sensible, however, that the same object may
appear to different persons in very different lights.10
Jefferson wrote this in his Autobiography
about his two years as Governor of Virginia:
On the 1st of June 1779 I was appointed Governor
of the Commonwealth and retired from the legislature.
Being elected also one of the Visitors of William & Mary
college, a self-electing body, I effected, during my
residence in Williamsburg that year, a change in the
organization of that institution by abolishing the
Grammar school, and the two professorships of Divinity
& Oriental languages, and substituting a professorship
of Law & Police, one of Anatomy, Medicine and Chemistry,
and one of Modern languages; and the charter confining
us to six professorships, we added the law of Nature &
Nations, & the Fine Arts to the duties of the Moral professor,
and Natural history to those of the professor
of Mathematics and Natural philosophy.
Being now, as it were, identified with the Commonwealth
itself, to write my own history during the two years
of my administration, would be to write the public history
of that portion of the revolution within this state.
This has been done by others, and particularly
by Mr. Girardin, who wrote his Continuation
of Burke's history of Virginia while at Milton,
in this neighborhood, had free access to all
my papers while composing it, and has given
as faithful an account as I could myself.
For this portion therefore of my own life,
I refer altogether to his history.
From a belief that under the pressure of the invasion
under which we were then laboring the public would
have more confidence in a Military chief, and that
the Military commander, being invested with the
Civil power also, both might be wielded with more energy
promptitude and effect for the defense of the state,
I resigned the administration at the end of my 2d year,
and General Nelson was appointed to succeed me.11
Jefferson wrote in a letter to George Washington on 10 July 1779,
I thank you much for the accounts Your Excellency
has been pleased to transmit me of the successes
of Cols. Clarke and Shelby.
They are important and interesting and do great honor
to the Officers and Men engaged in the Enterprises.
I hope these successes will be followed
by very happy consequences.
If Col. Clarke could by any means gain
possession of Detroit, it would in all probability
effectually secure the friendship or at least
the neutrality of most of the Western Indians.
I have no doubt of the propriety of the proceedings
against Governor Hamilton, Dejean and Lamothe.
Their cruelties to our unhappy people who have fallen
into their hands and the measures they have pursued
to excite the savages to acts of the most wanton barbarity
discriminate them from common prisoners, and most fully
authorize the treatment decreed in their case.12
In a letter to General Washington on October 8 Jefferson wrote,
I now enclose you an advice of counsel in consequence
of the letter you were pleased to enclose me from the
British commissary of prisoners with one from Lord Rowdon.
Also a copy of my letter to Col. Mathews
enclosing also the papers therein named.
The advice of Council to allow the enlargement of the
prisoners on their giving a proper parole has not been
recalled nor will be I suppose unless something on
the part of the enemy should render it necessary.
I rather expect however that they will see it
their interest to discontinue this kind of conduct.
I am afraid I shall hereafter perhaps be obliged to
give your Excellency some trouble in aiding me to
obtain information of the future usage of our prisoners.
I shall give immediate orders for having in readiness
every engine which the Enemy have contrived for the
destruction of our unhappy citizens captivated by them.
The presentiment of these operations
is shocking beyond expression.
I pray heaven to avert them: but nothing in this world
will do it but a proper conduct in the Enemy.
In every event I shall resign myself to the
hard necessity under which I shall act.13
In 1779 half the counties in Virginia did not contribute their tax quotas.
Currency was useless in Illinois country, and Jefferson advised
Col. George Rogers Clarke to return to Kentucky.
Clarke in late 1779 began supervising the building of a fort
just below the junction of the Ohio River by the Mississippi.
The fort was named after Jefferson as was
one of three new counties in Kentucky.
Crops failed in Virginia in 1779, and the
state had to buy food from neighbors.
Jefferson wrote to General Washington about this on November 28.
On the 30th Jefferson proclaimed,
Whereas the exportation of provisions from this state will
be attended with manifest injury to the United States,
by supplying the enemy, and by rendering it difficult
for the public agents and contractors to procure supplies
for the American troops, and will moreover give
encouragement to engrossers and monopolizers to
prosecute their baneful practices, I have therefore
thought fit, by and with the advice and consent of the
Council of State, to issue this my proclamation for laying
an embargo on provisions; and I do hereby lay an embargo
on provisions, viz. on all beef, pork, bacon, wheat,
Indian corn, peas or other grain, or flour or meal
made of the same; to continue until the first day of May next.
And I do hereby strictly prohibit all mariners, masters,
and commanders of vessels, and all other persons
whatsoever within this state, from loading on board
any vessel for exportation, and from exporting all or
any of the above species of provisions, by land or water,
from the date hereof, during the term aforesaid,
under pain of incurring the penalties inflicted by the
act of Assembly entitled An act to empower the
Governor and Council to lay an embargo for a
limited time, except as in the said act is excepted.
And I do hereby strictly charge and command
all naval officers and others, in their respective departments,
to exert their best endeavors to the end
that this embargo be strictly observed.14
Thomas Jefferson’s friend John Page had helped found the
Philosophical Society for the Advancement of Useful Knowledge,
and on 21 January 1780 Jefferson was elected a member.
On March 28 James Madison in Philadelphia wrote to Jefferson:
Nothing under the title of news has occurred since
I wrote last week by express except that
the Enemy on the 1st of March remained
in the neighborhood of Charlestown in the same
posture as when the preceding account came away.
From the best intelligence from that quarter
there seems to be great encouragement to hope
that Clinton’s operations will be again frustrated.
Our great apprehensions at present
flow from a very different quarter.
Among the various conjunctures of alarm and distress
which have arisen in the course of the revolution,
it is with pain I affirm to you Sir, that no one
can be singled out more truly critical than the present.
Our army threatened with an immediate alternative
of disbanding or living on free quarter; the public treasury
empty; public credit exhausted, nay the private credit
of purchasing Agents employed, I am told, as far as
it will bear, Congress complaining of the extortion of
the people; the people of the improvidence of Congress,
and the army of both; our affairs requiring the most
mature & systematic measures, and the urgency of
occasions admitting only of temporizing expedients,
and those expedients generating new difficulties.
Congress from a defect of adequate Statesmen more likely
to fall into wrong measures and of less weight to enforce
right ones, recommending plans to the several states
for execution and the states separately rejudging
the expediency of such plans, whereby the same
distrust of concurrent exertions that has damped
the ardor of patriotic individuals, must produce
the same effect among the States themselves.
An old system of finance discarded as incompetent
to our necessities, an untried & precarious one substituted,
and a total stagnation in prospect between the end of
the former & the operation of the latter: These are
the outlines of the true picture of our public situation.
I leave it to your own imagination to fill them up.
Believe me Sir as things now stand, if the States do not
vigorously proceed in collecting the old money and
establishing funds for the credit of the new, that we are
undone; and let them be ever so expeditious in doing this,
still the intermediate distress to our army and hindrance
to public affairs are a subject of melancholy reflection.
General Washington writes that a failure of bread
has already commenced in the army, and that
for anything he sees, it must unavoidably increase.
Meat they have only for a short season and as the whole
dependence is on provisions now to be procured, without
a shilling for the purpose, and without credit for a shilling,
I look forward with the most pungent apprehensions.
It will be attempted I believe to purchase a few supplies
with loan office Certificates; but whether they will be
received is perhaps far from being certain; and if received
will certainly be a most expensive & ruinous expedient.
It is not without some reluctance I trust this
information to a conveyance by post, but I know of
no better at present, and I conceive it to be absolutely
necessary to be known to those who are most able
and zealous to contribute to the public relief.
Authentic information is now received that the Enemy
in their passage to Georgia lost all their Horse, the
Defiance of 64 guns which foundered at sea, three
transports with troops, although it is pretended these
troops and the men of the Defiance were saved, and 1
transport with Hessians of which nothing has been heard.
By a letter from Mr. Adams dated Corunna
16 December there seems little probability
that Britain is yet in a humor for peace.
The Russian Ambassador at that Court has been lately
changed, and the new one on his way to London made
some stop at Paris whence a rumor has spread in Europe
that Russia was about to employ her mediation for peace.
Should there be any reality in it, Mr. Adams says it is the
opinion of the most intelligent he had conversed with that
the independence of the United States would be insisted on
as a preliminary: to which Great Britain would accede with
much greater repugnance than the cession of Gibraltar
which Spain was determined to make a sine qua non.15
On 18 April 1780 Gov. Jefferson transferred the capital of Virginia
from Williamsburg to Richmond which was farther from the coast.
British forces, who outnumbered the Americans nearly 3 to 1,
led by General Henry Clinton besieged Charleston, South Carolina
for 45 days and then accepted its surrender on May 12.
That month the Assembly authorized the Governor and his Council
to call out up to 20,000 men and to send them out of the state if necessary,
and they could imprison or remove alienated persons during a public
emergency such as an invasion or an insurrection.
They could also commandeer provisions.
Gov. Jefferson on 11 June 1780 sent this letter to General Washington:
Major Galvan as recommended by your
Excellency was dispatched to his station without
delay, and has been furnished with everything
he desired as far as we were able.
The line of expresses formed between us is
such as will communicate intelligence from
one to the other in twenty-three hours.
I have forwarded to him information of our
disasters in the South as they have come to me.
Our intelligence from the Southward
is most lamentably defective.
Though Charlestown has now been in the hands
of the enemy a month, we hear nothing
of their movements which can be relied on.
Rumors are that they are penetrating Northward.
To remedy this defect I shall immediately establish a line
of expresses from hence to the neighborhood of their army,
and send thither a sensible judicious gentleman
to give us information of their movements.
This intelligence will I hope be conveyed to us
at the rate of 120 miles in the 24 hours.
They set out to their stations tomorrow.
I wish it were possible that a like speedy line
of communication could be formed from hence
to your Excellency’s headquarters.
Perfect and speedy information of what is passing
in the South might put it in your power perhaps
to frame your measures by theirs.
There is really nothing to oppose the progress of the enemy
Northward but the cautious principles of the military art.
North Carolina is without arms.
We do not abound.
Those we have are freely imparted to them, but such is
the state of their resources that they have not yet been
able to move a single musket from this state to theirs.
All the wagons we can collect have been furnished
to the Marquis de Kalb, and are assembling for the
march of 2500 militia under General Stevens of
Culpeper who will move on the 19th inst.
I have written to Congress to hasten supplies of arms
and military stores for the Southern states,
and particularly to aid us with Cartridge paper
and Cartridge boxes, the want of which articles,
small as they are, renders our stores useless.
The want of money cramps every effort.
This will be supplied by the most
unpalatable of all substitutes, force.
Your Excellency will readily conceive that after the
loss of one army our eyes are turned towards the other,
and that we comfort ourselves that if any aids can be
furnished by you without defeating operations more
beneficial to the general union, they will be furnished.
At the same time I am happy to find that the wishes
of the people go no further, as far as I have an
opportunity of learning their sentiments.
Could arms be furnished I think this state and
North Carolina would embody from ten to fifteen
thousand militia immediately, and more if necessary.16
In July news reached Richmond of an insurrection on the New River.
Col. Preston was in command and was worried that
they would destroy lead mines that provided material for bullets.
Col. William Campbell recommended punishment.
Jefferson did not mind Tories fleeing to Britain,
but he would not tolerate those who fought against the Revolution.
He wrote to Col. Charles Lynch, and his name became
associated with the punishment he chose to inflict.
Jefferson generally opposed a standing army because that threatened liberty.
Therefore he preferred to use the militia.
Jefferson wrote his first letter still extant to James Madison on 26 July 1780,
and he was especially happy about the new law school
that his friend George Wythe had founded:
With my letter to the President I enclose a copy of
the bill for calling in the paper money now in circulation,
being the only copy I have been able to get.
In my letter to the delegates I ask the favor of them to
furnish me with authentic advice when the resolutions of
Congress shall have been adopted by five other states.
In a private letter I may venture to urge
great dispatch and to assign the reasons.
The bill on every vote prevailed but by small majorities,
and on one occasion it escaped by two voices only.
Its friends are very apprehensive that those
who disapprove of it will be active in the recess
of assembly to produce a general repugnance to it,
and to prevail on the assembly in October to repeal it.
They therefore think it of the utmost consequence to get
it into a course of execution before the assembly meets.
I have stated in my public letter to you what
we shall consider as authentic advice lest a
failure in that article should increase the delay.
If you cannot otherwise get copies of the bill, it would be
worthwhile to be at some extraordinary expense to do it.
Some doubt has arisen here to which
quarter our 3000 draughts are to go?
As Congress directed 5000 militia to be raised and sent to
the Southward including what were ordered there, and
these 3000 (which I think will be 3500) draughts are raised
in lieu of so many militia, the matter seems clear enough.
When we consider that a fourth or fifth of the enemy’s
force are in South Carolina, it could not be expected that
North Carolina, which contains but a tenth of the American
militia should be left to support the Southern war alone;
more especially when the regular force to the Northward
and the expected aids are taken into the scale.
I doubt more whether the balance of the $1,900,000
are meant by Congress to be sent Northwardly,
because in a resolution of June 17 subsequent to
the requisition of the sum before mentioned
they seem to appropriate all the monies from
Maryland Southward to the Southern military chest.
We shall be getting ready the balance, in which great
disappointments have arisen from an inability to sell
our tobacco; and in the meantime wish I could be
advised whether it is to go Northward or Southward.
The aids of money from this state through the rest
of the present year will be small, our taxes being
effectually anticipated by certificates issued for want of
money, and for which the sheriffs are glad to exchange
their collections rather than bring them to the treasury.
Congress desired North Carolina and Virginia to recruit,
remount, and equip Washington’s and White’s horse.
The whole has been done by us except
as to 200 saddles which the Quarter Master
expects to get from the Northward.
This draws from us about six or seven hundred
thousand pounds, the half of which I suppose is
so much more than was expected from us.
We took on us the whole, because we supposed
North Carolina would be considerably burthened
with calls for occasional horse, in the present low
state of our cavalry; and that the disabled horses
would be principally to be exchanged there for fresh.
Our troops are in the utmost distress for clothing,
as are also our officers.
What we are to do with the 3000 draughts
when they are raised I cannot foresee.
Our new institution at the college has had a
success which has gained it universal applause.
Wythe’s school is numerous.
They hold weekly courts and assemblies in the capitol.
The professors join in it; and the young men
dispute with elegance, method and learning.
This single school by throwing from time to time
new hands well principled and well informed
into the legislature will be of infinite value.17
Jefferson wrote this to Washington on 2 August 1780:
In obedience to the act of our assembly, a copy
of which I now do myself the honor of enclosing you,
I am, in the name of the General assembly,
“to request you to proclaim pardon to all deserters
from the Virginia line of the continental army,
who shall within two months after the publication of the act”
(which took place about a week ago) “return to their
several companies, if on land, and if at sea, within two
months after their return, and serve during the war,
if so engaged, and if otherwise, shall serve two years
over and above the time for which he or they engaged.”
The capture of the Virginia line took place
during the session of the assembly,
and probably was not known when this act passed.
This will account to your Excellency for the requisition
to deserters to join their companies; and will no doubt
point out to you the necessity of changing it in that part.
Your Excellency having had experience of the efficacy of
Proclamations can better judge what expectations may be
formed from the one now asked: from that part of the act
which makes it the duty of the militia captains to seek for
deserters I do hope that very good effects will proceed.18
On August 16 General Cornwallis and the British defeated a larger army
led by General Horatio Gates at Camden, South Carolina.
On September 3 Jefferson wrote this letter to General Washington
describing what happened at Camden:
As I know the anxieties you must have felt since the
late misfortune to the South, and our later accounts
have not been quite so unfavorable as the first,
I take the liberty of enclosing you a state of this
unlucky affair extracted from letters from General Gates,
General Stevens, and Governor Nash, and taken as to
Some circumstances from an officer who was in the action.
Another army is collecting.
This amounted on the 23d Ult. to between four and five
thousand men consisting of about 500 Maryland regulars, a
few of Harrison’s artillery and Porterfield’s corps, Armand’s
legion, such of the fugitive militia as had been reclaimed,
and about 3000 North Carolina militia newly embodied.
We are told they will increase these to 8000.
Our new recruits will rendezvous in this state
between the 10th and 25th inst.
We are calling out 2000 militia who I think however
will not be got to Hillsborough till the 25th of October.
About 350 regulars marched from Chesterfield a week ago;
50 march tomorrow and there will be 100 or 150 more
from that post when they can be cleared of the hospital.
This is as good a view as I can give you
of the force we are endeavoring to collect.
But they are unarmed.
Almost the whole small arms seem
to have been lost in the late rout.
There are here on their way Southward
3000 stand of arms sent by Congress, and
we have a few still remaining in our magazine.
I have written pressingly, as the subject well deserves,
to Congress, to send us immediate supplies, and to think
of forming a magazine here that in case of another disaster
we may not be left without all means of opposition.
I enclosed to your Excellency some time ago a
resolution of assembly instructing us to send a quantity
of tobacco to New York for the relief of our officers there,
and asking the favor of you to obtain permission.
Having received no answer I fear my letter
or your answer has miscarried.
I therefore now take the liberty of
repeating my application to you.19
On August 31 Jefferson wrote in a letter to the
French Commander in America, Chevalier La Luzerne:
Your Excellency’s Letter of the 27th of July should
not have been so long unanswered, but that
I have been for some time past absent in the country.
The generous aid from your Sovereign, the arrival of
which is announced in your Letter, must have filled up the
measure of gratitude felt by every American if there
was room still left for an increase of grateful sentiment.
With me there was none.
I think these essential succors must impress the minds of
all our people to the latest time, and that which affects
the minds of all must forever influence the public councils
and conduct, notwithstanding the too general prevalence
of the interest of the day on the measures of nations.
The interest of this State is intimately blended so perfectly
the same with that of the others of the confederacy
that the most effectual aid it can at any time receive
is where the general cause most needs it.
Of this yourself, Congress, and General Washington are
so perfect judges that it is not for me to point it out.
You can as well, and will as impartially judge whether
the late disasters in the south call for any of those future
aids so generously tendered in your Excellency’s Letter.
If their action in the north will have more powerful
influence towards establishing our Independence,
they ought not to be wished for in the south,
be the temporary misfortunes there what they will.
Upon this head we resign ourselves to the care of your
gracious sovereign and good offices of your Excellency,
who sees us all with an equal eye.
Were it possible for this state to have an interest distinct
from its confederates in any point, it would be in the bay of
Chesapeake, the unavoidable channel of all our commerce.
Our own attempts to establish a force on the water
have been very unsuccessful; and our trade has
been almost annihilated by the most contemptible
part of the enemy’s force on that element.
I will acknowledge to you that I have thought
(as I have also said to Congress) that their cares
were not equally extended to us in this particular;
and I should think myself justifiable in applying
to the friendship of other powers for any naval aid,
which could be given us separately.
But I am far from asking it of you, who have done for us
more than we could have asked before, unless to protect
the Commerce of your own state with us might be
an object worthy a stationary force of some sort.
What is best for your nation, is best for us also,
who so effectually participate of the benefits
of all their successes.20
Jefferson wrote this to General Horatio Gates on September 3:
I am extremely mortified at the Misfortune incurred
in the South and the more so as the Militia of our
State concurred so eminently in producing it.
We have sent from Chesterfield a week ago 350 regulars,
50 more march tomorrow, and there will be 100, or 150
still to go thence as fast as they come out of the Hospital.
Our new recruits begin to rendezvous about the 10th: inst.
and may all be expected to be in by the 25th.
We call on 2000 more Militia, who are required
to be at Hillsborough by the 25th of October.
But we have not Arms to put into the Hands of these men.
There are here going on to you 3000 stand from Congress.
We have about the same number in our magazine.
I trust Congress will aid us.
We are desired in general to send you all kinds of
Military Stores, but I wish you would be so good as to
send me a specification of the Articles and quantities you
most want, because our means of transportation being
very limited we may otherwise misemploy even these.
Powder, flints, Cannon, Cannon-ball are
the only Articles I think we can send.
Lead I hope you will get immediately from the Mines,
which will save a vast deal of transportation.
Our treasury is utterly exhausted and cannot again
be replenished till the Assembly meets in October.
We might however furnish considerable Quantities
of Provision were it possible to convey it to you.
We shall immediately send out an Agent into the
Southern Counties to collect and forward all he can.
Will Militia volunteer Horse be of service
to you and how many?21
General Nathanael Greene in November replaced Horatio Gates who went north,
and Baron von Steuben was put in charge of troops at Richmond.
John Page urged his friend Jefferson to run for a
third one-year term as Governor before retiring.
Jefferson in September said he would retire at the end of his second term
in June 1781 even though he could be re-elected for one more year.
Jefferson in a letter to General Washington on 15 December 1780 wrote,
The army the enemy present have in the South,
the reinforcements still expected there, and their
determination to direct their future exertions
to that quarter are not unknown to you.
The regular force proposed on our part to
counteract those exertions is such, either from
the real or supposed inability of this State, as by
no means to allow a hope that it may be effectual.
It is therefore to be expected that the scene
of war will either be within our country or
very nearly advanced to it; and that our principal
dependence is to be on militia for which reason
it becomes incumbent to keep as great a proportion
of our people as possible free to act in that quarter.
In the meantime a combination is forming in the westward,
which if not diverted, will call thither a principal
and most valuable part of our militia.
From intelligence received we have reason to expect
that a confederacy of British and Indians to the amount
of two thousand men is formed for the purpose of
spreading destruction and dismay through the
whole extent of our frontier in the ensuing spring.
Should this take place, we shall certainly lose
in the South all aids of militia beyond the Blue Ridge,
besides the inhabitants who must fall a sacrifice
in the course of the savage eruptions.22
On 31 December 1780 Jefferson wrote
this short letter to Baron von Steuben:
I have this moment received information that 27 sail
of vessels, 18 of which were square rigged, were
yesterday morning just below Willoughby’s point.
No other circumstance being given to conjecture
their force or destination, I am only able to dispatch
General Nelson into the lower country to take such
measures as exigencies may require for the instant,
until further information is received here.
Then or in the meantime your aid
and counsel will be deemed valuable.23
Notes
1. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 32-33, 35-40.
2. To Benjamin Franklin from Thomas Jefferson, 13 August 1777 (Online)
3. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 33-34.
4. Ibid., p. 40-45.
5. To Thomas Jefferson from George Mason, 3 April 1779 (Online)
6. Thomas Jefferson to Skelton Jones, 28 July 1809 (Online)
7. From Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, 17 June 1779 (Online)
8. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 365-368, 370-372, 373.
9. The Basic Writings of Thomas Jefferson ed. Philip S. Foner, p. 47.
10. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 764-765, 769-770, 772-773.
11. Ibid., p. 45.
12. To Thomas Jefferson from George Washington, 10 July 1779 (Online)
13. To George Washington from Thomas Jefferson, 8 October 1779 (Online)
14. Proclamation of Embargo, 30 November 1779 (Online)
15. From James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 27–28 March 1780 (Online)
16. From Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 11 June 1780 (Online)
17. From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 26 July 1780 (Online)
18. From Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 2 August 1780 (Online)
19. From Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, with a Narrative of the
Battle of Camden, 3 September 1780 (Online)
20. From Thomas Jefferson to La Luzerne, 31 August 1780 (Online)
21. From Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Gates, 3 September 1780 (Online)
22. The Life of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1 by Henry S. Randall, p. 294.
23. From Thomas Jefferson to Steuben, 31 December 1780 (Online)
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