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Review
| "I Tremble for My Country": Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Gentry, by Ronald L. Hatzenbuehler. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006. 206 pages. $55.00, cloth.
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| In this slim but exceedingly thoughtful volume, longtime Jefferson scholar Hatzenbuehler not only challenges a magisterial three volume work by Dumas Malone in which Jefferson is moved from Virginia to a national and international role in the first volume, but demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that Jefferson was never able to escape from the Chesapeake culture he was born into. Nor, despite his occasional injunctions that his neighbors reform themselves, did he truly wish to escape their world. Although Jefferson spent much of his long life advocating change and improvement in Virginia, rarely did he put his prestige – rather than his pen – on the line, and when his planter brethren fought to protect their privileged position in society, Jefferson gave way all too easily. In the end, the retired statesman was content to urge younger men to complete the unfinished task of reform, having himself, contrary to the advice he routinely dispensed, grown "weary in well-doing." Each of Hatzenbuehler's eight elegantly written chapters (counting his lengthy conclusion) is perceptive, and even seasoned Jefferson scholars will find something to ponder in all of them. But two are particularly significant. In discussing the American Revolution in Virginia, the author emphasizes the "Virginia roots" of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, and particularly George Mason's state Declaration of Rights (p. 61). Whereas other scholars, most notably Garry Wills, give credit to Jefferson for "inventing America," Hatzenbuehler argues that the young planter was less concerned with drafting a manifesto of American nationalism than he was with indicating to his gentry brethren that his views were in accordance with theirs. Historians will argue forever as to the intellectual sources of Jefferson's Declaration, and Hatzenbuehler is not the first specialist to note the similarity between Jefferson's and Mason's words in these documents. Yet never has the connection between the two been contextualized so thoroughly or convincingly. |
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A later chapter that interweaves the diplomatic agonies of Jefferson's second term with his private life at Monticello will serve as a model for later biographers. Biographers like Malone and Noble Cunningham describe the headaches facing the administration as the war in Europe threatened to engulf the young republic, and then turn to Jefferson's personal life only after his retirement in 1809. Younger scholars, interested primarily in Jefferson's private affairs and views on race, have described the president's relationship with his enslaved sister-in-law, Sally Hemings. But by noting how the timing of the conception of Eston Hemings coincided with the British attack on the Chesapeake and the Burr trial, Hatzenbuehler suggests that Jefferson's clandestine life on his hilltop provided him with the sustenance he needed in an increasingly turbulent world. For much of his life, Hatzenbuehler argues, Jefferson was annoyed with his planter neighbors for not adopting more of his reformist ideas, yet toward the end of his political career he surely took solace in the traditional silence white Virginians imposed on such matters. "In the process," the author writes, Jefferson "demonstrated how firmly planted he remained in the habits of the Virginia gentry" (p. 128). |
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Although Hatzenbuehler's audience is primarily fellow specialists in early national Virginia, readers of this journal should appreciate how accessible this volume is for teachers, students, and historians of other fields. The author deftly weaves a good deal of historiographical discussion into his text, mentioning other historians by name and indicating how his analysis does or does not accord with their views. There is also a nice balance at work here. Jefferson's reputation, burdened by his conservative opinions regarding women and African Americans – backward even for his own era – has slipped of late. Some scholars, most notably Joseph Ellis, have come to bury him, while others continue to praise him. Hatzenbuehler is quite aware of Jefferson's failings and does not shy away from them, yet he also finds much to admire. Readers in search of a balanced treatment of Jefferson's life and ideas will be attracted to this closely-argued volume. |
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| Le Moyne College, New York |
Douglas R. Egerton |
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