Reviews of Books

Democratic government depends on the willingness of the minority to accept the will of the majority. Thomas Jefferson later claimed that his election to the presidency in 1800 constituted "as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form" because it transferred power from one administration to another "not…by the sword" but by "the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people" (pp. 80–81). Even deep differences of principle did not prevent Federalists from acknowledging, eventually, that their Jeffersonian critics had won. Instead of reaching for their guns, they vacated their offices.	1
Because we take for granted majority rule, we have trouble understanding the fears of the founding generation that the American experiment might prove too fragile to survive. Not only did partisan disagreements threaten its stability, perhaps even more serious were the centrifugal pressures generated by the unprecedented diversity of the population. Immigrants streamed in voluntarily from England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and the German states; the largest single group of eighteenth-century arrivals came from Africa against their will. How could these diverse peoples form a single nation, and how could it not only survive the inevitable internal tensions deriving from its citizens' cultural differences but also thrive under the persistent pressures exerted by Indian nations nearby, by an enslaved and embittered race within, and by the ominous European nations that threatened from a distance?	2
In this fine book of essays, Peter Onuf tackles these questions along with several of the most controversial issues raised by recent scholarship on Jefferson and early national United States history: Jefferson's attitude toward Indians and his administration's Indian policy; his endorsement of an expanding American empire; his leadership of a nascent political party despite his denunciations of partisanship; his opposition to the Missouri Compromise; and his tortured and tragic relationship with African Americans. On each of these topics Onuf offers complex, subtle, persuasive, and often surprising arguments.	3
Jefferson's Empire does show the flaws that are almost inevitable in collections of essays written at different times for different occasions. Anyone who has tried to read or write such a book knows the genre can be tricky. Because themes emerge in individual essays, then reemerge in only slightly different form in other essays in which they serve a somewhat different purpose, the danger of repetitiveness is hard to avoid. But when the ideas are fresh and valuable, as Onuf's are, and when they serve genuinely to illuminate different facets of complex problems in historical interpretation, they become leitmotifs that deepen and enrich one's appreciation of a work rather than tiresome refrains. Informed by Onuf's thorough knowledge of Jefferson's writings and a wide range of contemporary scholarship and displaying a sophisticated and penetrating historical intelligence, this is a book that all students of Jefferson and his era will want to read with care.	. . .