This volume documents exhaustively for the first time Edmond Charles Genet's dramatic challenges to American neutrality and Jefferson's diplomatic and political responses. After welcoming Genet's arrival as the harbinger of closer relations between the American and French republics, Jefferson becomes increasingly distressed by the French minister's defiance of the Washington administration's ban on the outfitting of French privateers in American ports, the enlistment of American citizens in French service, and the exercise of admiralty jurisdiction by French consuls in American ports. Although the Supreme Court declines to advise the executive branch on neutrality questions that Jefferson prepares with the President and the Cabinet, he helps to formulate a set of neutrality rules to meet Genet's challenge.Unable to convince the impetuous French envoy to adopt a more moderate course, Jefferson works in the Cabinet to bring about Genet's recall so as to preserve friendly relations with France and minimize political damage to the Republican party, in which he takes a more active role to prevent the Federalists from capitalizing on Genet's defiance of the President. Grappling with the threat of war with Spain, Jefferson involves himself equivocally in a diplomatically explosive plan by Genet to liberate Louisiana from Spanish rule. In this volume Jefferson also plays a decisive role in resolving a dispute over the design of the Capitol and plans agricultural improvements at Monticello in preparation for his retirement to private life.

A definitive new volume of the retirement papers of Thomas Jefferson During the period covered by the 575 documents in this volume, Jefferson advises President James Monroe on what later becomes known as the “Monroe Doctrine.” He also approves of the Greek independence movement in correspondence with the scholar and political leader Adamantios Coray. Jefferson says that the “most dangerous blot” on the U.S. Constitution is the provision under which a vote by the states in the House of Representatives decides elections not settled by the Electoral College. With his allies in Virginia’s General Assembly, he succeeds in converting the University of Virginia’s loans from the state Literary Fund into an outright grant and obtains an additional $50,000 for books and scientific instruments. He seeks advice on regulating and equipping the institution, helps to obtain its architectural capitals, and designs its gymnasia. Jefferson describes coffee as “the favorite beverage of the civilised world” and advises a namesake child to “Adore God. reverence and cherish your parents. love your neighbor as yourself; and your country more than life. be just. be true. murmur not at the ways of Providence, and the life into which you have entered will be the passage to one of eternal and ineffable bliss.”

The description for this book, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 21: Index, Vols. 1-20, will be forthcoming.

A definitive scholarly edition of the correspondence and papers of Thomas Jefferson This volume opens soon after the start of the second session of the Eighth Congress and ends a few days after the session closes. During the period, Jefferson receives twice as many documents as he writes. He sits for portraits by Charles Févret de Saint-Mémin and Rembrandt Peale. The nation endures an extreme winter. William Dunbar begins to send information from the exploration of the Ouachita River. Acts of Congress create new territories and give Orleans Territory an assembly and a path to statehood. The Senate ratifies a treaty to acquire an estimated 50 million acres of land from the Sac and Fox tribes. Levi Lincoln resigns, Robert Smith asks to succeed him as attorney general, and Jefferson seeks a new secretary of the navy. Jefferson and vice-presidential candidate George Clinton receive 162 electoral ballots against 14 for their opponents, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Rufus King. Napoleon is crowned emperor of the French, and Spain declares war on Great Britain. The Senate acquits Samuel Chase of eight articles of impeachment. Jefferson prepares his inaugural address and is sworn into office for his second term on 4 March. He refuses to consider serving a third term.

During the thirteen months covered by this volume, Thomas Jefferson spent more than half of his time in Philadelphia serving as vice president under President John Adams and presiding over a Senate that was dominated by his political opponents, the Federalists. Debates in Congress took place against a backdrop of bitter partisan rivalry, characterized most famously by the near-brawl on the floor of the House between Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold. Congress and the nation waited, in a "state of extraordinary suspense," for dispatches from the American envoys in France. When the accounts of the XYZ Affair became public, the nation prepared for war. Two days after the Alien Friends Act was signed into law Jefferson left for Monticello, stopping at Montpelier to convey the latest news to James Madison. Disheartened and frustrated by the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson penned the famous resolutions adopted in November by the Kentucky legislature. He kept his authorship a secret, however, seeking to avoid any appearance of "rashness" by Republicans. This endeavor reflected his struggle to make sense of the political direction of the nation in times he could neither comprehend nor accept. Jefferson continued to engage in scientific pursuits and fulfill his role as a promoter of American science and learning. He was reelected to the presidency of the American Philosophical Society, to which he presented his paper on the moldboard plow. He corresponded on American Indian languages, astronomy, and the Anglo-Saxon language. He longed for Monticello, and, as Jefferson had learned before, his property fell into neglect when he was away on public business. Renovations to the house slowed, supplies for the nailery were disrupted, and he had to arrange for the sale of his crops through intermediaries. With the prices of wheat low, he was drawn back into financial dependence on tobacco.

Confessing that he may be acting "with more boldness than wisdom," Jefferson in November 1803 drafts a bill to create Orleans Territory, which he entrusts to John Breckinridge for introduction in the Senate. The administration sends stock certificates to France in payment for Louisiana. Relieved that affairs in the Mediterranean have improved with the evaporation of a threat of war with Morocco, the president does not know yet that Tripoli has captured the frigate Philadelphia with its officers and crew. He deals with never-ending issues of appointment to office and quarreling in his own party, while hearing that some Federalists are "as Bitter as wormwood." He shares seeds of the Venus flytrap with Elizabeth Leathes Merry, the British minister's wife. She and her husband, however, create a diplomatic storm over seating arrangements at dinner parties. Having reached St. Louis, Meriwether Lewis reports on the progress of the western expedition. Congress passes the Twelfth Amendment, which will provide for the separate election of president and vice president. In detailed notes made after Aaron Burr calls on him in January, Jefferson records his long-standing distrust of the New Yorker. Less than a month later, a congressional caucus nominates Jefferson for a second term, with George Clinton to replace Burr as vice president. Jefferson makes his first trials of the "double penned writing box" called the polygraph.

This first major study of Thomas Jefferson's reputation in nearly fifty years is concerned with Jefferson and history-both as something Jefferson made and something that he sought to shape.Jefferson was acutely aware that he would be judged by posterity and he deliberately sought to influence history's judgment of him. He did so, it argues, in order to promote his vision of a global republican future. It begins by situating Jefferson's ideas about history within the context of eighteenth-century historical thought, and then considers the efforts Jefferson made to shape the way the history of his life and times would be written: through the careful preservation of his personal and public papers and his home, Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia.The second half of the book considers the results of Jefferson's efforts to shape historical writing by examining the evolution of his reputation since the Second World War. Recent scholarship has examined Jefferson's attitudes and actions with regard to Native Americans, African slaves, women and civil liberties and found him wanting.Jefferson has continued to be a controversial figure; DNA testing proving that he fathered children by his slave Sally Hemings being the most recent example, perhaps encapsulating this best of all. This is the first major study to examine the impact of the Hemings controversy on Jefferson's reputation.Key Features*The first study of Jefferson's reputation to be published since 1960*Considers the impact of slavery on Jefferson's reputation and Jefferson's relationship with slavery*Explores the history of the Sally Hemings controversy

The description for this book, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 6: May 1781 to March 1784, will be forthcoming.

The description for this book, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4: October 1780 to February 1781, will be forthcoming.

This volume brings Jefferson into retirement after his tenure as Secretary of State and returns him to private life at Monticello. He professes his desire to be free of public responsibilities and live the life of a farmer, spending his time tending to his estates. Turning his attention to the improvement of his farms and finances, Jefferson surveys his fields, experiments with crop rotation, and establishes a nailery on Mulberry Row. He embarks upon an ambitious plan to renovate Monticello, a long-term task that will eventually transform his residence. Although Jefferson is distant from Philadelphia, the seat of the federal government, he is not completely divorced from the politics of the day. His friends, especially James Madison, with whom he exchanges almost sixty letters in the period covered by this volume, keep him fully informed about the efforts of Republican county and town meetings, the Virginia General Assembly, Congress, and the press to counter Federalist policies. An emerging Republican opposition is taking shape in response to the Jay Treaty, and Jefferson is keenly interested in its progress. Although in June, 1795, he claims to have "proscribed newspapers" from Monticello, in fact he never entirely cuts himself off from the world. At the end of that year, he takes pains to ensure that he will have two full sets of Benjamin Franklin Bache's Aurora, the influential Republican newspaper, one set to be held in Philadelphia for binding and one to be sent directly to Monticello.