The 612 documents in this volume cover the period from 1 March to 30 November 1821. Although Jefferson had repeatedly denied interest in penning an account of his life, during this time he finished writing one of the lengthiest documents of his retirement, notes that have historically, but somewhat misleadingly, been referred to as his autobiography. Beginning on 6 January 1821 and, working intermittently, until 29 July, Jefferson described his early involvement in the American revolutionary movement, his role in shaping and revising Virginia’s laws, and his experiences as a United States diplomat during the events leading up to the French Revolution, ending abruptly with his arrival in New York City in 1790 to begin work as the new nation’s first secretary of state. Despite indications that he intended to resume writing, he apparently never continued his narrative.
Jefferson displayed a reflective mood in letters as well. When James W. Wallace remarked that death had robbed him of his friends, Jefferson replied that “these are the unavoidable conditions of human life, and render it often doubtful whether existence has been given to us in kindness or in wrath. when I look back over the ranks of those with whom I have lived and loved, it is like looking over a field of battle. all fallen. nor do I feel it as a blessing to be reserved for this afflicting spectacle.” The outside world, also cognizant of Jefferson’s advancing age, was anxious to record his life and accomplishments. In March 1821, as Jefferson neared his seventy-eighth birthday, the Philadelphia artist Thomas Sully arrived at Monticello to paint his portrait for the United States Military Academy at West Point, which had commissioned the work for its library in order to honor the man during whose presidency the school had been founded in 1802.
Fiscal concerns and politics captured Jefferson’s attention. His finances were in disarray due to the bank loans he had endorsed for the bankrupt Wilson Cary Nicholas, as well as the overall downturn in profits that resulted from poor growing seasons and the financial panic of 1819. Seeking to secure his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph and Richmond agent Bernard Peyton from loss as endorsers for his own obligations, Jefferson deeded 795 acres near the town of Milton in trust to agents of the Farmers’ Bank of Virginia. In the political realm, Jefferson departed from his usual unwillingness to attract public notice and allowed his recommendation of John Taylor’s book, Construction Construed, to be printed in newspapers, thus insuring a wide circulation of a succinct statement of the ex-president’s views on the balance of state and federal powers. Summing up a related concern as the United States Supreme Court heard the controversial case of Cohens v. Virginia, Jefferson remarked to Spencer Roane that “The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. that body, like Gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, & unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulphing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.” He made another foray into national politics when George Ticknor, of Harvard University, asked him to help rally American universities and scholarly societies behind an effort to remove the federal tariff on imported books. Jefferson took the lead in recruiting southern colleges to the cause and penned the University of Virginia’s response, but to no avail. Regarding international affairs, Jefferson went from optimism to despair about the prospects for democratic revolution in Europe, particularly in Italy and the Iberian peninsula.
The correspondents and topics discussed in Jefferson’s papers continued to be varied. He received letters from friends in Europe, including Maria Cosway and Lafayette. Anonymous correspondents included “A Republican of 98,” who sought to enlist Jefferson’s support for DeWitt Clinton’s presidential aspirations, and an author who enclosed a printed description of an African American commemoration in Boston of the nation’s 1807 act to ban the importation of slaves. After a 27 February 1821 article in the Richmond Enquirer stated that the University of Virginia would probably open by the beginning of 1822, Jefferson saw an increase in letters from prospective students and their families requesting enrollment information, as well as from scholars seeking employment on the faculty. He generally replied that without further legislative support, the institution’s opening was far from imminent.
Construction at the university proceeded, thanks in large measure to the successful negotiation by its Board of Visitors of a $29,100 loan from Virginia’s Literary Fund to be used for “compleating the buildings, and making the necessary preparations for putting the said University into operation.” Late in November Jefferson justified the sizable construction costs attendant on “a scale and style of building believed to be proportioned to the respectability, the means & the wants of our country” by saying that “we owed to it to do, not what was to perish with ourselves, but what would remain, be respected and preserved thro’ other ages.”
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