The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 21

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 21 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069126614X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A definitive new volume of the retirement papers of Thomas Jefferson The 533 documents in this volume include revealing material on Jefferson's health. He is limited to a liquid diet for weeks due to an abscess under his jaw. Although daily horseback rides take him "3. or 4. to 8. or 10. miles without fatigue," he cannot walk "further than my garden." He has lost only one tooth due to age and is glad not to need "teeth of porcelain." Due to debility, Jefferson's only serious occupation is the effort to open the University of Virginia. Francis W. Gilmer travels to Great Britain to recruit professors and buy "a library and apparatus." Jefferson is determined to hire only faculty of "the first grade of science." The Rotunda is still unfinished but fit for use "until funds may occur to compleat it." Jefferson predicts that a plan to send freed African Americans to Africa will fail. He observes that "barbarism" is in decline and "will in time I trust disappear from the earth." To another correspondent he defends "the principles which have guided my public life," but adds that, when altered circumstances make changes of principle beneficial, "then let such changes take place, and the means yield to the end."

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 21

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 21 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069126614X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A definitive new volume of the retirement papers of Thomas Jefferson The 533 documents in this volume include revealing material on Jefferson's health. He is limited to a liquid diet for weeks due to an abscess under his jaw. Although daily horseback rides take him "3. or 4. to 8. or 10. miles without fatigue," he cannot walk "further than my garden." He has lost only one tooth due to age and is glad not to need "teeth of porcelain." Due to debility, Jefferson's only serious occupation is the effort to open the University of Virginia. Francis W. Gilmer travels to Great Britain to recruit professors and buy "a library and apparatus." Jefferson is determined to hire only faculty of "the first grade of science." The Rotunda is still unfinished but fit for use "until funds may occur to compleat it." Jefferson predicts that a plan to send freed African Americans to Africa will fail. He observes that "barbarism" is in decline and "will in time I trust disappear from the earth." To another correspondent he defends "the principles which have guided my public life," but adds that, when altered circumstances make changes of principle beneficial, "then let such changes take place, and the means yield to the end."

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 11

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 11 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691164118
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 790

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Book Description
The Retirement Series documents Jefferson's written legacy between his return to private life on 4 March 1809 and his death on 4 July 1826. During this period Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and sold his extraordinary library to the nation, but his greatest legacy from these years is the astonishing depth and breadth of his correspondence with statesmen, inventors, scientists, philosophers, and ordinary citizens on topics spanning virtually every field of human endeavor.--From publisher description.

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 15

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 15 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691189110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 755

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Book Description
The 618 documents in this volume span 1 September 1819 to 31 May 1820. Jefferson suffers from a “colic,” recovery from which requires extensive rest and medication. He spends much time dealing with the immediate effects of the $20,000 addition to his debts resulting from his endorsement of notes for the bankrupt Wilson Cary Nicholas. Jefferson begins to correspond with his carpenter, the enslaved John Hemmings, as Hemmings undertakes maintenance and construction work at Poplar Forest. Jefferson and his allies in the state legislature obtain authorization for a $60,000 loan for the fledgling University of Virginia, the need for which becomes painfully clear when university workmen complain that they have not been paid during seven months of construction work. In the spring of 1820, following congressional discussion leading to the Missouri Compromise, Jefferson writes that the debate, “like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror,” and that with regard to slavery, Americans have “the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.”

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 16

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 16 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069119985X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 789

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Book Description
This volume’s 571 documents cover both Jefferson’s opposition to restrictions on slavery in Missouri and his concession that “the boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.” Seeking support for the University of Virginia, he fears that southerners who receive New England educations will return with northern values. Calling it “the Hobby of my old age,” Jefferson envisions an institution dedicated to “the illimitable freedom of the human mind.” He infers approvingly from revolutionary movements in Europe and South America that “the disease of liberty is catching.” Constantine S. Rafinesque addresses three public letters to Jefferson presenting archaeological research on Kentucky’s Alligewi Indians, and Jefferson circulates a Nottoway-language vocabulary. Early in 1821 he cites declining health and advanced age as he turns over the management of his Monticello and Poplar Forest plantations to his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph. In discussions with trusted correspondents, Jefferson admires Jesus’s morality while doubting his miracles, discusses the materiality of the soul, and shares his thoughts on Unitarianism. Reflecting on the dwindling number of their old friends, he tells Maria Cosway that he is like “a solitary trunk in a desolate field, from which all it’s former companions have disappeared.”

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 12

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 12 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168296
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 782

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Book Description
The Retirement Series documents Jefferson's written legacy between his return to private life on 4 March 1809 and his death on 4 July 1826. During this period Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and sold his extraordinary library to the nation, but his greatest legacy from these years is the astonishing depth and breadth of his correspondence with statesmen, inventors, scientists, philosophers, and ordinary citizens on topics spanning virtually every field of human endeavor.--From publisher description.

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 17

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 17 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691207941
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 800

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Book Description
A definitive scholarly edition of the retirement papers of Thomas Jefferson The 612 documents in this volume include Jefferson’s notes on his early career, one of the lengthiest documents of his retirement. Often misleadingly called his autobiography, the text describes Jefferson’s experience as an American revolutionary, a legislator shaping and revising Virginia’s laws, and a United States diplomat in France as its own revolution neared. Jefferson sits for a portrait by Thomas Sully commissioned for West Point. He takes the unusual step of allowing his recommendation of a book by John Taylor to be published, insuring a wide circulation of Jefferson’s views on the proper balance between state and federal powers. In a private letter he asserts that the federal judiciary is amassing overarching power, “ever acting, with noiseless foot, & unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains.” Jefferson receives a description of an African American commemoration of the nation’s 1807 ban on the importation of slaves. Jefferson advises that the opening of the University of Virginia is not imminent even as he oversees its construction and defends the high cost, stating as his goal, “to do, not what was to perish with ourselves, but what would remain, be respected and preserved thro’ other ages.”

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 14

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 14 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400890470
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 789

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Book Description
The 637 documents in this volume span 1 February to 31 August 1819. As a founding member of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors, Jefferson helps to obtain builders for the infant institution, responds to those seeking professorships, and orchestrates the establishment of a classical preparatory school in Charlottesville. In a letter to Vine Utley, Jefferson details his daily regimen of a largely vegetarian diet, bathing his feet in cold water each morning, and horseback riding. Continuing to indulge his wide-ranging intellectual interests, Jefferson receives publications on the proper pronunciation of Greek and discusses the subject himself in a letter to John Adams. Jefferson also experiences worrying and painful events, including hailstorm damage at his Poplar Forest estate, a fire in the North Pavilion at Monticello, the illness of his slave Burwell Colbert, and a fracas in which Jefferson's grandson-in-law Charles Bankhead stabs Jefferson's grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph on court day in Charlottesville. Worst of all, Jefferson's financial problems greatly increase when the bankruptcy of his friend Wilson Cary Nicholas leaves Jefferson responsible for $20,000 in notes he had endorsed for Nicholas.

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 13

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 13 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691185212
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 748

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Book Description
This volume's 598 documents span 22 April 1818 to 31 January 1819. Jefferson spends months preparing for a meeting to choose the site of the state university. He drafts the Rockfish Gap Report recommending the location of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville as well as legislation confirming this decision. Jefferson travels to Warm Springs to cure his rheumatism but instead contracts a painful infection on his buttocks. His enforced absence from Poplar Forest leads to detailed correspondence with plantation manager Joel Yancey. A work that Jefferson helped translate, Destutt de Tracy’s Treatise on Political Economy, is finally published. Salma Hale visits Monticello and describes Jefferson’s views on food, wine, and religion. In acknowledging an oration by Mordecai M. Noah, Jefferson remarks that the suffering of members of the Jewish faith "has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal spirit of religious intolerance." He receives long discussions of occult science and the nature of light by Robert Miller and Gabriel Crane. Abigail Adams dies, and Jefferson assures John Adams that their own demise will result in “an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved & lost and whom we shall still love and never lose again.”

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 19

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 19 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691243271
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 864

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Book Description
A definitive new volume of the retirement papers of Thomas Jefferson This volume’s 601 documents show Jefferson dealing with various challenges. He is injured in a fall at Monticello, and his arm is still in a sling months later when he narrowly escapes drowning during a solitary horseback ride. Jefferson obtains temporary financial relief by transferring a $20,000 debt from the Bank of the United States to the College of William and Mary. Aided by a review of expenditures by the University of Virginia that uncovers no serious discrepancies, Jefferson and the Board of Visitors obtain a further $60,000 loan that permits construction to begin on the Rotunda. Jefferson drafts but apparently does not send John Adams a revealing letter on religion. He exchanges long letters discussing the Supreme Court with Justice William Johnson, and he writes to friends about France’s 1823 invasion of Spain. Jefferson also helps prepare a list of recommended books for the Albemarle Library Society. In November 1822, Jefferson’s grandson Francis Eppes marries Mary Elizabeth Randolph. He gives the newlyweds his mansion at Poplar Forest and visits it for the last time the following May. In a letter to James Monroe, Jefferson writes and then cancels “my race is near it’s term, and not nearer, I assure you, than I wish.”

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 12

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 12 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691185190
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 790

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Book Description
The 580 documents in this volume cover a wide range of fascinating topics. Jefferson receives impressions of a mammoth's tooth, altitude and meteorological observations, a call for a national pharmacopoeia, a discussion of primeval geology, and a letter that elicits Jefferson’s opinion that cognition exists "in animal bodies certainly, in Vegetables probably, in Minerals not impossibly." Jefferson leases his Tufton and Lego plantations to his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph. The directors of the Rivanna Company rebut Jefferson’s 1817 bill of complaint and he unwittingly ensures his eventual financial ruin by endorsing notes totaling $20,000 for Wilson Cary Nicholas. Jefferson adds to the collections of the American Philosophical Society and writes an extended introduction to the "Anas," a corpus of official papers and political anecdotes documenting his service as George Washington’s secretary of state. Jefferson drafts legislation to establish a public education system in Virginia. He attends a Masonic cornerstone laying ceremony for the nascent Central College’s first pavilion early in October 1817 and is greatly pleased by the passage on 21 February 1818 of a law establishing a commission to plan a new state university, raising his hopes that Central College might soon become the University of Virginia.