Metternich, Jefferson and the Enlightenment : statecraft and political theory in the early nineteenth century [1 ed.] 8400093763, 9788400093761

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james r. sofka

METTERNICH, JEFFERSON AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT: STATECRAFT AND POLITICAL THEORY IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

This study offers a comparative analysis of the foreign and domestic policies of Prince Clemens Metternich of Austria and Thomas Jefferson of the United States. Their statecraft is examined from the perspective of the philosophy of the Enlightenment, which both claimed provided a prescriptive agenda for their initiatives. The objective of this research is to trace what impact, if any, these ideas had on the actual political conduct of these representative statesmen of the early nineteenth century. Conventional treatments of Jefferson emphasize his archetypically “Enlightenment” political philosophy. Metternich, on the other hand, is commonly considered a reactionary or, at best, a callous Realpolitiker. After a careful examination of their political theories, the historical record, and the documentary sources, the study concludes that these assessments should be radically revised. Jefferson, it is argued, defined American interests largely in the material terms of a balance of power and followed a traditional and conservative approach to social policy. Metternich, conversely, was strongly attached to the Kantian idea of European federation, strove to create a legal foundation for a “cooperative” European states-system, and attempted a series of innovative and enlightened domestic reform projects. The “traditional” reading of their statecraft is a result of late nineteenth century nationalist historiography which interpreted their policies in a manner best suited for advancing particular ideological arguments. Both historical and theoretical sources are deployed to advance and defend the proposition that the ideas of the Enlightenment achieved political expression in the statecraft of Metternich, but were virtually ignored in practice by the more pragmatic Jefferson.

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james r. sofka

METTERNICH, JEFFERSON AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT: STATECRAFT AND POLITICAL THEORY IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTÍFICAS

James R. Sofka received his Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Virginia in 1995, where he also earned his M.A. in 1991. He received his B.A. with Honors from Franklin and Marshall College in 1989. He taught in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia from 1998 to 2006, where he also served as the Dean of the undergraduate honors program in the College of Arts and Sciences. Since 2007 he has taught at the Federal Executive Institute and also lectures regularly on Thomas Jefferson’s politics for the Brookings Institution. He resides in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dr. Sofka has published and lectured widely on international relations in the 18th and 19th centuries, with a particular focus on the foreign policy of the early American republic. He has received two research fellowships from, and presented at numerous symposia under the auspices of, the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. His most recent work is a volume of essays on American involvement in the Mediterranean region in the 18th and 19th he co-edited with Silvia Marzagalli and John McCusker.

Cover illustration: Thomas Jefferson (right) by Gilbert Stuart, 1805 (courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello) and Prince Clemens von Metternich (left) by Thomas Lawrence, 1815 (© BPK, Berlin, photo by German Buresch, Art Resource, New York).

3/11/11 13:59:12

metternich, jefferson and the enlightenment: statecraft and political theory in the early nineteenth century

JAMES R. SOFKA

metternich, jefferson and the enlightenment: statecraft and political theory in the early nineteenth century

CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTÍFICAS MADRID, 2011

Reservados todos los derechos por la legislación en materia de Propiedad Intelectual. Ni la totalidad ni parte de este libro, incluido el diseño de la cubierta, puede reproducirse, almacenarse o transmitirse en manera alguna por medio ya sea electrónico, químico, óptico, informático, de grabación o de fotocopia, sin permiso previo por escrito de la editorial. Las noticias, los asertos y las opiniones contenidos en esta obra son de la exclusiva responsabilidad del autor o autores. La editorial, por su parte, solo se hace responsable del interés científico de sus publicaciones.

Catálogo general de publicaciones oficiales: http://publicacionesoficiales.boe.es/

© CSIC © James R. Sofka ISBN: 978-84-00-09376-1 e-ISBN: 978-84-00-09377-8 NIPO: 472-11-169-4 e-NIPO: 472-11-170-7 Depósito Legal: M. 44.058-2011 Diseño y maquetación: Ángel de la Llera (CSIC) Impresión y encuadernación: Closas Orcoyen, S. L. Impreso en España. Printed in Spain En esta edición se ha utilizado papel ecológico sometido a un proceso de blanqueado ECF, cuya fibra procede de bosques gestionados de forma sostenible.

Table of Contents

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INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................

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ABBREVIATIONS......................................................................................

17

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.........................................................................

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PART I CLEMENS METTERNICH: THE ENLIGHTENMENT TRIUMPHANT CHAPTER I.—METTERNICH AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT: The Education of a European Federalist.....................................................

25

Science and Law in Metternich’s Thought............................................ The Rise to Power, 1792-1809.............................................................

26 30

CHAPTER II.—METTERNICH AND THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM (1): Federalism, Equilibrium, and the “Conference System”................

33

Metternich, Kant, and the Idea of Political Equilibrium....................... Metternich and Balance of Power Historiography................................ Metternich’s Critique of Balance of Power Theory............................... Metternich’s Theory of the European Confederation............................ Implementing the Confederation: The Origins of the “Conference System”................................................................................................... A Review of Metternich’s Theory of European Order.......................... CHAPTER III.—METTERNICH AND THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM (2): The Workings of the Conference System and the Collapse of the European Confederation, 1815-1822...................................................

34 40 42 46 52 55

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An Overview of the Conference System, 1815-1822............................ The German Confederation, 1814-1815.............................................. The Russian Dilemma and the “Holy Alliance”, 1815-1820................. The Collapse of the Anglo-Austrian Entente, 1820-1825..................... The Conference System and the Problem of Intervention, 1815-1820.. An Assessment of Metternich’s Attempt to Form a European Union, 1815-1825...........................................................................................

60 61 66 70 74 78

CHAPTER IV.—METTERNICH AND THE STATE (1): The Algebra of “Stability”...........................................................................................

81

Metternich’s “Conservatism” and the Quest for Stability...................... Metternich and the Nature of Social Change........................................ Metternich’s Assessment of Constitutional Theory............................... Democracy and Absolutism in Metternich’s Thought........................... Metternich’s Theory of Revolution....................................................... The Student Revolts of 1819 and the Carlsbad Decrees....................... A Review of Metternich’s Social Philosophy........................................

82 85 88 91 93 98 107

CHAPTER V.—METTERNICH AND THE STATE (2): A Political Agenda for the Habsburg Monarchy The Struggle for Influence Within the Government............................. Searching for Administrative Reform: The Proposals of 1811 and 1814.................................................................................................... Metternich and the Ideas of Nationalism and Centralization................ The Italian Territories as a “Test Case” for Federalism, 1814-1815...... Metternich’s Federal Constitution Proposal of 1817............................. Metternich’s Reform Efforts and their Significance.............................. CHAPTER VI.—METTERNICH AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT: A PERS­ PECTIVE.............................................................................................

109 112 118 120 127 134 139

PART II THOMAS JEFFERSON: THE ENLIGHTENMENT OUTWITTED CHAPTER I.—JEFFERSON AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT: Political Philosophy and Political Methodology.................................................

147

Education and Political Apprenticeship in Williamsburg......................

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table of contents 

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Political Philosophy and Political Practice............................................ Character and Political Methodology................................................... Jefferson and the Republican Party, 1790-1800....................................

151 156 160

CHAPTER II.—JEFFERSON AND THE STATE (1): Constitutional Theory and the Structure of Government.........................................................

165

Human Nature and Politics.................................................................. The Structure of Constitutional Government....................................... The Idea of a “Living Constitution”..................................................... Strict and Loose Construction in Theory and Practice: The Bank Issue of 1791 and the Louisiana Purchase of 1803....................................... The Politics of Sectionalism................................................................. The Kentucky Resolutions, the Missouri Crisis, and the Sectional Divide, 1798-1820............................................................................... The Jeffersonian State Reviewed..........................................................

166 168 173 175 186 188 196

CHAPTER III.—JEFFERSON AND THE STATE (2): Liberalism, Conservatism, and Revolution.............................................................

199

Jefferson’s Theory of Revolution.......................................................... Spokesman for Revolution in America................................................. A Moderate Constitutionalist in Paris.................................................. An Assessment of Jefferson’s Response to Revolutions........................ The “Natural Aristocracy” and American Society................................. Women and Politics in Jefferson’s Thought.......................................... Jefferson and Slavery............................................................................ Jefferson’s Political Economy............................................................... Conclusion...........................................................................................

200 205 210 214 217 220 221 226 230

CHAPTER IV.—JEFFERSON AND THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM (1): The Balance of Power in Theory...................................................

235

Commerce and the Atlantic Balance of Power...................................... Britain and France in Jefferson’s Diplomatic Design............................ Jefferson, Hamilton, and the Strategy of Neutrality.............................. Jefferson’s Schema of a Two-Tiered State System................................. Ethics and International Law............................................................... A Review of Jefferson’s Theory of International Relations....................

237 243 245 249 253 256

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CHAPTER V.—JEFFERSON AND THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM (2): The Balance of Power in Practice......................................................... The Workings of the Balance of Power (1): Securing the Mississippi Trade: Louisiana and the Floridas, 1801-1806..................................... 1. The Louisiana Purchase and the Balance of Power........................... 2. The Floridas and the Balance of Power............................................ The Workings of the Balance of Power (2): The Embargo and the Struggle Against Britain, 1807-1809.................................................... The Workings of the Balance of Power (3): The Mediterranean Problem, 1785-1805............................................................................ Jefferson and the Atlantic Balance of Power: An Assessment............... CHAPTER VI.—JEFFERSON AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT: A PERS­ PECTIVE.............................................................................................

259 260 262 267 275 286 301 305

PART III METTERNICH, JEFFERSON, and the ENLIGHTENMENT: INTERPRETATIONS & CONCLUSIONS CONCLUSION........................................................................................... Metternich, Jefferson, and the Enlightenment thought: The Historiographic Record and the Problem of Interpretation.................. The Impact of the Enlightenment on Metternich and Jefferson: An Assessment..........................................................................................

315 317 322

APPENDIX I.—Note on the Classical-Liberal Debate on the Sources of Jefferson’s Thought and the Origins of the Republican Party................

331

APPENDIX II.—A Note on the Political Origins of the University of Virginia................................................................................................

335

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................

345

Introduction We may say that the Eighteenth Century, notwithstanding all its Errors and Vices, has been, of all that are past, the most honourable to human Nature. Knowledge and Virtues were increased and diffused, Arts, Sciences, useful to Men, ameliorating their condition, were improved, more than in any former equal Period. John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1815

The Eighteenth Century Background The century that began with the peace of Utrecht in 1713 and ended with the Final Declaration of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 witnessed a dramatic transformation of the theoretical and practical understanding of politics in all of the major states of Europe and—by extension— America. The philosophy of the “Enlightenment”—the nebulous term used to describe a collection of writings and writers that dominated the intellectual life of the century—sought, with varying degrees of success, to understand and explain political behavior with scientific detachment and to prescribe an agenda for its improvement. Even the perennially skeptical Holbach acknowledged that the intellectual gains of the eighteenth century would define the course of European society for at least another hundred years. Indeed, what Mirabeau and others called the “spirit of the age” was so profound that many political leaders—including some of the most reactionary and predatory princes of Europe—found it to their advan-

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tage to at least claim fidelity to its doctrines. From the time of the War of the Spanish Succession European diplomats made a point of inserting references to “rational” and “enlightened” principles in official documents even though, as Vergennes later needlessly observed, they lacked concrete meaning. Frederick II of Prussia typified this opportunistic dimension of ancien regime diplomacy: in October 1740 he published his famous Anti-Machiavel, in which he bitterly castigated raison d’etat, but barely two months later he seized the Habsburg province of Silesia in a brutal display of power politics. To be sure, Realpolitik was far from dead in eighteenth century Europe, and the best intentions of the philosophes could not, as Clausewitz would later observe, make two and two equal five. Nevertheless there were many statesmen and sovereigns in eighteenth century Europe and America who shared in, and indeed helped to promote, the cause of “enlightenment” and political rationalism. The “enlightened despots” of Europe as well as republicans in the Dutch Republic, Sweden, and America all attempted dramatic reformations of the established political orders of their states. Kaiser Leopold II of Austria actually sought to reduce the powers of his office, a rare and noteworthy goal indeed in an absolute monarchy, and his philosophical dispositions to constitutionalism served as a precedent for Metternich’s attempts to reshape the political system of Austria two decades later. Throughout Europe ideas that had been confined to the salons since the late seventeenth century found their way—albeit in a sporadic and filtered manner—into the affairs of state. D’Argenson, Turgot, and Necker in France, Peter I, Catherine II, and Speranskii in Russia, Frederick II and Stein in Prussia, Kaunitz and Leopold II in Austria, and Bolingbroke and Fox in Britain all sought to use the scientific and philosophical innovations of the eighteenth century as a guide in the political arena. In some cases, such as in Frederick’s Prussia and Catherinian Russia, wide-ranging reforms were accomplished as a result, while in Bourbon France the calls for change and restructuring were blithely ignored, an irony indeed in the state that had produced more “enlightened” philosophers, beginning with Descartes, than all the other states of Europe combined. The idea of and belief in an enlightened age were prevalent on both sides of the Atlantic. American political leaders were as learned in the advances of science and political philosophy as their European counter  See Stuart Andrews, Enlightened Despotism, [New York: 1968]; and John Gagliardo, Enlightened Despotism, [New York: 1967].



introduction

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parts, and yet were mindful of the dangers existing in the competitive and predatory universe of eighteenth century politics. It is a central premise of this work that Europe and America formed an interconnected state system in the period between the Seven Years’ War and the Congress of Vienna. This relationship, a product of the colonial struggles between Britain and France in the mid-eighteenth century, grew to maturity during the Napoleonic period and became a decisive condition and doctrine of early American foreign policy. American leaders conceived of world politics largely in terms of a “balance” between the maritime powers of Britain, France, and their nation and of a natural and permanent relationship between America and Europe which—despite occasional outbursts from isolationists—was not likely to disappear. For this reason I have chosen to examine the political permutations and implications of Enlightenment ideas in Europe and America “simultaneously”, as it were, by concentrating on the philosophy and politics of representative statesmen from both continents: Thomas Jefferson of the United States and Prince Clemens von Metternich of Austria. Why Metternich and Jefferson? The purpose of this study is to examine to what extent the philosophical program of the Enlightenment informed the policies of these two pivotal statesmen of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Europe and America. While this necessitates a thorough discussion of specific theorists and their ideas, it is not essential, or possible, to offer a comprehensive interpretation or overview of the Enlightenment within the pages of this book. For our purposes it is adequate to employ the serviceable definition of “Enlightenment” philosophy supplied by Henry May. While acknowledging the manifold nuances and refinements of eighteenth century political thought, May distills its arguments to two main premises: first, that all “Enlightenment” philosophers shared a belief that their age was more advanced than any which had preceded it, and secondly that the affairs of the political and physical worlds were best understood, explained, and guided by rational analytical processes based on universal laws and a cosmopolitan outlook. This, therefore, will be the parsimonious definition of “Enlightenment” I will employ in general terms and usage throughout the study. Specific ideas 

 Henry May, The Enlightenment in America, p. xiv.

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and contributions will be examined, explored, and critiqued in the context of the analyses of Metternich’s and Jefferson’s thought. Moreover, it is critical to note that I seek to explain Metternich and Jefferson as products of the eighteenth century, and not precursors of the twentieth, as has unfortunately become commonplace, especially in the political science literature. Understanding Metternich and Jefferson in the context of the Enlightenment will be my point of departure and ultimate standard of comparison in assessing their statecraft. The thesis of this work is straightforward: that Metternich’s statecraft represented an attempt to apply Enlightenment—in his case, mainly Kantian—ideas to the internal and external workings of government, while Jefferson rejected the prescriptive value of these teachings and based his statecraft on an opportunistic pursuit of self-interest and a conservative devotion to custom and tradition. The ideas of the Enlightenment were prescriptive to the idealistic Metternich; they were at best justificatory for the more pragmatic Jefferson. The familiar “received” versions of these statesmen are, I contend, a product of late nineteenth century nationalist historiography, which denounced Metternich’s liberal cosmopolitanism and exalted Jefferson’s “patriotic” role as a “founding father” and source of American national identity. These interpretations have endured for so long because few historians or political scientists have found it necessary, worthwhile, or proper to challenge them. In the public mind Metternich is known more for his skills at political intrigue than his political philosophy, while Jefferson is commonly regarded as a “philosopher” and exemplar of an American “ideal” by scholars equally uninterested in the pragmatic and cynical nature of his diplomatic initiatives. For this reason Metternich and Jefferson emerge as obvious candidates for such a comparative study. Both were learned students of eighteenth century philosophy who claimed to base their policies on “rational” and enlightened formulas. Both were dominant influences in the political processes of their respective states for close to forty years, and can arguably have been said to have defined their eras. Consequently the relationship between theory and practice in their political behavior can be assessed in a wide array of domestic and international circumstances. Both had the political power to act on the convictions they claimed informed their statecraft, and both left behind an ambitious— and ambiguous—legacy that pays further investigation. Moreover, Metternich and Jefferson bequeathed an enormous trove of documents for scholarly inspection: the volume of their personal papers almost defies categorization. Metternich’s loquacity in discussing his ideas on



introduction

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almost every subject imaginable was well-known (and taxing) among his colleagues, and it was noted that he often spent eight hours a day at his writing desk. Jefferson, for his part, drafted so many letters to such a variety of correspondents that John Adams observed with a tinge of sarcasm that “Your stationary bill alone for paper, Quills, Ink, Wafers, Wax, Sand, and Pounce must have amounted to enough to maintain a small family”. This continuous stream of comments on the affairs of state, which was matched by few of their contemporaries and exceeded by none—provide an unusually well-informed lens through which to view the political thinking and process of these archetypical representatives of the political Enlightenment. In the final analysis, both Metternich and Jefferson declared apostolic devotion to Enlightenment thought: my task has been to assess the validity of their claims by examining their “declared” political views and seeing what they did with them in practice. Methodology and Sources To accomplish this task it is necessary to unite, in so far as is possible, the fields of political philosophy and political and diplomatic history. I attempt to strike a balance between theory and practice by assiduously exploiting the primary sources and placing them at the service of a broader theoretical and interpretive argument. I devote six chapters to each statesman: an introductory and concluding assessment in which the argument on each figure will be presented and summarized, and two each on internal and international politics. Following these discussions a broader concluding chapter will explore the similarities and differences in Metternich’s and Jefferson’s thought and relate them to the historiographic record as well as the broader context of Enlightenment thought. Naturally selectivity has been an omnipresent and powerful concern; this is not a narrative history or intellectual biography and does not pretend to offer an exhaustive recitation of Metternich’s and Jefferson’s accomplishments while in power. My focus has been on steering between the Scylla of over-generalized theory and the Charybdis of detailed, but largely unexplained, historical narration. For this reason I have chosen to explore several critical aspects of their statecraft and assess the relationship between their ideas and their 

 JA to TJ, July 12, 1822, Cappon, p. 582.

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diplomatic and political conduct within the context of these “case studies”. Moreover, I have chosen to devote equal weight to their internal as well as external policies in order to make the study more comprehensive and to examine the relationship of foreign and domestic politics in their thought. It is to be anticipated that this methodology will produce some criticisms, most focusing on why certain ideas or policies were discussed while others were given lesser priority. My steady answer to such inquiries is that at all times I have attempted to keep the comparative nature and purpose of this study in mind when choosing and offering my assessments of the relationship of theory and practice in their statecraft. I have chosen to rely chiefly upon primary sources in order to allow Metternich and Jefferson to speak for themselves. The published editions of Metternich’s and Jefferson’s papers are more than adequate for the purposes of this study, and it has not been necessary to do archival research except in a few instances noted in the text. One of the most conspicous problems I encountered was that the literature on Jefferson and early American politics is considerably more extensive than studies of Metternich, and thus it has been necessary to treat the massive glacis of Jefferson literature judiciously in order to preserve a rough equilibrium in the analysis. I have also sought to maintain an equilibrium—if the use of that term may be pardoned—between historical and theoretical literature. The role of the latter is less overt than direct primary source citations, but its influence can be clearly seen in the structure and presentation of the argument. It is not my intention to construct a detailed exegesis of Metternich’s or Jefferson’s treatment of this or that area of policy, or to present a formal theoretical “model” that leaves no room for historical examples or contextual analysis. My “synthesis”, if it can be called that, of these approaches has been tediously difficult to construct and may appear at times overly cautious, but the methodology has been chosen as the best practical means of expressing the comparison and placing ideas in their proper context. Naturally some will view this approach as a shoddy compromise or, at worst, a melange of two perfectly viable disciplines, but I have selected it because it suits the nature of the period as well as the statesmen themselves, who always at least talked about keeping theory and practice in harmony.

List of Abbreviations Used in the Notes Due to constraints of space as well as the multiplicity of sources used in this study, I have attempted to simplify the citations as much as possible. The following is a table of initialized citations to identify frequently used names or references:

I. PERSONS JA John Adams KF Kaiser Franz II of Austria AG Albert Gallatin JM James Madison AH Alexander Hamilton CM Clemens von Metternich TJ Thomas Jefferson GW George Washington

II. SOURCES Adams, History: Henry Adams, History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (9 vols.) [New York: 1889-1892]. Boyd: Julian P. Boyd, et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, [Princeton: 1950-]. Cappon: Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, [Chapel Hill: 1987]. Extracts: Dickinson W. Adams, ed., Jefferson’s Extracts From the Gospels, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Second Series, [Princeton: 1983]. Federalist: Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Federalist Papers, [New York: 1987].

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Ford: Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (12 vols.), [New York: 1905]. The Federal Edition is in 12 volumes, while the standard Ford edition contains 10. This accounts for any discrepancies in citation between the two. The text of letters contained in both volumes are identical. JPLC: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Microfilm edition of the collection housed in the Library of Congress. Kraehe, MGP I/II: Enno E. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, vol. I: The Contest With Napoleon, 1799-1814, [Princeton: 1963]; vol. II: The Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815, [Princeton: 1983]. L&B: A.A. Lipscomb and A.E. Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (20 vols.), [Washington, D.C.: 1903-1904]. MM: The Memoirs of Prince Metternich, ed. by Prince Richard Metternich and translated by Mrs. Alexander Napier (5 vols.), [New York: 1880-1882]. The first five volumes of the Nachgelassenen Papieren translated into English. Malone: Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time (6 vols.) [New York: 19481981]. Notes: Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), ed. by William Peden, [Chapel Hill: 1954]. NP: Aus Metternich’s nachgelassenen Papieren (8 vols.), ed. by Prince Richard Metternich, [Vienna: 1880-1884]. PJM: The Papers of James Madison (17 vols.), ed. J.C.A. Stagg, et al., [Chicago and Charlottesville: 1962-1991]; PJMPS: The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series; PJMSS: The Papers of James Madison: Secretary of State Series. PTJRS: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, ed. J. Jefferson Looney, et.al, [Princeton: 2004-] Srbik, Metternich: Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, Metternich: Der Staatsmann und der Mensch (3 vols.), [Munich and Vienna: 1925-1954]. Syrett: Harold C. Syrett et al., eds., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (26 vols.), [New York: 1961-1991]. WMQ: The William and Mary Quarterly.

Acknowledgements I have lived with this book, which began its life as my doctoral dissertation at the University of Virginia in the early 1990s, for nearly twenty years. As it has matured over time, it has undergone significant changes and its key arguments have been presented, tested, and evaluated by colleagues in both Europe and the United States in print, symposia, and conferences. What appears here is a significantly more svelte, yet I hope more theoretically and structurally taut, text than the one with which I began many years ago. Though I had originally intended to publish the work after completing the Ph.D., it only now appears in print. Its significant length, even after substantive pruning, as well as its straddling of two distinct bodies of literature, made it a curious undertaking for university presses and a difficult project to ‘fit’ in increasingly specialized American academic markets. Sections of the argument appeared as components of articles and conference papers over the years. Unsure of the future for the comprehensive book, however, I moved on to new projects and personal and professional responsibilities that took me away from this comparative study for the better part of a decade. The project owes its revival to the helpful suggestions of two dear friends and colleagues—Sandra Rebok of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. Both warmly encouraged me to revisit the text following a conference at Salzburg in 2005 and have been steadfast in their attentiveness both to me and to my comparative analysis of Metternich and Jefferson. Approaching the text with a fresh perspective and with ten years of professional scholarship under my belt, I emerged with a transformed book, and it owes its revision—and publication at CSIC—to the

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invaluable help and support offered by Drs. Rebok and O’Shaughnessy, for whose support, enthusiasm, and advice I will always be grateful. The project has benefited enormously from the wisdom and counsel of numerous colleagues whose assistance to me over the years will never be forgotten and whose influence on the finished product is greater than I could ever express. Among those who have been especially critical to the development of these arguments, and my academic work on Metternich and Jefferson, are John Catanzariti, Editor Emeritus of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson; Frank Cogliano, Department of History, Uni­ versity of Edinburgh; Max Edling, Department of History, Uppsala University; Robert Fatton, Department of Politics, University of Virginia; James Horn, Vice President for Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; Robert Holsworth, Dean Emeritus, College of Humanities and Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University; Daniel P. Jordan, President Emeritus, Thomas Jefferson Foundation; Mary Ellen Joyce, Director of Executive Development, The Brookings Institution; Peter Kastor, Department of History, Washington University in St. Louis; Scott Keeter, Director of Survey Research, Pew Research Center; Jeffrey Legro, Department of Politics, University of Virginia; Melvyn P. Leffler, Department of History, University of Virginia; John J. McCusker, De­ partment of History, Trinity University; Peter Onuf, Department of History, University of Virginia; Larry Sabato, Director, Center for Politics, Uni­ versity of Virginia; Gordon Stewart, Professor of German and Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia; and Douglas L. Wilson, Department of English, Knox College. Co­llectively, the comments and guidance I received from these colleagues has been reflected throughout the book. I appreciate their optimism towards, interest in, and analyses of what must have times appeared to them as an eccentric undertaking. The research staffs of the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia and the Jefferson Library at Monticello have been unfailingly helpful and generous with their time and resources. This work would not have been possible without their skilled and attentive assistance. I particularly thank Leah Stearns of Monticello’s Curatorial Department for her help in arranging the use of the Gilbert Stuart image of Jefferson for the cover. I am also grateful to the kind assistance of Liz Kurtulik from Art Resource, NY for her assistance in securing the use of the Thomas Lawrence painting of Metternich. Additionally, the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello has been supportive with two research fellowships that allowed me the opportunity to complete the early draft of the book in a timely fashion. The



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Center has become an invaluable resource for Jefferson scholars and scholarship on the early Republic period generally, and one with increasingly global reach. The work has benefited greatly from innumerable comments I have received on sections that have been published in article and chapter form. I am particularly appreciative and thankful for the skilled edi­ torship and reader reviews I received from Diplomatic History, The Review of International Studies, and The Review of Politics as well as reader comments on this manuscript. Javier Pujalte, my editor at CSIC Publications, has been a great help to me in the final stages of preparing this book and I appreciate the time and care he has invested in this project. On a more personal level, this work would not have been possible without the deep and abiding friendship and support of those who have sustained my spirits and provided incessant and essential encouragement at various stages in the development of this project. Most critically, I express my deep thanks to Kathleen Baireuther, Dr. Frank M. and Vita Iacovone, Profs. Micah Schwartzman and Leslie Kendrick, Dr. Peter Ronayne, Dr. Renée Severin, the memory of Smith Simpson, Amy E. Sofka, Dr. Yuri and Angelina Urbanovich, and Samuel Waxman. As I observed at the outset, this project began as my doctoral dissertation. The four scholars who comprised my Ph.D. committee at the University of Virginia have held an enduring intellectual legacy over this work, and their role in its evolution has continued long after my graduate career ended. The efforts of Michael J. Smith of the Department of Politics as adviser, editor, and critic were exceeded only by the warm friendship he shared with me during and beyond my graduate studies. Ruhi Ramazani, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Politics, shared his incisively analytical approach to politics and the manner in which I have attempted to trace political action in terms of the practical application of concepts I learned from him. Enno E. Kraehe, Professor Emeritus of History, possesses unsurpassed knowledge of the Metternich literature and he cheerfully played devil’s advocate to my interpretation of the Austrian Chancellor, just as he did with another former student of his, Paul Schroeder. J.C.A. Stagg, of the Department of History, graciously took time from editorship of the Papers of James Madison to share his command of the literature of the early American period and was an invaluable guide to sources. Solomon Wank, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History, Franklin and Marshall College, sparked my interest in Metternich’s politics as an undergraduate in his seminar on the nationalities ques-

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tion in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Stanley Michalak, Professor Emeritus of Government at Franklin and Marshall, has been my mentor and adviser since my earliest undergraduate days a quarter-century ago and he helped shape the comparative approach of this study from its inception. Robert P. Andes, one of my earliest teachers, had a less direct influence on this study but a formative and lasting impact in a much earlier and uncertain stage of my intellectual development. No scholar could stand on the shoulders of stronger teachers than these, though I do not feel remotely equal to their example. To my own students, especially my former Honors undergraduates at the University of Virginia, I am indebted for their asking the right questions at the right time and providing, through their ambition and humor, new energy to my work. My appreciation for the many students who have helped shape this work in a myriad of ways is inexpressible and inexhaustible. This work has been a cumulative effort, aided by and constructed upon the suggestions of many able minds. The shortcomings and defects of the work are mine alone, and I do not pretend to have matched the standards of those who have inspired me. Finally, I express my limitless gratitude and love to my parents, Robert J. and Patricia O. Sofka, and my sister, Dr. Carolyn M. Sofka, who have shown me more encouragement, love, and support than words can contain. It is to them, and to the memory of my grandparents, Wilbur L. and Helen Roth Owens, that I dedicate this book and with it the enduring statement of thanks for all they have done for me. James R. Sofka

PART I CLEMENS METTERNICH: THE ENLIGHTENMENT TRIUMPHANT

Chapter I Metternich and the Enlightenment: The Education of a European Federalist Metternich remarked near the end of his life that historians would judge him more fairly than his contemporaries, and his prophecy has proven uncannily accurate. In the not so distant past even a casual association of Metternich with Enlightenment liberalism would have been dismissed as ludicrous. However, the commonly received image of Metternich as a benighted reactionary is largely a product of late nineteenth century German nationalist historiography, wh ich could barely conceal its contempt towards his cosmopolitanism and embrace of European federalism rather than the cause of national self-determination. This view has gradually been discredited in recent years by Metternich scholars and has been replaced by a general (if at times uneasy) respect and even admiration of his ability to shape a constructive settlement out of the chaotic variables of the states-system that emerged from the Napoleonic Wars. Although he was prone to frequent indulgence in self-congratulation, Metternich’s political philosophy was more than the accumulated wisdom of elegant soirée conversation and idle reflection. The career of  The focus of these criticisms was Metternich’s refusal to endorse the formal unification of Germany after the Napoleonic Wars. See ch. 3 on this point. This line of attack, which assumed a high profile in Europe in the early twentieth century was most venomously advanced by Heinrich von Treitschke in his widely read History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century, 7 vols., [New York: 1915-1919] and the later work of Viktor Bibl, Metternich: Der Dämon Österreichs, [Vienna: 1936]. For an overview of this dimension of Metternich historiograpy, see Paul Schroeder, “Metternich Studies Since 1925”, Journal of Modern History, [33(1961): 237-60]. 

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the man who considered himself “a kind of titular professor of fundamental truths” bridged the intellectual evolution of Europe from rationalism to romanticism without significant change in orientation. “The most outstanding moral element in me is immutability”, he proudly observed in 1818. Most aspects of Metternich’s personality and opinions, as well as the parameters of his political thought, were shaped by the philosophical and cultural milieu of the late Enlightenment. Like Jefferson, he dabbled in astronomy, disassembled clocks and studied their mechanisms as a hobby, and frequently attended scientific conferences. He promoted Italian opera in Vienna, studied architecture and botany, and admired Palladio’s works while touring Vincenza. He developed a long and detailed correspondence with French and German horticulturalists to develop the gardens of his estate at Johannisberg. Throughout his tenure as Foreign Minister, Metternich attempted to keep current with the scientific literature; as late as 1832, for example, he was regularly attending lectures on acoustics. In 1811 he was named president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and in 1846 attempted to reform and modernize the institution along the lines of the Royal Society and American Philosophical Society. Science and Law in Metternich’s Thought Born in 1773 in the Rhineland city of Coblenz, the young Metternich was raised in an atmosphere of considerable wealth, political connections, and cultural sophistication. His father, Franz Georg Metternich, was an influential Rhineland politician who frequently represented the Habsburg Monarchy at electoral conferences of the Holy Roman Empire. Metternich’s tutor, Friedrich Simon, was a deist fond of quoting Condorcet and d’Alembert who returned to Paris to take up the   CM to Joseph Hübner, January 26, 1850, cited in Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvingny, Metternich and his Times, [London: 1962], p. 31. This is virtually a primary source, containing tranlations of letters and diary entries; CM to Princess Dorothea Lieven, December 22, 1818, in Emil Mika, ed., Geist und Herz Verbündet: Metternich’s Briefe an die Gräfin Lieven, [Vienna: 1942], p. 87; Hans Rieben, Prinzipiengrundlage und Diplomatie in Metternichs Europapolitik, 1814-1848, [Aarau: 1942], p. 9. For a contemporary account of Metternich’s intellectual tastes and erudite salon conversation, the memoirs of George Ticknor, a Harvard law professor who visited Metternich in July 1836, are instructive. George Ticknor, ed., The Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor, vol. 2 [Boston: 1876]. The best surveys of Metternich’s early life are found in Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, Metternich: Der Staatsmann und der Mensch, 3 vols, [Vienna: 1925-54], vol I, pp. 53-96; Enno E. Kraehe, MGP I, ch. 1, and Dorothy Gies McGuigan, Metternich and the Duchess, [New York: 1975], ch. 2.



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revolutionary cause in 1794. Though he did not agree with Simon’s endorsement of the Jacobins, Metternich admitted that he was influenced by some of his teacher’s views and later stressed the importance of Cartesian rationalism on his early philosophical education. In 1788 Franz Georg enrolled his son in the University of Strasbourg, where he resolved to follow an academic career in medicine or chemistry. “My particular vocation”, Metternich observed later with a noticeable tinge of regret, “seemed to me to be the cultivation of knowledge, especially of the exact and physical sciences, which suited my tastes particularly”. By his own admission he was attracted to the rational and predictable universe of the physical sciences and viewed it as a model for political and social analysis. Consequently the emphasis Metternich would later place on “immutable truths” was a genuine reflection of his system of reasoning and not merely justificatory posturing. Like his predecessor Kaunitz, he used the scientific method to investigate the forces motivating physical and social systems. He unceasingly argued that rational principles guided his actions, just as they governed chemical reactions in a laboratory. “Our calculations are never confined to the passing day or the needs of the moment”, he noted later. “Placed face to face with the future, and giving to temporary embarrassments no other value than that of transient and variable symptoms, our point of view is extended but unchangeable, and our line of action never varies in its direction”.   Metternich reviewed his early education in a letter to the Russian Foreign Minister Karl Robert Nesselrode in 1817. He noted that “at the age of twenty a deep and longcontinued research in the Holy Books made me an atheist after the fashion of d’Alembert and Lalande, or a Christian after that of Chateaubriand”. CM to Nesselrode, August 20, 1817, MM III, pp. 67-8. Metternich observed that throughout the 1790s he “diligently attended lectures on Geology, Chemistry, and Physics. Man and his life seemed to me to be objects worthy of study”. MM I, p. 23. He assiduously read Newton, Wolff, Leibniz, Kepler, and LaPlace, and the latter’s works so impressed him that he carried copies of them in his diplomatic bag throughout his tenure as Foreign Minister. McGuigan, p. 496. Srbik maintains that Metternich’s scientific training was responsible for his “strong impulse to search in the psychological and physical world for universal laws and then test them empirically and experimentally in the factual realm and prove them correct”. Srbik, “Der Ideengehalt des ‘Metternichischen Systems’”, Historische Zeitschrift, [131(1925): 243-5].   For a comparison of this “scientific” trait in Kaunitz and Metternich, see Peter Rohden, Die klassische Diplomatie von Kaunitz bis Metternich, [Leipzig: 1939], chs. 1 and 2. On Kaunitz’s legendary “political algebra” and its debt to the Enlightenment, see Walter Dorn, Competition for Empire, 1740-1763, [New York: 1940], pp. 296-300; Franz A.J. Szabo, “Prince Kaunitz and the Balance of Power”, International History Review, [1(1979): 399-408], as well as Szabo’s full-length study of Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism, 1753-1780, [Cambridge: 1994].

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Indeed, Metternich often drew comparisons between principles of government and chemistry and pathology: “It has certainly never been questioned”, he wrote in 1819, “that society and the advance of society are subject to fundamental laws just as definitely as physical forces are subject to other laws differing in many respects from those that function in society and the sphere of morality but less in conflict with them than is generally supposed”. Metternich’s rationalism further matured through his legal training at the University of Mainz, which began in 1790. His mentor, Niklas Vogt, was a respected legal scholar whose study of Das System des Gleichgewichts (1785) was one of the eighteenth century’s most sophisticated treatises on international politics. This work postulated the creation of a continental “equilibrium”, as well as the necessity for a legal regulation of the European state system, as the highest ethical goal of politics. Vogt, who believed that the “greatest goal of a truly enlightened society is the education of all men as to the importance of the maintenance of [the] balance among both nations and individuals”, had a formative and lasting effect on Metternich. Under Vogt’s tutelage, the international system effectively became a laboratory for implementing the principles of natural philosophy and physical reactions that Metternich had studied at Strasbourg. In his lectures Vogt drew heavily from Leibniz, Wolff, and Vattel, as well as the more current works of Kant. Metternich’s frequent emphasis of dichotomies between antagonistic principles was, as Srbik notes, the result of his education in the Kantian tradition. Metternich was convinced that reason could resolve this tension through the creation of fixed principles of law and obligation. In his lectures on St. Pierre and Rousseau, Vogt stressed the practicality of the federalist principle as a compromise between centralized power—such as the medieval   CM to Paul Esterhazy, August 7, 1825, MM IV, p. 222; Srbik, “Ideengehalt”, p. 245; CM to Count Ludwig Lebzeltern, December 15, 1819, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 33.   Cited in Steven Stargardter, Niklas Vogt 1756-1836: A Personality of the Late German Enlightenment and Early Romantic Movement [New York: 1991], p. 37. I am indebted to this excellent and original study of Metternich’s teacher. In his Autobiography, Metternich referred to Vogt as “one of my most zealous friends”, even though the two later had serious disagreements over the structure of the German Confederation. MM I, p. 11. Indeed, in 1836 the professor would be buried on the estate of his most famous student.   In typical fashion Metternich observed that “two elements are at war at all times in human society: the positive and negative, the conservative and destructive”. NP VII, p. 636. On Metternich’s Kantian system of reasoning, see Srbik, “Ideengehalt”, p. 248.



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church—on the one hand and a quasi-anarchical state system on the other. According to Vogt, this division between “builders” and “levellers” could be reconciled by international law and the federative idea, and he rejected the polarity of politics and morality that had characterized modern international relations. Metternich was encouraged to view states as part of a European “society”, whose general interest in peace must supercede particular interests in economic or territorial acquisition, and his training in a priori reasoning led him to emphasize conflict resolution and preventative diplomacy. Vogt’s lectures on German politics emphasized the need for a confederal—if not fully federative—arrangement in central Europe to prevent the power vacuums that had triggered several conflicts in the region since 1740, and he regarded Germany as “critical” to any workable plan of European federalism. As we shall see Metternich applied this reasoning directly to German politics after 1815. Metternich initially paid surprisingly little attention to the French Revolution, which was unquestionably the greatest political event of the age of his youth. In his student years he deplored the violent excesses of the Revolution, but he did not categorically condemn its aims. Significantly, at no time in the 1790s did he endorse the intellectual and political program of the British and German counter-revolutionaries. Indeed, Metternich went to great lengths to distance himself from what he viewed as this “romantic” conservatism which he unceasingly condemned as retrograde. “It may be”, he noted, “that someone in the year 2240 will discover my name, and tell the world that in this distant past there was at least one man less limited than the mass of his contemporaries who had pushed fatuity to the point of believing that they had reached the apogee of civilization”.10 With such a progressive outlook,  On this point see Stargardter, pp. 132-4.  Metternich wrote that he often wondered, while Foreign Minister, “whether [Vogt] guessed how much help I should afterwards obtain from his lectures” on German politics. MM I, p. 11. On Vogt’s lectures in his course on “The History of Germany”, see Stargardter, pp. 114-5. 10  Metternich noted later that he was all but oblivious of the French Revolution in the early 1790s, as the bulk of his time was consumed in the laboratory. “I was happy in this scientific circle”, he wrote, “and allowed the Revolution to rage and rave without feeling any call to contend with it”. MM I, p. 23. His only political act in this period was the publication of a short anonymous pamphlet, under the revealing pseudonym “A Friend of Universal Peace”, in 1794 urging the electors of the western German states to defend their lands in the event of a French attack. MM I, pp. 340-7. On Metternich’s view of the revolution in this period, see Srbik, Metternich I, pp. 65-96; Kraehe, MGP I, pp. 10-18; MM I, 4-17. For his opinion of and disagreement with Burke and his ad 

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it is not surprising that Metternich should seek to reform the workings of the European state system. The Rise to Power, 1792-1809 Metternich left Mainz in 1792 and began a series of diplomatic apprenticeships under his father’s tutelage. In 1794 he made his “grand tour”, which included a sojourn in England as well as his first visit to Vienna.11 In 1795 his mother arranged his marriage to Eleonore von Kaunitz, granddaughter of the architect of the “Diplomatic Revolution” of 1756 and member of one of the most influential political families in Vienna, a move that further advanced Metternich’s meteoric rise to power. He received his own diplomatic appointment to the court of Saxony in Dresden in 1801, and, with his father’s intervention, was appointed Austrian ambassador to Prussia in early 1803. In 1805 he helped negotiate the alliance that would be soundly defeated at Austerlitz. Following Austria’s defeat, he watched from Vienna as Napoleon reorganized the German states into the Confederation of the Rhine, an organization that would serve as a model for Metternich’s own efforts to “federalize” Germany in 1815. Metternich’s political advancement was fueled not only by his erudition, finesse of communication, and familial ties, but also by his astute social skills. His legendary womanizing, which has long given him the reputation of a dilettante, was in reality a sophisticated means of gaining political information. His liasons with some of the most prominent women on the continent, including Napoleon’s sister and close relatives of Tsar Alexander, provided him with a rare access to power while in a junior diplomatic rank.12 In 1806 Metternich was named Austrian ambassador to Russia, but at the request of Napoleon, who assumed he was Francophilic, he was given the post at Paris instead. Here he underherents, see Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace, 1815-1822, [Boston: 1957], pp. 193-4. NP III, p. 451. 11  On Metternich’s British journey, see C.S.B. Buckland, Metternich and the British Government From 1809 to 1813, [London: 1932], pp. 9-11. 12  Indeed, an entire study has been devoted to this subject: Egon Cäsar Corti, Metternich und die Frauen, 2 vols., [Vienna: 1948-49]. Metternich’s penchant for amorous intrigue was so well known that in 1820 the British ambassador in Vienna thought it newsworthy to report to Castlereagh that something important was going on in the Chancellery, as Metternich was no longer “engrossed in play, women, or convivality”. Charles Stewart to Castlereagh, February 3, 1820, cited in C.K. Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1812-1822, 2 vols., [London: 1925-1931], v. II, p. 196.



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took a thorough study of the administrative structure of the French government, which he would later attempt to duplicate in Austria. Following Austria’s decisive defeat at Wagram, in a campaign he had fervently opposed, Metternich was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. At the age of thirty-six, Metternich had reached the zenith of ministerial power in the Habsburg Monarchy. In this augmented capacity, he sought to structure a system of world order that would preserve the peace of Europe after the defeat of Napoleon. As he wrote in a circular dispatch to his ambassadors in the spring of 1813, his aim was to create “not a precarious state of affairs, but a general arrangement which will put back the geographical and political relations of the powers on a just and lasting basis”. The legal and political theory of the late Enlightenment was his guide in this process. The “Metternich Revo­ lution”, like Kant’s Copernican example, would dramatically reorient the politics of the continent and overthrow traditional interpretations of international relations.13 In the following chapters we will examine how Metternich attempted to transform these theoretical concepts into practical policy. His views on international politics, crucial to the development of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, will be addressed in the context of his adherence to theories of international federalism proposed by Kant. Similarly, his opinions on revolution, social change, and the structure of Habsburg governance reflected the importance placed by many eighteenth century theorists on gradual, rather than dramatic, political reforms. Finally, we will study his attempt to restructure the Habsburg Monarchy and offer creative solutions to the nationalities problem that would ultimately lead to its disintegration. In short, we will examine how far Metternich was in theory and practice from the “received” image of him gained from older historiography and trace how he ironically obtained his “reactionary” reputation by pursuing liberal policies. Although Metternich’s faith in the ability of reason to overcome the obstacles to the “perpetual peace” he envisaged proved to be illusory, he nevertheless remained a devout disciple of late Enlightenment political thought even after the foundations of his political order began to crumble.

13  On the period 1806-1809, see Srbik, Metternich I, pp. 99-122; and Kraehe, MGP I, chs. 2-4. Metternich’s own account of his life in this period is in his Autobiography, but it was written late in life and should be read with a careful eye for details that began to escape his memory. MM I, pp. 45-121; Kraehe, MGP I, p. 51; McGuigan, p. 39.

Chapter II Metternich and the International System (1): Federalism, Equilibrium, and the “Conference System” In one of his first state papers, written in 1801 shortly after he entered the diplomatic service, Metternich argued that to “attempt to create from the present chaos of elements a settled European state-system for the immediate future would be impossible”. Ironically, it would be Metternich, presiding at the Congress of Vienna fourteen years later, who would master the “chaos” of international relations and create a “system” that would arguably lay the conceptual foundations for forty years of general continental peace. Indeed, in his majesterial analysis of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century European politics, Paul Schroeder argues that the Vienna Settlement of 1815 marked a fundamental change in the “governing rules, norms, and practices of international politics”. If this “transformation” did indeed occur—and evidence of it is plentiful—then significant credit for effecting it must be attributed to Metternich, the chief architect of the postwar settlement. Metternich conceived of his task at Vienna as far greater than redrawing frontiers and restoring nearly forgotten princes to their thrones. More critically, he articulated a profoundly normative program for the restructuring of the European state system, and sought actively to transcend the predatory milieu of eighteenth-century international relations and replace it with a political order that would insure what most philosophers of the Enlightenment could only visualize: perpetual peace.  Metternich’s instructions (written by himself) for negotiations with the electoral court of Saxony, November 2, 1801, MM II, p. 5. Paul Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848, [Oxford: 1994], p. vii. 

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Metternich, Kant, and the Idea of “Political Equilibrium” In his 1784 essay “Idea for a Universal History From a Cosmopolitan Viewpoint”, which Metternich read at Mainz, Kant argued that the incessant conflict that had plagued eighteenth century statecraft would hopefully—and counter-intuitively—work to create the “perpetual peace” visualized by the Abbé St. Pierre in 1713. “Wars, tense and unremitting military preparations”, he noted, and the resultant distress which every state must feel within itself, even in the midst of peace—these are the means by which nature drives nations to make initially imperfect attempts, but finally, after many devastations, upheavals and even complete inner exhaustion of their powers, to take the step which reason could have suggested to them without so many sad experiences—that of abandoning a lawless state of savagery and entering a federation of peoples in which every state, even the smallest, could expect to derive its security and rights not from its own power or its own legal judgment, but solely from this great federation, from a united power and the law-governed decisions of a united will.

To Kant, the international “equilibrium”—a federation of states regulated by law and treaty—would logically result from a desire for peace that in turn arose from the horrors of war. Observing these miseries, statesmen would use reason to construct a legal foundation for political interaction between states—as they had long done within them—to limit this tendency to violence. In such an arrangement the destructive forces that had animated world politics in the modern age   Kant, “Idea for a Universal History”, Hans Reiss, ed., Kant’s Political Writings, [Cambridge: 1991], p. 47. For an analysis of Kant’s idea of universal federalism, see Charles Dupuis, Le Droit des Gens et les Rapports des Grandes Puissances avec les autrés etats avant le pacta de la Societé des Nations, [Paris: 1921]; Kurt von Raumer, Ewiger Friede: Friedensrufe und Friedenspläne seit der Renaissance, [Munich: 1953]; Patrick Riley, Kant’s Political Philosophy, [Totowa, N.J.: 1983], ch. 6; Andrew Hurrell, “Kant and the Kantian Paradigm in International Relations”, Review of International Studies, [16(1989): 183-205]. For a broader view of eighteenth century ideas on international federalism, see Mario Einaudi, The Early Rousseau, [Ithaca: 1967], ch. 7; C.E. Vaughan, ed., The Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, vol. 1, [New York: 1962], pp. 399-435; Stanley Hoffmann, “Rousseau on War and Peace”, Janus and Minerva: Essays in the Theory and Practice of International Politics, [Boulder and London: 1987], pp. 25-51; M.S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 1450-1919, [London: 1993], pp. 204-238; Francis Ruddy, International Law In The Enlightenment, [New York: 1975]; E.V. Souleyman, The Vision of World Peace in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century France, [New York: 1941]; D. Heater, The Idea of European Unity, [Leicester: 1992]. 



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could be reconciled through a rational analytical process and the interests of all states could be secured and promoted by an equilibrium based on international law. The result would inevitably be stringent limitations on the ability of states to commit acts of aggression, just as the corresponding ability of individuals within states was restricted by judicial authority. If the competing state interests which divided world society could be mitigated by a workable program of international law and if the autonomy of individual states could be limited, Kant maintained, then general peace could follow. In Kant’s analysis, and in the view of earlier writers such as St. Pierre and William Penn, the more destructive wars became, the more receptive statesmen would be to finding new ways to eradicate them. Metternich endorsed the argument of “Idea for a Universal History” and it can be seen as providing the foundation for his approach to world politics. Like Kant he abhorred violence and was repelled by the excesses of the revolutionary mobs he witnessed while in Strasbourg and Mainz, as well as the battlefields of Germany he observed in the Napoleonic Wars. This escalation of violence both internally and internationally convinced Metternich that drastic and immediate measures had to be taken to arrest what he perceived as a drift toward anarchy. As late as the summer of 1813, when the representatives of the three Allied Powers were formulating a new offensive against Napoleon, Metternich frantically arranged a peace conference in Prague and only reluctantly agreed to participate in the war upon the failure of this mediation attempt. Metternich’s rationalism and aversion to disorder conditioned his profoundly antimilitaristic worldview. “One characteristic of war”, he observed, “is that once it has begun laws are no longer imposed by the will of man but by force of circumstance, and another is that circumstances of pure chance become reasons, and that although one may know one’s starting point, the same is not true of one’s destination”. Yet as a practical matter he ruefully admitted to Princess Lieven in 1818 that “One is less concerned with those who prevent the cannon going off than with those who fire it. The one is more necessary than the other, but the world runs after the noise”. Consequently, as Enno Kraehe notes, Metternich’s goal was to structure a system “within which a bal Srbik, “Ideengehalt”, p. 248.  On the abortive Prague Conference of July-August 1813, see McGuigan, ch. 8 and Kraehe, MGP I, pp. 181-186. Metternich glosses over this effort in his “Autobiographical Memoir”. No doubt he was unwilling to appear to posterity as an initial opponent of the ultimately successful coalition of 1813. MM I, pp. 196-199.  

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ance would exist without permanently mobilized armies and interminably marching troops”. Rather than insure Austria’s, and Europe’s, security in a temporary and precarious “balance of power”, Metternich “envisaged a system that would finally come to rest”. In championing this idea, Metternich made the attainment and preservation of an “equilibrium” his ultimate objective. What, then, did the concept of “equilibrium” mean to Metternich at the time of the Congress of Vienna, the first test of this new system of politics? It certainly did not, as we shall see, serve as another term for “balance of power” diplomacy. Although several attempts have been made to analyze these concepts at a systemic level, few examine Metternich’s own theory of world order and its application in the postVienna period. Despite his early attachment to Newtonian physics, Metternich did not approach international relations purely mechanistically, and he attempted to outline a higher stage of social existence than one analogous to reactions found in a laboratory. Indeed, the “rediscovery of international law”—long dormant in the Napoleonic period— was, as Hans Rieben asserts, the predicate of Metternich’s thinking on the idea of “equilibrium”. His approach to politics, like Kant’s, was highly normative, and he was trained to analyze political relationships in a systemic fashion. Metternich’s devotion to “immutable” principles of order led him to seek to implement and institutionalize a panEuropean settlement in 1815 rather than focus solely on regional problems. The latter tendency was scorned by Metternich as “a selfish policy,   CM to Paul Esterhazy, August 24, 1821, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 69. CM to Princess Lieven, December 6, 1818, Mika, ed., Geist und Herz Verbündet, p. 69; Kraehe, MGP I, p. 302.   A representative sample of these arguments can be found in Harold Nicholson, The Congress of Vienna, [New York: 1946], pp. 38-41; Kissinger, A World Restored, ch. 4; and Edward Vose Gulick, Europe’s Classical Balance of Power, [Ithaca: 1955]. The problem of world order in the post-Vienna era has been subject to close examination in a series of articles in the American Historical Review [97(1992): 683-735]. These attempt to trace the roots of the balance of power—versus—equilibrium debate and offer new insights into Allied diplomacy in the Congress period. Paul Schroeder’s essay, “Did the Vienna System Rest on a Balance of Power?” concludes that it did not, and this idea is echoed in his Transformation of European Politics. Enno Kraehe’s rejoinder, “A Bipolar Balance of Power”, contends that both Britain and Russia attempted to manipulate combinations in central Europe and that Metternich’s diplomacy was centered on securing a pivotal role for Austria against a perceived Russian threat. Robert Jervis, in his essay on “A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power and the Concert”, uses quantitative modelling to outline the theoretical basis of the Congress system. Wolf Gruner questions “Was There A Reformed Balance of Power System or Cooperative Great Power Hegemony?” and concludes that the system did indeed rest on a multipolar, or pentarchical, balance of power.



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a policy of fantasy...of miserable greed...which seeks profit apart from the simplest rules of right...and the [pursuit] of which constitutes political wisdom in the eyes of a restless and short-sighted policy”. As conceived by Metternich, the European “equilibrium” was a stable arrangement of powers regulated by international law and operating according to universally recognized ethical principles and treaty obligations. Equilibrium could be achieved if statesmen worked to limit the autonomy of individual states and ordered these actors in a confederal system operating according to the principle of collective security. In this arrangement, all of the Great Powers would be united in upholding the general European peace and the legal norms upon which it rested, and would be restrained from pursuing “egotistical” policies by the sanction of international law. The resulting system would integrate states in a legally constituted alliance system that would eliminate the need to resort to force against an external threat. Instead, the system would be regulated by frequent consultations between governments and the resolution of disputes by diplomacy. Metternich’s equilibrium was to be an institutionalized body of cosmopolitan interests which would insure peace by reducing the friction between sovereign states through the means of political integration. Metternich argued that the duty—and in his vocabulary “duty” carried all of the prescriptive weight of Kant’s categorical imperative—of all states was “to submit to the common law”. This principle, Metternich continued, “exists everywhere, and loses nothing of its correctness, or of the necessity of its application, under whatever form a Government may be placed”. In Metternich’s theory, this “law”, or institutionalized framework of reciprocal duties, would be negotiated among the European states through diplomatic exchanges and appeals to cosmopolitan interests. These consultations would establish the parameters and obligations of individual state action, and the resulting treaties would assume the force of contract and provide a basis for political interaction. In a succint summary offered in 1831, Metternich argued that the formula for   Rieben, p. 14. On this point see the important article by Srbik, “Metternich’s Plan der Neuordnung Europas, 1814-1815”, Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichischen Geschichtsforshung, [50(1936): 109-26]. MM I, pp. 36-8.   It is important to clear up some confusing terminology on the subject of “equilibrium”. The “equilibrium” described by Metternich would in today’s literature be referred to as a collective security structure or confederation. Authors during and after the Congress of Vienna frequently used different terms to describe this order. Castlereagh commonly used “The Alliance” or “Union”, whereas the more theoretically minded Friedrich von Gentz preferred “Gleichgewichts”—equilibrium—or “European Union”.

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a European “equilibrium” he had devoted his career to building consisted of three basic principles: 1. The political independence of any legally recognized government, that is to say the liberty it must enjoy to adopt, in its internal affairs as well in its relations with other states, whatever system it judges most suitable in the interests of its own preservation, security, and tranquility, without damaging the rights of others; 2. The maintenance of all existing treaties, as long as they are not abolished or modified by common agreement between the contracting parties; 3. The pronounced resolution of the powers to assure, by the respect they show for these principles, the peaceful and enlightened relations existing between all of them and under the protection of which the internal peace of states and all the interests which they alone can guarantee, can flourish.

As we shall see, this theoretical construct led to mixed results when it was implemented in the period 1815-1822. However, Metternich never ceased to argue that a political equilibrium based on respect for law and the common interest of the powers in preserving peace was the best practicable means of insuring continental harmony.10 “The great axioms of political science proceed from the knowledge of the true political interests of all states”, he noted. “In these general interests lies the guarantee of their existence, while individual interests to which the transitory movements of the day assign a great importance...possess only a relative and secondary value”.11 The paramount general interest that Metternich—a student of late Enlightenment philosophy—could visualize was that of a lasting peace that would benefit all of the Powers. Equilibrium, then, was both a goal and a description. Metternich hoped that a European state system structured along the lines Kant had   CM to Esterhazy, August 7, 1825, MM IV, p. 225; CM to Count Anton Apponyi, June 2, 1831, NP V, p. 161. 10  As Friedrich von Gentz, one of Metternich’s closest advisers, put it in 1818, “This scheme of things has its inconveniences. But it is certain that, could it be made durable, it would offer the best possible combination to assure the prosperity of peoples, and the maintenance of the peace, which is one of its first prerequisites”. “Considerations on the Political System Now Existing in Europe”, 1818. Full text printed in Mack Walker, ed., Metternich’s Europe, [New York: 1968], p. 72. 11  MM I, p. 36. He added that “since an isolated state no longer exists, and is found only in the annals of the heathen world, or in the abstractions of so-called philosophers, we must always view the society of nations as the essential condition of the modern world”. Metternich’s emphasis.



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proposed, one which simultaneously provided legal stability and political adaptability, could help lay the foundation for a “durable international relationship” that would suit the interests of all European states.12 Thus Metternich shared Kant’s vision of “perpetual peace”; but his method of attaining it was considerably more pragmatic. Metternich’s theoretical outline of European politics was based upon what Robert Kann termed “supposedly self-evident reason”.13 Significantly, he did not base his policy on the ideology of “legitimacy” popular among conservative contemporaries and which is frequently— and erroneously—assumed to have informed his policy in the postwar period.14 His theory of international relations was predicated on his conviction that “all states exist as a supra-individual community of interests resting on their commonality as members of [international] so12  Rieben p. 14. Naturally this state of affairs worked to Austria’s advantage; however—and in Metternich’s view more critically—it was equally beneficial to the other powers. This appeal to self-interest through cosmopolitan principles was one of the chief arguments Metternich used to persuade other governments to endorse this formula. As Kraehe notes, Metternich was convinced that “Austria’s welfare was linked far more clearly to the European equilibrium than to any local advantages she might salvage in the form of territorial aggrandizement”. MGP I, p. 29. If Austria’s interests alone motivated Metternich’s policies, it is arguable that he would not have pursued as ambitious or idealistic a design as this to provide for general peace. Rather, he could have employed the more expedient and direct tactic of forming a special alliance with Britain, France, or Russia in order to create an external guarantee of Austria’s security, as Kaunitz did throughout the late eighteenth century. This idea, however, was rejected by Metternich on the grounds that it marked a continuation of, rather than a departure from, the eighteenth century system of coalition diplomacy which in his view was responsible for much of the disarray and militarism of the past six decades. 13  Robert A. Kann, “Metternich: A Reappraisal of His Impact on International Relations”, Journal of Modern History, [32(1960): 333-9]. He argued that in adopting this position Metternich presaged Woodrow Wilson’s formula for the collective security structure of the League of Nations by over a century. 14   “I have struck out from my customary diplomatic vocabulary the use of the words legitimacy and divine right”, Metternich wrote in 1837. “The words legitimate and legitimacy express an idea which is in my opinion more easily grasped by minds unaccustomed to serious discussion if it is represented by the word right. Legitimacy as a noun is used to qualify the right of succession to the throne; the same word, used as an adjective, can be applied to anything. One is the legitimate owner of a house or whatever it may be, and in the same way it expresses the idea of legal right...The idea and the word right fulfills its duty much better in this respect than do those of legitimacy and divine right”. CM to Apponyi, January 22, 1837, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 37. Emphasis Metternich’s. His mockery of the conservatives—”minds unaccustomed to serious discussion”—is obvious. Compare this with Henry Kissinger’s discussion of the term “legitimacy” in A World Restored, ch. 11. Kissinger argues that Metternich did indeed understand this concept in universal and normative terms, but provides little evidence to support this case and does not compare it to Kant’s idea of “legitimate” right, the sense in which Metternich interpreted it.

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ciety”. What Gentz called “the great political family” of Europe was to Metternich a real entity that could function smoothly if statesmen deployed reason and a cosmopolitan outlook to overwhelm the ambitious parochialism that had characterized European politics for centuries. “By separating carefully the concerns of self-preservation from ordinary politics, and by subordinating all individual interests to the common and general interest”, he wrote in 1823, Europe could demonstrate “examples of union and solidarity” unseen in history.15 Metternich’s attraction to an institutionalized structure of international politics that would operate, as Kant had hoped, “automatically” led him to formulate ideas of world order beyond the calculations of day-to-day politics or local struggles for influence. Metternich was convinced that Austria, like all states, could guarantee its security in only one of two ways: either by entering a confederation of states regulated by treaties, or by a direct alliance with another power or coalition to overwhelm a potential threat. Kaunitz had followed the latter course in the 1750s, to lackluster results. Metternich flatly rejected this policy because in his view it only perpetuated a culture of hostility and insecurity in the international system, as alliances invariably produced counter-alliances. His ultimate aim was to undo Kaunitz’s system and transcend the predatory universe of eighteenth century politics and anchor a European security system on a more stable, and predictable, foundation. As a result, Metternich wanted to replace force with law as a sanction on state behavior. His promotion of the idea of “political equilibrium”, and his argument that Austria could only find security in a confederal Europe was a clear departure from the popular mantra of eighteenth-century international relations theory, the balance of power. Metternich and Balance of Power Historiography Despite his consistent criticism of traditional eighteenth century raison d’ etat, Metternich is commonly named among the greatest practicioners of balance of power diplomacy. Edward Vose Gulick, in his classic but thinly researched study of the concept, argues that Metternich’s statecraft was “beautifully illustrative of the thought proc Srbik, “Ideengehalt”, p. 250. Hans Schmalz, Versuche einer gesamteuropäische Organisation, 1815-1820, [Aarau: 1940], p. 13; CM to Tsar Alexander, January[undated] 1823, MM III, p. 672. 15



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ess of a balance-of-power statesman”.16 Territory and military potential, according to Gulick, were in Metternich’s mind the determinants of international relations. Although he notes Gulick’s refusal to distinguish between the ideas of “balance of power” and “equilibrium”, and faults his lack of documentation, Enno Kraehe also advances the thesis that Metternich focused primarily on the interests of Austria and was indeed conscious of the deterrent principle inherent in balance of power theory.17 Paul Schroeder is more receptive to a theoretical interpretation of European politics in the post-1815 period.18 However, while he makes a vigorous effort to distinguish between “equilibrium”, “balance of power”, and “hegemony”, his definitions of these terms are at times difficult to discern. In the process, he loses Metternich’s own theory of international politics in his extended treatment of the Anglo-Russian rivalry which in Schroeder’s view conditioned nineteenth century European politics. Focusing on broad systemic dynamics, Schroeder does not fully explain how Metternich, the virtuoso of the Vienna settlement, personally interpreted these ideas or how they informed his political initiatives. Most significantly, he makes no attempt to relate Metternich’s ideas to the larger corpus of writings on international pol16  Gulick, p. 112. Unfortunately he bases this view entirely on the contentious Saxony issue at the Congress of Vienna in December 1814. Metternich’s proposed alliance with Britain and France against Russia and Prussia on this issue has frequently been invoked as evocative of balance of power thinking. [see Gulick, ch. 9] Yet is doubtful whether Metternich would have followed through with this idea. Kraehe and Schroeder place this question in a more appropriate setting: that Metternich was perhaps using the mechanisms of the balance of power model in order to achieve a higher end: creating and preserving a general peace not just in Germany but also in Europe as a whole. Kraehe, MGP II, ch. 10; Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 523-38. Gulick fails to assess these overarching ambitions and treats the Saxony affair as a purely dynastic dispute. The systemic interests involved at the Congress were, however, indisputably greater. 17  See Kraehe, “A Bipolar Balance of Power”, for this argument. This thesis also animates his two volumes on Metternich’s German policy. As he notes in volume I, “The balance of power, Metternich sensed, is not primarily a doctrine but a condition, which exists when the various states, each pursuing its selfish interests, reach mutually recognized points of diminishing returns”. p. 255. 18  See Schroeder, “Did the Vienna System Rest on a Balance of Power?” for this argument. His earlier work, “The Nineteenth Century System: Balance of Power or Political Equilibrium?” Review of International Studies, [15(1989):135-53], makes a similar case but with greater theoretical vigor. It is important to note that Schroeder’s view of Metternich has evolved with further research: in an earlier study, he dismissed Metternich’s post-Vienna diplomacy as devoid of any theoretical program or practical goal “other than to prevent change”. Metternich’s Diplomacy at its Zenith, 1820-1823, [Austin: 1962], p. 243.

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itics produced in the eighteenth century, especially those of Kant and Vattel. The balance of power model understood by Schroeder is essentially Newtonian in theory and mechanistic in operation, while Metternich’s theory of equilibrium was rooted in Kantian political philosophy and was legalistic in its structure. The differing conceptual and political implications of these competing approaches to world politics cannot be underscored too boldly. While the divide between the “balance of power” and “equilibrium” schools appears to be widening, careful reflection on the hypotheses of these arguments suggests that they may, to a great extent, be reconcilable. Metternich assiduously studied regional politics—specifically in Germany and Italy—and an investigation of his approach to these issues is instructive. However, it is important to remember that these were of secondary importance to his larger end: that of maintaining a general European peace.19 The bedrock assumption of Metternich’s theory of the equilibrium was that local territorial settlements could not endure unless the broader political relations among the powers were guaranteed legally, as only through such a contractual arrangement could the rights of each state be protected. This type of settlement, one that would indeed “transform” the workings of the European state system, was precisely what had been lacking in the eighteenth century, with violent results. For a more accurate understanding of the relationship of local and general interests on the political level, as well as of the balance of power and equilibrium on the theoretical, it is necessary to examine Metternich’s repudiation of balance of power theory as an adequate model for international relations. Metternich’s Critique of Balance of Power Theory Metternich’s concentration on systemic and legalistic principles of world order prevented him from joining in the acclamation of militaristic parochialism so common in the eighteenth century, and led him to conclude, though without the grace of Kant’s phrase, that to obtain “a permanent and universal peace by means of a so-called European balance of power is a pure illusion”. Metternich’s attack on the concept of the balance of power was based on his own definition of the term, which did not differ substantially from those provided by contempo Rieben, pp. 37-55.

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rary or modern interpreters.20 To Metternich, the balance of power was an essentially Newtonian construct that assumed that the international system evolved through cycles of peace and war, much as a swinging pendulum moved between fixed poles without ceasing its motion, and was predicated on the idea that international politics operated according to quantifiable principles. By measuring and/or manipulating these variables, such as the size of armies, navies, or financial reserves, a state’s “power”, or capabilities, could be calculated. “Parity” could be obtained by matching these standards and competing for economic and strategic assets, much as Britain and France did in North America throughout the eighteenth century. Metternich, like Kant, looked upon this model of international relations with contempt.21 In this model, each state aggressively pursued its own interests with little regard for others beyond simple prudence. No systemic principles of order existed in this Hobbesian universe of state relations, and in Metternich’s view it was conducive to international anarchy. Concerned above all with limiting the role of force in international politics, Metternich could never endorse a model in which the potential for war was the only sanction on state behavior. This point introduces Metternich’s two principal objections to the balance of power system.

20   Kant, “On the Common Saying: ‘That May be True in Theory but it does not apply in Practice’” (1792), Reiss, ed., p. 92. On the theory of the balance of power from the eighteenth century to the present, see M.S. Anderson, “Eighteenth Century Theories of the Balance of Power”, in R.M. Hatton and M.S. Anderson, eds., Studies in Diplomatic History, [London: 1970]; Franz A.J. Szabo, “Prince Kaunitz and the Balance of Power”; Frank Manuel, The Age of Reason, [Ithaca: 1951], ch. 9; Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations, [New York: 1966], part 1, ch. 5; Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, [New York: 1977], part 2, ch. 5; Inis Claude, Power in International Relations, [New York: 1962]; F.H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace: Theory and Practice in the History of Relations Between States, [Cambridge: 1966], part 2; Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, [New York: 1979], ch. 6; Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (3rd ed.), [New York: 1961], part 4; Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, [Baltimore: 1962], ch. 8; Richard Little, “Deconstructing the Balance of Power: Two Traditions of Thought”, Review of International Studies, [15(1989): 87-100], Morton Kaplan, System and Process in International Politics, [New York: 1957]; William B. Moul, “Measuring the ‘Balances of Power’: A Look At Some Numbers”, Review of International Studies, [15(1989):101-21]; Jeremy Black, “The Theory of the Balance of Power In the First Half of the Eighteenth Century: A Note on Sources”, Review of International Studies, [9(1983): 55-61]; M. Wright (ed.), The Theory and Practice of the Balance of Power, 1486-1914, [New York: 1975]. 21  See Metternich’s explicit—and vigorous—condemnation of it in MM I, pp. 37-9.

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First, Metternich condemned the absence of any legal regulatory mechanism in balance of power theory. He believed that pursuing such a mechanistic policy would only provide, at best, for “intermediate” political settlements. The systems created by supposedly “balanced” power from 1648-1783 had all quickly deteriorated into renewed violence, and Metternich traced these conflicts to systemic weaknesses inherent in the balance of power arrangement. Under this theory, the only significant “check” that a state could impose on others was the application of force. Yet the frequent outbreaks of violence that characterized eighteenth-century statecraft seemingly negated the entire rationale for the “balance”, and provided concrete illustrations of its limitations. In short, Metternich believed that the balance of power understood as the evaluation and maintenance of a “correlation of forces” was an inadequate basis for a stable European order. In his view, this approach could at best produce brief armistices and treaties devoid of prescriptive value or long-term durability, but could never yield the “perpetual peace” that was his ultimate goal in statecraft. For this reason Metternich in 1815 refused to follow Kaunitz’s policy of securing Austria through exclusive alliances, as this would only create a polarized climate in which war was more, rather than less, likely to occur. Metternich observed that the balance of power model was, by its premise, a temporary condition, whereas his conception of the equilibrium could be institutionalized.22 This was a conceptual breakthrough in practical statecraft and required a fresh look at the intricacies of the European system and a command of the theoretical literature of the eighteenth century.23 Second, Metternich’s idea of the role of the state in international relations differed from that customarily found in balance of power theory. The latter was predicated on the assumption that the state was a completely independent, autonomous actor, able (in the ideal) to enter  See Rohden, klassische Diplomatie, ch. 1-2; conclusion; Kraehe, MGP I, p. 255.  For this reason Metternich, upon taking over the Foreign Ministry in 1809, leaned heavily for advice on younger theoreticians such as Friedrich von Gentz, who were educated in the same tradition as he and shared his new approach to the international system. Significantly, Gentz was a student of Kant’s at Königsberg and proofread his Critique of Judgment. Although he later became influenced by the romantic and historicist conservatism of Burke, Gentz began his career as a Kantian federalist who applauded Metternich’s early efforts to make the conference system operational. See Murray Forsyth, “The Old European States-System: Gentz versus Hauterive”, The Historical Journal, [23(1980): 521-38], and “Friedrich von Gentz: An Assessment”, Studies in History and Politics, [2(1981-2): 127-55]; Paul Sweet, Friedrich von Gentz, [Madison, WI: 1941]; Golo Mann, Secretary of Europe: The Life of Friedrich von Gentz, [New Haven: 1946]. 22 23



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into and abrogate treaties with perfect fluidity. In the eighteenth century, Kaunitz’s “reversal of alliances” in 1756 and Frederick II’s gambit for Silesia in 1740 were signal examples of this approach to world politics. In this model, states have no permanent legal ties to each other but only relationships of convenience to increase their deterrent value to the others. For this reason states frequently—and frantically— shopped for allies upon the death of a sovereign or the eruption of a minor territorial dispute, as balance of power thinking held that the outcome of a war could be determined as much by alliance pairings than by actual battlefield engagements. Metternich, as a true cosmopolitan, flatly rejected this view of state behavior. To him the notion of the state as an end in itself, maximizing its particular objectives in the constant threat of war, was a misguided, and inherently dangerous, conception of world politics.24 Deploying a frequent organic metaphor, Metternich considered it symptomatic of an “illness” when a state pursued its ambitions without concern for the general peace of Europe, and went so far as to denounce “individual” state interests as meaningless “abstractions”. He condemned this approach by observing that: In the ancient world, policy isolated itself entirely and exercised the most absolute selfishness, without any other curb than that of prudence. The law of retaliation set up eternal barriers and founded eternal enmities between the societies of men, and upon every page of ancient history is found the principle of mutual evil for evil.25

Having observed the effects of two decades of war, including the occupation of Austria after its defeat at Austerlitz in 1805, Metternich insisted on limiting the autonomy of states rather than promoting it, as was the case in balance of power theory. Only a political arrangement in Europe that had the ability to “regulate the social field over a broader area than that contained within the borders of a state”, could effectively insure a lasting peace.26 As a practical statesman, Metternich realized that a mild dosage of “balance of power” thinking was instrumental in diplomatic exchanges,  As Srbik argues, to Metternich “the state was not an end in itself like the pure Machtstaat, but is bound to the others through the eternal moral order and the idea of justice”. “Ideengehalt”, p. 250. 25  Rieben pp. 13-4; CM to KF, August 17, 1819. Haus-,Hof-,und Staatsarchiv, Vienna: Staatskanzlei: Vorträge, 1819. Carton 219, fol. 31-4. These documents were used with the gracious permission of Professor Enno E. Kraehe of the University of Virginia. MM I, p. 37. 26  Cited in Srbik, “Ideengehalt”, p. 247. 24

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and it would have been foolhardy for him to have ignored the material interests and capabilities of the Great Powers. At times he manipulated these traditional levers of power to help construct the European order he envisaged, as in the case of the alliance of January 3, 1815 among Austria, Britain, and France in the midst of the Saxony crisis at the Congress of Vienna.27 Yet he never attempted to base the foundation of the entire postwar settlement upon this logic. It is important to remember—as Gulick does not—that these analyses and exploitations of temporary power relationships were a means, and never an end in themselves, in Metternich’s statecraft. As a result, it is most accurate to speak of the “balance of power” as an aspect of Metternich’s diplomacy but never its governing principle. His fundamental objective was the realization of a political equilibrium based on treaty and codified in international law. This system would rest on law rather than military power, and operate by diplomacy and compromise rather than force. Metternich anticipated that the balance of power, because of its “self-evident” weaknesses, would become such a demonstrable failure as an organizing principle of international relations that statesmen would be compelled to reject it as a model. It could never support the equilibrium Metternich considered instrumental to constructing and maintaining a European federation. Metternich’s Theory of the European Confederation In his frequently neglected but important study of The Confederation of Europe, Walter Alison Phillips argues that Metternich’s plan for European order was “an experiment in international government, an attempt to solve the problem of reconciling central and general control by a ‘European Confederation’ with the maintenance of the liberties of its constituent states, and thus to establish a juridical system” of international relations.28 Phillips’ thesis, when understood in the context of  This incident is best discussed by Kraehe in MGP II, p. 284-98.   Walter Alison Phillips, The Confederation of Europe: A Study of the European Alliance, 1813-1823 As An Experiment in the International Organization of Peace, [London: 1914], p. 9. This highly original work was unfortunately eclipsed by the First World War. Phillips’ articles in the influential Cambridge Modern History, edited by Lord Acton, made the same argument. See volume X, The Restoration, [New York: 1907], ch. 1. These essays were influential on the succeeding generation of Metternich scholars such as Srbik, and were the first serious attempts to remove Metternich from the “reactionary” camp where he was unceremoniously placed by Treitschke. Schmalz’s 27 28



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Metternich’s identification with late Enlightenment philosophy, is persuasive. Metternich resurrected the idea of a confederation of states, first proposed by Erasmus and later echoed by St. Pierre and Kant, to provide a framework for the reconciliation of political disputes among the Great Powers. His plan was legalistic, based on the assumption that political affairs were best directed by the rule of cosmopolitan reason rather than raison d’etat. In a letter to Tsar Alexander, written in January 1823, Metternich argued that his formula for a European Confederation had always contained two basic ideas. “In the first place”, he noted, governments “must make common cause and unite in one the interest of each in [their] own preservation; in the second place they must establish a central focus for information and direction”. His formula for a “transformed” state system rested on the idea that the powers that had defeated Napoleon should retain and broaden their wartime cooperation into a lasting Alliance, or Union, that would ensure peace through collective security. Metternich anticipated that France itself would be incorporated into the system, and he sought moderate peace terms with Paris in 1814 and 1815 in order to provide for this contingency. Whereas a traditional coalition, in Gentz’s phrase, was a partnership based on a temporary “congruence of interests”, Metternich’s proposed postwar Alliance—the practical expression of the idea of “equilibrium”—was based on “the permanent underlying interests of [all] states within a given system”. Metternich hoped to create a unity among the five Great Powers that was rooted in cooperation rather than competition.29 Under the familiar coalition model, which had characterized international relations from 1648 to 1815, alliances were based upon immediate threats and perceived security requirements. Coalition diplomacy was the operational mechanism of the balance of power model that Metternich found so misguided and dangerous: this formula provided no permanent guarantees to any of the contracting powers; a change in government, or the fortunes of war, could quickly shatter a coalition, as had happened in the Seven Years’ War with the death of Empress Elisabeth of Russia in 1762. The advantage of his proposal, Metternich reasoned, was that no power was the catalyst for the alliance, and thus there was no defensive animosity built into the system. Versuche einer gesamteuropäische Organisation makes a similar case and is heavily indebted to Phillips’ work. 29  CM to Tsar Alexander, January [undated] 1823, MM III, p. 672; Forsyth, “The Old European States-System”, p. 525.

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For this reason, Metternich’s alliance system could be institutionalized and operate—as Kant had suggested—”automatically”.30 Since his first study of legal and political theory at Mainz, Metternich viewed the concept of federalism as a logical basis for European order and an efficient and flexible means of conflict resolution. Metternich’s assumption that states operated in a societal, and not anarchical, milieu and that the general interest of a durable peace must take precedence over individual interests and goals formed the core of his formula for a confederation of European states and was consonant with his training in late Enlightenment philosophy and its idealistic aspirations. Indeed, this type of union had never been attempted before, but Metternich saw it as the most ambitious means of preserving peace without the constant threat of war that was inherent in—indeed, vital to—the balance of power or coalition model. Metternich exulted in 1817 that this “revolutionary” idea would, if it remained the governing principle of European diplomacy, “insure for a considerable time what the good Abbé de St. Pierre wished to establish forever”.31 Frederick II had quipped to Voltaire in 1742 that all St. Pierre’s plan lacked was the “consent of Europe” along with “a few similar trifles”. Metternich hoped to build this shared consent following the Napoleonic Wars, and invoked the horrific physical, human, and financial costs of this long conflict to underscore the “self-evident” rationalism of his proposals. The time to fashion a plan of European order, Metternich sensed, had never been more opportune. Building this confederation, as Metternich indicated to the Tsar, was a two-stage process. First, the powers had to agree to enter into it and second it had to be maintained, or “enforced”, by diplomatic means. The first task, ironically, would prove to be easier to accomplish than the second. In 1815 four of the five Great Powers had been allied with each other for two years, and some had been acting in concert since 1793. France, although defeated in war, was under the control of a nominally friendly government and represented by agents receptive to some of Metternich’s ideas. Each of the five states had a common interest in a comprehensive settlement which would establish a basic, and predictable, pattern for individual foreign policies. While all had their own ambitions, the fact that these 30   Kant, “Idea for a Universal History”, Reiss, ed., p. 48. On the concept of collective security as a model for international politics, see Aron, Peace and War, part 4, ch. 23; Bull, Anarchical Society, part 2, ch. 6; Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, ch. 12; Hoffmann, “International Systems and International Law”, Janus and Minerva, pp. 149-77. 31  CM to Nesselrode, August 20, 1817, MM III, p. 70.



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competing interests had been accommodated through cooperation in the wartime league was of critical importance in establishing the political and territorial settlement at the Congress of Vienna. Metternich clearly realized, however, that this political “transformation” would not be accomplished immediately. The European confederation he envisaged required careful and deliberate construction, and he believed that this process could best be served if the Powers cooperated on points of fundamental common interests and reserved more controversial subjects for future discussion. In this manner he hoped that the Confederation would begin to settle differences that would, under the balance of power model, likely have proven insurmountable. Cognizant that competitive ambitions and animosities would continue to erupt unless each Power realized that it had a tangible stake in preserving a general peace, Metternich planned to avoid confrontation by “concentrating on living in peace and harmony. The best way to achieve that desired end”, he maintained, “is to avoid subjects of discussion on which agreement is unlikely and to attempt, equally carefully, to meet on grounds of common interests”. Metternich’s conviction that such a durable peace would serve the “common interests” of all states consequently became the theoretical bedrock of the Confederation, and he was not alone in this opinion. Castlereagh, for his part, bluntly informed Liverpool in November 1814 that he was approaching the peace negotiations in such a manner “as to make the establishment of a just Equilibrium in Europe the first Object of my Attention, and to Consider the assertion of minor Points of Interest as subordinate to this great End”.32 Like Montesquieu, Metternich recognized that “states have, like individuals, different temperaments”. These differences in internal institutions and political cultures indicated, as he put it in 1821, that “a particular interest or situation will predominate in a state just as a particular passion or weakness influences individuals. These different attitudes are not slow to make themselves known, heard, and felt”. This did not mean, however, that European politics would necessarily remain anarchical and ruthlessly competitive. If the individual governments were truly parts of a cosmopolitan society—and Metternich 32  CM to Philip von Neumann, October 31, 1832, NP V, p. 384. Castlereagh to Liverpool, November 11, 1814, PRO: F.O. 92., v. 141. This excellent series of papers is in the microfilm set of “Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh From the Continent, 1814-1822”, published by the Public Record Office, London. Castlereagh’s emphasis. On Talleyrand’s view of the equilibrium, see Guglielmo Ferrero, The Reconstruction of Europe: Talleyrand and the Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815, [New York: 1941].

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never doubted that they were—then “the same results that would be found in a family consultation should, by the same right, be found in a meeting of Powers”.33 In short, competing interests could, and for the sake of reducing international tensions, should be permitted to express themselves, but only under the controlling aegis of the European Confederation. Castlereagh, whose own ideas on the efficacy of such a system had been refined through conversations with Metternich, expressed this federalist logic succintly in his important State Paper of May 5, 1820, in which he argued that: We cannot in all matters reason or feel alike; we should lose the Confidence of our respective Nations if we did, and the very affectation of such an Impossibility would soon render the Alliance an Object of Odium, and Distrust, whereas if we keep it within its common sense limits, the Representative Governments, and those which are more purely Monarchical, may well find each a common Interest, and a common Facility for discharging their Duties under the Alliance, without creating an Impression that they have made a surrender of the first principles upon which their respective Governments are founded. Each Government will then retain its due faculty of Independent Action, always recollecting, that they have all a common Refuge in the Alliance, as well as a common Duty to perform, whenever such a danger shall really exist, as against that which the Alliance was specially intended to provide.34

Beyond the legal and normative force of treaties, the principles upon which the Alliance would operate, therefore, were a shared interest in peace and cosmopolitanism. Although each state, with its unique form of government and political culture, would define and pursue its interests differently, the “law of nations” would provide a basic outline for the conduct of international relations.35 Metternich never lost sight of the security needs of Austria, but he realized that these requirements, as well as those of the other powers, ultimately depended on the respect for treaties and international law he had been trained to uphold. In short, the interests of individual states were best secured, in Metternich’s logic, if they stopped “going it alone” and cooperated in securing a peace that would be injurious to none.  CM to Prince Paul Esterhazy, March 5, 1821, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 68.  Castlereagh’s State Paper of May 5, 1820, cited in Thomas G. Barnes, ed., Nationalism, Industrialization, and Democracy 1815-1914: A Documentary History of Modern Europe, vol. 3, [New York: 1980], p. 12. Castlereagh’s emphasis. 35  That is why Talleyrand was so insistent that the phrase “law of nations” be inserted into the declaration announcing the opening of the Congress of Vienna on November 1, 1814. Ferrero, Talleyrand, pp. 164-5. 33

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This idealistic approach was completely alien to the balance of power tradition, which sought to maximize the diplomatic options of the individual state, and was ridiculed by its practicioners, such as British Foreign Secretary George Canning in his famous aphorism of “Every nation for itself and God for them all”. Metternich, who ceaselessly argued that the smooth operation of the European confederation was dependent upon restraint, dismissed the idea that any one state could or should manipulate the Alliance for its own ends. He noted in 1822 that the power of the European Alliance: can neither be replaced nor supplemented by another. Imagine one monarchy controlling the combined resources of the Alliance—not only would such tremendous power not take the place of the Alliance, but it would gain nothing by attempting to do so, because it would be contrary to the moral power of the Alliance. It would be contrary for the very reason that the Alliance is clearly composed of heterogeneous parts and because, although it works towards a single, positive end, it embodies guarantees for the most widely varying interests.

Although Bertier de Sauvingy notes that Metternich’s thinking on the nature of the postwar Union underwent “at least four consecutive and at times even simultaneous forms”, each embodied the idea of guaranteeing the interests of each of the Great Powers through a federal arrangement. “If such is the spirit of the Alliance”, Metternich argued, “then in its active application to special cases it should submit to the common law...To attack the principle of the Alliance is to attack society”.36 Metternich conceived of the European federation as an extension of the cooperation that had underscored the wartime Quadruple Alliance of 1813-1815 in a legally institutionalized form. In 1818 he managed to thwart Alexander’s efforts to establish a Franco-Russian alliance and, with Castlereagh’s backing, insured that France did not re-enter the state-system under exclusively Russian auspices. On paper at least, the five Great Powers, despite their divergent interests, were united by treaties and regulated by international law, and ceased to manipulate  Metternich, upon reading this part of Canning’s speech of December 12, 1826, which was intended as a blatant repudiation of his idea of a European League, stated that “it comes close to delirium”. CM to Count Heinrich Bombelles, Janaury 8, 1827, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 219; CM to Lebzeltern, January 10, 182, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 144, Metternich’s emphasis. On Metternich’s four conceptions of the Alliance, see Bertier, “Sainte-Alliance et Alliance dans les conceptions de Metternich”, Revue Historique, [233(1960): 249-75]; CM to Esterhazy, August 7, 1825, MM IV, pp. 225-6. 36

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combinations against a specified “outside” actor. In this model foreign policy would ideally become, as Ferrero observes, “the projection of reciprocal confidence”. Throughout his career Metternich argued that all states could participate in this union and share in its benefits and responsibilities regardless of their form of government or geographical position. As late as 1847 he still held out hope that “a community of interests” could be found to protect the European peace.37 Implementing the Confederation: The Origins of the “Conference System” Metternich’s idealism was not devoid of a pragmatic appreciation of the political system of Europe. Unlike St. Pierre, Rousseau, or Kant, Metternich was a minister with political responsibility for the interests of a state. He recognized that a simple appeal for harmony would, as a general rule, be a useless deterrent unless it was supported by a concrete political agenda, and fully realized that the theoretical programs of the eighteenth century philosophers all lacked enforcement mechanisms beyond fanciful descriptions of “ought to be”. To prescribe a political equilibrium and European federation was one thing; to preserve it in a universe of competing state interests was another. It was the latter problem, that of translating “ought” into “is”, that Metternich sought to resolve in the period 1815-1822 with his “conference system”. This policy, a completely novel approach to international politics, reflected Metternich’s faith in reason as well as his observation of the dynamics of continental politics. Shortly after the Congress of Vienna, Friedrich von Gentz suggested that Metternich work toward the creation of a permanent European “Assembly” in a neutral capital as a means of preserving continental peace. Gentz proposed that this body could be structured along the lines of the German Confederation, with representatives of the Powers deciding on “European” foreign policy collectively through a deliberative process. Metternich was sympathetic to the legal premises of Gentz’s reasoning, but he nevertheless rejected his colleague’s suggestions on the basis of his concern that a permanent Congress of European states would become inefficient and hobbled by bureaucracy.38 Moreover, 37  Ferrero, Talleyrand, p. 167; CM to Apponyi, April 12, 1847, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 152. 38  On this idea and its origins, see Dupuis, Droit des Gens, ch. 3, Schmalz, Versuche einer gesamteuropäische Organisation, Forsyth, “Friedrich von Gentz”, and Mann,



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there was always the risk that one or two states might dominate such an assembly given unequal financial or military resources. Metternich’s preferred solution to the enforcement question was not a permanent “league of nations”, but the “conference system”, which he developed in conjunction with Castlereagh. The conference system, outlined in Article VI of the Vienna Treaty, was intended to be a diplomatic framework designed for the efficient and peaceful resolution of international disputes. It operated on a provisional basis and was therefore, according to Metternich, more responsive to immediate political needs than a formal international tribunal or court. Article VI provided for a means of conflict resolution by mandating that each Power, before taking action which might be injurious to the interests of others—such as pressing a territorial claim or authorizing a military intervention—would agree to discuss its grievances, concerns, and objectives at a meeting convened specifically for this purpose. Conference diplomacy was predicated upon Metternich’s avowed assumption that “the establishment of international relations upon the basis of reciprocity, under the guarantee of respect for acquired rights, and the conscientious observance of [pledged] faith constitutes, at the present day, the essence of politics, of which diplomacy is only the daily application”.39 In practical terms, the Conference System was the instrumentality through which the Confederation was sustained and functioned on a regular basis. Metternich anticipated that this formula would best enable the powers to assess the case at hand and reach a satisfactory agreement by diplomacy and shared interests in upholding the principles and aims of the European Confederation. Through the mechanism of the Conference System, each state retained its autonomy—more so than under Gentz’s proposed league—but it was bound to the others by an intricate series of multilateral diplomatic exchanges. To be effective, the system required close cooperation among the European governments, as well as a willingness to debate problems rather than attempt to resolve them Secretary of Europe. Metternich put the question bluntly in 1823: “Must European politics be subjected to a representative diplomatic system? Would the most delicate problems be settled by meetings of 40 or 50 Minister-Delegates, independent of each other, voting by a show of hands, reaching, by means of a majority that would often be problematical or inadmissable, decisions on matters which an intimate meeting of 3 or 4 governments, experienced in prudence, barely manage to settle satisfactorily?” Metternich’s Comments on the Circular Despatch of the Württemberg Cabinet, January 2, 1823, NP IV, pp. 30-1. 39  MM I, p. 37. On Castlereagh’s role, see Webster, Castlereagh II, pp. 29-73; Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, pp. 200-12.

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by an immediate recourse to force. In short, the conference system upheld the Confederation by requiring that each state receive permission from the others before embarking on a course of action which might destabilize the peace. By dealing with specific issues as they arose, Metternich hoped that each conference could cover the matter at hand in considerable detail and from a variety of perspectives.40 To Metternich, the greatest advantage of this program of frequent meetings between the powers was its ability to resolve conflicts in a preventative, rather than post-facto, manner. The Vienna conference was an example of the latter: it sought to restructure European politics in the aftermath of a catastrophic war. Metternich’s progressive political outlook led him to regard the necessity of such “reconstructive” meetings as epitaphs on shortsighted statesmanship: with proper management, the wars they resolved should never have started. In Metternich’s view it was more rational—and politically advisable—to deal with potential threats to the peace before they became overwhelming. For this reason, preventative diplomacy was the form, as well as the objective, of the conference system. Supremely confident in his own diplomatic abilities, Metternich placed almost unlimited faith in the capacity of rational statesmen to resolve virtually any obstacle to continental peace. As he euphorically remarked at the Congress of Laibach in 1821, “Is there anything in the world which today can take the place of ink, pens, a conference table with its green cover, and a few greater or smaller bunglers?”41 Following this logic, Metternich argued that frequent consultations among the Powers would reinforce the bonds of treaties that united them, and would therefore not only “enforce” or “guarantee” the peace by the efficient resolution of disputes, but would strengthen the Confederation by reducing competition among individual states for primacy. According to Kant and Metternich, the threat of a general war destructive to all powers acted as “Nature’s guarantee” that rational statesmen would find their interests best secured through cooperation and compromise rather than the unpredictable fortunes of war.42 The delicate machinery of the Confederation of Europe, the first practical attempt at “European” government, was designed to integrate all states 40  As he noted later in life, “For a conference of Powers to be of use, it is in the first place necessary that the object of the meeting should be precisely defined...Next, it needs to be well organized, for without this, meetings quickly turn into real anarchy”. CM to Apponyi, January 25, 1832, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 121. Metternich’s emphasis. 41  Metternich journal entry, January 10, 1821, MM III, pp. 480-1. 42   Kant made this point in “Perpetual Peace” (1795). Reiss, ed., pp. 108-14.



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into a system based on law, reciprocity, and respect for each other’s interests. This zealous adherence to the formula of the conference system informed Metternich’s approach to international relations after 1815, and was the source of his early impressive success and later overwhelming failure to establish and preserve a “European” foreign policy in the competitive universe of the postwar state system. A Review of Metternich’s Theory of European Order Metternich’s theory of international relations was anchored on the idea of “political equilibrium”. This concept, which was an extension of eighteenth century federalist theory, led Metternich to conclude that the states of Europe should be structured in a legally-regulated system in which each would possess sovereignty but would be regulated at the supranational level by mutual respect for interests as well as the restraint inherent in such a legally constituted political system. This vision was was completely distinct from the competitive, militaristic, and anarchical milieu of eighteenth-century statecraft. Metternich’s theory of international relations was heavily indebted to Kantian ideas of universality and cosmopolitanism and shared assumptions about the utility and practicality of a general European peace. It was, without question, a highly normative interpretation of world politics. Metternich promoted Wilhelm von Humboldt’s idea of “the limits of state action” rather than the vigorous pursuit of selfish objectives in which the autonomy of the state was considered sacred. This idea informed his diplomacy throughout his career and was the source of both his stunning successes up to 1820 and his eventual disillusionment later. As Srbik concludes, in Metternich’s statecraft “theory and action were in balance”, and the latter was consistently directed towards achieving the goals set by the former.43 Few statesmen of the eighteenth century were more faithfully wedded to the philosophical program of the late Enlightenment than Metternich. Castlereagh, impressed with his broad view of the international system, called him an “Inveterate Theorist” of politics, a view shared by most of Metternich’s contemporaries yet surprisingly by few modern observers.44 Metternich approached international relations  Srbik, Metternich II, p. 559.  Castlereagh to Charles Stewart, 19 January 1821, text of letter in Webster, Castlereagh II, p. 600. 43 44

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from a legalistic and cosmopolitan perspective. He condemned the old “Cabinet diplomacy” and the idea of the balance of power as insufficient guarantors of political stability, and supplanted them with an idea of a general and perpetual continental peace achieved and maintained through the rule of law and the pragmatic recognition that it served the interests of all states. Unlike Jefferson, who was deeply attached to his native Virginia, Metternich never considered himself purely an Austrian, or a German, but rather a European. It was not without justification that Metternich could inform Wellington in 1824 that “Europe”, and not his adoptive Austria, was his true “fatherland”. Metternich’s lasting contribution to the study of theories of international relations was his reliance on the principle of a confederal and cooperative states-system regulated by the principle of collective security. This permanent alliance could, in Metternich’s view, accomplish what the traditional coalition system could not: successfully insure a lasting and enlightened peace in Europe.45 The Confederation would be supported and enforced by the “conference system”, which would resolve disputes proactively through diplomacy rather than war. If this logic became the institutional basis for European politics, he doubted that a serious external threat would ever arise within the European system. Metternich, in short, worked to restructure completely the methodology of eighteenth century diplomacy. He rejected militarism, distrusted the balance of power, condemned standing armies, and never tired of pointing out the dangers of narrowly “particularist” statesmanship. This was a restatement, and practical refinement, of the earlier logic of Erasmus, St. Pierre, and Kant; but Metternich’s diplomacy marked the first time that it had ever been tried in practice. It is indeed appropriate, therefore, to speak of Metternich’s statecraft as emblematic of a conceptual and practical “transformation” in 45  It should also be noted that Metternich conceived of international politics in truly global terms, and frequently commented on the rise of the United States and its effect on Europe. He noted to Kaiser Franz during the Latin American revolts in 1819 that “for Europe there remains nothing more to do than to watch the fire [in Latin America] burn, the results of which must necessarily strengthen the power of the United North American States to an incalulable extent. As things stand now and in the foreseeable future, America can in five years get to where it otherwise would have taken two centuries”. He was, with the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine four years later, proven quite right. CM to KF, August 24, 1819, HHSA: St.V., Carton 219, folio 153-4. In a commentary of November 1823 which no doubt would have met with Jefferson’s approval, Metternich declared that “the interest of the United States of America is commercial, one of aggrandizement, an extension of their power: it is a purely material interest”. CM to Baron Karl Vincent, November 26, 1823, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 257.



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the methodology and objectives of European diplomacy. The idealism of the late Enlightenment, inculcated in Metternich since his adolescence, as well as his recognition that the endless cycles of war that characterized eighteenth century politics needed to be conclusively— and irrevocably—arrested informed his approach to the issue of postwar order at Vienna in 1815.46 Metternich’s goal was no less ambitious than those repeated in the endless stream of “peace projects” of the eighteenth century, but his means of attaining it were considerably more pragmatic. It is impossible to separate this “transformation” from the philosophy of the Enlightenment, as the peace of 1815, although long villified by nationalists hostile to Metternich’s cosmopolitanism, represented an attempt to translate these norms into practice.

 See Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 579-81.

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Chapter III Metternich and the International System (2): The Workings of the Conference System and the Collapse of the European Confederation, 1815-1822 “A principle is something”, Metternich noted to Tsar Alexander in 1820, “but it acquires real value only in its application”. Indeed, the task of translating his idea of a European Confederation into a workable agenda for European politics consumed Metternich’s diplomatic labors following the Congress of Vienna. For a short while it appeared that his efforts would be successful. From 1815 to 1822 the conference system worked well because the four wartime allies had a common interest in carefully monitoring events in France as well as reaching a general settlement on the dispensation of central Europe. Indeed, the preliminary negotiations for the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818 went so smoothly that Metternich regarded the episode as a vindication of his philosophical approach to politics. “The evidence of Reason being entirely on our side”, he exulted, “our triumph was bound to follow”. Yet as the political relations of the five Great Powers slowly deteriorated after 1820, Metternich was eventually left alone with his “system”. Absolutely certain that his ideas and formulas were correct, Metternich became their most zealous, and eventually sole, advocate in an age marked by a resurrection of competitive state ambitions and exaltation of nationalist identities.

  CM to Tsar Alexander, December 15, 1820, MM III, p. 471; CM to Esterhazy, May 20, 1818, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 113.

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The conference system operated effectively in a period of dramatic change and uncertainty in international relations, when the Powers had a common interest in shaping a new framework for political interaction as well as in redefining national interests. During this period of adaptation following a quarter-century of general war, the powers existed in a condition of temporary harmony and cooperation. By 1822, if not earlier, this new pattern had been interpreted and assimilated by the powers, specifically Britain and Russia, which then revived the traditional rivalries and ambitions that had characterized European politics since the Peace of Westphalia. Metternich’s ultimate failure in international politics stemmed from his conviction that this temporary arrangement—the result of specific and immediate postwar circumstances—could become permanent and institutionalized. If he did indeed recognize the fact that his hopes were exaggerated (and there is evidence that he did by the early 1820s), he certainly refused to act on it. He remained faithfully wedded to the rational and liberal ideas of the late Enlightenment which were coming under increasing attack in the age of romanticism and nationalism. Thus Metternich became the servant of a theory of international relations which, given the lack of shared assumptions among the statesmen of Europe, proved inadequate to the task of insuring “perpetual peace”. Although Metternich claimed later in life that “I made a point of never colliding with the impossible”, he came perilously close to doing so in international politics in the 1820s. This chapter will examine the sources of Metternich’s frustration in foreign policy and trace the slow demise of his experiment with a “confederal Europe”. For purposes of analysis, the traditional “conference by conference” approach prevalent in most diplomatic histories will be avoided in favor of a conceptual examination of Metternich’s efforts in an attempt to determine a consistent philosophy underscoring his diplomatic initiatives. In short, we will see how the collapse of Austrian cooperation with Britain and Russia, the “poles” of the European confederation, ultimately destroyed Metternich’s plans for continental harmony. An Overview of the Conference System, 1815-1822 Between 1815 and 1822 there were six major conferences among the Great Powers as well as several smaller ministerial meetings. The first, and arguably most important, of these was held at Aix-la-Chapelle in the 

 CM to Louis Veuillot, January[undated] 1850, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 80.



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autumn of 1818. This meeting led to the formal conclusion of peace with France and the withdrawal of Allied occupation forces. Through this convention France was included in the European Alliance, and with this development the Alliance became truly comprehensive, with all five powers united under its auspices. This, of course, was the objective Metternich had worked for since the Peace of Fontainbleau in 1814. In 1819 the Carlsbad Conference was convened to discuss nationalist uprisings in the German universities and it led to the promulgation of the controversial Carlsbad Decrees, which will be discussed in detail in chapter 4. Through its Final Act, the Vienna Conference of 1820 augmented the structure of the German Confederation and placed Metternich’s creation on firmer political and legal ground. The Congress of Troppau of November-December 1820 presented a formula for intervention in the domestic affairs of a state—in this case, Naples—to maintain the workings of the equilibrium. The Congress of Laibach, which assembled in January 1821, continued and extended the scope of the Troppau discussions to cover the whole Italian Piedmont region. Finally, the Congress of Verona, which met in August 1822, analyzed the problems created by the Spanish revolution and the implications for the New and Old Worlds. This meeting was to the last of the postwar congresses, and marked the end of the European Confederation as a practical political entity. Metternich’s diplomatic strategy throughout this period rested on a single basic principle: that of preserving the delicate general peace of 1815. The purpose of all of these meetings was defuse potential tensions between what Metternich called “the representatives of different interests”. By “gaining results through controversy”—meaning the give-and-take of the conference table—the foundation of the European state system would be strengthened and its confederal nature enhanced. The German Confederation, 1814-1815 The German Confederation was the first in a series of efforts designed to secure the political equilibrium of Europe and build the continental federation Metternich envisaged. The German states, or, as Metternich referred to them, “so many princes of varying sizes set down in the center of Europe haphazard[ly] and without any guarantees”,   For an overview of these conferences, see Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, ch. 13; CM journal entry, [undated]1850, NP VIII, p. 549.

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were critical to the European equilibrium given their strategic position. Since Frederick II’s invasion of Silesia in 1740, the German states had remained critical in the diplomatic strategies of the Great Powers. The Bavarian crisis of 1778-80, which had almost led to a general European war, had seemingly underscored the need for some administrative structure to replace the decaying Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon, who had no desire to be forced into the position of Vergennes in 1778-1780, recognized this and made an early attempt at German unity through the mechanism of the Confederation of the Rhine of 1806, but this entity collapsed with the French Emperor’s power. Metternich was convinced that the small states of Germany required some form of administrative unity to prevent the risk of invasion or manipulation by an external actor. Removing Germany as a likely target of outside intervention and in essence neutralizing its international position required that these states be incorporated in a Swiss- or American-style confederation which would insure stability without compromising the internal autonomy of its constituent members. If left alone, Metternich argued, these principalities “could only give rise to a state of restlessness and turmoil for themselves and for their neighbors”. However, “if these same princes are united by a federal bond based on general and individual repose they will immediately be strong from their combined strength, and will therefore form a bulwark against the passions and opinions of an aggressor”. In short, a German confederation was a defensive construct, designed to reduce the risk of tensions in central Europe by supplanting the stabilizing role played by the Holy Roman Empire before the Thirty Years’ War. It is essential to note, however, that Metternich flatly rejected a formal unification of Germany along the lines used by Bismarck from 1866-71. In his view, such “absolute unification” would only heighten competition among individual German states fearing a loss of prestige and privilege, as well as create a new power “bloc” potentially threatening to the four continental powers. This was the danger which Vogt had warned against in 1792, and Metternich applied this cautionary principle directly into the practice of his German diplo  CM to Lebzeltern, February 23, 1820, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 171. For a cogent overview of German politics in this period, see J.G. Gagliardo, Reich and Nation: the Holy Roman Empire as Idea and Reality, 1763-1806, [Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press: 1980]; G.P. Gooch, Germany and the French Revolution, [London: 1920]; Kraehe, MGP I, chs. 2; 7-9 and II, entire; and James J. Sheehan, German History 1770-1866, [Oxford: 1989], chs. 4-7.   CM to Lebzeltern, February 23, 1820, cited in Bertier Metternich, p. 171.



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macy in 1814-15. The German Confederation and Italian League—a similar arrangement for the Italian states which was never realized— were microcosms of Metternich’s approach to the broader political dynamics of Europe. Regional federations would support the broader one he hoped to build on a continental scale by preventing the rise of new states driven by nationalist ideology as well as deterring expansionist impulses on the part of surrounding states. Metternich believed that the peace of Europe, as well as the rights of its sovereign states, were best preserved through such a decentralized, yet institutionalized arrangement. Metternich’s formula for a German confederation was, on its face, quite basic. Each German state, including Austria and Prussia, would be represented in a Diet, or Assembly, which would be headquartered in Frankfurt. The laws of the Assembly would be binding in regard to foreign policy, but state would retain considerable autonomy in the conduct of internal affairs. This would provide for a more cohesive administration than the old Holy Roman Empire, but a lesser one than an independent and unified German state. Besides creating a considerably more stable central Europe than had existed before 1815, Metternich’s proposal was designed to reduce the incessant Austro-Prussian rivalry in Germany by tying both of these powers to the new organization and giving them an interest in its success. Both states, he reasoned, had a common interest in preserving stability in this region, and deterring Russia from west  The French Foreign Minister Rene-Louis d’Argenson had come up with a similar idea for an Italian League at the height of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1745. D’Argenson’s reasoning was that if France sponsored and orchestrated such a League it would gain primacy in Italy—a consistent French objective since the time of Louis XIV—without war. It may be safely assumed that Metternich was familiar with the broad outlines of this policy. However, Metternich’s motive for advancing this idea sixty years later was quite distinct from d’Argenson’s. His goal was to strengthen the German and Italian states and thus prevent them from beoming objects of Great Power spoliation as well as the loci of future European wars. See Arthur Hassall, The Balance of Power, 1715-1789, [London: 1929], pp. 188-192. On Metternich’s proposed Italian Confederation, see Karl Grossman, “Metternichs Plan eine italienischen Bundes”, Historische Blätter, [4(1931): 37-76].   For a brilliant analysis of the structure of the German Confederation, see Kraehe, MGP II, chs. 11-13. His article on “Austria, Russia, and the German Confederation, 1813-1820”, extends the discussion up to the Vienna Final Act. Helmut Rumpler, ed., Deutsche Bund und deutsche Frage 1815-1866: Europäische Ordnung, deutsche Politik und gesellschaftlischer Wandel im Zeitalter der bürgerlich-nationalien Emanzipation, [Munich: 1990], pp. 264-80. See also Dupuis, Le Droit des Gens, ch. 5 and Robert D. Billinger, jr., Metternich and the German Question: States’ Rights and Federal Duties, 1820-1834, [Newark, DEL: University of Delaware Press: 1991].

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ward expansion. Moreover, Metternich lacked the innate Prussophobia of Kaunitz and Maria Teresa, as in his view the Austro-Prussian cooperation against Napoleon had largely mooted the War of the Austrian Succession. The real contest for political influence in postwar Germany, according to Metternich, was not between the Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns, but between Austria and Russia. At the Congress of Vienna Metternich perceived himself as a buffer between Castlereagh and Alexander on the German question. Castlereagh preferred a “strong Germany” to offset any possible Franco-Russian entente, while the Tsar argued for the continued fragmentation of the German states so that some of them would look to St. Petersburg for protection against the competing German powers. This would be especially desirable, and practicable, in Russian calculations since neighboring Poland was already a Russian protectorate. Metternich was convinced that the Tsar would not go so far as to risk a war over Germany, but would attempt to solidify Russia’s position there by “carefully rallying the smaller powers round him, by setting himself up as their protector whenever they find themselves involved in discussions with one of the Great Powers, by continuing to make his influence felt in all parts of Europe through the numerous agents he employs, by using all means to increase the number of his partisans, and finally by maintaining a standing army ready to march from one side of the world to the other”. Alexander’s attempt to remove Metternich from the negotiations on Germany at the Congress of Vienna only confirmed the Austrian Minister’s suspicions of the Tsar’s motives. In Metternich’s view the equilibrium could not operate effectively if Russian troops were stationed in the center of Europe under the control of a mercurial Tsar. Consequently, he designed the German Confederation to satisfy the requirements of theory and political expediency. By keeping German affairs in the hands of the two German powers, Austria and Prussia, Russian influence in this region could be minimized. Yet the loose, decentralized structure of the German Confederation gave France and Russia few    Webster, Castlereagh II, p. 195: “[Castlereagh] had always regarded a strong Germany as a necessity to the balance of power in Europe. This was exactly the opposite of the view of the Tsar, who had naturally desired a Germany where Russian influence could find its opportunities”. This thesis and an analysis of the respective positions of postwar Prussia and Russia is vigorously presented and defended by Kraehe in “Austria, Russia, and the German Confederation”.   CM to Esterhazy, February 15, 1819, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 242. This important incident was reported by Castlereagh in a despatch to Liverpool on November 14, 1814, PRO: F.O. 92, v. 141.



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reasons to regard “Germany” as a potential threat. By compensating Alexander in Poland and by obtaining Castlereagh’s support, Metternich was able to negotiate effectively with Prussia and translate his idea of a German league into political reality. As Srbik notes, Metternich’s efforts in Germany were based on the assumption that “nothing could better insure the repose of the Great Empires than the interposition of another political body suited to diminish the natural friction between great masses”.10 The dispensation of Germany, the first test of Metternich’s theory of European order, was handled as smoothly as could be expected. All of the powers had an interest in the affairs of central Europe, and none, not even Russia, doubted that some form of institutional structure for this region was desirable to supplant the Holy Roman Empire and Confederation of the Rhine. For fifty years it stood, depending upon one’s viewpoint, as a monument to the federative idea or as a “prison” for German national feeling and self-determination. Metternich masterfully gained the upper hand for Austria in the Diet and thus insured that the League would remain largely under his supervision and direction. Realizing that Austria, for the sake of its own security as well as for that of the continent, could not “allow her rivals to replace her influence” in Germany, Metternich fashioned a legal arrangement suitable for the preservation of central European harmony.11 Nevertheless, this system would later create problems for Metternich. By asserting Germany as the linchpin of the equilibrium Metternich became, much to his later discomfort, a hostage to future political developments in the region. He was occasionally forced to take action, as at Carlsbad in 1819, seemingly inconsistent with his broader political program in order to safeguard Germany from perceived Russian threats.12 The Russian problem remained a serious obstacle to Metternich’s design for peace and, in conjunction with the rift with Great Britain in 1822, contributed to the demise of Metternich’s idea of European federation.  Srbik I, p. 157. On this point see also Rieben, pp. 37-55. He argues that federal Switzerland was the immediate prototype of the German Confederation and Italian League, a point often missed by modern interpreters. Switzerland’s stable political order, which gave extremely wide powers to the cantons while retaining a central identity, was a concise and practical illustration of the type of order Metternich envisaged for Germany, Italy, and even the Habsburg Monarchy. See below, ch. 5. 11   Kraehe, MGP I, p. 323. 12  See chapter 4 for this analysis. 10

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The Russian Dilemma and the “Holy Alliance”, 1815-1820 Metternich was forced to confront the unfortunate reality that Tsar Alexander of Russia had his own plan of European order in the postNapoleonic period. The Tsar was originally a disciple of the French Enlightenment, but shortly before the Congress of Vienna Alexander became influenced by the mystical philosophy of Baroness Julie von Krüdener and, partly as a result of his relationship with her, he began to invoke religious ideas as the basis of the European state-system.13 To Metternich, this indicated that the ruler of the strongest military power in Europe was at least partially guided by abstract principles of Christian messianism as well as a coherent strategy for furthering Russia’s aims on the continent. Though Metternich boasted that “nothing that comes from St. Petersburg or that arises out of the doubtful points of Russian policy is surprising to me”, he nevertheless was constantly preoccupied with the unstable character of the Tsar and his foreign policy in the postwar period.14 For the equilibrium to be preserved and the Confederation to operate effectively, Russia had to be successfully integrated into the political system of Europe. However, the expansionist designs Alexander cast on Germany had to be blocked. The best way to accomplish these mutually reinforcing policies, Metternich reasoned, was to actively involve Russia in the European Alliance. With Russia in the European Confederation, the Alliance, Metternich noted to Esterhazy, could “act as a brake on the actual or potential plans of the Emperor Alexander”. Conceding Poland to Russia as a protectorate was an important step in the process of placating Alexander and keeping Russia within the framework of the European Confederation. Castlereagh also agreed with Metternich’s policy of “checking” Russia under the aegis of the European Alliance. However, Alexander soon demonstrated that he had a fundamentally different vision for the direction of the European Confederation.15  On Alexander’s intellectual leanings, see Patricia K. Grimstead, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I: Political Attitudes and the Conduct of Russian Diplomacy, 18011825, [Berkeley: 1969], ch. 2; W.P. Cresson, The Holy Alliance, [Oxford: 1922], pp. 1-36. On Alexander’s relationship with the German mystic, see E.J. Knapton, The Lady of the Holy Alliance: The Life of Julie de Krüdener, [New York: 1939]. 14  CM to Lebzeltern, April 6, 1817, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 85. 15  On this point see Grimstead, ch.1. CM to Esterhazy, March 26, 1817, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 137. On Castlereagh’s reaction to Alexander and his diplomatic 13



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In September 1815 Alexander proposed the idea of a special alliance among all European states structured along religious lines. This document, which became known as the “Holy Alliance”, was an attempt to place a rival scheme of European federation beside Metternich’s—one which appealed to Christian moral principles as its basis. While Metternich emphasized a purely secular structure of federalism, Alexander held up the New Testament as a standard for a Christian polity in Europe. The draft treaty, with its copious references to absolutist principles, was repugnant to the British Parliament, and Castlereagh could not consent to it even as a means of pacifying the Tsar.16 Metternich’s options, however, were considerably wider. Privately he referred to the document as a “loud-sounding nothing” and “a meaningless shibboleth”. Yet he realized that the Tsar’s draft was a largely rhetorical program and contained few provisions which challenged, in a practical sense, Metternich’s own theory of European order. Thus he believed that he could consent to the Tsar’s idea without any real cost to his agenda, and as result at least ostensibly retain Russian participation in the Confederation. After negotiating several modifications with Alexander, Metternich advised Kaiser Franz to sign it, believing he had found a way to appease the Tsar without serious cost to his own diplomatic objectives. Metternich regarded the Holy Alliance as pure propaganda, but his own project of European federation was his “ark of the covenant” and had to be preserved at all costs.17 By placing his imprimatur on the Holy Alliance, however, Metternich became increasingly identified with its ideology of conservative and even reactionary absolutism rather than the liberalism he had espoused prior to 1815. He recognized this fact later in life and it caused him much discomfort, but he categorically dismissed any pretensions to despotic rule or ideological solidarity with the Tsar. “The ‘Holy Alliance’”, he wrote, “was not an institution to keep down the rights of the people, to promote absolutism or any other tyranny. It was only the objectives, see Kraehe, MGP II, ch. 3; Webster, Castlereagh I, ch. 5; McGuigan, ch. 18; Phillips, Confederation of Europe, ch. 2; Cresson, Holy Alliance, pp. 1-36. 16  For Castlereagh’s reaction to the Tsar’s proposal and his criticism of it, see F.H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, pp. 200-210; Webster, Castlereagh II, pp. 58-60. 17  CM, “Autobiographical Memoir”, MM I, p. 262; CM to Apponyi, January 26, 1839, cited in Bertier, p. 133. Castlereagh reported to Liverpool that Metternich was agreeing to the treaty purely as a tactical means of appeasing Alexander, since the latter’s “mind was affected”. Castlereagh to Liverpool, September 28, 1815, PRO: F.O. 92, v. 141. This point is effectively argued by Bertier in “Sainte-Alliance et Alliance” which provides a perceptive appraisal of Metternich’s reaction to the Holy Alliance.

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overflow of the pietistic feelings of the Emperor Alexander, and the application of Christian principles to politics”. When questioned later by one of his ambassadors whether he ever regarded Alexander’s project as a threat to his own, Metternich sardonically replied “No, because what in effect is nothing can only produce nothing”.18 Nevertheless Metternich was unable to retain Russia in his confederal system for very long. Russia, he noted in 1828, was “a power always coveting, and consequently always uneasy”. Metternich could do little to restrain this expansionist tendency, especially after Alexander’s death in 1825. Checked in central Europe, Russia turned to the Balkans as an exploitable sphere of influence, as it had after the Seven Years’ War. Moreover, in 1820 Metternich went to great lengths to prevent Alexander from suppressing the Spanish revolution, fearing the results of a march of the Russian army across the continent.19 Earlier, at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, Alexander had attempted to reincorporate France into the European system under the guise of an exclusive Franco-Russian agreement, a proposal that caused Metternich considerable alarm. He quickly averted this problem by stressing that France should be simply integrated into the existing Quadruple Alliance, which would be amplified into a pentarchical system. Consequently, exclusive alignments between individual states would be unnecessary and redundant.20 Through this method, Metternich diluted 18  CM, “Autobiographical Memoir”, MM I, p. 262; CM to Apponyi, January 24, 1839, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 133. In a scathing commentary to the Russian Foreign Minister Karl Nesselrode in 1817, Metternich attacked the idea of “mysticism” and distingished his own foreign policy from “religious ones”. CM to Nesselrode, August 20, 1817, MM III, p. 68. In private correspondence to his mistress, Princess Dorothea Lieven, Metternich referred to Nesselrode’s successor, Capodistrias, as “St. John”. The inference, of course, was that the Tsar considered himself to be Jesus Christ. The nickname was popular in London, Lieven reported, and she told Metternich that “I have not robbed you of the credit of inventing it”. Princess Lieven to CM, February 23, 1822, in Peter Quennel, ed. and trans., The Private Letters of Princess Lieven to Prince Metternich, 1820-1826, [New York: 1938], p. 158. 19  CM to Esterhazy, December 18, 1828, MM IV, p. 552. For Metternich’s opinions on Russian policy during the Spanish Revolution, see Kraehe, “Foreign Policy and the Nationality Problem in Austria, 1800-1867”, Austrian History Yearbook, [3(1967): 336], p. 20. 20  In characteristic and revealing fashion, Metternich expressed his reasoning on this question in mathematical notation. Looking at the European state system in 1818, Metternich illustrated the different proposals of Russia and Austria for integrating France into the Alliance in the form of an equation: “Present state of the Alliance: 4 Future state of the Meetings: 5 (1) Prince Metternich’s Proposal: 4+1=5 (2) Russian Proposal: 1+1+1+1+1=5



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Alexander’s projected entente with France and at the same time strengthened the foundations of his projected Confederation, and this episode was the brilliant zenith of Metternich’s constructive diplomacy after 1815. By 1825, however, the Austro-Russian wartime cooperation and initially positive postwar relations had hardened into animosity. In 1827 Russia defeated the Ottomans at Navarino Bay, an event used to great effect by pan-Slavists in Russia in their efforts to distance St. Petersburg from the European Confederation. Moreover, Metternich regarded the Decembrist uprising of 1825 as prophetic of a general revolution in Russia and for that reason became increasingly attentive to, and wary of, political developments in that state.21 As Russia slowly drifted out of the orbit of the European Confederation, Metternich was left with little more than pronouncements of ideological solidarity as a means of influencing Russian policy. Not only were these of little use at the time in persuading Alexander and Nicholas to refrain from imperial ambitions in the Balkans, but in the longer term they have also done more to hurt Metternich’s reputation than to help it. Taken at face value, Metternich’s program of ostensibly supporting the retrograde political philosophy of the Russian court appears inconsistent with his professed philosophical inclinations. The Holy Alliance and the “Confession of Faith” to Tsar Alexander, a document usually considered representative of Metternich’s political theory, are commonly regarded as “absolutist” texts.22 But here again, context becomes vitally important. When these documents are viewed in their proper perspective—as rhetorical devices designed to appease the Russian government—another image of Metternich, that of a pragmatic statesman bent on preserving European Positive results of these proposals: Given (1) 5:4+1 Given (2) 5:2+3” The “2”, Metternich concluded, would be France and Russia. cited in Bertier Metternich, p. 138. 21  On Metternich’s reaction to the upsurge of Russian nationalism and the nascent Pan-Slav movement, see CM to KF, December 9, 1827, MM IV, p. 432; for Metternich’s prophetic commentary on the likelihood of revolution in Russia, see CM to Baron Karl Vincent, January 27, 1826, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 245. 22  For the text of the infamous “Confession of Faith”, which Metternich wrote to convince Alexander that he too was concerned about the Spanish revolution, see MM III, pp. 453-76. As he wrote in his letter to Kaiser Franz explaining the draft, “I beseech Your Highness to read this short diplomatic composition in the sense in which I have drawn it up, which is known to Your Majesty”. Franz was well aware of Metternich’s policy of co-opting Alexander through appeals to an ostensibly shared ideology. My emphasis.

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peace, emerges. The Holy Alliance was a mere instrument of policy to Metternich; its declaratory principles never governed his behavior. To maintain the equilibrium and advance the cause of the Confederation Metternich was willing to go to great lengths, and he was, by his own admission, remarkably flexible as to modalities. Yet his policy, however shrewd it may have appeared between 1815 and 1820, was insufficient for maintaining Russian cooperation in Europe. A resurgance of particularism in the 1820s, bringing with it a renewed temptation to empire, governed Russian foreign policy in these years. What was worse was that the same pattern that had soured Austro-Russian relations also influenced policy towards England after 1822. The Collapse of the Anglo-Austrian Entente, 1820-1825 Metternich regarded British participation in the postwar Confe­ deration as essential to its success as an organizing instrument of world politics. Though aware of Britain’s historical proclivity of avoiding involvement in continental affairs, he intended to persuade the British Cabinet that “there should be no clashing of interests between England and Austria; that, on the contrary, their great political interests are common to both”.23 His efforts were successful while Castlereagh directed foreign policy; but George Canning’s accession to the Foreign Ministry in 1822 rendered Metternich’s plan for a permanent European federation untenable. Castlereagh—the man Metternich regarded as “my second self”— was convinced that British security was best preserved through active participation in European politics. For this reason, Castlereagh endorsed and helped shape Metternich’s idea of a workable European Confederation. He and Metternich developed the formula of the conference system together, and Castlereagh fully agreed with the Austrian Minister’s contention, articulated before 1809 but restated constantly over the years, that “a permanent common interest binds these two great states, one essentially maritime and having no continental possessions, the other continental and without colonies and having therefore no political interests requiring sea power to defend them”.24  CM to Esterhazy, August 7, 1825, MM IV, p. 223.  CM journal entry, August 25, 1822, MM III, p. 591. The best treatment of Castlereagh’s foreign policy is Webster’s two-volume study. Kissinger provides an overview of its salient points in A World Restored, ch. 3. Also see Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit 23 24



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Nevertheless domestic politics began to condition Castlereagh’s approach to Metternich’s European Alliance after 1815. Parliament grew increasingly weary of Britain’s continental connections, especially those with “autocratic” states, and the isolationist sentiment widespread in England after twenty five years of war slowly eroded Castlereagh’s political support. Despite his best efforts, Castlereagh proved unable persuade Parliament that Britain could not afford to retreat into isolation, pursue colonial ambitions, and largely ignore the continent as it had after 1763. An active European policy, he reasoned, could help prevent the rise of a potential threat on the continent. Not until the premiership of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s would the British Parliament hear such acrimonious debates on Britain’s relationship to a projected European Union. Metternich complimented his ally’s support in 1824, noting that “If since 1815 we have not seen Great Britain go forward on lines directly opposed to those of the Alliance, the direction she has shown has been due to the influence of one man alone”.25 But by late 1820 this one man, faced with mounting opposition in Parliament, began to distance himself from Metternich’s project. Liberals were outraged over the Troppau Protocol and the threat of “reactionary” intervention to suppress the cause of national self-determination. In his State Paper of May 5, 1820, Castlereagh attempted to assuage Liberal fears and criticized the objectives of the Confederation. “The Alliance of the Great Powers was an [sic] Union for the reconquest and Liberation of a great proportion of the Continent of Europe from the military domination of France”, he argued. “It never was, however, intended as a Union for the Government of the World, or for the Superintendance of the Internal Affairs of other States”. This logic represented a startling public reversal from Castlereagh’s conception of the European Alliance in 1814-1815, and demonstrates the extent to which he was pressured by Parliament to reorient England’s continental policy.26 of Peace, pp. 200-10. CM to Neumann, February 5, 1843, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 212. On Metternich’s early relationship with Castlereagh, see Buckland, Metternich and the British Government. 25  On Castlereagh’s political efforts to convince Parliament to support his “activist” European policy, see Webster, Castlereagh II, ch. 9; CM to Lebzeltern, March 5, 1824, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 147. 26  State Paper of May 5, 1820, cited in Barnes, Nationalism, Industrialization, and Democracy, pp. 10-13. He continued by outlining his “parsimonious” view of Britain’s position in continental affairs: “When the territorial Balance of Europe is disturbed, [Great Britain] can interfere with effect, but she is the last Government in Europe, which can be expected, or can venture to commit herself on any question of an abstract

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Metternich, observing this slow British withdrawal from the Alliance, could do little except vent his frustrations to his ambassadors and occasionally, in private correspondence, to Castlereagh himself.27 This, however, only increased the pressure on Castlereagh who, in light of mounting physical and political problems, was not in a position to accept Metternich’s criticisms gracefully. While Castlereagh was privately convinced that Metternich’s formula for European politics was correct, and would place Britain’s Continental policy on a firmer footing than it had enjoyed since the Seven Years’ War, he was unable to muster the political support necessary to maintain Britain’s place in the conference system. Worse, he was forced to take action anathema to his own views to placate the majority in Parliament. For this and a host of other personal reasons that contributed to his mental illness in 1822, Castlereagh committed suicide on August 12 of that year amid charges of personal misconduct as well as political duplicity. Metternich quickly recognized that Castlereagh’s death signaled a tectonic shift in European foreign policy. “Much that would have been easy [to accomplish] with him will...require fresh labor”, he observed on August 25, while preparing for the Congress of Verona. His distress over the loss of Castlereagh was compounded by the appointment of Canning as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Canning intended to limit British involvement in continental affairs and came to be regarded by Metternich as “the man whom Providence hurled upon England and Europe like a malevolent meteor”.28 Unlike Castlereagh, who believed England could best insure its security by participating in the Confederation, Canning zealously guarded London’s autonomy and preferred to remain free of permanent alliances. He placed the interests of England ahead of those of “Europe”, which to him was a meaningless “abstraction”. Moreover, his course was politically popular in an age of isolation and in a state whose rapidly industrializing economy was more dependent on imperial trade than the continent for its support. His view of Britain’s role in Eurocharacter...We shall be found in our place when actual danger menaces the system of Europe; but this Country cannot, and will not, act upon abstract and speculative Principles of Precaution”. For an excellent analysis of Castlereagh’s domestic and foreign policy in these years, see Ivan Scott, “Counter-revolutionary Diplomacy and the Demise of Anglo-Austrian Cooperation, 1820-1823”, The Historian, [34(1972): 465-84]. 27  In one such outburst to Esterhazy Metternich declared that “the more I reflect upon them, the more I find that there is no Government more egotistical than that of England”. March 5, 1819, cited in Webster, Castlereagh II, p. 181. 28  CM journal entry, August 25, 1822, MM III, p. 591; CM to Esterhazy, August 19, 1827, MM IV, p. 392.



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pean politics was in direct opposition to Metternich’s, and there was little the Austrian Minister could do except villify the Foreign Secretary’s motives. Canning’s foreign policy, he noted to Apponyi, was an exercise in “egotism”: “He behaves like the captain of a ship flying a recognized flag but leads the life of a buccaneer”.29 Upon reading Canning’s famous speech of December 12, 1826, in which he argued that British diplomacy would be based on the formula “Every nation for itself and God for them all”, Metternich was horrified. “It comes close to delirium”, he noted to one of his envoys. He realized that this was intended as a direct attack on his idea of a confederal Europe, and Canning’s endorsement of naked national self-interest could not have been further from Metternich’s cosmopolitan inclinations. Canning’s declared support for nationalism and particularism—which was well-received in the United States by the Monroe Administration in 1823—was contrary to the spirit of Metternich’s institutionalized and ordered European system. Much to Metternich’s annoyance, Canning did not analyze political events in the context of a long-term strategy aimed at preventing conflict but preferred, on the whole, to act on popular opportunities of the moment. “The political sense of the English”, Metternich grumbled in 1829, “does not excel in foresight”. The loss of English participation in the European confederation, along with that of Russia, proved to be the ultimate undoing of Metternich’s theory of world order. In 1824 he ruefully admitted to Lebzeltern that “the old Quadruple Alliance has reached the end of its existence with the settlement of the last problem in France that was common to all four courts”.30 The political pressure exerted by anti-continentalists and imperialists in Parliament against Castlereagh’s diplomacy proved insurmountable, as the Foreign Secretary tragically understood during his final illness. Indeed, Walter Alison Phillips advanced the thesis that even had Castlereagh lived he would have been forced to pursue essentially the same policy as Canning only in a somewhat more “conciliatory” fashion, or would have resigned.31 Evidence for this argument can be readily found in the period 1820-1822, when Castlereagh began to slowly 29  CM to Apponyi, January 29, 1827, cited in Bertier, p. 219. The best analysis of Canning’s diplomacy is by Harold V. Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning, 18221827, [London: 1925]. 30  CM to Count Heinrich Bombelles, January 8, 1827, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 219; CM to Nicholas Trautmansdorff, November 3, 1829, ibid., 203; CM to Lebzeltern, March 5, 1824, ibid., p. 147. 31  Phillips, Confederation of Europe, p. 244.

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extricate, or at a minimum insulate, Britain from the Alliance. Canning merely followed a political course of least resistance and de-emphasized foreign policy except in relation to imperial concerns. In the case of Britain, the irresistable force, in the shape of Metternich’s idea of a confederal Europe, met the immovable object in the form of Parliamentary objections. The result was a slow stagnation of political relations between England and Austria which, when coupled with similar difficulties with Russia, only compounded Metternich’s increasing frustration and alienation in Europe in the late 1820s. The Conference System and the Problem Of Intervention, 1815-1820 Despite the increasing reluctance of Britain and Russia, the greatest of the European Powers, to cooperate with Metternich’s formula for European order, it nevertheless met with some successes in the period 1815-1822. The German question was carefully resolved and was considered by Metternich as the first of a series of “sub-federations” which were to be microcosms of the broader European Alliance. He envisaged similar arrangements for Italy and the Balkans, but these were thwarted by bureaucratic infighting in Vienna. Moreover, Metternich insured that France was admitted to the Confederation under the auspices of all of the Powers and not simply through a Franco-Russian understanding, as Alexander had intended. Given the novelty of the experiment, and the complexities of postwar politics, these first steps on the road to European union were no mean achievements. Yet Metternich’s system had greater ambitions for Europe than this. The conference system was intended to serve as an effective vehicle for preventing, or at a minimum providing a coordinated response to, revolutionary upheaval or threats to the European peace. This required formulating a coherent theory of and legal basis for external intervention in the affairs of sovereign states. If it was absolutely necessary to intervene in the political affairs of a state to eliminate a potential threat to the stability of the Alliance, Metternich was adamant that it be a collective one based upon a decision of a council of ministers. This problem proved deleterious to the efficient workings of the conference system as often the Powers were unable to reach a common position as to what constituted a real “threat” to European peace. We will examine Metternich’s response to the problem of revolution in detail later, but a brief overview of this issue is necessary to round



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out an analysis of his theory of international relations. In the five years following the Treaty of Vienna, an equal number of revolutionary disturbances erupted in Italy, Germany, Spain, Latin America, and Greece. Metternich analyzed these events at the level of their impact on the European state system. His chief concern was maintaining the political equilibrium of the continent, and in cases where he believed revolutions to be of little consequence to this end, he did little, if anything, to suppress them. Given the perennial nature of the threat of revolutionary disturbance to Metternich’s vision of the European state system, his analysis of the function of intervention warrants evaluation. Metternich realized that intervention was a critical and often dangerous tool of foreign policy. His reading of history informed him that more often than not it was merely an instrument used by the Great Powers to maintain friendly governments on their borders or as a prelude to physical annexation. But even when undertaken for the selfless cause of maintaining general peace, intervention was still problematic given its tendency to act as a catalyst of, rather than an anodyne to, social unrest by providing fuel to a revolutionary party and its propaganda. Consequently, Metternich made it clear that his own position on the question of intervention was a rational and “minimalist” one. He argued in 1830 that “the right to intervene, of course, only extends to those cases in which public order is so disturbed by violent revolutions that the government loses the power to honor the treaties which bind it to other states, and the latter find their security, or their very existence, threatened by the currents and disorders that are inseparable from all such upheavals”. The barometer Metternich used to determine whether intervention was warranted was the potential danger to the Alliance system if it were not forthcoming. Despite their ostensible differences at Troppau, Metternich’s reasoning was parallel to Castlereagh’s, who flatly asserted that “It is important...to observe that to generalize such a principle [of intervention] and to think of reducing it to a system, or to impose it as an Obligation, is a Scheme utterly impracticable and objectionable”. In short, both statesmen assessed the issue of revolution strictly on a case-by-case basis and from the vantage point of maintaining general European peace.32 Much has been made of Metternich’s draft of the Preliminary Protocol of the Troppau Declaration of November 1820, which stated that 32  CM to Count Ludwig Fiquelmont, October 31, 1830, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 74; Castlereagh’s State Paper of May 5, 1820, cited in Barnes, p. 12.

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any power had the right, upon consulting with the others, to bring “errant” states back into the Alliance by force if necessary.33 In this particular instance, Metternich sought to suppress a revolution in Naples, fearing that such a revolt could undermine the fragile political equilibrium in Italy. Since his proposed “Italian League” and his program for administrative reform in Italy (which included significant concessions to “national feeling”) were rejected by the Kaiser in 1817, Metternich feared that the Italian states were breeding grounds for nationalist agitation. As a result, he was forced to take action at Troppau in 1820, as at Carlsbad the year earlier, to address a political problem he had foreseen several years before. We shall examine the intricacies of the Italian problem later, but it is clear, by Metternich’s own admission, that all he wanted at Troppau was a green light to restore the political equilibrium in Naples. Since Italy, under the provisions of the 1815 treaty, was Austria’s legitimate sphere of influence, Metternich was convinced that the Neapolitan issue could, in Castlereagh’s phrase, be treated as “a special rather than a general question”.34 Metternich’s language in the Troppau Protocal was not as intrinsically hostile to national self-determination as his critics claimed, a fact that even Castlereagh privately affirmed. Nowhere did he claim a universal right to intervene; such action would be considered only if “the basis of a [state’s] existence” was threatened. A change in government was not in itself significant to the workings of the Confederation; a dramatic change in the direction of a state’s foreign policy, on the other hand, was a different matter. Metternich’s formula for intervention was deceptively simple: if an aggressively nationalistic party seized power and threatened the territory of another state, it was a cause for alarm. If it did not have sufficient resources to do so or preoccupied itself with internal matters, it was not and should, in his words, be “left alone”.35 33  See Phillips, Confederation of Europe, pp. 218-34; Schmalz, Versuche einer gesamteuropäische Organisation, pp. 59-96. 34  As reported by Esterhazy in a despatch to Metternich on September 16, 1820. Castlereagh went on to claim that the Naples revolt should be handled as “an Italian question rather than a European, and consequently as in the sphere of influence of Austria rather than the Alliance”. Webster, Castlereagh II, p. 271. Emphasis Esterhazy’s. 35  Even though the British condemned the principles of the Troppau Protocol, Castlereagh realized that it was not as serious as Liberals in Parliament made it out to be. He approved the Austrian intervention in Naples and considered it a local matter. Despite the diplomatic formalities and “official” protests from London to appease Parliament, Anglo-Austrian relations were, as Ray Bridge observed”,not affected at all” by Troppau”.Allied Diplomacy in Peacetime: The Failure of the ‘Conference System’, 18151823”, in Alan Sked, ed., Europe’s Balance of Power, 1815-1848, [London: 1979], pp. 34-53. See also Scott”,Counter-revolutionary Diplomacy”, and Webster, Castlereagh II,



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One of the unfortunate consequences of Metternich’s legalistic theory of European order was that in this model the margin for changes in the direction of individual foreign policies was exceedingly slim. Any serious disruptions at the local level could ultimately threaten the broader Great Power dynamic. He was forced to take an exceedingly detailed view of world politics and was constantly involved in a “policy of motion” to forestall any threat to the delicate general peace. Metternich was forced to frantically plug leaks in the bulwark of the state system he created to prevent the flood of disorder, revolution, and national aspirations from overrunning it. The key problem was determining where the structural weaknesses of the dam lay, which areas required special fortification, and which ones were sufficiently secure to absorb the trickles of revolution without major consequence. He anticipated Bismarck’s dictum that the great wars he feared were caused by Great Powers acting in regions considered of vital interest. Consequently Metternich judged governments, and based his foreign policy, upon the external behavior of states. Thus he found greater support in the period 1815-1822 for his theory of European order in “liberal” England than “monarchical” Russia. Indeed, the Troppau Protocol was an anomaly in Metternich’s approach to international relations. He flatly opposed intervention in Spain in 1820, Latin America in 1823, France in 1830, Poland in 1846, and Lombardy in 1848. In all of these cases Metternich took the view that no intervention was better than a mismanaged or misconceived one. In the case of the Greek revolution, Metternich watched it carefully but in the end advised his representative there to “let it alone”.36 He consistently opposed intervention in the affairs of sovereign states except in the cases of Germany and Italy, which he considered vital to the European equilibrium. He justified his non-interventionist policy by appeals to the principles of the Alliance as well as on the pragmatic assumption that “It is not by means of foreign cannon that a revolution ch. 6; Phillips, Confederation of Europe, p. 222; Schmalz, Versuche einer gesamteuropäische Organisation, pp. 70-1; Kraehe”,Foreign Policy and the Nationality Problem”, p. 21. 36  CM to Stadion, March 26, 1821, MM III, p. 525. “I answer for it”, he continued”,that the Emperor Alexander has as little to do with that now as with the revolution in Piedmont...This affair must be looked upon as placed beyond the pale of civilization”. This suggestion makes it clear that Metternich regarded the actions of the Great Powers, especially Russia, within the Confederation as far more critical than local insurrections themselves. The possibility of a disturbance in the political equilibrium, rather than an ideological hatred of “revolution”, conditioned his response to these crises in the 1820s.

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in a big state can be stamped out. In such circumstances, what such a state has been unable to prevent by its own strength will not be prevented by outside force”.37 Attempts to do so only compounded instability, confusion, and the likelihood of a general European war over spheres of influence. Hence Metternich cannot be considered an active interventionist, the Troppau Protocol notwithstanding. To him, as with Jefferson, revolution was a part of political existence, and the effects of revolutionary change on the international system needed to be carefully controlled and managed, but not at the risk of jeopardizing the overall equilibrium of the continent. Often the harmful effects of a revolution were in direct proportion to the means expended against it. Cementing the European Union was the idee fixe of Metternich’s diplomacy, and marginal uprisings and local contests for power neither impeded nor preoccupied him in his efforts to complete this task. The conference system, although it could not eliminate the competitive state rivalries that ultimately destroyed it, was temporarily effective as an organizing structure of international relations in the period 1815-1822. At most of the postwar conferences Metternich was able to shape a limited consensus among representatives of the powers and to direct, albeit loosely, the political affairs of the continent. No doubt his early success in Germany gave him a measure of overconfidence that later proved fatal, but he was sincere at Troppau and Laibach in expressing his conviction that the Powers could work out a common position on intervention that placed their common interest in general peace foremost in diplomatic calculations. Yet despite the fact that the conference system was the de facto “arbiter” of Europe for five or six years following the Congress of Vienna, it soon proved unworkable in this role following the decision taken by Britain and France to act independently of the European Alliance and pursue policies dictated strictly by national interest and the assertion of power rather than law. An Assessment of Metternich’s Attempt To Form A European Union, 1815-1825 Metternich’s postwar diplomacy was centered on the assumption that all of the Great Powers should base their foreign policies upon respect for treaties, international law, and a willingness to cooperate in  CM to Apponyi, May 27, 1837, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 73.

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securing peace rather than competing in a manner sure to undermine it. This assumption proved false. His faith in the ability of cosmopolitan principles to influence and direct the affairs of state proved inflated, and when this worldview was challenged he could do little except attack the policies of his adversaries, such as Canning and Alexander I. He never doubted that his formula for European order was rational, enlightened, and viable, and he echoed its principles throughout his long career at the Foreign Ministry. Metternich’s adherence to Kantian ideas of cosmopolitanism and federalism made him appear reactionary in the age of nationalism, when the ruthless pursuit of self-interest was considered “liberal” and “progressive”. But Metternich refused to elevate the particular above the general, and continued to view states as parts of a functioning cosmopolitan society, with rights and duties to each other, and considered ethno-cultural nationalism to be completely irrational and selfish. As late as 1831 he proposed a “resumption” of the old Alliance on the basis of ideas that were by that time almost twenty years out of date.38 He condemned the predatory diplomacy of the eighteenth century and worked to secure the rights of small as well as large states in a “rational”—and regulated—international system. The Anglo-Russian rivalry ultimately destroyed Metternich’s legalistic view of a European state-system. Russia’s desire for gain in the Balkans and Asia, coupled with Britain’s disdain for involvement in continental politics, drove a wedge between the victorious coalition partners of 1815. To keep the British and Russians under the aegis of the Confederation, Metternich could do little except declare ideological solidarity with Alexander and Nicholas—a fact which has done much to injure his reputation—and attempt to persuade the British that it was in their interest to support the Alliance. These tactical measures cost him a great deal in time, effort, and personal prestige. In Enno Kraehe’s metaphor, as Metternich’s harmonious “Concert of Europe” dissolved into a cacophony, he simply repeated his own theme.39 Indeed, Castlereagh’s characterization of Metternich as an “Inveterate Theorist” of international politics is extraordinarily apt. He was always prepared with rational arguments to support a position, and attempted to build consensus around the ideas of peace, cosmopolitanism, and shared interests. Yet he was so devoted to this “philosophical” as38  See CM to Fiquelmont, February 11, 1831, for this argument, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 151. 39  Enno Kraehe, “The Concert in the Age of Metternich: Variations on a Theme”, paper for the Southern Historical Association, Charleston, S.C. November 11, 1983.

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sessment of politics that he underestimated the depth of competitive ambitions on the continent. His fixation with “positive ends” blurred his perception of the fluidity of world politics and the acquisitive and at times irrational nature of state behavior. Metternich was, in short, too clinically rational and, at times, too conspicuously idealistic to institutionalize the system he envisaged for Europe. Its objectives were too comprehensive and its workings too precise to operate in a competitive environment or to transform such a system to one of permanent harmony. His skill in diplomacy carried him far at conferences, and his systemic grasp of politics was unequalled by any of his contemporaries. Metternich’s attachment to the principles of the late Enlightenment was both the source of his diplomatic triumphs in the immediate aftermath of the war but also the root of his ultimate frustration as the postwar period of adjustment wore off and the states of Europe regained their strength. When these efforts failed miserably after 1825, Metternich’s “grand design” was largely eviscerated, and his diplomacy shifted from its initial progressive and constructive character to an increasing defensiveness that would endure until 1848. After 1825 no major conceptual program in international politics emanated from the Ballhausplatz, and Metternich tirelessly, yet futilely, attempted to hold on to as much of the legal and political arrangements of 1815 as he could. By the 1830s, realizing the unworkable nature of his enterprise yet unwilling to completely surrender its vision, Metternich began reminiscing about the “golden age” of enlightened state relations in the years 1815-1822, and this nostalgia would characterize most of his political writings until his death in 1859.

Chapter IV Metternich and the State (1): The Algebra of “Stability”

Investigations of Metternich’s political thought have tended to focus almost exclusively on international politics. To be sure, foreign policy was the Austrian Chancellor’s area of speciality and the basis for his reputation as the leading political figure in Europe in the early nineteenth century. Nevertheless, Metternich understood that Austria’s domestic and foreign policy were inextricably linked. As a student of eighteenth century political theory as well as a responsible minister of state, Metternich devoted considerable time to analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the political structure of the Habsburg Monarchy and proposed several ambitious reform programs for its administration. These efforts were predicated upon the same assumptions that guided his diplomacy: that an approach to politics must be conditioned by reason, and that the task of the statesman was to create and preserve a stable order essential for gradual social progress. As a prerequisite for elucidating Metternich’s attempts to reform the Monarchy, this chapter will introduce Metternich’s response to the cardinal question of political theory posed by Aristotle: “What is the best form of government?” It will examine the extent to which his search for a social order that was at once stable and progressive was influenced by the political thought of the Enlightenment. Indeed, even Metternich’s bitterest opponents on both the right and left conceded that his ideas on government were the

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product of a rigorous and scholarly (if in their view misguided) intellectual system. Metternich’s “Conservatism” and the Quest for Stability Discussions of Metternich’s political thought almost invariably begin with comparisons with leading “conservative” statesman such as Burke, Disraeli, or Bismarck. Scholars such as Robert Kann, Klaus Epstein, and Reinhold Aris have all sought to place Metternich within a uniquely German tradition of conservative thought, even though Metternich emphatically distanced himself from this camp. In the attempt to establish Metternich as a precursor of later nineteenth century intellectual trends, the eighteenth century cosmopolitan and universal character of his opinions are frequently neglected. “Conservatism”, for want of a better word, had more of a descriptive than prescriptive meaning for Metternich. He did not believe in, or act on, the rigidly reactionary principles associated with the Ultras in France or Zelanti in Rome. He considered these to be largely negative movements, directed towards overturning an accomplished fact, the French Revolution, and their agendas were as utopian and unrealizable as that of the Jacobins and Paineites. On the contrary, Metternich’s political efforts were consistently positive and constructive in nature. It is important to understand that Metternich’s political philosophy was primarily directed towards establishing an ordered system of law and social obligations which could insure security and progress without the risk of radical or reactionary disturbances. While most Restoration-era conservatives based their agendas on romantic interpretations of the past and traditional forms of social   The poet Heinrich Heine, an incessant critic of Metternich’s policies throughout the early nineteenth century, admitted in 1852 that he admired the Austrian Chancellor even though he disagreed with him on politics. “One always knew where one stood with him”, Heine wrote, “one knew that he did not act out of either love or petty hatred, but grandly in the spirit of his system”. cited in Robert A. Kann, A Study in Austrian Intellectual History from Late Baroque to Early Romanticism, [London: 1960], p. 293.   See, for example, E.L. Woodward, Three Studies in European Conservatism, [London: 1929], Part I. On the “German-centric” view of Metternich’s thought, see Kann, Austrian Intellectual History, ch. 5; Aris, History of Political Thought in Germany, 1789-1815, [London: 1936], pp. 260-3; 304-6; and Klaus Epstein, The Genesis of German Conservatism, [Princeton: 1966], to cite but three of the most conspicuous examples.



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structure, Metternich was more forward-looking. He attacked blind traditionalism and, unlike Burke, did not consider religious or nationalistic ideologies as the cement of society. His goal was to fashion a balanced constitution for Austria within which political activity could occur in ordered and predictable social environment. Metternich sought not the reconstruction of some nebulous idyllic past but rather the creation of a stable pattern for future political interaction: “to govern”, he noted succintly, “is to keep on one’s feet and go forward”. He maintained that institutions should generally remain consonant with the “spirit”—that culture which had developed historically—of the state, but hoped that this “spirit” could be changed over time by the rule of law itself as well as by the gradual (and guided) evolution of the constitution. “History teaches us that the old must give way to the new”, Metternich wrote in 1837. “As a general rule old rights carry greater weight than new ones; but when they lack force, they have less youthful vigor than new laws”. To Metternich, therefore, change was an inevitable part of social and political existence, and to attempt to retard this process was futile and self-defeating. This conviction formed the bedrock of Metternich’s conception of the state, informed his approach to the fundamental problems of government, and separated him from the romantic conservatives in Germany and Britain and the reactionaries in his own government who clustered around Kaiser Franz II in the latter half of his reign. It was self-evident to Metternich that “order always ends up in its rightful place; states do not die like individuals, they change themselves. The task of [the statesman] is to direct this change and lead it in the right direction”. While deeply committed to an ideal of an enlightened government that would respect the freedom of the individual, Metternich believed that universal obedience to law and a respect for and devotion to the maintenance of the social order should be the first task of citizen, legislator, and sovereign. In the social sphere, Metternich’s emphasis on this idea led him to place the same imprimatur upon the importance of law as he did in the international system. In his view, only a political system operating ac Indeed, Metternich frequently excoriated the “mania” of religious-conservative movements that blossomed after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and noted to Lebzeltern that “every kind of reaction is false and unjust, and it is only given to wise and consequently strong men to be neither the dupes of false philosophers nor the sport of false religions”. CM to Lebzeltern, June 28, 1817, MM III, p. 58; CM journal entry, undated, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 46; CM to Apponyi, January 22, 1837, ibid., p. 37.   CM, notes of a letter to Count Schwarzenberg, [undated] 1849, NP VIII, p. 468. 

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cording to clearly and rationally defined principles could survive—let alone advance itself—over time. However, these laws—and, by extension, the constitutional fabric of the state—would always be subjected to stress in periods of dramatic social change, such as those which had occurred in France. Therefore it was not enough, according to Metternich, to simply advance the doctrine of “stability” as an ideology; rather, the statesman must work towards this goal with a series of reforms, initiatives, and a solid constitutional foundation. Addressing Tsar Alexander—whom Metternich feared was relying too heavily on abstract ideological conceptions of government—in 1820, he made it clear that an internal “equilibrium”, as well the international one, required a balance between innovation and preservation. “The Governments”, he wrote, “in establishing the principle of stability, will in no ways exclude the development of what is good, for stability is not immobility”. Maintaining this delicate balance required arduous and often nearly impossible demonstrations of political dexterity, and led Metternich to emphasize a policy of “motion” that would condition his domestic policy for three decades. “Conservatism implies an active policy”, he declared in 1849. As in the international arena, Metternich saw it as incumbent on himself to act as the catalyst for this process of “balancing” the competing demands of social development and social order. His own opinions regarding the precise mixture of these elements in a society varied, depending on the subject and circumstances under consideration. In a masterful elucidation of his social philosophy, offered in 1817, Metternich argued: that a reliable government, resting on enlightened principles, set forth in the clear words which are the necessary consequence of clear ideas, smoothes the way for all good, while, on the contrary, a confusion of ideas in the government stands in the way [of progress], is not to be denied. Besides, there is no human institution which, if it rests on clear fundamental principles, does not improve as it progresses; while a tendency to still greater inability and confusion is the inevitable result of a contrary position.

  Srbik, “Ideengehalt”, p. 249. Kant, of course, took the same view. See “Theory and Practice” (1792). Reiss, ed., pp. 73-86.   CM to Tsar Alexander, December 15, 1820, MM III, p. 470. Metternich’s emphasis. CM to Freiherr Karl von Kübeck, December 31, 1849, NP VIII, p. 288; Srbik II, p. 560. Metternich noted that “standing still is...in reality moving backwards and hence is reaction”.



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Elements of Kant’s teleological conception of history are clearly visible in this passage. To Metternich, progress was impossible without order, and “order” had to constructed on a rational and legal foundation and applied universally, first within individual states, and eventually in Europe as a whole. Revolutionary appeals for absolute freedom, Metternich argued, would only end in tyranny. Thus the real nature of Metternich’s “conservatism” was his belief that only a political system in which stability was maintained by clearly defined constitutional authority could best protect the interests of citizens, and his insistence that law is the best guarantor of rights is unremarkable when viewed in the context of the stress placed by most eighteenth century theorists on ordering principles and social harmony. To be sure, he supported limited monarchical government, but as we shall see this was the result of his conviction that this form of administration was best suited to the political culture of Austria. Metternich’s commitment to order and equilibrium in society was given practical expression in his views on the method by which constitutions should evolve. Metternich and the Nature of Social Change Metternich was convinced that receptivity to change was an essential attribute of any well-ordered and enlightened political system. However, he painstakingly observed that there were practical and political limits as to how far society could advance, and how dramatically the political structure of a state could be revised, in a given period of time. For this reason he was careful to point out that major changes in the political system, when they were either unavoidable or desirable,   CM to KF, October 27, 1817, MM III, p. 54. In the 8th Proposition of his “Idea for a Universal History”, Kant argued that “the history of the human race as a whole can be regarded as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about an internally—and for this purpose also externally—perfect political constitution as the only possible state within which all natural capacities of mankind can be developed completely...this encourages the hope that, after many revolutions, with all their transforming effects, the highest purpose of nature, a universal cosmopolitan existence, will at last be realized as the matrix within which all the original capacities of the human race may develop”. Reiss, ed., pp. 50-51. On Kant’s idea of the teleology of history in general and its relationship to the Enlightenment, see Yirmiyahu Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History, [Princeton: 1980]. This 1784 essay is included in Vogt’s reading lists at Mainz and it may be safely inferred that Metternich encountered it while a student. See Stargardter, ch. 4.   Rieben, Prinzipiengrundlage, p. 11. This, of course, is a lesson Metternich drew from the Terror in 1793-4.

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should be calculated in advance and introduced in a gradual manner so as not to undermine the constitution of a state or encourage extremist factions. He observed in 1821 that: Useful or necessary changes in the legislation and administration of states should emanate from the free will, the thoughtful and enlightened conviction of those to whom God has given the responsibility of power. Any departure from this line of conduct necessarily leads to disorder, confusion, and evils much more insupportable than those which it pretends to cure.

Metternich followed this prescription throughout his career. As late as 1852, he offered a commentary on a speech by Sir James Graham, a supporter of Peel in the British Parliament, in which Graham had argued that the genius of statesmanship consisted of offering concessions to adversaries at the most urgent hour of need in a political crisis. Metternich wrote that in contrast to that of Graham, “my view of statesmanship is entirely different”. The true test of statesmanship, Metternich reasoned, “consists of governing so as to avoid a state of affairs when concessions become necessary”. Metternich approached politics with a constructive long-term agenda. He attempted, as best he could, to think several moves ahead, and understand and address potential problems before they evolved into destabilizing revolutions. As a result he was convinced that the policy outlined by Graham—that of majestically offering concessions at the moment when public attention was riveted by a crisis—was a shallow, and dangerous, conception of politics. As Srbik notes, Metternich thought it extremely dangerous to offer reforms at the hour of need or allow them to be “yielded from force”.10 In the midst of a crisis the discontents that prompted demands for change were usually so manifest that they rarely disappeared even after concessions were granted. Metternich believed that a more constructive approach should promote liberal policies even before they were immediately “required”, so as to prevent future problems from arising. In short, the conservative goal of securing the foundations of the state could best be met by an innovative and progressive policy. Here he differed, as we shall see, from Jefferson, who took an essentially static view of politics and sedulously avoided controversial initiatives. But to Metternich reforms were not “concessions:; rather, they were initia CM, circular despatch to Austrian Ambassadors, May 12, 1821, MM III, pp. 5456; CM journal entry, [undated]1852, NP VIII, pp. 262-3. 10  Srbik, “Ideengehalt”, p. 260. 



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tives designed to reduce stress in the political system and bring its government into line with “enlightened” and progressive opinion. When change appeared to be merely a concession to a vocal faction, the political process of a state was weakened and the legitimacy of its government discredited. For this reason Metternich, like many eighteenth century theorists, preferred an enlightened monarchy to a democracy. In the latter, under his interpretation, public demands drove policy and the capability for long-term planning and measured change was greatly reduced. In a monarchical government, on the other hand, a minister or council might remain in power for decades, and consequently have the opportunity to enact an ambitiously conceived, yet gradually implemented, policy of reform without fear of transitory changes in the mood of an electorate. Metternich told an American visitor in 1836 that: I labor chiefly, almost entirely, to prevent troubles, to prevent evil. In a democracy you cannot do this. There you must begin by the evil, and endure it, till it has been felt and acknowledged, and then, perhaps, you can apply the remedy...I have always, however, been of the opinion expressed by de Tocqueville, that democracy, so far from being the oldest and simplest form of government, as has been so often said, is the latest invented, and the most complicated. With you in America it seems to be un tour de force perpetuel. You are, therefore, often in dangerous positions, and your system is one that wears out fast.11

Metternich held an evolutionary view of the state, and advocated sweeping reforms within the social structure of the Monarchy, including a complete restructuring of the government of the Empire. He was a champion of equality before the law in a state commonly regarded as absolutist. He abhorred mercantilism and favored the introduction of liberal economic theory and a free market economy to the Habsburg dominions, believing, with Smith and Cobden, that this would make his state a more competitive and stronger actor in world politics.12 He rejected the opinion put forward by the Interior Ministry in the 1830s  CM to George Ticknor, July 1, 1836. Ticknor, ed., The Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor, Vol. II, pp. 17; 14. Metternich’s emphasis. It is possible that Metternich was alluding to the Nullification controversy of 1832 in South Carolina and the political storm over the Bank issue that raged throughout much of the Jackson Administration. 12  Metternich expressed his commitment to upholding “equality before God and the law” in a letter to Louis Sant-Aulaire on September 15, 1840, NP VI, pp. 417-18. He told Ticknor on June 26, 1836 that he favored abolishing Austria’s protective tariff on manufactures and claimed that had he been a minister in the Cabinet of Joseph II when it was adopted, he “would have advised against it”. Ticknor, p. 7. 11

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that the economy remain tightly under government supervision. “Generally speaking”, he wrote in 1844, “I am against enterprises promoted by the state. They are seldom successful and when they are, the cost never fails to be greater than if it had been left to private individuals”. Far from being an absolutist, Metternich actually sought to reduce the size and scope of the government in Austria.13 Moreover, Metternich was a champion of an expanded political role for women in a state commonly identified with religious and social traditionalism. He considered the political rights of women to be a matter of course and part of the overall “enlightenment” of humanity. He had read and largely approved of Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 essay, and, unlike Jefferson, believed that a woman was as capable as a man of conducting the business of state. He argued as early as 1811 that there was no reason a woman could not be foreign minister of Austria, and wished that his daughter Marie could serve on the Council of State. Moreover, he advocated a complete education for women, especially in politics and the humanities, unlike Jefferson, who as we shall see preferred that women cultivate “ornamental amusements” and barred them from entering the University of Virginia. Metternich relied heavily on female advisers, and his correspondence with them is filled with minutely detailed discussions of political affairs. Nevertheless he realized that his liberal views were alien to the majority of the Austrian aristocracy, including Kaiser Franz. Convinced, as he observed in 1846, that “the masses are and always will be conservative”, Metternich was personally committed to a reformist and liberal social agenda, but implemented it in a gradual and prudent fashion.14 Metternich’s Assessment of Constitutional Theory In his approach to constitutional theory, Metternich closely followed Montesquieu’s argument that constitutions had to be “natural”; that is, they had to reflect the political culture of the state they governed. In a paraphrase of Montesquieu’s analysis, Metternich defined “natural” as 13  CM to Hummelauer, August 3, 1844, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 50; Haas, Metternich, Reorganization, and Nationality, p. 68. In his report on administrative reform to Kaiser Franz on October 27, 1817, Metternich argued that in an “administration too internally complicated, disorder must ensue”. MM III, p. 74. 14  On Metternich’s view of women’s rights and education, see Corti, Metternich und die Frauen, vol. 1. CM to Apponyi, December 4, 1846, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 58.



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that form of government which had “demonstrated viability over time”. Thus he argued that the absolute monarchy of Russia, as well as the republican federation of the United States, were both “correct”, as they suited the historical and cultural development of these states. “I defend with equal sincerity”, Metternich announced, “the most diverse institutions which exist in my country, the monarchical liberties in other empires, and even the republican regime in the [Swiss] canton of Vaud”.15 Metternich looked to political culture as a barometer in constitutional questions. As a result, much of his distrust of revolution was based on the belief that while new forms of government could easily be declared on paper, the political culture of a state changed only gradually. When the two came into conflict, the result was instability, and he invoked France in the years 1789-99 as an illustration of this point: in the ensuing factional violence, the public demand for order led to the introduction of military dictatorship. Thus to him the Declaration of the Rights of Man was merely a “charter”, not a constitution. Since political culture was “natural”, and since “nothing that is part of the forces of nature, whether in the moral or material sphere, lends itself to human regulations”, then the legislator must be cautious in implementing reforms even if they are empirically sound and prescribed by a rational process. “What would we think”, Metternich continued, of a charter in which were drawn up, side by side with the Rights of Man, the laws of gravity, and of centripetal and centrifugal force, even if it were only in the form of a declaration giving them recognition?...the mistake of thinking that certain objects can give substance to the provisions of the law leads to the contraction, if not the complete destruction, of the subject of the experiment”.

“A charter”, he noted succintly in 1820, “is not a constitution; this forms itself with time alone, and it always depends on the judgment and will of the governments to direct the development of the constitutional manner of government”.16 15  Rieben, Prinzipiengrundlage, p. 11; CM, cited in Kraehe, “Metternich’s Theory of Revolution”, paper read for the Southern Historical Association, Miami Beach, FL, Nov. 9, 1962, p. 3. 16  CM journal entry, undated, cited in Bertier, Metternich, pp. 41-2; CM to Count Berstett, May 4, 1820, MM III, p. 425. It should be noted that Metternich also subscribed to Montesquieu’s theory of climatology, which maintained that the influence of geographic factors could aid or impede the development of societies. In December 1820, Metternich wrote that “the first needs of society are and remain the same, and the differences which they seem to offer find their explanation in the diversity of influences,

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While aspects of Metternich’s approach to constitutionalism seem congruent with Burke’s organic theory of the state, the Austrian Chancellor based his views on a more scientific and rational system of inquiry than Burke, who looked to tradition for guidance. Metternich was more inclined to reform, and saw a greater role for reason in statecraft, than Burke. Yet he agreed with him that only a constitution that reflected the “spirit of the nation and the fundamental conditions of a stable government” could survive and improve over time. To introduce new forms of government in a dramatic and uncalculated fashion would only result in instability. Hence he condemned those who, in his words, “put themselves above all restraint. The world and civilization might not have existed before them, and past experience has little or no value for them compared to the value of those experiences which lie ahead”.17 In adopting this rational and scientific approach to government Metternich was squarely in the mainstream of eighteenth century political theory. He tended to interpret politics in terms of continuity, but at the same time relentlessly stressed the need for change. He dismissed claims that successful “revolutions” had been accomplished in a short period of time. For example, the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 in England “succeeded”, in his opinion, because it merely confirmed an idea and political structure that had existed for a generation. In an unusual comparison with the Catholic Church, he argued in 1835 that: The truth is that the revolution of 1688 had the same effect on the English constitution as the Reformation of the sixteenth century had on the State religion. The two events served only to spread a thin layer of varnish over an object which was full of cracks and which had suffered the ravages of time. It was a way of making it look new, but the appearance was deceptive. The varnish wears off in time, the old ravages appear, new ones are added to them and together they render the object to dust.18 acting on the different races by natural causes, such as the diversity of climate, barrenness or richness of soil, insular or continental positions, etc. These local differences no doubt produce effects which extend far beyond purely physical necessities; they create and determine particular needs in a more elevated sphere; finally, they determine the laws, and exercise an influence even on religions”. CM to Tsar Alexander, December 15, 1820, MM III, p. 456. 17  CM to Esterhazy, August 20, 1829, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 209; CM to the Duc de Decazes, September 8, 1819, ibid., p. 52. 18  CM to Esterhazy, June 28, 1835, cited in Bertier Metternich, p. 226. He claimed that the revolution came about because “the sovereign...had got himself into the sorry position of having to give up his throne and his country because he tried to introduce changes incompatible with the natural order”. CM to Esterhazy, July 16, 1821, ibid., p. 205. Ironically he criticized Montesquieu’s reading of the Glorious Revolution and con-



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In Metternich’s view “successful” revolutions—such as the American—largely restored a state of affairs which had existed before, while “unsuccessful” one such as the French were built on abstract ideas which had never been realized among the polity. Thus, to the question “what is the best form of government?” for a state, Metternich would likely have answered, “What is its political culture?” Reason could (and should) shape an agenda for the improvement of government and society, but “nature” suggested its limits. Metternich offered no blueprint for reshaping the constitutional systems of Europe; to him all of them had some value and all tended to reflect the needs of a particular society and worked to maintain a stable social order. Democracy and Absolutism in Metternich’s Thought Metternich amplified this concept of natural government in an interview with the Harvard legal scholar George Ticknor in 1836. The Austrian Chancellor impressed his guest with his firm grasp of political philosophy, and in the course of their conversation Montesquieu, Tocqueville, and the British empiricists were discussed at length. Invoking an Aristotelian formula, Metternich stressed that his goal was to be “moderate in everything”, and laughed at suggestions that he was an absolutist. He admitted that he was skeptical towards the immediate introduction of republican democracy in Europe, and invoked the constitutional crisis of 1791 in France to illustrate the futility of imposing this idea rapidly on the government of a state. In his opinion limited, or constitutional, monarchy was the best form of government for the type of statesmanship he advocated. Metternich argued that it was impossible to plan for the future in a democracy. “I labor for tomorrow”, he claimed, and only a government built on a stable foundation allowed this luxury. Moreover, he regarded democracy as a “dissolving, decomposing principle; it tends to separate men, it loosens society”. Monarchy, on the other hand, “tends to bring cluded that “Montesquieu had seen in England a balance of powers where in fact there was only an aristocracy which, in order to establish its power beside that of the throne, rigged itself out in cheap finery. This finery, beneath which aristocracy concealed its breastplate in 1688, has been taken over by modern liberalism”. CM to Apponyi, February 15, 1839, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 43. He gives the source as NP VII, pp. 337-9, but the passage does not appear in that space.

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men together, to unite them in compact and efficient masses; to render them capable, by their combined efforts, of the highest degrees of culture and civilization”. Metternich freely acknowledged that this system was suited for Austria—even though it could hardly be considered “efficient” in that context—and not for other states such as England or the United States. Following Montesquieu’s reasoning, he argued to Ticknor that “democracy is natural to you; you have always been democrats, and democracy is, therefore, a reality—une verité—in America”.19 The fact that republican government had existed in America since the colonial period meant that the structure and workings of that system were part of American political culture, and therefore it should “necessarily” rule that society. Kant assumed that a world of republican states would engage in peaceful foreign relations and thus insure perpetual peace. Metternich, as we have seen, believed this same goal could be reached if all states sublimated their particular interests to the broader good of the European federation. According to Metternich, any state, regardless of its form of government, could work towards promoting universal peace, and any state could undermine it: kings could have pacific intentions; republicans could be belligerent. Thus Metternich saw the importance of the constitutional question as more relevant to domestic than external policy, since he did not view war as rooted in the monarchical principle. According to Metternich, a diversity of constitutions in Europe was no impediment to perpetual peace, and actually contributed to preserving it. Metternich shared in the contempt most Enlightenment theorists expressed towards autocratic government. In his opinion, power should always be checked by law and institutional arrangements. Unlike Montesquieu, he did not believe that Britain went so far in this direction in 1688 as was commonly assumed, and he held a more favorable view of the American constitution than the English. When a government committed itself to arbitrary or autocratic rule, it not only defied the dictates of political equilibrium but only invited the revolutionary disturbances it most feared. “Absolutism is an element of anarchy”, he wrote in 1841, as it contained no stable formula for political interaction or for the expression of competing points of view. He never ceased to believe that public opinion—”that most powerful of all means”, as he put it in 1808—required “particular cultivation, a continued and sustained  Ticknor, pp. 12-18. His account of this fascinating interview should be read in full. In his discussion with Ticknor Metternich lauded the American constitution for its federative and balanced nature. 19



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[study], and perseverance” even on the part of statesmen in a monarchical regime.20 Any government that ignored the interests of its citizens, or that failed to correctly and promptly remove the causes of social discontent, was condemned to suffer the consequences of that neglect. Thus in 1817, as we shall see, Metternich drafted an ambitious reform program to prevent the rise of destabilizing nationalist ambitions in the Habsburg Monarchy. As a consequence Metternich dismissed all charges that he was an advocate, or servant, of absolutist government as ludicrous. No one knew better than he how ineffective the Austrian system of administration was in practice, or how paralyzed the central government in Vienna had become through bureaucratic infighting. “Nowhere exists less governmental absolutism than in our state”, he wrote, “and it could not appear without evoking a reaction similar to that which was created in our Empire during the reign of Emperor Joseph II”.21 The strains created by “Josephinism”, in Metternich’s opinion, were Austria’s security against despotic rule. He had carefully studied Joseph’s attempts to centralize the administration of the monarchy in the 1780s and attempted to undo as much of this work as possible. Thus Metternich shared the popular eighteenth century belief that technical and scientific progress would gradually undermine the foundations of absolutist governments. But his distrust of political extremism and his fear of violent disruptions of the social fabric led him to formulate a general theory of revolution that governed his response to political upheavals in Europe. Metternich’s Theory of Revolution Metternich’s ideas on political revolution were an extension of his more general theory of the state and the nature of social obligations within it. Devoted to the concepts of order and “equilibrium”, Metternich instinctively distrusted sudden and violent political uprisings. Since politics was governed by universal and immutable laws, changes in this delicate social arrangement threatened, as Metternich noted in 1822, “to introduce no other law between men than that of force and no property except that dictated by the victorious usurpations of the moment, which the next moment might dissolve”. Thus Metternich, like Kant, emphatically rejected a right of revolution on the grounds  Haas, p. 68; CM to Lord Beauvale, February 5, 1841, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 252; CM to Count Stadion, June 23, 1808, MM II, p. 226. 21  CM to Count Lützow, October 20, 1847, NP VII, p. 425. 20

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that no progress was possible, or individual interests safeguarded, in a chaotic environment.22 Referring to the Wars of the French Revolution, Metternich observed that “Peace” (in both its domestic and international forms) “does not exist within a revolutionary situation, and whether Robespierre declares external war against the châteaux or Napoleon makes it against the Powers, the tyranny is the same, and the danger is only more general”.23 Preserving the internal equilibrium of states, therefore, was a useful, but not sole, means of preserving the equilibrium created by their interaction in the international system. Both Kant and Metternich perceived this direct relationship between internal and external stability, and both regarded revolution as potentially disruptive to the universal political and legal order they hoped to build. Metternich’s approach to revolution was, in his own metaphor, that of a physician confronting a serious illness. In discussing revolutions Metternich made liberal use of the scientific literature he absorbed at Strasbourg, and he clinically assessed the causes, symptoms, and effects of this “contagion” on European politics.24 But his more fanciful descriptions of revolution were often largely rhetorical statements designed either to reassure foreign leaders (principally Tsar Alexander) that he was committed to a conservative policy, or to convince his sovereign to allow him more latitude to deal with a specific political crisis. Indeed, Metternich’s insights on the problem of revolution were neither striking in originality or clarity of expression, as much of these ideas had been expressed in dozens of eighteenth century political writings.  CM to Lebzeltern, September 5, 1822, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 256. In “Theory and Practice” (1792), Kant declared that “the power of the state to put the law into effect is also irresistable, and no rightfully established commonwealth can exist without a force of this kind to suppress all internal resistance. For such resistance would be dictated by a maxim which, if it became general, would destroy the whole civil constitution and put an end to the only state in which men can posses rights. It thus follows that all resistance against the supreme legislative power, all incitements of the subjects to violent expressions of discontent, all defiance which breaks out into rebellion, is the greatest and most punishable crime in a commonwealth, for it destroys its very foundations. This prohibition is absolute. [Reiss, ed., p. 81] Metternich used virtually the same language in condemning revolutionary uprisings. On Kant’s opinion of revolution, see Lewis White Beck, “Kant and the Right of Revolution”, Journal of the History of Ideas, [32(1971): 423-32]; Peter Nicholson, “Kant on the Duty Never to Resist the Sovereign”, Ethics, [86(1976): 214-30]; Reiss, “Kant and the Right of Rebellion”, Journal of the History of Ideas, [17(1956): 179-92]; and Dieter Henrich, “Kant on the Meaning of Rational Action in the State”, in Ronald Beiner and William James Booth, Kant and Political Philosophy: The Contemporary Legacy, [New Haven: 1993], pp. 97-116. 23  CM to Stadion, April 27, 1808, MM II, p. 205. 24  See Kraehe, “Metternich’s Theory of Revolution”, pp. 10-12. 22



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Fundamentally, Metternich argued that revolution was caused by a struggle between “two irreconcilable parties: those who have and those who want”. The danger was not from the “masses”; they, in Metternich’s opinion, were conservative, but easily misled by “error”. The real threat was from ideologues who manipulated them to achieve their own political ends. Most revolutions, consequently, were not about abstract ideas, but tangible and material political interests. “People can only conspire profitably against things”, he argued to Gentz in 1819, “not against theories”. The danger was that the majority could be swayed by demagoguery: “one can imagine”, Metternich observed in 1820, “that the good will of the multitude could easily be won over by anything which tends, in a false but facile sense, to place the individual above the law, to open up a wide field for every kind of ambition, to sanctify every passionate aim, and to confound all reasoning”.25 Once again, Metternich’s thought focused on the conflict between the “general” and the “particular”, and his political efforts were directed towards maintaining the supremacy of the former over the latter. How did he attempt to do this in the face of revolutionary agitation? The most conspicuous, albeit unimaginative, means of combating revolution was by repressing potentially subversive sects, such as the Burschenschaften in Germany or the Carbonari in Italy. In Metternich’s opinion this was an acceptable means of dealing with an overt and imminent threat to the state, but he did not, as Alan Reinerman notes, “deceive himself that repression alone could end the revolutionary threat. It would at best deal with the outward manifestations”.26 Efficient policing might eliminate a few insurrectionary pamphlets, a handful of terrorists, or several militant cells, but as an instrument of social policy repression was, in Metternich’s logic, a sign that a government’s legitimacy was rapidly eroding. In short, if conditions required a nearly totalitarian police state to restore order, then the fundamental basis of the constitution was cast into serious doubt. In these situations the revolutionaries’ indictment of the government was only given real substance, and the government itself—which had obviously not exercised foresight to chart a reformist social policy—placed itself in an indefensibly reactionary posture and deserved its fate. 25  CM to King Leopold of Belgium, January 1853, NP VIII, p. 529; CM to Gentz, June 17, 1819, MM III, p. 287. As a result Metternich maintained that “professors, either singly or united, are most unsuited to be conspirators”. CM to Esterhazy, March 23, 1820, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 54. 26  Alan Reinerman, “Metternich and Reform: The Case of the Papal State, 18141848”, Journal of Modern History, [42(1970): 524-48], p. 526.

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So a repressive policy, under which all avenues of political expression were under the direct supervision of the regime, was in Metternich’s view a sterile enterprise. Moreover, such a course only aided the revolutionaries by providing them with additional ammunition for their cause. “Any solid mass which fails to cover a fire completely only adds to it”, Metternich observed in 1820, and since it was impossible to monitor every political group even in a small state, it was best to look for other methods of protection.27 Indeed, Metternich had little faith in the ability of a state to survive through the use of force. Such a policy could only combat the symptoms of social discontent, but not its underlying causes. For this reason Metternich, as we have seen, opposed foreign intervention in most of the revolutionary disturbances in Europe after 1815 and as late as 1848 doubted that the Austrian army alone could protect the regime. Political attacks, in his view, had to be combated with political means. Disgusted by the lack of political reform in and the stultifying conservatism of the Austrian government, Metternich privately argued that the regime’s incompetence made the revolutionaries’ case for them, although he could never endorse their methods. When urged in January 1848 to take action to suppress revolutions in Lombardy, Metternich declared that in contrast to those who thought that martial law could solve a social problem, he believed that “one does not govern with bayonets”.28 There was only one way to deal effectively with revolution, and that was by anticipating it and alleviating the social conditions that served as its incubator. For this intelligent statesmanship, and not police, was required. Metternich assumed that a rationally developed program of 27  CM to Vincent, June 15, 1820, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 73. Donald Emerson, in his 1968 study of Metternich and the Political Police, [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968], takes a different view. He argues that Metternich played a decisive role in developing systematic political repression in Austria. Yet Emerson, determined to present Metternich as a modern totalitarian, overlooks a great deal of evidence in making his case and does not place some of his more serious charges in their proper context. Many questions go unanswered in his research. Why, for example, did Metternich push so strongly for reform if all that was needed was a few more secret police agents? Why was the monarchy so inefficiently policed in the critical decade of the 1840s? Why did Metternich write endless reports from Italy in 1814-1815 arguing against the creation of a police force to suppress radical cells? Most significantly, why was Metternich himself monitored by police and his letters intercepted on a routine basis? That Austria had a significant police force is beyond dispute, but that it was efficient in doing its job or, more importantly, that Metternich was anticipating a Stalinist police state, is a dubious and unsupportable assertion. cf. Haas, Metternich, Reorganization, and Nationality, Radvany, Metternich’s Projects for Imperial Reform, and McGuigan, Metternich and the Duchess. 28  CM to Apponyi, January 29, 1848, NP VII, p. 556. Metternich’s emphasis.



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political reform could eradicate potential threats to the government before they became serious. It is significant to note that Metternich never doubted that many of the demands of the revolutionaries across Europe—those for political liberalization, recognition of “national” aspirations, and administrative reform—would one day come to pass. However, he hoped to achieve these ends through gradual means rather than immediate insurrections. George Ticknor, who questioned Metternich on this point in 1836, reported that: Mr. Krause, of Dresden, told me that in conversation with him, the Prince [Metternich] illustrated his policy of [social reform] by saying to the great landed proprietor, “If on your estates you had, upon that great height that overlooks the Elbe, a vast reservoir of water that you knew every moment threatened to overwhelm you rich meadows, and must certainly one day come down, would you at once break through the dike and let it down in broad ruin upon your lands, or would you carefully perforate it, so that it should send down your fields slowly and beneficently, to fertilize your fields instead of destroying them?”29

This analogy is instructive, and Metternich had good reasons for using it. He did not dispute that the demands for change “must certainly” be met, but he wanted to accomplish this by legal governmental action rather than by violent disruption. Ideally, a prudent social policy would insure social progress while at the same time preserve the social order. Practically speaking, Metternich approached political revolutions on a case-by-case basis, but philosophically he examined the problem of revolution from a consistent systemic perspective that was closely tied to his broader theory of the state. He could applaud revolution in America, condemn it in France, and be indifferent to it in Spain given the different political cultures, interests, and implications of these events.30 He saw the line between revolution and reaction as an exceedingly fine one and considered both approaches to be dangerous, irrational, and, in the extreme, anarchical. In political affairs Metternich was conscious of the need to “take into consideration the natural order of things in order to determine and to modify the course we have to follow”. Laws followed this natural progression, and would evolve with the political culture and needs of the state. This was an admittedly slow process, but Metternich believed that a gradual reformist course would enable institutions to endure  Ticknor, p. 10.   Kraehe, “Metternich’s Theory of Revolution”, pp. 11-12.

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over time. As he reasoned to the Tsar in a Montesquieuian analogy often quoted by Jefferson as well, “It is with institutions as with everything else. Vague in their origin, they pass through periods of development and perfection, to arrive in time at their decadence; and, conforming to the laws of man’s nature, they have, like him, their infancy, their youth, their age of strength and reason, and their age of decay”. As with the processes of human anatomy, the task of reforming states could not be rushed.31 Nevertheless in the period 1815-1848 Metternich was confronted by a series of political disturbances which threatened to undermine his system of world order. As we have seen, in most of these cases Metternich took the view that intervention in these affairs was both futile and unnecessary, and that the consequence of the most significant revolts, such as in Spain in 1820 and France in 1830, were of lesser importance than attempts to suppress them. In these decades Metternich feared the forces of reaction more than those of revolution. Thus Metternich attempted, as much as possible, to combat the forces of reaction by seemingly adopting their agenda as his own. He was to accomplish this masterfully at Troppau and Laibach in 1820-21, in an attempt to hold the delicate Alliance together. Yet in 1819 Metternich was faced with a significant political uprising in the German states which, in his view, threatened to upset the workings of the Confederation he established at Vienna four years before. An overview of Metternich’s policy in Germany in 1819 allows us to observe his broader view of revolution, and offers further evidence that he was committed to maintaining the political equilibrium of Europe, even at a high personal cost. The Student Revolts of 1819 and the Carlsbad Decrees The Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 are universally regarded as an example of Metternich’s counter-revolutionary inclinations, and have been invoked as evidence of his reactionary political philosophy.32 Yet in reality the Decrees were offered as a pragmatic attempt to hold together a fragile political entity and a means to prevent the Russian government 31  CM to Lebzeltern, February 11, 1849, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 79; CM to Tsar Alexander, December 15, 1820, MM III, p. 456. Compare this with Jefferson’s philosophy of a “living” constitution. See Part II, ch. 3. 32  Principally, and most aggressively, by Treitschke. See The History of Germany, vol. 3, ch. 9.



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from taking stronger measures in the German states, measures potentially injurious to the stability of the German Confederation. At Carlsbad Metternich was able to choose a lesser, but still very great, evil than a Russian intervention in Germany, yet the result of his effort was the censorship of academic writings and pervasive state interference in the German university system.33 Metternich had no sympathy for the Romantic movement which evolved in German academic circles following the Napoleonic Wars. The emotional, passionate, and turbulent philosophy of Romanticism was completely at odds with his own approach to politics, which emphasized universalism over localism. The object of nationalist scorn was the fragmentation of Germany in a loose confederal system; most of them had hoped that the “War of Liberation” would lead to the creation of a strong, unified German state.34 Metternich, the cosmopolitan architect of the Confederation, was especially reviled by these young Romantics, most venomously by the secret societies in the universities influenced by the nationalist teachings of Karl Follen and Father Jahn. By 1819 antiAustrian, and anti-Metternich, sentiment was widespread in the German university system. Metternich watched these events, especially the “Wartburgfest” of 1817—where students gathered to extol the glories of the once and future deutsche Vaterland—carefully, and considered them reactionary and misguided. However, Metternich’s real concern in this period was with Russian diplomacy, not German academics. We have seen that Metternich’s conception of the German Bund required that Austria’s German diplomacy be flexible and rapidly adaptive to political contingencies in order to maintain the equilibrium in central Europe. Yet Kaiser Franz soon placed a dam in the fluid course of Metternich’s German policy. He was convinced that the South German states, like Lombardy and Venetia in Italy, were Austrian crown property and thus were “domestic” affairs to be managed by the Kaiser’s bureaucracy rather than Metternich’s Foreign Office. Metternich feared that the “Austrianization” of Germany would lead to the same  See Kraehe, “Austria, Russia, and the German Confederation, 1813-1820”.   Kraehe, “The Origins of the Carlsbad Decrees: Some Perspectives”, paper for the American Historical Association, New York, NY, December 28, 1971, pp. 2-5. On the relationship of nationalism and romanticism in Germany, see Robert R. Ergang, Herder and the Foundations of German Nationalism, [New York: 1931]. For an overview of German nationalist movements in this period, see Aris, Political Thought in Germany; F. Gunther Eyck, “The Political Theories and Activities of the German Academic Youth Between 1815 and 1819”, Journal of Modern History, [27(1955): 27-38]; Hans Kohn, The Mind of Germany, [New York: 1960], chs. 3-4 and Hans Reiss, Politisches Denken in der deutschen Romantik, [Munich: 1966]. 33 34

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stagnation there that existed within the Monarchy, and such maladministration could have catastrophic consequences in such a vital region of Europe. In order to retain the flexibility he desired in Germany, Metternich consistently exaggerated the revolutionary danger in these states, especially after the Wartburgfest. Nothing less than this dread contagion would compel the Kaiser to refer the German case to his “doctor of revolutions” for treatment. Metternich had employed this same tactic in Italy after 1814, but met with limited success, as the Kaiser’s agents reported Metternich’s duplicity to Vienna.35 Yet in the case of the treasured and politically crucial German states the Kaiser was more disposed to take his Foreign Minister’s advice. Metternich warned his sovereign that revolution in Germany meant that “the overthrow of all existing institutions is inevitable and will follow in close succession until there will be no more Bund and likewise Austria as a German European Power”.36 These hyperbolic reports succeeded in frightening the Kaiser and worked to Metternich’s advantage up to the time of the murder of August von Kotzebue in March 1819. He was consistently able to keep German policy securely in his own hands and monitored political events there with the delicacy and expediency which in his view they required. The murder of Kotzebue, a playwright by trade and informant in the pay of the Russian government, by radical nationalists and the subsequent protests in the German universities occurred while Metternich was on a spring tour of Italy. He was notified by Gentz of the situation and was urged to return to Vienna at once, but Metternich disregarded this advice and kept to his schedule, adopting a laissez-faire attitude towards events in Germany. This is not surprising, as he had recently written Karl Buol that in his private estimate, despite the Wartburgfest and the agitation in the universities, Germany was “in no serious danger” of general upheaval and thus “I, through my hesitation in the affair, propose to lose nothing”. Kissinger attributes this “hestitation” to a contemplation of the situation in Germany, and argues that Metternich was simply waiting for the propitious moment to take action after his adversaries had committed themselves.37 Yet if Metternich had per35  On Kaiser Franz’s designs for Germany, see Haas, ch.1; Radvany, ch. 2. On Metternich’s attempts to change imperial policy in Italy, see Haas, ch. 2-4; conclusion; below, ch. 5. 36  CM to KF, August 1, 1819, Haus-,Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, Vienna: Staatskanzlei, Vortrage: 1819. Carton 219. Hereafter cited as HHSA: St.V. 37  CM to Buol, January 19, 1819, cited in Kraehe, “Origins of the Carlsbad Decrees”, p. 4; CM to Buol, July 26, 1819, HHSA: St. V; Kissinger, A World Restored, p. 239.



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ceived an actual danger of destabilizing revolution at the fulcrum of his European order, he no doubt would have returned to manage the situation and, in conformity with his theory of political equilibrium, prevented a further decline towards political chaos. What, then, explains Metternich’s complacency? In the early weeks of the crisis Metternich was buoyed by the hope that it would be the Russians, and not Austria or Prussia, that would bear the brunt of the student protestors’ wrath. Kotzebue was, after all, a paid agent of the Russian government, and students had recently forced another Russian official, Count Alexander Sturdza, to leave Germany upon fear for his life. At Alexander’s request, Sturdza had drawn up a proposal to reform the German university system in a manner opposed to the desires of nationalist student groups. Kotzebue’s murder was the spark that ignited a series of protests in the universities in the late spring of 1819, all of which condemned “foreign”—principally Russian—interference in Germany and demanded educational reforms sensitive to German “national feeling”. This was one of those occasions, so it seemed to Metternich, where political unrest was not such a bad thing, since it was the Russians—whom Metternich wanted to keep out of Germany—who were the main target of the protestors. He wrote Kaiser Franz on April 27 that “this interpretation leaves me with the basic hope that the motive for Kotzebue’s murder was because the reforms of the German universities were made in steps in full accord with those approved by Tsar Alexander”.38 This appraisal was quickly revised as Gentz and Metternich’s envoys in Germany reported unrest of a more general character than purely anti-Russian protests, as these had begun to blossom into a wider and more general nationalist insurrection that threatened the foundations of the German Bund. Robert Gordon, British chargé de affairs in Vienna, noted the change in Metternich’s mood as this realization dawned on him and reported to Castlereagh that both he and Metternich were convinced that the protests were not about Russia or “against princes, aristocracy, or any [other] form of government but against disunity”. Worse, Alexander intimated that Russia might intervene in Germany, under the pretense of the Holy Alliance, to attain a Russian foothold in central Europe.39 38  On Sturdza’s efforts and the Tsar’s desire to maintain an active influence in German politics, see Kraehe, “Austria, Russia”, pp. 275-6; “Origins of the Carlsbad Decrees”, pp. 2-3; CM to KF, April 27, 1819, HHSA: St. V. 39  Gordon to Castlereagh, July 12, 1819, PRO: F.O. 7, v. 141, n. 22. Gordon’s emphasis.

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Metternich realized that the Tsar had ample pretext for an intervention: the humiliation of Sturdza, the murder of Kotzebue, and countless other acts of anti-Russian propaganda could be invoked as constituting a threat to Russian interests in the region and to neighboring Poland. Given this possibility, Metternich was faced with two principal alternatives: First, he could do nothing and allow the Russians to weather the political storm they would encounter if they intervened in Germany. Or, he could sponsor his own “intervention” through the mechanism of the German Confederation which would not be of a military character and which might preclude a Russian gambit in Germany. The first option would certainly suit Austria’s interests in the short run, but Metternich had his eye on the broader dynamics of the European confederation and was concerned with the long-term effects of Russian involvement in German politics. Hence Metternich saw Austrian intervention in Germany as the lesser of two evils.40 In his assessment of German politics in 1819, Metternich was not convinced that a “revolution” was imminent, but he was disturbed by the activities of a few radical university agitators and the influence they exerted over students already stimulated by religious and nationalistic impulses. The existence of revolutionary propaganda and subversive secret societies such as the Burschenschaften did not concern Metternich as long as they were confined to the academy.41 If intervening in Germany meant the removal of a few obnoxious reactionaries and silencing of insurrectionary presses, such a state of affairs could only be to the advantage of Austria and Europe as a whole. Yet Metternich was familiar with Voltaire’s idea that the “freedom of the pen” was the measure, and guarantee, of an enlightened society, and he was uncomfortable with the notion of censoring academic discourse, especially given his own cosmopolitan and liberal education. He was adamant that any such activity, including the “monitoring” of student groups, be limited. Only students and professors who, in his words, “caused trouble” and were “disruptive” should be removed from the universities. “We certainly  Metternich was not the only European statesman concerned about Russian maneuvers in Germany. Castlereagh noted as early as 1814 that he considered “the establishment of Russia in the heart of Germany not only as constituting a great Danger in itself, but as calculated to establish a most pernicious Influence in both the Austrian and Prussian Cabinets...through the confrontation of Austria and Prussia, the Supremacy of Russia would be established in all Directions”. Castlereagh to Liverpool, November 11, 1814. PRO: F.O. 7, v. 147, n. 61. 41  As he argued to Gentz on June 17, “I have never feared that the revolution would be engendered by the universities”. CM to Gentz, June 17, 1819, MM III, p. 287. He dismissed the Burschenschaften as “an impractical puppet show”. 40



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don’t want to exclude serious students from our universities”, regardless of their political orientation, Metternich wrote in May 1819. Of course, defining who was a “troublemaker” was a highly subjective, and politically charged, decision, and Metternich unfortunately had few insights as to how to make repression work in an “equitable” manner. Yet in his opinion, mild censorship and the dismissal of radical (and reactionary) students and the “political professors” not only “attacked the illness at its roots”, but also precluded the possibility of something worse: a more oppressive, and potentially destabilizing, foreign military intervention in Germany that could lead to general conflict in central Europe.42 At Carlsbad Metternich was forced to steer between the Scylla of Russian intervention in Germany and the Charybdis of domestic political pressure. His inflammatory rhetoric, offered as a political tactic, had indeed convinced the Kaiser of the danger of a general revolution in Germany, to the point where he desired universal political and academic censorship, as well as a total overhaul of the German university system. He pressured Metternich to make these opinions clear to the Diet of the German Confederation, and indeed it is safe to say that if the Kaiser had his way the damage done to the German universities would have been far greater than that caused by the Protocol of September 23, 1819. Also, Gentz was chafing to enact a strict policy of censorship in Germany, an ironic position for one of Kant’s students to take, but Gentz admittedly feared Kotzebue’s fate for himself. While Gentz was an easier party to manage than the Kaiser, he still possessed considerable power in German academic, political, and literary circles and was not an influence to be casually dismissed. In a shrewd display of political dexterity Metternich left the drafting of the decrees to Gentz (under his supervision). He hoped that having an author with Gentz’s impeccable monarchist credentials frame the articles would pacify the Kaiser as well as Gentz himself. This tactic succeeded.43 42  Metternich’s circular despatch to his ambassadors, May 19, 1819, HHSA: Staatskanzlei: Interiora, fasc. 81, folio 109. Hereafter St. Int; Metternich’s draft of the Teplitz Protocol, August 1, 1819, HHSA: Deutsche Akten, fasc. 89. The Teplitz conference was a preliminary session for the Carlsbad Conference which met in September. The best study of the antecedents and implementation of the Decrees is by Eberhard Büssem, Die Karlsbader Beschlüsse von 1819, [Hildesheim: 1974]. However, Büssem’s work does not, in my view, adequately assess the international importance of the Decrees in Metternich’s calculations, especially regarding Alexander. See Kraehe, “Austria, Russia, and the German Confederation” for a broader discussion of the Decrees in relation to foreign policy. 43   KF to CM, August 17, 1819, HHSA: St.V. On Gentz’s views, see Stürmer to CM, August 5, 1819, HHSA: St. Int, folio 205-8. It was reported to Metternich in April 1819 that Gentz was “not receiving strangers without first checking their credentials” to avoid being murdered. Stürmer to CM, April 1, 1819, St. Int. fasc. 81, folio 36-40. Gentz

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However, Metternich was forced to backpedal on his assessment of the revolutionary threat in Germany, both to assure the Tsar that Germany was safe as well as to relieve some of the pressure to his right domestically. By July 1819 his reports went out of their way to minimize the potential threat in Germany; on the 25th of that month he wrote the Kaiser that “the greatest danger we face is that of strong reaction”. He recoiled at Franz’s suggestion of rapid repressive measures, arguing on the contrary that in his opinion “better no action than inept action. That is my resolute opinion”. Moreover, he reassured the Kaiser that “the malady which I am fighting does not lie in the sphere of our universities”, thus hoping to insure that the Kaiser not tamper with the Austrian educational system, or initiate any other repressive policies.44 Regarding censorship, Metternich saw no danger in stifling revolutionary broadsides or secret societies but was adamant that “serious” academic exchange, as he put it, was not to be touched. He wrote to the Kaiser in August that “’censor[ship] ‘is today so detested and perversely judged a word that it must be avoided. We must consider in this respect that in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Württemberg particularly effective freedom of the press is to be found”, and none of these states were threatened by incipient revolutions as a result. Several days later he reminded his sovereign that any Austrian-sponsored interference in the German university system would “have to be finished soon”, since the enmity these efforts would create would only invite the very revolutionary danger they were intended to combat. Once initiated, however, censorship was difficult to regulate or restrict.45 There is no evidence Metternich planned a long-term, pervasive, and repressive Austrian intervention in the German university system. On the contrary, he wanted to put the matter behind him as quickly as possible. He certainly opposed subversive and potentially destabilizing groups such as the Burschenschaften, but on the whole Metternich was skeptical about the efficacy of “academic rebellions” and believed that studied under Kant at Königsberg and proofread his Critique of Judgment for publication. CM to KF, August 20, 1817, HHSA, St.V. 44  CM to KF, July 25, 1819, HHSA, St. V.; CM to KF, August 10, 1819. Metternich’s emphasis. Gordon, the British chargé in Vienna, reported to Castlereagh as early as April that Metternich was worried that his largely symbolic program in the German university system would be butchered and expanded by the reactionary clique around Kaiser Franz. “[Metternich] fears for the ill-conceived application of [his policy]”, Gordon wrote, “and of the dangers which might result from its failure”. Gordon to Castlereagh, April 29, 1819, PRO: F.O. 7, v. 141. 45  CM to KF, August 8, 1819, HHSA: St. V; CM to KF, August 19, 1819, HHSA: St. V. Metternich’s emphasis.



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political involvement in the affairs of the universities was a sterile and unnecessary policy. He was not concerned with scholarly debates on revolutionary theory or the exaltation of romantic literature, but with the possibility that political organizations could operate under the permissive umbrella of the universities and carry out acts of agitation and violence, such as the Kotzebue murder. Although it is now clear that these fears were exaggerated, it is important to note that Metternich was on what in modern jargon would be called the “dove” side at Carlsbad: he was consistently pressured by the Tsar, Kaiser Franz, Gentz, and conservative elements in the Austrian bureaucracy and the Diet of the German Confederation to take stronger action. At all times the prospect of a Russian move weighed in his calculations. The Tsar’s aims, he realized, went beyond protecting Russian interests in Germany but extended to developing a voice for Russia in the German Confederation and securing a stronger political role for St. Petersburg in central Europe. The Carlsbad Decrees were adopted by German Confederation, under the sponsorship of Austria, on September 23, 1819. As drafted by Gentz and approved by the Diet, they contained three principal provisions. First, the Diet pledged to closely monitor the university system in Germany and guard against ideas “subversive to the public peace”. Secondly, censorship was introduced and monitored by a special committee of the Diet. This, at Metternich’s instruction, applied only to pamphlets—the favorite medium of insurrectionary literature—and not to scholarly books and journals. Finally, the Decrees established a Federal Bureau of Investigation—a literal translation from the German—to investigate suspected subversive groups within the universities. This organization proved to be of dubious utility and had difficulty operating effectively, given a relative lack of reliable informants. Thus the Decrees were strong enough to assure the Kaiser and the Tsar that Germany was under control and remove the pretext for a Russian invasion, yet their rhetorical bark proved to be far worse than their political bite. Even the liberal Heinrich Heine, a student at Göttingen and an unflagging critic of Metternich’s rationalism, observed that the practical effects of the Decrees for the majority of students and professors were quite limited. Metternich originally intended that the Decrees would have a short lifespan, one long enough to convince his colleagues that Germany was in no danger of revolution, yet not long enough to become imbued in German academic and political culture.46  See Büssem, Part II; Heine, Harzreise, cited in Barnes, Nationalism, Industrialization, and Democracy, pp. 29-31. George Ticknor, visiting Germany in 1836, observed that censorship was lax and that “men of learning can get such books as they want in 46

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Thus the German problem of 1819 offers a practical look at Metternich’s theory of revolution. Charles Stewart wrote his stepbrother Castlereagh shortly after the Carlsbad Conference that the crisis culminated into “the greatest epoch of Metternich’s political life”.47 Metternich, usually not one to resist a compliment, would nevertheless have likely disagreed with this assessment. He had been backed into a corner by Alexander, his sovereign, and his own rhetoric, and all of his options were bleak. He did manage to dilute the reactionary impulses of Kaiser Franz and keep the Russians out of Germany, but at great political cost. In practical terms the Decrees were largely symbolic, which is what Metternich intended, but in the emotive world of politics they were received venomously by both liberals and conservatives alike. The former thought them too oppressive, the latter considered them a weak capitulation to the forces of revolution. Metternich’s overselling of the revolutionary danger had contributed to the crisis. The introduction of surveillance, however limited, to the universities, the disregard of the wishes of the university officials themselves, and the hypocrisy he exhibited throughout the affair renders the incident one of Metternich’s least edifying accomplishments. In his defense, it can be said that he operated under the sincere belief that he was working for the “maintenance of the European balance and general repose”, and he did act with relative moderation.48 He was convinced that matters would have been far worse had the Russians actively intervened or if the Kaiser had his way in pushing for aggressive educational reforms. In the end, Metternich was aware that he was sacrificing Austria’s (and his own) prestige by whatever course he chose, but he hoped the negative effects of this decision would dissipate quickly. Thus in Metternich’s view theory had to be modified by expediency at Carlsbad. The demands of foreign policy—upholding the delicate political framework in Germany—and those of domestic interests— preventing revolutionary or reactionary disturbances in the region— both warranted a clear Austrian response. While uncomfortable with restricting “freedom of the pen”, Metternich believed that by doing so he would avoid a worse catastrophe: the destruction of the German Confederation. Order was restored in the German states, but the naAustria, almost, perhaps quite, as easily as elsewhere in Germany”. Ticknor, p. 10. The Decrees were renewed in 1824, but by then the sense of urgency and crisis had dissipated and political interference in the universities, while still great on paper, became less emphatic in practice. 47  Stewart to Castlereagh, October 1, 1819, PRO: F.O. 7, v. 143. 48  Teplitz Agreement, August 1, 1819, HHSA: Deutsche Akten, fasc. 89.



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tionalists’ opposition to Metternich, whom they regarded as an antiquarian champion of eighteenth century rationalism, only hardened. In 1848 they would have their revenge, but in 1819 Metternich managed to escape at Carlsbad with Germany, if not his personal reputation, intact. A Review of Metternich’s Social Philosophy Metternich’s theory of the state was animated by a zealous quest for political stability centered on the rule of law. In modern terms he could be labeled a conservative because he posited order as the fundamental condition, and objective, of politics. He subscribed to a teleological view of history and considered change to be a norm of politics, but in his view true progress and lasting reforms could only occur “naturally”; that is, within the confines of an ordered legal system. There was no hint of regression or nostalgia in Metternich’s philosophy—”the present day has no value for me except as the eve of tomorrow”, he said—and this opinion separates him from theorists such as Burke who looked to the past, or at a minimum a static present, for inspiration.49 In eighteenth century terms Metternich would be considered progressive, especially in regard to his liberal social agenda and vigilance against the ascendancy of the dreaded extremes of politics: radical insurrection and reactionary autocracy, both of which he deemed fatal to a “healthy” social body. Intelligent social policy, in his view, had to address two mutually reinforcing goals: the preservation of order and the promotion of progress. This proved exceedingly difficult to enact in practice, but the theory was in complete harmony with mainstream Enlightenment thought. Metternich feared that if the drive for progress and change became an end in itself, or if it was pursued in a rapid and uncalculated fashion, it would conflict with the political culture of the state and eventually lead to despotism. This was the model he saw operating in France from 1789-1799, as the original appeals of the revolution deteriorated into factional violence that ended in military dictatorship. A reactionary state had resources at its disposal that few radical cells could hope for, and this power could be used, in Metternich’s view, to introduce a “medieval” social order and negate the impressive gains of the eighteenth century. This opinion separated him from the revolutionaries of 1789  CM to George Ticknor, July 1, 1836, Ticknor, p. 17.

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and 1848, who in his view made the mistake of attempting too much too soon, and ironically created an environment more repressive than that against which they had initially rebelled. As he put it in 1839, “in revolutions those who want everything always get the better of those who only want a certain amount”.50 The danger of revolution, therefore, was its erratic and unpredictable nature, and frequently extremist repercussions. Metternich was convinced that most revolutions actually accomplished little; the underlying political culture of a state usually survived a change in governments. He assessed revolutions on a case-by-case basis, and, while prone to occasionally exaggerate their political significance to relieve pressure at home, his typical response was to observe them carefully and wait for them to “devour” themselves. To him the nationalist agenda of the mid-nineteenth century was an aberration that would soon pass, and allow the work of the cosmopolitan Aufklärung to continue. Though Metternich had severe constraints on his power internally—he certainly lacked the ability, as we shall see, to carry through the administrative and political reforms he desired—he had prescient insights on the workings of government both in theory and practice. Most critically, he recognized that the government of the multinational Habsburg Monarchy was seriously flawed and contained within its petrified organs the kernels of its own destruction. In the period following the Congress of Vienna, therefore, Metternich attempted to structure a new form of government for his state, one that he believed would increase the stability of Europe as a whole by dealing with the demands for national self-determination before they became impossible to manage. It is to those efforts, and Metternich’s eventual marginalization in domestic politics, that we now turn.

 CM to Esterhazy, April 2, 1839, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 56.

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Chapter V Metternich and the State (2): A Political Agenda for the Habsburg Monarchy Throughout his career Metternich sought to translate his philosophy of government into a practical agenda for retooling what he called the “moldering edifice” of the Habsburg Empire. As Kraehe notes, this avocation was readily explainable, since “anything that fixed responsibility, expedited decisions, and strengthened the monarchy also strengthened his hand in dealings abroad”. Like Mikhail Speranskii in Russia, he sought to modernize an administration that had proven stubbornly resistant to reformist impulses. His goal was not only to make the Habsburg state a more viable actor in world politics, but also to bring its government into line with “enlightened” forms of administration existing in other European states, specifically France and Prussia. These two objectives were, in his view, mutually reinforcing. Metternich concentrated his reform efforts in two main areas. First, he sought to restructure the workings of the administration and the functional responsibilities of the ministries. This effort achieved political expression in his proposal for the establishment of an executive council of ministers—modelled after the French conseil d’etat—which   CM journal entry, October 6, 1820, MM III, p. 395; Kraehe, MGP II, p. 92. Kaunitz had held the same view fifty years earlier: as Szabo notes, “For Kaunitz...it was not Austria’s relative position on the geopolitical chess board of Europe that constituted her weakness, but her relative backwardness. The Monarchy’s weak showing internationally was a mere symptom of her domestic underdevelopment. Diplomacy could provide a palliative; only major social, economic, and structural reforms could provide the cure”. Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism, p. 2.

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would shape policy goals and implement them through a modern professional bureaucracy. Secondly, Metternich sought to formulate an effective and progressive nationalities policy for the Empire based on the idea of federalism. His objective was for Vienna to grant its provinces a liberal measure of autonomy in internal affairs, and to tailor the provincial administrations to suit the particular characteristics of each region. In this way the nascent and potentially explosive phenomena of nationalism, which Metternich realized would not “wither on the vine” after being abundantly fertilized in the Napoleonic Wars, could be cultivated and transformed into a means of supporting the monarchy rather than undermining it. A commonwealth of provinces, ordered on the principle of federalism, would increase the cohesiveness of the Empire by meeting national demands for independence halfway while retaining a common foreign, economic, and military policy, as well as the unifying symbol of the monarchy. “Unity in diversity” was the slogan he adopted to promote this agenda. In his reform proposals Metternich indirectly, yet decisively, sought to reduce the scope of monarchical control of the Austrian Government and to delegate much of its operational powers to professional civil servants and responsible ministers. Although Metternich could never admit it publicly, his ultimate goal— which is clearly discernable from the text of his reports—was to slowly transform the Habsburg Empire from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. The Struggle for Influence Within the Government While Metternich formulated many original and prescient plans for the reformation of the Habsburg Empire, he had very little power to carry any of them into practice. Kaiser Franz, a nephew of the central  Haas, p. 15. On the general topic of Metternich and internal politics, Haas’s study is by far the most scholarly and thorough. Radvany’s Metternich’s Projects for Imperial Reform is more limited, dealing only with the bureaucracy, but it is still quite useful. Kraehe’s “Foreign Policy and the Nationality Problem in Austria” underlines the connection Metternich saw between domestic and international affairs. R.W. Seton-Watson, in his “Metternich and Internal Austrian Policy”, Slavonic and East European Review, [17 and 18 (1939): 539-55; 129-41], illustrates how Metternich’s efforts were frustrated by the Kaiser. On Italian affairs, see Alan Reinerman, Austria and the Papacy in the Age of Metternich (2 vols.), [Washington, D.C.: 1979-1989], and “Metternich and Reform”, op cit. See also Srbik, Metternich I, pp. 423-555, and Josef Mayr, Geschichte der österreichischen Staatskanzlei im Zeitalter des Fürsten Metternichs (2 vols.) [Vienna: 1935], for a documentary history. Szabo’s Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism provides a brilliant summary of the eighteenth century background to Metternich’s reform efforts.



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izing Joseph II, has been characterized as possessing a “pathological aversion to change”, and was “sedulously occupied with his sole purpose of preserving absolutism” and guarding his control over the bureaucracy. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than personally reviewing thousands of petitions on such mundane topics as farm implements, requests of job-seekers, and even drafts of proclamations to local school assemblies. Not surprisingly, the efficiency of the government—never very great—continued to deteriorate under Franz’s rule. There was no clear leadership, divisions of authority, or governing agenda in the bureaucratic apparatus. Metternich’s cosmopolitan approach to politics, as well as his praise of the modern administrative system of Napoleonic France, was regarded with suspicion by his colleagues in the government. Many senior Austrian officials distrusted his “foreign” birth, and considered his views too liberal for the culture of the regime; indeed, several of the more extreme elements among them warned their colleagues with all seriousness not to “imbibe Jacobin ideas” from the Foreign Minister. The conservative forces in the bureaucracy, after 1826 headed by Count Franz Anton Kolowrat, Minister of the Interior, became Metternich’s chief rivals in the struggle for influence within the Austrian government and worked assiduously to undermine his reform plans. Eventually it was this faction that won the contest for power, and despite his impressive title Metternich was slowly marginalized back to the Foreign Ministry. As a result Metternich’s efforts in domestic policymaking can be safely compared, as E.L. Woodward notes, to that of an adroit helmsman “standing at the wheel of a firmly anchored ship”. His influence in domestic affairs was sharply curtailed by Kolowrat and the Kaiser, and as a result most of his proposals had little lasting significance. In some cases, such as Metternich’s majesterial 1817 essay on the nationalities issue, the Kaiser so butchered the implementation of his ideas that the results of their application were worse, as the latter freely admitted, than had they been completely ignored. By 1848 Metternich scoffed at the mention of the very idea of an “Austrian Government”. There was no such body, he claimed, only a small clique of bureaucrats fighting over trivial details while the conceptual tasks of statesmanship went ignored. “My Cabinet, and even myself individually, have represented   Radvany, p. 10. See Chs. 1 and 2 for a discussion of Franz’s administrative methodology. Indeed, Metternich joked that the Kaiser worked his way through state papers “like a tapeworm”, and emerged from his work without having done anything more than punch a hole through the documents with his pencil. Radvany, p. 12.

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Austrian power externally while the vacuum was establishing itself in the interior”, he noted in 1848. “Thus I became (and it was repugnant to my moral essence) a phantasmogoria, something imaginary, a spirit without a body, the representative of something which should have existed but did not in fact exist”. Nevertheless, while Metternich’s reformist ideas eventually foundered on the reef of bureaucratic opposition, they represent eloquent expressions of his progressive approach to politics.

Searching for Administrative Reform: The Proposals of 1811 and 1814 Metternich’s exposure to the administrative system of Napoleonic France during his tenure as Austrian Ambassador in Paris from 1806 to 1809 confirmed his opinions as to the retrograde nature of the Austrian state. Metternich admired Napoleon’s conseil d’etat for its efficiency and precision, and noticed the clear distinction between the administration, which was concerned with broad policy issues, and the bureaucracy, which implemented policies conceived by its superiors. Moreover, he observed Mikhail Speranskii’s attempts to restructure the Russian government along the lines of the French model in 1810. While Speranskii’s projects were eventually undone by conservative forces in the Tsar’s bureaucracy, much as his own were in 1815-1817, Metternich admired the concentrated effort with which Speranskii analyzed the policymaking process, and he shared Speranskii’s view that this task was more vital to the long-term health of the state than the mere execution of the laws. As we have seen, Metternich valued statesmanship that took a long-term view when charting a political agenda, which allowed policy to be calculated in advance of need, and serve a preventative, rather than responsive, purpose. For this reason the central thesis of his reform proposals was that the bureaucracy needed to be constrained and strictly regulated by a superior policymaking council, that important monarchical powers be delegated to ministerial departments, and that the state should adopt a modern and   Reinerman, “Metternich and Reform”; Woodward, Three Studies in European Conservatism, p. 70; CM to Fiquelmont, March 20, 1848, NP VII, p. 612. By “Cabinet” Metternich was referring to the Foreign Office.   See Srbik, Metternich I, Book III, for an account of the genesis of Metternich’s reform ideas.



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efficient administrative system similar to that found in France and Prussia. Metternich’s first report on the restructuring of the government was written in 1811 in the form of a memoire to the Kaiser. In it he stressed the need to separate the bureaucracy, which dealt solely with “admi­ nistrative qualities” from the executive, or “conceptual qualities”, of policymaking. He took as his point of departure the State Council established by Kaunitz in 1760 to administer the workings of the bureaucratic departments. However, he rejected Kaunitz’s organization as inefficient for the modern age, as it had no fixed structure, only increased unnecessary paperwork, and “was nothing more than a ministry, with several heads instead of one premier...it clogged the very wheels of government itself”. Metternich compared this to Speranskii’s Imperial Council of 1810 in Russia, but rejected the utility of the latter model on the grounds that it was “suited for a new country”. The French conseil d’etat, the smooth workings of which Metternich had observed in Paris, emerged in his reasoning as the preferred model on which to construct a new Austrian State Council. As Radvany notes, few of Metternich’s ideas on the shaping of a ministerial council were new; many had circulated around Vienna for a dozen years, albeit in much cruder form. What was unique about Metternich’s suggestions was the clarity and precision with which he expressed these ideas, and the rare quality he had for “the psychologically more subtle effort to pay lip-service to the emperor’s prejudices and obsessions and presenting them as mere improvements of existing procedures”. Thus Metternich was able to offer a formula which, when  On the French administration see C.B.A. Behrens, Society, Government, and the Enlightenment: The Experiences of Eighteenth Century France and Prussia, [New York: 1985]; On Speranskii’s reform efforts, see Marc Raeff, Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772-1839, [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff: 1957], and John Gooding, “The Liberalism of Michael Speransky”, Slavonic and East European Review, [64(1986): 401-425].   CM to KF, April 16, 1811, with attached report. Text in Walter, pp. 182-206. Report only printed in MM II, pp. 519-28. Unless otherwise noted, I will use the MM edition of the text. For an elaboration of Kaunitz’s 1760 proposal, which was innovative in its day but in Metternich’s view outmoded by 1800, see Szabo, Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism, chs. 2 and 3. As Seton-Watson notes, “Metternich was far too intelligent not to realize the dangers due to red tape, pedantry, slow movement and watertight compartments” in the government. “Metternich and Internal Austrian Policy”, p. 550. see also MM II, p. 520; on the issue of the French example, he wrote “to these ends the organization of the French Senate, modified and limited to suit the locality and the present situation, seems to me to be the most suitable” for Austria. MM II, p. 522.   Radvany, p. 26. 

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examined closely, was quite revolutionary, and at the same time assure Kaiser Franz that he would retain absolute control over the new government. It was a tactic he would repeat in 1814 and 1817, yet the Kaiser’s advisers, and Franz himself, saw all too clearly where the Foreign Minister’s ideas were heading. On their face Metternich’s proposals were straightforward. He advocated the formation of an Imperial Council, which would be a ministerial body composed of not more than twenty members. This body would shape broad policy goals, and would conduct business largely through oral deliberation in order to reduce the torrent of red tape and paperwork inundating the Ballhausplatz. This body would be a completely “deliberative organization”, and would “take the place of single councilors working by themselves”, as was the case in Kaunitz’s 1760 plan. The Kaiser would preside over the council; but if he could not attend (and Metternich, knowing Franz’s disdain for debate, doubted he would) then a minister elected by the others would chair the group on a pro-tempore basis. All of the provinces of the Empire would send delegates to the council, and Hungarian and German councilors would have equal weight within it. The Council would have jurisdiction—and operational executive control—over legal and judicial matters, internal affairs, finance, military policy, and any other issue specifically charged to it by the Kaiser. Not surprisingly Metternich excluded external policy from the list of the council’s responsibilities. “Foreign affairs”, he wrote, are from their nature such as cannot be handled in the department itself. Foreign relations include the whole, and can only be conducted by one mind and one spirit, which must have the control of the whole, the open as well as the secret relations of the powers, and keeps [the interests of] both foreign countries and the Fatherland constantly in view.

Metternich’s exclusion of foreign policy from the domain of the Council rested on his conviction that the complex nature of international politics—especially in time of war—did not lend themselves to extended deliberation, and because he was well aware of bureaucratic suspicion of his project of a “confederal” European Alliance. By maintaining sole control over foreign policy Metternich insured that his department, which he had already streamlined into the most efficient ministry in Vienna, would be outside the political and administrative reach of the Council. Nevertheless, he realized that foreign policy was 

 MM II, pp. 524-525.



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heavily contingent on financial and military considerations, both of which were included in the council’s mandate. Metternich thus no doubt expected that he would have a strong voice in the council due to his eminence in the government, and trusted that his “enlightened and impartial counsel” would help direct the flow of business within it. The Kaiser accepted Metternich’s report and requested more detailed information from his Foreign Minister as to its exact structure. But no further proposals were forthcoming from Metternich, undoubtedly because his attention became riveted on developments in international politics by late 1811.10 It was not until the summer of 1814, after Napoleon had been defeated and sent to Elba, that Metternich again formally discussed reconfiguring the Austrian government for a new era of peace. Metternich’s report of August 5, 1814 was offered in the form of a response to a proposal made by Count Josef Wallis to merge the imperial council advocated by Metternich in 1811 with the conference commission currently managing the bureaucracy.11 This conference commission, a product of the mid-eighteenth century, was notoriously inefficient and was the primary target of Metternich’s reform efforts. In Metternich’s view Wallis was introducing the same idea that had led to stagnation when implemented by Kaunitz in 1760. Worse, Kaiser Franz was intrigued by this idea, as it was a more conservative plan than Metternich’s. The Kaiser let it be known that he disapproved of oral deliberation, preferred formal (and long) written reports, and desired a single government bureaucracy under his control rather than the functional division of labor and freedom of action at the ministerial level advocated by Metternich. In his August paper, Metternich repeated the suggestions he offered three years earlier, making it clear that the bureaucracy must be kept separate from, and not subordinate to, the policymaking ministerial council. Any system that did not contain this fundamental distinction, he warned, would only increase the inefficiency and stultifying conservatism of the machinery of government. Moreover, Metternich now felt secure enough in his position to propose that the independent ministries he outlined in 1811 be given complete executive control over their departments. In a practical sense, this meant that the Kaiser would 10  MM II, p. 528. For Franz’s comments on the 1811 report, see Walter, p. 198. Radvany, pp. 28-29; Srbik, Metternich I, pp. 457-464. 11  Text of the Report of August 5, 1814 and supplemental report of August 22 in Walter, pp. 212-222. On the background of this report, see Kraehe, MGP II, pp. 86-98; Radvany, ch. 5; Srbik, Metternich I, pp. 454-464.

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have little or no direct influence over the day-to-day operation of the government. Only an administration based, in Metternich’s words, on a “proper distribution of powers”—an axiom of eighteenth century constitutional theory—could efficiently plan, execute, and oversee state policy.12 Kaiser Franz was again outwardly receptive to the basic ideas of Metternich’s proposal but preferred to follow the suggestions of his trusted Hofräte rather than those of his Francophilic Foreign Minister. Curiously, he approved of Metternich’s reform ideas in theory but never executed them. While Metternich’s State Council proposal, based on the 1811 draft, was formally approved in December 1814, it was never implemented, and the ministerial conference and independent agencies Metternich advocated were never created.13 Consequently Metternich’s attempts to reform the imperial administration in 1811 and 1814 ultimately ended in frustration. His fundamental thesis on the workings of government—that the bureaucracy and policymaking bodies be kept distinct, with the latter in clear control of the former—was never officially put into practice. As late as 1830 Metternich wrote the Kaiser that the ideas he had placed before him twenty years earlier remained “unfulfilled”. The Austrian government never did make the conceptual distinction between “administering and controlling” that Metternich saw as a critical attribute of a modern and progressive state. Hence the bureaucratic inertia, inefficiency, and lack of direction that had plagued the monarchy since the early eighteenth century continued to do so until the mid-nineteenth, when the revolutions of 1848 created the demand for the more radical and uncalculated changes that Metternich so feared.14 Yet the significance of these efforts of 1811 and 1814 lies more in the underlying premises of Metternich’s proposals than in their specific suggestions. His ultimate objective—although he framed it in very careful language—was to reduce the scope of monarchical authority in the Austrian government and delegate more power to professional ministers who would have clearly defined spheres of authority within which they could act with relative independence. This idea, which if stated directly would likely have cost Metternich his job, would have laid the conceptual foundations for a limited constitutional monarchy in Austria in which the Government, and not the Sovereign, would exercise real power. Ministerial responsibility was essential, he told Franz in   Walter, 212-221.  Radvany, pp. 34-35. 14  Radvany, pp. 50-51. 12 13



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1811, to reduce the amount of work that the Kaiser was forced to address daily. One man, he argued, could not handle every aspect of government in modern times, and “cannot give, without a duly organized council, fixity to Government, unity and consistency to the whole”.15 Indeed, Metternich suggested that a ministerial government under the guidance of professional councilors would gain such eminence as to be a “school of Government”, even for the heir to the throne. This was a radical proposal indeed in an absolute monarchy. “There”, he wrote in reference to this “school”, the “monarch learns to know his servants, the successor to the throne his duties”, while “the statesman surveys the whole”. Implicit in this advice was the idea that the latter would be the repository of real power. “If the monarchy deposits a part of his executive power in the hands of a minister [or] chief of a department”, he argued, “that minister must be free indeed. The security of the state with regard to him lies in his responsibility. How should this be possible if a committee...can daily interfere with the management of the minister, [and] suffer him only half to act where he ought to do it wholly?16 Consequently Metternich’s objective was to change the constitutional structure of the Austrian government in an evolutionary fashion. He was convinced that by a gradual devolution of monarchical power to independent ministries, the locus of political power could shift from sovereign to cabinet with almost imperceptible efficiency. In this manner the crises of authority that had plagued Britain in the seventeenth century and France in the late eighteenth could be smoothly averted. Naturally, this proposal met his first criteria for superior statesmanship: that change be introduced slowly and with an eye towards future contingencies and consequences. No longer would government be paralyzed by a capricious or weak ruler, such as Franz’s son Ferdinand, assuming power, or by a sovereign such as Franz himself, who insisted on reviewing every slip of paper handed to him—including a petition to turn an acre of Bohemian forest into pastureland. In its stead would stand a modern, enlightened, and efficient government, operating under the theory of a balance of powers and the principle of federalism, the ideal of Montesquieu and other eighteenth century constitutionalists on both sides of the Atlantic.17 Although thwarted in the pursuit of this objective in 1811 and 1814, Metternich would in 1817 use this  CM to KF, April 16, 1811, MM II, p. 526.  MM II, p. 527. My emphasis. By “committee” he was referring to the Conference Commission. 17  On this point, see Reinerman, “Metternich and Reform”, p. 527. 15 16

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same formula to suggest a new nationalities policy for the Habsburg Empire. Metternich and the Ideas of Nationalism and Centralization The multinational composition of the Habsburg Empire had always distinguished it from other European states, and the task of governing what Robert Evans famously titled a “mildly centripetal agglutinization of bewilderingly heterogeneous elements”, admittedly never easy, proved especially difficult after the explosion of “national feeling” during the Napoleonic Wars. At least sixteen different nationalities lived and up to twenty-three languages and dialects were spoken in the lands administered by the Habsburgs following the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.18 Administering this diverse political entity required, therefore, an approach as unique as the territory itself. The first modern solution to the nationalities problem was offered during the reign of Joseph II (1780-1790). In his at times frenzied attempt to modernize Austria to better compete with the Prussia of Frederick II, Joseph enhanced the autocratic power of the Habsburg crown and stood, in Kann’s phrase, “for strictest absolutism”. He leant his name to the process of “Josephinism”, an ideology dedicated to maintaining strict central control over a multinational state by imposing “standard”—that is, dominant—values on minorities. Joseph sought to unify the administration of the Habsburg dominions, to the point where German became the official language of state, local offices were staffed by Germans and were run in accordance with Germanic norms, and local customs and traditions were aggressively sublimated to the demands imposed by Germanic (and Catholic) Vienna.19 Metternich regarded the Josephinist program with horror and considered it “despotic”. To be sure, as a cosmopolitan he was suspicious of the assertion of particular ethnic identities, but this opinion was no less directed at Germanic than Slavic or Italian customs. In Metter Robert Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, [Oxford: 1979], p. 447. The classic study of the relationship of the nationalities problem to politics in the Empire remains Robert A. Kann, The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848-1918 (2 vols.), [New York: 1950]. 19  On Joseph, see T.C.W. Blanning, Joseph II, [Longman: 1994], Kann, Multinational Empire, v. I, ch. 3; Austrian Intellectual History, pp. 136-145; Szabo, Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism, ch. 6. Quote from Kann, Austrian Intellectual History, p. 143. 18



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nich’s view, by imposing “foreign” norms on alien populations, the Josephinist program merely exacerbated the nationality problem and led to a growing distrust of the imperial administration among provincial elites. Joseph’s policy, Metternich argued, was as absurd as if the Galicians mandated that the State Chancellery in Vienna conduct its business in Polish. In contrast to Joseph, Metternich worked to develop a policy that served the needs of the monarchy as a whole, not merely those of its Germanic core.20 Metternich’s feared that the advent of the nationalist principle was a destructive and destabilizing phenomenon as it polarized politics and sowed potential conflict among divergent ethic, cultural, and religious groups. He prophetically noted to Esterhazy in 1829 that: Long experience has taught us to realize that in racial [ethnic] denominations there may lie elements of trouble between empires and bones of contention between people and governments. And what a powerful weapon such denominations become in the hands of those who overthrow, or seek to overthrow, the existing order!21

Whereas Metternich sought to build on commonalities and shared interests, nationalists took the opposite course and emphasized individual identities. The philosophical divide between Metternich’s cosmopolitanism and the nationalist agenda of the early nineteenth century was clearly unbridgeable. Nevertheless, Metternich was realistic enough to recognize that the potentially explosive force of nationalism was beyond his control. After the Napoleonic Wars, in which public opinion had been aroused by all of the Allied Powers in an effort to undermine the French occupation, it would be impossible to simply pretend that nationalism did not exist. Metternich realized that the Austrian Empire was particularly vulnerable to these demands given its heterogeneous nature. In his opinion it was necessary to formulate a policy which would recognize, and even encourage, local identities and differences while at the same time maintain the central control of the Habsburg dominions in Vienna. In the case of nationalism, therefore, Metternich took the pragmatic approach that “events which cannot be hindered must be led!” and attempted to articulate a federal structure for the Habsburg Monarchy.22  Haas, p. 99.  CM to Esterhazy, September 21, 1829, cited in Bertier, Metternich p. 35. The text of this letter is in MM IV, pp. 627-631 and does not contain this passage. It may be from a later draft. 22  CM to Baron Joseph Hudelist, March 25, 1814, cited in Haas, p. 32. 20 21

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The Italian Territories as a “Test Case” For Federalism, 1814-1815 As a result of the Congress of Vienna, Austria regained control of the provinces of Lombardy and Venetia in northern Italy. Administering this territory posed a difficult problem for the monarchy, as the Italian inhabitants of this region were reluctant to assume a “German” identity after fighting bitterly for years to overthrow a “French” one. Metternich, gazing at the Italian political topography in 1813, rhetorically asked his deputy Hudelist “How can these peoples, aroused as they are to the utmost, ever be brought back again to accept regimes which they despise beyond all bounds?” Ironically, he thought that the solution to the problem of reconciling imperial control over Italy with the demands for local self-government was disarmingly basic: these mutually reinforcing objectives could be met through the adoption of a federal administrative structure, like that in the United States, which could cater to local needs and considerations within the larger context of monarchical solidarity. With such a design, Metternich argued to Kaiser Franz in 1815, “one could do so much good so easily without sacrificing the interests of the monarchy as a whole”.23 To this end Metternich proposed a “Lega Italia”, a loose union of the Italian states under Austrian supervision. This body would mirror, and complement, the structure of the German Confederation, and would secure Austrian interests in the region without imposing an oppressive “foreign” presence on the population. As outlined by Metternich, this project would provide an institutional framework for governing the Italian states, meet halfway the demands of nationalists who wanted a government of Italians for Italians, and cement good faith between Vienna and the Italian states by making it clear that the Monarchy respected their rights and would grant them independence in local affairs.24 The less overt Austrian participation in Italian affairs, Metternich argued, the better, as the best means of maintaining control over Italy was to appear to—and, to a great extent, allow—it to govern itself. Yet Kaiser Franz, who was receptive to this approach in the case  On the general problem of Italy, see Haas, ch. 1; CM to Hudelist, December 16, 1813, cited in Haas, p. 31; CM to KF, December 29, 1815. Metternich’s emphasis, cited in Haas, p. 83. 24  This proposal is outlined in great detail by Haas, pp. 65-73. He argues that this plan was the final step for building Metternich’s European order at the substate level. Like the German Confederation, it would create an equilibrium in a critical region and be beneficial to both local and Great Power interests. See also the older but perceptive study by Grössman, “Metternichs Plan eine italienischen Bundes”. 23



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of Germany, where Prussia and Russia had interests antithetical to Austria’s, opposed it in Italy, where the only power that could rival Vienna—France—was gravely weakened. “Since these lands have been conquered”, Franz wrote to his military commander in Lombardy-Venetia, General Count Heinrich Bellegarde, “there can be no discussion of constitution, Senate, or any other bodies or representatives. Consequently, the electoral colleges, in so far as this has not already been done, are to be dismissed, and no one, other than the [provisional Government] are to make decisions or give orders in My Name”.25 Metternich regarded this retrograde course of action as narrowminded and pregnant with disastrous consequences. Franz was committed to the absolutist and centralizing ideology of his uncle, and steadfastly demanded that Italy be ruled in accordance with the Germanic norms that permeated imperial policy.26 Metternich believed that this approach, which was completely insensitive to the legitimate demands of the Italians for representation in and control of their local government, would only provide the more extreme nationalist groups with propaganda to use against Austrian rule in these territories. Were Vienna to grant these provinces local autonomy, the foundation for such a general revolt would quickly evaporate. As a result it would not be necessary to maintain a large (and expensive) military or police presence there and Austria would not be perceived as a “jailor” of national ambitions. “The notion that we have any predilection for a system of repression is a mistaken one”, he explained concisely later. “We do not follow a system of repression as opposed to a system of concession; we simply follow a system of prevention in order that we may not be compelled to follow one of repression” at a future date. Never was this maxim so critical as in the case of the nationalities issue.27   KF to Bellegarde, May 14, 1814, cited in Haas, p. 30.   “National feelings...and the political implications inherent in such feelings were beyond the horizon of Kaiser Franz”, Haas succintly notes, “who almost from the beginning of his rule occupied himself chiefly with matters usually reserved for administrative officials of medium rank but not for the ruler of a vast empire. His conceptions of state, especially regarding the future status of the new territories, were particularly formalistic and were seconded by a small group of advisers as devoted to centralism as he was”. p. 31. Ironically Kaiser Leopold, who ruled from 1790-1792 (between Joseph II and Franz) had adopted an enlightened policy in Italy. As Archduke of Tuscany he sponsored several innovative reforms, including the gradual introduction of federal rule into the territory. Metternich consciously borrowed many of Leopold’s ideas, but Kaiser Franz was skeptical of his predecessor’s liberal views. 27  CM to Neumann, October 31, 1832, MM V, pp. 267-268. Metternich’s emphasis. 25 26

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In 1814, Metternich doubted that extreme secessionist movements would generate much sympathy among most subjects of the Empire, as the advantages and protection they received from the union with Vienna were too great to carelessly discard. All that the various ethnicities desired, he argued, was recognition of their cultural and linguistic identities and a greater say in managing their own local affairs. This, in his view, was completely reasonable and—from the perspective of Vienna—desirable. He wanted to establish a clear nationalities policy before radical separatist agitation, which strengthened itself on a diet of imperial indifference in Vienna, began to spread. Above all, he did not want to grant concessions to these groups when they were in the process of revolt; at that point such a policy would be a disastrous admission of weakness. Ironically, however, it was this policy that the Empire ultimately pursued, at Metternich’s expense, in 1848. Metternich was convinced that the Italians, like all other ethnic groups in the monarchy, needed to be governed in a manner suited to the distinct characteristics, customs, and conditions of the region. As he observed to the Kaiser in 1815, “These lands must be governed here, and the governments here must then let themselves be represented in Vienna”.28 Indeed, Metternich argued that each ethnic group in the Monarchy should have some form of representation for their interests in Vienna. Moreover, he insisted that all regional administrative posts should be staffed by indigenous officials acquainted with the history, language, and culture of their provinces. Metternich bitterly criticized the bureaucrats sent from Vienna to administer the provinces, with few exceptions, for “not having the slightest knowledge of the lands which they are called upon to organize”, and who rarely spoke any language beyond German. This “incompetence”, he argued, only acted as a catalyst for extreme nationalist ambitions. “I do not believe that any two countries can be less alike than Germany and Italy”, Metternich noted sarcastically in 1819, “and yet our sages in Vienna want, cost what it may, to make Germans out of Italians. Their plan will succeed marvelously”.29 In 1814 and 1815, Metternich toured the Italian provinces for a firsthand look at political conditions in the region. He confided, and found a ready ally, in Bellegarde, who was as frustrated as the Foreign Minister by the inability of the Kaiser to perceive the dangers of his  CM to KF, December 29, 1815, Metternich’s emphasis. cited in Haas, p. 85.  CM to KF, January 21, 1816, cited in Haas, p. 87; CM to Eleonore Metternich, June 19, 1819, MM III, p. 245. Translation of this letter is poor, consult the original in NP III, p. 213. 28 29



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centralization policy, and of “coining everything with a German stamp”.30 Both were convinced that in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, in which Austria had actively fanned national “feeling” in an effort to undermine the French occupation of Italy, it was necessary to come to terms with the nationalities issue to secure Austria’s position in Europe and to prevent the internal dissensions that both predicted would eventually split the Empire apart. “We won’t gain a thing by stringing [the Italians] along”, Bellegarde wrote to Metternich in 1815. Moreover, he told the Foreign Minister that: We must show them in deed that we are seriously occupied with their well-being and their political existence—which is their mania—that minister and government share the affection and well-meaning intentions which the sovereign has for them. [Only this sort of conduct can] dissipate the idea of a foreign yoke and the contempt attached to it...and bring back Austria’s good name, which was almost lost and, finally, conciliate those passionate spirits who are as susceptible to attachment and enthusiasm as to hate and vengeance.

He called upon Metternich to exercise his influence with the Kaiser to prevent this troubling prophecy from becoming realized. Indeed, Metternich attempted to persuade Franz to allow for expanded autonomy not merely among the Italians, but among the Galicians, Slavs, and Bohemians as well. The Hungarians already enjoyed considerable independence, the Foreign Minister observed in 1811, so what would be so dangerous in allowing the same benefits to other ethnicities?31 The monarchy would retain a common foreign, defense, and economic policy; the only differences would be at the all-important provincial level. In a masterful summary of his ideas, Metternich argued in 1817 that: I think it my duty to repeat again, with the greatest respect, how important it would be, from a political point of view, to remove as soon as possible these defects and shortcomings in the administration...to quicken and advance the progress of business, to conciliate the national spirit and selflove of the nation by giving to these provinces a form of constitution which might prove to the Italians that we have no desire to deal with them exactly as with the German provinces of the monarchy, or, so to speak, to weld them with these provinces; that we should there appoint, and especially in the magisterial offices, able natives of the country, and that, above all, an  The phrase was Hudelist’s, but Metternich frequently repeated it. Haas, p. 43.   Bellegarde to CM, April 13, 1815, cited in Haas, p. 65. On Metternich’s view of Hungary and its place within the projected Imperial Confederation, see his Report of April 16, 1811, MM II, p. 524. 30 31

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endeavour should be made to unite more closely with ourselves the clergy and the class of writers who have the most influence on public opinion. I do not doubt that it is possible to attain this most desirable and beneficial end without encountering great difficulties, and even without being exposed to the necessity of departing from these general principles upon which the administration of the other parts of the monarchy are based— principles which unquestionably must be preserved in the interests of the common weal, though their application may admit of many modifications... If ever this day should come, then the influence of foreigners will cease to be feared, and we shall gain one far more essential with our neighbors—the influence given by opinion.

Bellegarde only reinforced Metternich’s counsel, arguing to the latter in 1816 that the Josephinist policy of Franz was a failure, and that: it is absolutely necessary as well as unavoidable to give up once and for all any idea of eventual conformity, no matter how gradual, with the German forms of the Empire, and along with this idea, also the plan of eventual assimilation—which even the Emperor Joseph failed to accomplish, and at a time when loyalty and obedience had not been shaken.

Not surprisingly, Bellegarde was removed from his post shortly after this letter was written and was replaced by officials completely devoted to the Kaiser and his absolutist ideology.32 Metternich, however, enjoyed more freedom of maneuver than Bellegarde due to his eminence in the government and his key role in structuring Austria’s foreign relations in the postwar era. He flatly told the Kaiser in August 1817 that in the administration of his empire “the result then is that usually the grandly and well-conceived is applied pettily and the common and petty is raised to grand chicanery. In these few words lies the history of the Italian-Austrian provinces”. In an attempt to frighten the Kaiser out of his complacency, Metternich warned him that if substantial administrative reforms were not forthcoming, revolution would be the result. To be sure, Metternich was sincerely convinced that this would be the case, and his prophecy was realized in Naples in 1820. In that case he was forced to sponsor an embarrassing military intervention to restore order in the Italian Piedmont, an intervention that in his view would have been unnecessary had Franz followed his advice several years earlier. We have seen that Metternich considered revolution as the logical—and at times legitimate—result of mismanaged and myopic government. If proper preventative measures 32  CM, “Report on the Internal Condition of Italy”, November 3, 1817, MM III, pp. 88-104, quote from 103-104; Bellegarde to CM, March 25, 1816, cited in Haas, p. 92.



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were taken far enough in advance and were buttressed with a constructive social policy (such as the one he was currently proposing), then revolution need not occur in any state.33 Logically, then, the prudent course for Austria to follow would be to familiarize itself with the concerns and aspirations of its Italian subjects and deal with them accordingly through a representative political process. Metternich believed that the only way he could attain this objective was to stress the possibility of revolution in Italy, and he underscored the destabilizing doctrines of the Carbonari secessionist movement in his correspondence with the Kaiser. Some interpreters, such as Paul Schroeder, have taken this counter-revolutionary rhetoric as the true objective of Metternich’s Italian policy and not for the mere propaganda it was, and use it as evidence to support their claims that he was a reactionary absolutist.34 To the contrary, it was this very ideology that Metternich was directing all his energy against. Privately he admitted to his colleagues that there was no danger of “national conspiracy” in Italy, and he expressed his disgust at having to enforce imperial edicts he found retrograde and self-defeating.35 This policy, which worked to a great extent in Germany in 1819, where the international ramifications were more complex, did not get 33  CM to KF, August 8, 1817, cited in Haas, p. 115; See Metternich’s private memoire, undated but certainly written after 1848, in NP VII, p. 621. 34  On the “revolutionary scare”, see Haas, pp. 113-5. Schroeder argues that “Metternich secured what was really important to him: the restoration of absolutism and the suppression of political change in Italy...His aim was not to make things happen, but to prevent things from happening; not to meet problems in some positive way, but simply to restrain and prevent political action, change, innovation, and movement at all levels”. Metternich’s Diplomacy at its Zenith, pp. 237-242. This misleading assessment is based, in part, on Schroeder’s curious avoidance of Metternich’s letters from Italy in 18141815 and, more strikingly, his refusal to address the nationalities report of October 27, 1817. Haas is a useful and necessary corrective. 35  Haas, pp. 106-7. Indeed Metternich frequently visited Italian political prisoners, including prominent Carbonari leader Federigo Confalonieri, at the Spielberg prison in Vienna to discern their thoughts on Italian affairs. It is ironic that Metternich, chancellor of the state that imprisoned them, would seek their counsel, but he privately recognized that many of their demands were quite moderate and, and that if the Austria worked with them a comprehensive and stable political arrangement for Italy could be established. He actually sought to advance their cause, albeit indirectly, in his call for a new Italian constitution in the period 1815-1816. By imprisoning the leaders of the nationalist cells, Metternich argued, the Austrian government merely helped radicalize these movements to the point where violence was commonplace and compromise impossible. Metternich, no doubt eager to demonstrate his disapproval of and embarrassment with the Kaiser’s policy, did all he could to aid the families of the detainees, including providing financial support to Confalonieri’s wife out of his own pocket. see Haas, pp. 160-163.

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Metternich very far in Italy. The Kaiser was determined to maintain direct control over these territories and saw no harm in the centralizing and absolutist dogmas of his uncle. Given the considerable Austrian military presence in Lombardy-Venetia, he believed that if an uprising occurred the army could quickly suppress it. The fact that such a repressive policy would in the long term work against Austrian interests went overlooked by him. He disagreed with Metternich’s prescient and progressive counsel and placed more faith in coercive police power than in farsighted reform, to the point where Metternich noted that: Surveillance was carried out by the police, which thereby became one of the chief instruments of his government, by censorship of the press which was more irritating than efficacious, and finally by the moral closing of frontiers against Germany and against foreign countries in general. But it is no use closing frontiers to ideas; they cross them just the same and turn up as contraband when they are not allowed to enter in the normal way. The effect was to produce in the educated classes a feeling of tacit annoyance with the government and of a vague desire for political reform...Anything I could do to lessen the harmful effects of this policy, I did.

But whenever Metternich sent the Kaiser a dispatch on the need for reform, urging that he attend to it at once lest a real conspiracy develop, Franz simply replied with his usual comment: “Notify My Police Director”. He repeated the phrase so often that Metternich devised his own sarcastic rejoinder to it. When informed that the Kaiser was commissioning Count Franz Saurau, the Austrian Governor of Milan, to establish a special police organization to spy on separatist cells, Metternich dryly informed Saurau that “the Monarch would disapprove of a police system not in conformity with the forms usual for the other provinces of the Empire”.36 Metternich believed that police power alone would prove unable to suppress nationalist aspirations and demands, as they were too rooted in the experiences of the Napoleonic wars and too broad-based to be eliminated by reactionary repression. Rather, he proposed that Austria should cultivate these groups by sponsoring prudent and liberal reforms which demonstrated Vienna’s sympathy to legitimate and moderate demands for local self-rule while eschewing and isolating extremist factions. As Haas notes, with this assumption: we see the beginnings of Metternich’s efforts to draw the overall organization and administrative policy toward a prudent and tolerant line—one  CM journal entry, undated, cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 164; Haas, pp. 106-108.

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which denounced “Germanization” as it promoted greater understanding between Italians and Germans, one which discouraged unwarranted centralization as much as it encouraged a healthy regionalism, one which would grant (as he thought) fuller consideration to “national feeling”, one which in its last consequence attempted a reorganization of the lands in the Empire according to the nationalities of the inhabitants.37

The genius of this policy, Metternich insisted, was that it came with little cost. Granting national semi-autonomy within a federal system would actually strengthen the monarchy by removing a potential source of dissent (one he considered fatal to a multinational empire) as well as streamlining and modernizing the process of government itself. Federalism solved two of the Habsburg Empire’s most serious political problems: an overextended and inefficient central administration as well as the potentially explosive nationalities issue. As he wrote from Italy in December 1815, “the whole question reduces itself to the following: should Vienna be bothered every month with 500 or only 50 issues from here? In the first case there would be a back-log of 400 which would cripple the course of [administration]”. In short, in Metternich’s view creating modern and responsive nationalities policy was an almost unbelievably simple, logical, and universally beneficial strategy for the Empire to pursue.38 Metternich’s Federal Constitution Proposal of 1817 In 1817, Metternich took the bold step of amalgamating these ideas and transforming them into a formal proposal for a new administrative and constitutional structure for the monarchy, which he presented in the form of a report to the Kaiser in late October. This document is nothing less than revolutionary in Austrian political history in its argument, which built on the more restrained ideas of Metternich’s 1811 and 1814 proposals, that the monarchy needed a new constitutional system, one predicated upon the idea of federalism. Yet, realizing that the Kaiser was wary of radical administrative changes, Metternich em37  Haas, p. 44. Reinerman concurs with this judgment, arguing that “Further proof— if any is needed at this late date—is thus provided that he was by no means the benighted reactionary of nineteenth century legend, but an intelligent and perceptive conservative who realized that the Restoration settlement could survive only if so reformed as to adapt to the needs and expectation of a new era”. “Metternich and Reform”, p. 546. 38  CM to KF, December 29, 1815, cited in Haas, p. 85.

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barked on a delicate two-track strategy of persuasion to convince his sovereign that the monarchy could not long survive without drastic restructuring.39 First, Metternich ostensibly disavowed any attempt to introduce dramatic changes in the machinery of state, even though that was precisely what he intended to do. He reassured the Kaiser that “Your Majesty knows from long experience that all desire for unnecessary alteration and dangerous disturbance is far from me”. He argued that the proposal, despite its novel appearance, was in fact nothing new: “In my report there is nothing glaring, nothing revolutionary, not a single dangerous principle”. Naturally this was disingenuous, as the Kaiser himself had expressed annoyance with Metternich’s innovative meddling in administrative affairs. Yet Metternich capitalized on his largely fraudulent conservative credentials in his 1817 report, masterfully disguising what was an original—indeed, by Austrian standards, quite radical— idea in familiar phrases and rhetorical assurances of the absolute nature of Franz’s rule.40 Secondly, Metternich directly addressed the problem that plagued most senior officials in Austria after the Congress of Vienna: the succession question. Franz’s son Ferdinand by all accounts suffered a form of dementia, and his accession to the throne was a subject of grave concern as Franz aged in the 1820s.41 Metternich therefore tactfully recommended that major changes in the structure of the state should be instituted before Franz became indisposed, so that the machinery of government would be in good order and could operate without strong leadership from the throne. He noted delicately in his 1817 report that: The machine of Government goes on, because its springs are well put together and because there is at the head of the administration a monarch capable of ruling. How little this would be the case on the occurrence of that sad catastrophe which in the course of nature must befall the monarchy is known to Your Majesty; for Your Majesty is as man and father what  Text of the Report of October 27, 1817, with cover letter, in MM III, pp. 74-87; Walter, pp. 325-332. For a general analysis of its ideas, see Haas, ch. 4; Radvany, ch. 6; Kraehe, “Foreign Policy and the Nationality Problem”, and Srbik Metternich I, pp. 424455. 40  CM to KF, October 27, 1817, cover letter to report, MM III, p. 74; Reinerman”, Metternich and Reform”, p. 533. 41  On Ferdinand’s character and the problems it posed for the monarchy, see Radvany, ch. 11. He notes that “when [Ferdinand] recovered from a serious illness in 1832 after having been given up by his doctor, the Court was not pleased, since his death would have solved many future difficulties”. p. 68. 39



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Your Majesty is as monarch: clear and unprejudiced in opinion and judgment! Your Majesty is called to look forward and provide for that time, and to this end there is but one road that promises success.

That road, of course, was to adopt Metternich’s proposals and institute a responsible government at the ministerial level so that it would be insulated from monarchical caprice or incompetence upon Ferdinand’s accession. “A feeble successor to Your Majesty”, he continued, with reference to the heir to the throne, “would then find it as difficult to overthrow a sound and well-established Government as it would be impossible for him to produce or inaugurate one”.42 After exploiting his skills at diplomatic persuasion, Metternich made it clear that his ideas on the troublesome nationalities question were longstanding and that his “certainly true principles” were the product of sober and lasting reflection. This, of course, was entirely accurate; he had been advancing reform since he attained office in 1809 and his tours of Italy had convinced him (if he needed further convincing) that Josephinism was futile and self-defeating. Hence he could bluntly inform the Kaiser that “the Government, as it is at present, rests in its daily working too entirely on the principle of centralization”. Since late 1816 Metternich had been discussing the need for a new federal Interior Ministry with executive responsibility for the provinces with Prince Franz Dietrichstein, a distinguished Austrian statesman and student of Vattel. In his correspondence with the scholarly Dietrichstein, Metternich frequently elaborated on federalist theory and went so far as to propose a formal written constitution for the monarchy which would expressly limit the Kaiser’s absolute power. Dietrichstein warned him, however, that despite the utility of such a document Metternich should not advance it publicly, as if he did “they would send us both strolling”.43 Nevertheless, the 1817 proposal advocated a federal structure for the Habsburg Monarchy, which it appears Metternich based loosely on the American Constitution and the Swiss canton system. This arrangement would have as its highest end, as he wrote in another context, “the living together of the various peoples in a mutually beneficial un MM III, pp. 77-78.  Haas, p. 121. On Dietrichstein’s role in helping Metternich shape his 1817 plan, see Haas, ch. 4. Dietrichstein, a former diplomat and military officer, was an amateur— but very sophisticated—scholar of political theory and the classics and remained, until his death in 1854, one of Metternich’s closest friends and advisers. See Haas, pp. 183-4 for a brief biographical sketch. 42 43

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ion”. He was proposing a reconciliation of the competing claims of “unity” and “diversity” through such a federative arrangement, and believed that they could coexist if the machinery of state was carefully balanced. The cohesion of the Empire would be enhanced by “deferring to local interests and needs”, and allowing each province considerable latitude in its own internal affairs. In this way the engine of nationalism could be harnessed to the state, rather than work against it by assaulting its political and territorial integrity. Metternich’s 1817 plan anticipated the compromise negotiated by Austria and Hungary fifty years later, but he proposed extending identical privileges to other provinces as well. Under his proposal, each region would be entitled to send representative to an imperial council—a body not unlike the U.S. Senate—in Vienna in which all would have equal weight.44 Consequently Metternich proposed the creation of a new Interior Ministry, within which there would be four departments: one for Austria proper, one for Bohemia, Moravia, and Galicia, one for the Slavic peoples of Serbia, Croatia, and Dalmatia, and one for Italy. Hungary and Transylvania, both of which enjoyed “special privileges” at the moment, would slowly be integrated into this system and “will be reduced from the high position they take at present to a share in the general administration”. In its final iteration the Interior Ministry would be composed of six chancelleries, each headed by an official well acquainted with the conditions, culture, and language of his province, operating under the guidance of an Interior Minister who would exercise powers currently reserved for the Kaiser himself.45 Within the Interior Ministry, policy would be conceived and implemented through the Chancellery Council (composed of the six provincial representatives) and business would be conducted mainly through oral discussion in order to eliminate cumbersome paperwork. Each regional chancellor would be an “advocate” for the concerns of his constituents—much like representatives in Parliament or the American 44  CM”,Thoughts on the Galician Revolt”, March 1846, NP VII, pp. 206-207; on Metternich’s concept of “unity and diversity” in a federal state, see Radvany, p. 37. Haas, p. 133. 45  MM III, p. 85. Metternich traced the development of Hungary’s exclusive rights within the present administrative structure since the seventeenth century and concluded that the system was inherently unfair, as “for Hungary there arose a privilege which nearly amounted to independence, while the nationalities of the other Austrian states was lost by friction between the Government and the provinces”. p. 81. Dietrichstein had wanted seven chancelleries, claiming that it would be more effective to separate Galicia from the Bohemian-Moravian ministry, but Metternich reduced the number to six to sweeten the pill he wanted Franz to swallow.



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Congress—and it would be his job to “advocate against” the central government when its policies collided with local interests. However, Metternich assumed that an enlightened ministry would always have the general good of the Monarchy as its ultimate objective, even though it would naturally be influenced, and enhanced, by discussions of local concerns. Each Chancellor would have equal weight in the council, and would thus be checked by the others as well as by the Interior Minister, who would be a spokesman for the “central” government’s position. Metternich, therefore, directly employed the dictum of a careful separation of powers and a balance between central unity and local diversity within the structure of the government.46 Metternich hoped that this system would put an end to controversies between favored groups such as the Hungarians and frequently ignored subjects such as the South Slavs. The Interior Ministry would provide a unified and cohesive administrative structure that would be flexible and adaptive to local differences. He observed that a key problem of the current arrangement was that “the heterogeneous character [of the monarchy] is regarded unequally, sometimes insufficiently, sometimes too decidedly, even on the very steps of the throne itself”. Under his plan, each province would retain its distinct identity, and all would be treated equally by the central government. Metternich argued that “immeasurable good” would follow if this idea became official imperial policy in lieu of the sterile Josephinist doctrines which were, he noted, a demonstrable failure.47 The axiom upon which this proposal was founded was clear: the nationalities question must be dealt with immediately and innovatively because it was a problem which could, if ignored, prove fatal to a heterogeneous empire. Metternich contended that no province or ethnic group was currently demanding complete separation from Vienna, merely recognition of their special status and a greater latitude to govern themselves in accordance with their own traditions and customs. Yet if these moderate and legitimate ambitions were not taken into account, then radical demands for something more—such as secession from the Empire—would only grow among discontented provincial elites. In conformity with his belief that true reforms should not be lastminute “concessions”, Metternich suggested that something be done presently, in a period of relative calm, in order to anticipate the conse For the conceptual origins of this policy see Radvany, pp. 40-42.  MM III, p. 81.

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quences of nationalism and prevent this potentially harmful chain of events from occurring. He urged that the administration occupy itself with “the careful regulation of the reasonable long-existing differences sanctioned by speech, climate, manners, and customs in the various districts of the monarchy, under a strong, well-organized central government”. He went so far as to advocate the creation of semi-autonomous kingdoms within the Empire for the Italians and South Slavic subjects. These would be comparable to the semi-independent crown of St. Stephen in Hungary, and would cater to national pride while at the same time firmly anchor these principalities to the Habsburg state. Unlike the crown of Hungary, these kingdoms would be conferred by the Kaiser himself. Consequently, Metternich reasoned, these territories would have greater loyalty to Vienna if the Kaiser magnanimously accorded them a higher status and sovereignty to regulate their internal affairs.48 The unmistakable argument of Metternich’s proposal, therefore, was that the Austrian Empire should become a federal state by devolving more power to the provinces while retaining a common political center of gravity in foreign affairs. His model, besides the obvious debt to Montesquieu, was the American Constitution, which he admired for its ability to create a secure, ordered government out of disparate entities and cultures.49 The idea of federalism was, in his view, an admirable compromise between the extremes of Josephinism, with its monopoly of central power, and a weak, unstable government dominated by local interests, like the United States under the Articles of Confederation. In his opinion, only this formula, with its inherent balance be MM III, p. 80; Kraehe, “Foreign Policy and the Nationality Problem”, p. 13. On the issue of separate Kingdoms, Metternich wrote the Kaiser in 1816 that the idea was a brilliant means of co-opting nationalism by appealing to national pride and culture”.I have brought up the question of the ‘Illyrian Kingdom’ [the old name for the Balkan provinces of Carinthia, Dalmatia, and modern-day Croatia] with several [knowledgeable] individuals...and can assure Your Majesty that it should and must find acceptance with all reasonable people. The majority of this nation is of Slavic origin and naturally harbors a predilection for [Slavic] stock. A Southern Slavic Realm can bring only advantage, especially where this nationality coincides with the Roman Catholic religion. I refer then completely to my first idea—in this matter there is something good but absolutely nothing bad—and there is certainly one voice for it. Since there is no objection to the retaining of the provinces anyway, then Carniola can just as well be a province of Illyria as of Inner-Austria. Consequently, I am convinced that Your Majesty would do better to hold to this basic idea than to depart from it”. CM to KF, May 24, 1816. Emphasis Metternich’s, cited in Haas, p. 100. On Metternich’s theory of the advantages of separate kingdoms, see Haas, ch. 3. 49  As he noted to Ticknor in 1836. See Ticknor, pp. 12-18. 48



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tween conflicting interests, could insure the security and internal cohesion of the monarchy over time. The rigorous theoretical and practical reasoning that had gone into this proposal—at least three years in the making—underscored Metternich’s commitment to his progressive views of preventative statesmanship and efficient and modern administration. The results of his proposal, however, led to what Haas has called his eventual disillusionment and frustration with the affairs of state, a thesis that explains the relative disgust he expressed towards internal politics after the early 1820s. The Kaiser once again accepted Metternich’s report in theory, but vitiated it by arbitrarily merging the Austrian and Slavic chancelleries and by appointing chancellors to only two of the six projected posts, and even these were only on a provisional basis. He appointed Count Saurau Minister of the Interior, but eviscerated his power by retaining absolute control over internal affairs. The Kaiser’s “reluctance to do anything resembling a delegation of responsibility and authority” to ministers resulted in the butchering of Metternich’s plan. The idea of unity in diversity that underscored Metternich’s project was disavowed by the Kaiser, who was “incomprehensive” of the concept of nationality, let alone its political implications.50 Thus the practical results of the 1817 plan were nil. Kaiser Franz clearly perceived the radical nature of Metternich’s ideas, and was opposed to any constitutional check on his authority. He did not understand the full implications of Metternich’s argument: that “unity” and “diversity” were mutually supportive and that by granting increased autonomy to the provinces the Kaiser would actually strengthen the cohesion of his state by reducing tensions within it and by gaining a reputation for enlightened liberality among his subjects. Moreover, Franz politely cautioned the Foreign Minister to concentrate on international politics and leave the administration of the state to him. Metternich could do nothing to change these opinions of his sovereign and continued, as he put it, to represent the Empire abroad while the state slowly disintegrated around him. In an irony which he later appreciated, the revolutions of 1848, which cost Metternich his position, could most likely have been prevented had the Kaiser followed his advice three decades before and devised a cogent nationalities policy rather than concentrate all power in the German-speaking provinces and Vienna itself.

 Haas, pp. 134-135; Radvany, p. 51.

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Metternich’s Reform Efforts and Their Significance Metternich’s reform proposals ultimately failed due to his lack of influence in internal affairs. Kaiser Franz made it clear that while Metternich would have a leading voice in questions of foreign policy, his attentions to the internal structure of the state were unwarranted and unwanted. Even after his promotion to the theoretically powerful but largely ceremonial post of State Chancellor in 1821 Metternich was relegated to handling external matters only. The Kaiser and his circle of advisers found the liberal and—worse—Francophilic Foreign Minister too innovative for his own good. Indeed, his Foreign Office stood out from the other government agencies in Vienna given its efficiency, reliance on oral deliberation, and a clearly discernable French parentage. Metternich’s efforts to show the Kaiser that internal and external affairs were related, and that the external power of the state was a factor of its internal cohesion, came to no avail. Like Speranskii in Russia, Metternich eventually found the conservative forces in the Austrian government, as well as the political culture of the state, intransigent to his reformist agenda. Thus he observed with a hint of irony that “I may perhaps have occasionally governed Europe, but never Austria”. He had no illusions after 1817 that if he ventured past the borders of the Foreign Office he would meet with the Kaiser’s disapproval, and thus “Prince Metternich would not remain twenty-four hours Foreign Minister”.51 The result of this state of affairs was that the conservatives whom Metternich so distrusted—such as Kolowrat—became the arbiters of state policy. These officials were as devoted to the idea of centralization and absolutism as the Kaiser himself. Thus in 1817 the French Ambassador in Vienna could write to his superior that: This country keeps going by its own size, but the government has no energy and none is to be found anywhere...There is here neither will nor authority, everyone does more or less as he likes, and it is the subordinates who are the masters. Prince Metternich only exercises influence over affairs  Metternich was the first State Chancellor appointed by a Habsburg ruler since Kaunitz’s death in 1794, but Metternich never enjoyed Kaunitz’s power in internal affairs. While Joseph and Maria Teresa frequently took Kaunitz’s advice in these matters, Franz all but ignored Metternich’s. See Mayr, Geschichte der österreichischen Staatskanzlei, v. 1, introduction. Szabo goes even further, arguing that “no subsequent foreign minister, including Metternich, wielded the kind of domestic influence that Kaunitz did”. Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism, p. 37; cited in Seton-Watson, “Metternich and Internal Austrian Policy”, pp. 539-541. 51



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which fall absolutely within his province, but we look everywhere for the Government, and none can tell us where it is.

Perhaps the most revealing account of Metternich’s impotence in the government and his frustration with its retrograde methods of administration was offered by Charles Stewart in 1816, when he wrote his stepbrother Castlereagh from Italy that: Prince Metternich is disposed to see Things in a point of View infinitely more liberal and congenial to the sentiments of this Nation, but he has a party to manage whom he cannot overcome, and who are so blind as not to see that a Volatile advanced and enlightened people as these are become by rapid strides under the Control of the French will not with patience bear to see all their concerns regulated by an Aulic Council in Vienna...where Business is not very rapid, and above all without their own Countrymen having Office, Post, Employment, or Emolument.52

Thus it is not surprising that by the 1820s, realizing that his efforts to reform the monarchy—especially on the nationalities issue—were foredoomed to failure, Metternich approached internal affairs with an unhappy mixture of cynicism, repugnance, and frustration. He was tasked with protecting the interests of the state, but he was powerless to accomplish this goal with his preferred method: by prevention rather than by repression. By the late 1820s, as reform was not forthcoming, repression became one of the few policy options open to the Monarchy to deal with nationalist unrest. Metternich could not change the social conditions that served as the catalyst for revolt, and was forced to watch as the bureaucracy treated this “illness” symptomatically rather than systemically. Metternich realized that the realities of the Napoleonic period made a return to the Josephinist policy impossible; Franz, in a speech to the Laibach Gymnasium in 1821, made it clear that he did not. “Hold to the old, for it is good”, he advised his audience of academics: and our ancestors found it to be good, so why should not we? There are new ideas going about, which I never can nor will approve. Avoid these and keep to what is positive. For I need not savants, but worthy citizens. To form the youth into such citizens is your task. He who serves me must teach what I order. He who cannot do so, or who comes up with new ideas, can go, or I shall remove him.  On Kolowrat and his circle, see Radvany, ch. 5; cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 158; Stewart to Castlereagh, February 4, 1816, full text of letter printed in Haas, pp. 172-174. 52

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Indeed, the problems foreseen by Metternich soon manifested themselves, and the only response from the Kaiser were orders to increase police strength. Consequently, as Reinerman notes, “it was only the repeated defeat of his plans for reform that led Metternich to sink gradually into the sterile policy of stand-pat conservatism and repression that characterized the last stage of his career...All his undoubted energy and ability were inadequate to serve rulers who did not deserve to rule”.53 Metternich’s proposals for internal reorganization, despite his disclaimers to the Kaiser, were quite radical in orientation and prescription. Taken together, they led towards an unmistakable goal: a diminution of absolute monarchical power and an increased reliance on responsible ministers with executive power, as in England. Metternich never wanted to abolish the institution of the monarchy; it served as a unifying force and carried symbolic political weight. Rather, he aimed for a balance of powers within the government, and for this reason he applauded the federal character of the American Constitution, and the checks on monarchical power in Britain and Sweden. In his opinion the same basic formula, modified to suit different needs, could be applied to the Habsburg Empire. By offering each nationality a stake in the politics of the empire and representation in the central government, and by granting provincial governments greater autonomy, the competing demands of central organization and particular local identities could be met, and the overall health of the Monarchy improved. It seemed self-evident to him that this idea would solve many potential problems for the monarchy in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars and he believed, as he told the Kaiser in 1817, that its implementation would lead to the creation of “so much good so easily”.54 53  Cited in Seton-Watson, “Metternich and Internal Policy”, pp. 544-555. This could be interpreted as a swipe at Metternich, who was Chairman of the Austrian Academy of Fine Arts and a champion of importing foreign—principally French and Italian—art s and academics into Austria. Reinerman, “Metternich and Reform”, p. 548. 54  Metternich argued that the monarchy and the monarchical principle would of necessity continue to predominate in Austria until a workable ministerial or constitutional system was established. “The only form of government which is suited to the concentration of peoples which makes up the Empire is the monarchical form”, Metternich wrote, “because the cohesion of the parties would be absolutely impossible under a republican form of government...The latter form is not applicable to the Austrian Empire. There is one reason for this: the non-existence of the Austrian people...Although a personal sovereign may rule over populations of different origin, it is impossible to imagine, on the other hand, a popular sovereignty superimposed on other sovereignties of the same kind and origin”. cited in Bertier, Metternich, p. 161. Thus he argued for provincial, rather than individual, representation, in his federative proposal.



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Yet the Kaiser interpreted this plan as calculated to weaken the absolute nature of his authority. He was quite correct in this assessment, as this was the unspoken intention of Metternich’s reform proposals, and indeed the desire to reduce monarchical power and establish ministerial government is the common denominator of Metternich’s proposals of 1811, 1814, and 1817. Metternich never surrendered this conviction; he repeated it endlessly for the duration of his career. He was careful to frame his proposals in the form of a concern that the monarch was “overburdened”, and thus might find the delegation of authority conducive to concentrating his attention to his “proper” duties, which Metternich never enumerated but always hinted should be ceremonial in scope. He never directly proposed the introduction of ministerial government—the 1817 report was the closest he came to asserting this idea—for fear of losing his post and whatever influence he might have in directing the European confederation. The nationality proposal of 1817 applied this idea to the complex issue of ethnicity which Metternich saw as potentially fatal to the Habsburg state. Convinced that proper preventative measures could forestall more aggressive demands for national independence, Metternich sought to implement this policy before a serious crisis arose. With this width of conceptual perspective, so lacking in Austria in the postNapoleonic period, Metternich clearly diagnosed the weaknesses of the Monarchy and predicted their likely consequences. If his remedy was applied to its logical conclusion, it may have prevented the events of 1848. Haas’s conclusion, that “Metternich must be credited with having the ideas and opening the Emperor’s eyes to an admirably sensible program—a program almost fascinating in the way it anticipated most of what was arrived at in futile hindsight decades—even a century—later” is incontrovertible.55 Metternich undoubtedly appreciated the irony, if not the political ramifications, of this in March of 1848, when he was cast as the scapegoat for a political problem he had spent the last thirty years attempting to solve. The broader course of European politics in the nineteenth century may also have been dramatically affected by Metternich’s reforms, as the ethnicity problem and fear of internal corrosion became the bete noir of Austrian policy in the Balkans until 1914. Given his progressive impulses it is not surprising that with his policies in tatters Metternich would acidicly voice frustration with and contempt for the Austrian ruling elite. Dedicated to upholding and preThe latter could only evolve after the former was established and after the nationality question was absorbed into the constitution. 55  Haas, p. 152.

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serving the European order he valued so highly, Metternich could not simply retire and abandon the monarchy to its fate as he assumed that the world “yet has need of me, were it only that I hold a place which no one else could fill”.56 Nevertheless he realized that Austria’s position in world politics, and indeed Europe as a whole, would eventually suffer as a result of this shortsightedness. Devoted as he was to the cause of the European confederation, this realization must have been the most personally scarring result of the failure of his reform proposals. Metternich underestimated the resilience of the bedrock conservatism of the Kaiser and his advisers, and overestimated his ability to implement a reformist course. Marginalized by Franz and conservative elements in the government, Metternich worked to preserve his European order as best he could and watched as the Habsburg state slowly rotted from within.

 CM to his son Victor, May 15, 1828, MM IV, p. 437.

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Chapter VI Metternich and the Enlightenment: A Perspective “I am a child of light”, Metternich exclaimed in 1820, “and need brilliant light to be able to live”. Invoking the luminary imagery applied so frequently to eighteenth century philosophy, Metternich assiduously and incessantly identified himself with the method and political program of the late Enlightenment. A learned student of science, history, and politics, Metternich approached the affairs of state with a clear theoretical agenda and attempted to illuminate the political process by the lamp of reason: “I know what I want”, he observed in 1822, “my thoughts are bright and clear as a crystal spring, while many people are now wading in turbid waters”. Confident that he had mastered what Holbach had called the “system” of nature and politics, Metternich analyzed the social world with scientific detachment and used concepts drawn from his wide-ranging intellectual inquiries, most significantly those of the physical sciences and law, to inform his approach to internal and international politics. A general and perpetual continental peace, achieved and maintained through the rule of law and the pragmatic recognition that it served the interests of all states, was the primary objective of Metternich’s diplomatic labors during and after the Congress of Vienna. His conception of the European “equilibrium” envisaged a confederal arrangement of powers operating under clearly delineated treaty obligations, and provided a sophisticated alternative to traditional “balance of power” politics. Met CM journal entries, February 25, 1820, MM III, p. 363; May 4, 1822, ibid., p. 579.



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ternich dismissed the latter as an insufficient guarantor of European peace, as it exalted individual national interests rather than the collective good of general stability, emphasized diplomatic expediency rather than moral duties, and was maintained through the threat of force rather than the assertion of law. After a quarter century of catastrophic war, Metternich argued that only a radical “transformation” in the assumptions and practices of European diplomacy could effectively secure a lasting continental peace, the dream of many Enlightenment theorists. The Vienna settlement sketched the contours of Metternich’s political vision; the succeeding conferences filled in its details. In these years Metternich worked to establish and consolidate what in modern terms would be called a collective security system in Europe, under which the powers engaged in frequent consultations, under the provisions of Article VI of the Vienna Treaty, and pledged to support each other against “disruptions”. Well could Robert Kann argue that Metternich’s efforts provided the conceptual foundations for the League of Nations following the First World War, and indeed Metternich’s attachment to, and outline of, a program of European unity remains his most enduring legacy in international relations. The “conference system” was the operative machinery designed to regulate the workings of a confederal Europe. In Metternich’s view, by agreeing to meet regularly to discuss existing or potential threats to the peace, the powers could greatly reduce the likelihood of another continental war. Rational deliberation and compromise would, under this model, achieve the goal set by him and Castlereagh: that of finding “a new discovery in the [idea of] European Government, at once extinguishing the cobwebs with which diplomacy obscures the horizon”. By working together to solve problems that had so long divided them the Powers could, as Castlereagh enthusiastically informed Liverpool in 1818, “bring the whole bearing of the System into its true Light, and give to the Counsels of the Great Powers the efficiency and almost the simplicity of a single State”. This policy worked well in the immediate aftermath of the war, when the powers were reorienting their foreign policy goals, but slowly    Kann, “Metternich: A Reappraisal”; indeed Desmond Seward, writing at the time of the Maastricht Treaty, subtitled his biography of Metternich “the first European” and argued that he was the real architect of the process of European integration followed after the Second World War. Desmond Seward, Metternich: The First European, [New York: 1991].   Castlereagh to Liverpool, October 20, 1818, cited in Webster, Castlereagh II, p. 153.



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collapsed when the common interest in providing a respite for the accumulation of national power dissipated after the mid-1820s. Castlereagh’s death in 1822 was of dramatic significance in hastening the demise of the conference system. The successive policy of Canning, under which England visibly extricated itself from continental affairs, as well as the reappearance of an aggressive Russian policy in the Balkans after 1825, restricted the participation of these states in Metternich’s conference system and drastically reduced its effectiveness. Convinced of the inherent logic and value of his system, Metternich failed to recognize that it was only made possible by immediate postwar circumstances which created a temporary lull in the competitive dynamics of the European state system, and the fact that a few colleagues shared his views. Taken in its entirety, Metternich’s plan for European order was an extremely fragile system that did not, through its operation, extend the cause of prescriptive right in politics as far as he had hoped. Metternich’s formula for international order proved unworkable because his philosophical commitment to universal peace could not overcome the temptation to individual gain and profit on the part of other states. Once these competitive impulses reasserted themselves, particularly in Britain and Russia, the confederal structure Metternich hoped to institutionalize collapsed. When the theoretical foundations of this model were rejected by individual governments, he was left with little beyond appeals to reason and an increasing sense of frustration. Thus Metternich’s European order, despite its promising beginning, unravelled due to the idealistic nature of the enterprise and his efforts to translate the philosophical program of the late Enlightenment into diplomatic practice were dissolved by the acids of Realpolitik. By his own account Metternich never reconciled himself to the competitive state system that re-emerged after the post-Napoleonic hiatus, and considered his vision of Europe and his diplomatic efforts to achieve it a failure. In domestic politics as well Metternich developed an expansive and progressive social agenda but failed to carry it into practice. His ultimate objective was to transform the Habsburg Empire from an absolute to a limited monarchy, ruled by a largely symbolic Emperor but governed by a council of professional ministers supported by a modern administrative apparatus. The English example was his guide and ideal in this process, and this model, along with his exposure to the efficient administration of Napoleonic France, conditioned his 1811 and 1814 proposals for the reorganization of the government. His ideas were lib-

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eral—indeed, in some instances, radical—in the political culture of the Empire, but he sought to implement them in an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, fashion to avoid disruptions in the “harmony” of society. Convinced that real progress was impossible in a chaotic political environment, Metternich championed the rule of law as aggressively in internal as in external politics. In short, he employed conservative means—the preservation of order—in the service of his liberal end: an enlightened and restructured Habsburg state. While Metternich criticized the semi-feudal, traditional, and absolutist monarchies of central and eastern Europe, he also opposed their nascent successor—nationalism and its appeal for the “self-determination” of peoples. As a cosmopolitan and creature of order Metternich condemned the assertion of particularist agendas in politics as “irrational” and destabilizing. He feared that nationalists perceived politics as a zero-sum game in which a gain for one identity must come at the expense of another, a philosophy which in his view would inevitably lead to the dissolution of the Monarchy. For this reason Metternich realized that the Habsburg Empire must come to terms with this new force if its own survival, as well as the stability of central Europe, was to be maintained. Thus he advanced a federal constitution for the monarchy under which national groups would be equally represented in the central government and would have control over their internal affairs and administration. Metternich invoked the motto of “unity in diversity” as the governing idea of this proposal and argued that a federal arrangement would strengthen the Monarchy by alleviating potentially explosive ethnic tensions and provincial competitions for imperial favor. His constitutional program, noteworthy in the political climate of Vienna but unremarkable in the broader context of Enlightenment political thought, proved too radical for the myopic Kaiser Franz, who blithely ignored its central argument. Thus Metternich’s claim that in internal affairs his was “a voice in the desert” was painfully accurate. His influence in domestic politics was sharply curtailed by the Kaiser and his conservative advisers, who did not share Metternich’s increasing apprehension of the nationalities problem. The bitterness, alienation, and inflexibility demonstrated by Metternich in his later years is attributable to the frustration stemming from his inability to persuade his sovereign and the Hofräte of Vienna to follow a proactive and reformist course. Ironically it was Metternich, who predicted the crisis of 1848 with astounding clarity and offered 

 CM to his daughter Leontine, November 22, 1849, NP VIII, pp. 225-226.



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countless suggestions to avoid it, who was blamed for this debacle by his adversaries in the government—long eager to be rid of him—and was callously dismissed from office. As a liberal in the service of a conservative government Metternich was gradually excluded from policy circles and was slowly marginalized in the Foreign Office. Here he continued to offer suggestions for reorganizing the government but spent most of his time laboring, as he put it, “to shore up moldering edifices”. His frustration at his inability to overcome the political stagnation in Vienna led him to conclude as early as 1820 that “my life has fallen in an abominable period. I have been born either too soon or too late; now I do not feel good for anything. Earlier I would have relished the times; later I would have served to rebuild...I should have been born in the year 1900 and have had the twentieth century ahead of me. Thus Metternich had fallen behind his times in his steadfast devotion to Enlightenment rationalism and progressive politics, and the irony was not lost on him. He confronted a world characterized by the assertion of national power, an exaltation of particularist ambitions, and the passions of romanticism and nationalism—in short, an environment completely alien to his mode of thought and political training. He became, by his own admission, an anachronism in the mid-nineteenth century whose intellectual inspirations were out of touch with the political universe in which he operated. As the ideals of the Enlightenment slowly dimmed, Metternich was capable of holding power but not of using it in the manner he had hoped. The defining characteristic of Metternich’s statecraft, in both its internal and international dimensions, was its prescriptive, philosophical, and progressive nature. His goals were fixed and guided towards the realization of the “kingdom of ends” of a general peace which would allow for stability, reform, and progress in a pan-European context. In short, Metternich attempted to use his political position as a platform for enacting the prescriptive agenda that Enlightenment philosophers could only visualize. True to his Kantian training, “theory” and “practice” became synonymous in Metternich’s statecraft. In Metternich’s politics the teachings and philosophical program of the late Enlightenment emerged triumphant, and informed his great successes in the period 1813-1820. Ironically, however, this same conceptual approach contributed to his eventual failure and disillusionment in both internal and external politics after the mid-1820s. While 

 CM journal entry, undated, 1820, cited in Radvany, p. 141.

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theory provided a clear guide to action and helped clarify the chaotic elements of post-Napoleonic Europe, it also led Metternich to an inflexibility and dogmatism that prevented him from evolving with his times and sublimating these doctrines to the cause of individual state interest or expediency in the manner of Thomas Jefferson. It is to him that we now turn, and through an investigation of his statecraft examine precisely how the Enlightenment was “outwitted” in Jefferson’s political design.

part ii Thomas jefferson: the enlightenment outwitted

Chapter I Jefferson and the Enlightenment: Political Philosophy and Political Methodology “Your Character in History may be easily foreseen”, John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1813. “Your Administration will be quoted by Philosophers as a model of profound Wisdom; by Politicians as weak, superficial, and short-sighted”. Adams’ analysis proved remarkably prescient. Most studies of the Jefferson Administration, beginning with that of Adams’ great-grandson, portray the third President as a modern philosopher-king whose policies were rooted in deeply-held principles. The debate on Jefferson has always centered on the question of whether those principles were realistic or correct, or from which sources they were derived. In these investigations the more fundamental issue of whether they informed his political conduct is often overlooked, and therefore Adams and successive interpreters of Jefferson have missed a defining characteristic of his statecraft. A deeper examination of Jefferson’s views suggests that his real “profound Wisdom” lay in using philosophy to conceal sophisticated political objectives. At first glance this assertion appears preposterous. The broad intellectual movement of the American Enlightenment is commonly personified in the figure of Thomas Jefferson. His career, in its capacities as statesman, scientist, and architect seems to stand as a caricature of the idea of the “universal man” of the eighteenth century. Indeed, Harry Ammon observed with a tinge of jealousy in the introduction to his biography of James Monroe that “Jefferson’s case is outstanding, for 

 JA to TJ, July 3, 1813, Cappon, p. 349.

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historians know more about him than any other man of his day. Not only was he an untiring letter-writer, but he discussed such an incredible variety of subjects...that we can take the full measure of the man”. Ammon’s assessment has proven overly optimistic, as the fact that such a mountain of material exists on Jefferson makes it unlikely that we will ever take his “full measure”. Jefferson’s life has been scrutinized from almost every conceivable angle, and the investigations show little sign of slowing. A plethora of specialized monographs examining virtually every aspect of his political thought appear with startling regularity, but only one general survey has recently been attempted, and it is little more than a restatement of older ideas. For a comprehensive examination we are still indebted to Adrienne Koch, but her work is over a half-century old. With a figure of Jefferson’s eminence and complexity, the tendency to over-specialization has its drawbacks. Increasingly narrow interpretations of Jefferson’s thought have contributed to a loss of perspective on its direct relation to American politics. It is worth the effort, therefore, to take a broader look at the relationship of theory and practice in Jefferson’s political career. Education and Political Apprenticeship in Williamsburg Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 on the western frontier of colonial Virginia. He predated Metternich by almost exactly three decades and his early years were spent in similarly privileged circumstances. His father was one of the wealthiest landowners in the western part of colony, and from his youth Jefferson was directed towards the study of law to prepare for the active role in Virginia politics expected of a gentleman of his station. He entered the College of William and Mary in 1760, and soon became acquainted with the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, Francis Fauquier, a disciple of Newton who impressed the Royal Society and the young Jefferson with his detailed meteorological observations. The President later referred to Fauquier as “the ablest man who ever filled the chair of government” in Williamsburg, a lavish   Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest For National Identity, [Charlottesville: 1990], p. xviii.   Adrienne Koch’s The Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, [New York: 1943] remains the definitive study. Garrett Ward Sheldon’s The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, [Baltimore: 1990] is not as penetrating but contains an excellent bibliographical essay.



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compliment indeed considering Jefferson had held the same office himself. Jefferson was brought into the society of the Governor by George Wythe, his law professor and mentor throughout his career. Like Metternich’s teacher Niklas Vogt, Wythe was learned in the law and in addition was an accomplished student of the classics. By his account Jefferson found the study of the law tedious, and his chief interest in Williamsburg was the political process. Through conversations with the learned Governor and his observation of the less refined proceedings of the House of Burgesses, Jefferson thoroughly absorbed the nuances and workings of Virginia politics. Indeed, Jefferson was drawn to centers of political power throughout his career, and it is not surprising that Fauquier and his circle had a more lasting impact on him than the faculty of William and Mary. While Metternich would recall the lectures of Vogt and his university years with satisfaction, Jefferson detested the intellectual atmosphere at his alma mater and chafed under what he termed its “scholastic” method of instruction and clerical leanings. He later suggested reforms to its curriculum but found the opposition of the Tidewater gentry insurmountable, and abandoned his plans until a later date when he could establish his own university. Jefferson’s interest in natural science, which he also studied at William and Mary, was profound, but he never seriously considered an academic career in physics, medicine, or chemistry as Metternich did. Nevertheless, any man who could argue with all seriousness that “the greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture”, or who spent part of his vacation in 1791 analyzing the Hessian fly, was heavily indebted to the scientific advances of the eighteenth century. Jefferson’s own contributions to this field were legion. He smuggled rare strains of Lombard rice out of Italy in his pocket, shipped Mediterranean olive trees to South Carolina and Georgia, spent years classifying and arranging his gardens at Monticello, developed new theories and implements of agriculture (including the mouldboard plow), and engaged the French naturalist Comte GeorgesLouis Buffon in a spirited debate on the animal population of North America. In the latter case he went so far as to commission American  TJ to L.H. Girardin, January 15, 1815, L&B XIV, p. 231; Malone I, p. 75.  Malone I, pp. 68-69.   Malone I, p. 51.   TJ, “List of Services”, [undated], Ford IX, p. 165. “Jefferson’s Notes on the Hessian Fly”, May 24-June 18, 1791, Boyd XX, pp. 456-461.  

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soldiers to capture a moose and send it to him in Paris so he could more concretely refute Buffon’s claims as to the inferiority of American species. Jefferson was fascinated by technologies and innovations that could prove “useful” to man and improve the quality of his physical— and political—existence. Indeed, his capacity for scientific innovation was equalled by few Americans of the period. His famous polygraph helped ease the burden of letter-writing—and maintain an accurate record of political correspondence—by automatically producing a duplicate for his files. In the field of architecture Jefferson attempted to reconcile the competing styles of classical and contemporary, though never to his satisfaction, and like Metternich he looked to Palladio for inspiration. Work on Monticello was begun in 1769 and Jefferson would likely regard it as unfinished if he could see it today. Despite its tremendous appeal, however, the natural world was distinct from the political for Jefferson. He did not approach politics from a scientific standpoint, and was loathe to apply mechanistic or biological formulas to the body politic. He had no “political algebra” in the style of Kaunitz or Metternich, and was less willing to entrust himself to a precise theoretical compass to guide him through political storms. Metaphorically, he kept the portfolios of his two Presidencies—that of the American Philosophical Society and that of the United States—in separate drawers. For the public record, however, Jefferson made no secret of the fact that he eminently preferred the former. “Nobody can conceive that nature ever intended to throw away a Newton upon the occupations of a crown”, he wrote David Rittenhouse in July 1778: Are these powers then, which being intended for the erudition of the world, like air and light, the world’s common property, to be taken from their proper pursuit to do the commonplace drudgery of governing a single state, a work which may be executed by men of an ordinary stature, such as are always and everywhere to be found?10

Nevertheless, this seemingly supercilious indifference to the cares of the political world, spoken by one America’s foremost philosophes, was a disingenuous tactic Jefferson frequently deployed to protect himself from criticism. Jefferson intended posterity to view him as a reluctant politician, a sage and naturalist who never quite mated with the turbulent world of  Malone II, p. 100.  On this point see Fiske Kimball, Jefferson as Architect, [Boston: 1916]. 10  TJ to David Rittenhouse, July 19, 1778, Boyd II, p. 203.  



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democratic politics. As such, any defects of his administration could be readily excused as the products of scholarly naivete. This was a useful means of distancing himself from his opponents—most notably Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall—whom he disparaged as professional politicians who lived and breathed the petty combat of politics. Jefferson therefore ostensibly measured American politics by a double standard: one for men of letters like himself and his Republican allies, and one for the lower species of politicians who by coincidence populated the Northeast and supported the Federalist Party. As he resignedly commented to Pierre Samuel duPont de Nemours two days before leaving the White House, “Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions”.11 Yet Jefferson did not tenuously sail on this ocean at the mercy of its breezes and currents, as this account suggests; rather, he dominated it with an impressive armada of political tactics. One is struck in reading his correspondence by his mastery of political affairs. His knowledge of the machinery of the American political system from the local to national level was staggering in its breadth. Jefferson was a walking encyclopedia of political knowledge, and formed lasting acquaintances with politicians from the county to federal level. Although he claimed to be ambivalent about politics, it was his consuming passion, and he could never stray from it for long. Thus while he claimed to thrive in his temporary “retirement” from 1794 to 1797, throughout this period he busied himself by discussing political strategy with his allies.12 Political Philosophy and Political Practice Jefferson’s formal political education began and ended in his vast library at Monticello. “I cannot live without books”, he admitted to Adams in 1815. Certainly he could not live without books on politics. He listed several hundred titles on government and political philosophy in his 1815 catalogue of his library. These ranged from the classics to 11  TJ to P.S. DuPont de Nemours, March 2, 1809, in Dumas Malone, ed., The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson and Pierre Samuel DuPont de Nemours, [Boston: 1930], p. 122. 12  Even while on vacation in New York in 1791, Jefferson insisted that he receive Fenno’s Gazette, a Federalist organ, “because he wished to be kept informed of any moves of his political opponents”. “The Northern Journey of Jefferson and Madison”, ed. note, Boyd XX, p. 438.

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obscure pamphlets of British statutes. Jefferson’s books, and his readings in political theory, were intended for practical use. He argued in 1816 that “I am not fond of reading what is merely abstract, and unapplied immediately to some useful science”. Jefferson recoiled from metaphysical or abstract scholarship, and he frequently mocked the works of philosophers which sought to explain politics through purely theoretical analysis. Like Isaiah Berlin’s celebrated “fox”, Jefferson rejected monocausal explanations of political behavior: “No one axiom can be laid down as wise and expedient for all times and circumstances”, he declared in 1815. Believing that context was vital in determining the correctness of an action, Jefferson abhorred rigid canons of thought, approached texts with a skeptical eye, and used their ideas to suit a specific purpose.13 In recent years a vast amount of scholarship has been devoted to mapping the origins of Jefferson’s political thought. At first glance this would seem only natural, given the size of his library and his frequent elucidation of philosophical concepts. But when pushed to their limit, as occurred in the 1980s debate between the “classical republicans” and the “Lockean liberals”, these exercises lose sight of the pragmatic purposes of Jefferson’s political reading.14 The Declaration of Independence, for example, was intended as a political rather than a philosophical document. After receiving his commission from Congress to express its will, Jefferson turned to his library to find literary and stylistic precedents to support his case. As he admitted in an often neglected letter to Richard Henry Lee in 1825, the ideas he alluded to in the document were to him largely justificatory, and not prescriptive, in nature.15  TJ to JA, June 10, 1815, Cappon, p. 443; TJ to JA, October 14, 1816, Cappon, p. 491. TJ to Jean Baptiste Say, [undated]1815, in Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, [New York: 1954], p. 37. On this point see also Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas, [New York: 1933], p. 28. 14  See Appendix I for a discussion of this problem in Jefferson historiography. 15  See Becker, Declaration, ch. 4. “This was the object of the Declaration of Independence”, he wrote Lee. “Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we were compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writings, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion”. TJ to R.H. Lee, May 8, 1825, Ford XII, p. 409. Interestingly, Jefferson expresses the need for contextual analysis of the Declaration, even in understanding what is widely considered his greatest literary achievement. 13



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The inability or unwillingness of intellectual historians to recognize this critical attribute of Jefferson’s political character accounts for much of the rapidly calcifying debate on the origins of his ideas. He drew most of lessons from concrete historical examples and an intensive examination of political affairs: “Forty years of experience in government”, he argued, “is worth a century of book-reading”.16 This is not to say that Jefferson learned nothing from his books; merely to suggest that caution should be exercised in analyzing the impact of his reading on his political development. Practical considerations were uppermost in his calculations, and Jefferson’s political life was conditioned by pragmatic rather than speculative impulses. In a political sense, Jefferson’s library is best conceived as an arsenal: a catalogued and voluminous record of examples, anecdotes, and rhetorical devices that he could wield in contextualizing his contemporary environment and parrying the arguments of his opponents. Moreover, in Jefferson’s opinion philosophical analysis alone could not account for the rapid changes in political systems emerging in the latter half of the eighteenth century. He argued to Isaac Tiffany in 1816 that “the full experiment of a government democratical, but representative, was and is still reserved for us”. This assumption sharply depreciated the role of theory as a political compass, as “the introduction of this new principle of representative democracy has rendered useless almost everything written before on the structure of government, and, in a great measure, relieves our regret, if the political writings of Aristotle, or of any other ancient, have been lost, or are unfaithfully rendered or explained to us”.17 As politician, Jefferson was more concerned with establishing and implementing his own agenda than in retaining apostolic constancy to a philosophical tradition. With such an outlook, it is not surprising that Jefferson was often scathingly critical of the works of classical theorists. In 1814, for example, he “amused” himself by “reading seriously Plato’s Republic”. Jefferson was not impressed: “I had occasionally before taken up some of his other works”, he wrote Adams, “but scarcely ever had the patience to go through a whole dialogue. While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?”18 Jefferson  TJ to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816, Ford XII, p. 11.  TJ to Isaac Tiffany, August 26, 1816, L&B XV, p. 66. 18  TJ to JA, July 5, 1814, Cappon, pp. 422-423. Adams shared Jefferson’s opinions. “I am very glad you have seriously read Plato”, he responded on July 16, “and still more re16 17

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was not as severe with Aristotle, Xenophon, or Thucydides, but he had no patience for metaphysics: he never attempted to search for absolute truth or defend abstract principles of justice and virtue in politics. “When I meet with a proposition beyond finite comprehension”, he argued in 1820, “I abandon it as I do a weight which human strength cannot lift: and I think ignorance, in these cases, is truly the softest pillow on which I can lay my head”.19 Similarly Jefferson had little affinity for what he considered to be the abstract character of French philosophy—and philosophers—he encountered while Minister to France from 1784 to 1790.20 He applauded the efforts of the Encyclopedists to catalogue and expand the scope of human knowledge, and was indebted to Physiocratic authors such as Quesnay, Turgot, and Tracy on the topic of political economy. Like Franklin, he found Voltaire’s acidic wit amusing, but never considered his political writings to be practical or substantive. The only French theorist that Jefferson consistently cited and respected was Montesquieu. joiced to find that you reflections on him so perfectly harmonize with mine. Some thirty years ago I took upon me the severe task of going through all his works...My disappointment was very great, my astonishment greater and my disgust was shocking. Two things only did I learn from him. 1. That Franklin’s ideas of exempting Husbandsmen and Mariners etc. from the depredations of war were borrowed from him. 2. That sneezing is a cure for the Hickups. Accordingly I have cured myself and all my Friends of that provoking disorder, for thirty years, with a pinch of Snuff”. JA to TJ, July 16, 1816, Cappon, p. 437. 19  On Jefferson’s reaction to the classics, see Gilbert Chinard, “Jefferson Among the Philosophers”, Ethics, [53(1943): 255-268]; Carl Richard, “Dialogue with the Ancients: Jefferson and Classical Philosophy and History”, Journal of the Early Republic, [9(1989): 431-455]; and Charles F. Mullet, “Classical Influences on the American Revolution”, Classical Journal, [35(1939): 92-104]. In regards to the classics, Jefferson argued that “so different was the style of society then, and with those people, from what it is now and with use that I think little edification can be obtained from their writings on the subject of government. They had just ideas on the value of personal liberty, but none at all on the structure of government best calculated to preserve it. They knew no medium beyond a democracy (the only pure republic, but impracticable beyond the limits of a town) and an abandonment of themselves to an aristocracy, or a tyranny independent of the people”. TJ to Isaac Tiffany, August 26, 1816, L&B XV, p. 65; TJ to JA, March 14, 1820, Cappon, p. 562. 20  As Chinard argues, “Despite the undeniable intellectual affinity existing between Jefferson and the French thinkers he met in Paris, he could not help feeling that he was living in a different world. They were ‘closet philosophers’, theorizing and philosophizing without any real hope that their systems would ever be subjected to the test of experience. They were too positive and too logical in their views and conclusions. They had too much faith in the universal value of their ideas; they were too fond of absolute truths to please an American empiricist of considerable political experience. He moved and lived at a different level, in the world of the statesman and practical politician, dealing with complex realities and human beings and not with abstract hypotheses”. “Jefferson Among the Philosophers”, p. 261. Also see Henry Steele Commager, The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment, [New York: 1977], p. 131.



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David Carrithers is correct in arguing that this was due to the comprehensive nature of Montesquieu’s analysis with its emphasis on historical examples, contextual evaluations and nuanced distinctions of political systems. Jefferson appreciated Montesquieu’s elaboration of the idea of political culture and his recognition that politics was an often irrational field of inquiry, but at times expressed frustration at the eclecticism of the Spirit of the Laws. He remarked to William Duane in 1810 that “every man who reflects as he reads, has considered it as a book of paradoxes, having indeed much of truth & sound principle, but abounding also with inconsistencies, apocryphal facts, & false inferences”.21 Montesquieu constructed his idea of “natural” government and “social physics” ostensibly upon Newtonian analysis, which Jefferson praised for its scientific, quantifiable, and tangible character, and he frequently turned to Newton for clues into the methodology, system, and order of the natural world. It must be noted, however, that he neither looked for nor attempted to introduce these ideas into the political realm, as Metternich did. Jefferson quickly tired of speculation and abstraction and proclaimed himself “satisfied and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no knowledge”.22 A broad survey of Jefferson’s reading of political theory, in sum, leads to a frustrating conclusion. He read and criticized almost every philosophical work popular in the eighteenth century, but generally depreciated their political applicability. Theory was instrumental to Jefferson the politician, and his philosophical “eclecticism” was merely the result of a long career in which he used different sources to justify different political initiatives. As such, it is not surprising that many interpreters detect inconsistencies in Jefferson’s thought. He refused to be guided by abstract principles, which in his view impeded assessments of political realities. This was the trait he detected and condemned among the intellectuals of Paris. Jefferson was not, as he would have readily admitted, a formal political philosopher. It is important, therefore, not to overemphasize the role of philosophy in his politics. “What is practicable”, he noted succintly, “must often control that which is pure theory”.23 21  David Carrithers, “Montesquieu, Jefferson, and the Fundamentals of Eighteenth Century Republican Theory”, French-American Review, [6(1982): 160-188], p. 183; TJ to William Duane, August 12, 1810, PTJRS III, p. 6. 22  TJ to JA, August 15, 1820, Cappon, p. 569. 23  As Lawrence Kaplan argues, Jefferson’s “efforts as a politician and statesman during most of his active life took precedence over his philosophical interests. The respon-

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Like Voltaire, Jefferson was a gifted political stylist and rhetorician. His genius lay in his ability to recast established ideas and present them in “matchless English”. Such, by his own admission, was his task in the Declaration of Independence.24 Thus the ad hoc quality that Albert Bowman discovered in Jefferson’s policies was very real. When confronted with conflicting philosophical views, Jefferson often solved the dilemma by resorting to the test of utility and political expediency.25 As he wrote to Thomas Law in 1814, “Nature has constituted utility to man the standard and test of virtue. Men living in different countries, under different circumstances, different habits, and regimens, may have different utilities. The same act therefore may be useful, and consequently virtuous, in one country, which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced”. In Jefferson’s view, politics was too fluid a construct to be interpreted in an absolutist fashion, and no singular principle could adequately explain politics in all states under all circumstances. Thus, as Merrill Peterson suggested, what was simply “useful” was good to Jefferson. His ad hoc approach to politics is best expressed in an 1817 letter to Adams, in which he offhandedly commented that “what all agree in is probably right; what no two agree in is probably wrong”. What was “useful”, to paraphrase Peterson, was “rational” to Jefferson, and what he perceived as “rational” was informed by whatever course he was pursuing at the moment.26 Character and Political Methodology Throughout his career Jefferson consolidated his political power base by feigning indifference to politics. “I have no ambition to govern sibilities of public life with its emphasis upon expediency strengthened his reluctance to pursue all the implications of formal doctrines”. Entangling Alliances With None: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Jefferson, [Kent, OH: 1987], p. 101. TJ to DuPont deNemours, January 18, 1802, Boyd XXXVI, p. 391. 24  Caleb Patterson, The Constitutional Principles of Thomas Jefferson, [Austin: 1953], p. 49; TJ to R.H. Lee, May 8, 1825, Ford XII, p. 409. 25   “Utility” is not used here in the Benthamite sense of the term. When Jefferson used the term “utility”, he was, with few exceptions, referring to the idea in the “pragmatic”, “useful”, or “expedient” sense of the concept. For the ad hoc argument, see Albert Bowman, The Struggle for Neutrality: Franco-American Relations in the Federalist Era, [Knoxville, TN: 1974], introduction. 26  TJ to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814, Extracts, p. 357. The emphasis on “utility” is Jefferson’s. Peterson, Jefferson and the New Nation, p. 56. TJ to JA, January 11, 1817, Cappon, p. 506. In adopting this approach to politics Jefferson was in complete agreement with his nemesis Hamilton, who bluntly declared that “utility is the prime end of all laws”. Hamilton, “The Farmer Refuted”, February 23, 1775, Syrett I, p. 126.



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men”, he wrote to Adams after the 1796 election. “It is a painful and thankless office”. Yet this comment came from a man who had just run second in a close race for the Presidency and was at the time VicePresident Elect. The day before, he had written Edward Rutledge that he had “no passion which would lead me to delight to ride in a storm”.27 Indeed, Jefferson was quite happy that it would be Adams and not he that would face the brunt of the political tempest facing the nation in 1797, while he remained safely insulated, yet influential, presiding over the Senate. Such typically apolitical comments were disingenuous at best coming from one of the most skilled political operators of his day. Jefferson was perhaps the most ambitious and politically astute leader in the new republic with the possible exceptions of his chief adversaries, Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Adams speculated in 1797 that his Vice President’s “ambition is so inconsiderate as to be capable of going to great lengths” to project himself into office. Hamilton noted in 1792 that “’tis evident beyond a question, from every movement, that Mr. Jefferson aims with ardent desire at the Presidential Chair”. Jefferson, having established his political credentials at the age of thirty-three by drafting the Declaration of Independence, was understandably determined to let nothing interfere with his political career or the image of philosophical rectitude he used to conceal it.28 But how could Jefferson hope to maintain an image of scholarly impartiality in the heated political climate of the new republic? His preferred tactic was to maintain a low profile when confronted with controversial issues. “My great wish is to go on in a strict but silent performance of my duty: to avoid attracting notice and to keep my name out of the newspapers”, he wrote Francis Hopkinson in 1789, “because I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise”.29 Even among his friends Jefferson’s reputation for being thin-skinned was notorious, and despite what he wrote about the virtues of a free press, he could not tolerate criticism of himself or his policies. He never forgave the investigation of his tenure as Governor by the Virginia House of Delegates in 1781, even though it was clearly motivated by partisanship. His  TJ to JA, December 28, 1796, Cappon, p. 263; TJ to Edward Rutledge, December 27, 1796, Boyd IXXX, p. 232. 28  JA to Uriah Forrest, June 20, 1797, cited in Stephen Kurtz, The Presidency of John Adams, [Philadelphia: 1957], p. 233; AH to Edward Carrington, May 26, 1792, Syrett XI, p. 441. On Jefferson’s obsession with his place in history, see Burton Spivak, Jefferson’s English Crisis, [Charlottesville: 1979], pp. 148-149 and Frank Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy, [Edinburgh: 2006]. 29  TJ to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789, Boyd XIV, p. 651. 27

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spitefulness and vindictiveness towards the legislature, which led him to refuse a seat in it, disturbed Madison, who noted to Edmund Randolph that: Great as my partiality is to Mr. Jefferson, the mode in which he seems determined to revenge the wrong received by his Country, does not appear to me to be dictated either by philosophy or patriotism. It argues indeed a strong consciousness of rectitude. But this sensibility ought to be as great towards the relentings as the misdoings of the Legislature, not to mention the injustice of visiting the faults of this body on their innocent constituents.30

Madison’s polite reference to his friend’s ego indicates how wellknown Jefferson’s penchant for guarding his reputation for posterity was. If Carl Becker is right and History replaced Heaven as the source of salvation for the eighteenth century politician, then Jefferson certainly wanted to be among the Elect. He observed to Rutledge in 1796 that he was relieved at not attaining the Presidency, as “I know well that no man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it”.31 This zealous regard for maintaining his personal standing led him to a “secretiveness and duplicity” which characterized many of his political actions. He was unwilling, for example, to champion unpopular causes, even if he considered them “right” in the abstract, for fear of creating negative publicity. “He who would do his country the most good he can”, Jefferson noted in 1805, “must go quietly with the prejudices of the majority until he can lead them to reason”.32 But it was unlikely that the statesman could ever lead the majority to reason if he simply acceded to its prevailing beliefs. Jefferson’s sedulous avoidance of socially contentious issues after drafting the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786 manifested itself most notably in the case of slavery, but as we shall see it was equally apparent in other aspects of his domestic and foreign policies. It is necessary, therefore, to reluctantly accept Richard Hofstadter’s conclusion that while Jefferson spoke “the most advanced and liberating ideas of  JM to Edmund Randolph, June 11, 1782, PJM IV, p. 333. By “Country” Madison meant Virginia. Specifically, the Legislature sought to examine why the state was so unprepared for the British invasion of 1780. 31  Carl Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers, [New Haven: 1932], pp. 140-154; TJ to Edward Rutledge, December 27, 1796, Ford VIII, p. 257. 32  May, Enlightenment in America, pp. 290-291; TJ to Caesar Rodney, October 23, 1805, JPLC: Reel 55. 30



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his time”, he was “not in the habit of breaking lances trying to fulfill them”.33 Jefferson therefore attempted to stay as far removed from political battles as possible. He would offer minutely detailed policy positions in letters to his friends, which betrayed the hours of thought he put into them, only to conclude that he had utterly no interest in the matter at hand. Examples of this tendency are numerous: He discussed his views of the problems of Hamilton’s debt assumption program in a letter to George Mason in 1790, but coyly noted that “I do not pretend to be competent to their decision”. Similarly, he offered a scathing attack on British policy towards France in 1794, but then offhandedly claimed to be more interested to “contemplate the tranquil growth of my Lucerne and potatoes” than in dissecting political problems. In such fashion he was able to disseminate his political views to influential allies under the cover of abstract speculation.34 At times, however, Jefferson found it necessary to fight for a controversial position in order to maintain his political viability or to safeguard vital interests. In these instances he employed another favorite political gambit: the use of intermediaries. Rather than dirty his own hands in political combat, Jefferson would urge his friends to take up arms for him, on the grounds that they were more “competent” than he to expedite the matter.35 Jefferson could thus simultaneously provoke political combat while peering down at the fight from his aerie at Monticello. When Hamilton published his Pacificus essays in 1793, in which he broadly construed Executive power, for example, Jefferson urged Madison to “take up your pen, select the most striking heresies, and cut him to pieces in the face of the public. There is nobody else who can and will enter the lists with him”. Madison dutifully responded to “Pacificus” with his six Helvidius letters, which lacked the passion and spontaneity necessary to defeat Hamilton’s arguments. The fact that Jefferson, who had access to more sensitive information than Madison,  Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition, p. 25.  TJ to George Mason, June 13, 1790, Boyd XVI, p. 493; TJ to Tench Coxe, May 1, 1794, Boyd XXVIII, p. 67. 35  As Malone noted, “Anything he wanted done—in the presentation of ideas at least—he could get sympathetic fellow citizens to do while keeping himself in the background”. Malone III, p. 399. John C. Miller, who takes a completely different view of Jefferson, agrees with Malone on this point. He argues that “As a political leader he preferred to work through others rather than permit his hand to appear, to write a letter rather than to make a speech, and to remain outwardly every man’s friend rather than engage in quarrels”. The Federalist Era, 1789-1801, [New York: 1960], p. 103. 33 34

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could have written a more stinging rebuke of Hamilton himself was never mentioned by the Secretary of State.36 Jefferson and the Republican Party, 1790-1800 It is not the purpose of this study to add to the literature on the formation and philosophy of the Republican Party, which has already passed its saturation point. We are concerned here with the thought of a single statesman and the extent to which ideas influenced his political behavior. It is essential, therefore, to note that Jefferson viewed the Republican Party as an engine for his own advancement, and a vehicle for opposing policies he deemed injurious to interests he held dear. He never conceived of it as a philosophical abstraction, or an ideological clique, but as a network designed to bring himself and his allies to power. From the beginning Jefferson viewed the program of the Republican party as largely negative in character. It was less concerned with projecting values or promoting original policies than it was with preventing its opponents from doing so. In this capacity it was a mirror of Jefferson’s own thought. Even though it coalesced around a number of different issues, not the least among them personality disputes, the glue of the party was upholding predominately Southern agricultural interests. As Hofstadter notes, “Jefferson’s party was formed to defend specific propertied interests rather than the abstract principles of democ TJ to JM, July 7, 1793, Boyd XXVI, p. 444. He tried the same tactic in 1795 when Hamilton published his “Camillus” papers supporting the Jay Treaty. See TJ to JM, September 21, 1795, PJM XVI, pp. 88-89. Jefferson was also quite skilled at manipulating the nascent press establishment in the United States to his own ends. He used The National Gazette, an opposition paper, as a vehicle for expressing his ideas while remaining safely anonymous. Moreover, his relationship with the journalist James Callender, who would later attempt to discredit the President with the Sally Hemings story, was originally begun for a similar reason. See “Jefferson, Freneau, and the Founding of the National Gazette, ed. note, Boyd XX, pp. 718-753. Indeed a substantial part of Jefferson’s respect for George Washington was conditioned by this same political impulse. In Jefferson’s view, Washington consistently escaped censure by blaming his errors on subordinates, such as in the Ohio Valley in 1754, or with Charles Lee at Monmouth in 1778. Jefferson was so enamored with this tactic that he noted with a twinge of jealousy to Madison in 1797 that “the President is fortunate to get off just as the bubble is bursting, leaving others to hold the bag. Yet, as his departure will mark the moment when the difficulties begin to work, you will see, that they will be ascribed to the new administration, and that he will have his usual good fortune of reaping credit from the good acts of others, and leaving to them that of his errors”. TJ to JM, January 8, 1797, PJM XVI, p. 448. Ironically Madison could have said the same about Jefferson in 1809. 36



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racy”.37 This is not to suggest that there was no serious ideological clash in the 1790s, only to show that more mundane factors beyond abstract English opposition ideology or Lockean liberal capitalism charged the political atmosphere. Much of the current debate on Republican ideology has its roots in Jefferson’s own scathing partisan rhetoric. Some of these broadsides contain philosophical citations too tempting for some scholars to resist elevating to the level of prescriptive strategy. Yet as is common in party politics, much of Jefferson’s rhetoric was merely that, and was not always linked to a consistent political program. Most of his partisan statements were intended, quite naturally, for internal consumption. As Hume observed in an essay that Jefferson read in his youth, all parties are “influenced both by principle and interest. The heads of the factions are commonly most governed by the latter motive; the inferior members of them by the former”.38 Jefferson’s behavior seemed to validate Hume’s dictum. Like most skilled politicians, he constantly imbued his party with lofty motives, as when he argued to former rival Adams in 1813 that: One of the questions you know on which our parties took different sides, was on the improvability of the mind, in science, in ethics, in government, etc. Those who advocated reformation of institutions, pari passu, with the progress of science, maintained that no definite limits could be assigned to that progress. The enemies of reform, on the other hand, denied improvement, and advocated steady adherence to the principles, practices, and institutions of our fathers, which they represented as the consummation of wisdom, and acme of excellence, beyond which the human mind could never advance.

Adams, as Jefferson should have realized, knew better. If anything, it was Jefferson’s party that wanted to conserve the “paternal” roots of the southern agricultural society. Drawing contrasts between the enlightened “us” and the reactionary “them” was one of Jefferson’s favorite stylistic constructs, one he never tired of using.39  Hofstadter, p. 33.   “Of the Parties of Great Britain” (1741), Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. by Eugene F. Miller, [Indianapolis: Liberty Classics: 1985], p. 65. 39  TJ to JA, June 15, 1813, Cappon, p. 332. Moreover, consider Jefferson’s argument that “the division between whig and tory is founded in the nature of man, the weakly and nerveless, the rich and corrupt seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive, the healthy, firm, and virtuous feeling confidence in their moral and physical resources”. TJ to Joel Barlow, May 3, 1802, Ford IX, p. 371. Jefferson’s portrayal of the Federalists as reactionaries was misleading, as it was the very novelty of Hamilton’s economic program that led Jefferson to suspect the Secretary of the Treasury’s commit37 38

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By 1800 the Federalist bulwark was collapsing under the weight of these attacks and from its own internal schisms. In turning from economic development to an ideological crusade against “Jacobin Republicanism”, the Federalists, as Henry May observed, “distorted” the original philosophy of their party and became “associated with the interests of the perishing elite”. What Jefferson called “the reign of witches” was ironically overthrown by Adams, who, by ending the Quasi-War in 1800, infuriated more extreme members of his party who offered him lackluster support in the election of that year.40 His peace overture to France allowed Jefferson’s Administration to begin in a state of relative international tranquility. In his Inaugural Address, Jefferson proclaimed that “we are all republicans: we are all federalists”.41 This call for unity was appropriately Presidential, but also pragmatic. After the election of 1800, the Republican Party had fulfilled its primary function for Jefferson. During his Presidency, he relied on the party and its complex organization to maintain himself in office and to command a majority in Congress. He therefore viewed the party as a tool, an administrative apparatus, and a useful means of organizing political support and campaigning in elections. It was not, and was never so conceived by Jefferson, as a repository of political ideas, or the vanguard of any species of “new politics”. In the tradition of eighteenth century European statecraft, Jefferson made policy among a closed circle of advisers. This “Cabinet” became increasingly remote from the party structure throughout Jefferson’s tenure, to the point where more extreme Republicans, headed by John Randolph, formed an internal opposition against him and Madison, ment to regional economic interests. As Cecilia Kenyon notes, Hamilton was in general more progressive than Jefferson, who preferred to “cling to the agrarian institutions of our fathers”. “As far as politics was concerned”, she argues, “Jefferson thought man should pursue his happiness; Hamilton thought he should seek the national interest. One called for egoistic behavior, the other for altruistic. It was Hamilton who was the greater idealist, Jefferson the greater realist”. “Alexander Hamilton: Rousseau of the Right”, Political Science Quarterly, [73(1958): 161-178], p. 167. See also Michael Lienesch, “Thomas Jefferson and the American Democratic Experience: The Origins of the Partisan Press, Popular Political Parties, and Public Opinion”, in Peter S. Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies, [Charlottesville: 1993]. 40  May, Enlightenment in America, pp. 275-276. TJ to John Taylor, June 4, 1798, Boyd XXX, p. 389. Characteristically, Jefferson added in his postscript that “it is hardly necessary to caution you to let nothing of mine get before the public. A single sentence got hold of by the Porcupines will suffice to abuse & persecute me in their papers for months”. The reference is to Porcupine’s Gazette, a pro-Federalist newspaper. 41  First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, Boyd XXXIII, p. 149.



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who would ultimately bear the brunt of this “malcontent” Republican anger in the War of 1812.42 Jefferson, therefore, helped create a political organization that helped advance his career, used it maintain himself in power, and ultimately dismissed it when it no longer suited his interests. He was never a dogmatic adherent of a “party line” or ideology. Indeed, he and Madison brilliantly co-opted many of the principles of “Federalism” once safely in office.43 Ever conscious of the ebb and flow of power in the new nation, Jefferson’s conception of “party” was little more than an enlarged version of his own political interests at the moment. Ironically, it seems that this was more apparent to politicians in Jefferson’s day than it is to modern scholars. In an 1813 letter to Jefferson, John Adams clearly removed the philosophical veil from the political discourse of the 1790s and exposed it for the power struggle it was: “The real terrors of both parties”, he wrote, “have always been and now are, the fear that they shall lose the Elections, and consequently the Loaves and Fishes; and that their Antagonists will obtain them”.44 In such a cynical but clear-sighted fashion Adams offered what still stands as the best overview of the party struggle of the 1790s. A review of Jefferson’s political education and early experiences as legislator, executive, and partisan infighter suggests that he was more of a politician than political philosopher. Yet so powerful is the hagiographic cult of Jefferson that it somehow seems demeaning to suggest that he was motivated by the same impulses of interest and power that is readily ascribed to Hamilton and the Federalists. Philosopher and scientist he was in relation to the natural world, but in politics he remained resolutely concerned, as he put it, with the things that were, and the political situation of the moment. Jefferson’s pragmatic approach to government recoiled from a rigidly theoretical political universe such as Metternich’s. The philosophy of the Enlightenment animated his fascination with the natural world 42  On the “malcontents”, see J.C.A. Stagg, “James Madison and the Malcontents: The Political Origins of the War of 1812”, WMQ, [33(1976): 557-585]. On the split with Randolph, see Harry Ammon, “James Monroe and the Election of 1808 in Virginia”, WMQ, [20(1963): 33-56]. 43  On Jefferson’s and Madison’s “co-optation” of Federalism, see Marshall Smelser, The Democratic Republic, 1801-1815, [New York: 1968], ch. 4. 44  JA to TJ, June 30, 1813, Cappon, p. 347. He added: “Both parties have excited artificial Terrors and if I were summoned as a Witness to say upon Oath, which party had excited, Machiavellialy[sic] the most Terror, and which had felt the most, I could not give a more sincere Answer, than in the vulgar style, ‘Put them in a bag and shake them, and see which comes out first.’”

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and provided a catalyst for his many scientific contributions. Yet Jefferson was never able or willing to unite the universal truths of science with the ambiguities of political theory in a coherent and prescriptive whole, as Metternich did. At all times he was conscious of the need to fashion initiatives in conformity with concrete interests rather than abstract notions of government.45 Consequently Jefferson never made himself the prisoner of his party, and never proposed radical measures that might serve as a lightning rod for criticism. Only in the case of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom did he outline, advance, and defend a system of such originality as Hamilton’s financial policy, or Metternich’s project to restructure the Austrian government, and suffer the political consequences of it, as Hamilton and Metternich did. He was not prone to take risks, especially where his political reputation was concerned, and thus he was extremely reluctant to transform bold ideas into practice. His conception of constitutional government, as we shall see, was largely a holdover from the colonial era and was based on a sophisticated appraisal of American politics and his desire to protect the culture and economic interests of the Virginia gentry.

 Peterson, Jefferson and the New Nation, p. 46.

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Chapter II Jefferson and the State (1): Constitutional Theory and the Structure of Government At first glance Jefferson’s theory of constitutional government appears to reflect the same eclecticism that characterized most of his political philosophy. He was an advocate of a republic governed according to strictly interpreted laws, but wanted those laws to be adaptive to changing circumstances. His philosophical missives portray man as naturally good, but his political correspondence suggests them to be capable of virtually unlimited avarice. He favored a laissez-faire approach to civil liberties, but at the same time emphasized the need for a powerful centralized government to efficiently manage foreign relations. A democratic republic at home and a conseil d’etat in foreign affairs—this, it appears, was Jefferson’s ideal state. Jefferson’s approach to constitutional democracy was that of a sectionalist, and his Virginia-centric view of the Union remained with him throughout his career. His promotion of states’ rights in the 1790s and 1820s was a defensive gambit used against “consolidationists” who sought to undermine the political and economic interests of the Southern elite. Yet in the intervening years, when the federal government was safely under Republican control, he was all but deaf to this cause. As early as the 1780s he feared the ascension of “federalist” ideology and demanded that the new Constitution precisely enumerate the powers of the federal government in order to prevent it from restricting the liberties of individuals and states. He had no formal theory of republicanism in the manner of Madison or Hamilton, but decided his position on almost every constitutional question, from the

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structure of the government to civil liberties, on the basis of political expediency. Human Nature and Politics Jefferson never developed a formal and systematic theory of human nature in the manner of Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau. His view of man as citizen was conditioned by two antagonistic principles: a detached reading of ethical philosophy and a pragmatic appraisal of man’s acquisitive and ambitious instincts in the political arena. He claimed to base his view of man upon the idea that “nature hath implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct in short, which prompts us irresistably to feel and succour their distresses”. This almost Rousseauian perspective, with its emphasis on compassion, was often echoed in Jefferson’s writings on moral philosophy. In his more abstract formulations, Jefferson advanced the belief that man is basically good and capable of improvement. According to Jefferson, each individual is created with a “moral sense”. The development of this faculty, which was first addressed in the works of Francis Hutcheson and Adam Ferguson in the 1720s, was in Jefferson’s view the vehicle through which social progress would be driven. “The Creator would indeed have been a bungling artist”, he argued to Thomas Law in 1814, “had he intended man for a social animal without placing in him social dispositions”. These natural “dispositions” constitute the “moral sense”, which provides a program for ethical behavior in politics. Jefferson attempted to prove this point in what he called a “short syllogism” to Francis Gilmer in 1816, holding that “Man was created for social intercourse; but social intercourse cannot be maintained without a sense of justice; thus man must have been created with a sense of justice”.  TJ to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814, Extracts, pp. 356-357. On Jefferson’s ethical philosophy, see Adams, Extracts, pp. 1-40; Daniel Boorstin, The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson, [Boston: 1960]; Koch, Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson; T.V. Smith, “Thomas Jefferson and the Perfectibility of Mankind”, Ethics, [53(1943):293-310]; Sheldon, chs. 6 and 9.   For Jefferson’s development of the concept of the “moral sense”, see TJ to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814, Extracts, pp. 355-358. This letter contains the most concise formulation of Jefferson’s ethical philosophy and should be read in full. Extracts, p. 357. See also John C. Miller, The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, [Charlottesville: 1977], p. 93. TJ to Francis Gilmer, June 7, 1816, Ford XI, p. 535. 



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Nevertheless Jefferson retained a cynical and sober assessment of man’s capacity for evil. He bluntly declared in 1814 that “no government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only”. He warned Edward Carrington in January 1787 that if the American people “become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, Congress, and Assemblies, judges, and governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions, and experience proves that man is the only animal which devours his own kind”. He observed to Mann Page in 1795 that: I do not believe, with the Rouchefoucaults and Montaignes, that fourteen out of fifteen men are rogues: I believe a great abatement from that proportion may be made in favor of general honesty. But I have always found that rogues would be uppermost, and I do not know that the proportion is too strong for the higher orders, and for those who, rising above the swinish multitude, always contrive to nestle themselves into the places of power and profit.

The most conspicuous and invariable dimension of Jefferson’s view of human nature is that man is a supremely political creature. In the political universe, then, Jefferson sought to combine a lofty vision of man in the state of nature with the cynicism bred by experience in the nature of states. The implications of this idea were considerable: in contrast to the more optimistic tenor of eighteenth century thought, Jefferson believed that reason could not conquer all impediments to social progress. Human nature was violent as well as virtuous, and altruistic as well as acquisitive. Therefore governments must be organized according to strict rules to repel the darker forces of human nature, but must not become so repressive that they could risk stifling the creative and progressive spirit which also influenced human affairs. Jefferson did not regard human nature as categorically depraved or virtuous; it was at times both and the pragmatic statesman must recognize this fact if any form of government was to endure. Thus he attempted to structure a theory of constitutional government which would mirror this inherent balance in the nature of man.   TJ to John Wayles Eppes, September 9, 1814, Ford XI, pp. 425-426; TJ to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787, Boyd XI, p. 149. Madison expressed a similar opinion, holding that “whenever there is an interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done, and not less readily by a powerful and interested party than by a powerful and interested prince”. JM to TJ, October 17, 1787, Boyd XIV, p. 19.   TJ to Mann Page, August 30, 1795, Boyd XXVIII, pp. 440-441. The phrase “swinish multitude” was borrowed from Burke. Malone III, p. 248.

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The Structure of Constitutional Government Jefferson’s constitutional philosophy rested on the fundamental premise that any federal power operate within strictly defined parameters to preserve the rights of the sovereign states. For Jefferson, good government was truly synonymous with limited government. In practical terms, this meant preserving the basic status quo ante 1763, when the colonies enjoyed relative autonomy from a powerful central administration. Hence, his view of constitutional government can be called “conservative” in that it looked to the past for inspiration rather than towards what Machiavelli termed “new modes and orders”. “The legitimate powers of government”, he wrote in 1785, “extend only to such acts as are injurious to others”. Jefferson distrusted the concentration of power manifested in the British colonial administration of the 1760s and in the new species of federalism being discussed after the Revolution. He believed that such systems would lead inevitably to the erosion of the autonomy of the states, the destruction of regional customs, the restriction of civil liberties, and tyranny. Hence he declared that “I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive”. Yet experience in politics—the school that Jefferson claimed was his true alma mater—led him to recognize that an activist government could accomplish much good if it was properly directed. Therefore he claimed to Abigail Adams in 1785 that “I love energy in government dearly”. How did he attempt to reconcile these mutually exclusive views of government? As with many of the apparent inconsistencies of Jefferson’s thought, this one can be resolved contextually. He offered his commentary to Madison in 1787 in an attempt to persuade his friend that the new federal government should be limited in its direct power over the states. The note to Adams, in contrast, was drafted in a period when Jefferson was trying to persuade Congress to authorize naval construction and take decisive action against the Barbary States. Thus Jefferson’s attitude towards the “activism” of government depended to a large degree on the circumstances in which he found himself. Yet, were he forced in   Patterson, Constitutional Principles, p. 52; Notes, p. 159. This argument anticipated J.S. Mill’s celebrated “harm to others” doctrine by nearly a century, but Jefferson intended it for federal-state relations as well those between government and citizen.   TJ to JM, December 20, 1787, Boyd XII, p. 442; TJ to Abigail Adams, July 7, 1785, Cappon, p. 37. In the latter case he concurred with Hamilton, who argued in the Federal Convention in 1787 that “the goodness of a government consists in a vigorous execution”. June 18, 1787, cited in Stourzh, Hamilton, p. 39.



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the abstract to choose between them, it would be in favor of limited power. Given his sober assessment of human nature, Jefferson argued that it was best to “bind” the government “down from mischief by the chains of the constitution”. Jefferson’s preferred formula for constitutional government was straightforward: “My idea is that we should be made one nation in every case concerning foreign affairs, and separate ones in whatever is merely domestic”, he argued in 1787. This approach was the product of a philosophical commitment to the liberties of the states as well as practical experience in politics and diplomacy. His efforts as Minister to France had been hindered by a lack of support from the weak Confederation Congress, and as a result he remained convinced until his death that a government must be “energetic” in foreign policy: centralized, efficient, and responsive. In adopting this view he was in full agreement with the diplomatic philosophies of most European governments of this period and attempted to replicate this “cabinet tradition” of statecraft in the United States. Domestically, however, there was no need for such a Machtstaat. The state governments and their colonial antecedents had a long history of independence in local administration and their forms of government had developed to suit the characteristics and needs of their inhabitants. This idea of state autonomy, rooted in the colonial experience, continued to govern his conception of American society long after the Revolution. Any type of centralized control, such as he advocated in foreign policy, would inevitably lead to a decay of the regional customs and local power bases he valued so highly, especially in the South. As he wrote to DuPont de Nemours in 1816, “we think experience has proved it safer, for the mass of individuals composing the society, to reserve to themselves personally the exercise of all rightful powers to which they are competent, and to delegate those to which they are not competent to deputies named, and removable for unfaithful conduct, by themselves immediately”.  Draft of the Kentucky Resolutions, October 4, 1798, Boyd XXX, p. 541.  TJ to John Blair, August 13, 1787, Boyd XII, p. 28. He had made the same case to Madison the year before: “To make us one nation as to foreign concerns, and keep us distinct in Domestic ones, gives the outlines of the proper division between the general and particular governments”. TJ to JM, December 16, 1786, Boyd X, p. 603. His idea was similar to Metternich’s 1817 proposal on the reorganization of the Habsburg Monarchy, in which the Austrian Chancellor noted that the central government should manage diplomatic issues while allowing regional administrations to manage local affairs. See Part I, ch. 5.   TJ to DuPont de Nemours, April 24, 1816, Malone, Correspondence, p. 182.  

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What Jefferson was advocating, in sum, was the preservation of the formula of the Articles of Confederation in relation to domestic policy, but an augmentation of its powers respecting foreign nations.10 He wrote Adams in November 1787 that “I think all the good of this new Constitution might have been couched in three or four articles to be added to the good, old, and venerable fabric, which should have been preserved even as a religious relic”. Aside from the reference to religious relics, for which he generally had little use, this is a typically Jeffersonian statement on the nature of constitutional government: local administration was already adequately managed by the states, so there was no need to strengthen the power of the central government at home. In short, Jefferson preferred to stick to proven methods rather than risk experimenting with a radical redistribution of power. He had followed this same instinct in the case of his 1776 Constitution for Virginia, which kept the colonial system of government largely intact; substituting only an elected governor for a royal one and transferring several executive functions to the legislature.11 Jefferson was pleased that the Convention addressed itself to the task of restructuring the government, but he expected and desired only modest changes in the Articles. Nevertheless, he endorsed a large portion of the new provisions. He told Francis Hopkinson in 1789 that: I approved, from the first moment, of the great mass of what is in the new Constitution; the consolidation of the government, the organisation into Executive, legislative, and judiciary, the subdivision of the legislature, the happy compromise of interests between the great and little states by the different manner of voting in the different houses, the voting by persons instead of states, the qualified negative on laws given to the Executive which however I should have liked better if associated with the judiciary also as in New York, and the power of taxation.

At the same time, Jefferson argued to Adams that “I confess there are things in it which stagger all my dispositions to subscribe to what such an assembly has proposed”.12 Jefferson offered two objections to the Constitution: he disapproved of the President’s re-eligibility for office, and was shocked at the ab10  For a closer examination of this formula see David Mayer, The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson, [Charlottesville: 1994], ch. 7. 11  TJ to JA, November 13, 1787, Cappon, p. 212. Text of the Virginia Constitution of 1776 as drafted by Jefferson and approved by the Legislature is in Boyd I, pp. 329377. 12  TJ to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789, Boyd XIV, p. 650; TJ to JA, November 13, 1787, Cappon, p. 212.



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sence of a bill of rights which codified basic civil liberties and, more critically, the sovereignty of the states. When he designed the Virginia Constitution in 1776, Jefferson had limited the Governor to a single two-year term. In his reading of the 1787 Constitution, Jefferson looked for safeguards against the possibility that a popular President might remain in power for life. The lack of a single-term statute concerned him, and he noted to Adams that the President “may be re-elected from 4 years to 4 years for life. Reason and experience prove to us that a chief magistrate, so continuable, is an officer for life...I wish that at the end of the 4 years they had made him for ever ineligible for a second term”.13 Jefferson’s fear of a monarchical executive led him to conclude that power should be diffused across several branches of government. Significantly, however, he did not endorse the more democratic formula of a simple majority. Although he told Madison that “it is my principle that the will of the Majority should always prevail”, Jefferson realized that a majority could easily become oppressive and seek to subvert minority opinions, and had always feared an “elective despotism” as much, if not more, than a hereditary one.14 In the Notes on Virginia he had cautioned against investing most of the power of government in a legislature, as was popular during the Revolution, as “173 despots will surely be as oppressive as one”. He agreed with Madison’s conclusion that “Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Government”, Madison continued, “the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of the constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.15 For this reason Jefferson, like Madison, Hamilton, and Adams, favored strict qualifications on suffrage in order to keep the public business in the hands of educated and enlightened officers who were unlikely to be swayed by tradition or prejudice.  Cappon, p. 212.  TJ to JM, December 20, 1787, Boyd XII, p. 442; Koch, Philosophy of Jefferson, pp. 150-151. 15   Notes, p. 120. JM to TJ, October 17, 1788, Boyd XIV, p. 19. Adams echoed the same idea to Jefferson later, arguing that “the fundamental Article of my political Creed is, that Despotism, or unlimited Sovereignty, or Absolute Power is the same in a majority of a popular Assembly, an Aristocratical Counsel, an Oligarchical Junto, or a single Emperor. Equally arbitrary cruel bloody and in every way diabolical”. JA to TJ, November 13, 1815, Cappon, p. 456. 13 14

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In his constitutional thought, Jefferson attempted to find a balance between executive and legislative power that was difficult to draw. He shared Madison’s and Adams’ distrust of the majority and, as a student of history, did not want to repeat the mistakes of Athens in the United States. He consequently attempted, as Adrienne Koch observed, to determine a “fair” or “rightful” will of the majority—a distinction mentioned but never fully elaborated by Rousseau.16 Jefferson was never able to clearly identify what the “rightful” majority was, but he could and did discuss what it was not. He told DuPont de Nemours that “the majority, [in] oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, loses its strength and acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society”. In adopting this position he was in full agreement with Madison, Hamilton, and Adams, but he was less prone to accept a “vigorous” executive than they were.17 Given the potential re-eligibility of the President and the possibility of a legislative tyranny of the majority, Jefferson thought it essential that the rights of citizens and states be enumerated in the text of the Constitution. “A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular”, he wrote Madison in December 1787, “and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference”.18 Madison attempted to persuade Jefferson that such a statement was unnecessary, since the Constitution already contained provisions for safeguarding rights, and, more importantly, that any such   Koch, Philosophy of Jefferson, pp. 150-151.  TJ to DuPont deNemours, April 24, 1816, Malone, Correspondence, p. 185. Adams wrote in his Defence of the Constitution of the United States that “to expect selfdenial from men, when they have a majority in their favor, and consequently the power to gratify themselves, is to disbelieve all history and universal experience; it is to disbelieve Revelation and the Word of God, which informs us, the heart is deceitful in all things, and desperately wicked”. cited in May, Enlightenment in America, p. 282. Madison told Monroe in 1786 that “there is no maxim which in my opinion is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs more elucidation, than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong...it would be the interest of the majority in every community to despoil and enslave the minority of individuals, and in a federal community to make a similar sacrifice of the minority of the component states”. JM to James Monroe, October 5, 1786, cited in Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography, [Charlottesville: 1971], p. 181. 18  TJ to JM, December 20, 1787, Boyd XII, p. 440. He argued later that what he disapproved of in the new Constitution was “the want of a bill of rights to guard liberty against the legislative as well as the executive branches of government, that is to secure freedom in religion, freedom of the press, freedom from monopolies, freedom from unlawful imprisonment, freedom from a permanent military, and a trial by jury in all cases determinable by the laws of the land”. TJ to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789, Boyd XIV, p. 650. 16 17



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codification would only be a “parchment barrier” against governmental invasions of privacy. “Experience proves the inefficacy of a bill of rights on those occasions when its control is most needed”, Madison observed. “In Virginia I have seen the bill of rights violated in every instance where it has been opposed to a popular current”. While conceding some merit to Madison’s argument, Jefferson was undeterred from his quest for a bill of rights, especially a provision declaring that all powers not directly charged to the federal government would be reserved to the states. He told William Smith that “I would advocate [the Constitution] warmly till nine [states] should have adopted [it], and then as warmly take the other side to convince the remaining four that they ought not to come into it till the declaration of rights is annexed to it”.19 Jefferson did not cease his opposition until the ratifying process made the addition of such a bill mandatory. Only then was he convinced that the rights of both individuals and especially the states were more protected from federal intervention.

The Idea of a “Living Constitution” So far we have examined Jefferson’s ideas on the basic structure and workings of republican government. But in Jefferson’s opinion these were only one aspect of the problem: in his view the Constitution must not only strictly delegate power and responsibilities, but also remain adaptive to the needs of succeeding generations. Jefferson, ever conscious of the changing fortunes of politics, was unwilling to bind governments and statesmen by outdated statutes. While acknowledging that he was “certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions”, he did not look at them “with sanctimonious reverence” either. He argued to Samuel Kercheval in 1816 that I know...that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear

 JM to TJ, October 17, 1788, Boyd XIV, p. 19; TJ to William Smith, February 2, 1788, Boyd XII, p. 558. He voiced the same opinion to Francis Hopkinson in 1789, Boyd XIV, p. 650, and John Adams in 1813, Cappon, p. 336. 19

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still the coat which fitted him as a boy, as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.20

Recovering from an illness in September 1789, Jefferson read with interest a pamphlet by Dr. Richard Gem, an English physician and naturalist, which argued that laws should be framed to meet the needs of the “living generation”. After absorbing these arguments, Jefferson sketched out his own view of a “living constitution” in a letter to Madison. The thesis of his argument, which he characteristically assumed was “self-evident”, was “’that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living’: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society”. After calculating the duration of a generation to be nineteen years, Jefferson reasoned that any form of government must by definition be temporary. “It may be proved”, he wrote, that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitutions and laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course with those who gave them being. They could preserve that being until it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.21

Madison tactfully replied that his own reasoning “led me to view [your] doctrine as not in all respects compatible with the course of human affairs”, and noted that Jefferson’s formula would create havoc, as laws would be in a constant state of flux and the economy devastated by the lack of any solid financial institutions and no means of repaying the debts of the previous generation. Focusing on Jefferson’s definition of “property” as an essential ingredient of government, Madison argued that the scheme outlined by his friend would vitiate all existing titles  TJ to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816, Ford XII, pp. 11-12. Ironically Hamilton made the same point to Lafayette: “I hold with Montesquieu that a government must be fitted to nation, as much as a coat to the individual, and...what may be good at Philadelphia may be bad at Paris and ridiculous at Petersburg”. AH to Lafayette, January 6, 1799, Syrett XXII, p. 404. Hamilton cited the source. 21  TJ to JM, September 6, 1789, Boyd XV, p. 396. emphasis TJ’s. See also Mayer, pp. 302-314, and Hebert Sloan, “The Earth Belongs in Usufruct to the Living”, in Onuf. ed, Jeffersonian Legacies. 20



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and property laws. In sum, although Madison never explicitly stated this, the position outlined by Jefferson would revert civil society to a state of nature.22 Since Jefferson repeated this same idea to Kercheval in 1816 in nearly identical form, it is unlikely that he was persuaded by Madison’s arguments, although as a practical statesman he had no intention of implementing this idea. Jefferson’s primary reason for advocating “temporary” constitutions was political: experience taught him that slavish adherence to outdated rules often impeded the efficient dispatch of the public business. Jefferson was no legal fundamentalist and, as we shall see, rarely let the letter of the law interfere with the execution of a political strategy. He had little use for the veneration of the past which led citizens to “ascribe to men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and to suppose what they did to be beyond amendment”. Although he respected the efforts of the Federal Convention of 1787, he realized that the Constitution was the product of compromise and not an idealized political philosophy. Jefferson’s approach to politics led him to emphasize flexibility over tradition: “The dead have no rights”, he told Kercheval. “They are nothing; and nothing cannot own something. Where there is no substance, there can be no accident. This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belongs to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation”. Only these tangible and immediate interests concerned Jefferson. They provided the medium in which the statesman operated, and in his view laws should be framed in such a manner as to expedite the task of governing. Constitutions, he argued, should reflect this fact of political life and neither harken back to an earlier age nor chart an ambitious course for the future.23 Strict and Loose Construction in Theory and Practice: The Bank Issue of 1791 and the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 Jefferson’s interpretation of the Constitution following its ratification has been a subject of political and scholarly debate since the Federalist Era. The focal point of this controversy has been Jefferson’s  JM to TJ, February 4, 1790, Boyd XVI, pp. 147-148. Emphasis Madison’s.  TJ to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816, Ford XII, p. 11-13; Koch, Philosophy of Jefferson, p. 239. 22 23

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reading of the implied powers clause24 and his view of the proper relationship between legislative and executive power. Jefferson advocated rigidly defined powers and was careful to separate responsibilities “functionally”, which led him to take an extremely narrow view of the scope of governmental authority. “The principle of strict construction”, Henry Adams noted, “was the breath of his political life. The Pope could as safely trifle with the doctrine of apostolic succession as Jefferson with the limits of Executive power”. During his Presidency, however, Jefferson expanded the role of executive power far beyond the limits of the Washington and Adams administrations, and frankly worried that some of his policies had made the Constitution a “blank paper”.25 The degree of latitude with which Jefferson interpreted the Constitution can be most accurately measured in political units. It is not surprising that most of Jefferson’s exhortations for strict construction and sharply limited Executive responsibilities were offered in the 1790s, when Federalists dominated the central government. A decade later, when he was President, he was less concerned with the sanctity of Legislative preeminence and sought to enhance the President’s role in both domestic and foreign affairs. Thus Jefferson’s “philosophy” of strict construction was largely a defensive tactic designed to prevent his opponents from initiating policies he opposed. Politics, and not political theory, governed his reading of the Constitution: “the degree of liberalism and literalism with which he interpreted the Constitutional instrument”, Malone notes, “cannot be separated from the particular circumstances in which he found himself”.26 Jefferson’s theory of strict construction was expressed concisely in his “Opinion on the Constitutionality of a Bill for Establishing a National Bank”, written for President Washington in February 1791. In advocating a centralized banking system which could issue paper currency and lend money to the government, Hamilton had used the implied powers clause to justify “the erection of national corporations”.27 Jefferson flatly disagreed with this view, and Washington solicited the legal advice of his Secretaries of State and Treasury to help him decide  Article I, Section 8: “To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof”. 25  Adams, History II, p. 89; TJ to Wilson Cary Nicholas, September 7, 1803, Ford X, p. 10. 26  Malone III, p. 395. 27  Final version of Hamilton’s “Opinion of the Constitutionality of an Act to Establish a Bank”, Syrett VIII, pp. 97-134. 24



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which interpretation to follow. Though Hamilton wrote his opinion one week after Jefferson had submitted his and thus had the advantage of responding directly to his adversary’s report, Jefferson was familiar with Hamilton’s reasoning from personal discussions and effectively presaged his colleague’s arguments. Both papers centered on the implied powers clause, with Hamilton interpreting it broadly while Jefferson contended that “the words of the Constitution meant precisely what they said”.28 Jefferson opposed the incorporation of a Bank for three reasons. First, he distrusted the concentration of wealth among the Northeastern “paper-men” and thus acted as a spokesman for the majority of chronically indebted of Southern planters who had little use for Hamilton’s Bank or for his debt-assumption program. Secondly, Jefferson feared that chartering a Bank in Philadelphia would fix the government at that site and preclude the move to the Potomac which he desperately wanted and which he insisted on as a quid pro quo for his acquiescence to the earlier Assumption Bill.29 Third, he feared that were it accepted,  Jefferson submitted his report on February 16. On the same day Washington sent it, along with the opinion of Attorney General Edmund Randolph, to Hamilton with a cover letter, in which he offered Hamilton “the opportunity of examining and answering the objections contained in the enclosed papers”. GW to AH, February 16, 1791, Syrett VIII, p. 50. Hamilton’s reply was dated the 23rd. Malone II, p. 341. 29   While in the Washington Administration, Jefferson spent considerable time and energy maneuvering to situate the national Capital on the Potomac. The Residence-Assumption Bargain, which both Jefferson and Dumas Malone denied ever occurred, was nevertheless too coincidental to have been merely a fortuitous political development. Within a span of several weeks Jefferson and Madison dropped their opposition to Hamilton’s plan for the federal government to assume responsibility for the states’ Revolutionary War debts, and Hamilton reluctantly agreed to support the effort to move the Capitol southward. It is not essential to enter into the Residence-Assumption controversy here, only to understand why Jefferson was intent on the Potomac site for the government. He wanted the federal government to be as close to Virginia as possible, not only because this region was his political power base but also so that the projected economic benefits of the move would “accrue to the Potomac rather than to the Chesapeake Bay” region. [Malone I, p. 404] The political brilliance of this move was not lost on the northern Federalists, but Hamilton, concerned with issues he believed were of greater national importance, compromised rather than risk losing his last shred of southern support. On the controversy surrounding the deal, supposedly concluded over dinner by Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton in June 1790, see Malone’s “Long Note” on the issue in vol. II, p. 507. For a broader perspective, see the editorial note on “Fixing the Seat of Government on the Potomac” in Boyd XVII, pp. 452-460, and that in PJM XIII, pp. 243-246. For interpretations of the compromise, see Jacob E. Cooke, “The Compromise of 1790”, WMQ [27(1970): 523-545] and Kenneth Bowling’s reply to it, “Dinner at Jefferson’s: A Note on Jacob E. Cooke’s ‘Compromise of 1790’”, WMQ, [28(1971): 629-648]. 28

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the centralizing character of Hamilton’s proposal would set a precedent for future federal intrusions into the affairs of the states. Jefferson’s only recourse against Hamilton’s superior grasp of finance was constitutional theory, and he used it to his advantage. He based his argument upon the principle that “to take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition”. Hoping to create suspicions in Washington’s mind about the ramifications of Hamilton’s plan, Jefferson claimed that the Bank was the first tear that might unravel the entire fabric of the Constitution. “It is an established rule of construction”, he asserted, “where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other powers of the instrument, and not that which will render the others useless”.30 Jefferson’s argument was centered on his definition of what constituted a “necessary” act of government. Conceding Hamilton the economic merits of the case for the sake of argument, Jefferson concentrated his assault on the precedent the Secretary of the Treasury’s proposal might set. “It has been much urged that a bank will give great facility, or convenience in the collection of taxes”, he observed: Suppose this were true: yet the Constitution allows only the means which are “necessary” not those which are merely “convenient” for effecting the enumerated powers. If any such latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase as to give any non-enumerated power, it will give every one, for there is not one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience, in some way or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It Moving capitals was a favorite pastime of Jefferson’s. In 1779 he proposed moving the Virginia state capital from Williamsburg to “a more central place”. [Malone I, p. 251. Text of his proposed “Bill for the Removal of the Seat of Government in Virginia” and commentary in Boyd II, p. 271-272] Though he justified his proposal on the legitimate grounds that Williamsburg was vulnerable to British attack and that it was far removed from the advancing western settlements, Jefferson’s real motive was to undermine Tidewater dominance of the state government. Tidewater interests quickly grasped the implications of Jefferson’s measure, and it died in the legislature until the government eventually moved to Richmond later in the war. Similarly in 1819 he attempted to situate the University of Virginia as close to Charlottesville as possible, so that he and his local political machine would direct its administration. Throughout his career Jefferson attempted to draw the locus of state and federal power as close to the Virginia Piedmont as possible. 30  TJ, “Opinion of the Constitutionality of the Bank”, February 16, 1791, Boyd IXX, p. 276-277. He gave no direct evidence of this “rule”. Like Metternich in his letters to the Kaiser prior to the implementation of the Carlsbad Decrees, Jefferson was using alarmist language to convince his chief to allow him more freedom of maneuver. He used the same tactic to better advantage in 1793 in the Neutrality debate. See ch. 4.



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would swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce the whole to one phrase as before observed. Therefore it was that the Constitution restrained them to the necessary means, that is to say, to those means without which the grant of the power would be nugatory.

In his reply, Hamilton responded to this charge, claiming that: It is essential to the being of the National government, that so erroneous a conception of the meaning of the word necessary [in Jefferson’s Report] should be exploded. It is certain, that neither the grammatical, nor the popular sense of the term requires that construction. According to both, necessary often means no more than needful, requisite, incidental, useful, or conducive to. It is a common mode of expression to say, that it is necessary for a government or a person to do this or that thing, when nothing more is intended or understood, than that the interests of the government or person require, or will be promoted, by the doing of this or that thing. The imagination can be at no loss for exemplifications of the use of the word in this sense.

Hamilton argued that Jefferson’s logic should apply to state governments as well, and yet the Secretary of State had not opposed the chartering of state banks. To be sure, Jefferson confined his argument to the interpretation of the federal Constitution, but Hamilton gingerly touched on the real issue motivating the Secretary of State’s opinion. Jefferson’s haunting fear of the concentration of wealth and power among Federalists in a Federalist capital by an institution unaccountable to state regulation—and the political conditions this presaged—galvanized his opposition to the Bank.31 Though Jefferson lost the Bank war in 1791, his arguments for strict construction endured, much to his future embarrassment. His views were incorporated into the platform of the Republican Party, which campaigned against the excesses of Hamilton’s reading of the implied powers clause. Although his (and Hamilton’s) position on the Bank issue was rooted in expediency rather than a systematic political philosophy, the political movements that gathered around these ideas made it difficult for Jefferson to reverse himself when conditions warranted. Thus in the case of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Jefferson’s earlier interpretation of the implied powers clause returned to haunt him. During the summer of 1803, after word of the treaty of cession reached Washington, Jefferson wrestled with the Constitutional issues   Boyd IXX, p. 278, emphasis Jefferson’s. AH, “Opinion”, Syrett VIII, pp. 102; 103104. Emphasis Hamilton’s. On the politics of the Bank issue, see Miller, Federalist Era, chs 4-6; Malone II, ch. 20; Miller, Hamilton, ch. 18; Mayer, pp. 189-199. 31

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respecting the Purchase. The central question was whether the President had the power to conclude such an agreement. Having staked his political reputation on an emphatic endorsement of strict construction, Jefferson realized that Federalists would be merciless in attacking his inconsistency if he advanced a liberal reading of the implied powers clause in the case of Louisiana. Jefferson readily admitted that there was no constitutional provision “for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union”, and he conceded that “the Executive...have done an act beyond the Constitution”.32 There was no avoiding the constitutional problem of Louisiana. Hamilton had merely wanted to charter a Bank; Jefferson, through the Purchase, had doubled the size of the nation. It suddenly became clear to the President how far his ship of state had drifted from its strict constructionist moorings. Jefferson had solicited opinions from his Cabinet on the matter as early as January 1803, when he first realized that an agreement with France was possible. Attorney General Levi Lincoln advocated annexing Louisiana to Georgia, and then subdividing it into separate units, maintaining that although the Constitution said nothing about incorporating territory into the federal Union, the Tenth Amendment presupposed the right of the states to do so. Gallatin argued that Lincoln’s idea was misguided and would set a more dangerous precedent than if the United States merely acquired Louisiana without an amendment. Were the Attorney General’s plan adopted, Gallatin questioned with foresight, “what could prevent the President and Senate by Treaty annexing Cuba to Massachusetts or Bengal to Rhode Island...if ever the acquirement[sic] of colonies shall become a favorite object of the government?” Since foreign policy was the exclusive preserve of the federal government, Gallatin reasoned, then that entity held sovereignty over territorial acquisitions. Hence he concluded that “the existence of the United States as a nation presupposes the power enjoyed by every nation of extending their territory by treaties, and the general power given to the President and Senate of making treaties designates the organs through which the acquisition may be made”.33 Confronted with this dissension in his Cabinet and the mounting criticisms of the Federalists, in late July 1803 Jefferson decided to follow the politically safe route and drafted an amendment to the Consti TJ to James Breckenridge, August 12, 1803, Ford X, p. 7.  Lincoln’s Report of January 10, 1803, JPLC: Reel 44; AG to TJ, Janaury 13, 1803, JPLC: Reel 44. Gallatin further argued that “the United States as a nation have an inherent right to acquire territory”. 32 33



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tution.34 He was convinced that he could have Louisiana and maintain his constitutional principles by a simple Act of Congress. As he argued to Wilson Cary Nicholas in September, When an instrument admits of two constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe & precise. I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our particular security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. I say the same as to the opinions of those who consider the grant of the treaty-making power to be boundless.

Gallatin and Madison remonstrated against this line of action. They were concerned that Napoleon might reconsider the treaty in the time it would take for an amendment to pass both Houses of Congress and two-thirds of the state legislatures. Faced with these compelling arguments, and his own weighing of reason of state in the case of Louisiana, Jefferson “decided finally that legalistic concerns should not stand in the way of practical achievement”. Whether Gallatin’s and Madison’s elaboration of the treaty-making power or the threat of a French reversal ultimately persuaded Jefferson is unclear, but he certainly placed pragmatic interests ahead of constitutional theory in his calculus of the Louisiana issue.35 Having thus divorced himself from the principle of strict construction (if he was ever faithfully wedded to it) Jefferson now had to rationalize the separation to the public. As usual his penchant for secrecy prevailed, and as a result he sought to dismiss the Constitutional problems of the Purchase altogether. “I infer that the less we say about the constitutional difficulties respecting Louisiana the better”, he informed Madison in August 1803, “and that what is necessary for surmounting them be done sub-silentio”. But with Federalist critics, led by Hamilton, taunting him over the latitude with which he interpreted the treaty-making power, Jefferson realized that the issue was too important to ignore.36  Text of the Proposed Amendment in Ford X, pp. 3-12.  TJ to W.C. Nicholas, September 7, 1803, Ford X, pp. 10-11. Alexander DeConde, This Affair of Louisiana, [New York: 1976], p. 185; David A. Carson, “Blank Paper of the Constitution: The Louisiana Purchase Debates”, The Historian, [54(1992): 477490]; Mayer, pp. 244-256. 36  TJ to JM, August 18, 1803, Ford X, p. 8. He wrote exactly the same line to Lincoln on August 30. On the Federalist reaction, see Douglas Adair, ed., “Hamilton on the Louisiana Purchase: A Newly Identified Editorial from the New York Evening-Post”, 34 35

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Jefferson based his defense of the legality of the Purchase on two arguments. First, he noted that it was an undeniable advantage to the nation, of so large and unexpected a proportion as to almost require extralegal accommodation. This was the thesis he subtly advanced in his Third Annual Message to Congress in 1803.37 Secondly, and more importantly, Jefferson portrayed the Purchase as a national “trust” purchased for an “innocent” nation which could be rejected by the people acting through their representatives. The onus of the legality of the deal was thus shrewdly passed on to Congress. He argued to James Breckenridge in August 1803 that The Legislature, in casting behind them metaphysical subtleties, and risking themselves like faithful servants, must ratify and pay for [Louisiana] and throw themselves on their country for doing for them unauthorized what we know they would have done themselves had they been in a situation to do it. It is the case of a guardian, investing the money of his ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory; & saying to him when of age, I did this for your good; I pretend to no right to bind you: you may disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape as I can: I thought it my duty to risk myself for you. But we shall not be disavowed by the nation, and their act of indemnity will confirm and not weaken the Constitution, by more strongly marking out its lines.38

In short, Jefferson attempted to turn the Purchase into a plebiscite on his leadership. Convinced of the popularity of the measure, he resolved his legal difficulty by claiming to be simply an agent of the people. This principle was far removed from the spirit of Jefferson’s constitutional theory, as he had no tolerance for “majority rule” or public referendums in the realm of foreign policy. In this case, however, this approach seemed an admirable means of absolving himself from the charge of hypocrisy as well as for shoring up his political base for the 1804 election. Though he still wrangled with the constitutionality issue into the autumn of 1803, as when he informed Nicholas that “I confess, then, I think it important, in the present case, to set an example against broad construction”, he showed remarkable flexibility in the speed in WMQ, [12(1955): 268-281]. Hamilton viewed strict construction as one of Jefferson’s swords against Federalism which could easily be converted into a plowshare once the political battle was decided. On this point see Gilbert Lycan, Alexander Hamilton and American Foreign Policy, [Norman, OK: 1970], p. 411. 37  Text of Message of October 17, 1803, with attached “Special Message on Louisiana” in Ford X, pp. 33-44. 38  TJ to James Breckenridge, August 12, 1803, Ford X, p. 7.



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which his doubts evaporated. “If, however, our friends shall think differently”, he continued in a reference to Congressional party leaders, “certainly I shall acquiesce with satisfaction, confiding that the good sense of our country will correct the evil of construction when it shall produce ill effects”. Jefferson, therefore, transferred his political and legal problem to Congress and the public. They, and not he, most ultimately decide on the constitutionality of the incorporation of Louisiana. In such fashion he was able to rebut Federalist charges of hypocrisy by appealing directly to public opinion. He brilliantly sidestepped personal responsibility and at the same time appeared more “democratic” than he was.39 39  TJ to W.C. Nicholas, September 7, 1803, Ford X, p. 11. My emphasis. This question of strict construction was not only a problem in dealing with the implied powers clause, but also in relations between the three branches of government. Jefferson had been an advocate of strict limits on executive power since the 1780s. He preferred to yield to the legislature the benefit of any doubts in debates on which department controlled which function. Yet once in office he was far more interested in expanding the powers of the Presidency even beyond the scope envisaged by Hamilton. The apostle of states’ rights rejected James Monroe’s contention that the governors and the President, “as heads of sovereign political units, were equals”. [Ammon, Monroe, p. 183] In all cases where the states conducted business with the Federal government—and these were commonplace—the President, as Jefferson put it, was “certainly pre-ordinate”. [TJ to Monroe, May 22, 1801, Boyd XXXIV, p. 162]. Throughout his Presidency, Jefferson sought to limit the powers of the federal judiciary. This was not the result of any deep-rooted constitutional philosophy, but because this body was dominated by Federalists. Viewing the judiciary as “the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric”, Jefferson refused to comply with a subpoena duces tecum in June 1807 during the trial of Aaron Burr. [TJ to Thomas Ritchie, December 25, 1820, Ford XII, p. 177. On the Burr trial, see Malone V, chs 17-18] Jefferson realized that Marshall’s subpoena to surrender documents related to the case was politically motivated, and in his response to it he outlined the concept of executive privilege. “All nations”, he argued, “have found it necessary, that for the advantageous conduct of their affairs, some of these proceedings, at least, should remain known to their executive functionary only. He, of course, from the nature of the case, must be the sole judge of which of these the public interests will permit publication”. [TJ to George Hay, June 17, 1807, Ford X, p. 401] Jefferson’s argument, with its strong defense of Executive power, would be cited by President Nixon as a precedent in his defense before the Supreme Court in 1974. Yet Jefferson had not always been so sympathetic to Presidential perogatives. In 1796 he argued that “to render history what it ought to be the whole truth should be known. I am no friend to mystery and state secrets. They serve generally only to conceal the errors and rogueries of those who govern”. [TJ to John Carey, November 10, 1796, Boyd IXXX, p. 205]. Of course, at that time the Federalists were in power, and Jefferson was eager to exploit Administration documents for political purposes. As President, however, he was quite unwilling to allow Marshall the same avenue of attack. When it came to the judiciary, as Levy notes, “Jefferson did unto his enemies before they did unto

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To Jefferson, the Constitution was instrumental. As temporary measure designed to serve the needs of the “living generation” it was a means, and not an end in itself, in his political calculus. Situational context, rather than an absolute and irrevocable standard of right, conditioned his interpretation of Constitutional provisions: “A strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest”, Jefferson argued in 1810: The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, and property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.

Jefferson could consequently interpret the Constitution strictly or broadly depending on the needs of the moment. His only real concern in being inconsistent was political in nature: that is, by being unfaithful to his professed principles he was providing political ammunition to his adversaries.40 Jefferson defended this view of the Constitution in an 1810 letter to John Colvin, who had questioned how Jefferson’s position on Louisiana could be reconciled with that he took on the Bank debate in 1791. Jefferson admitted that “the question you propose...is of easy solution in principle, but sometimes embarrassing in practice”. He constructed a hypothetical scenario analogous to the Louisiana Purchase and listed all of the political variables involved, from a French reconsideration to him”. [Levy, pp. viii-ix] Jefferson’s assaults on the judiciary, beginning with his attempt to impeach Federalist Justice Samuel Chase in 1803, culminated in his proposed Constitutional amendment which would allow the President to remove a judge with the assent of a majority of two-thirds of Congress. [Malone IV, p. 462] He had proposed limiting the terms of federal judges as early as 1798. [TJ to JM, October 26, 1798, PJM XVII, p. 170] With such a provision, and a sizeable Republican majority in Congress, Jefferson could have removed his Federalist opponents from their strongest bastion. It was with extreme irony therefore that he could argue to Spencer Roane in 1819 that “the constitution...is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please”. [TJ to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819, Ford XII, p. 137] For a cogent explanation of the politics of this issue, see Mayer, ch. 9. Thus Jefferson’s attitude towards executive and judicial power, like his interpretation of the implied powers clause, was a product of political circumstance. He was all for strict limits on presidential authority when Washington and Adams held office, but less worried about them when he and Madison headed the executive branch. Since the judiciary was populated by his political enemies throughout his political career, it met with his unending derision. 40  TJ to John B. Colvin, September 20, 1810, PTJRS III, pp. 100-101. On this point see Malone III, pp. 341-342.



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an emerging opposition in Congress which could ruin the agreement. He concluded his account by arguing that in such complex cases “the salus populi [is] supreme over the written law”. He consequently rejected permanent and unvarying interpretations of public law as futile. Such an approach was acceptable and admirable, in his words, in the “case of persons charged with petty duties, where consequences are trifling, and time allowed for a legal course”. This basic law was essential to the protection of the citizens and the maintenance of public order.41 But at the level of high politics and international relations, where the need for flexibility and rapid calculation was paramount, self interest would—and, in Jefferson’s opinion, should—always prevail. He argued allegorically that “a ship at sea in distress for provisions, meets another having abundance, yet refusing a supply; the law of self-preservation authorizes the distressed to take a supply by force. In all these cases, the unwritten laws of necessity, of self-preservation, & of the public safety control the written laws of meum and tuum”. He realized that the Louisiana Purchase was popular and clearly to the advantage of the nation, and thus he had greater freedom of maneuver in this matter. The Bank issue was more complex, as public opinion on the subject was divided. Hence constitutional hairs had to be split to persuade the undecided—including the President—to accept his view of the issue. Jefferson observed that the “controlling powers” of the Constitution and the statesman’s “fellow citizens generally, are bound to judge according to the circumstances under which he acted. They are not to transform the information of this place and moment to the time & place of his action: but to put themselves into his situation”. This realistic assessment of the nature of politics provided Jefferson with the flexibility he considered essential for conducting the business of state.42 41  Ford XI, p. 146; 148. Mayer discusses this in the context of a concept of “higher obligation”, which is an extension of Michael Walzer’s idea of “supreme emergency”. However, Mayer’s discussion of this in the context of the notion of executive privilege leaves it to the President to decide what seriously constitutes a threat to the state and what are more “trifling” matters. In short, this perpetuates the rationalization Jefferson used over Louisiana and the impeachment of Justice Chase: that he ultimately decided the political and moral repercussions of his actions, and should be trusted with this responsibility. Essentially, it is a restatement of Max Weber’s ethic of responsibility, which has been criticized for allowing leaders too much latitude to determine the “correctness” of an action. See Mayer, 252-256. 42  TJ to John Colvin, September 20, 1810, PTJRS III, 100-101. It is unclear whether Jefferson intended the word “necessary” in as broad a sense as Hamilton in the latter’s report on the Bank issue in 1791.

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The Politics of Sectionalism Jefferson’s reading of the Constitution cannot be separated from his deep attachment to Virginia. From his youth his approach to politics was “filtered, as it were, through a Virginia prism”. While not completely “smothered” by localism, as Leonard Levy asserts, he was certainly no cosmopolitan. Indeed, the extreme states’ rights position he took in the 1790s was conditioned by this obsession with protecting the interests and customs of the South. “A government regulating itself by what is wise and just for the many”, he argued in 1816, “uninfluenced by the local and selfish views of the few who direct their affairs, has not been seen before, perhaps, on earth”.43 It was certainly not visible during Jefferson’s Presidency. We have seen that Jefferson’s identification with Southern political interests motivated his response to Hamilton’s financial program. Jefferson was strongly attached to the machinery of state politics and during his Governorship and his “retirement” in the mid-1790s spent considerable time building his political coalition in the Commonwealth. This investment paid handsome dividends for Jefferson in 1800, when ultimately the Republicans’ superior organization in the South carried the day for him. Yet Jefferson’s fixation with state politics did not go without notice or criticism: during the Revolution, Washington rebuked him for devoting too much time to the affairs of Virginia and not enough to the needs of the Continental cause.44 He might have made the same complaint two decades later, when Jefferson was using the states’ rights argument to attack the financial policies of his Administration. Nevertheless, Jefferson’s favorite political tactic was to remain close to organizations and interests that he could safely control. He realized that his power base in the Virginia Piedmont was solid, and thus he sought to retain a commanding voice and “kingmaker” role in the state. If this meant that the federal government literally had to come to the mountain of Monticello, so be it.45 Secure among his clique of Repub43   Bowman, The Struggle for Neutrality, p. 27; Levy, p. 149; TJ to William H. Crawford, June 20, 1816, Ford XI, p. 541. 44  Stephen Kurtz offers a cogent analysis of the similarities and differences of the Republican Party’s organization in New York and Virginia and concludes that “the great disadvantage of [New York Governor George] Clinton’s system of personal government was that it tended to shunt men of outstanding abilities into national politics and kept them from developing the solid ties with state machinery that so marked the Virginians”. Kurtz, Presidency of Adams, p. 132. Malone I, p. 319. 45  See n. 29. Every year President Jefferson spent the months of August and September at Monticello, mainly to avoid the unpleasant climate of Washington in those months but also to abreast of local political affairs.



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lican allies in the South and West, Jefferson saw little reason to take a “national” view except when tactically necessary—such his alliance with Clinton’s New York Republicans. Indeed, most of his firsthand knowledge of Northern politics was gained from his 1791 trip; by the time he became President this information was dated. This later crippled him in the Embargo crisis of 1808, when his ignorance of the political culture of New England “led him to believe it to be what he wanted it to be”, with disastrous results.46 Jefferson admitted that he had little affinity for New England or the Mid-Atlantic states, and was of the opinion that they were still dominated by the religious practices of the seventeenth century. The growing economic power of these states troubled him, however. He confessed to John Taylor that “It is true that we are completely under the saddle of Massachusetts & Connecticut, and that they ride us very hard, cruelly insulting our feelings as well as exhausting our strength and substance”. For this reason Jefferson endorsed Taylor’s idea of a political “bloc” of southern states to counter obnoxious Federalist policies. However, he argued that without the New England Federalists serving as a common enemy, southern politics would ultimately splinter into competing factions. “Seeing therefore that an association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which never yet existed”, he noted, “I had rather keep our New-England associates for that purpose, than to see our bickering transferred to others”. But if the economic cleavage between North and South became insurmountable, Jefferson was fully prepared to use extreme measures to protect southern interests. “I would rather the states should withdraw, which are for unlimited commerce and war”, he argued in 1816, “and confederate with those alone which are for peace and agriculture”, than submit to a “northern” system of political economy.47 After the Panic of 1819, when he feared that the South was “in mortal danger”, Jefferson became increasingly apprehensive of these economic disparities. It is clear that by the end of his life he held little hope that these could be permanently reconciled. Thus he ceased to place the same stress on individual liberties that he had earlier in his political correspondence and concentrated almost exclusively on defending the  Malone V, p. 403. see ch. 5.  TJ to John Taylor, June 4, 1798, Boyd XXX, pp. 388-389. TJ to William H. Crawford, June 20, 1816, Ford XI, p. 538. Note that by Jefferson’s logic it would be the northern states that “seceded” from the Union, the “true spirit” of which would be preserved in the South. 46 47

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economic and cultural liberties of the sovereign states.48 Rather than attempt to modernize the political, social, and economic institutions of Virginia, Jefferson preferred to say “let us separate”. Cognizant that his power base and that of the Republican Party was still strong in the south, Jefferson saw little danger in retreating behind the bulwark of states’ rights. As he put it in 1813, Indeed, it seems to me that in proportion as Commercial avarice & corruption advance on us from the North and East, the principles of free government are to retire to the agricultural states of the South & West, as their last asylum and bulwark. With honesty & self-government for her portion, agriculture may abandon contentedly to others the fruits of commerce & corruption.49

The Kentucky Resolutions, the Missouri Crisis, and the Sectional Divide, 1798-1820 Jefferson’s sectional philosophy manifested itself in the “Kentucky Resolutions” he drafted in the autumn of 1798. This document was written as a response to what Jefferson believed was a mendacious Federalist plot to stifle his projected Presidential campaign. The Resolution is noteworthy in that it first introduced the concept of “nullification” into the American political vocabulary. This idea, along with the extreme states’ rights position endorsed in by Jefferson, would provide the theoretical justification used by future southern leaders to challenge federal policies. The political motives underlying the Kentucky Resolutions, therefore, require elaboration. The Alien and Sedition Acts of July 1798 were the direct “cause” of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.50 Jefferson deemed these acts “worthy of the eighth or ninth century”, and considered “that law to be a nullity as absolute and palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image”. Jefferson was particularly troubled by the fact that the objectionable Acts were obviously directed against  For this analysis see Miller, Wolf by the Ears, pp. 231-233.  TJ to William Crawford, Ford XI, p. 538; TJ to Henry Middleton, January 8, 1813, PTJRS V, pp. 546-547. 50  The best scholarly examination of this subject is by Adrienne Koch and Harry Ammon, “The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions: An Episode in Jefferson’s and Madison’s Defense of Civil Liberties”, WMQ, [5(1948):145-176] see p. 174 for the argument that the Resolutions were prompted by the Alien and Sedition Acts. 48 49



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him.51 The Sedition Act protected all officers of the Federal government (except the Vice-President, who was widely assumed to be the leading opposition candidate in 1800) from “malicious” political reporting. This striking omission convinced Jefferson that the Adams Administration (of which he was nominally a member) was tacitly encouraging criticism of his political views and organization. Privately Jefferson was inclined to view this as a backhanded compliment, as when he informed his son-in-law that “it suffices for a man to be a philosopher, to believe that human affairs are susceptible of improvement, & to look forward, rather than back to the Gothic Ages, for perfection, to mark him as an anarchist, disorganizer, atheist, & enemy of the government”.52 However, he was fully aware of the political significance of the measures, and was determined not to allow the Federalists the opportunity to silence his nascent campaign for the White House. Jefferson’s strategy for defeating the Federalists’ policy was to replicate the legal dexterity he had demonstrated in the Bank affair of 1791. Able to conveniently nestle his opposition to the Sedition Acts under the mantle of his philosophical commitment to individual liberty, Jefferson looked to the southern state legislatures as his only political allies against the Federal statute. Though he professed that “I know not which mortifies me most, that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things”, he was careful not to speak out publicly against the measure for fear of walking into the Federalists’ trap.53 Jefferson realized that his campaign against the Alien and Sedition Acts would have to be a cautious one. Aware that the Federalists were expecting an outcry either from him or his lieutenants, Jefferson re51  TJ, cited by Peterson, Jefferson and the New Nation, p. 604; TJ to Abigail Adams, July 22, 1804, Cappon, p. 275. The Alien Act authorized the President to deport aliens suspected of subversive activities only in time of war. The more controversial Sedition Act authorized fines and imprisonment for “those judged guilty of writing, publishing, or speaking anything of a ‘false, scandalous, or malicious’ nature” against officers of the Federal Government. [Miller, Federalist Era, pp. 230-232] On the politics of the Acts, see Miller, Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts, [Boston: 1951]; Kurtz, Presidency of Adams, ch. 14; Malone III, ch. 24. Koch and Ammon defend the claim that Jefferson took these measures personally on p. 175. Madison also distrusted the Machiavellian manner in which the acts were adopted. Claiming to defend the national interest against French “seditionaries” was to him merely a shrewd cover for suppressing popular dissent. As he wrote to Jefferson, “Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to providing against danger real or pretended from abroad”. JM to TJ, May 13, 1798, PJM XVII, p. 130. 52  TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, May 3, 1798, Boyd XXX, p. 326. 53  TJ to John Taylor, November 26, 1798, Boyd XXX, p. 588.

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fused to become the centerpiece of the Federalists’ war against “Jacobin disorganizers”. He returned to Monticello in the late summer of 1798 to plan strategy with Madison, Taylor, and other influential Republicans. This obviated the need to conduct business by letters which might find their way into the press, as had some inflammatory remarks he had made to Philip Mazzei two years before.54 Jefferson’s preferred approach was to remain quiet and not commit his party to any controversial action. “For the present”, he explained to Taylor, “I should be for resolving the alien & sedition laws to be against the constitution & merely void, and for addressing the other states to obtain similar declarations: and I would not do any thing at this moment which should commit us further, but reserve ourselves to shape our future measures or no measures, by the events which may happen”.55 He obviously hoped that the Acts might sink under their own oppressive weight or that of more outspoken Republican editorials, but the rapid deflation of opposition commentaries due to the provisions of the law clearly convinced him that stronger measures were needed. The strategy which he ultimately decided on, in collaboration with Madison, was a characteristically Jeffersonian gambit. He recognized that the Tenth Amendment was the best legal defense of his opposition to the Acts, and for this reason he proposed that southern legislators introduce a series of resolutions in their respective state Assemblies condemning the Acts and demanding their repeal. As usual, he preferred to work through intermediaries, and persuaded James Breckenridge to sponsor a bill he wrote in the Kentucky Legislature. Madison found it wise to adopt a similar tactic, and John Taylor was custodian of his bill in the Virginia House of Delegates. Jefferson believed that this approach would enable him to fiercely express his opinions while remaining insulated from the public debate on these measures. Yet this indirect and amorphous opposition to the acts, framed in abstract legal terms, was sufficiently ambiguous to allow the Kentucky Resolutions to become a protean force in Southern politics. What began as a political maneuver to outflank a specific statute inimical to Jefferson’s political interests rapidly accelerated into a national debate on the foundation of the Constitution which was not conclusively resolved until Appomattox. 54  The “Mazzei Affair” of 1796 is discussed in Malone III, pp. 266-269. The text of the letter of April 24, 1796 with an editorial note is in Boyd IXXX, pp. 73-83. The controversy centered on some disparaging remarks Jefferson made about President Washington in a private letter that found its way into print. 55  TJ to John Taylor, November 26, 1798, Boyd XXX, p. 589; Malone III, pp. 400409.



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Jefferson’s draft of the Kentucky Resolutions argued that the Constitution was a “compact” acceded to by the state governments. The states delegated specific powers to the federal government, which were clearly enumerated in the text of the Constitution. The states therefore possessed ultimate sovereignty in the American political system, and Jefferson flatly asserted that “whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers its acts are unauthoritative, void & of no force”. As in the case of the Bank in 1791, this reasoning simplified the debate on the Sedition Act: since no such provision to restrain freedom of speech or the press was listed in the Constitution, Jefferson asserted, it must therefore be illegal. He argued that “all other [of] their [federal] acts which assume to create, define, and punish crimes (other than those so enumerated in the Constitution) are altogether void & of no force, & that the power to create, define & punish such other crimes is reserved & of right appurtains[sic] solely & exclusively to the respective states, each within its own territory.56 The most daring and historically ominous component of Jefferson’s argument was its remedial argument. If the federal government did not comply with the wishes of the states, Jefferson maintained, the states had a right to “nullify” the act themselves. His argument deserves to be quoted in full: When powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every state has a natural right, in cases not within the compact (casus nonfoederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that, without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them...They alone being parties to the compact, & solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it, Congress being not a party, but merely the creature of the compact, & subject, as to its assumptions of power, to the final judgment of those by whom, & for whose use, itself, and its powers, were all created and modified.57

Thus the concept of “nullification” entered American politics, and Jefferson was never able to completely escape its shadow.  Original Draft of the Kentucky Resolutions, November 1798, PJM XVII, p. 176. These drafts were sent to Madison on November 17. Jefferson argued to Elbridge Gerry a few months later that “I am for preserving to the states the powers not yielded by them to the Union, & to the legislature of the Union its constitutional share in the division of powers: and I am not for transferring all the powers of the states to the general government, & all those of that government to the Executive branch”. January 26, 1799, Boyd XXX, p. 646. 57   8th Resolution, PJM XVII, p. 179; Koch and Ammon, p. 158. 56

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Madison was concerned about the legal and political ramifications of Jefferson’s argument. “Have you ever considered thoroughly”, he bluntly asked his friend, “the distinction between the power of the State and that of the legislature, on questions relating to the federal pact?” Madison’s own Virginia Resolutions were far more moderate and circumspect. Worried that Jefferson’s divisive language might do more harm to the Republican cause than their author intended, Madison went out of his way to pledge “a warm attachment to the Union of the States”, and merely appealed to “the like dispositions of the other States” to resolve the controversy over the Alien and Sedition Acts.58 Any doubts that Madison may have had about his colleague’s seriousness in advocating “nullification” were removed in a letter he received from Jefferson in August 1799, in which Jefferson repeated his hope that Congress would accede to the wishes of Virginia and Kentucky and repeal the Acts. But the southern states should be “determined”, Jefferson wrote, “were we to be disappointed in this, to sever ourselves from that union we so much value, rather than give up the rights of self-government which we have reserved, & in which we alone see liberty, safety, & happiness”. Madison was alarmed by this logic and realized that Jefferson, in Koch and Ammon’s concise phrase, “placed no absolute value on ‘union’”.59 Indeed, this case exemplifies Jefferson’s tendency to place absolute value on very little in politics except his own political viability and interests. Jefferson ultimately triumphed in his crusade against the Alien and Sedition Acts by becoming President and refusing to enforce them, and they lapsed soon after. But the long-term implications of the Kentucky Resolutions left a distinct mark on the nation’s political culture. Their ambiguous legacy first became a national issue in 1832, when the South Carolina legislature openly defied Andrew Jackson’s tariff policy in what became known as the “Nullification Crisis”. Jefferson’s name was invoked by the “nullifiers” as an advocate of their position against the federal government. Madison, although in declining health, attempted to defend his late friend as best he could, observing in 1832 that the nullifiers perverted Jefferson’s logic “into a pedestal for their colossal heresy”.60  JM to TJ, December 29, 1798, PJM XVII, p. 191. Madison’s emphasis. See the editorial note on the Virginia Resolutions in PJM XVII, pp. 185-186. Text of the document follows. This quotation from pp. 189-190. 59  TJ to JM, August 23, 1799, PJM XVII, p. 258; Koch and Ammon, p. 167. Mayer also notes that Jefferson’s meaning is plain from the text. pp. 199-208. 60  JM to N.P. Trist, December 23, 1832, in Gaillard Hunt, ed., The Writings of James Madison, 9 vols., [New York: 1910]. vol. 9, p. 491. On the role of the Kentucky Resolutions as an antecedent to the Civil War, see William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: 58



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Though he demonstrated a commendable loyalty to his friend, Madison’s argument was not persuasive, as a careful reading of Jefferson’s resolutions proves. Madison was certainly correct in asserting that Jefferson never explicitly advocated secession, but he knew from the letter of 1799 that Jefferson would have done so had it been the only means of defeating his political opponents. Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions had ominously predicted that increased federal intrusions in the affairs of the states would “necessarily drive these states into revolution & blood”. While this may have been a rhetorical flourish in 1798, by 1820 Jefferson was convinced that such a state of affairs was inevitable. The controversy over whether Missouri should be admitted into the union as a slave or free state, which emerged that year, struck him as “a fire-bell in the night [which] awakened me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union”.61 He approached this crisis in the same manner as he had the Alien and Sedition Acts. Convinced that the government in Washington (even though it was led by his friend Monroe) was pursuing policies inimical to Southern interests, Jefferson again used the states’ rights principle to legitimize his opposition to “consolidationism”. Jefferson believed that the Federal government had no right to exclude Missouri from the union over slavery. However, he shrewdly realized that this was not the real issue motivating Northern opposition to its admission. In his view, the Missouri debate was “not a moral question, but one merely for power” between North and South for control of the Senate. Quite naturally Jefferson sided with the South.62 The crux of Jefferson’s argument in 1820, as in 1798, was that the internal The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1832, [New York: 1965]; and his broader Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, [Oxford:1990]. see also David Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861, [New York: 1976], ch. 17. 61  PJM XVII, p. 180; TJ to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, Ford XII, p. 158. He had argued earlier that “the Missouri Question is the most portentious one which ever yet threatened our Union. In the gloomiest moment of the revolutionary war I never had any apprehensions equal to what I feel from this source”. TJ to Hugh Nelson, February 7, 1820. Ford XII, p. 157. 62  TJ to Lafayette, December 26, 1820, Ford XII, p. 191; Malone VI, p. 329. He informed Charles Pinckney that in his opinion “the Missouri Question is a mere party trick. The leaders of federalism, defeated in their schemes of obtaining power by rallying partisans to the principle of monarchism, a principle of personal and not of local division, have changed their tack, and thrown out another barrel to the whale”. September 30, 1820. Ford XII, p. 165. He told Gallatin in regard to the issue that “You are told, indeed, that there are no longer parties among us; that they are now amalgamated; the lion and lamb lie down together in peace. Do not believe a word of it. The same parties exist now as ever did”. October 29, 1822, Ford XII, p. 262.

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affairs of the states were their own business and not subject to federal regulation.63 Yet there was an essential difference between the situations of 1798 and 1820 that Jefferson never tired of explaining: the Kentucky Resolutions were the product of expediency, and were designed to counter a specific political measure. Jefferson placed great emphasis on the states’ rights idea, but in the 1790s he was more concerned with using it to challenge objectionable federal policies. Once this objective was attained, as far as Jefferson was concerned the Resolutions had fulfilled their function. In the case of Missouri, however, the compromise agreed to became a static construct almost immediately.64 The 36’30’ line, above which slavery would not be permitted, was in Jefferson’s view too rigid a formula to be of lasting use. As he argued in April 1820, The old schism of federal and republican threatened nothing, because it existed in every state, and united them together by the fraternism of party. But the coincidence of a marked principle, moral and political, with a geographical line, once conceived, I feared would never be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring on every occasion and renewing irritations, until it would kindle such mutual and mortal hatred, as to render separation preferable to eternal discord. I have been among the most sanguine in believing that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much, and see the event at no great distance, and the direct consequence of this question: not by the line which has so confidently been counted on... My only comfort and confidence is that I shall not live to see this: and I envy not the present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers’ sacrifices of life and fortune.

This opinion, one of the most prescient political commentaries Jefferson ever offered, further reveals his fear that once the sectional issue was cast in such stark terms, “an abstract principle” increasingly became “the line of separation of these states”, one that became more sharply defined as it was associated with a permanent geographical divide.65 63  Thus in Miller’s words he simply “applied the doctrine” of the Kentucky Resolutions to the Missouri case. Wolf by the Ears, pp. 228-229. 64  The best general work on the subject is Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, [Lexington, KY: 1953]. On Jefferson’s role, see pp. 253-256. 65  TJ to William Short, April 13, 1820, Extracts, p. 393; TJ to Hugh Nelson, March 12, 1820, JPLC: Reel 87. He added that “the question sleeps for the present, but is not dead”. Madison held a similar view of the Compromise. He argued to Robert Walsh that “should a state of parties arise, founded on geographic boundaries and other Physical & permanent distinctions which happen to coincide with them, what is to control these great repulsive masses from awful Shocks against each other?” November 27, 1819, Hunt, Writings IX, p. 12.



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Jefferson’s southern nationalism hardened in the last years of his life, partly as a result of the manner in which the Missouri controversy was settled. His “hobby of old age”, the University of Virginia, was begun in the aftermath of the crisis and was designed to advance the southern cause in this deepening sectional power struggle. Earlier in his career Jefferson had argued that “our citizens can never be induced, either as militia or soldiers, to cut the throats of their own brothers and sons”.66 By 1820 he realized that this would be the logical outcome of the sectional quarrel. Although Jefferson’s arguments were motivated by a supple Realpolitik that few southern apologists grasped, he cannot escape some of the consequences for the positions he staked in 1798 and 1820. In his attempt to justify his position on specific issues he used language that could be applied with far greater latitude and passion than he had initially intended. The politics of sectionalism animated Jefferson’s concept of the state. With almost Bismarckian realism, he used the principle of states’ rights against the Federalists when the latter controlled the federal government, then supported the assertion of federal power against recalcitrant governors when he was President. In practical terms, the sectional issue was a manipulative lever which Jefferson never ceased to operate. Nevertheless, Jefferson’s deep-seated attachment to Virginia was real, and he remained a southern particularist throughout his life.67 Unlike his colleagues, Jefferson was never forced to sublimate his attachment to Virginia for the interests of a higher cause. His power base was rooted in that state throughout his career. He admittedly built a coalition with George Clinton’s Republicans in New York, but he never trusted his northern allies (if he ever had before) after the Burr Affair of 1806. His diplomatic mission to France occurred too late in his life to have had a formative influence on him. Despite his embrace of aspects of European culture, it never animated his political calculus in the 66  Miller, Wolf by the Ears, p. 259. On the University of Virginia, see Appendix II. TJ to JM, January 30, 1787, Boyd XI, p. 93. He was referring at that time to western separatists in the Mississippi Territory. 67  Jefferson’s case was distinct from that of many of his closest allies and enemies. Madison, although devoted to the Old Dominion, had been educated in New Jersey and his efforts at the Federal Convention of 1787 demonstrated his “national” appraisal of American politics. Neither Gallatin nor Hamilton were native born, and thus they never developed a compelling allegiance to a particular locality. Washington, though also tied to Virginia, held a coalition of competing interests together through the Revolution and evinced great skill at compromise. Monroe also served in the continental Army, which as Miller notes was the “school of nationalism” during the War for Independence. Only Adams could rival Jefferson’s political “localism”. [Miller, Hamilton, p. 118.]

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manner both his admirers and detractors claimed. He was careful to pay homage to the importance of “union”, but at bottom merely cited universalistic maxims while pursuing particularist objectives. Jefferson was certainly no cosmopolitan in either the political or philosophical sense of the term, and indeed his University was intended to carry on the sectional struggle after his death.68 At the time that Metternich labored to reorganize European politics along cosmopolitan principles, Jefferson was fixated on preserving the atrophied institutions of the south from the “ravages” of Northern doctrines. Hume’s philosophical preference for the destruction of the world over the pricking of his little finger would have met with the approval of the Jefferson of 1820. The Jeffersonian State Reviewed Historians have long wrinkled brows over the eclecticism and contradictions of Jefferson’s constitutional principles. This is largely because his interpreters, often enraptured by the eloquence of his ideas, have often missed or ignored the subtleties of his motives. Yet if one views Jefferson as the politician he was and not the philosopher he claimed to be, such deviations are readily explainable. A political realist, Jefferson was loathe to carry the burden of an absolutist theoretical standard into the political arena. His conspicuous reversal of his position on executive-legislative relations and his attack on the “consolidationist” opinions of John Marshall’s Supreme Court in the 1820s are examples of his emphasis of expediency over principle. A thorough examination of Jefferson’s theory of the state and its political applications reveals a remarkable consistency in his behavior. Self-interest, defined as the good of Virginia, the Republican Party, and Jefferson himself, ultimately determined his reading of the Constitution. Although he appeared faithful to the states’ rights principle throughout his career, it was because the ambiguity of the doctrine enhanced its convenience as a pretext. Like many of his allegedly fundamental convictions, this one was eclipsed by the powers of the Presidency. While in that office, Jefferson devoted little time to developing this idea and often ran roughshod over it, particularly during the Embargo crisis of 1808. During that episode Federalist critics threw his states’ rights arguments back at him and vigorously protested his “autocratic” conduct. Jefferson’s political interests usually remained constant, but the manner  See Appendix II.

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in which they were best promoted and protected depended on the immediate relationship between federal and state power. When “consolidationists” dominated the federal government, as in the 1790s and 1820s, he strenuously supported states’ rights, but when he and Madison were in the White House, this idea became all but irrelevant in his political calculus. Taken in its totality, Jefferson’s theory of the state leads to an undeniable conclusion: government must be flexible in structure and adaptable to changing political circumstances. He was never impressed with the rigid and abstract “paper constitutions” of the Parisian intellectuals, and believed the British Constitution to be too grounded in outmoded customs to be an efficient model of government. Nevertheless, he realized that societies could not function, much less improve, without strict laws, even if they were only valid for nineteen years. In his opinion, the tendency to avarice and tyranny existed wherever power was unchecked by law. “My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise”, he noted.69 The new Constitution seemed to him a sufficient safeguard for this purpose, and thus Jefferson supported its basic structure, but took exception to its initial lack of a bill of rights. The contentious ratification controversy pleased him, as it brought all of the political forces in the United States into public debate and produced the Federalist Papers, which Jefferson later called “the best commentary on government which ever was written”. He recognized the potential for a more efficient execution of foreign policy under the new government, and wryly predicted to Madison that “the election of a President of America some years hence will be much more interesting to certain nations of Europe than ever the election of a King of Poland was”.70 A strong federal government in respect to international politics, weak in relation to internal policy—this, in sum, was Jefferson’s ideal form of government for America. Under such a system foreign policy could be handled with dispatch, and states could be left to regulate their own affairs. If the central government became “despotic” at home, then the states could respond by asserting their sovereignty under the  J to Isaac Tiffany, August 26, 1816, L&B XV, p. 66.  TJ to JM, February 1, 1825, cited by Ketcham, Madison, p. 247, n. 15. This quotation does not exist in the text of the LC edition of this letter (Reel 92) and is not printed in L&B or Ford. It must refer to an enclosure which was not published in these editions. The letter of February 12 to JM makes no mention of the Federalist either. On the comparison with Poland, see TJ to JM, December 20, 1787, Boyd XII, p. 441. 69 70

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compact, as they had against Britain in 1776. This was the basic argument presented by Jefferson in the Kentucky Resolutions. He placed great—perhaps too much—faith in the willingness or ability of the states to oppose or “nullify” “oppressive” federal regulations. Nevertheless this approach presented Jefferson with the best of all possible worlds—a government which could manage the affairs of state in the predatory universe of world politics, and still retain old and familiar concepts of local self-government. This was the true meaning of “balanced” government for Jefferson, one he amplified in 1800: The true theory of our constitution is surely the wisest & best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, & united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be once reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple organization, & a very unexpensive one: a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.71

This limited government, organized by a constitution but regulated by the interests of its citizens, was the idee fixe of Jefferson’s political theory. He recognized the limitations of the 1787 Constitution but, like Aristotle, accepted not as the perfect but as the “best practicable” regime for the United States. As a pragmatic statesman, he could do no less. Yet despite his support for the new government, Jefferson continued to interpret American politics from the old colonial perspective: that is, as an inter-state, rather than inter-party, dynamic. This worldview, the product of his apprenticeship in colonial Virginia politics, never left him. Although prone to express admiration for new theories of social order, throughout his career Jefferson relentlessly defended the established Southern political culture. This essential conservatism conflicted with the radicalism of the times in which he lived, and introduced yet another duality in his thought which would profoundly influence his reading of domestic and foreign politics.

 TJ to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, Boyd XXXII, p. 96.

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Chapter III Jefferson and the State (2): Liberalism, Conservatism, and Revolution Assessing the degree of “liberalism” or “conservatism” in Jefferson’s thought becomes, in Talleyrand’s celebrated phrase, a question of dates. Depending on the moment in which we catch him, Jefferson can be invoked as a radical champion of frequent revolutions, redistribution of property, and even political violence. Or, he can stand with eminence among the ranks of the counter-revolutionaries who harkened back to an established and traditional political culture. After wrestling with these competing aspects of Jefferson’s thought, Dumas Malone concluded that he looked, “like Janus, in opposite directions...an eager and incessant champion of intellectual freedom, he seemed to be putting his own mind into the straightjacket of ancient rules and orders”. At first glance Malone’s reconciliation of the ambiguities of Jefferson’s philosophy seems convincing. It would be impossible to construct any coherent philosophy solely out of Jefferson’s eclectic writings on the subjects of revolution or his agenda for American society. However, when these statements are placed in their proper political context, a pattern begins to take shape. Jefferson’s tendency to place himself at the head of prevailing political sentiments—be it in America in 1776 or France in 1789—accounts for much of the contradictions in his writings. Extremely impressionable as well as adaptable, Jefferson both acted as a lightning rod for popular currents and manipulated them to his political advantage. His rhetorical exclamations, therefore, cannot 

 Malone II, p. 89.

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be taken prima facie. For example, while he wrote glowing reports on the “levelling” character of the French Revolution to sympathetic Americans, he was privately advising its leaders to fashion a moderate constitutional monarchy modelled along English lines. It is difficult, therefore, to dispute Clinton Rossiter’s conclusion that “Jefferson’s actions were always more conservative than his words”. This chapter will highlight the essential conservatism in Jefferson’s political philosophy and its application in a broad spectrum of social and political issues. Beginning with an overview of Jefferson’s theory of revolution and his call for frequent challenges to established authority, this chapter will relate these discussions to his less impassioned political initiatives during the American and French Revolutions. Following this, Jefferson’s social agenda—his views on slavery, women, aristocracy, and egalitarianism—will be analyzed in a theoretical and political context. Finally, we will investigate Jefferson’s ideas on political economy, and will emphasize his commitment to a “minimalist” government in relation to economic policy and its political implications for the South and the nation. Jefferson’s declared attachment to an egalitarian, classless society was not reflected in his political program in any of these areas. Dedicated to the conservative political culture and economic interests of the Virginia gentry, Jefferson did little to eradicate even the most glaring social defect of his state—slavery. Similarly, his inflammatory comments on the French Revolution in the early 1790s were not followed by any bold political initiatives. In his calculus such language was merely a useful tool for rallying support for the Republican cause at a time when the Revolution was popular. By the latter part of that decade, when such appeals were no longer needed and the Revolution had lost much of its support in America, Jefferson abruptly dropped these endorsements. Moreover, his early appeals for radical redistribution of property are inconsistent with his later embrace of laissez-faire economics. Although he claimed to believe in the perfectibility of society, Jefferson was actually behind the enlightened climate of opinion on several issues, notably slavery and the role of women in politics. Jefferson’s Theory of Revolution Few statesmen of the eighteenth century could speak with greater philosophical and practical authority on the subject of revolution than 

 Clinton Rossiter, Conservatism in America, [New York: 1955], p. 88.



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Jefferson. He composed the document which outlined the causes and aspirations of the War for Independence, witnessed firsthand the disintegration of royal authority in France, and was intimate with many of the leaders of the French Revolution. In his philosophical reflections on government, Jefferson never ceased to attack abuses of royal power, and had no patience for the legitimists—specifically Burke—who stressed the importance of religious, cultural, and historical traditions as the cement of society. Indeed, in his early political writings Jefferson appeared to ardently endorse the right of revolution. Arriving in Paris in 1784, he began an intensive five-year study of the collapse of the ancien regime. His first impression was one of contempt towards the institution of hereditary monarchy. Jefferson was appalled by the mediocre political skills of many of Europe’s ruling elite, whom he viewed as more concerned with soirées than the serious business of state. “I was much an enemy to monarchy before I came to Europe”, he confided to Washington in 1788: I am ten thousand times more so since I have seen what they are. There is scarcely an evil in these countries which may not be traced to their King as its source, nor a good which is not derived from the small fibres of republicanism existing among them. I can further say with safety that there is not a crowned head in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.

Jefferson’s idea that the “earth belongs to the living generation”, which conditioned his theory of constitutionalism, was an important component of his views on social change. The very existence of hereditary monarchy, which sought to impose the same norms and identities on succeeding generations, was an “unjust” presumption on the rights of the living. Popular acquiescence to these encroachments merely encouraged these “usurpers of liberty” to further acts of despotism. Jefferson claimed to William Smith in 1787 that if the people remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and a half   See the ed. note on Jefferson’s reaction to “The Rights of Man” in Boyd XX, pp. 268-90.   TJ to GW, May 2, 1788, Boyd XIII, p. 128. Since he also elaborated his fear of a strong Presidency in this letter, it is likely that this passage was intended as a subtle criticism of Washington’s alleged “monarchical” leanings.

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without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their leaders are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them.

For this reason Jefferson was disturbed to learn of the fear of revolution which haunted the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The rebellion of a small group of farmers in western Massachusetts had been one of the factors precipitating the Convention, and Jefferson was concerned that this event would lead the delegates to favor a centralized, “autocratic” government. He was convinced that the revolt in Massachusetts was an isolated event which “did not threaten serious consequences”, and he urged Madison not to overreact to this danger in the Convention. In Jefferson’s view, such uprisings served as a “safety valve” to release political tensions, as they actually prevented a full-scale revolt against authority. “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing”, he reasoned to Madison, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the incroachments[sic] on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary to the sound health of government.

Revolutions, therefore, were barometers of social conditions: by exposing discontent they enabled politicians to apply the balm of reform in troubled areas. Metternich’s theory of revolution was structured along similar lines, but the Austrian Minister’s a priori reasoning led him to favor anticipatory reforms before a serious crisis of authority   TJ to William Stevens Smith, November 13, 1787, Boyd XII, p. 356. He repeated the same argument to Madison a month later, adding that “nor will any degree of power in the hands of the government prevent insurrections. France with all its despotism, and two or three hundred thousand men under arms has had three insurrections in the three years I have been here in every one of which greater numbers were engaged than in [Shay’s Rebellion in] Massachusetts and a great deal more blood was spilt”. TJ to JM, December 20, 1787, Boyd XII, p. 442. This is similar to the logic Metternich employed in 1848, when he noted that “one does not govern with bayonets”. See Part I, ch. 4. Jefferson told Smith that “Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen-yard in order”. Boyd XII, pp. 356-7. On the relationship of Shay’s Rebellion to the Federal Convention, see Richard B. Morris, The Forging of the Union, 1781-1789, [New York: 1987], pp. 262-6.   TJ to JM, January 30, 1787, Boyd XI, pp. 92-3.



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developed. Jefferson, on the other hand, placed little emphasis on a preventative course. He preferred to act in the context of immediate events and rarely elaborated future contingencies, as Metternich did. Like the Austrian Chancellor, Jefferson frequently discussed revolutions in organic terms, but where Metternich saw them as a “disease” or an “infection”, Jefferson viewed them as “medicinal” or as “innoculators” against future evils. By creating temporary “illnesses” revolutions vaccinated the good health of the social body. Consequently in the specific case of Shay’s Rebellion Jefferson expressed his hope that Congress would exonerate the rebels, because “the spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere”. One cannot imagine Metternich expressing admiration for revolutions, as his Kantian reasoning, as well as the political culture of the Habsburg Empire, led him to place great value on order, measured change, and preventative statesmanship. Jefferson, on the other hand, was seemingly carried away by the abstract and idealistic program of the Paineites and Jacobins. At times his outbursts on the French Revolution carried him close to extremism, and his usually high regard for human life and liberty were seemingly overshadowed by a passionate quest for social justice. As he observed rather offhandedly to Smith, “What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure”. This endorsement of violence was uncharacteristic of Jefferson, and his call for frequent, and occasionally bloody revolutions is surprising to say the least coming from a professed disciple of Newton. At times, the absoluteness of his injunctions could sound almost apocalyptic, as when he noted to William Short in 1793 that: The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest [in France], and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to the cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would rather have seen half the earth destroyed. Were there but an Adam & an Eve left in every country, & left free, it would be better than it now is.  TJ to Abigail Adams, February 22, 1787, Cappon, p. 173.  TJ to William Smith, November 13, 1787, Boyd XII, p. 356; TJ to William Short, January 3, 1793, Boyd XXV, p. 14.  

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According to Jefferson, not only life but also liberty and property would have to be sacrificed to the revolutionary Minotaur. In America he had dabbled with reforming property laws and entail restrictions on estates but was thwarted in effecting many of his proposed changes. However, his suggestions were quite mild and did not seriously challenge the status or holdings of major landowners such as himself. Yet while in France Jefferson wrote long, and occasionally impassioned, commentaries on the redistribution of property. While walking on the outskirts of Fontainbleau, he claimed to Madison, he came across an indigent woman who related to him the conditions of the working poor. He gave her a modest sum and continued on his walk, pondering “a train of reflections on that unequal division of property which occasion the numberless instances of wretchedness which I had observed in this country and which is to be observed all over Europe”. The device—the solitary walk in the countryside leading to reflections on social justice—is almost so perfectly Rousseauian that we are tempted to believe it contrived to add weight to his argument. Regardless of the veracity of the circumstances, Jefferson’s conclusion was unmistakable: he recognized that “an equal division of property is impracticable”, but he nevertheless urged Madison to make some effort to redistribute land in America so as to avoid the social perils he witnessed in Europe. As he put it, “the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind”. Jefferson had never before drawn this close a relationship between social misery and property rights, certainly not in his legislation while Governor of Virginia. Madison perceived this instantly, and while he politely acknowledged Jefferson’s essay on inequality, he subtly criticized his friend’s reasoning: “I suspect”, he replied, “that the difference [in property] will not fully account for the comparative comfort of the mass of people in the United States”. Despite Madison’s sober reassurances, Jefferson continued to voice these ideas throughout his stay in France, where such rhetoric was increasingly popular. Accepting without squeamishness the likelihood of the loss of life and property, Jefferson placed himself on the side of social justice and republican “right” and was an unceasing foe of hereditary monarchy, inherited customs, established religion, and unequal  TJ to JM, October 28, 1785, Boyd VIII, pp. 681-2. JM to TJ, June 19, 1786, Boyd IX, p. 659. The long interval between these letters was due to the temporary loss of Jefferson’s copy to Madison. 



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divisions of land. In embracing these views he would appear to be on the same intellectual plane as Godwin, Freneau, Paine, and Genet. But was his political program during the American and French Revolutions consistent with his stated convictions? Spokesman for Revolution in America While he is commonly regarded as the “penman” of the American Revolution, Jefferson was in reality not at the vanguard of the colonial revolt until late 1774. His earliest views on the rebellion which began in New England were mixed. He championed the cause of colonial rights and regarded British maritime policy as “obnoxious”, but at no time before 1776 did he ever advocate a separation from England. He denounced the Boston “Tea Party” of December 1773 and condemned wanton acts of violence against British regulars and Tory sympathizers. Yet, as the crisis deepened after the Boston Part Acts virtually isolated that city for several months in 1774, Jefferson became concerned with what he saw as the increasingly autocratic character of the Royal Government. The real source of Jefferson’s profound frustration with London was the same one that prompted many wealthy southern planters to join the northern colonies in revolt: the closure of the Appalachian frontier by the Proclamation of 1763. Jefferson, a successful lawyer, advocated for many Virginians who pressed claims to fertile Ohio Valley lands, and believed that the British had no right to restrict settlement west of the Alleghenies. Like most southern planters, Jefferson saw western expansion as essential to replace fields exhausted after a century of constant use. This belief that the salvation of the South lay in the West conditioned his distrust of the British government, just as it later informed his diplomacy while President. In the early 1770s, his anger at the British “betrayal” of colonial interests in the West led him to declare in his “Summary View of the Rights of British North America” that “An exasperated people, who feel they possess power, are not easily restrained within limits strictly regular”.10   “A Summary View”, July 1774, Boyd I, p. 127; Malone I, p. 187. On the general relationship of the Proclamation of 1763 to Southern support for the Revolution, see Lawrence Henry Gipson, “The American Revolution as an Aftermath of the Great War for the Empire, 1754-1763”, Political Science Quarterly, [60(1950): 86-104]. The Proclamation was drafted as a consequence of the Treaty of Easton of 1758, which was signed by the British and the Six Nation tribes. In order to secure their support and their defection from their ally France, the British government promised these tribes that the Ohio Valley would be closed to English settlement following the war. The Proclama10

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The “Summary View”, written in July 1774 in the form of a letter to King George III as a guide to instruct the Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress, was Jefferson’s first state paper. It was a temperate document, designed to outline to the King the major grievances of the colonists and to offer assistance in resolving them. Despite his condemnation of British policy in the West, at no point in the document did Jefferson ever claim the right of revolution, as Trevor Colbourne asserts. Jefferson’s arguments were largely propagandistic and rhetorical, as was to be expected from the nature of the document, and his historical reasoning was, as Malone conceded, “one-sided, and in the scholar’s sense no more than half-truths”.11 Jefferson’s attempts to find an historical precedent for the colonists’ position reached back to the reign of Richard II and the ambiguous concept of the “ancient” AngloSaxon Constitution. Given the nature of the essay and Jefferson’s halfhearted efforts to document these sources, they may be safely dismissed as justificatory posturing. The political program staked out by Jefferson in 1774 was a moderate one. He encouraged the King to “open your breast, Sire, to liberal and expanded thought”, and offer assistance in resolving the conflicts between His Majesty’s Government and the colonies. The most radical passage of the document held that the public, and not the monarchy, was the ultimate source of sovereignty in British society. “From the nature of things”, he maintained, “every society at all times must possess within itself the sovereign power of legislation”. Yet he did not advocate the abolition of Parliamentary rule over the colonies; he merely pressed for an augmentation of colonial power in decisions respecting commercial policy and territorial expansion. The thrust of his argument was that the British Empire would be better served if it enhanced the authority of colonial legislatures, liberalized its maritime policy, and rescinded the Proclamation of 1763; all fairly common themes among discontented colonial elites.12 The ultimate importance of “A Summary View” is not its elaboration of Jefferson’s political theory—for it was too partisan a work to do that—but in that fact that it first called attention closed all lands west of a line drawn along the Alleghenies to colonial migration, and was viscerally opposed by Southern interests. 11  H. Trevor Colbourne, “Jefferson’s Use of the Past”, WMQ, [15(1958):56-70]. Text of the document with supporting commentary in Boyd I, pp. 121-37. See also Anthony Lewis, “Jefferson’s ‘Summary View’ As A Chart of Political Union”, WMQ, [5(1948): 34-51]. For an eloquent investigation of the text, see Stephen Conrad, “Putting Rights Talk in its Place: The Summary View Revisted” in Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies. Malone I, p. 186. 12   “Summary View”, Boyd I, p. 132; 134; Lewis, “Jefferson’s ‘Summary View’”, p. 51.



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tion to Jefferson’s gifts as a literary stylist. Having already enumerated his basic grievances against the British government, Jefferson was able to retain them and put them to expanded use in the Declaration of Independence, which he was commissioned to draft in June 1776. With the exception of the Constitution, no document in American history has been subjected to more intensive scrutiny than the Declaration. As a result it is not necessary to enter into an extended discussion of it here, only to glance at its arguments in the context of this study.13 The Declaration was not an exercise in political theory. It was intended by Congress, and so written by Jefferson, as a justification for a political decision.14 Most of it is rhetorical in character and while it is singular in its eloquence, it offers little insight into the mind of its author. We have seen that Jefferson was competent to the task of justifying almost any position with a stirring argument and gifted phrase, and the Declaration was merely the second in a long series of stylistic flourishes in Jefferson’s career. John Adams, a member of the drafting committee, considered it merely “a theatrical show” and a useful vehicle for placing Jefferson in the national political spotlight.15 The charges levelled against George III in the Declaration were essentially the same as those outlined in “A Summary View”, only presented in more censorious form. No attempt was made in 1776 to persuade the King to reassess his policy. At the same time, Jefferson realized that it was essential to distinguish the American Revolution from other 13  Several good monographs on the textual and political style of the Declaration exist. Carl Becker’s Declaration of Independence remains the classic study of its philosophy. Pauline Maier’s American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence [New York: 1997] is more attentive to the political and stylistic architecture of the document, while David Armitage’s The Declaration of Independence: A Global History [Cambridge, MA: 2007] elaborates its impact on subsequent revolutionary events. Julian Boyd’s Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text, [Princeton: 1945], explains stylistic changes in various drafts. Garry Wills’ Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence [New York: 1978] analyzes how the document served several distinct functions in early American society. Caleb Patterson, in his Constitutional Principles of Jefferson, reviews its arguments as a precursor to Jefferson’s constitutional philosophy. David Post, in his “Jeffersonian Revisions of Locke”, Journal of the History of Ideas, [47(1986): 147-57] reevaluates Locke’s influence on the text. Michael P. Zuckert’s “Self-Evident Truths and the Declaration of Independence”, Review of Politics [49(1987): 319-39] places the document in a broader theoretical perspective. Morton White’s Philosophy of the American Revolution [Oxford: 1978] also contains an able analysis of Jefferson’s ideas. The standard edition of the text is in Boyd I, pp. 413-33 and includes earlier drafts and commentary. 14  Jefferson admitted as much to R.H. Lee in his letter of May 8, 1825, discussed in Chapter I. 15  JA to Benjamin Rush, June 21, 1811, cited in Malone IV, p. 96.

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revolts against royal authority, especially those which had plagued England in the seventeenth century. Therefore he phrased his argument in ethical terms and arrogated to the colonists the absolute certainty of moral “right”. As Carl Becker noted, “the Declaration was essentially an attempt to prove that rebellion was not the proper word for what [the colonists] were doing”.16 The most famous passage of the document—”we hold these truths to be self-evident”—was written as an attempt to harness the universalistic spirit of Enlightenment philosophy to the colonial cause. Although it was offered as a general maxim, by specifying that “we” held the “truths” Jefferson expressed recognition that not all mankind would “share the premises” on which the colonial action was based.17 At no point did he explain how a concept so ambiguous could become selfevident. As a careful student of history and political philosophy, Jefferson naturally realized that no object of civil government was “self-evident”; certainly not basic principles of social organization that had been vigorously debated since the age of classical Greece. It is therefore misleading to give undue weight to this passage in a rhetorical document designed, as it were, to preach to the converted. Carl Becker questions how a revolutionary text could be so lacking in “passion and deep conviction”.18 To be sure, it is of precise construction, which is largely attributable to Jefferson’s legal training. But the Declaration did not have to be passionate; it merely had to state the basic principles motivating the colonists’ decision. It was not intended to be a manifesto in the late nineteenth century style. Its effectiveness lay in its sobriety, which suggested mature calculation and rational deliberation. Shrewdly cognizant of this fact, Jefferson simply robed his earlier arguments in more fashionable philosophical attire, and in doing so he launched his national political career. Although only thirtythree, Jefferson recognized that his service in drafting the Declaration would insure that he be remembered as a hero in the War for Independence. This realization arguably crippled Jefferson in the latter stages of the Revolution. Having attained fame and reputation at an exceptionally early age, Jefferson was unwilling to take risks that might injure his standing. Consequently his service to the Continental cause after 1776 was limited. His tenure as Governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781 was 16   Becker, Declaration, p. 7. On this point see also Joseph Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, [New York: 1997], pp. 36-46. 17  Zuckert amplifies this critical point in “Self-Evident Truths”, pp. 322-3. 18   Becker, Declaration, pp. 221-2.



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marked by a humiliating British invasion which forced Jefferson to flee from his own estate of Monticello. Moreover, he devoted a considerable amount of energy during this period tending to local affairs and shoring up his political power base in Virginia, a policy which annoyed Washington and the Continental Congress. His visceral reaction to the investigation of his tenure as Governor by the House of Delegates in 1781 and abrupt “retirement” from public life in a fit of pique that shocked his friend Madison was motivated in large part by his desire to protect his reputation as a “philosophe”. Jefferson’s approach to the American Revolution from beginning to end reflected a fundamental caution that kept him from joining in the more extreme sentiments of a Patrick Henry or Samuel Adams. There is little evidence to support Malone’s claim that among the revolutionary elite Jefferson “stood furthest to the left”.19 His was always a policy of moderation that was cognizant of the shifting military and political fortunes of the Continental cause. Ever the pragmatist, he was careful to avoid any measures which might foreclose future political options. While many Virginians demanded fierce retaliation for Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s raids in 1780, Governor Jefferson was a gracious host to British prisoners of war and extended the hospitality of Monticello to some of their officers. Excepting the rhetorical language of the Declaration, it is difficult to find any statement from him of an extremist or inflammatory nature towards the British government or military throughout the war. Jefferson viewed the American Revolution as a conservative movement. Like Burke, he conceived of this cause as a means of preserving an established way of political and economic life from the growing encroachments of absolute and arbitrary power, rather than as a quest to attain an abstract vision of a perfect society. His basic objective was to restore the status quo ante 1763, when the colonists, under the policy of “salutary neglect”, were left largely free to organize and govern themselves, outstanding regulations on trade and economic activity were systematically ignored by colonials and royal agents alike, and the West was open for settlement.20 He was seriously committed to the Conti Malone I, p. 248. Mayer also advances this “moderate” view of Jefferson’s activities during the Revolution. See Mayer, pp. 55-69. 20  This is consonant with the thesis advanced by Bernard Bailyn, who argued that “the primary goal of the American revolution...was not the overthrow or even the alteration of the existing social order, but the preservation of personal liberty threatened by an apparent corruption of the constitution, and the establishment in principle of the existing conditions of liberty”. Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, [Cambridge, MA: 1967], p. 19. 19

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nental effort as he believed that it was the most expedient means of restoring this old order and of preserving and even expanding the role of Virginia—the largest and most influential of the colonies—in American politics. It was also a useful means of propelling him onto the national political stage, and it is not surprising that he viewed his authorship of the Declaration as one of the three services of which he was most proud. It is important to remember, however, that Jefferson was not an early champion of colonial independence. He joined the revolutionary cause after it had already gained considerable momentum and popularity, and his basic aspiration in the struggle was territorial: to open the West and preserve the primacy of Virginia. His service as a leader in the Revolution was highly respected by his colleagues in Paris, who looked to him for advice in championing their own struggle for the rights of man. A Moderate Constitutionalist in Paris In Paris, Jefferson was in a unique position to observe the series of events which led to the summoning of the Estates-General in 1788.21 His service in the American Revolution, and his study of political philosophy and history, allowed Jefferson to analyze French politics with a sophistication noticeably lacking in most contemporary observers. Quite naturally the liberal aristocrats who originally controlled the efforts to reform the government looked to him as a proponent of their cause. While Jefferson repeatedly expressed a sincere affection for France and its people, he was scrupulously careful not to directly involve himself in political affairs. Yet, as a prominent leader of the American Revolution as well as official Minister to the Court of Versailles, he could not help being drawn into the vortex of French politics. In daily contact with government officials as well as reformists, Jefferson was often asked for advice. By 1789, after observing the chaos into which the political situation in France had fallen, he began to give it. He was convinced that the best form of government for France was a limited constitutional monarchy, 21  On Jefferson’s tenure in France and his role in the Revolution, see Malone II; Lawrence Kaplan, Jefferson and France: An Essay in Politics and Political Ideas [New Haven: 1967]; Robert Palmer, “The Dubious Democrat: Thomas Jefferson in Bourbon France”, Political Science Quarterly, [72(1957): 388-404]; Gilbert Chinard, “Jefferson Among the Philosophers”, Ethics, [53(1943): 255-68]; Ellis, American Sphinx, ch. 2; and William Adams, The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson, [New Haven: 1997].



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and he placed his weight behind Lafayette and other liberal aristocrats who shared this view. As Kaplan observed in his study of Jefferson and France, “the ultimate object of his advice remained unchanged: the creation of a constitutional monarchy modelled after Britain’s, but purged of British flaws”. By the standards of the day, this was a conservative move, and Jefferson had shrewd reasons for making it.22 Jefferson hoped that a government led by liberal aristocrats such as Lafayette would accord America a higher status in their diplomatic calculations due to the “fraternal bonds” of republicanism uniting the two states. Jefferson clearly believed that a moderate constitutional government would be more tractable in its dealings with the United States, especially in the area of the West Indies trade, an issue he on which he had made little headway since 1785. Since the reformers looked to the United States as their “model”, Jefferson hoped that their liberal sentiments would lead a new government to make dramatic concessions to its fellow “republican” state in the critical area of commercial policy.23 From this perspective it appears that Jefferson acted prudently. He placed the American national interest, which in this case he defined as French maritime concessions in the Caribbean, ahead of any philosophical commitment to social justice in conditioning his advice to Frenchh leaders. What mattered most to him was liberalizing French commercial policy, and he supported the constitutionalists because he believed they would be receptive to American interests in the international system. Jefferson’s diplomacy was never conditioned by appeals to the “rights of man”, as his theoretical missives suggest. Among his colleagues in Paris, Jefferson was always on the conservative side. Indeed, he frequently expressed distrust at the notions of liberté, egalité, and fraternité which circulated around Paris in 1789. The intellectuals of Paris who fashioned constitutions for a hobby, he claimed to Madison, were political neophytes. The flaws of their proposals, he wrote, were those “into which men ever will run when acquainted with man only as they see him in books and not in the world”.24 He was convinced that the abstract philosophy popular in Paris was of little prescriptive value in politics. By emphasizing the importance of political culture on social change Jefferson separated himself from the more extreme elements of the French Revolution. Metternich, Burke, Gentz, 22  On this point see Malone II, pp. 217-21; Adams, Paris Years, ch.8. Kaplan, Jefferson and France, p. 34. 23   Kaplan, p. 30. TJ to JM, August 28, 1789, Boyd XV, pp. 364-5. 24  TJ to JM, August 28, 1789, Boyd XV, pp. 364-5.

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and many of the more moderate critics of the Revolution based their arguments on the same premise. Although Jefferson had warned Lafayette that “we are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather bed”, at no time in his correspondence or in discussions with revolutionary leaders did he advocate the use of violence, and he frequently condemned it. While his rhetorical fragments on the Revolution were spiced with references to executions and assaults on property, no such imagery permeated his practical political correspondence. Indeed, he observed to Jean Nicolas Demeunier in 1795 that: Being myself a warm zealot for the attainment and enjoyment by all mankind of as much liberty as each may exercise without injury to the equal liberty of his fellow citizens, I have lamented that in France the endeavors to obtain this should have been attended with the effusion of so much blood.

This is far from urging the reduction of the human race to an Adam and Eve in a “free” state of nature.25 Just as he had warned against yielding power to popular majorities in the United States, so too he cautioned Lafayette and his colleagues of the danger of ceding absolute authority to the National Assembly. In Jefferson’s view, this arrangement would simply replace royal absolutism with legislative absolutism. “Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress of reason”, he remarked to Lafayette later in life, “if recovered by mere force or accident, it becomes, with an unprepared people, a tyranny still, of the many, the few, or the one”. In a revolutionary situation, Jefferson observed, a legislative tyranny could be more chaotic and arbitrary than that of an absolute monarch.26 As France had no experience with democratic principles it was necessary that it take gradual strides toward liberty. In Jefferson’s opinion, a constitutional monarchy managed by cautious reformers was the system best suited for effecting this evolutionary process. This formula  TJ to Lafayette, April 2, 1790, Boyd XVI, p. 293; TJ to Jean Nicolas Demeunier, April 29, 1795, Boyd XXVIII, p. 340. My emphasis. See also Adams, Paris Years, ch. 8. 26  TJ to Lafayette, February 14, 1815, Ford XI, p. 455. Though Jefferson had rhetorically endorsed watering the tree of liberty with blood, he denounced the execution of Louis XVI. Looking back at the events of 1792-3, Jefferson noted that “Of those who judged the King, many thought him willfully criminal, many that his existence would keep the nation in conflict with the horde of kings, who would war against a regeneration which might come home to themselves, and that it were better that one should die than all. I should not have voted with this portion of the Legislature”. Jefferson’s Autobiography, cited in Malone III, p. 61. 25



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had recently shown success in Sweden, where after long years of upheaval the liberal aristocratic party had gained the upper hand in their struggle against dynastic rule. Jefferson attributed the ultimate degeneration of the French Revolution to the fact that it attempted too much too soon, and as a result it created chaos and sealed its fate in the military despotism of Napoleon. Only patient and moderate reforms, Jefferson believed, could achieve the goals sought by progressives in France was well as in the United States. As he observed to Lafayette in his most instructive commentary on the French Revolution, Possibly you may remember, at the date of the jus de paume, how earnestly I urged yourself and the patriots of my acquaintance, to enter then into a compact with the King, securing freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, habeas corpus, and a national legislature, all of which it was known he would then yield, to go home, and let those work on the amelioration of the condition of the people, until they should have rendered them capable of more, when occasions would not fail to arise for communicating to them more. This was as much as I then thought them able to bear, soberly and usefully for themselves. You thought otherwise, and that the dose might still be larger. And I found you were right; for subsequent events proved they were equal to the Constitution of 1791. Unfortunately, some of the most honest and enlightened of our patriotic friends (but closet politicians merely, unpractised in the knowledge of man) thought more could still be obtained and borne. They did not weigh the hazards of a transition from one form of government to another, the value of what they had already rescued from those hazards and might have had in security if they pleased, nor the imprudence of giving up the certainty of such a degree of liberty, under a limited monarchy, to the uncertainty of a little more under the form of a republic. You differed from them. You were for stopping there, and by securing the Constitution which the National Assembly had obtained. Here, too, you were right; and from this fatal error of the republicans, from their separation from yourself and the constitutionalists, flowed all the subsequent sufferings of the French nation.27

This analysis of is one of the most insightful and revealing political commentaries ever offered by Jefferson. Metternich’s view of the French Revolution, the latter (and more violent) part of which he also witnessed firsthand, was strikingly similar. In the opinion of the Austrian as well as the American, any quest for “abstract rights”, defined as those ideas of social organization which had never existed within a political culture nor were likely to, was doomed to failure. Both were too rooted in Montesquieu’s analysis of political culture to expect an automatic “perfection” of society through the promulgation of “paper” constitutions.  TJ to Lafayette, February 14, 1815, Ford XI, pp. 455-6.

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Jefferson’s remarks to Lafayette in 1815 were not those of a disillusioned idealist. He had never supported the program of Robespierre or the Jacobins. He only praised the Revolution when he believed that it was progressing along the constitutionalist pattern he envisioned under the leadership of liberals such as Lafayette, and thus could potentially benefit the United States. Following the Terror (and his experiences with Genet in the United States) his affections for the Revolution evaporated, and were replaced by a censorious reading of French politics. He noted with brutal candor in 1803 that “the events which have taken place in France have lessened in the American mind the motives of Interest which it felt in that revolution, and its Amity towards that country now rests on its love of peace & commerce”.28 Ironically, Jefferson had originally supported the French Revolution in order to gain more liberal commercial concessions from France, but the wars spawned by its progress made the trans-Atlantic trade more dangerous than ever for the United States. He could not, however, have predicted this outcome in 1789. His policy toward France, though never devoid of a genuine concern for individual liberty, was consistently predicated upon the diplomatic interests of the United States. He saw the potential to advance these interests in 1789 and did so, only to find his conservative opinions rejected by the extremists. By 1791 he resignedly and realistically acknowledged that his prudent suggestions were falling on deaf ears. His conduct in France was exemplary for its moderation and the diplomatic skill with which he maneuvered between the government and the revolutionary leadership. Even when asked for advice by Lafayette or Vergennes, he never passionately embraced a conflict which he realized was foreign to himself and his country: the demands of international politics and not political philosophy motivated his responses to these inquiries. Circumspect and rational, Jefferson’s actual policy toward France differed sharply from the radical and inflammatory rhetoric he had used in the mid 1780s. An Assessment of Jefferson’s Response to Revolutions Like Metternich, Jefferson believed that revolutions were an inevitable fact of political life. In adhering to this view he was in the main TJ to Sir John Sinclair, June 30, 1803, JPLC: Reel 46. As Kaplan observes, “In accepting that the French Revolution was dead, Jefferson facilitated his independence of France”. Jefferson and France, p. 87. 28



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stream of the political climate in eighteenth century Europe and America. Writing in the Federalist, Hamilton unequivocally declared that “seditions and insurrections are, unhappily, maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumors and eruptions from the natural body”. Jefferson agreed with Hamilton’s conclusion that political interests occasionally dictated a recourse to arms against an oppressive government. Revolutions were therefore neither to be condemned nor praised in moral terms, but assessed solely on the basis of a sober political calculus.29 The political culture of a state and the interests of its citizens would determine if, when, and how a revolution was to be effected. An assessment of Jefferson’s theory of revolution illustrates three principles governing his view of social and political change. First, he never regarded revolution as something that could be accomplished from “below”: he was contemptuous of the canaille of Paris and the “mobs” of Boston. Only the elite could effectively sponsor a challenge to entrenched authority, as they possessed the political sophistication and financial means with which to wage a successful campaign. Thus, in America as well as France, Jefferson looked to those “already active in political affairs” for assistance in implementing a revolutionary program.30 On both continents he and his revolutionary associates were educated aristocrats of moderate political and social views, and this emphasis on “elite” revolutions was completely consonant with the spirit of most eighteenth century political writing. Even Kant observed with a touch of disdain that progress must not come from “the bottom upwards, but from the top downwards”.31 Never did Jefferson allow a quixotic quest for liberty to cloud his perception that order was necessary for the health of society. Secondly, Jefferson never universalized his opinions on the American Revolution or attempted to apply them to other societies. Later, when observing the series of rebellions in Latin America that prompted the issuance the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, Jefferson criticized the fact that many of the revolutionaries were using the “American model” in an effort to secure independence from Madrid. Centuries of Spanish “religious and military despotism”, Jefferson argued, had precluded the development of the institution of self-government necessary to secure and maintain this independence. “I feared from the beginning”, he 29  Hamilton, Federalist #28; Stourzh, Hamilton, pp. 37-8. Stourzh compares Hamilton’s and Jefferson’s views on revolution and concludes that they were essentially the same. 30  Palmer, “Dubious Democrat”, p. 403. 31 31   Kant, “Contest of the Faculties” (1798), Reiss ed., pp. 187-90.

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wrote Adams in 1821, “that these people were not sufficiently enlightened for self-government; and that after wading through blood and slaughter, they would end in military tyrannies, more or less numerous”.32 Historical and cultural traditions would always prevail in contests with abstract notions of liberty. Even though Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence was widely quoted by liberals and radicals in Europe, he was quick to observe that he authored the document as a theoretical justification for the American War of Independence and not as a manifesto for “world revolution”. Its universalistic claims were rhetorical devices designed to serve a distinct set of political circumstances. Therefore, even while he was being courted by the Parisian revolutionaries in 1788-1789, he scrupulously avoided references to the American example, and he never conducted an “apostolate” designed to convert Frenchmen to an “American” ideology.33 In short, while in Paris Jefferson behaved far differently than Genet in Philadelphia, and he was quick to remind the incendiary French Minister of this fact in 1793. Finally, an analysis of Jefferson’s exposure to the American and French Revolutions helps resolve the inconsistencies between his conservative political program and his radical philosophical endorsement of revolution. It is clear from the foregoing investigation that Jefferson did not take his call for watering the tree of liberty with blood seriously. In both the American and French contests he was among the moderates; indeed, in Paris he was more conservative than most of his colleagues. What, then, accounts for his impassioned, indeed occasionally Jacobin, comments on revolution? Almost all of Jefferson’s more emotional statements on revolution were politically motivated. The majority of them were offered in the early 1790s when support for the French cause was fashionable among 32  TJ to JA, January 22, 1821, Cappon, p. 570. He had argued the same point to Adams in 1818, holding that “ignorance and superstition will chain their minds and bodies under religious and military despotism. I do believe it would be better for them to obtain freedom by degrees only, because that would by degrees bring on light and Information”. Adams agreed, contending that plans for a democratic South America were “visionary” and as plausible as “an excursion to the Moon, in car drawn by geese trained and disciplined for the purpose”. JA to James Lloyd, March 26, 1815, cited in Lycan, Hamilton and Foreign Policy, p. 389. On Jefferson’s views on Latin America, see TJ to Baron Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813, L&B XIV, p. 21; TJ to Madame de Stael, September 6, 1816, in Marie G. Kimball, ed., “The Unpublished Correspondence of Madame de Stael with Thomas Jefferson”, North American Review, [208 (1918): 63-71], p. 71. 33  On this point see Kaplan, Jefferson and France, p. 28; Palmer, “Dubious Democrat”, p. 402.



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Republicans in the United States. Prior to the Terror the Revolution was widely hailed by Americans as the logical extension of their own struggle against “tyranny”. By endorsing it Jefferson placed himself on the side of the majority and introduced yet another distinction between his party and Federalists who denounced the overthrow of the Bourbons. Attacking the “monarchical” tendencies of Morris, Pickering, Hamilton, and Adams was, given the political climate of the day, an indirect way of challenging their patriotism, a tactic that Jefferson exploited to great advantage. Following the execution of the King, the outbreak of the Terror, and the outrages of Genet in 1793, Jefferson quickly changed course and became a private, yet consistent, critic of the Revolution’s excesses.34 Although committed to revolution when he deemed it politically advisable, Jefferson never let ideology cloud the imperatives of interest that underscored his policy even during the most chaotic periods of the American and French Revolutions. Too prudent and politically sophisticated to chart a bold and idealistic program for the development of the “rights of man”, Jefferson preferred to react to developments and use them to his advantage. He was, in short, too pragmatic to be an effective revolutionary. His agenda for American society reflected this underlying moderation—if not conservatism—and further distanced Jefferson from some of the more liberal theorists of the Enlightenment. The “Natural Aristocracy” and American Society Although Jefferson claimed to be at the vanguard of the eighteenth century campaign for social progress, he was very much a conservative southern aristocrat who approached politics from the perspective of tradition and endorsed the culture with which he was familiar. Even at the height of the Revolution Jefferson was slowly consolidating his power base in Virginia with an eye toward conserving as much of the old colonial political order as possible. Jefferson had no patience for the “levellers” in France and America who promised to reshape society by 34  Madison, Jefferson’s closest ally for fifty years, was sensitive to this aspect of his friend’s nature. He informed a correspondent in 1832 that when reading Jefferson’s writings, particularly those which seemed “inconsistent” with his moderate political program, one must “make allowances for a habit in Mr. Jefferson, as in others of great genius, of expressing in strong and round terms, impressions of the moment”. [JM to Nicholas Trist, May 15, 1832, Hunt, Writings IX, p. 479.

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the rapid introduction of what Machiavelli called “new modes and orders” of political association. Prudent statesmen should dismiss such claims, Jefferson insisted, as “the ground of liberty is to be gained by inches. We must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time”, he wrote, “and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good”.35 Such a moderate view of social change could not be further removed from the program of the Jacobins. While Jefferson’s campaign of 1800 was heralded as the dawn of a new era of social progress, within a month of his inauguration he sought to dismiss these expectations. “I am sensible”, he wrote Walter Jones, how far I should fall short of effecting all the reformation which reason would suggest and experience approve, were I free to do whatever I thought best. But when we reflect how difficult it is to move or inflect the great machine of society, how impossible to advance the notions of a whole people suddenly to ideal right, we see the wisdom of Solen’s [sic] remark that no more good should be attempted than the nation can bear.36

Though intended to distance Jefferson from the more sweeping aspirations of his campaign, this statement admirably summarizes his approach to social policy. Jefferson’s conservative approach to politics was the product of his theory of the “natural aristocracy”. Though it had conditioned his view of American society throughout his career, the idea was refined and given philosophical gloss only in his correspondence with Adams during his retirement. Adams, in an 1813 letter to Jefferson, had argued that aristocracy, as a theoretical aspect of political science, consisted of “five Pillars”, which were “Beauty, Wealth, Birth, Genius, and Virtues. Any one of the three first”, he continued, “can at any time over bear any one or both of the three last”. At root, according to Adams’ definition, an aristocrat was anyone who could “command or influence two votes, one besides his own”.37 Jefferson largely agreed with this view. In Europe he was shocked by the ignorance of many of the supposed “elite”, and how poorly informed they were of social conditions in their states. Therefore Jefferson re TJ to Charles Clay, January 27, 1790, Boyd XVI, p. 129.  TJ to Walter Jones, March 31, 1801, Boyd XXXIII, p. 506. 37  JA to TJ, September 2, 1813, Cappon, p. 371; JA to John Taylor, June 4, 1814, Adams’ emphasis. cited in John Howe, The Changing Political Thought of John Adams, [Princeton: 1966]. p. 139. 35 36



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jected the idea of hereditary aristocracy, as such a system could not guarantee that all members of a line would be intellectually or politically gifted. Most of his disparaging comments about aristocracy, which can be easily mistaken for egalitarianism, were actually directed at specific individuals whom Jefferson thought were a disgrace to their station, such as the idle and corrupt courtiers of Louis XVI.38 Jefferson was an aristocrat in the sense in which he defined it; that is, one of superior wealth and intellectual talents who demonstrated a capacity for good governance. This elite class of men were “naturally” entitled to undertake the task of ruling the state. This group was inherently at odds with the “pseudo” or “artificial” aristocracy which was based merely on lineage and wealth. These qualities were in themselves no indication of superior intellect or political skill, and hence were rejected by Jefferson as determinants of station or prestige. “I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men”, he informed Adams. The grounds of this are virtue and talents...There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievious ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy.39

This belief was dispositive to Jefferson’s conception of American politics. Because the state existed to serve the interests of its citizens, it was self-evident to him that citizens of superior ability should have a commanding voice in its administration. Therefore he was a consistent champion of property qualifications for the franchise in order to prevent the “unenlightened” from having a deleterious effect on the quality of political deliberation. Jefferson’s view of the society of the new republic retained, in short, the conservative principles of the old colonial system.

 On this point see Malone I, pp. 175-7.  TJ to JA, October 28, 1813, Cappon, p. 388.

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Women and Politics in Jefferson’s Thought Jefferson’s adherence to the traditions of the Virginia gentry led him to subscribe to a conception of society that was, by enlightened standards in the eighteenth century, retrograde. At about the same time that Metternich told an astonished gathering that he saw no reason why a woman could not be Foreign Minister or ambassador of a major European power, Jefferson tersely wrote Gallatin that “the appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor am I”. Jefferson did not see politics as a vocation suitable for women, and did not take steps to eradicate barriers to the advancement of women in society.40 He found it more comfortable to cling to custom rather than use the vehicle of reason to demonstrate that women were capable of the same political roles as men. Even in his correspondence with Abigail Adams, a close and respected friend, a touch of condescension is evident in his tone when discussing political affairs. He was never politically intimate with women and never asked their advice on affairs of state, as Metternich did. In Jefferson’s opinion women were to be conditioned and trained “for domestic duties”. These, he argued, were a woman’s “true sphere”. He observed to Anne Willing Bingham in 1788 that “Our good ladies, I trust, have been too wise to wrinkle their foreheads with politics. They are contented to soothe and calm the minds of their husbands returning ruffled from political debate. They have the good sense to value domestic happiness above all other, and the art to cultivate it beyond all other”.41 It is therefore not surprising that while in France Jefferson was “shocked” by the conspicuous role of women in Parisian society. He professed shock at women “speaking out as equals in the company of men”, and, unlike Franklin, made no effort to cultivate the opinions of the influential hostesses in whose salons many of his aristocratic associates gathered. Indeed, there is no record of Jefferson’s ever directly engaging a woman in an active political discussion. He told Angelica Schuyler Church that “the tender breasts of ladies were not formed for political convulsion; and the French ladies miscalculate much their own 40  TJ to AG, January 13, 1807, Ford X, p. 339. Metternich made his comment in 1811. For a brilliant summary of eighteenth century theories on the role of women in society, see Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America, [Chapel Hill: 1980], ch. 1. 41  See Corti, Metternich und die Frauen, I, pp. 7-11; Miller, Wolf by the Ears, p. 182; TJ to Anne Willing Bingham, May 11, 1788, Boyd XIII, p. 151. See also Adams, Paris Years, ch. 7.



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happiness when they wander from the true field of their influence into that of politics”.42 Jefferson’s distrust of the political ambitions of women stemmed from his provincial and traditional views of social order. Not surprisingly, Jefferson placed no emphasis on female education. He informed Nathaniel Burwell in 1818 that “a plan of female education has never been a subject of systematic contemplation with me”, and argued that women should cultivate “ornamental” amusements such as “dancing, drawing, and music”.43 He made no effort to open the doors of the University of Virginia to women. Although he personally tutored his daughters, he stressed the fields of music and languages rather than politics and history in their curriculum, and devoted comparatively little time to their intellectual development. While Metternich wished that his daughter could be State Chancellor and provided her with an impeccable political education (including the sharing of draft treaties and reviewing of maps with her), Jefferson had no ambitions for his daughters other than that of arranging their marriages to influential and politically well-connected Virginians. He never took his daughters into his confidence in political affairs, even during moments of crisis or reflection.44 In short, Jefferson propagated the culture of female subservience which was customary in the colonial Virginia of his youth. Jefferson and Slavery Jefferson’s adherence to inherited customs and traditions even in the brightest hours of the Age of Enlightenment was also apparent in 42   Kaplan, Jefferson and France, p. 18; TJ to Angelica Schuyler Church, September 21, 1788. Jefferson’s attitude towards women could at times be patronizing. He noted in his journal while in Holland that “while one considers [women] as useful and rational companions, one cannot forget that they are also the objects of our pleasures”. Boyd XIII, p. 27. 43  TJ to Nathaniel Burwell, March 14, 1818, L&B XV, pp. 165-8. 44  In contrast to Metternich, who noted at the time of his beloved daughter Marie’s death in 1820 that “For many years she has been my best friend. I had no need to confide my thoughts in her; she divined them. She knew me better than I knew myself. She never had a thought which did not become mine, never spoke a word which in her place I would not have said. I was constantly impelled to thank her, that she was what she was. I have sustained an irreparable loss”. July 25, 1820, MM III, p. 387. Jefferson, despite his love for his daughters, could never have considered them his “best friends”, especially in regards to political affairs. In contrast, Adams, like Metternich, considered Abigail his “dearest friend” and frequently asked for and received detailed political advice from his wife.

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his opinions on slavery. Though he regarded this institution as a “hideous” evil and an embarrassment to American society, he did little to speed its abolition.45 He condemned the practice on philosophical grounds, but in his capacity as a Virginia politician he was unwilling to undermine this bastion of the Southern agricultural economy. An important aspect of Jefferson’s approach to slavery was his belief that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites, a conclusion he arrived at after what he considered to be dispassionate empirical observation. “I advance it therefore as a suspicion only”, he argued in the Notes on Virginia, “that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to whites in the endowments of both body and mind”. By rationalizing slavery and racial inequality in this manner, Jefferson was able to shift the blame for this “evil” institution to abstract forces—in this case “Nature and Nature’s god”—rather than to himself and his peers. He was fully aware of the fact that slavery was a political liability to himself, Virginia, and to the South in general, and at no time did he seek to justify it in the manner of mid-nineteenth century Southern apologists. Yet he refused to expend political capital in devising a strategy to ameliorate, let alone eliminate, this problem. A shrewd political appraisal of the matter led him to an unhappy conclusion: “We have the wolf by the ears”, he wrote in 1820, “and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other”.46 There were two beneficiaries of slavery whose self-interest demanded the continuation of the institution: the southern agricultural economy and, by extension, himself. Slavery truly was one of the “main pillars” of Jefferson’s world, and he reluctantly acknowledged that slavery was the lifeblood of the southern planting class and his own extravagant lifestyle. “In a warm climate”, he argued, “no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him”.47 This observation re45  A full treatment of Jefferson and the slave issue is beyond the scope of this study. All major biographies of Jefferson deal with the issue at length. Also, several good monographs have been published on the subject. Miller’s Wolf by the Ears remains definitive. Winthrop Jordan devotes considerable space to Jefferson and the slave issue in White Over Black: American Attitudes towards the Negro, 1550-1812, [Chapel Hill: 1968] See also William Cohen, “Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery”, Journal of American History, [56(1969): 503-26], and the related chapters in Boorstin, Lost World of Thomas Jefferson, Moore, Missouri Controversy, and Paul Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery”, in Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies. Jefferson discussed his views on slavery and blacks directly in the Notes on Virginia, pp. 137-45; 162-3. 46   Notes, p. 143; TJ to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, Ford XII, p. 159. 47  Miller, Wolf by the Ears, p. 1; Notes, p. 163.



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flected Jefferson’s comprehension of the economic factors involved in the slave issue: their labor enabled him to live the life he felt entitled to and which he valued more highly than any political office. Self-interest, therefore, dictated that he employ, expand, and retain his population of slaves, even though this sordid practice was conspicuously at odds with his philosophical commitment to individual freedom. Slavery, as Hofstadter notes, gave Jefferson “the leisure that made possible his great writings on human liberty”.48 Jefferson was convinced that freed blacks could never be successfully assimilated into American political culture. Anticipating objections to this argument, Jefferson maintained in the Notes on Virginia that It will probably be asked, why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expense of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.

It was clear to Jefferson, therefore, that “the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government”. Thus, when confronted with the slave issue, his preferred response was to take a position of “discreet silence”.49 This was the case in 1814 when Edward Coles, the brother of Jefferson’s former private secretary, urged the former President to use his political and moral authority to challenge the institution of slavery. Coles himself sold his Albemarle County estate and moved to Illinois, where he could legally free his slaves. Jefferson refused to embark on this crusade, citing age as well as the political controversy this would 48  Hofstadter, American Political Tradition, p. 19. Sheldon agrees with this assessment, concluding that “in Jefferson’s heirarchy of values, the emancipation of slaves occupied a lower position than either his personal lifestyle or the ideal republic for which he had risked his life and fortune”. Political Philosophy of Jefferson, p. 139. Cohen contends that Jefferson’s reticence on the slave issue emanated from “his reluctance to alter his standard of living and bring his practices in line with his principles. He took much pride in the fine wines, good books, and generous hospitality to be had at Monticello; and he went to great lengths to preserve this inheritance for his posterity”. Cohen, “Problem of Slavery”, p. 519. Finkelman pushes this thesis further in “Jefferson and Slavery”. 49   Notes, p. 138; Jefferson’s Autobiography, cited in Malone I, p. 268; Cohen, “Problem of Slavery”, p. 522.

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involve him in. “My opinion has ever been”, he politely responded to Coles, that, until more can be done for them, we should endeavor, with those whom fortune has thrown on our hands, to feed and clothe them well, protect them from all ill usage, require such reasonable labor as is performed voluntarily by freemen, & be led by no repugnancies to abdicate them, and our duty to them.50

In short, Jefferson preferred to let the younger generation suffer the consequences of slavery rather than dirty his own hands in the politics of abolitionism. Nevertheless Jefferson was prescient enough to realize that the slave question could eventually tear the political fabric of the Union. As early as 1800, upon learning of Gabriel’s Revolt, a slave uprising in Virginia, Jefferson remarked that “we are truly to be pitied”. He believed that frequent slave insurrections would only encourage the reactionary tendencies of masters and overseers and create such racial hostility that abolition and eventual coexistence would be impossible. In a prophetic comment of 1805, he argued that such rebellions would at first be “easily quelled”, but far from being local it will become general, and wherever it does it will rise more formidable after every second defeat, until we shall be forced, after dreadful scenes & sufferings to release them in their own way, which, without such sufferings, we might now model after our own convenience.51

Once again, Jefferson produced a brilliant insight but he failed to translate it into a constructive political program. It is indeed exasperating to read Jefferson’s comments on the politics and problems of slavery. He astutely diagnosed the reasons for the 50  TJ to Edward Coles, August 25, 1814, Ford XI, p. 419. Not only did he refuse to take a stand against slavery, but he attempted to talk Coles out of giving up his Albemarle lands. “I am sensible”, he wrote, “of the partiality which you have looked towards me as the person who should undertake this salutary but arduous work. But this, my dear Sir, is like bidding old Priam to buckle on the armour of Hector...No, I have outlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence. This enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation. It should have all my prayers and those are the only weapons of an old man. But in the mean time are you right in abandoning this property, and your country with it? I think not”. (418-9) Note how Jefferson uses “country” to mean Virginia. 51  TJ to Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800, Extracts, p. 321; TJ to William A. Burwell, January 18, 1805, Ford X, p. 127.



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perpetuation of the institution, and presciently foretold its demise.52 In this respect he was similar to Metternich, who also predicted political problems with astounding clarity. We have seen that as early as 1815, Metternich claimed that the decaying political apparatus of the Habsburg Monarchy would produce serious nationalist rebellions within a generation. Alarmed by this prospect, he drafted several proposals which might have forestalled the Revolutions of 1848. Yet, faced with the intransigence and complacent conservatism of Kaiser Franz, he could do nothing to implement them. Unlike Metternich, however, Jefferson had the power to act on his convictions but was unwilling to risk his reputation on a course of action which may have prevented the Civil War. Although it is unlikely that Jefferson alone could have accomplished much in the way of substantive reform, it is not unreasonable to assume that a passionate stand and personal example from this respected and influential figure may have made a few more converts among the southern gentry to the abolitionist cause.53 Jefferson was crippled by an ego which recoiled from unpopularity, and unpopular he certainly would have been with the majority of the southern planting class had he opposed slavery. But the interests of the nation were arguably of higher significance than the esteem of southern conservatives. Again, however, Jefferson refused to compromise and risk the scorn of his own allies or injure their (and his) economic standing. By the time the issue became volatile in 1820, Jefferson was nearly 80 years old and believed that there was little value in “buckling on the armour of Hector” to combat the evil. Yet there is no evidence that he attempted to  Slavery was perpetuated, Jefferson argued, by children imitating the ways of their fathers: “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, the most degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this; and learn to imitate it, for man is an imitable animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the company of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily nourished in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances”. Notes, p. 162. 53  Ironically Jefferson realized that once posturing could no longer mask the “evil institution”, and a battle was joined along sectional and ethical lines, slavery would be demolished. He had offered this argument almost eighty years before the Civil War: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever...The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest”. Notes, p. 163. 52

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persuade younger men to take up the anti-slavery banner or helped to shape a political agenda for waging war against the “peculiar institution”. Indeed, in the Coles episode he actually attempted to persuade others to adopt the same siege mentality that he assumed in these years. Jefferson’s admirers claim that his opinions on blacks and slavery were those of a “man of his times”. This argument is suspicious when it comes from scholars, such as Dumas Malone, who contend that he was ahead of his times on almost every political issue of his day.54 Yet the premise can be defeated on its own merit. Anti-slavery sentiment was widespread in Europe by the late eighteenth century and indeed by 1770 its practice was disappearing on the continent. The slave trade itself flourished, mainly because of the volume of business with America. Almost all leading political thinkers in Britain, France, and Germany denounced the institution of buying men and holding them in bondage as barbaric. Moreover, this view was shared by almost all American politicians not directly involved in the fortunes of southern agriculture.55 Yet Jefferson’s political and economic interests took precedence over the philosophical platform he articulated, and his stance on slavery reveals his social thought to be little more than the product of expediency. A true champion of the principles he claimed to uphold would not have simply acquiesced to atrophied customs, traditions, and inherited ideas which had been passed down since the early seventeenth century. Like Metternich, he would have sponsored reform despite the political risks involved. It was this complacent and traditional view of society against which the philosophers of the Enlightenment rebelled. Jefferson’s Political Economy Jefferson’s reluctance to disrupt the social status quo of the South was also reflected in his economic philosophy, which was predicated upon the conviction, as he told Thomas Cooper in 1802, that the government did not have a right to interfere with the “labours of the people.56 This process could best be served by a “minimalist” state in re See his account of Jefferson and slavery in vol. VI, ch. 22.  For example Hamilton, who is commonly alleged to have been more conservative than Jefferson, was a member of the New York Manumission Society from 1783 until his death. Miller, Hamilton, p. 122. See also Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery”, pp. 186-7 for a cogent attack on the “man of his times” defense. 56  On Jefferson’s economic theory, see Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America, [Chapel Hill: 1980]; Appleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order; Banning, Jeffersonian Persuasion; Joseph Dorfman, “The Econom54 55



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spect to economic affairs. In his First Inaugural Address, he claimed that he favored a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government; and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.57

Therefore Jefferson wanted the spheres of government and economics to be kept as distinct as possible. This idea accounts for much of his quarrel with Hamilton’s financial program, which was based on a close relationship between government and industry. Jefferson criticized the idea that government could regulate the economic interests of citizens better than they could, and observed that “when we wait for Washington to tell us when to sow and when to reap, we shall soon want bread”. Not surprisingly he praised Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations as “of the first degree of merit” on the subject of political economy. He was committed to reducing the size of the federal government (particularly the Treasury, a department that swelled under Hamilton) and was a consistent champion of the “night watchman” state.58 The idea that the government should redistribute income to promote equality—the notion he ostensibly embraced in France—was abhorrent to him in practice in America. Just as the “spiritual” right to freedom of expression was beyond the power of governmental regulation, so too were the material interests of the public. He argued to Joseph Milligan in 1816 that: To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry or that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily ic Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson”, Political Science Quarterly [55(1940): 98-121]; Merrill Peterson, “Thomas Jefferson and Commercial Policy”, WMQ [22(1965): 584610]; and Spivak, Jefferson’s English Crisis, Herbert Sloan, Principle and Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt, [Oxford: 1995]; Malone III, p. 481; TJ to Thomas Cooper, November 29, 1802, Ford IX, p. 403. 57  First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, Boyd XXXIII, p. 150. 58  Cited in Peterson, Jefferson Image, p. 368. On his view of Adam Smith, see TJ to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816, L&B XIV, p. 460. As he noted in his First Message to Congress, “when we consider that this government is charged with the external and mutual relations only of these states,...we may well doubt whether our organization is not too complicated, too expensive; whether offices or officers have not been multiplied unnecessarily, and sometimes injuriously to the service they were meant to promote”. December 8, 1801, Boyd XXXVI, p. 60.

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the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.’

The centerpiece of Jefferson’s economic strategy was the elimination of the federal debt and the reduction of taxes.59 He had long considered a large public debt as the chief cause of political and economic ruin in a state. Although Jefferson was habitually in debt and his heirs were compelled to submit to the indignity of selling lottery tickets to save Monticello from his creditors, he insisted that the federal government not spend more than it received. “The maxim of buying nothing without money in our pocket to pay for it”, he observed as early as 1787, “would make of our country one of the happiest upon earth”.60 Taxation was an assertion of centralized control over the economy and could lead to the subjugation of the public under oppressive levies. Soon these “departures from principle” would reduce the public to “mere automatons of misery”. “Then begins, indeed”, he argued to Samuel Kercheval, “the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression”.61 Jefferson’s economic philosophy, like his theory of constitutional government, was based upon his commitment to upholding the agrarian political culture of the South. He regarded “those who labor in the 59  TJ to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816. L&B XIV, p. 466. Compare this with his letter to Madison of October 28, 1785, in which he claimed in Rousseauian language that the government had a right to promote social and economic equality. He quickly dispelled this notion both in his economic policy in the United States as well as in his efforts to advise the moderate constitutionalist faction in France. As Malone concisely notes, Jefferson’s financial policy “may be divided into four closely related parts: strict governmental economy, tax reduction, definite provisions for the retirement of the national debt, and specific rather than general appropriations”. Malone IV, p. 101. 60  TJ to Alexander Donald, July 28, 1787, Boyd XI, p. 633. 61  TJ to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816, Ford XII, p. 11. He had argued the same point to Gallatin seven years earlier, holding that “I consider the fortunes of our republic as depending, in an eminent degree, on the extinguishment of the public debt before we engage in any war: because, that done, we shall have revenue enough to improve our country in peace and defend it in war without recurring either to new taxes or loans. But if the debt should once more be swelled to a formidable size, its entire discharge will be dispaired of, and we shall be committed to the English career of debt, corruption, and rottenness, closing with revolution. The discharge of the debt, therefore, is vital to the destinies of our government, and it hangs on Mr. Madison and yourself alone. We shall never see another President or Secretary of the Treasury making all other objects subordinate to this”. TJ to AG, October 11, 1809, Ford XI, p. 125.



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earth” as “the chosen people of God”, and never tired of repeating the virtues of the Southern planting class. He had been a ceaseless advocate of economic development in the west since before the Revolution, and in the 1790s believed that this would only strengthen the political status of the Republican Party in the region. Not surprisingly, he regarded manufacturers with some suspicion. They did not have the same sectional or regional affiliation that he automatically looked for in political leaders. “Merchants have no country”, he claimed. “The mere spot on which they stand does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains”. Jefferson’s fear of cosmopolitanism never left him: the agrarian life was literally rooted in the native soil, but the businesses of the Northeast were too independent from this or any other traditional power base for his taste.62 Jefferson’s distrust of these enterprises was not the product of a Harringtonian alarm over “corruption” or a philosophical affection for an agricultural Utopia. Rather, he feared that these ventures would only strengthen the Federalists’ economic and political power in the Northeast. Manufacturing and commerce were important measures of economic power, and Jefferson had no ideological predisposition against them. On the contrary, what mattered to him was which parties, states, or regions in the United States received the largest share of the economic pie. In his opinion, the South could not industrialize without upsetting its unique political and cultural identity. Therefore it had to devote extra attention to the agricultural sector to remain competitive with the manufacturers of New England. This explains Jefferson’s fascination with new methods of agricultural production, as well as his attitude towards slavery. The latter was advantageous to the South as it kept labor costs low. By the end of his Presidency, however, with the United States again engaged in diplomatic quarrels with Britain, Jefferson realized that America would have to become less dependent on European manufactured goods. This led him to suggest the idea of an “equilibrium of agriculture, manufactures, & commerce” as the basis of an economic strategy for the United States. This balance between agricultural and industrial interests, Jefferson argued in 1809, is certainly become essential to our independence. [Our goal should be to produce] Manufactures sufficient for our own consumption, of what we raise the raw materials [for](and no more). Commerce sufficient to carry 62   Notes, p. 165; Appleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order, p. 94; TJ to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814, L&B XIV, p. 119.

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the surplus produce of agriculture, beyond our own consumption, to a market for exchanging it for articles we cannot raise (and no more). These are the true limits of manufactures & commerce.63

Economic policy, therefore, was conceived and implemented by Jefferson in the context of politics—contra Hamilton, who had largely inverted the relationship. Jefferson was firmly committed to free trade and a laissez-faire economic policy, and up to 1807 he was remarkably consistent in this regard. He sought to reduce the size of the federal government and made the elimination of Hamilton’s debt the overriding domestic policy of his administration. Like Hamilton, he was certainly indebted to Adam Smith, but Jefferson drew a sharper line between the spheres of government and the economy than Hamilton.64 Jefferson’s attitude towards agriculture and commerce was based on a pragmatic assessment of political interests. To preserve the political culture of the South, it was necessary to support the economic system of that region. Conversely, when fighting Federalism Jefferson found it was best to attack it at its roots—in the commercial and political centers of New York and New England. Political economy was thus both a defensive and offensive construct to Jefferson: through it he defended the material economic interests of his region and party, and attacked those of his opponents. His objection to northern manufactures and commerce was based on the threat they posed to Southern agriculture, not on an abstract conception of national “virtue”. His “political economy” was consequently more politically oriented than economic. Conclusion A review of Jefferson’s views on revolution, political economy, and his social agenda for the United States illustrates the essential conservatism of his thought. Jefferson rhetorically expounded on the universal “rights of man”, but as a practical politician never attempted to carry 63  TJ to Sir James Jay, April 7, 1809, JPLC: Reel 72. As he argued to Benjamin Austin in 1816, “He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufacture, must be for reducing us to dependence on that foreign nation[Great Britain], or to be clothed in skins, and to live like wild beasts in dens and caverns. I am not one of these; experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort”. January 9, 1816, Ford XI, p. 504. 64  See Earle, “Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton, and Friedrich List: The Economic Foundations of Military Power”, in Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy, [Princeton: 1986].



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his more sweeping proposals into effect. Moreover, his theory of political economy had no room for the “subdivision of property” which he had urged Madison to undertake in 1785. In most instances, when these radical outbursts were not simply responses to recent emotional stimuli, they were designed to rally support among liberal Republicans who were useful in advancing Jefferson’s career. A Freneau, Paine, or Callender could not be moved to write stirring editorials on a disinterested appraisal of the European balance of power or the foundations of Southern agriculture. Jefferson’s emotive politics of the 1790s was a calculated strategy designed to harness the popular fervor for liberty to his own conservative cause. Jefferson’s prescription for dealing with revolutions and political change was similar to Metternich’s, but he did not share the Austrian Chancellor’s more optimistic estimates of social progress. While holding to an ideal—in the case of America, a “southern” agricultural republic, or, in the case of France, an English-style constitutional monarchy—he never let it obscure his assessment of what was practical or achievable. Thus, when offering concrete advice and not simply sloganeering, he scrupulously advocated cautious, measured steps that took a wide range of options into consideration. Above all, he emphasized that revolution could not be effected immediately by simply promulgating a new form of government. Social progress would of necessity be slow. “The generation which commences a revolution can rarely complete it”, he informed Adams in 1823.65 This idea held true in America as well as France. In Jefferson’s view, it was unlikely that the political culture of a state could be dramatically transformed simply by appealing to the rule of Reason. Jefferson’s conservative approach to politics led him to place a higher value on order than abstract notions of liberty. This conviction separated him from the Jacobins and Paineites in France and America, and Metternich used a similar tactic when confronting the Burschenschaften in Germany. Both Jefferson and Metternich considered the preservation of general social harmony as the greatest imperative of the statesman. Only in this ordered universe could gradual social progress occur. However, in policy terms Jefferson was far more conservative than Metternich. The latter liberally indulged reformist impulses in Austria as well as in Europe in a whole, and subscribed to a teleological view of history. Moreover, he proposed fundamental and far-reaching changes in the political and social structure of the Habsburg Empire and offered  TJ to JA, September 4, 1823, Cappon, p. 596.

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concrete political strategies for implementing them. Jefferson, on the other hand, retreated from almost every bold or controversial political issue in the United States. Only in the case of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in the 1780s did he break lances for a controversial idea that he believed in. This position is understandable when one considers that Jefferson saw little need for changes in the basic social and political arrangement that had existed in the colonies prior to the Seven Years’ War. Unlike Hamilton, Madison, or Marshall, he saw no reason to create a new, powerful system of government that would radically transform the political, social, and economic arrangements of this old and familiar pattern. On the contrary, Jefferson believed that simply preserving the old colonial identities and binding them into a loose union for foreign policy cohesion was an ideal formula for an “American” government. As a result Jefferson became trapped in the confines of older customs and obligations and consequently became more rigid in his political outlook by the end of his life, when changes in American society were occurring at a rapid pace.66 Though he regarded slavery as despicable, his provincial attachment to Virginia led him to advocate a course of action that made the peaceful abolition of this institution unlikely. Were Jefferson as firmly wedded to the idea of social progress as Metternich, it is unlikely that he would have adopted his siege mentality of the 1820s which led him to focus single-mindedly on the interests of the southern planting elite. He brilliantly predicted the violent end of slavery, but never offered to help resolve the issue in a peaceful and progressive manner. Indeed, Jefferson rarely evinced a tendency to compromise for the sake of the broader political interests of the Union. Unequivocally devoted to his Virginia heritage, he was not about to make concessions to critics of the southern way of life. On the issues of slavery and a political role for women his views were provincial and behind the times for an educated and sophisticated man of his day, as his Northeastern and British critics were all too happy to point out. Jefferson’s economic policy was as rooted in the southern soil as his social agenda. He advocated a limited governmental role in the economy, believing that citizens (especially planters) could handle their own affairs better than if they were regulated by the state. Throughout his career he was a proponent of low taxes and elimination of the federal debt. In Clausewitzian terms, Jefferson’s economic policy was merely the continuation of politics by other means. Realizing that Hamilton’s  On this point see Ellis, American Sphinx, pp. 273-9.

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financial system had forged a close link between Northeastern merchants and the federal government, Jefferson took the opposite course and argued that the government should not favor one sector of the economy over any other. Agriculture, he believed, could thrive on its own, but manufacturing required favorable external tariff rates and commercial regulations to sustain itself. In a truly laissez-faire system, he hoped, agriculture would outperform the nascent industries of the North. While he admittedly sought to expand the Atlantic trade to increase shipments of agricultural products to Europe, Jefferson saw no reason to stoke the coffers of his political enemies by protective tariffs and high import taxes. His agrarianism, which formed the bedrock of his conception of political economy, was the product of his identification with the political and social norms of the planting class of the South. A more progressive intellect might have seen the potential strength of the nascent Industrial Revolution and harnessed it to his advantage. Although he championed new technology and mechanical innovations, Jefferson seems to have never grasped the significance of new systems of commerce and industry in the manner of Hamilton, Monroe, or John Quincy Adams. He had fought the Revolution to conserve the way of life he was familiar with and was unwilling to introduce new institutions or radical changes into southern society which might subvert the social, political, and cultural identity of this last bastion of the colonial ancien regime. The outer world, however, gradually intruded on Jefferson’s political design for the United States. As the stakes of international politics grew higher with the advent of “total war”, it became apparent that the United States could not remain as insulated from Europe as many of its political leaders hoped. The Napoleonic Wars, which influenced politics throughout the world and which eventually involved the United States, coincided with Jefferson’s Presidency. American commerce, which had become global by the late eighteenth century, became one of the first casualties of this campaign. Protecting American interests during this world war soon became the primary task of Jefferson’s statecraft. From what philosophical perspective, therefore, did he view the international system, and how did he intend to manipulate it to America’s advantage?

Chapter IV Jefferson and the International System (1): The Balance of Power in Theory “I have ever considered diplomacy as the pest of the world, as the workshop in which nearly all the wars of Europe are manufactured”, Jefferson observed in 1804. Yet few eighteenth century statesmen labored longer in this “workshop” or mastered its intricacies with greater precision than Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Jefferson spent the majority of his career in the field of international affairs, serving as Minister to France, Secretary of State, and President of the United States during the period of the Napoleonic Wars. An adroit and perceptive student of world politics, Jefferson was acquainted with the philosophical inclinations which inspired eighteenth century authors to speak of a “new diplomacy”. At the same time he was schooled in the tradition of classical Cabinet statecraft widely denounced in the eighteenth century as militaristic and autocratic. The idea that the statecraft of Thomas Jefferson symbolized a conceptual and practical break with eighteenth century reason of state has become part of the canon of American diplomatic history. The important works of Henry Adams, Louis Sears, Dumas Malone, and, most recently, Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson argue that Jefferson was guided by the idealistic and pacifistic approach to international politics endorsed by many Enlightenment philosophers. Despite occasional critiques by Alexander DeConde, James Hutson, and Law  TJ to William Short, January 23, 1804, cited in Felix Gilbert, “The New Diplomacy of the Eighteenth Century”, World Politics, [4(1951): 1-38], p. 3.

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rence Kaplan, the idealist chorus remains audible in the cavernous depths of Jeffersonian scholarship. Two centuries of interpreters have frequently taken issue with Jefferson’s declared convictions, but few question the assumption that they carried prescriptive weight and sought a restructuring of the state system and America’s place in it. Implicit in this thesis is the assumption that early American foreign policy must be interpreted as a precursor to the modern age; that is, the experiment launched in 1783 marked a radical departure in international relations and hence provides a basis from which to establish generalized “rules” about the subsequent conduct of American foreign policy. This idea has certainly found its share of adherents in both the historical and social science fields, but it rests on a tenuous conceptual foundation. Applying late twentieth century conceptions of “realism” and “idealism”, liberal internationalism, and international law to the political universe of the eighteenth century risks overgeneralization. Regardless of whatever form of “republican” ideology American politicians may or may not have subscribed to domestically—and as Daniel Rodgers correctly notes this concept is becoming long in the tooth—in international relations they operated from largely inherited assumptions. Having matured in an era of incessant Anglo-French conflicts for North American resources, and in an environment which consistently collapsed the ideas of “power” and “wealth” into a single strategic imperative, it is only natural that American leaders approached foreign policy as products of eighteenth century thinking— and almost exclusively European thinking—about the structure, workings, and constraints of the international system and based their policies upon this tradition. For this reason it is of little practical utility to use Jefferson to elucidate systems of thought—such as the “realism” and “liberalism” archetypes—that postdate him by over a century and a half.   See Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson, [Oxford: 1990]; Peter S. Onuf and Nicholas G. Onuf, Federal Union, Modern World: The Law of Nations in an Age of Revolution , [New York: 1993]; Nicholas G. Onuf, The Republican Legacy in International Thought, [Cambridge: 1998]; McCoy, Elusive Republic; Felix Gilbert, To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy, [Princeton: 1961]; Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment; Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, [New York: 1993]; Mlada Bukovansky, “ American Identity and Neutral Rights from Independence to the War of 1812”, International Organization [51(1997): 209-243; Arnold Wolfers and Laurence F. Martin, eds., The Anglo-American Tradition in Foreign Affairs, [New Haven: 1956]; Stourzh, Hamilton, p. 135. Daniel T. Rodgers, “Republicanism: The Career of a Concept”, Journal of American History, [79(1992): 11-38].



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Indeed, while Jefferson’s philosophical statements on foreign policy are clear and frequently quoted, their relationship to his diplomacy remains an open question. He claimed the mantle of Enlightenment liberalism, but so too did Frederick II, Catherine II, and Kaunitz, and few scholars detect a compelling symmetry between their liberal political thought and diplomatic conduct. A closer examination of theory and practice reveals that Jefferson’s statecraft represented an extension, rather than a repudiation, of familiar patterns of eighteenth century diplomacy, specifically regarding commerce and its importance as a measure and medium of state power. Jefferson’s efforts to protect and augment American commerce—which he saw as the bedrock of its power and position in the world system—led him to adopt policies employed in previous decades by the European powers and to use them to America’s advantage. Commerce and the Atlantic Balance of Power Jefferson’s view of international politics, which had its genesis in the competitive universe of the eighteenth century state system, led him to articulate three principal goals for American foreign policy: securing the nation’s trade routes, protecting its rights as a neutral power to undertake commerce between European belligerents, and building a naval force sufficient to defend and advance these commercial interests. Taken together, these goals formed a coherent—if at times ambitious—design for America in world politics. In other words, Jefferson’s efforts to secure New Orleans, the “single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy”, and West Florida, which protected the sea lanes approaching it, were forged from the same ideas that produced the Embargo of 1807 and the 1793 Opinion on the French Treaty. In the Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu observed that most states “have made commercial interests give way to political interests”, while England alone “has always made its political interests give way to the interests of its commerce”. He might have said the same about the foreign policy of the United States under Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s use of commerce as an instrument of foreign policy has long been interpreted by students of his political thought as an illustration of his supposed pacifism, or as evidence of his commitment to a “republican”  TJ to Robert Livingston, April 18, 1802, Ford IX, pp. 364-6. Jefferson elaborated that through New Orleans, “the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market”. 

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diplomacy. Yet despite the weighty barnacles of literature that have grown around the term of late, “commerce” was not interpreted by responsible ministers in Europe or America as a “virtuous” or “corrupt” enterprise, but rather as a purely statistical construct which was dominated by fiscal rather than moral calculations. Political theorists and pamphleteers may engage in the luxury of ideological epistles, but in the eyes of eighteenth century diplomats the rules of the game demanded attention to cold-blooded calculations of profit and loss. In a predatory state system, normative value yielded to necessity. “There is no situation in which wealth is not strength and in which commerce is not wealth”, William Burke noted unsentimentally during the Seven Years’ War. The “balance of trade” was invoked, as David Hume and Adam Smith remind us, as a barometer of national power and a means of measuring capabilities against potential rivals. American policymakers in the new republic inherited these prevailing assumptions and sought to manipulate them to their advantage. Jefferson and Hamilton, for example, despite their manifold differences, both agreed on a fundamental point: the United States could not become truly independent as long as its assets were subject to seizure, especially in the Caribbean and Mediterranean. As John Crowley not   Spirit of the Laws (1748), ed. Anne Cohler, Basia Miller, and Harold Stone, [Cambridge: 1989], p. 343. For a representative sample of these arguments see Louis Sears, “Jefferson and the Law of Nations”, American Political Science Review, [13(1919): 37999]; idem., Jefferson and the Embargo, [Durham: 1927]; Appleby, “What is Still American in the Political Philosophy of Jefferson?”; idem., Capitalism and a New Social Order; Banning, Jeffersonian Persuasion; McCoy, Elusive Republic; Pocock, Machiavellian Moment; idem., Virtue, Commerce, and History, [Cambridge: 1985]; Rodgers, “Republicanism”; Onuf and Onuf, Federal Union, Modern World; Tucker and Hendrickson; Reginald Stuart, The Half-Way Pacifist: Thomas Jefferson’s View of War, [Toronto: 1978].   See Charles Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, vol. IV, [New Haven: 1938]; George Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765, [New York: 1907]; Jeremy Black, “The Theory of the Balance of Power in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century”, Review of International Studies, [9(1983): 55-61]; Philip Buck, The Politics of Mercantilism, [New York: 1942]; Nancy Koehn, The Power of Commerce, [Ithaca: 1994]; John Crowley, The Privileges of Independence: Neomercantilism and the American Revolution, [Baltimore: 1993]; John Brewer, The Sinews of Power, [New York: 1989]; Jonathan Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution, [New Haven: 1985]; Eli Heckscher, Mercantilism, 2 vols. [London: 1935]; J.F. Rees, “Mercantilism and the Colonies”, in The Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. 1, [Cambridge: 1929]; Klaus Knorr, British Colonial Theories, 1570-1850, [Toronto: 1944]; Walter Dorn, Competition for Empire, 1740-1763, [New York: 1940], ch. 6.   On this point see James R. Sofka, “The Jeffersonian Idea of National Security”, Diplomatic History [21(1997): 519-44]; Dorfman, “Economic Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson”; Peterson, “Thomas Jefferson and Commercial Policy”; Stourzh, Hamilton, ch. 4; Earle, “Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton”.



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ed, the mercantilist idea remained firmly rooted in American commercial and strategic thinking after 1783, which is hardly surprising given that political elites in the new state had been nourished on British trade policy for decades. This logic held that America’s independence must be secured by economic power, and economic power depended on trade, which in turn depended upon access to overseas markets. Customs duties provided most of the nation’s revenue in the 1780s and 1790s and exports of shipping stores, cotton, and tobacco provided steady incomes to Northern and Southern commercial interests. If the United States was economically weak it would be vulnerable to European predators, much in the fashion that the small traders of Europe were throughout the eighteenth century. In his important “Report on the Privileges and Restrictions of the Commerce of the United States”, presented to Congress in December 1793, Jefferson articulated his theory of commerce in a manner thoroughly consistent with European practices of the eighteenth century. With frank realism he observed that As a branch of industry [commerce] is valuable, but as a resource of defense, essential. Its value, as a branch of industry, is enhanced by the dependence of so many other branches on it. In times of general peace it multiplies competitors for employment in transportation, and so keeps that at its proper level; and in times of war, that is to say, when those nations who may be our principal carriers, shall be at war with each other, if we have not within ourselves the means of transportation, our produce must be exported in belligerent vessels, at the increased expense of war-freight and insurance, and the articles, which will not bear that, must perish on our hands. But it is as a resource of defense that our navigation will admit neither neglect nor forbearance. The position and circumstances of the United States leave them nothing to fear on their land-board, and leave them nothing to desire beyond their present rights. But, on their sea-board, they are open to injury, and they have there too, a commerce which must be protected.

With minimal refinement, this argument could easily have been advanced by Colbert or the British Board of Trade. Distilled to its fundamentals, Jefferson’s theory of commercial policy held that a small but prosperous neutral power dependent on external trade for a large per  Crowley, Neomercantilism. See also James Hutson, “The Intellectual Foundations of Early American Diplomacy”, Diplomatic History, [1(1977): 1-19]; and Richard Mannix, “Gallatin, Jefferson, and the Embargo of 1808”, Diplomatic History, [3(1979): 151-72]. see McCoy, ch. 3, Peterson, “Commercial Policy”, and Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 1788-1800, [Oxford: 1993], pp. 65-74.   TJ, “Report on the Privileges and Restrictions of the Commerce of the United States”, December 16, 1793. Final State, Boyd XXVII, pp. 574-5. emphasis added.

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centage of its national revenue could not compete in the global system as long as its trade was vulnerable to attack, seizure, or prohibitive duties. This, of course, was common wisdom among most diplomats and commercial interests in the eighteenth century—indeed, so common as to be almost nondescript. Like many of his European contemporaries, Jefferson maintained that the “disposition of wealth” was a decisive, if not determining, factor in propelling America’s gradual ascent to great power status. How best to achieve this end of maximizing the wealth of the United States was a political question that sparked vigorous debates in the new republic. The diplomatic task before Jefferson, however, was to protect these resources in negotiations with other powers. Throughout his halfcentury political career, Jefferson consistently argued that the paramount national interest of the United States was not a crusade for “republicanism” or a quest for hegemony in the Western Hemisphere but rather the attainment and preservation of a respectable share of the transatlantic balance of trade and the protection of American maritime rights. Consequently, “power” and “wealth” became almost synonymous in Jefferson’s diplomatic vocabulary.10 Having grown to political maturity in an era of incessant AngloFrench competition for American resources, it is not surprising that Jefferson would regard the actual and potential strength of the American economy as a source of pride and, more importantly, national power. In his lifetime, England and France had fought three wars for control of the North American continent. In Jefferson’s view, these provided ample proof of America’s strategic and commercial importance and led him to estimate that the United States enjoyed a stronger position in the international system than either Hamilton’s Federalists or more extreme members of his own Republican party were willing to admit.11   See Dorfman, “Economic Philosophy”; Peterson, “Commercial Policy”; Jacob Viner, “Power Versus Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”, World Politics, [1(1948): 1-30]; idem., International Trade and Economic Development, [New York: 1952]; Heckscher, Mercantilism; Isabel de Madariaga, Britain, Russia, and the Armed Neutrality of 1780, [New Haven: 1962]; Crowley, Neomercantilism; Appleby, Economic Thought and Ideology in Seventeenth Century England, [Princeton: 1978]; Carl Kulsrud, Maritime Neutrality to 1780, [Boston: 1936]; Richard Pares, War and Trade in the West Indies, 1739-1763, [Oxford: 1936]; idem., Colonial Blockade and Neutral Rights, [Oxford: 1938]; Stourzh, Hamilton, ch. 4; Brewer, Sinews of Power; Sofka, “Jeffersonian Idea of National Security”; Dull, Diplomatic History of the American Revolution. 10  Peterson, “Commercial Policy”, p. 585. 11  See Max Savelle, “The American Balance of Power and European Diplomacy, 1713-1778”, in Richard Morris, ed., The Era of the American Revolution, [New York:



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The extension of this reasoning was that the United States was an important—indeed, in time of war, critical—component of what Jefferson perceived as a tripolar balance of power, based almost exclusively on the medium of commerce, which could be manipulated to serve American ends during an Anglo-French war. Jefferson never ceased to maintain that if America’s independence, lucrative resources, and freedom from “entangling alliances” were properly managed, it could not only secure its borders but prosper in a polarized international system. Convinced that North America possessed assets too valuable for the European powers to lose, Jefferson held fast to a neutral policy that allowed the United States ample latitude to bargain with belligerent states to gain concessions for itself. The dynamics of continental politics were of decidedly less importance to his thinking and were only relevant insofar as they affected English or French maritime policy.12 Jefferson viewed this Atlantic balance of power as a “natural” outgrowth of the eighteenth century state system, one that could not be disregarded by American politicians preoccupied with partisan and ideological cleavages. While he sardonically endorsed a “meridian of partition” between the continents and a “divorce” from Britain and France, he was too aware of the workings of the American economy ever to seriously consider an isolationist policy. In more thorough analyses Jefferson rejected such thinking as “theory only, and a theory which the servants of America are not at liberty to follow. Our people have a 1939]; Dull, Diplomatic History of the American Revolution; Hutson, “Intellectual Foundations”; Albert Bowman, “Jefferson, Hamilton, and American Foreign Policy”, Political Science Quarterly, [71(1956): 18-41]. See also the editorial notes on commerce in Boyd XIII, pp. 52-91 and XVIII, pp. 516-77. 12  An isolationist course was widely rejected by most political leaders in the United States except the most extreme Republican agrarians. Washington’s “Farewell Address” of 1796 and Jefferson’s warnings about “entangling alliances” in 1801 have often been misinterpreted as illustrative of isolationist sentiments. Yet Washington and Jefferson were advancing a much more sophisticated argument: that the United States should avoid becoming a party in an exclusive alliance which could lead the nation to become a pawn of one of the European powers and leave American shipping open to assault or reprisals in the event of a separate peace, or worse, possibly lead to an invasion of the country. Regarding the continental powers, Jefferson argued that the United States should adopt a policy of “keep[ing] an eye on them, their connections and oppositions, that in a moment of need we may avail ourselves of their weakness with respect to others as well as ourselves”. TJ to Edward Carrington, December 21, 1787. Boyd XII, p. 447. Thus when he wrote Monroe in 1823 that “the political interests of Europe” were “completely distinct from ours” and stressed that America should have nothing to do with “their balance of power”, he was referring to the continental powers and not the maritime states. TJ to Monroe, June 11, 1823, Ford XII, p. 292.

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decided taste for navigation and commerce. They take this from their mother country: and their servants are in duty bound to calculate all their measures on this datum: we wish to do it by throwing open all the doors of commerce and knocking off its shackles”.13 Jefferson expressed this view in the slogan “free ships make free goods” that he reiterated from the time of the Revolution to the Peace of Ghent. A small neutral power lacking a credible naval force could base its claims on little more than the sanctity of treaties and enlightened notions of free trade. If, however, a neutral were aggressively to promote its rights independently, then it could potentially gain advantages that would be inaccessible if it acted alone or as a “client” state of a great trading power. By maximizing American access to European markets, profits would increase, the American merchant fleet would grow, and the wealth of the state would be enhanced. Jefferson’s support for free trade, therefore, stood unequaled until Richard Cobden’s more spirited defense of the concept later in the nineteenth century, although ironically it was motivated by classical mercantilist logic. As Jefferson put it in the Notes on Virginia, this economic philosophy meant “giving perfect freedom of all persons for the vent of whatever they may choose to bring into our ports, and asking the same in theirs”. The ocean, in sum, was “the common property of all” and was the medium through and upon which the wealth of the United States was to be increased.14 The dynamics of international trade, therefore, preoccupied Jefferson’s diplomatic labors from the time of his Parisian ambassadorship until his retirement in 1809. His mission to France was characterized by bargaining over greater access to the French West Indies as well as countering French embargoes on critical American exports through the provisions of the 1778 Treaty of Amity and Commerce. Naturally Versailles saw no logic in exposing its position in the Western Hemisphere to predatory American interests, and, barring the minor success of lifting the French embargo of American whale oil products, Jefferson’s diplomacy accomplished little of substance. He was troubled by the Eden Treaty of 1786, as it presaged a possible Anglo-French condominium on international trade and excluded the United States from its reach.15  TJ to G.K. van Hogendorp, October 13, 1785, Boyd VIII, p. 633.   Bowman, The Struggle for Neutrality, p. 5; TJ, Notes, p. 174; “Report on Commerce”, Boyd XXVII, p. 575. For an amplification of this idea, see Crowley, Neomercantilism, and Viner, “Power versus Plenty”. 15  See Boyd XIII, pp. 52-91, XVIII, 516-77; Malone II, ch. 1-4. For Vergennes’ view of Jefferson’s demands, which in general he considered to be dramatically out of propor13 14



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We have seen that Jefferson’s inability to coax greater concessions from the French was one of the principal reasons for his support of the constitutionalists in 1788-89. These statesmen looked to America as “their fraternal model”, Jefferson argued, and as professed disciples of free trade would be more likely to offer the United States access to the West Indies and reduced duties on imports than the Bourbon regime.16 A large measure of Jefferson’s initial support for the French Revolution was predicated upon expanding American commercial power in Europe. By 1793, however, he realized that the revolution had deteriorated to the point where a Franco-American entente against English maritime practices was no longer viable or in America’s national interest. Glancing at the European scene in 1797, Jefferson argued to Elbridge Gerry that “the insults and injuries committed on us by both the belligerent parties from the beginning of 1793 to this day, and still continuing by both, cannot now be wiped off by engaging in a war with one of them”.17 However, Britain and France presented unique dangers and possible advantages to the United States, and Jefferson concisely analyzed these in terms of the overarching Atlantic balance of power. Britain and France in Jefferson’s Diplomatic Design Jefferson’s policy toward Britain was predicated upon the recognition that the Royal Navy possessed nearly unlimited power to intercept American shipping and restrict its trade arteries. When the British exercised this power, as in the period 1806-1812, Jefferson denounced tion to American power and resources, see Orville Murphy, Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes: French Foreign Policy in the Age of Revolution, 1719-1787, [Albany: 1982], chs. 32-37. On Jefferson’s reaction to the Eden Treaty, see Boyd VIII, pp. 361-63; XI, pp. 66-78. This is not surprising, as Jefferson’s entire diplomatic strategy was predicated upon manipulating Anglo-French antagonism to American advantage. But the deterioration of the French economy and the calling of the Estates-General in 1787-88 soon overshadowed the importance of the agreement in Jefferson’s diplomatic correspondence. 16  TJ to JM, August 28, 1789, Boyd XV, pp. 364-5. See also Palmer, “The Dubious Democrat”. 17  TJ to Elbridge Gerry, June 21, 1797, Boyd IXXX, p. 448. As late as 1805 Jefferson remained convinced that this was still the best policy for the United States to pursue, even after the Quasi War with France. He told Madison that “the probability of an extensive war on the continent of Europe gives us our great desideratum, time. In truth, it places us quite at our ease. We are certain of one year of campaigning at least, and one year of negotiation for their peace arrangements. Should we be now forced into war, it is become much more questionable than it was whether we should not pursue it unembarrassed by any alliance & free to retire from it whenever we can obtain our separate terms”. TJ to JM, October 23, 1805, Ford X, pp. 176-7.

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Britain as “the most corrupted & corrupting mass of rottenness which ever usurped the name of government”. Yet by 1823, when Canning found it to England’s advantage to cooperate with the United States in advancing what became known as the “Monroe Doctrine”, Jefferson effused that with England “on our side we need not fear the whole world. With her, then, we should most sedulously cherish a cordial friendship”. Thus Jefferson’s attitude towards Britain was reflexive, and was largely conditioned by whatever maritime policy London was pursuing at a given moment. It is extremely misleading to suggest that ideological or political preferences for “republicanism” animated Jefferson’s English policy; although he expressed his frustrations in ideological terms, this rhetoric was largely intended for domestic audiences. His “Anglophilia” and “phobia” were determined, on the contrary, by concrete calculations of interest.18 Britain’s Navy and its Canadian and Caribbean possessions provided it with excellent weapons with which to attack the trade and territory of the United States. Moreover, Jefferson recognized that British diplomacy, especially its commercial policy, was consistent with century-old mercantilist practice. The same could not be said of French statecraft under Napoleon. The French Emperor was a creature of caprice; but British policy, institutionalized by constitution, custom, and commercial practice, was more dangerous due to its longevity. As he observed in 1813, “Bonaparte may die and his tyrannies with him, but a Nation never dies. The English Government and its piratical principles and practice have no fixed term of duration”. British policy towards the United States was in turn not based upon ideology, Jefferson maintained, but simple avarice: “the English hate us”, he told William Duane, “because they think our prosperity [is] filched from theirs”.19 Consequently Britain was the most compelling and more enduring threat to American prosperity in the international system. In Jefferson’s formulation of the Atlantic balance of power, therefore, France’s role was to offset this more immediate danger from Britain. His French policy was also the product of strategic calculations rather than ideological dispositions. Though Jefferson had initially wished success to the Revolutionary Army, he expressed skepticism of 18  TJ to William Lambert, September 10, 1809, JPLC: Reel 72; TJ to James Monroe, October 24, 1823, Ford XII, p. 319. On this point see Lawrence Kaplan, “Jefferson as Anglophile: Sagacity or Senility in the Era of Good Feelings?”, Diplomatic History [16(1992): 487-94]. 19  TJ to Madame de Stael, May 28, 1813, North American Review, p. 67; TJ to William Duane, November 13, 1810, PTJRS III, p. 208.



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its ability to prevail in a general war. This opinion became more manifest after the Genet Affair of 1793, which marked a turning point in his thinking on France.20 This episode convinced Jefferson that Paris was following a policy based on ideological convictions rather than a rational and dispassionate appraisal of interests. This candid appraisal led him to distrust French intentions through the Napoleonic period and conceive of France as merely a vehicle through which to gain territory, as in the case of Louisiana, or to intimidate Britain. His examination of British and French policy convinced Jefferson that neutrality maximized the security needs of the United States at less cost than a direct alliance or war with either of the maritime Great Powers. Jefferson, Hamilton, and the Strategy of Neutrality In viewing the international system, Federalist and Republican leaders agreed on several positions: first, that the new nation was economically and military weak and hence vulnerable in a system dominated by Britain and France; second, that the internal economic condition of the country required substantive attention, and finally that neutrality best served American interests during a period of Anglo-French conflict and internal political and economic disarray. Neutrality was certainly invoked in normative terms to satisfy domestic constituencies, but at bottom it was the only realistic means of keeping the nation out of a potentially catastrophic war, gaining access to markets and—most optimistically—possibly manipulating the Anglo-French conflict to American advantage. Such a policy had long antecedents: Russia, the United Provinces, Sardinia, and Sweden had all charted the same course decades earlier and for similar reasons.21 Hamilton and Jefferson accepted these systemic realities, but they differed strenuously as to the actual and potential power of the United States vis-a-vis Britain and  See for example TJ to Tench Coxe, May 1, 1794, Boyd XXVIII, pp. 66-7; on Genet, see Kaplan, Jefferson and France; Bowman, Struggle for Neutrality; Malone III, chs. 3-9; Harry Ammon, The Genet Mission, [New York: 1973]. Jefferson endured the humiliation of Genet’s enticement of American privateers to capture British vessels and bring them to American ports without Presidential approval, and denounced the French Minister’s infringements upon American sovereignty. After Genet lied to Jefferson about the intentions of a French privateer, Jefferson ordered the American Minister in Paris to demand his recall. See his catalog of Genet’s offenses in Ford VII, pp. 475-507. 21   Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War, [Berkeley: 1961], ch. 2. See also Kulsrud, Maritime Neutrality, and Pares, Colonial Blockade and Neutral Rights. 20

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France. Hamilton accepted American economic and military inferiority as an unfortunate but real dilemma which constrained American options in the Atlantic system.22 While America was weak it must compromise, and in a predatory universe it must seek outside guarantees of its security. Hamilton’s preferred model was a loose entente with Britain which would allow the United States the protection of the Royal Navy and access to English markets. This position had been foreseen by British officials as early as 1783, and the view that the colonies must continue a trading relationship with Britain was a constant reassurance to Parliament after American independence.23 The ties of culture, language, and creditors bound the American and British markets, Hamilton reasoned, and hence the United States should largely accept London’s expansive definition of restrictive trade in exchange for a workable commercial treaty that could afford the United States protection, especially in the Mediterranean where American ships were being captured by North African pirates at an alarming rate, and the evacuation of the Northwest forts. Hamilton stressed the importance of neutrality, but clearly indicated that such a policy would be benevolent towards England. This logic became the conceptual basis for the Jay Treaty of 1795, which Hamilton, freed from Jefferson’s objections after the latter’s retirement in 1793, negotiated largely himself. The cost to the United States was that it would be compelled to concede the British key advantages in trade, and would be forced to abide by the Rule of 1756, which closed ports to neutrals in time of war that were closed in peacetime. With the American “leg” of the triad hobbled by exorbitant debt, little military power, and partisan cleavages, compromise with Britain was essential to securing a stable financial system.24 The Jeffersonian vision of American neutrality, on the other hand, was based upon the same logic of expediency over norms but took the strategic argument in a markedly different direction. Jefferson believed that as long as Britain and France were at war, the United States could benefit by undertaking a neutral trade directly between these powers and their colonial satellites. The profits to be made in this enterprise,  Stourzh, Hamilton, ch. 4; Elkins and McKitrick, ch. 9; Bowman, “Jefferson and Hamilton”; Alexander DeConde, Entangling Alliance: Politics and Diplomacy Under George Washington, [New York: 1958], conclusion. 23  See Charles Ritcheson, Aftermath of Revolution, [New York: 1971], ch. 2 and Jeremy Black, British Foreign Policy in an Age of Revolutions, 1783-1793, [Cambridge: 1994], ch. 1. 24  On this point see Samuel F. Bemis, The Jay Treaty, [New Haven: 1923], chs. 5 and 13; Earle, “Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton”. 22



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he argued, were potentially enormous. During the Nootka Sound crisis of 1790, when American officials assumed that Britain, France, and Spain might become involved in a war, Jefferson enthusiastically commented to Edward Rutledge that “in that case I hope the new world will fatten on the follies of the old. If we can but establish the principles of the armed neutrality [of 1780] for ourselves, we must become the carriers for all parties as far as we can raise vessels”.25 A debilitating European war served America’s interests, as the exclusionary policies of France and Britain would be forced to yield to American pressure in the face of emergency, necessity, and the inability to police remote waters. For this reason, Jefferson employed classical gambits of eighteenth-century commercial diplomacy—such as vociferously promoting American neutral rights, coyly hinting at both American belligerency and neutrality to both London and Paris, relentlessly attempting to gain greater access to the lucrative Caribbean trade, as well as attempting to limit European duties on staple American exports—to great advantage for the United States. The strategy of “parasitical” neutrality expressed by Jefferson in the 1790s was hardly idealistic or symbolic of a “new diplomacy” based on the liberal thought of the Enlightenment. Rather, it was based on what was in his view a mercilessly realistic reading of the nature of international politics. Professions of political independence provided the United States with what Bismarck would later characterize as the “freedom to choose”—that is, the ability to enter into alliances or agreements based on the exigencies of the moment, or to take advantage of a European war to bargain for access to closed markets by the intimation of “benevolent neutrality” to a rival. This formula was designed to attain what the United States could not yet achieve through war: a greater share of the lucrative transatlantic trade. In Jefferson’s view, intimations of friendship, hints of retaliation, and a constant willingness to be receptive to offers from all parties provided the United States with a comfortable margin of choice in the international system. As he put it in 1806, “What an awful spectacle does the world exhibit at this moment. One man bestriding the continent of Europe like a Colossus, the 25  TJ to Edward Rutledge, July 4, 1790, Boyd XVI, p. 601. Jefferson is referring to Catherine’s “armed neutrality” of 1780 which attempted a similar course by allying Sweden, Russia, Denmark, and the United Provinces in a collective defense pact to repel British and French assaults on shipping. In reality this was a directed towards pressuring Britain during the American war, as Catherine resented British meddling in Germany and Poland and argued that England treated Russia like “an eastern Portugal”, an analogy Jefferson used against Hamilton. Madariaga, p. 6.

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other roaming unbridled on the ocean. But even this is better than that one should rule both elements. Our wish ought to be that he who has armies may not have the dominion of the sea, and that he who has dominion of the sea may be one who has no armies. In this way we may be quiet”.26 True to balance of power logic, Jefferson sought to place the United States in an avowedly neutral position between rivals and manipulate their enmities in order to keep the United States out of a war from which it could gain little and to bargain for individual concessions from rival states. Jefferson feared that a Hamiltonian entente with Britain would effectively lead the United States to become “a second Portugal”. It is not surprising, therefore, that he was scathingly critical of Hamilton’s secret negotiations with British minister George Hammond, as such talks compromised American diplomacy by telegraphing its intentions to London. When informed in 1793, for example, that Hamilton had already admitted to Hammond that the United States would not be a belligerent in the European war, Jefferson fumed to Madison that “My objections to the impolicy of a premature declaration were answered by such arguments as timidity would readily suggest. I now think it extremely possible that Hammond might have been instructed to have asked it, and to offer the broadest neutral privileges, as the price, which was exactly the price I wanted that we should contend for”. Jefferson’s anger at Hamilton’s diplomatic transgressions revealed the sophisticated foundations of his policy: he had planned to postpone the neutrality proclamation, or not offer one at all, in order to entice England and France to treat for American favor by liberalizing their maritime policies. By openly avowing American intentions, Jefferson argued, Hamilton gave away what he might have sold at a considerable price, specifically a British pledge to respect American neutral rights, as well as access to the West Indian trade closed by the Orders-in-Council of March 1793.27 Unlike Hamilton, who preferred immediate and unconditional assurances of security, Jefferson hoped to achieve the same end through a policy of studied ambiguity and lack of commitment. Neutrality, with its inherent vagueness as an idea and certainly as a practical policy, provided time for deliberation, room for maneuver, and above all a maximization of diplomatic options. Jefferson’s views prevailed in the acrimonious crisis of 1793, and Washington endorsed his Secretary of  TJ to JM, January 11, 1806, JPLC: Reel 56.  See Bowman, “Jefferson and Hamilton”. TJ to JM, June 29, 1793, Boyd XXVI, pp. 403-404 (emphasis in original). See also Boyd XV, pp. 597-618. 26 27



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State’s position of strict neutrality rather than Hamilton’s intended “tilt” towards Britain or the more extreme Republican position of a similar agreement with France. Hamilton, who believed that Jefferson lacked the resources to implement his policy and egregiously overestimated American power, plotted against him in private conferences with the British Minister and these machinations were partly responsible for Jefferson’s resignation in December 1793. Nevertheless, Jefferson’s forceful defense of neutrality, which interpreted this policy as an effective tool of American diplomacy, rather than an abstract ideal, established a precedent which, despite critiques by Hamilton in 1795 and Adams in the Quasi-War of 1798, remained a bedrock principle of American foreign policy until 1812. Indeed, Jefferson’s Realpolitik in the 1793 crisis did not pass unnoticed. Thirty years later British Foreign Secretary George Canning looked back at the affair and argued that “if I wished for a guide in a system of neutrality, I should take that laid down by America in the days of the Presidency of Washington and the secretaryship of Jefferson, in 1793”.28 Jefferson’s Schema of a Two-Tiered State System Jefferson’s concern for promoting a neutral policy so as to enrich the economic foundation of the United States led him to advance a “twotiered” approach towards the international system. Distinguishing between Britain and France—undisputed masters of the Atlantic system—and smaller and weaker states that impeded American commerce, such as Spain in the West or the “Barbary” States in the Mediterranean, Jefferson proposed that America meet those challenges at levels determined by the power of the states in question. In practical terms, this meant adopting a strategy of commercial retaliation in dealings with England and France and the use of military force against weaker secondary states. Ideally, these policies would be mutually reinforcing in their attempt to gain respect for American neutral rights and consequently extend the reach of its trade. The commercial retaliation strategy was first advanced by Madison in a Congressional speech in 1791 but was formally articulated in Jefferson’s “Report on Commerce” of 1793.29 Madison and Jefferson favored diplomacy as the policy of first resort in gaining access to closed  Canning, April 16, 1823, cited in Malone III, p. 80.  On the backrgound of this policy see McCoy, pp. 137-46; Crowley, ch. 5; J.C.A. Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War, [Princeton: 1983], ch. 1. 28 29

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markets and protecting American assets on the high seas. But if bilateral negotiation failed—as occurred during Jefferson’s Parisian embassy—the United States was devoid of practical diplomatic options short of Hamilton’s entente system or isolation, both of which Jefferson rejected as shortsighted. The idea of commercial retaliation was formulated as a means of compelling concessions from the British and French short of a war which the United States could not win. Extending classical mercantilist logic, this idea simply argued that the United States would respond in kind against any European power that imposed discriminatory tariffs or prohibitive duties on American articles or that excluded American vessels carrying specific goods from its ports. As Jefferson put it in 1793: “Should any nation, contrary to our wishes, suppose it may better find its advantage by continuing its system of prohibitions, duties, and regulations, it behooves us to protect our citizens, their commerce and navigation, by counter-prohibitions, duties, and regulations also. Free commerce and navigation are not to be given in exchange for restrictions, and vexations; nor are they likely to produce a relaxation of them”.30 Jefferson’s advocacy of “economic” warfare has long been misread as the product of a pacificist or idealistic approach to international relations; but in reality it was predicated upon the same unsentimental calculations followed by most European governments since the late seventeenth century. Jefferson conceded that war with England or France was “not the best engine for us to resort to” at least while the United States remained militarily undeveloped, but he strenuously argued that “nature has given us one in our commerce, which, if properly managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice”. Jefferson readily acknowledged that imposing “discriminatory duties” would cause “inconveniences” for American exporters, “but in this, as in so many other cases, we are left to choose between two evils”. In Jefferson’s view, “These inconveniences are nothing when weighed against the loss of wealth, and loss of force, which will follow our perseverance in the plan of indiscrimination. When once it shall be perceived that we are either in the system, or the habit, of giving equal advantages to those who extinguish our commerce and navigation by duties and prohibitions, as to those who treat both with liberality and justice, liberality and justice will be converted by all into duties and prohibitions”.31   “Report on Commerce”, Boyd XXVII, p. 574.   “Report on Commerce”, Boyd XVII, p. 577. TJ to Thomas Pinckney, May 29, 1797, Boyd IXXX, p. 405. He went on to argue that “if the commercial regulations had 30 31



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Naturally, this policy was based on the idea that America provided a large and lucrative market that neither England nor France would be willing to lose, especially in time of war. Through the use of American navigation acts against Britain and France, as well as a firm commitment to neutrality, Jefferson was in essence using American assets as bait to extract favorable commercial treaties from London and Paris. In what may stand as the most elegant summation of his design for America in the world system, Jefferson argued in 1793 that “It is not to the moderation and justice of others, we are to trust for fair and equal access to market with our productions, or for our due share in the transportation of them; but to our own means of independence, and the firm will to use them”.32 Neutrality was, of course, the most conspicuous “means of independence” that the United States possessed, and the relative freedom of choice afforded by a sophisticated neutral policy left American diplomatic options open in times of crisis. The “first-tier” policy of commercial retaliation was only useful in dealings with Britain and France given their superior military power and large volume of trade with the United States. However, in cases where “second-tier” states with less trade in American ports and limited military capabilities—such as the North African regimes and Spain in the west—attacked American shipping, Jefferson was quick to threaten—and use—military force to protect the nation’s commercial assets. The logical extension of this thinking was that the United States required a strong Navy to project American power and to protect its interests. As early as 1784 Jefferson championed the creation of a Navy to fight the “frequent wars, without a doubt” which the United States would have to wage in order to assert its power relative to secondary maritime predators. With characteristic realism Jefferson commented that it was likely that American property: will be violated on the sea, and in foreign ports, their persons will be insulted, emprisoned, &c. for pretended debts, contracts, crimes, contraband, &c. &c. These insults must be resented, even if we had no feelings, yet to prevent their eternal repetition. Or in other words, our commerce on the ocean and in other countries must be paid for by frequent war. The justest dispositions possible in ourselves will not secure us against it. It would be necessary that all other nations were just also. Justice indeed on our part will save us from those wars which would have been produced by a conbeen adopted which our legislature were at one time proposing [in 1791], we should at this moment have been standing on such an eminence of safety and respect as ages can never recover”. 32   “Report on Commerce”, Boyd XVII, p. 577.

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trary disposition. But how to prevent those produced by the wrongs of other nations? By putting ourselves in a condition to punish them. Weakness provokes insult and injury, while a condition to punish it often prevents it. This reasoning leads to the necessity of some naval force, that being the only weapon with which we can reach an enemy. I think it to our interests to punish the first insult: because an insult unpunished is the parent of many others. We are not at this moment in a condition to do it, but we should put ourselves into it as soon as possible.

Jefferson’s reluctance to endorse a capital fleet during the naval debate of 1794 was more the exception than the norm of his strategic thinking.33 In his years of opposition in the 1790s Jefferson feared Federalist dominance of this institution due to their power in the Northeastern states that provided most of the country’s naval officers. After becoming commander-in-chief in 1801 Jefferson quickly reversed course and modernized naval facilities. His penchant for small gunboats rather than ships of the line has often been criticized as inefficient and timid; yet there was a strategic logic to this assumption.34 These maneuverable vessels excelled in close inshore combat in theaters such as the Mediterranean and Mississippi which is where they were intended to fight. Jefferson’s criticism of the strategic folly of Adams’ naval war with France in 1798-99 demonstrated his conviction that the United States should not risk direct confrontation with either France or Britain while it was militarily underdeveloped. Hence a lighter naval squadron was more useful to the type of localized operations Jefferson envisioned. Jefferson’s advocacy of neutrality mated well with the structural realities of the late eighteenth century international system and it was designed to maximize American diplomatic options. Rejecting isolationism as impossible and Hamilton’s call for an entente with Britain— and some Republican calls for a similar understanding with France—as shortsighted, Jefferson saw neutrality as a brilliant vehicle through which to increase the trade and consequently economic power of the state. He interpreted the international system as a two-tiered order and the policy of commercial retaliation was intended to increase American leverage in the Atlantic balance of power system. Given that this policy only worked when the actors in question relied heavily on American trade, Jefferson created a second track in dealings with weaker states 33  TJ to John Jay, August 23, 1785, Boyd VIII, pp. 426-7. On this point see Craig Symond, Navalists and Anti-Navalists, [Newark, DEL: 1980] and Stuart, Half-Way Pacifist. 34  See Spencer Tucker, The Jeffersonian Gunboat Navy, [Columbia: 1993].



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which violated American rights: that of the direct use of force. Believing that the United States should only risk war in cases where it was likely to prevail, Jefferson refused to champion a capital fleet equal to that of Britain or France but rather favored a more maneuverable force designed to challenge predators in the Mississippi Delta or the Mediterranean. In often-quoted philosophical extracts, Jefferson relentlessly attacked the prevailing culture of militarism in eighteenth-century statecraft. Like Adam Smith, he considered war a costly enterprise that diverted revenues that could be better spent on internal improvements. “Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which had been employed to persuade nations that it is their interest to go to war”, he argued in the Notes on Virginia.35 Yet these idealistic sentiments were not reflected in Jefferson’s practical political initiatives. His commitment to promoting, protecting, and expanding the economic power of the United States through its commerce led him to advocate taking decisive action—including trade wars as well as military measures—to secure this resource of American national wealth and power. Ethics and International Law Given his appreciation of power politics, it is ironic that Jefferson could, as Tucker and Hendrickson assert, seemingly imbue American policy with “a kind of sacred character” and arrogate to himself the status of absolute moral rectitude.36 Such rhetoric was, however, frequently a form a political posturing designed to shore up domestic political support among skeptical Republicans. Jefferson pledged faith to international agreements but, as Bradford Perkins noted, he consistently interpreted them in the manner that upheld preconceived American claims and security interests. His famous “Opinion on the French Treaty” of 1793 is an eloquent expression of this strategy. Washington solicited his opinion as to whether the 1778 Treaty with France was still valid following the French Revolution, and this report contains the most concise formulation of Jefferson’s theory of international law and morality, and leads interpreters such as Sears and Wolfers to conclude that he was a prototypical “Wilsonian” idealist. “The moral duties   Notes, pp. 174-5.  Perkins, Prologue to War, p. 39; Tucker and Hendrickson, p. 62.

35 36

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which exist between individual and individual in a state of nature”, Jefferson argued, accompany them into a state of society, and the aggregate of the duties of the individuals comprising the society constitutes the duties of that society towards any other, so that between society and society the same moral duties exist as did between the individuals composing them while in an unassociated state, their master not having released them from those duties in their forming themselves into a nation. Compacts then between nation and nation are obligatory on them by the same moral law which obliges individuals to observe their compacts.

In a more revealing 1789 letter on the same subject of France, Jefferson dismissed claims that ethics had no place in international relations: To say in excuse that gratitude is never to enter into the motives of national conduct, is to revive a principle which has been buried for centuries with its kindred principles of the lawfulness of assassination, poison, perjury, &c. All of these were legitimate principles in the dark ages...but exploded and held in just horror in the 18th century. I know but one code of morality for man whether acting singly or collectively. He who says I will be a rogue when I act in company with a hundred others but an honest man when I act alone, will be believed in the former assertion, but not in the latter...If the morality of one man produces a just line of conduct in him, acting individually, why should not the morality of 100 men produce a just line of conduct in them acting together?37

Yet despite these lofty sentiments Jefferson’s diplomatic correspondence did not echo this normative of international politics. His exhortations for an “ethical” approach to world politics were offered in the period 1789-1793, when relations with Europe were chaotic and passion for “republican virtue” in the United States was at its zenith. Moreover, they were constructed and presented with a specific motive in mind: Jefferson did not want to abrogate the 1778 Treaty, as he considered it politically absurd to alienate France when there was no compelling reason to do so—indeed, at a time when relations with Britain were at a low ebb. France was too valuable as a counterweight to Eng37   “Opinion on the Treaties with France”, April 28, 1793, Boyd XXV, p. 609; TJ to JM, August 28, 1789, Boyd XV, p. 367. Following the execution of Louis XVI, Hamilton had called the legality of the 1778 Alliance into question. He argued that since the Bourbons, with whom the Americans had signed the contract, were no longer ruling France, the compact was invalid. His objective was to end America’s formal relationship with France to open the possibility of the broader cooperation with Britain that he desired.



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land, and thus Jefferson so no logic in potentially crippling America’s international position simply to allow Hamilton a platform from which to denounce the French Revolution. To convince Washington of this he had to place legal and moral arguments at the service of a calculated political strategy, as he had in his report on the Bank in 1791. Thus in his essay on the Treaty he ridiculed Hamilton’s notion that by respecting the agreement America would expose itself to foreign “danger”: “It is not the possibility of danger, which absolves a party from his contract: for that possibility always exists, and in every case. It existed in the present one at the moment of making the contract. If possibilities would avoid contracts, there could never be a valid contract. For possibilities hang over every thing”. Compacts could not be suspended, he argued, till the danger is become real, and the moment of it so imminent, that we can no longer avoid decision without for ever losing the opportunity to do it. But can a danger which has not yet taken its shape, which does not yet exist, which cannot therefore be defined, can such a danger, I ask, be so imminent that if we fail to pronounce on it this moment we can never have another opportunity of doing it?38

Clearly the United States was in no such danger in 1793, Jefferson reasoned. He preferred to await developments before taking an extreme measure which might foreclose future options. Above all, he feared that suspending the accord might give “just cause of war to France”. In short, it was prudent to adhere to the status quo and keep the focus of American diplomacy on the broader dynamics of the Atlantic balance of power. The United States could always annul the treaty at a future date if necessary, but once rejected the agreement would be almost impossible to reconstruct if future circumstances warranted. Thus Jefferson’s invocation of Vattel and Pufendorf was designed to impress Washington with the gravity of the matter and deter him from following what he regarded as Hamilton’s less sophisticated advice.39 He used these philosophical authorities to justify a position he arrived 38   “Opinion”, p. 610. Jefferson’s emphasis. He based his argument on Vattel (see p. 614). This reasoning presages Michael Walzer’s definition of “supreme emergency”, the point at which normative restraint can be temporarily abandoned in the face of catastrophe. Just and Unjust Wars, [New York: 1977], p. 251-5. The sentence on the possibility of war with France is the last one of the report and it may be safely inferred that it was intended to resonate in Washington’s assessment of risk. p. 618. 39  Hamilton’s Report of May 2, 1793 is in Syrett XIV pp. 367-408. Ironically he quoted the same authorities Jefferson did but used them to reach the opposite conclusion. It should be remembered that both men were highly successful lawyers. The re-

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at purely from the perspective of the realities of international politics. Indeed, following the 1793 incident, one searches in vain in Jefferson’s correspondence for any coherent formulations of international ethics. He grotesquely perverted boundary conventions in the midst of the West Florida crisis of 1805-6, and tortured standard interpretations of international law to gain territorial advantages for the United States. Similarly the Embargo of 1807 was justified on legal grounds but it was certainly not a product of a juridical reading of world politics. We have seen that Metternich perceived a moral and legal limit to state behavior; Jefferson, despite Adrienne Koch’s best arguments to the contrary, did not.40 The only limit Jefferson acknowledged was the sensible one of prudence. While Metternich ceaselessly emphasized the “laws” of the “society” of Europe throughout his career, Jefferson flatly rejected a prescriptively normative reading of political affairs and instead based his policy on tangible interests. By his admission he dealt with the world as it was and never tried to “reform” the international system in accordance with “republican” principles. Such an enterprise, he argued, “would show us only to be maniacs”.41 A Review of Jefferson’s Theory of International Relations Jefferson’s conception of American foreign policy was anchored on the premise that the United States needed to secure and preserve its independence, export its products overseas, gain revenue from import duties, and finally to safeguard the main organs of the nation’s trade: the Mississippi, the North Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. These were mutually reinforcing policies and all led to the conclusion that commerce was a vital ingredient of the national security of the new republic, and that neutrality was the best means of stimulating commercial development. Here he quite naturally, and astutely, copied from European examples and experience. Trade led to the meteoric rise of the United Provinces, France, and Britain to world power status in the seventeenth century; why could it not have a similar salutary effect ports should be read together, as President Washington intended. Again, Hamilton had the benefit of seeing Jefferson’s draft before submitting his own. 40  See Adrienne Koch, Power, Morals, and the Founding Fathers: Essays in the Interpretation of the American Enlightenment, [Ithaca: 1967], p. 45. Note that she does not use examples to support this claim. 41  TJ to William Wirt, May 3, 1811, PTJRS, III, p. 603.



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on the United States? The essential security equation was deceptively simple: neutrality increased the reach of American commerce, commerce increased wealth, and wealth increased national power. This reading of foreign policy, far from being a novel experiment in “republican” ideas, was actually quite pedestrian in Europe by 1720. Leaders in both parties naturally differed as to be best means of achieving these objectives, and the vigorous debates and partisan cleavages of the 1790s were largely inspired by foreign policy disputes. Hamilton, taking a parsimonious view of American finances, asserted the classical structural realist position that weak states must compromise to the dictates of strong ones if they refuse to follow an isolationist policy. His attempts to seek an entente with Britain in 1790, 1793, and 1795 were directed towards achieving this goal. Similarly, many Republican leaders who rallied around Genet in 1793 took the same logic but chose France as the likely ally and protector of the United States. Both camps believed that the United States needed to choose between one of the powers dominating the bipolar order and obtain its protection. Jefferson regarded this policy as unsophisticated. Fearing that the United States would become a vassal of one or the other of the European states, Jefferson saw in neutrality an expedient means of creating a tripolar distribution of power and using it to America’s advantage. His arguments in defense of neutrality in 1793, and again throughout his Presidency, were based on the strategic idea that the United States provided economic advantages too vital for the Europeans to lose. This led him to criticize any direct alliance or war with the major European powers, as the United States could not compel the terms it desired by force. Threats, subtle intimidations, and intentional vagueness about American intentions were a far less costly means to achieve political goals, and neutrality served this end brilliantly. In regards to Jefferson’s passionate embrace of international law in 1793, it should not be forgotten that in the eighteenth century all governments, even the most autocratic of regimes such as Catherinian Russia, frequently cloaked diplomatic gambits in “enlightened” terms. Frederick II had his Foreign Minister concoct a legal claim to Silesia in 1740 only to exult that “it was the work of an excellent charlatan!” This, it should be remembered, from the author of the Anti-Machiavel.42 Catherine’s Armed Neutrality and her claims to the Crimea and Poland were all phrased in legalistic terms. British policymakers rou Dorn, p. 139.

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tinely used the Admiralty court system to skew maritime law in favor of the power of the Royal Navy. Similarly, Jefferson and Hamilton both manipulated Grotius and Vattel in their “Opinions” on the 1778 French Treaty in 1793 to suit their own political aims. The language of international law was often justificatory in both democratic and autocratic cultures, but its teachings were seldom prescriptive. In his masterly biography of Bismarck, Otto Pflanze notes that the essence of the German Chancellor’s genius in foreign policy was “his capacity to see manifold interconnections between political phenomena, not only their actual but also their potential links, that is, their mutual vulnerability to common manipulation”.43 This theoretical approach to international relations was essentially similar in Jefferson’s case, and he above all sought to retain a strategy of “parasitical” neutrality in a turbulent international environment. It is to those efforts we now turn to investigate the consistency of theory and practice in Jefferson’s conception of international relations.

43  Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, vol. 3, [Princeton: 1990], p. 97.

Chapter V Jefferson and the International System (2): The Balance of Power in Practice “The scene in Europe is becoming very interesting”, Jefferson, displaying his gift for understatement, observed in March 1793. The struggle between Britain and France, which would last almost a quarter century and eventually include the United States, began that spring and immediate placed a strain on the diplomacy of the new republic. Securing American political and economic interests during this world war was the primary task of Jefferson’s diplomacy in his years as Secretary of State and President. To accomplish this end Jefferson drew heavily upon commonplace eighteenth century balance of power theory as well as his “two-tiered” conception of the international system. This chapter will investigate his diplomatic contests with France and Spain over New Orleans and the West, Britain on the issue of neutral rights and impressment, and finally the “Barbary” states over seizures of American vessels in the Mediterranean. In all three cases Jefferson demonstrated a marked consistency in advancing the interests of the United States in a manner congruent with European reason of state.



 TJ to C.W.F. Dumas, March 24, 1793, Boyd XXV, p. 439.

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The Workings of the Balance of Power (1): Securing the Mississippi Trade: Louisiana and the Floridas, 1801-1806 Protecting American commerce on the Mississippi was one of the most vexing problems facing the United States in after the Revolution. Jefferson and other southern elites had supported the independence partly to open the West for settlement, and the river was the primary artery of trade for these territories and provided the means by which settlers brought their furs, produce, and liquor to market. A cardinal objective of early American diplomacy was to gain control of the territory surrounding the river and to acquire the strategic port of New Orleans. Even before the 1783 Treaty formally ceded this region to Spain, the American government sought to limit European control of one of its most vital commercial routes. Upon investigating the matter in 1780, Benjamin Franklin observed to John Jay that: The very proposition [of yielding to Spanish control of the Mississippi] can only give disgust at present. Poor as we are, yet, as I know we shall be rich, I would rather agree with them to buy at great price the whole of their right on the Mississippi than to sell a drop of its waters. A neighbour might as well ask me to sell my street door.

Jefferson devoted considerable attention to the Mississippi question after becoming Secretary of State in 1790, and was convinced that Spain presented only a minimal threat to the growing United States. He was fond of repeating Montesquieu’s assertion that Spain and Turkey were useful actors in world politics as they were capable of holding empires with “utter insignificance”. The territories of the West, therefore, “could not be in better hands”. Jefferson reasoned that the continuous westward expansion along the Mississippi would soon render American control of the region a fait accompli, and agreed with Madison’s view that Spain “can no more finally stop the current of trade down the river than she can the river itself”. Nevertheless, the Jay-Gar  Franklin to Jay, October 2, 1780, cited in Van Doren, Franklin, p. 621. TJ to Archibald Stuart, January 25, 1786, Boyd IX, p. 218. England and France, or course, were other matters. Hence in 1790, when it was feared that Britain might seize the provinces from Spain, Jefferson ugently noted to Washington that “I am so deeply impressed with the magnitude of the dangers which will attend our government if Louisiana and the Floridas be added to the British empire, that in my opinion we ought to make ourselves parties in the general war expected to take place, should this be the only means of preventing this calamity”. TJ to GW, August 27, 1790, Boyd XVII, p. 129. Emphasis Jefferson’s.



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doqui Treaty of 1786, although never ratified by Congress, raised ominous portents of a suspension of the right of deposit at New Orleans. Jefferson feared the potential of a foreign power disrupting western commerce and, after 1786, was convinced that the only way to safely insure transit of the river was to place it under American control. “The navigation of the Mississippi we must have”, he declared upon hearing of the Jay-Gardoqui negotiations. Politics was also an important element of Jefferson’s Mississippi policy. The settlers of the region were, on the whole, loyal Republicans and were among his most faithful constituents, and thus Jefferson perceived it to be in his political interests, as well as the interests of the Southern agricultural economy, to champion the cause of the frontiersmen. The Federalists, having no direct political or economic stake in the region, were less concerned about its dispensation, although statesmen such as Adams and Hamilton were eager to assert American sovereignty over the territory as long as it did not precipitate a rupture with London. As Secretary of State in a Federalist administration, Jefferson was not in a position to carry out his more ambitious western policies. His important “Outline of Policy on the Mississippi Question” of August 1790 proposed a “natural” American title to the river given the volume of American trade in the West. Nevertheless Jefferson realized that his case for a legal title to the region was extremely weak, although it was a useful means of ornamenting an essentially acquisitive policy. In his more ambitious Report on Negotiations with Spain in 1792 he flatly asserted that in respect to the navigation of the river, “it is a principle that the right to a thing gives a right to the means without which it could not be used. That is to say, that the means follow their end”. The logical extension of Jefferson’s reasoning was that the United States, and not Spain, should exclusively control the Mississippi and its   JM to TJ, August 20, 1784, Boyd VII, p. 403; TJ to Archibald Stuart, January 25, 1786, Boyd IX, p. 218.    “Outline of Policy on the Mississippi Question”, August 2, 1790, Boyd XVII, p. 113; “Report on Negotiations with Spain”, March 18, 1792, Boyd XXIII, pp. 299; 303. He claimed that “this principle is founded in natural reason, is evidenced by the common sense of mankind, and declared by the authors before quoted”. He then cited selections from Vattel, Pufendorf, and Grotius to support his case. Yet distilled to its fundamentals, Jefferson’s argument was that whenever the United States had a vital interest in a territory, it was “natural” that it should possess it: Compare this to the enlightened proceedings of the Committee on Rivers and Navigation at the Congress of Vienna, which asserted that certain waterways should be open to trade as they were vital to the economic health of all European states.

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commerce. “The use of the Mississippi [is] so indispensable, that we cannot hesitate one moment to hazard our existence for its maintenance”, he argued later. Economic and political calculations convinced Jefferson that it was imperative that the new republic secure its trade routes and place them beyond the reach of “accident”. Thus a sophisticated strategic design and not an ambiguous “ethos of expansionism” motivated Jefferson’s western policy. As he observed to DuPont de Nemours, “The occlusion of the Mississippi is a state of things in which we cannot exist...Whatever power, other than ourselves, holds the country east of the Mississippi becomes our natural enemy”. In such concise and cold-blooded reasoning Jefferson outlined the motivation of his Mississippi policy. How did he attempt to implement it? 1.  The Louisiana Purchase and the Balance of Power Having drafted the basic contours of his Mississippi policy in the 1780s and 1790s, Jefferson in 1801 was in a position to begin the diplomatic maneuvering which would eventually achieve these objectives. World politics had undergone a dramatic change since Jefferson’s Second Report on the Mississippi in 1792. The United States had, by 1800, absorbed most of the commerce of the province of Louisiana, and Jefferson began to view the increasing population of the territory as a sign that the province—like a “ripe fruit”—would soon fall into American hands. Spain, drained by the war in Europe, was becoming increasingly aware that the territory was, in A.P. Whitaker’s phrase, a “square peg in the round hole” of its diplomacy. On October 1, 1800, in the treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain ceded the province to France. Jefferson was alarmed at the prospect of a French occupation of the territory. “It completely reverses all the political relations of the U.S.   TJ to DuPont de Nemours, February 1, 1803, Malone, Correspondence, pp. 74-76; see DeConde, Louisiana, pp. ix-x for his argument that Jefferson’s western policy was “a kind of pious imperialism”.   DeConde, Louisiana, p. 73; 115; 49. Arthur Preston Whitaker, The Mississippi Question, 1795-1803, [New York: 1934], p. 181. October 1, 1800 was also the date the United States and France signed the Convention of Mortfontaine. The motives for Napoleon’s decision to acquire Louisiana have been well-documented: see DeConde, Louisiana; Tucker and Hendrickson, part II; Malone IV, chs. 14-19; Adams, History, I, chs. 14-17; II, chs. 1-6; Kaplan, Entangling Alliances, chs. 7-8; Mary P. Adams, “Jefferson’s Reaction to the Treaty of San Ildefonso”, Journal of Southern History, [21(1955): 17388]; E. Wilson Lyon, Lousiana in French Diplomacy, 1759-1804, [Norman, OK: 1934].



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and will form a new epoch in our political course”, he informed Robert Livingston, American Minister to France, in 1802. Whereas France had been the nation which “has offered us the fewest points on which we could have any conflict of right”, its interposition on this strategic artery of the United States abruptly altered France’s status in the Atlantic balance of power. Jefferson was determined to protect the trade of the Mississippi and was perfectly willing to challenge America’s old “natural friend” if doing so was the best means of defending American interests. He laid out his strategic reasoning with remarkable lucidity to Livingston: There is on the globe a single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of threeeighths of our territory must pass to market, and from its fertility it will ere long yield more than half our whole produce and contain more than half our inhabitants. France placing herself in that door assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that her possession of the place would hardly be felt by us, and it would not perhaps be long before some circumstance might arise which might make the cession of it to us the price of something of more worth to her. Not so can it ever be in the hands of France. The impetuousity of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, placed in a point of eternal friction with us...These circumstances render it impossible that France and the U.S. can continue long friends when they meet in so irritable a position.

This clear-sighted appraisal represents a cogent summary of Jefferson’s sophisticated use of power politics: the United States would combine with whatever power would best advance its interests in the West, and oppose whatever power impeded them. Upon learning of the cession of the territory to France, Jefferson embarked on a two-tracked strategy which he hoped would defuse potential threats to American interests in the West. First, he instructed his ministers in Europe to inquire as to the details of the San Ildefonso agreement and discern Napoleon’s intentions. Specifically, Jefferson was interested in learning whether the French Emperor might be willing to sell New Orleans and its environs to the United States. Secondly, he made military preparations in the event of a French landing and ordered a military reconnaissance of the region. These “vigor

 TJ to Robert Livingston, April 18, 1802, Ford IX, pp. 364-365.

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ous” measures were, as Mary Adams notes, designed to enhance American capabilities in the west and to impress the French with the seriousness with which Jefferson viewed the San Ildefonso agreement. In early 1802 it was clear that the French intended to occupy New Orleans. Jefferson was concerned that the French would suspend the American right to deposit goods at New Orleans, or charge exorbitant duties on American products. Nevertheless Jefferson was aware that before his preparations were completed he could not unilaterally compel France to terms: it would be necessary to take advantage of the dynamics of the Atlantic balance of power and invoke the possibility of British intervention to accomplish this objective. With the Royal Navy on America’s side, it was unlikely that the French could reinforce or resupply the province. Jefferson flatly warned DuPont deNemours on April 25, 1802 that French interference with American shipping “will cost France, & perhaps not very long hence, a war which will annihilate her on the ocean, and place that element under the despotism of two nations, which I am not reconciled to the more because my own would be one of them”. He had been even more explicit in his letter to Livingston one week earlier, in which he argued that The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever in her low-water mark. It seals the union of two nations who in conjunction can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. We must turn all our attentions to a maritime force...and having formed and cemented a power which may render reinforcement of her settlements here impossible to France, make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purpose of the united British and American nations.   This reconnaissance became known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which was originally intended as a military venture and assumed its scientific purpose as the “Corps of Discovery” only after the crisis with France ended with the Purchase in 1803. See Adams, “San Ildefonso”, for Jefferson’s military preparations.   DeConde argues that Jefferson considered “any attempt to land troops a cause for war”. [Louisiana, p. 115] Tucker and Hendrickson disagree, and conclude that “it was not the appearance of French forces in New Orleans that formed the casus belli for the administration, but the denial of the free navigation of the Mississippi”. [p. 120. See their criticism of DeConde’s argument on p. 293, n. 79]. Tucker and Hendrickson are technically correct, as Jefferson did not have the strength to repel a French landing and would have been extremely reluctant to do so and foreclose a negotiated settlement later. If the river were actually closed he certainly would have fought to reopen it.



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There are few more eloquent testaments to Jefferson’s understanding of balance of power politics than this poignant commentary to Livingston.10 The proposed English Alliance of 1802 remains one of the most controversial aspects of Jefferson’s diplomacy. Madison, whose own instructions to Livingston were far more moderate, was sufficiently surprised by Jefferson’s draft to write his own letter of explanation to the confused envoy. However, Madison’s letter did little more than emphasize the difference between his and Jefferson’s instructions, something Livingston no doubt could have seen for himself.11 Whether or not this was part of a calculated stratagem on the part of the American government to confuse the French or whether Jefferson was simply thinking several stages ahead of Madison at this point is debatable. Tucker and Hendrickson argue that Jefferson was merely bluffing to Livingston in the hope that the French, upon learning of the proposal through DuPont de Nemours, would back down.12 It seems logical to conclude, however, that Jefferson’s threat of an alliance with England, or at least to seek one, was serious. He correctly reasoned that Britain had no interest in Louisiana except to “keep the French out”.13 In the event of a European war, which Jefferson had an interest in by mid-1802, it would be possible for the Royal Navy to intercept French shipping and reinforcements to North America, as it had in the Seven Years’ War. In return, London would likely have demanded tougher American restrictions on French commercial interests, the cooperation of the American Navy, and, most likely, American endorsement of the Rule of 1756. Jefferson, it seems, would have been willing to accept the first two conditions but not the last. In practice, this concession would have been tantamount to another Jay Treaty, which he could never endorse for political reasons, and which would have challenged his whole system of diplomacy. It appears that 10  TJ to DuPont deNemours, April 25, 1802, Malone, Correspondence, p. 47; TJ to Livingston, April 18, 1802, Ford IX, pp. 365-366. 11  JM to Robert Livingston, May 1, 1802, PJMSS III, pp. 177-178. He wrote that “I have thought it best however not to go as far into certain views of the subject as he [Jefferson] has done, because they are in fact more proper for a private than public letter & because also it is impossible to strengthen what he has said...I drop this line merely to explain the variance between the Prsdts. private & my public letter”. 12  Tucker and Hendrickson, pp. 111-116. Jefferson entrusted DuPont deNemours to carry the letter to Livingston in Paris personally. He noted in his letter to DuPont de Nemours of April 25 that he left the Livingston letter “open for your perusal” while he travelled across the Atlantic. Malone, Correspondence, p. 46. 13  DeConde, Louisiana, p. 173.

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only if the crisis with France became truly desperate would Jefferson have employed his British gambit. Although he acknowledged that a union with Britain “is not a state of things which we seek or desire, it is one which this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us, as necessarily as any other cause, by the laws of nature, brings on its necessary effect”.14 Interestingly, he alluded to the Atlantic balance of power in the mechanistic language of “natural” action and reaction. In political terms, the enemy of Jefferson’s enemy became, albeit reluctantly, his friend. This reasoning is evocative of traditional eighteenth century reason of state. Jefferson was determined to maintain American independence in the international system, but if the only way to accomplish his goal was to make a pact with the British devil, then so be it. His eye was always on the broader strategic aspects of the Louisiana issue: commerce and the right of deposit. The means he used to assert American control over the Mississippi were of less concern to him than the ultimate objective. Though he was unwilling to bring on a general European war over the issue, if one were to arise he would take full advantage of it. A continental war would divert Napoleon’s attentions from America and make an Anglo-American coalition against the French in North America workable. Any doubts about his intentions are removed by a private letter to Horatio Gates of July 11, 1803, in which he stated that “we could not say when war would arise, yet we said with energy what would take place when it should arise”.15 Fortunately for Jefferson the English alliance was never needed. The resumption of war in early 1803, coupled with the deaths of thousands of French troops on Santo Domingo, where they had debarked en route to New Orleans to suppress a slave rebellion, made Napoleon’s plans for empire a chimera, and led him to decide that it was in his interest to sell the province to the United States. The extent to which Jefferson’s bellicosity had a direct influence on Napoleon’s decision is debated, but it is certainly clear that the Emperor had no desire to relive Louis XV’s misfortune of fighting a transcontinental war against a combined Anglo-American force and in the face of guerilla-style attacks on his garrison forces. DuPont de Nemours objected to Jefferson’s militaristic tactics, and warned the President that “To say ‘Give us this country; if you do not we will take it’ is not at all persuasive”. But even he must have been influenced by the tone if not the substance of the Livingston  TJ to Robert Livingston, April 18, 1802, Ford IX, p. 366.  TJ to Horatio Gates, July 11, 1803, Ford X, p. 13.

14 15



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letter, as he suggested a possible sale of New Orleans if the price was right.16 The terms of the agreement, under which the United States acquired the entire province of Louisiana for fifteen million dollars, are well known and need not be summarized here. Jefferson timed the public announcement of the Purchase to coincide with Independence Day, 1803, and it was, without question, his greatest political coup. He had successfully studied, manipulated, and exploited the Atlantic balance of power to his advantage. His end—securing the commerce of the Mississippi—was fixed and he designed a multifaceted plan to increase America’s bargaining power with the French. He was not motivated by theories of peaceable coercion or international law, but was willing to wage war or seriously threaten it to acquire a strategic territory. Even Madison was surprised at the alacrity with which Jefferson reversed decades of hostility to England in order to force Napoleon’s hand. In Jefferson’s view, the Louisiana issue was but one component of the larger European conflict and he owed his success in large part to his ability to examine the broader strategic dimensions of world politics and foresee the consequences of a resumption of the Anglo-French war. As he coyly observed to Gates in a postscript on the Purchase, “We did not, by our intrigues, produce the war: but we availed ourselves of it when it happened”.17 2.  The Floridas and the Balance of Power There was only one small problem with the Louisiana Purchase: Jefferson had bought the wrong real estate, and too much of it. His original goal was to acquire New Orleans and the narrow strip of land known as West Florida, which extended to the Perdido River. Through the deal with France he had gained the first but not the second. The West Florida territory controlled the sea approach to New Orleans and contained the strategic port of Mobile Bay. When he began his quest to obtain Louisiana late in 1801, Jefferson believed that the province was includ Jefferson did his best to make life for the French on Santo Domingo miserable. He secretly funneled American arms to the blacks fighting the French, an ironic policy indeed for a southern slave-owner. But the real cause of the French setbacks on the island was due to malaria and yellow fever. See Carl Lokke, “Jefferson and the Leclerc Expedition”, American Historical Review, [33(1928): 322-8] for an overview of Jefferson’s covert operations against the French. DuPont deNemours to TJ, April 30, 1802, Malone, Correspondence, p. 59. 17  TJ to Horatio Gates, July 11, 1803, Ford X, p. 13. 16

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ed in the San Ildefonso cession to France. However, Spain had administered this territory as a distinct entity and thus it was not subsumed under the terms of the 1800 treaty. The Spanish minister to the United States, Count Yrujo, made this emphatically clear to Jefferson and Madison, and by June 1803 both were aware that the Floridas were outside the legal boundaries of Louisiana. Even Hamilton, much to Jefferson’s annoyance, publicly declared this fact the day after the Purchase was announced. “It may be relied on”, he wrote in The New York Evening Post, “that no part of the Floridas, not a foot of land east of the Mississippi, excepting New Orleans, falls within the present cession”.18 Jefferson was not to be deterred by legal niceties. He drafted a memorandum on Spetember 7, 1803, in which he attempted to make a legal claim for American control of West Florida. He based his argument on a sweeping interpretation of the Treaties of 1763 and 1783, and asserted that the purpose of the San Ildefonso agreement was to “restore France & Spain to the status quo prior to the War of 1755-1763”. This, of course, overlooked the explicit provision in the 1783 Treaty under which Spain retained West Florida as an “integral” territory. Jefferson, with customary agility, interpreted dates and treaties in the manner best suited to projecting American power in the Southwest. By “stretching boundaries as though they were made of rubber”, as DeConde notes, Jefferson clearly demonstrated his commitment to a policy based on interests and not the finer points of treaty clauses. West Florida was vital to his strategic design in the Southwest, and he was willing to construe statutes in any manner that best suited American claims, and dismissed competing interpretations as unfounded. By doing so, as 18  Much of the early confusion on the subject was the result of Talleyrand’s intrigues. During the Louisiana negotiations the French had coyly indicated to Monroe and Livingston that the Floridas may have been included in the deal. The exact outline of the territory was ambiguous, and the envoys were dismayed by the reluctance of the French to produce a definitive map or to detail the provisions of the San Ildefonso accord. Napoleon realized that after New Orleans, West Florida was Jefferson’s primary objective. His intention was to involve the United States in a long and complex negotiation with Spain through the good offices of Paris. Napoleon could thus manipulate the balance of power against Jefferson in the same manner that the President had recently used it against him. Upon learning of the Purchase agreement, Napoleon inquired into the exact boundaries and observed that “if an obscurity [does] not exist, perhaps it would be good policy to put it there”. When Monroe and Livingston pointedly asked Talleyrand about the dispensation of the Floridas, the Foreign Minister slyly noted that “You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will make the most of it”. However, Spanish officials quickly cleared up the legalities of the West Florida situation and by the time the Purchase was accomplished it was clear that this territory was not included. [Malone IV, pp. 303-309] Hamilton’s essay appeared on July 5, 1803. Adair, “Hamilton on the Louisiana Purchase”, p. 276.



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Malone notes, he was “perpetuating a rationalization”, and executing a ruthlessly selfish policy at odds with the enlightened statecraft he professedly embraced.19 Jefferson’s designs for West Florida were longstanding. He was convinced that the territory was “rightfully” American as the expanding population of the United States would inevitably overwhelm the poorly funded Spanish colonial administration. In 1791, upon learning that the Spanish were inviting Americans to settle in the Floridas as a means of increasing the low population of their territories, Jefferson was ecstatic. He cynically noted to Washington that I wish a hundred thousand of our inhabitants would accept the invitation. It will be a means of delivering to us peaceably, what might otherwise cost us a war. In the mean time we may complain of this seduction of our inhabitants just enough to make them believe we think it very wise policy for them, and confirm them in it. This is my idea of it.20

By 1803 Americans constituted a majority of the population of Spanish West Florida, and Jefferson argued that Spain could not long maintain control over the region given this steady influx of Americans. In the Napoleonic Wars the vulnerability of the Floridas was underscored, as Spain’s sea lanes to the territory were in constant jeopardy, and Madrid did not have sufficient resources to fortify the colonial government or reinforce its garrison. During this conflict Spain, in Whitaker’s phrase, “trusted to God to protect its border provinces and assisted Him as best it could through the Foreign Office”.21 By 1803 however, it was clear that Providence was no longer intervening on Spain’s behalf. Following the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson was prepared to take advantage of Spain’s weakness. He instructed Monroe to make it plain to the Spanish Government what he was sure they already knew: that West Florida was of little value to them now that the United States had acquired Louisiana from their ally France. Monroe made it brutally clear that the United States considered the province to be rightfully American and that Spain should peaceably accede to Washington’s de19   “An Examination of the Boundaries of Louisiana”, September 7, 1803, in Documents Relating to the Purchase and Exploration of Louisiana, published by the American Philosophical Society. [Boston and New York: 1904], p. 39; DeConde, Louisiana, p. 213; Malone IV, p. 347. 20  TJ to GW, April 2, 1791, Boyd XX, p. 97. 21  Isaac Cox, The West Florida Controversy, 1798-1813, [Baltimore: 1918], p. 250; Whitaker, Mississippi Question, p. 179.

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mands as “her government must know that at no distant period we should acquire [West Florida], the United States being a rising and Spain a declining power”. Jefferson saw no reason to offer compensation for the territory since it was “by Treaty”—that is, by his interpretation of treaties—American property. Since Spain was impotent, there was no reason to be flexible in accommodating its wishes. “We scarcely expect any liberal or just settlement with Spain”, he observed to Monroe in early 1804.22 In the President’s view, there was little that Spain could do in the face of greater American power. In the case of West Florida, he acted on the principle that might was literally equal to right. The Spanish, of course, saw things differently. They wanted to retain the province as a point of national honor and as a means of gaining revenue from import duties at the port of Mobile. In Madrid’s calculations, West Florida was a useful bargaining chip that could be traded for a more important European principality. Spain was prepared to, and did, seek protection from its ally France. Napoleon, plagued by the war in Europe, no longer saw it in his interest for the United States to overrun his ally’s territory and remove all possibility of a French or Spanish claim in North America. At a minimum, Napoleon and Spanish Foreign Minister Godoy wanted “just and liberal compensation” from the United States for the Floridas which they could use to finance their European war. Jefferson rejected this suggestion which he had been so prepared to accept in the case of Louisiana. His ingenious counterproposal was that West Florida would be fair compensation for depredations committed by Spain against American shipping since 1800. The United States, he argued, should “instantly seize on the Floridas as reprisal for the spoliations denied us, and, that if by a given day they are paid to us, we will restore all east of the Perdido, & and hold the rest subject to amicable decision”.23 Of course, “amicable decision” meant American control of West Florida. Jefferson left little doubt that once the territory was in American hands it would never be returned to Spain. Moreover, under Jefferson’s Machiavellian scheme, Spain would, in effect, be buying East Florida—its legitimate property—back from the United States, and probably at significant cost. Jefferson was unwilling to simply purchase the Floridas outright because by doing so he would undermine his creative fiction that America  Monroe, cited in DeConde, Louisiana, p. 215; TJ to Monroe, January 8, 1804, Ford X, p. 63. 23  TJ to JM, September 1, 1807, Ford X, p. 489. 22



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already owned them. Until 1806 he was committed to not offering a penny for territory he officially considered to be American soil. If he acknowledged that Spain legitimately held title to the land, he would undercut his negotiating position and enable Madrid to set a higher price for the province. Yet by 1806 this chimera could not be maintained in light of French, Spanish, and British ridicule of America’s legal position: if Jefferson wanted the provinces he would have to pay for them, or at least provide the French some incentive to intercede in Madrid on his behalf. Congress, after much intriguing on Jefferson’s part, passed a two million dollar appropriation for “extraordinary expenses” in early 1806. Jefferson intended to use this money as an enticement to Napoleon to persuade his Spanish ally to cede the province. Although this policy was highly unethical, Jefferson saw this as a clever means of attaining his objective. In a commentary to Madison on the appropriation, he casually noted that “we need not care who gets that” and flatly admitted that the money was “bait to France”. Thus Jefferson was willing, at bottom, to employ “sordid bribery” to obtain West Florida.24 The opposition to the Two Million Dollar Act, the real purpose of which was no secret in Congress, was vehement. Speaking on the House floor on April 5, 1806, John Randolph attacked the duplicitous nature of Jefferson’s policy and claimed that “I consider it a base prostration of the national character to excite one nation by money to bully another nation out of its property”.25 This, of course, was precisely what Jefferson intended to do. However, Napoleon considered the sum too small for the purposes it intended and urged his ally to hold out for better terms. Characteristically, Jefferson employed sticks as well as carrots in his Florida diplomacy. If bribery did not work, then perhaps blatant intimidation would. Jefferson realized that the military balance in North America favored the United States. The military preparations he had begun for use against the French could also be used against the small Spanish garrison in West Florida. America, he reasoned, could seize the territory at will with its superior military force. Madison expressed this view with brutal candor to Charles Pinkney, American Minister to Spain: S[pain] dreads, it is presumed, the growing power of this country, and the direction of it against her possessions within its reach. Can she annihilate this power?—No. Can she sensibly retard its growth?—No. Does not  TJ to JM, October 23, 1805, Ford X, p. 177; Cox, Florida Controversy, p. 663.  Cited in DeConde, Louisiana, p. 227.

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common prudence then advise her, to conciliate with every proof of friendship and confidence the good will of a nation whose power is formidable to her; instead of yielding to the impulses of jealousy, and adopting obnoxious precautions, which can have no other effect than to bring on prematurely the whole weight of the Calamity which she fears. Reflections such as these may perhaps enter with some advantage into your communications with the Spanish Government, and as far as they may be invited by favorable occasions, you will make that use of them.26

Few references to “republicanism”, or any other normative reading of the international system, are evident in this astringent syllogism of power. Nevertheless Jefferson was reluctant to launch a war against Spain for fear of becoming embroiled in the European war. He was not above playing the English gambit again, and hinted in late 1805 that America might be forced to cooperate with Britain if France and Spain did not deliver the Floridas. But this threat, having been used three years before, was an old one by that date and was not taken seriously by any of the European powers or, it seems, by Jefferson himself. Historians have long argued that Jefferson should simply have seized the territory after 1803 and avoided all of the quasi-legal financial and political arrangements which entangled him in the “Florida thicket”. By this reasoning, a traditional war for territorial acquisition would have been less embarrassing than the sordid means Jefferson used to avoid one. Monroe and Pinkney both urged this course of action in 1806, as both were convinced that after Trafalgar neither France nor Spain could have effectively resisted an American occupation. Malone agrees with this reasoning and concludes that Jefferson “would have run relatively little risk and have saved much later trouble if he had followed the recommendation of his representatives abroad that he employ force at this juncture”.27 However, Jefferson believed that war was neither necessary nor prudent in 1805-1806. He was convinced that the United States could still obtain the territories without hostilities: if America escalated diplomatic pressure on France and Spain and pushed its claims “strongly with one hand, holding out a price in the other, we shall certainly obtain the Floridas, and all in good time”, he argued to Breckenridge as early as  JM to Charles Pinckney, October 12, 1803, Hunt, Writings, VII, p. 74.  See Perkins, First Rapprochement, pp. 176-177. After Trafalgar the British had less need of an American alliance, a fact that began to slowly dawn on Jefferson by 1806 and which was readily clear by 1807. Clifford Egan, “The United States, France, and West Florida, 1803-1807”, Florida Historical Quarterly, [47(1968-69):227-52], p. 242. Malone V, p. 55. 26 27



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1803. He was equally sanguine up to the time of the Two Million Dollar Act. Since Spanish authority was destined to collapse under the weight of American advances into the territory, it would be imprudent for America to risk the fortunes of a war, albeit a limited one. Such a conflict “would be a mere destruction of human life”, he wrote General James Wilkinson, “without affecting in the smallest degree the settlement, or its conditions”.28 Moreover, a war for West Florida would be politically undesirable. Although Southerners applauded Jefferson’s saber-rattling, there was little national support for a war over a small strip of marshland of interest only to frontier settlers. As Gallatin later noted to Monroe, “On the subject of Florida, I have always differed in opinion with you...[the object of acquiring the Floridas] is a Southern one, and will, if it should involve us in a war with Spain, disgust every man north of Washington”.29 After doubling the size of the nation without firing a shot in 1803, Jefferson was unwilling to squander his political capital on what might prove to a costly war simply to round off the original Purchase. Jefferson was prepared, however, to threaten war and frequently did so as a means of forcing the Spanish to reassess their position. Either way, he reasoned, the outcome would be the same.30 However, Jefferson lost the opportunity to acquire the Floridas during his second term. He played for time, but the fortunes of the European war soon brought the maritime dispute with England to the fore of American diplomacy and relegated the Floridas to a lesser status. Although West Florida was occupied by American forces in 1810-13, the peninsula would not be formally ceded to the United States until 1819. Jefferson’s West Florida policy was, as Tucker and Hendrickson reluctantly assert, based on the “most traditional Realpolitik”. After the United States acquired Louisiana, Jefferson was convinced that Madrid 28  TJ to John C. Breckenridge, August 12, 1803, Ford X p. 5; TJ to Gen. James Wilkinson, November 8, 1806, JPLC: Reel 59. 29  AG to Monroe, May 2, 1813, cited in Walters, Gallatin, pp. 260-261. 30  Thus in his Fifth Annual Message to Congress in 1805 he argued that “We ought still to hope that time & a more correct estimate, of interests as well as character, will produce the justice which we are bound to expect. But should any nation deceive itself by false calculations and disappoint that expectation, we must join in the unprofitable contest of trying which party can do the other most harm. Some of the injuries may perhaps admit a peaceable remedy. But some of them are of a nature to be met with force only, & all of them may lead to it”. December 3, 1805, Ford X, p. 120. This public message was written for the benefit of Yrujo, the Spanish Minister. Jefferson argued to Madison on September 18, 1805, that it was important to become aggressive with Spain as “it would correct the dangerous error that we are a people whom no injuries can provoke to war”. TJ to JM, September 18, 1805, cited in Adams, History III, p. 72.

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would realize that it was in their interest to cede the territory to America peacefully. Meeting Spanish reluctance, he used intimidation, bribery, and distorted interpretations of treaties to achieve his objective, and followed the standard European practice of warping international law and treaties to accommodate a strategic objective, as Frederick II had in Silesia in 1740 or Joseph II in Bavaria in 1778-1780. Thus Isaac Cox concluded his study of the matter with the observation that Jefferson’s Florida policy was the “most tortuous, mismanaged, and indefensible in our diplomatic history”. It was all the more so as Jefferson claimed that his statecraft was based on “enlightened” conceptions of international law.31 On the contrary, Jefferson predicated his Florida strategy entirely upon calculations of power. He realized that his legal claims to the territory were groundless, but did not let that stop him from attempting to extort the province from Spain. In his view, the vacuum left by declining Spanish power in America would “naturally” be filled by the expanding United States. At no other moment was Jefferson’s thinking on the Atlantic balance of power this mechanistic or deterministic. The United States would await the moment of Spain’s greatest vulnerability and then acquire the territory by purchase, force, or combination with European states. Few European diplomats of the period could have exceeded Jefferson’s grasp of the equation of power in the American continent. His ultimate failure to achieve the Floridas in 1805-1806 was not the result of an idealistic commitment to peace but rather the sudden reemergence of the Anglo-American commercial dispute in 1806. In sum, Jefferson conceived and executed his western policy in the style of traditional reason of state. He was ruthless, combative, duplicitous, and predatory in his dealings over Louisiana and the Floridas, and at no time was his statecraft informed by idealistic pretensions or moral imperatives. His ambition was to secure the commerce of the Mississippi and he was willing to negotiate with whatever power could best help him achieve this objective. Tactically, Jefferson remained abreast of European developments and kept all diplomatic options open. In the case of Louisiana he was able to convince Napoleon that it was in his interest to sell the territory, a conclusion which the French Emperor was slowly arriving at on his own. If this strategy had failed and the French managed to assert their sovereignty over the commerce of the 31  Tucker and Hendrickson, p. 94; Isaac Cox, “The American Intervention in West Florida”, American Historical Review, [17(1919): 290-311], pp. 310-311.



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Mississippi Valley, he was prepared to use force against their garrison in New Orleans. This would have required an alliance with Britain to choke the French sea lanes to North America, and Jefferson’s equanimity in discussing this prospect to Livingston indicates he would have pursued this course had it been his only remaining option. Jefferson was convinced that the Spanish would recognize their inferiority in the face of American power and quickly cede their colony to the United States. Hence to actively intervene in Great Power diplomacy—as he had over Louisiana—was unnecessary. When Spain did not fold under American pressure and found support in Paris instead, Jefferson’s bluff had been called. He used the Two Million Dollar Act as an incentive to France and rattled the saber against Spain, but the balance of power had shifted from 1803 to 1806. The threat of the British alliance was not as credible after Trafalgar, and an outright seizure of the territory would have caused political controversy at home. Thus Jefferson adhered to his carrots-and-sticks policy in the hope of profiting from a French and Spanish reversal of fortune. Whether this policy would have been successful had the Chesapeake affair of 1807 not suddenly interrupted it is, of course, conjectural. It is clear, however, that he was unwilling to involve the United States in a potentially costly war to attain what he believed could be had by patience and diplomatic skill. The Florida episode, therefore, may be most accurately interpreted as an extension of the Louisiana strategy of 1801-1803. In both cases he pursued the same basic objective: protecting vital commercial arteries along the Gulf of Mexico. Yet the issue of the western territories was only one aspect of Jefferson’s diplomatic design for the United States, and only one part of the Atlantic balance of power. The maritime dispute with England, which had existed since the Revolution and intruded again into American politics in 1806-1807, led him to once more manipulate this “triangular diplomacy” to his advantage. The Workings of the Balance of Power (2): The Embargo and the Struggle Against Britain, 1807-1809 The Embargo has long been considered the most inexplicable aspect of Jefferson’s statecraft. Originally intended as a temporary measure designed to protect American shipping, it became transformed into a strategy of commercial warfare designed to impress Britain with America’s economic power as well as compel it to respect American neutral

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rights.32 Both policies were consistent with Jefferson’s approach to international relations, and represented an extension of his thinking of the “first tier” of the Atlantic balance of power. Nevertheless, what Washington Irving called “the paper war” eventually overshadowed the impressive gains of Jefferson’s western diplomacy and created grave rifts in the Anglo-American relationship which would culminate in the War of 1812.33 The Embargo has been analyzed from several theoretical perspectives. Writing in the 1920s, Louis Sears argued that the policy “was a test on a magnificent scale of a theory of international law long maturing in the President’s mind [intended to] curb the international anarchy which accompanied the rise of modern states”. Leonard Levy agrees that the Embargo was the “plan of an idealist” which soon took on the status of absolute right. Later studies, however, emphasized the role of Realpolitik in Jefferson’s strategy. Richard Mannix argues that the policy was one of political procrastination designed to allow Jefferson to retire from office with his popularity untarnished by war. Tucker and Hendrickson, in a volte-face from their main argument, contend that “traditional calculations of interest” were “primary” in Jefferson’s thought on the Embargo issue.34 It is my contention that the Embargo was an outgrowth of Jefferson’s thinking on the Atlantic balance of power and the importance of commerce as both an end and means of statecraft. From start to finish power politics determined the shape and effectiveness of the policy. Jefferson followed the same approach towards Great Britain in 1807-1808 as he did in 1791-1793: in both cases his goal was to manipulate commercial levers to gain advantages, remain politically uncommitted, and await the moment when the changing fortunes of the European war made American intervention, or economic pressure, decisive. This was a favorite tactic of eighteenth century statecraft and a replication of economic policies followed by both Britain and France since the end of the seventeenth century. World politics, however, had undergone a dramatic change in the fifteen years between the “Report on Commerce” and the Embargo; Jefferson’s thinking did not. The advent of total war on the European continent made Jefferson’s policies of subtle diplomatic maneuver, com32  Thus Burton Spivak concluded that the Embargo was in fact “two different policies, not one”. See his summary in Jefferson’s English Crisis, p. x. 33  Malone V, p. 589; VI, p. 27. 34  Sears, Jefferson and the Embargo, p. 32; Levy, p. 95; Mannix, “Gallatin, Jefferson”; Tucker and Hendrickson, p. 197.



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mercial retaliation, and calculated procrastination outdated. His idea of commercial retaliation was a rationalistic and mechanistic formula unworkable when nations were fighting for absolute survival, and not merely the luxuries of additional gain. He employed the same logic, and, in many respects, the same program that governed his 1793 strategy, but by 1807 this policy was no longer viable. The longstanding dispute with Britain over American commercial rights forcefully intruded on American diplomacy after Napoleon’s “Continental System”, outlined by the Berlin Decrees of 1806, closed Europe to British trade. Forced to rely on transatlantic commerce for its survival, Britain began enforcing restrictive measures against American shipping, particularly in the Caribbean, in an effort to maintain a steady flow of goods to English ports and to deny assets to Napoleon. This pattern was reminiscent of British behavior in 1793, when hundreds of American vessels were seized in an effort to restrict the smuggling of “contraband” to France and to strangle French resources coming from the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, the impressment issue, which had remained dormant since the 1790s, reappeared as the European war placed unprecedented demands upon the manpower of the Royal Navy, and as the growing American merchant marine offered better pay and conditions for experienced seamen. In early 1807 Jefferson submitted to the Cabinet a proposal, originally formulated by Madison and given new energy by Monroe and Pinkney’s negotiations in London, whereby the United States would refuse to hire suspected deserters in return for an end to British searches of American vessels and impressment. Initially, this appeared to be a fair compromise to Jefferson. However, Gallatin researched the matter and on April 16 informed the President that such an agreement would not be in the economic interests of the United States, as his calculations demonstrated that over half the manpower of the American merchant marine consisted of ex-British sailors. Jefferson, upon reviewing the figures, abruptly dropped this proposal and gave up any idea of a fair exchange with the British on the impressment issue. “Mr. Gallatin’s estimate of the number of foreign seamen in our employ renders it prudent, I think, to suspend all propositions respecting our non-employment of them”, he argued to Madison on April 21.35 Jefferson, in short, 35   “Our tonnage employed in foreign trade has encreased since 1803 at the rate of about 70,000 tons a year”, Gallatin wrote, “equal to an encrease of 8,400 sailors for two years, and I would estimate that the British sailors have supplied from one-half to twothirds of that encrease”. AG to TJ, April 16, 1807, JPLC: Reel 61; Tucker and Hendrickson, p. 195; TJ to JM, April 21, 1807, Ford X, p. 389.

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wanted the British to surrender the right of impressment but was unwilling to restrict American practices which contributed to the problem. His position on the maritime question in 1807 was the result of a shrewd calculation of American economic interests, as Jefferson in essence demanded that the British cease their “outrageous” policy without offering anything in return.36 On June 22, 1807, the American frigate Chesapeake was attacked and boarded by a Royal Navy vessel off the Virginia coast. Four sailors, all suspected British deserters, were removed from the ship. The attack, carried out within sight of the American coast, sparked a wave of popular protest against British “arrogance and tyranny”: “Never, since the battle of Lexington have I seen this country in such a state of exasperation as at present”, Jefferson wrote to DuPont de Nemours on July 14, “and even that did not produce such unanimity”.37 Jefferson immediately called a special meeting of the Cabinet to discuss the issue. There is little doubt that he considered war with England to be inevitable. Jefferson had been frustrated by what he perceived to be a lack of British cooperation in negotiations with Monroe and Pinkney in 1806, and he refused to send the resulting Anglo-American Treaty to the Senate for consideration as it did not contain an explicit British pledge to end impressment.38 The lack of such a commitment, coupled with growing British assertiveness on the high seas, convinced him that the status quo was no longer tenable for the United States. He noted on August 21 that I never expected to be under the necessity of wishing success to Bonaparte. But the English being equally tyrannical at sea as he is on land, & that tyranny bearing on us in every point of either honor or interest, I say, “down with England” and as for what Bonaparte is then to do with us, let us trust to the chapter of accidents. I cannot, with the Anglo-men, prefer a certain present evil to a future hypothetical one.39

Jefferson looked at the international system in 1807 with genuine alarm. He had no means of knowing whether the Chesapeake attack  Perkins, Prologue to War, pp. 140-7.  On the antecedents and details of the Chesapeake attack, see Adams, History IV, ch. 1; TJ to DuPont de Nemours, July 14, 1807, Malone, Correspondence, p. 94. 38  On Jefferson’s reaction to these negotiations, and his insistence on a concession from England without a quid pro quo, see Donald R. Hickey, “The Monroe-Pinkney Treaty of 1806: A Reappraisal”, WMQ, [44(1987): 65-88]. Jefferson argued that Monroe’s text was another Jay Treaty, and refused to endorse a “Hamiltonian” policy towards Britain. 39  TJ to Thomas Leiper, August 21, 1807, Ford X, pp. 483-484. 36 37



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was an isolated incident carried out by an overzealous British officer or the first in a series of premeditated assaults on American shipping. By early December, he received news from London that the British government was intending to issue a strict set of commercial regulations in response to Napoleon’s “Continental System”. Preliminary reports of these Orders-in-Council indicated that they would have dramatic implications for American and other neutral traffic.40 Jefferson feared a repetition of the events of 1793, when the British government quickly adopted draconian regulations and enforced them retroactively with no warning to neutral carriers, resulting in the seizure of hundreds of American vessels in the Caribbean and North Atlantic. Jefferson was eager to avoid this scenario, and the news he received from Europe in late 1807 confirmed his worst suspicions. Convinced that war was likely, he wanted to protect American resources on the high seas, and refused to cede the British the surprise and its attendant advantages they had enjoyed against the United States in 1793 or France in 1756. As a consequence, the Embargo was decided upon as an expedient means of preparing for war by giving American vessels time to reach safe ports before hostilities began. “We should procrastinate 3 or 4 months”, he wrote John Page on July 9, “were it only to give time to our merchants to get in their vessels, property, & seamen, which are the identical materials with which the war is to be carried on”. Also, such an interval would give the British time to offer reparations for the Chesapeake incident as well as a commitment to respect American neutral rights. Moreover, the United States would gain time to make military preparations and fortify coastal defenses.41 The provisions of the Embargo Act of December 22, 1807 were astringent and direct. The act suspended trade between the United States and Europe, except for emergency articles and postal service, and permission of a state governor would be required before any Amer40  See Perkins, Prologue to War, pp. 148-149. The Orders were adopted in November, and were in effect by the time Jefferson received advance copies of them in early December. 41  TJ to John Page, July 9, 1807, JPLC: Reel 62. He noted to Page on July 17 that he desired “reparation for the past & security for the future, that is to say, the end of impressments. If motives of either justice or interest should produce this from Great Britain, it will save a war; but if they are refused, we shall have gained time for getting in our ships & property & at least 20,000 seamen now afloat on the ocean, and who may man 250 privateers...The meantime may also be importantly employed in preparations to enable us to give quick and deep blows”. TJ to John Page, July 17, 1807, Ford X pp. 47-50. He discussed his military preparations at the time in a later letter to John Colvin of September 20, 1810, Ford XI, p. 148. Perkins, Prologue to War, pp. 151-152.

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ican vessel could leave its port. Jefferson clearly intended the measure to be the opening salvo in an Anglo-American war: “For a certain length of time I think the embargo is a less evil than war”, he observed in the spring of 1808, “but after a time it will not be so”. The Embargo bought time for America to insulate its shipping from the Orders-in-Council, and to arm, equip, and prepare for the coming confrontation with England. By the time that war came, Jefferson hoped, “our debt may be paid, our revenues clear, & our strength increased”.42 While this reasoning appeared sound in theory, it did not follow so logically in practice. The vocal public demand for war in the summer of 1807 was unquestionably Jefferson’s greatest weapon against Britain. By restraining this pressure and addressing the crisis in a detached and dispassionate manner, Jefferson deprived himself of the political support necessary to wage an effective campaign. The President’s strategy of “refrigerating the demand for war and then bringing it again to a boil”, as Perkins notes, backfired on him. After the editorials and speeches on the justice and appropriateness of war cooled with the weather in the autumn, Jefferson lost the initiative. In short, if he wanted war, the period July-September 1807 was the most advantageous time to seek it.43 The source of Jefferson’s failure was the transformation of the policy from a “precautionary” to “coercive” measure.44 Jefferson hoped that by continuing the Embargo he could manipulate the Atlantic balance of power and force England to accede to American maritime demands by effect doing in the Western Hemisphere what Napoleon was doing in Europe: depriving Britain of markets for goods and raw materials. As a consequence the economic and political dimensions of the transatlantic balance of power coalesced in the Embargo. By depriving Britain of the American trade, Jefferson hoped that London would recognize America’s importance in the global economy and would accord the new republic greater, if not Great Power, status in relation to maritime policy in an effort to reopen trade with the United States. Sincere respect for American neutral rights, meaning an end to impressment and searches of American vessels, was his minimum demand; increased access to closed British markets in the Western Hemisphere was his optimal solution. From his perspective the British would have little choice but to accede to this ultimatum. 42  TJ to Joseph Eggleston, March 7, 1808, JPLC: Reel 66; TJ to John Taylor, January 6, 1808, JPLC: Reel 65. 43  Perkins, Prologue to War, pp. 148-149. 44  This is Spivak’s thesis. See English Crisis, p. x.



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While this logic followed directly from the 1793 Report on Commerce, it proved too rigid and mechanistic a formula to be of much use in the state system of 1807. Jefferson’s commercial restrictions injured American exporters as much, if not more, than British importers, who retained Canada as a supplier of timber for the Navy. Moreover, the Spanish Revolution of early 1808 led to the opening of Latin American ports, and the British quickly capitalized on this development. The slow erosion of American economic strength through idle ports and lost customs revenues convinced Jefferson that that he could not maintain his policy of commercial abstinence forever. Political pressure, especially from New England, would limit the duration of the measure. The British recognized these limitations on American policy long before Jefferson did: in London’s view, discontent in the Northeast would eventually force Jefferson to reverse himself.45 Consequently, as a measure designed to coerce England to accede to American maritime demands, the Embargo was a complete failure. Most of its shortcomings can be attributed to the fact that it was never intended to serve this purpose. Even before the measure was adopted by Congress, Gallatin had argued to the President that “as to the hope that it may...induce England to treat us better, I think it entirely groundless”, and he maintained that the United States should go to war before the Embargo had a deleterious effect on American commercial revenues. The tremendous rise in prices resulting from the act would simply encourage smuggling.46 A coercive embargo would have to be of long duration in order to be effective, yet even Jefferson doubted that the public could “endure” it for very long. “People will fight”, Gallatin cynically noted in July 1807, “but they will not give up their money for nothing”.47 Jefferson initially subscribed to this view. As we have seen, he was determined to challenge Britain but wanted to do so at a place and time of his choosing. He was convinced that diplomacy, especially after the Monroe negotiations, could accomplish little as there was nothing that he was willing to offer the British in return for liberalizing their maritime regulations. Jefferson therefore designed the Embargo in the context of the precautionary and preventative benefits such a measure would bring, especially in light of the Orders-in-Council. Why, then, did he continue with and redefine a policy which was supposed to be temporary?  Spivak, p. 125.  AG to TJ, December 18, 1807, JPLC: Reel 65; Spivak, p. 200. 47  Spivak, pp. 116-8; AG to Samuel Smith, July 17, 1807, cited in Spivak, p. 83. 45 46

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Richard Mannix has advanced the thesis that Jefferson, on the verge of retirement after forty years of public service, was unwilling to close his career by leading the nation into a general war. He argues that Jefferson feared a loss of popularity and was obsessed with his place in history: thus the policy of “drift” which the Embargo led to in 1808 was its actual purpose, as Jefferson was merely marking time until he left office. Spivak and Malone, in their reviews of the Embargo, echo this basic theme, even though they approach the problem from different angles. Clifford Egan proposes a different explanation, one Jefferson no doubt would have approved. The Embargo was Congress’s creation, he contends, and not Jefferson’s, and thus the President cannot “be blamed for the vacillation of the legislative branch”.48 Congress, however, passed the measure at Jefferson’s urging and gave the President nearly authoritarian powers to enforce it. Like most Presidents, Jefferson frequently used Congress as a foil against which to vent his frustrations, but the initiation, execution, and enforcement of the Embargo was an executive function from start to finish.49 There is some evidence to support the Mannix thesis. Jefferson’s zealous regard for his reputation and his consequent unwillingness to take decisive action which might tarnish it are well-known. Shortly after the election of 1808 had confirmed Madison’s succession, and with five months still left to govern, Jefferson observed that “I think it is fair to leave to those who are to act on them, the decisions they prefer, being to be myself but a spectator”. Soon thereafter he noted to Monroe that “I am so near the moment of retiring, that I take no part in affairs beyond the expression of an opinion”.50 Yet Jefferson was clearly active in political affairs in 1807-1808, and had prepared a two-pronged diplomatic offensive and war-fighting strategy to compel the British to terms with the United States. He was certainly not a shrinking violet in international politics in this period; indeed, Gallatin had to talk him out 48  Mannix, “Gallatin, Jefferson”, p. 154; Spivak, p. 135; Malone V, pp. 351-352; Egan, Neither Peace Nor War: Franco-American Relations, 1803-1812, [Baton Rouge: 1983], pp. 99-100. 49  Thus when Jefferson argued that in regard to enforcement, “Congress must legalize all means which may be necessary to obtain its end”, he was attempting to place the blame for the unpopularity of the policy on that body. Jefferson, of course, was in complete control of both ends and means of the Embargo strategy. See TJ to AG, August 11, 1808, L&B XII, p. 122. 50  TJ to Levi Lincoln, November 13, 1808, Ford XI, pp. 74-75; TJ to Monroe, January 29, 1809. He had argued the point to Monroe almost a year earlier, claiming that “My longings for retirement are so strong that I with difficulty encounter the daily drudgeries of my duty”. TJ to Monroe, February 18, 1808, Ford XI, p. 11.



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of a premature declaration of war after the Chesapeake attack in the summer of 1807. Certainly by the fall of 1808 he realized that time was against him, but it seems unlikely that Jefferson’s personality could have undergone so tectonic a shift from bellicosity to passivity in less than a year. He may have had an earnest wish to retire to his gardens at Monticello, but he followed a complex political calculus during this period: to mirror in 1807-1808 the strategy he had employed in 1793. Rather than risk an immediate and unpredictable war, he decided to keep his options open, take no precipitate action, outline his demands clearly and manipulate European combinations to help him achieve his objectives at the lowest possible cost. In 1808 as in 1793 Jefferson had the same objective: to compel England to respect American neutral rights and prevent the seizure of American ships and cargoes. Yet in 1808 Jefferson misread the power relationship between Britain, France, and the United States. In 1793 the economic and military balance of France and England was roughly equal. As a result American intervention or neutrality in the conflict could have been potentially decisive at that time, as Jefferson, Genet, and Pitt realized. But by 1808 Napoleon, having recently secured the Russian armistice at Tilsit, was supreme on the Continent. The capitulation of Russia meant that one of the last European markets for English goods and supplier of its raw materials was now within Napoleon’s Continental System. The British Government, therefore, believed that it could not afford to compromise its maritime policy in 1807-1808, as it saw the resources and markets of the Western Hemisphere as the source of its salvation, and because it needed to deny these assets to the French. As a result Jefferson’s desire for greater access to closed British markets and his assertion of America’s right to trade with whomever it wished clashed with London’s commitment to enforce the “Rule of 1756” as well as to retain as many of its sailors as possible. The Embargo was the result of this irresistible force of Jefferson’s demands meeting the immovable object in the shape of British commercial restrictions. Consequently Jefferson’s inactivity during 1808 was, it appears, a sober and rational policy designed to play for time and impress the British with the gravity with which he viewed the maritime issue. He had brought the nation to the verge of war and then halted: the next move, Jefferson indicated, was up to London. Given a relative balance of power in Europe this stratagem may have worked, or at least have produced a British willingness to negotiate. Unfortunately Jefferson’s statecraft, a product of an earlier tradition of commercial retaliation, limited war, and elegant diplomatic gambits, was inappropriate for and anachronis-

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tic in the era of total war dawning in Europe: the stakes for Britain were simply too high. Jefferson underrated the significance of Napoleon’s continental system and the Peace of Tilsit to the British Government. This was the fatal miscalculation that doomed the Embargo strategy, and which underscored the fragility of his conception of the international system. Jefferson’s diplomacy in 1808 depended for its success on a careful assessment of contingent factors. However, its workings were too mechanistic and unsentimental to be of use in the age of the Napoleonic wars. As a result his brilliant diplomatic strategy aiming at compelling Britain to liberalize its maritime policy was reduced to a coercive instrument that was more destructive to American commercial enterprises and merchants.51 He did not have the time that would be necessary to make a substantial impact on British trade, especially in time of war. By the  Jefferson certainly was not passive in his internal enforcement of the Embargo. Although he delegated much of the objectionable operational responsibilities to Gallatin, he nevertheless kept a wary eye on the political repercussions of the Embargo. He acknowledged that the “embargo law is certainly the most embarrassing one we have ever had to execute”, but this did not stop him from doing his best to insure that no American vessels left port. [TJ to AG, August 11, 1808, Ford XI, p. 41] In July 1808 Gallatin warned Jefferson that holes in the Embargo net could not be closed short of using “extreme” measures, including the use of force against American citizens. “I am sensible”, he wrote, “that such arbitrary powers are equally dangerous & odious. But a restrictive measure of the nature of the Embargo applied to a nation under such circumstances as the United States cannot be enforced without the assistance of means as strong as the measure itself”. [AG to TJ, July 29, 1808, JPLC: Reel 68] Ironically, Gallatin, who had argued most forcefully about the futility of a permanent embargo, was responsible for enforcing the measure he passionately detested. He foresaw serious threats to basic civil liberties from such coercive legislation, and warned the President that it made the Alien and Sedition Acts seem tame by comparison. “Governmental prohibitions do always more mischief than had been calculated”, he argued to Jefferson, “and it is not without much hesitation that a statesman should hazard to regulate the concerns of individuals as if he could do it better than themselves”. [AG to TJ, December 18, 1807, JPLC: Reel 65] One would expect that such an elegant defense of laissez-faire would have met with the President’s approval. On the contrary, he centralized control of the enforcement program in the White House and enhanced the powers of the Presidency beyond the furthest limits contemplated by Washington or Adams. [Banning, Jeffersonian Persuasion, p. 280] Interest of state took precedence over his constitutional philosophy of strict construction, and his scruples respecting limited power were relentlessly overrun by his efforts to maintain control of a policy that was rapidly becoming unmanageable. Jefferson advocating blockading ports suspected of harboring embargo runners and favored sending troops to the Canadian border to intercept goods, by force if necessary, smuggled over the long and porous border. [Levy, pp. 106-107] He wrote Governor Daniel Tompkins of New York that “I think it so important in example to crush these audacious proceedings, and to make the offenders feel the consequences of individuals daring to oppose a law by force, that no effort should be spared to compass the object”. 51



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end of 1808 he realized that he could do little more and that time would eventually overtake his policy. “We have been pressed by the belligerents to the very wall”, he noted in November of that year, “and all further retreat [is] impracticable”.52 War was inadvisable by this point, yet he could not capitulate and accept humiliating British terms in the manner of Jay in 1795. Only with this realization did a genuine longing for retirement influence his decision-making, and he despondently retreated into isolation and left the affairs of state in Madison’s hands. Ultimately the Embargo injured the United States more than Britain, and cost Jefferson the capital accumulated by his impressive first term diplomacy. It expired three days before his Presidency, on March 1, 1809.53 The failure of the embargo as a policy is distinct, however, from its conceptual origins and should not obscure Jefferson’s design for America in the international system. Jefferson’s controversial failure to follow up on his original plan has long created the misperception that he [TJ to Gov. Daniel Tompkins, August 15, 1808, L&B XII, p. 133] So much for keeping alive the spirit of resistance to government. Indeed Jefferson more than flirted with absolute power in the case of the Embargo. Three months later, he argued to Dr. James Brown that “there are extreme cases where the laws become inadequate even to their own preservation, and where, the universal recourse is to a dictator, or martial law”. [TJ to James Brown, October 27, 1808, Ford XI, p. 53] Naturally he would decide when dictatorship would be necessary, and he viewed it as a logical means of promoting centralized control of foreign policy insulated from domestic pressure. Even Louis Sears notes how ironic it was that Jefferson, the great exponent of limited government, favored using the U.S. Navy to “wage war on individualists” in the manner of Lord North. [Jefferson and the Embargo, p. 91]. It was therefore with great honesty that Jefferson could say of his policy on Christmas Day 1808 that “I spared nothing to promote it”. [TJ to Judge St. George Tucker, December 25, 1808, JPLC: Reel 70]. 52  The Federalists were merciless in attacking Jefferson’s “despotic” tendencies in the Embargo crisis: Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts claimed that the President was “a dish of skim milk curdling at the head of the nation”. Orchard Cook, an influential senator from the Bay State, argued that Jefferson was “inclined to hug the Embargo and die in its embrace”. Malone V, p. 627; Spivak, p. 139; TJ to Levi Lincoln, November 13, 1808, Ford XI, p. 75. 53   “The cost of this ‘engine for national purposes,’” Henry Adams noted in a brilliant summary, “exceed all calculation. Financially, it emptied the Treasury, bankrupted the mercantile and agricultural class, and ground the poor beyond endurance. Constitutionally, it overrode every specified limit on arbitrary power and made Congress despotic, while it left no bounds as to the authority which might be vested by Congress in the President. Morally, it sapped the nation’s vital force, lowering its courage, paralyzing its energy, corrupting its principles, and arraying all the active elements of society in factious opposition to government or in secret paths of treason. Politically, it cost Jefferson the fruits of eight years painful labor for popularity, and brought the Union to the edge of a precipice”. Adams, History, IV, pp. 287-288.

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was capitulating to pacifist instincts, and this is a dangerous misinterpretation. The genesis of the Embargo in planning and execution was rooted in classical mercantilist ideology and naked power politics, and was intended to compel England to offer the United States concessions by strangling its already fragile economy. It was conceived as a shrewd means of using the time-honored European weapon of economic coercion—one used by Napoleon himself—against Britain so that the United States would not have to compromise on the lucrative hiring of deserters while still demanding strict neutral rights. In terms of its attention to the structural dynamics of the international system, and its rejection of a normative approach to politics, the Embargo policy was more familiar to Colbert and Josiah Tucker than Paine and Freneau. The Workings of the Balance of Power (3): The Mediterranean Problem, 1785-1805 While Jefferson’s attempts to compel Britain to respect American neutral rights proved unsuccessful, his maritime policy in the “second tier” of the international system was more fortunate. Jefferson’s war against the “Barbary pirates”, though often overlooked, represented an extension of the basic logic of his Mississippi policy: that wars against weaker states were often the most cost-effective means of attaining American objectives. Preoccupied with the “Mediterranean problem” since his mission to France in the 1780s, Jefferson believed that it was imperative that American claims to the North African and Italian trades be vigorously promoted in order to increase the economic strength of the new republic.54 By the close of the eighteenth century, the “Barbary States”—the collective name frequently used to describe the city-states of Algiers, Tunis, Morocco, and Tripoli—that Jefferson viewed as a direct threat to American trade in the Mediterranean were thriving centers of local and great power intrigue profiting from legitimate trade as well as piracy. Although Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers was nominally under the control of the Ottoman Porte, the decrepit economic and political condition that the Empire had fallen into after the war with Russia from 1768 to 1774 allowed the rulers of these small principalities extraordinary latitude in the conduct of political affairs. As a result, the policy these states adopted in relation to European and American commerce was motivated by 54  For an overview of this war in the context of Jefferson’s overall view of foreign policy see Sofka, “Jeffersonian idea of National Security”.



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domestic political pressures and simple avarice. Raymond Irwin certainly did not exaggerate in characterizing piracy as “the foundation of their economic, and also of their political, system”. By ransoming captives and demanding lavish presents in the form of naval stores, frigates, or jewels, the Deys of these states were able to satisfy both their subjects’ appetite for gain and their own political standing. This led to a vicious circle in relations with foreign powers: Meeting a ruler’s terms only increased his demands and led to further instances of piracy.55 Moreover, so-called peace treaties with these states—the only defense against seizure on the high seas—had to be purchased at prohibitive cost, often as high as 1 million. This chain of events was not entirely local in character or causation. England and France, which maintained active consulates in North Africa, exploited these political dynamics to their advantage. Quite simply, these states found it in their interest to pay “tribute” to these governments to avoid the inconvenience and expense of sending squadrons to destroy them. In so doing, they also encouraged these regimes to prey on weaker rivals—such as Sweden, Sardinia-Piedmont, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and the United States—that could not afford this luxury. As Britain’s Lord Sheffield put it in 1783, “That the Barbary States are advantageous to the maritime Powers is certain. If they were suppressed, the little states of Italy, & c. would have much more of the carrying trade. The French never showed themselves worse Politicians, than in encouraging the late armed neutrality [against these regimes]. It would have been as hurtful to the great maritime powers, as the Barbary States are useful”. Consequently, the Mediterranean pirates were viewed by continental diplomats as important elements of the regional as well as European balance of power. There was much truth in the aphorism Benjamin Franklin reported from London in 1783, that “if there were no Algiers, it would be worth England’s while to build one”.56 55  For a general overview of the politics of the region in this period, see Raymond Irwin, The Diplomatic Relations of the United States with the Barbary Powers, 17761816, [Chapel Hill: 1931], ch. 1; Gardner Allen, Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs, [New York: 1904], chs. 1 and 2; James A Field, America and the Mediterranean World, 1776-1882, [Princeton: 1969], ch. 2; Kola Folayan, Tripoli During the Reign of Pasha Yusuf Qaramanli, [Ile-Ife, Nigeria: 1979]; Seton Dearden, A Nest of Corsairs: The Fighting Karamanlis of Tripoli, [London: 1976]; Lucette Valensi, On the Eve of Colonialism: North Africa before the French Conquest, [New York: 1977]; Ann Thomson, Barbary and the Enlightenment: European Attitudes Towards the Maghreb in the Eighteenth Century, [New York: 1987]; Boyd X, 560-566; XVIII, 369-416; Irwin, pp. 8-9; 189. 56  Sheffield, “Observations on the Commerce of the American States” (1783) cited in Boyd XVIII, p. 373; Irwin, p. 16; Boyd XVIII, p. 375.

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Until 1783, American merchant traffic in the Mediterranean had been protected under the British flag. After independence, attacks on American vessels increased sharply, driving insurance rates to exorbitant levels and leading to horrifying tales about the plight of Americans in captivity and American vessels seized and converted into privateers.57 Under these conditions the United States could not develop a profitable trade in the region, which was the precise British intention. As a result, one of the most pressing problems facing the weak Confederation government was to come to terms with these states or risk holding its lucrative Mediterranean trade hostage to these regimes. By 1785 the rulers of these small principalities began amassing a large collection of captured American merchantmen and sailors. Although Adams and Jefferson labored to resolve these cases diplomatically from their respective posts in London and Paris, the North African states demanded large sums of money for “treaties” with the new republic and ransom for American captives. Adams, who absorbed the maxims of British North African policy during his stay in London, argued that it would be “wisest for Us to negotiate and pay the necessary Sum, without Loss of Time” and offered to float a loan in Amsterdam to be used for ransom and tribute.58 Jefferson flatly rejected this suggestion: “My faculties are absolutely suspended between indignation and impotence” at the prospect of a purchased peace, he wrote Nathanael Greene in 1785. Jefferson understood the logic of the Deys’ strategy and realized that these states would continue to demand increasingly extravagant “presents” from the United States. Moreover, tribute in the form of naval stores or ships only provided these governments with weapons to be used against American merchantmen in the future. In the long run, therefore, it was less expensive to fight the North Africans than to placate them, as America had neither the financial resources nor the naval might to hold the Deys’ demands to a reasonable limit. Jefferson argued to Monroe in 1786 that if Congress makes peace “by negotiation they must pay a great sum of money for it; if they do nothing they must pay a great sum of money in the form of insurance, and in either way as great a one, and probably less effectual than in the way of force”. Politically, such a strategy would be inadvisable as “the tribute to all these powers [will] 57  See the editorial note on depredations against American vessels in Boyd X, pp. 560-566; XVIII, pp. 369-416. 58  For an overview of Jefferson’s and Adams’ diplomacy in relation to North Africa see Boyd X, pp. 560-566; Irwin, ch. 3; Malone II, pp. 27-32. JA to TJ, July 3, 1786, Boyd X, p. 86.



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make such a proportion of the federal [customs] taxes as that every man will feel them sensibly when he pays those taxes”. Clearly Jefferson had no intention of becoming trapped in the vicious circle of escalating ransom demands and insurance rates.59 From a political and strategic perspective, Jefferson argued, the policy of paying tribute was ultimately self-defeating. As in the case of West Florida, Jefferson saw no reason to buy from a weak state what he could achieve with less cost through a limited war. Moreover, the Barbary States offered a convenient excuse for augmenting American military power and demonstrating its naval capabilities to skeptical European statesmen. Jefferson argued to Monroe as early as 1784 that “We ought to begin a naval Power, if we mean to carry on our own commerce. Can we begin it on a more honorable occasion or with a weaker foe? I am of [the] opinion that [John] Paul Jones with half a dozen frigates would totally destroy their commerce: not by attempting bombardments as the Mediterranean states do wherein they act against the whole Barbary force brought to a point, but by constant cruising and cutting them to pieces piecemeal”. Only such an assertive policy could place American shipping on a secure and respected footing in the region.60 In 1786 Jefferson proposed that he and Adams formally recommend that Congress authorize a military campaign against the Barbary States. In his proposal, Jefferson articulated six reasons why he favored obtaining security in the Mediterranean through the use of force: “1. Justice is in favor of this opinion. 2. Honor favors it. 3. It will procure us respect in Europe, and respect is a safe-guard to interest. 4. It will arm the federal head with the safest of all the instruments of coercion over their delinquent members and prevent them from using what would be less safe. I think that so far you go with me. But in the next steps we shall differ. 5. I think it less expensive. 6. Equally effectual”. Jefferson based his last point upon two principal assumptions. First, he argued that the North African states were essentially weak and unprepared for a “vigorous” naval campaign and after sustaining losses would quickly accede to American terms rather than risk the destruction of their fleets, which were the mainstay of their economies. He noted that in 1745 France had pursued this policy against Algiers, and that state had “subscribed to the terms” the French dictated within three months. Second, 59  TJ to Nathanael Greene, June 12, 1785, Boyd IX, p. 168; TJ to James Monroe, August 11, 1786, Boyd X, p. 225; TJ to John Page, August 20, 1785, Boyd VIII, p. 419. 60  TJ to James Monroe, November 11, 1784, Boyd VII, pp. 511-512.

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Jefferson maintained that such a policy would signal American determination in settling maritime disputes, as it would be impossible for either the French or the British to ignore an American military operation conducted in the Mediterranean. Although Jefferson acknowledged that war was always fraught with uncertainty, he weighed this against “the greater uncertainty of the duration of a peace bought with money, from such a people, from a Dey 80 years old, and by a nation who, on the hypothesis of buying peace, is to have no power on the sea to enforce an observance of it”.61 Adams acknowledged that Jefferson’s letter had “great and weighty Considerations urged in it in favour of arming against the Algerines”, but he was too familiar with sentiments in Philadelphia to recommend Jefferson’s ideas. “Congress”, he responded, “will never, or at least not for years, take any such Resolution, and in the mean time our Trade and Honour suffers beyond calculation. We ought not to fight them at all, unless we determine to fight them forever. This thought is, I fear, too rugged for our People to bear. To fight them at the Expense of Millions, and make Peace after all by giving more Money and larger presents than would now procure perpetual peace seems not to be economical”. Moreover, he concluded, even the French paid a sum to Algiers after the naval campaign of 1745 mentioned by Jefferson. Adams did not reject the use of force on grounds of principle, but rather on the basis of his firm belief that the United States was not in a position to compel the terms it desired. Even if the naval construction Jefferson favored was miraculously approved by Congress, he argued, it would not be ready for combat for years, and in the meantime attacks and hostage taking would continue. From a political standpoint, Adams feared that if such a project failed it would be worse than had it never been attempted. Devoid of resources and divided in their approach to the problem, both Adams and Jefferson resignedly concluded that little could be accomplished without stronger backing from the U.S. government.62 Jefferson was not completely deterred by Adams’s criticism of his analysis of the Mediterranean problem. Even before drafting his letter of 11 July to Adams, he had conceived a plan designed to secure the Mediterranean trade that minimized the direct military investment of the United States. His basic idea was to revise the formula of Catherine 61  TJ to JA, July 11, 1786, Boyd X, pp. 123-124. This is the response to Adams’ letter of July 3 quoted earlier. Jefferson’s brief should be read in full. 62  JA to TJ, July 31, 1786, Boyd X, pp. 176-177. On the failure of Jefferson’s and Adams’ Mediterranean diplomacy see Irwin, pp. 51-53.



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II’s Armed Neutrality of 1780 and apply it to the Mediterranean case by proposing that the smaller maritime powers menaced by these regimes form a league against them. Each state would contribute a quota of ships, sailors, and capital, and the campaign would be directed by a council of ministers of the confederated states in a European capital under American supervision. This league would be “in perpetual cruise” until attacks on members’ shipping ceased and the offensive capabilities of the North African regimes were destroyed.63 The obvious political attraction of Jefferson’s proposed league was that the United States would only have to contribute one frigate, rather than build the sizeable fleet required in a unilateral action. Moreover, by acting in concert with other states, Jefferson hoped to add a measure of enlightened legality to the American position—as Catherine had done in 1780—as well as to further weaken the entente between London, Paris, and their North African “clients”. Jefferson was admittedly uneasy at the prospect of securing American shipping through collective means, as he placed a premium on independence and flexibility in foreign policy calculations. For this reason he refused to advance his proposal until Adams had rejected his plan to persuade Congress to augment the navy. Since the parlous state of American finances and the lack of political will in Philadelphia made the prospect of an exclusively American campaign unlikely, Jefferson settled on what Lafayette termed the “Antipiratical Confederacy” as a compromise. In his opinion, it was the best practicable solution to the Mediterranean problem short of a unilateral declaration of war. The objective of the proposed convention would be to compel a “permanent peace” through the use of naval squadrons in the Mediterranean. Jefferson was intrigued with the prospect of asserting American commercial rights in the Mediterranean literally under the eyes and guns of the British and French navies, in an area traditionally considered their sphere of influence. By using the league, the responsibility for this action would be diffused and thus it would be more palatable to Congress. He argued to Monroe in August 1786 that Such a convention, being left open to all powers willing to come into it, should have for its object a general peace, to be guaranteed to each by the whole...were the honour and advantage of establishing such a confederacy out of the question, yet the necessity that the U.S. should have some maritime force, and the happiness of this as the ostensible cause for beginning 63  On the background of this proposed convention see Malone II, p. 30; Irwin, pp. 46-51; Boyd X, pp. 560-566.

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it, would decide on its propriety. It will be said that there is no money in the treasury. There never will be money in the treasury till the Confederacy shows its teeth. The states must see the rod; perhaps it should be felt by some one of them.

Jefferson’s reference to the Confederation government’s inability to tax focused on the root of his frustration with the Articles under which it operated. Nevertheless, he argued that were only a small sum appropriated for the Mediterranean League, it would soon show a strong return on investment in the form of reduced insurance rates. All of the trading powers of Europe, “except France, England, and perhaps Spain and Holland”, he argued, “would soon fall into it”.64 After completing their ambitious and controversial commercial agreement in 1786, however, neither Vergennes nor British foreign secretary Lord Carmarthen was eager to disturb the commercial status quo in the Mediterranean. Vergennes warned Lafayette—whom Jefferson had solicited to present his views to Versailles—to “desist” on the project, as it could threaten improving relations with London.65 Moreover, while England and France publicly condemned acts of piracy, they were dependent upon them as a means of forcing small traders out of their commercial networks. Few states would risk joining weak America in a novel experiment in the face of strong British and French opposition, given the ability of these powers to persuade the Deys to ratchet up their demands on small traders. Following the icy reception to his ideas in Europe and Philadelphia, Jefferson shelved his proposal and continued to do his best in negotiations with the North African regimes with the meager resources at his disposal.  Indeed Jefferson went so far as to suggest that American forces capture Turkish sailors and hold them as hostages in exchange for American prisoners, because in his view the Ottoman rulers of North Africa were treated as “a superior order of Beings” in the region and such a policy would compel Constantinople to restrict the autonomy of its provinces. Boyd XVIII, p. 406; TJ to James Monroe, August 11, 1786, Boyd X, pp. 224-225. Ironically Metternich also dealt with the Mediterranean problem. After 1815 these states frequently attacked the shipping of Austria’s Italian provinces, and Metternich argued for the creation of an international organization to handle North African affairs. Such an institution, he noted, “would be preferable to political or military combinations”. Under Metternich’s plan, the Knights of Malta would serve “as the nucleus of the antipiratical fleet”. This could be staffed by retired naval officers of several European states and would insure “permanent neutrality” in the region. Characteristically Metternich looked towards international collaboration as his policy of first resort, whereas to Jefferson it was less desirable than the unilateral use of force. See Cresson, Holy Alliance, p. 82. 65  On Vergennes’ reaction to Jefferson’s proposal see Boyd X, p. 565 and Murphy, Vergennes, ch. 36. 64



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From 1786 to 1801 American North African policy remained fairly consistent. Although the U.S. Navy was steadily improving in the quality and quantity of ships and sailors, the political will for an offensive war against the Barbary States remained absent. The American government continued to pay tribute to all four of the principal North African states: a treaty was signed with Morocco in 1795, and one followed the next year with Algiers, even though it cost nearly $1 million. Although Tripoli and Tunis were fêted with lavish presents and naval stores, these states were more intransigent in their dealings with the United States. In May 1801 the pasha of Tripoli, Yusuf Qaramanli, declared war on the United States on the grounds that the Algierians had received more tribute from the Americans than his kingdom.66 Jefferson, recently inaugurated as president of the United States, once again faced a crisis in the Mediterranean. In 1801 Jefferson possessed the political power and naval strength that had eluded him in 1786. He was determined to assert American commercial rights in the Mediterranean in the manner he had long advocated, and in his view the actions of Tripoli provided ample justification for this policy. Although word of the formal declaration of war by Tripoli did not reach Washington until June, reports of increased attacks on American shipping throughout the spring of 1801 pointed to an obvious conclusion. “The real alternative”, Jefferson wrote in June 1801, “is whether to abandon the Mediterranean, or keep up a cruise in it”. Since the 1780s he had never doubted that a military solution was the most effective option in dealing with these states. Buying a settlement through tribute was pointless, he argued, and he was “convinced it is money thrown away, and that there is no end to the demand of these powers, nor any security in their promises”.67 66  On the Algerian accords see H.G. Barnby, The Prisoners of Algiers: An Account of the Forgotten American-Algerian War of 1785-1797, [Oxford: 1966]. On relations with these states in this period see Irwin, chs. 4-7 and Field, pp. 27-48. The sultan of Morocco declared war on the United States in June 1802, and Jefferson learned of this development in August. Jefferson responded by sending reinforcements to the Mediterranean to conduct operations against Morocco, but the sultan abruptly changed his mind and revoked his declaration in mid-September. Given that American operations against Tripoli were proceeding well in 1802, this may have influenced the sultan’s decision, though evidence from the Moroccan side is lacking. Similarly, Algiers conducted limited hostilities against the United States in 1800, which were ended with a purchased peace authorized—not surprisingly—by President Adams. While Jefferson technically confined the American campaign to attacks on Tripoli, the American squadron made frequent visits to Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis to “monitor” events and demonstrate American power to potential belligerents. 67  TJ to William Cary Nicholas, June 11, 1801, Boyd XXXIV, p. 309.

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The decision for war was arrived at, in classical eighteenth-century fashion, in cabinet deliberations.68 In a discussion of the Mediterranean problem on 15 May 1801, Jefferson asked his cabinet’s opinion on “what shall be the object” of a naval deployment in the Mediterranean. All of the secretaries, Jefferson noted, concurred in the “expediency of a cruise”, although he left no record of his own statements at the meeting. Madison, in a letter to William Eaton, American consul in Tunis, stated that Jefferson saw this as an appropriate moment to use American naval forces in the Mediterranean, as “not only is it a provision against an immediate danger, but as we are now at peace and amity with all the rest of the world [following the 1800 Convention of Mortfontaine with France], and as the force employed would, if at home, be at merely the same expense, with less advantage to our mariners”.69 The purpose of this meeting was not to debate the efficacy of a war—as Jefferson had already decided that question—but the manner in which it should be conducted. As it was doubtful that Congress would provide Jefferson with the political and financial support he needed to wage an effective campaign, the evidence suggests that the primary reason for the discussion was to evaluate the constitutional and political implications of a Mediterranean campaign. Gallatin ar68  Jefferson himself set the pattern for historiographic treatment of the war by minimizing the archival record of the matter. He made few references to the war in his correspondence and only token explanations in messages to Congress. He left only a fragment of notes of the cabinet meeting of May 15, 1801 in which the decision for war was made. A master of indirection, Jefferson no doubt sought to distance himself from a risky venture which might fail and thus play into the hands of his political opponents. Moreover, he had campaigned on a platform of peace and sedulously avoided any statements that might lead to charges of inconsistency. In the tradition of Cabinet statecraft, he arrived at his decision, plotted strategy, and conducted his campaign within a limited circle of advisers with little congressional input. While several excellent monographs on the war have been published, most deal almost exclusively with military affairs. Neither Jefferson’s admirers nor detractors find the campaign palatable, as it refutes most of their assumptions regarding his alleged “pacifist” or “idealist” diplomatic philosophy. Tucker and Hendrickson, for example, argue that “in sending a naval force to the Mediterranean Jefferson plainly demonstrated that he had no compunction against the use of force. But the use of force was not synonymous with war in any but a formal sense”. Such an ellipical approach to Jefferson’s decision for war—itself thoroughly consistent with the practice of raison d’etat they claim he repudiated—is the norm rather than the exception in the scholarly literature. Eager to attack Jefferson’s supposed “idealist” inclinations, Tucker and Hendrickson conspicuously relegate their discussion of the war to a footnote. 69  Text of notes of May 15, 1801 Cabinet meeting, Boyd XXXIV, pp. 114-115. See also Noble E. Cunningham, The Process of Government under Jefferson, [Princeton: 1978], pp. 48-50 for a discussion of this meeting. JM to William Eaton, May 20, 1801, PJMSS: I, pp. 199-200.



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gued that a formal declaration of war from Congress was unnecessary, since Tripoli, by openly avowing hostilities, rendered such an act irrelevant. “The Ex[ecutive] cannot put us in a state of war”, Gallatin maintained, “but if we be put into that state either by the de[cision] of Congress or of the other nation, the command & direction of the public force then belongs to the Ex[ecutive]”. Madison, who had staunchly supported Jefferson’s theory of American commercial policy since 1791 and was as eager as the President to secure a profitable trade in the Mediterranean, did not object to Gallatin’s reasoning. According to Jefferson’s notes, Madison confined his remarks to the necessity of “openly declaring” the “object” of the deployment to “every nation”. This, presumably, would underscore America’s determination to support its rights to any European power that might consider infringing upon them, a position Madison had forcefully articulated against Hamilton in 1791. The meeting ended with a decision to dispatch a squadron of frigates to the Mediterranean to cruise against Tripoli and any other state that assaulted American shipping.70 The president subscribed to Gallatin’s reasoning and saw no reason to seek a declaration of war, or even a consultation, from Congress. “That a body containing 100 lawyers in it, should direct the measures of a war, is, I fear, impossible”, Jefferson wrote Madison later in his career, “and that thus that member of our constitution, which is its bulwark, will prove to be an impracticable one from its cacoethes loquendi”. The war was financed in part by the “Mediterranean Fund” established by Gallatin, which used special loans to defray expenses that overran the appropriated naval budget. This arrangement was strikingly similar to, and indeed modeled after, the “sinking funds” commonly used throughout the eighteenth century by European governments to finance their wars. Although Jefferson had earlier denounced this practice as militaristic and unethical, he demonstrated that he was capable of employing this “monarchical” tactic to great advantage. From a political standpoint, Jefferson’s war against the Barbary States was congruent with the theory and practice of commercial diplomacy that had animated eighteenth century statecraft.71 Jefferson conducted the Mediterranean war with a watchful eye toward great power politics. Clearly, he hoped that by confronting these  Notes of May 15 Cabinet meeting, Boyd XXXIV, pp. 114-115.  TJ to JM, February 19, 1812, PTJRS, p. 509; Cunningham, Process of Government, pp. 49-50. On the infamous “Mediterranean Fund”, see Field, p. 53, Malone IV, p. 43; and Walters, Albert Gallatin, pp. 150-152. This episode provides yet another example of Jefferson’s flexible approach to his philosophy of strict construction. See ch. 2. 70 71

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unpopular regimes with naval force he would underscore the point that Washington was determined in its efforts to gain respect for American maritime interests. As he argued in 1806, the year after the treaty with Tripoli was signed, “the love of peace which we sincerely feel & profess, has begun to produce an opinion in Europe that our government is entirely in Quaker principles & will turn the left cheek when the right has been smitten. This opinion must be corrected when just occasion arises, or we shall become the plunder of all nations”. Jefferson reasoned that assertive action in the Mediterranean would buttress America’s position in the Atlantic balance of power and persuade England and France to take notice of America’s growing importance in the international system. He argued to John Tyler that if the campaign was successful, “we shall be amply rewarded for what we have done” in the Mediterranean in negotiations with the European powers. Moreover, since London and Paris had actively encouraged acts of violence against American shipping, Jefferson estimated that by depriving the Europeans of their Mediterranean clients he could effectively change the balance of power in the region without risking a transatlantic war.72 Once he established the general political and strategic direction of the war in the spring of 1801, Jefferson rarely interfered with military affairs and allowed his naval commanders considerable latitude to operate according to their estimate of the military situation. It is beyond our purpose to examine specific naval actions that are well documented and related elsewhere. From 1801 to 1804 the Americans made steady gains in the war of attrition against Tripolitan shipping, despite the loss of the frigate Philadelphia, which ran aground in October 1803, and the imprisonment of its crew of three hundred. The conduct of the new U.S. Navy was sufficiently impressive to attract European attention, as Jefferson had hoped. Admiral Nelson, upon learning of the burning of the captured Philadelphia by an American team, called it “the most bold and daring act of the age”, and the Royal Navy devoted attention to American tactics in the Mediterranean.73  TJ to Thomas Cooper, February 18, 1806, JPLC: Reel 56; TJ to John Tyler, March 29, 1805, JPLC: Reel 52. 73  In a noteworthy exception Jefferson removed Richard V. Morris, the commander of the American squadron, on the grounds of “excessive timidity” in 1804. Allen, Our Navy, pp. 134-135. Allen provides the most readable and detailed account of the war. For specific engagements and campaigns see the collection of documents edited by Capt. Dudley Knox, Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers, 6 vols., [Washington, D.C.: 1939-1944]. These contain useful maps, chronologies, and synopses of battles, but are devoted exclusively to military affairs. On Nelson’s remark see Field, p. 60. 72



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While Jefferson was committed to an independent policy in the Mediterranean, he frequently consulted with other powers throughout the course of the war. Borrowing the Russian formula of 1780, Jefferson was eager to mobilize most of the small Mediterranean traders under the American flag. Sweden and Denmark, themselves frequent targets of piracy, offered modest financial contributions to the war effort, and their consular officials acted as intermediaries in negotiations with Tripoli.74 Sardinia-Piedmont and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies allowed American vessels to refit in their ports and contributed supplies to the American fleet. In 1804 Jefferson made overtures to Tsar Alexander in an effort to induce Russia to persuade the Ottoman Porte to restrain the aggressive impulses of its North African satellites. However, Alexander obliquely hinted that American aid to Russia in its war against Napoleon was a condition of Russian diplomatic assistance in the Mediterranean. Jefferson rejected this suggestion, believing it would vitiate the flexibility, independence, and clear neutrality that he considered essential in negotiations with the European powers and would reduce the United States to a client of St. Petersburg in commercial negotiations with the British and French. Although few tangible results were gained from the Russian overture, Jefferson nevertheless regarded it as “momentous”, and it demonstrates his awareness of the global implications of the conflict as well as his skills in great power diplomacy.75 While eager to solicit foreign cooperation with—and contributions to—the American war effort, Jefferson never sought a formal alliance with the Northern European powers out of fear that they would likely conclude a separate peace and continue paying tribute to the Deys if the campaign went poorly or would attempt to drag the United States into a European war from which it could gain nothing. By remaining free of cumbersome “entangling alliances”, Jefferson hoped to gain the tactical independence he considered essential to success in the war and to gain European respect for American neutral rights. Perhaps the most interesting and, from the standpoint of future American relations with the states of the Middle East, critical aspects 74  The Danish consul in Tripoli, who acted as a contact between the American fleet and the captured crew of the Philadelphia, was later commended by Jefferson. 75  On the Russian dimension of Jefferson’s Mediterranean policy see Malone V, pp. 442-43; N. Hans, ed., “Tsar Alexander and Jefferson: Unpublished Correspondence”, Slavonic and East European Review, [32(1953): 215-25]. For the Russian estimate of the North African situation, see Norman Saul, Russia and the Mediterranean, 17971807, [Chicago: 1970], ch. 4.

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of the campaign was the American-sponsored coup d’etat against Yusuf Qaramanli, Pasha of Tripoli. The Jefferson administration had given its local consular officials considerable latitude in “advancing the interests of the United States” in their dealings with the Deys. Eaton, from his post in Tunis, took advantage of this discretion and argued to Madison that even if Tripoli was defeated, Yusuf would undoubtedly harbor designs of revenge and the United States would be compelled to maintain a constant naval presence in the region. In Machiavellian fashion, Madison replied that “although it does not accord with the general sentiments or views of the United States to intermeddle in the domestic contests of other countries, it cannot be unfair, in the prosecution of a just war, or the accomplishment of a reasonable peace, to turn to their advantage the enmity and pretensions of others against a common foe”.76 In late 1803 Eaton returned to Washington to outline his plan to overthrow Yusuf and to replace him with his brother Hamet, whose claim to the throne had been usurped by Yusuf some years earlier. Eaton maintained that if Hamet was restored to his legitimate position, he would be indebted to the United States and would free all American captives and cease all attacks on American shipping. Madison and Jefferson, though at first skeptical, approved Eaton’s plan as worthy of a “small investment”. Returning to North Africa in November 1804, Eaton joined forces with Hamet and, after a spectacular march across the desert with a motley army of American marines and Arabs, successfully captured the town of Derna in April 1805.77 Eaton’s goal was to march to Tripoli and complete his mission by installing Hamet as Pasha with the assistance of the American fleet in 76  As Madison put it in his letter of May 20, 1801, while the objectives of the campaign were set by the President, “the means must be left in a great degree to your knowledge of the local and other circumstances, which cannot be understood at this distance”. PJMSS, I, p. 200; JM to William Eaton, August 20, 1802, PJMSS III, pp. 505-506. 77  For a better understanding of the personality that conceived this enterprise, see L.B. Wright, The First Americans in North Africa: William Eaton’s Struggle for a Vigorous Policy Against the Barbary Pirates, 1799-1805; [Princeton: 1945]. Madison and Jefferson personally approved Eaton’s plan in May 1804. See Irwin, pp. 143-144; Field, pp. 52-53. Malone attempts to distance Jefferson from this scheme by implying that Eaton acted of his own authority. Malone V, pp. 40-41. Eaton, however, readily acknowledged that he had received the President’s permission before beginning the coup against Yusuf, and Madison’s letters remove all seeds of doubt on the issue. See the Madison-Eaton correspondence in PJMSS III. Given Jefferson’s view of the North African situation, it is not surprising that he would have endorsed such a move if it had a reasonable chance of success. The story of the Derna offensive is well-recounted by Allen, ch. 14, and Irwin, pp. 146-149.



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the harbor. But Commodore Samuel Barron, commander of the Mediterranean squadron, and Tobias Lear, American consul at Algiers and the ranking American diplomat in the region, decided to take advantage of the immediate military situation and moved to conclude peace with Yusuf while the Americans enjoyed naval superiority, and while the Pasha held three hundred Americans prisoner in the city. Yusuf, eager to retain his throne, concluded an agreement on terms generally favorable to the United States but insisted on ransom for the crew of the Philadelphia. The United States, as part of an agreement signed on 4 June 1805, agreed to pay $60,000 for the crew, a decision that caused consternation among Jefferson’s opponents in Congress. Critics charged that no money should have been paid while the guns of the American fleet were aimed directly at the Pasha’s palace.78 Jefferson was surprisingly noncommittal on the terms of the peace settlement, as he was unwilling to exacerbate rifts with his Republican allies in the Senate over the agreement. Most students of the war agree that Barron and Lear could have obtained more favorable terms had they opted for a direct assault on Tripoli rather than a negotiated settlement. Incoming reinforcements from the United States would have provided the Americans with a fleet of thirty-one ships, enough to have effectively bombarded Tripoli into submission.79 Nevertheless, both Barron and Lear were eager to conclude peace, especially given Yusuf’s sudden willingness to negotiate following the capture of Derna. Barron recognized that the unpredictable fortunes of war—such as the capture of another American vessel—could alter the balance of forces in the region and, by increasing Yusuf’s bargaining power, prolong the conflict indefinitely. Moreover, he feared that if any effort were made to invade or bomb the city Yusuf would immediately execute the crew of the Philadelphia in retaliation, and thus there was little he could do to ensure the safety of the American captives short of paying ransom. What was most important to him and to Jefferson was that the Tripolitan navy and its ability to commit further acts of piracy had been crippled. Eaton, who was still in possession of Derna when the treaty was signed, condemned the Jefferson administration for sanctioning the agreement and abandoning Hamet and his followers. Yet Jefferson and Madison had consistently viewed Hamet as little more than a political pawn and were unwilling to continue the war for the sake of his claim  On the peace and its political consequences see Allen, ch. 15; Irwin, ch. 10; Malone V, pp. 40-44. 79  Allen, p. 255; Irwin, pp. 157-159. 78

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or to settle local political rivalries. Although Federalists and John Randolph attempted to create political embarrassments for the President with charges of duplicity over the treatment of Hamet, Jefferson conspicuously ignored them and focused instead on war’s implications for American commercial rights and relations with Europe. After over twenty years of constant attention to the Mediterranean problem, Jefferson believed in 1805 that the war had achieved its purpose, and there was no reason to press for more ambitious objectives. He had demonstrated, as Gallatin put it in 1805, that he was “prepared, like the Great European Powers, to repel every injury by the sword”. The fact that he did so against such universally detested regimes only increased the popularity of his action. Even Pope Pius VII, upon hearing of Tripoli’s surrender, claimed that the Americans, “with a small force and in a short space of time, have done more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christendom have done for ages”.80 In the short term the increased American naval presence in the Mediterranean led to a significant decrease in attacks on American shipping and encouraged the North African principalities to open diplomatic relations with the United States, which had been virtually nonexistent before 1805. A potential conflict with Tunis was defused in 1806 through intensive diplomacy with the Tunisian ambassador as well as by the Tunisian government’s reluctance to match forces with Barron’s fleet. That a North African regency dispatched a senior official to Washington—an unprecedented move, as neither Russia nor the Ottoman Empire had a consulate in Washington at the time—confirmed Jefferson and Madison in their belief that the war had created a tectonic shift in the Mediterranean balance of power. Although problems with the Barbary States would recur, the worst depredations against American shipping ended with the Peace of 1805.81 80  On later developments with Hamet see Malone V, pp. 40-44; Irwin, ch. 10; Allen, ch. 15. On political reaction to the treaty see Malone V, pp. 38 and Irving Brant, James Madison: Secretary of State, 1801-1809 [Indianapolis: 1953], pp. 308-10. AG to TJ, September 12, 1805, JPLC: Reel 54. Allen, p. 214. It is unclear whether Jefferson was informed of the Vatican’s endorsement of his policy. He, and his political opponents, would certainly have found it wryly ironic and amusing. 81  In an effort to smooth over differences with Tunis, Jefferson and Madison went to extraordinary lengths in their dealings with Mellimelli, the Tunisian Minister. They stressed that the United States had peaceful intentions towards the North African states as long as they refrained from attacking American shipping. In an effort to faciliate negotiations with Mellimelli, Jefferson and Madison eased the ambassador’s loneliness by supplying him with a Greek prostitute and charged her expenses to the State Department as “appropriations for foreign intercourse”. Brant, Madison, IV, p. 306. See also



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Jefferson’s Barbary War provides a coherent expression of his conception of the international system. The three guiding assumptions of his diplomacy—securing American trade routes, promoting American commercial rights, and defending those rights through economic retaliation or military force—were put to the test in the Mediterranean crisis. During the war of 1801-1805, Jefferson demonstrated his commitment to protecting a vital artery of American trade by force—a classic gambit of eighteenth century statecraft—by dispatching a naval squadron against the Tripolitans aimed at “cutting them to pieces”, as he put it in 1786, as well as orchestrating a coup d’etat against a foreign government. At no discernable moment during the war was he influenced by the pacifist and idealist philosophy of the Enlightenment frequently—and erroneously—ascribed to his diplomatic strategy. Jefferson and the Atlantic Balance of Power: An Assessment The Mediterranean War was but one component of a larger geopolitical strategy designed and managed by Jefferson to defend and advance the interests of the United States. Taken in its entirety, this project reveals its debt to European practices of the eighteenth century and was predicated upon a sophisticated assessment of American commercial interests congruent with the assumption that national “wealth” and “power” were closely related, if not inseparable, concepts. This, of course, was merely a restatement of the mercantilist philosophy that had underscored British and French diplomacy since the late seventeenth century. It was anything but a “new diplomacy” in outlook or orientation, but was actually rather old-fashioned. Jefferson never claimed originality for his ideas; he merely parroted the prevailing patterns of statecraft that had existed throughout the colonial period and did not subject them to serious challenge or scrutiny. Jefferson conceived of a “two-tiered” international system. During period of Anglo-French war, he reasoned, the United States could use the policy of commercial retaliation—itself an antiquated policy by the Field, pp. 54-64. Beyond these diplomatic successes, it is important to note that the war had increased the size and readiness of the Navy. Crews benefited from the combat experience, and commanders developed tactics they would repeat in the highly successful naval campaigns of the War of 1812. Indeed, John Adams informed Jefferson in 1822 that he considered the American Navy to be “Jefferson’s child”, as it had been “born” during the Barbary war he authorized. JA to TJ, October 15, 1822, Cappon, p. 583.

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mid-eighteenth century—to extract concessions from the Europeans at a time when their economies were strained by war. If properly managed, the United States could benefit through a system of “parasitical neutrality” and avoid a capitulation such as the Jay Treaty on the one hand and an unwinnable war on the other. In dealing with “second tier” states, such as the Barbary powers and Spain in the West, this policy was unworkable and was supplanted with military force. These wars also reinforced American determination to protect its trade to London and Paris. The corollary of this argument was that the United States must develop the means not only of protecting its borders but of projecting power on the high seas. This demanded the creation of a navy, which Jefferson had zealously advocated in 1784, criticized when it served Federalist interests in 1794, and saw as indispensable in fighting the North African states in 1804. In the cases of West Florida, the Embargo, and North Africa Jefferson was clearly unmoved by pacifist inclinations, and the motives of his policies were indistinct from their allegedly “corrupt” European parentage. To put it another way, the Floridas differed only in latitude from Silesia and Saxony: the motives of territorial expansion and the protection of trade, the hallmarks of eighteenth century statecraft, were amply demonstrated in the new world. Jefferson’s blithe perversion of international law in the West Florida case, which even his admirers find disturbing, represented a clear triumph of interest over ideology. In the cases of Spain and the Mediterranean the Jefferson rarely perceived the need to even invoke the fig leaf of international law and spoke candidly about the assertion of American power. In the case of Great Power diplomacy, however, where the stakes were higher and American resources lower the need to invoke philosophical justification was comparably great. The Embargo policy failed precisely because Jefferson’s strategy had become anachronistic in an age of total war. Britain, fighting for survival, could not afford to compromise on a policy vital to its national security. Jefferson failed to realize this and his inability to offer constructive alternatives reveals the purely self-interested nature of his diplomacy. His balance of power tactics worked brilliantly in the Louisiana case because the province was, at bottom, a luxury to the French rather than a necessity, and hence Napoleon’s room for maneuver was considerable. Believing Britain to be in the same position in 1808, Jefferson expressed astonishment over London’s refusal to negotiate the maritime issue, and therefore clung to an outmoded policy that damaged the American economy more than Britain’s.



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Jefferson’s diplomatic initiatives were extremely complex because of their contingent and sequential nature. He thought in terms of a logical progression from ends to means, with the former being fixed and the latter always adaptive to changing world conditions. Failure to perceive this linkage between Jefferson’s initiatives has accounted for much of the confusion on the subject of his diplomacy. Taken apart, his actions seem disjointed, but when the links between them are understood, Jefferson emerges as a strategic thinker who kept objectives and capabilities in balance. As his priorities shifted, the ends and means adjusted to suit these objectives. Their relationship at first appears to be kaleidoscopic, but when viewed in the proper context, they follow an almost arithmetic progression. Despite the ultimate failure of the Embargo, Jefferson’s grasp of the totality of international politics and the coherence of his diplomatic design would not be equalled by another American President until the twentieth century.

Chapter VI Jefferson and the Enlightenment: A Perspective Jefferson’s legacy has long been inextricably linked to the spirit, program, and philosophy of the Enlightenment. Both his allies and adversaries have almost reflexively repaid the interest on his debt to this intellectual tradition for the benefit of posterity. Thus a sympathetic Republican could eulogize him as a “singular philosophical statesman” while a bitter Federalist castigated his “weak, wavering, indecisive” character and noted that he was more fit to be a college professor than the chief magistrate of a great and prospering nation. Both assumed he would stand in history as a Philosopher-King whose ideals would stand supreme over any of his merely temporal political accomplishments. The fact that Jefferson historiography has largely followed this pattern is a testament to Jefferson’s greatest political asset: his ability to cloak his politics in the style of philosophical convictions, and to masterfully blur the manifold inconsistencies between them. As a result, the real Jefferson’s relationship to the Enlightenment is ambiguous at best. Jefferson’s most earnest wish was to be remembered as a man of science and learning. To his credit, he earned this reputation through his wide-ranging intellectual inquiry. He was without question one of the most advanced scientific thinkers in the America of his day and spent, by his own admission, many of his happiest hours investigating, cataloguing, and classifying the phenomena of the natural world. He  Nicholas Biddle, “Eulogium on Thomas Jefferson”, cited in Julian Boyd, “Thomas Jefferson and the Police State”, North Carolina Historical Review, [25 (1948): 233253], p. 234; Malone III, p. 283. 

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once remarked that his chief passion in life was gardening and botany, and no doubt this was a sincere admission at times when the political climate was depressing. He offered scientific contributions to the American Philosophical Society, debated natural history with European correspondents, and developed a table of Native American vocabularies—all while administering the government of the United States. Jefferson consistently interpreted the affairs of the natural world through the lens of reason and deductive logic. He attacked superstitious beliefs, customs, and undocumented allegations as “outmoded”, and captured the spirit of age in his biting assertion that “ignorance is preferable to error: and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong”. It is not surprising that Jefferson praised the great scientific advances of the eighteenth century, and in his retirement he looked back upon this enterprise with satisfaction. “I agree with you in all its eulogies the 18th century”, he wrote Adams in 1816. “It certainly witnessed the sciences and arts, manners and morals, advanced to a higher degree than the world had ever before seen”. Yet in Jefferson’s view the progressive “empire of reason”, the dominion of which he respectfully acknowledged in the laboratory, did not compass the ends or means of political affairs. Though Jefferson’s philosophical missives on government were frequently written in the optimistic and rational style of the eighteenth century, they had no measureable influence on or even clear reflection in his political behavior. He never bound himself in the constraints of a prescriptive ideology: expediency, and not a consistent devotion to principle, was his guide in the political world. Adaptability and manipulation were the hallmarks of his statecraft both domestically and internationally. His political conduct and methodology were more apropos of the cabinets of the European monarchies than the salons of liberal French intellectuals. By the close of his Presidency even Jefferson’s closest political allies began to fear whether his absolute devotion to Cabinet statecraft had not led him to become—in a literal sense—more royal than the king. Jefferson could assess the architecture and fauna of the world around him with detachment and open-mindedness, but when it came to protecting vital political interests he was as astute and ruthless as any diplomat of the ancien regime. Defending the political system and culture of the established colonial order in the South—as well as the fortunes of  TJ to Charles Willson Peale, August 20, 1811, PTJRS IV, p. 93.   Notes on Virginia, cited in Malone II, p. 84; TJ to JA, January 11, 1816, Cappon, p. 458.   On this point see Perkins, Prologue to War, p. 42.  



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agriculture—was the paramount objective of his statecraft for forty years, and in advancing this cause he frequently acted with conspicuous selfishness and was all but deaf to idealistic appeals to the “rights of man”. In Jefferson’s view politics could not be understood through or guided by abstract philosophy or the Newtonian method of analysis: its variables, unlike those in chemistry or physics, were unquantifiable and transient. In adopting this position Jefferson underscored the divide between his thought and the progressive and prescriptive dictums of eighteenth century theorists. As a result Jefferson’s political correspondence lacks the rigidity and arid rationalism so common in contemporary writings and political treatises. Though it suited his design to be perceived as a disinterested philosopher, in reality Jefferson was a political operator par excellence whose policy was informed and governed by tangible interests and conditions. When viewed against the wider backdrop of European leaders of the 18th century and their dichotomous interests in “Enlightenment” in their salons and naked Realpolitik in their chancelleries, Jefferson emerges as a far more Catherinian figure in style and conduct than republican, and more the norm than exception for the period. In his thinking on the state Jefferson was motivated by a profound and provincial attachment to Virginia which led him to favor a limited central administration for the new nation. He viewed the traditional colonial order as the ideal arrangement for American society, under which each local government had relative autonomy in shaping its own laws and policies in the manner it deemed best. Only when the British interfered with this idyllic state of affairs by restrictive legislation (especially in the West) did Jefferson demand change, and even then all he initially wanted was for London to leave the mature organs of colonial self-government to themselves and let them develop in peace. Following the Revolution he sought to consolidate these gains and advocated a return to the political status quo ante 1763. In his view, the states— particularly powerful Virginia—could take care of themselves, as they had prior to the Seven Years’ War. Consequently, Jefferson argued that the powers of the new federal government should extend only to foreign policy and the most basic elements of internal organization. He distrusted Hamilton’s policies due to their untested and innovative nature: by creating new institutions and a powerful central government, Jefferson reasoned, Hamilton’s system would be as obnoxious to the liberties and traditions of the states as the British one he labored to overthrow. Once the germ of “consolidationism” began to eat at the “healthy fibers” of the states, the only way to defeat them would be through a radical revision of the

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Constitution. By 1820 Jefferson placed even money on the prospect that the Union would not last another generation, but he did little to alleviate the underlying causes of the sectional rift. Jefferson was never a cosmopolitan in the contemporary or modern sense of the term. His southern roots and ideas of social order were not expanded even by exposure to the luminescent society of Paris. Indeed, he spent more time and ink criticizing French society than attempting to emulate it, and his attitudes towards women, slavery, and political economy reflected this entrenched traditionalism. He saw no reason to advance the “general” good of American society at the expense of particular interests, especially those of southern agrarianism. His famous University, he frankly admitted, was designed to preach these old verities and undermine the control the “consolidationists” exercised over higher education in the United States. He wanted to train a new generation of southern statesmen to interpret American politics just as he did, and he framed the curriculum for the institution in a manner intended to insure this development. At all times he took a sectionalist reading of American politics. By the end of his life this view had hardened into a siege mentality that led him to take extreme measures—even intellectual dishonesty and intolerance, in the case of the University of Virginia—to protect these rights which he assumed the Revolution had secured but which were being daily eroded by Marshall’s Supreme Court and “innovations” flooding down from Northern progressives. With depressing frequency the politics of the new republic are commonly interpreted in terms of ideological “systems” but such an approach accomplishes little in the case of Jefferson, who was perennially conscious of the concrete motives directing his, and his opponents’, policies. His response to the Bank issue and the Alien and Sedition Acts were based on his conviction that these measures were intended to undermine Southern interests or—worse—his own political career. As a result he advocated a laissez-faire approach to national economic policy, which he assumed would benefit the independent and established agricultural enterprises of the South, and an unchecked right of political expression, which helped him win the election of 1800. During his Presidency Jefferson demonstrated that he had learned from the Federalists’ obnoxious practices of the 1790s: his scathing attacks on dissident views, especially in matters of foreign policy, led him to advocate libel proceedings against editors who dared criticize his initiatives.  

 See Appendix II.  See Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties, ch. 3.



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Throughout his Presidency Jefferson expanded Constitutional powers to advance his political program. His war with Marshall’s Supreme Court, which culminated in the impeachment of Samuel Chase in 1804 and the Burr Trial of 1806-1807, was intended to emasculate the last bastion Federalist influence in the national government: the Federal judiciary. An ingenious student of patronage, Jefferson built his Republican coalition by careful calculation and direct manipulation of sympathetic pamphleteers, and his labor cemented the organization that would extend the reign of the “Virginia Dynasty” until 1824. Far more receptive to the potential uses and misuses of federal power while President than while in opposition in the 1790s, Jefferson extended the authority of that office beyond the limits set by Washington and Adams and certainly far beyond those he had publicly endorsed while they held office. He demonstrated with unequalled vigor what an astute politician could accomplish while in control of the Executive Branch, to the point where Federalists and dissident Republicans alike half-jokingly suggested that he deserved coronation. At no time was this masterful political strategist motivated by abstract theories of government, even his own philosophy of strict construction. Similarly his views on international politics were congruent with the tradition of Cabinet diplomacy and raison d’etat practiced by most eighteenth century statesmen but deplored by most contemporary philosophers. Although he claimed to abhor the “mean, wicked and cowardly cunning of the Cabinets in the age of Machiavel”, so, too, did Frederick the Great. Like most eighteenth century statesmen Jefferson quoted fashionable liberal maxims but practiced the diplomacy of power, especially commercial power, and his statecraft was as sophisticated an example of Realpolitik as could be found in Europe. Indeed, he even managed to impress Napoleon and Talleyrand in 1803 with his relentless pursuit of national self-interest and exploitation of the international system to his advantage. The seeds of America’s future rise to world power were planted and nurtured by Jefferson as early as 1793. The central objective of his diplomacy was safeguarding American commerce and extending its reach, and the strategy of neutrality prevented the United States from being dragged into a costly war from which it could gain nothing and yet allowed it to   In Dietrich Knickerbocker’s History of New York, Jefferson was satirized as “King William the Testy”. Many New England Federalists at the time of the Embargo crisis thought he was more autocratic than George III and considered the measure more restrictive than the hated Boston Port Act of 1774.   TJ to William Duane, April 4, 1813, PTJRS VI, p. 52.

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obtain concessions from the European powers. The concept of the Atlantic balance of power, which undergirded all of his diplomatic initiatives, was viewed by him as the condition resulting from these commercial and political relationships between America, France, and Britain. By using a carrots-and-sticks policy against both Britain and France during their wars in Europe, Jefferson hoped to slowly dismantle their mercantilist systems in the Western Hemisphere and prey on their remains to enhance America’s position in the global economy. During his first term, when the balance of power in Europe was roughly stable, his efforts met with astonishing success. The Louisiana Purchase, acquired through classic balance of power politics, doubled the size of the nation and secured the commerce of the Mississippi. The Florida gambit, a logical extension of this policy, was not as successful, but Jefferson was distracted from his efforts to obtain this territory by the reemergence of the maritime dispute with England in 1807. Jefferson’s approach to world politics became increasingly anachronistic by his second term. The proven formulas of the mid-eighteenth century were inappropriate for the state system created by the advent of total war on the European continent. This condition ultimately rendered Jefferson’s cautious and calculated stratagems unworkable. His embargo, a product of older mercantilist views on international trade as well as the belief that America provided a market too rich for London to lose, proved futile in a period when Britain was fighting for survival. Jefferson’s chief problem in the Embargo crisis was his unwillingness to compromise in the face of circumstances he could not control, or to reduce the scope of his demands. While he had read the international system with such clarity in 1802, by his second term he became fixated on mechanical levers of world politics, most of them relics of the seventeenth century, that were as unsuited for the intensifying conflicts of the Napoleonic era as lances and crossbows. He did not correctly perceive London’s position and thus followed a course of action that made the peaceful resolution of the Anglo-American dispute unlikely. Jefferson rejected a legalistic or normative reading of international relations. In his view, both the ends and means of foreign policy were far too complex, and the need for flexibility too great, to allow for a juridical reading of world politics. He was willing to abrogate alliances or disregard treaties whenever it suited his interests, especially in the West Florida case. Jefferson never attempted to fashion (or even follow) a system of international law in the style so popular among intellectuals of his day, and never, even in his most philosophical moments,



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speculated about “world government”. Jefferson rarely gazed beyond the political horizon of the moment, but dealt instead with the problems immediately at hand. His statecraft was as a result largely reactive in nature, and alternated between the predatory and the cautious as that of any continental monarch. Calculations of interests, all intended to bolster America’s leverage in the global economy, motivated his policy. In an age of universalism, he remained, despite his sweeping prose, a parochial pragmatist in both domestic and international affairs. The spirit of the Enlightenment, therefore, cannot be said to have influenced Jefferson’s approach to, or effectiveness in, politics. He did not attempt to fashion a “philosophical” statecraft, and his impressive political rhetoric, when viewed from a practical angle, appears to have been just that. In many cases he acted contrary to his own declared principles. In purely scientific matters he unequivocally accepted the spirit of progress and innovation that was the hallmark of eighteenth century thought. At no time, however, did he seek to introduce these ordering principles into the political world. Reason, he acknowledged, would rarely triumph in contests with material self-interest or raison d’etat: “Morals do not, of necessity, advance hand in hand with the sciences”, he observed in his retirement. In short, to Jefferson there were two “Enlightenments”: one scientific and practical, the other political and abstract. He endorsed the efforts of the first but found the products of the second too ethereal, even though he made politely approving references to them in his correspondence with European intellectuals and their American disciples. There was nothing in this liberal system of thought that could defend or explain the traditional culture to which he was accustomed, or the southern way of life that he endorsed. Indeed, the political philosophy of the Enlightenment was as antagonistic to this world as to the culture of established religion and absolute monarchy in Europe. In analyzing Jefferson’s thought it is essential to recognize this distinction which so often goes unnoticed. As a result his scientific achievements and rhetorical exclamations are frequently mistaken for policy, and his interpreters conclude that he embraced wholly what he only endorsed partially. Jefferson, with his formidable political acumen, was consequently able to “outwit” the program of Enlightenment political philosophy while at the same time claim it as his own.



 Cited in Peterson, Jefferson and the New Nation, p. 936.

part iii metternich, jefferson, and the enlightenment: interpretations & conclusions

Conclusion Metternich, Jefferson, and the Enlightenment: Interpretations and Conclusions With characteristic insight, John Adams concisely identified the most vexing problem of historiography—particularly the biographical variety—in a 1785 letter to Jefferson. “There can be no Employment”, he wrote, “more disagreeable than that of weighing Merit, by the Grain and Scruple, because the world very seldom forms an opinion of a man, precisely the same with his own, and therefore the scales will always be objected to, as not justly balanced. It is worse than the business of a Portrait Painter, as men are generally better satisfied with their own Talents and Virtues than even with their faces”. Adams clearly perceived the difficulties involved in writing an impartial history, or theoretical analysis, of the tumultuous events of his generation. He even put down the Peloponnesian War, a favorite of his, in 1812, because it reminded him too starkly of his own life and times. Unfortunately Adams saw no reason to follow Thucydides’ example, and so contemporary scholars are forced to reconstruct events, and the impact of ideas upon them, from the distance of two centuries. This study has sought to examine the politics and diplomacy of Clemens Metternich and Thomas Jefferson—two of the most pivotal statesmen of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Europe and America—through the prism of the Enlightenment. It has been my intention to demonstrate to what extent their policies were informed by eight  JA to TJ, December 13, 1785, Cappon, p. 107; JA to TJ, February 3, 1812, Cappon, p. 295.

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eenth century political philosophy. Both claimed to be disciples of Enlightenment rationalism, and argued that they crafted their policies in accordance with its teachings. This analysis has occupied itself with proving or disproving their assertions, and in investigating the relationship of theory and practice in their political conduct. The interpretation elaborated in this study is radically different from the “received” images of Metternich and Jefferson in modern historiography. We have seen how they assessed Enlightenment thought in their individual contexts; the remaining task is to investigate why this analysis differs so radically from contemporary readings of their statecraft. To accomplish this, a brief excursus into the historiographic treatment of Metternich and Jefferson is required in order to illustrate the persistence of late nineteenth century attitudes towards these figures and offer explanations for their endurance. Finally, we will examine to what extent Enlightenment thought informed their political successes and failures, and how their devotion to, or neglect of, this intellectual tradition contributed to them. In both internal and external politics Metternich’s statecraft illustrated both the potential strengths and ultimate impotence of the prescriptive dimension of Enlightenment thought. There is little, if any, discrepancy between theory and practice in Metternich’s case. Indeed, he was often criticized for being too consistent, almost to the point of dogmatism. His plan of European federalism is only today being hailed as innovative, and his suggestions for the reformation of the Habsburg Monarchy anticipated the nationalities problem that would ultimately destroy it. Metternich was, on the whole, an unremarkable product of late German Enlightenment liberalism; what is startling, if not incomprehensible, in the ongoing debate on his policies is that this progressive cosmopolitan could have for so long been presented as an archconservative and even reactionary in scholarly literature. Jefferson’s case is similarly intriguing. There is a much larger gap between the views Jefferson espoused in his philosophical extracts and those he acted on while in power. We have seen that in most, if not all, of these cases the discrepancies can be explained by his political acumen and his unequalled ability to tailor comments to suit the disposi  Indeed, Metternich was touted in the European press as one of the “intellectual spirits” of the Lisbon Treaty on an enhanced European Union in 2009. See Lidove Noviny, “Metternich 2: The Lisbon Treaty”, June 11, 2009, presseurop.eu. Noviny sees him as so critical to the process of European unity that he suggested 2009 be “the Year of Metternich”, as it was the bicentennial anniversary of his being appointed Foreign Minister.



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tions of his audience. Jefferson was also unremarkable in the wider context of eighteenth century politics: in foreign policy he continued the European traditions of mercantilism and balance-of-power diplomacy and in internal politics he was devoted to maintaining Virginia’s primacy in the new union and largely preserving its social status quo. In his at times cunning politics, Jefferson represented almost everything from which the Enlightenment recoiled. Yet he is universally lauded as the personification of Reason and an apostle of learning, which indeed he was in the apolitical fields of science and technology. But in the affairs of state he was anything but progressive, and indeed frequently sought to prevent radical changes in the political culture of the South. What, then, accounts for these “received” views of Metternich and Jefferson, and how has modern historiography on these figures supported them in light of such seemingly obvious discrepancies between image and reality? Metternich, Jefferson, and Enlightenment Thought: The Historiographical Record and the Problem of Interpretation Ironically, the parameters of the modern debate on Metternich and Jefferson were established by the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The persistence of these interpretations attests to the perhaps unconscious influence of these ideologies in modern scholarship. In the case of Jefferson, American nationalist historiography, beginning with the work of George Bancroft, attempted to elevate the Founding Fathers to Olympian proportions and used them to create a sense of national heritage, shared identity, and “mission”. Merrill Peterson, in his classic study of The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, traces how Jefferson’s legacy was used as a foundation upon which to build a conception of American national identity in a period of rapid social transformation. In the late nineteenth century, as the United States was rapidly expanding and gaining world power status, the “Jeffersonian” principles upon which the nation was constructed were held up as examples to the populations of Europe, as well as to a large immigrant population that American leaders were eager to quickly assimilate.  See, for example, the analysis by Richard Ellis of “The Jeffersonian Surge” in the 1990s. Ellis, American Sphinx, ch.1.   Peterson, Jefferson Image, chs. 4-7. 

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Bancroft’s work, as well as later studies by Henry Commager and Dumas Malone, invoked Jefferson as an example of “American exceptionalism”, the belief that the United States is morally distinct from, and indeed superior to, other nations and endowed with a unique “mission” in world affairs. While this idea can be traced to Puritan New England, it clearly manifested itself in the popular consciousness immediately prior to the First World War. Jefferson’s “American” ideas and ideals were taught to schoolchildren and scholars as a means of galvanizing the national sense of union, identity, and glory following the grueling and divisive Civil War. In his influential 1929 biography, Gilbert Chinard regarded Jefferson as nothing less than “The Apostle of Americanism”, a title that alone speaks volumes about the common perception of Jefferson among early twentieth century scholars. Metternich’s legacy has been treated in a similar fashion. Although most of his contemporaries, including Castlereagh and his own sovereign, considered him a liberal—indeed, in the latter case, far too liberal—modern interpreters invariably condemn him as a reactionary. Again, this is due in large measure to the influence of nationalism on historical scholarship in Europe after the abortive revolutions of 1848. The earliest arbiters of Metternich’s reputation—particularly Heinrich von Treitschke—were staunch German nationalists and not surprisingly they had few edifying things to say about him given his refusal to endorse German unification. Metternich’s distrust of the forces of nationalism extolled in late nineteenth century and Wilhelmine Germany was scathingly rebuked by Treitschke and his epigones, such as Viktor Bibl, who subtitled his influential biography of Metternich “the Demon of Austria”. Metternich had the misfortune of having his enemies write the ground-breaking histories of his era. He outlived most of his contemporaries by several decades, and few apologists for Enlightenment rationalism and—more critically—cosmopolitanism could be found in late nineteenth century Europe. Indeed, the whole program of the Enlightenment itself was popularly condemned by historians and philosophers in that period as “reactionary”, given its stress on rationalism and universal ordering principles rather than the more fashionable causes of individualism and national self-determination. In this context, why    Ibid., pp. 209-66. Chinard’s study of Thomas Jefferson: The Apostle of Americanism, [Ann Arbor: 1929], was the definitive one-volume study of Jefferson prior to Peterson’s 1971 biography. Its influence in shaping a “nationalist” interpretation of Jefferson throughout the twentieth century was profound and formative.   For the German nationalist reading of Metternich and its impact, see Paul Schroeder, “Metternich Studies Since 1925”, Journal of Modern History, [33(1961): 237-60].



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should Metternich, who declared that “Europe is my fatherland”, be considered any differently? Only in the twentieth century did the nationalist assault on Metternich, which had found its way into standard textbooks, come under fire. In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Walter Alison Phillips’ important study on the Confederation of Europe demonstrated Metternich’s commitment to European federalism and placed him squarely in the Kantian camp. Phillips’ work, and his lucid and original articles in the Cambridge Modern History of Europe were, unfortunately, overshadowed by the impact of the war. However, the Versailles conference sparked immediate comparisons with and interest in the Vienna settlement in the early 1920s and led to a renewed interest in Metternich’s contributions in international relations. In 1925, Metternich received his long-awaited rehabilitation from Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, who further developed Phillips’ thesis and interpreted Metternich in the context of eighteenth century themes and ideas. The cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment regained popularity following the carnage of the World War, and Srbik’s work set the tone of the Metternich debate until the dawn of the cold war. Moreover, the interwar years marked the beginning of the modern study of international relations as its own academic discipline, and organizations such as the Carnegie Endowment actively stressed the earlier “peace theories” of Kant, Bentham, Vattel, and other eighteenth century authors as well as the post-Napoleonic experiment in international organization. Srbik and Phillips, however, were historians and not political theorists. Their grasp of the philosophy of the Enlightenment was respectable, but not profound. While they correctly traced the general sources of Metternich’s political thought, their lack of primary source material became a major criticism of their works. Nevertheless, these examinations—Srbik’s in particular—were the first “modern” studies of Metternich’s politics and political theory, and clearly demonstrated that the “reactionary” school of Metternich studies rested on tenuous conceptual foundations. Srbik’s opposition to the entrenched nationalism in the German universities helped popularize his arguments in the 1920s, when attacks on nationalism, especially German nationalism, were   For the earliest such interpretation, see Phillips, “The Congresses, 1815-1822” in A.W. Ward et al., eds., The Cambridge Modern History, vol. X, [Cambridge: 1907], ch. 1.   See Schroeder, “Metternich Studies”. Srbik published a third volume to his biography in 1954, which was merely a response to his critics, many of which had attacked his idea of an “Enlightenment” Metternich. See Srbik, Metternich III, introduction.

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widespread. He interpreted Metternich in the context of Kant and Montesquieu, and not of Bismarck and Marx, and set the stage for a broader and deeper survey of the impact of the Enlightenment on Metternich which unfortunately he never wrote, as his later years were spent responding to his many critics. In the United States Charles Beard and Henry Adams attempted to do for Jefferson what Srbik did for Metternich—that is, to examine his behavior in the context of his times and to question the mythology that had been created around his name. Both sought to examine the eighteenth century’s impact on Jefferson on its own terms, but their efforts had mixed results. Despite the monumental size and erudition of his work, Adams could not completely escape his Federalist patrimony and his work repeated many of his great-grandfather’s critiques of Jefferson’s policies. Beard’s study, which was the more original and which offered a materialist, rather than ideological, reading of Jefferson’s politics, was soon eclipsed by the new cult of Jefferson hagiography which blossomed in the interwar years as Franklin Roosevelt invoked his name to justify his domestic programs. After the Second World War, to challenge Jefferson’s legacy, or to suggest that he was anything but a fierce patriot and promoter of “American” values, was to appear subversive. This, in sum, was the argument Dumas Malone presented in his review of Leonard Levy’s revisionist study of Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side, which questioned the depth and sincerity of Jefferson’s defense of the First Amendment. Malone’s own six-volume work, which remains the standard biography, is thorough but is plagued by a sense of hero-worship and awe as his protagonist struggles with seemingly intractable forces at home and abroad. Malone’s Jefferson is larger than life, and was written for a contemporary context shaped by the Manichean dimensions of the Cold War. In Metternich’s case this danger of “exaggerating virtues” is less real, as no European state, even Austria, can claim him as a “Founding Father”. His name is not associated with a national heritage as is Jefferson’s, and consequently attacks on him ruffle fewer political feath  Charles Beard, The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, [New York: 1915]. On the impact of Beard and Adams on Jefferson scholarship, see Peterson, Jefferson Image, Book II, ch. 6. Beard was criticized for taking a quasi-Marxist view of early American politics and his work was fiercely attacked by the “democratic” canon in American historiography. These arguments are illustrated in the preface to the 1989 edition of Levy’s Jefferson and Civil Liberties, in which Levy publishes an angry correspondence between himself and Dumas Malone. This exchange of letters is a brilliant microcosm of the state of Jefferson historiography after the Second World War. See also Ellis, American Sphinx, ch. 1.



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ers. But Metternich scholars are, in the main, traditional diplomatic historians. While they occasionally quarrel with Treitschke and Srbik, this group has had little interest in the sources and uses of his political theory, and tend to relate only the “practical” side of Metternich’s statecraft in a narrative mode. Indeed, few general studies of Metternich’s or Jefferson’s political thought and statecraft have been attempted since the 1950s. Jefferson scholarship became mired in the 1980s and 1990s in an endless debate between “liberals” and “classicals”10 which has receded in favor of the advancing tide of social historical analysis of the early American period concentrating on Jefferson’s domestic life, slavery, and particularly the Sally Hemings affair.11 Metternich’s interpreters have tirelessly reviewed his diplomacy in every corner of Europe but have shown little interest in relating it to a coherent political strategy or philosophy. The few comprehensive studies that do exist, such as Henry Kissinger’s A World Restored or Robert Tucker and David Hendrickson’s Empire of Liberty, are plagued by a tendency to use their subjects as models of contemporary political problems or as protagonists in current debates. For example, Kissinger invokes the Congress of Vienna as an analogy of the Cold War, and lauds Metternich’s commitment to “conservative” principles and his “realism” towards an expansionist Russia. In reality, however, Metternich never sought to “contain” Russia in the manner of George Kennan, but rather labored incessantly to integrate Russia into the European Alliance. Moreover, Metternich never, contra Kissinger, interpreted politics in the bipolar or ideological lens of a “Cold War” and his own political views were, as we have seen, strikingly different than the Kissingerian analysis found in A World Restored, which is more useful as an insight into its author’s mind than Metternich’s. In the American context, Tucker and Hendrickson posit Jefferson’s diplomacy as the prototype for modern American “idealism” in world affairs in order to attack that concept at its theoretical and historical roots. They interpret Jefferson as an eighteenth century Woodrow Wilson, whose foreign policy was directed towards the realization of “moral duties” and implemented by theories of “peaceable coercion”. This tradition takes Jefferson’s sweeping rhetoric largely at face value. His acquisitive urge for the Floridas is explained in the rather shallow context of a theory of a “democratic empire” and the objectionable Barbary  See Appendix I.  See particularly Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (New York: 2008) and her earlier Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (New York: 1997) 10 11

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War which has so long appeared as a thorn in the hide of Jefferson scholarship is relegated to a footnote where, apparently, it was hoped that it would be ignored rather than stand out as an embarrassing exception to Jefferson’s supposed “pacifism”. More generally, Hamilton and Jefferson are often cast in the modern (and misleading) roles of “hawks” and “doves” and thereby cloud the issues facing early American foreign policy, issues far removed from its modern counterpart and ones best understood in their own context.12 In short, modern scholars of Metternich and Jefferson have tended to interpret their subjects as precursors of the contemporary age, rather than as products of theirs. This is not to say that their thought has no relevance to the modern world, only to suggest that such comparisons and analyses be made carefully. It does little good to apply twentieth century concepts and experiences to the eighteenth, as politics and political debate was conducted an entirely different form and fashion. Modern concepts and values such as American or German nationalism, American “exceptionalism”, and dichotomies between “realism and idealism” become virtually meaningless as tools of analysis when placed next to the works of Hume, Kant, and Montesquieu that Metternich and Jefferson actually read. For this reason, I have chosen to examine Metternich and Jefferson in the context of the theory and politics of the eighteenth century. This context, rooted in the political and intellectual sources of their time rather than ours, offers a better guide to understanding the perennial question of the relationship of ideas and statecraft. The Impact of the Enlightenment on Metternich and Jefferson: An Assessment It is impossible to examine the totality of Metternich’s or Jefferson’s statecraft and neatly categorize either as a “failure” or “success”. Elements of both were abundant in all of their political initiatives, and their triumphs and frustrations were influenced by manifold causes. However, at least in Metternich’s case, where the border between theory and practice is so permeable, we can see how his political philosophy led him to his overpowering defeat in international and internal affairs in the mid-1820s. Jefferson’s politics, given their eclectic and temporiz The “realist/idealist” view of Hamilton and Jefferson was pioneered by Hans Morgenthau in his classic Politics Among Nations [New York: 1948] during the early years of the Cold War. 12



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ing character, are more difficult to assess, but here as well a few general evaluations may be offered. Metternich’s political efforts ultimately failed because they were too rigid and dogmatic for the flexible and rapidly changing world of midnineteenth century European politics. He himself admitted that “a political body which rests on unchanging principles cannot alter its course”, a realization that no doubt became painfully obvious to him after his ship of state ran aground after 1825.13 Reason, understood and utilized by most eighteenth century philosophers as a supple and liberating instrument, became a dogma to Metternich. Convinced that his approach to politics, supposedly based on self-evident truths, was rational and correct, he could not, and did not, realize that he had set his sights too high, and that his objectives were unobtainable given the realities of postwar Europe. Metternich did have a long-term agenda and wide field of vision which he used to conceive and implement policy. He argued that the benefits of universal peace would be apparent to all and would prove a greater temptation than war, which, he never tired of saying, often had unpredictable consequences. This optimism led Metternich to labor for a future state of rewards that never materialized. His efforts at building a European federation were successful from 1813 to 1815 because the Powers all had a common interest in resisting the French hegemony in Europe, and from 1815-1822 they worked because these same states were recalibrating their foreign policies to suit a new era, treasuries were depleted and armies exhausted, and because Castlereagh was a loyal supporter in powerful Britain. Had Metternich died in 1818, he undoubtedly would be remembered as an idealistic practicioner of a new system of international relations. But, as he observed in the 1850s, his worst fate was to live beyond his times. Metternich never recognized that his vision of world order met with fleeting success only because external circumstances favored it, and not solely because of the inherent soundness of its basic principles. Once Britain and Russia began to pursue competitive, and indeed antagonistic, foreign policies after 1825 Metternich’s system was doomed. Following that date he effectively became an anachronism in his own time, and his repetition of eighteenth century verities struck his colleagues—particularly Canning and Nesselrode—as stale mantras. The politics of nationalism undermined Metternich’s efforts to institutionalize his cosmopolitan project, and he could do nothing  CM to Esterhazy, August 7, 1825, MM IV, p. 227.

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except ceaselessly pontificate on the virtues of reason, equilibrium, and restraint. In domestic policy Metternich used this same calculus to arrive at a similarly innovative yet ultimately frustrating conclusion. He denounced the Austrian government as retrograde, hobbled by bureaucratic incompetence and monarchical absolutism. Metternich therefore worked to restructure it in accordance with more liberal and enlightened formulas. Here too he underestimated the opposition to his proposals. He automatically assumed that a federal constitution would fortify the Monarchy while at the same time co-opt the divisive—but unstoppable—force of nationalism in the provinces. Moreover, he worked to subtly introduce a cabinet government in Austria by eclipsing monarchical power and delegating its functions to a responsible executive council of ministers, a move which would make the Habsburg state more like its counterparts in France and Britain. Again, however, his plans came to naught: conservative forces among the Hofräte led by Kolowrat as well as the Kaiser himself effectively marginalized Metternich’s influence in internal policymaking and undercut his projects in favor of tried, but increasingly inefficient and outmoded, models. Nevertheless, Metternich must be credited with having the conviction and sophistication to advance his opinions, and he ceaselessly attempted to carry them forward into practice. As with his work in international politics, one cannot fault him for not trying hard enough. He anticipated crises from a comfortable distance, but was powerless to act on his instincts. Had his 1817 proposals been approved, they may well have forestalled the revolutions that would drive him from power thirty-one years later. Yet in political terms the inflexibility which provided him with unrivalled confidence and innovation also led him to a profound inability to compromise. His tendency to play the doctrinaire and act according to rigid formulaic ideas created opposition, discord, and jealousy among his peers and was the real source of his marginalization in European and Austrian politics after 1825. Metternich, simply put, was incapable of adapting to changing circumstances but rather attempted to control them within the confines of pre-structured theory. Jefferson, on the other hand, brilliantly avoided this trap. While Metternich sought to align Austria—and Europe—to suit his idealized conception of “ought”, Jefferson focused on the nuances and complexities of the material political world and exploited them to his advantage. His diplomacy was supple, flexible, and resilient to British and French attempts to undercut American leverage in world politics. Since his



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goals were centered on the tangible issues of commerce and territory, they could be measured, calculated, and assessed in the present, rather than in a future state of perpetual peace. Jefferson had his share of failures, but all were of the conventional type—that is, most were related to changes in maps or the interpretation of treaties, and thus could be pursued again at a later date. None carried the apodictic conceptual weight of Metternich’s projects. In Jefferson’s case, there was no reservoir of philosophical conviction or systemic ordering principles that was open to attack or exploitation. His ability to keep the United States out of the European war was his greatest achievement, and the obstacles he faced in doing so were even greater than those facing Wilson in 1915, when the nation was at least safe from physical invasion. The Mediterranean campaign was a classical limited war, and helped assert America’s determination to protect its commerce. The gambit for Louisiana was carefully played, and firmly secured the vital artery of the Mississippi. This stunning success of 1803 also helped Jefferson in his attempt to maintain firm presidential control over foreign policy. The Embargo strategy was ultimately a failure, but Jefferson pursued what he thought was a pragmatic policy which would prevent the United States from being drawn into a war from which it would gain nothing and through which it could potentially lose a great deal, such as its existence as a sovereign nation. An axiom of Jefferson’s strategic thought was that America must avoid being dragged into a contest between Europe’s strongest Powers, but should rather coyly manipulate its neutrality and exploit the Atlantic balance of power to its favor. Part of the reason for the Embargo’s failure can be attributed to the fact that Jefferson was so faithful to classical diplomatic methods that he failed to recognize that the war between Britain and France, unlike earlier conflicts, was a new breed of total war which placed unprecedented strains on the financial and military capacities of these states. To be sure, he hoped to profit from it, but his demands on Britain were unrealistically inflated: given its precarious situation after the promulgation of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, London could not afford to compromise with the United States on the issue of maritime rights. Jefferson’s logic and strategy were brilliant in their adaptive qualities and careful weighing of interests, but he did not have the physical means at his disposal to compel the British or French to terms. This, of course, had been the root of Hamilton’s logic all along, which Jefferson rejected in favor of the more parasitical policy of “national independence” based on the assertion of “power and profit”.

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Jefferson’s lack of an absolutist theoretical or philosophical compass in international relations also led him to a temporizing policy that was at times myopic. He was incapable of prioritizing policy, but rather pursued several objectives at once, many of which contradicted each other. He needed British help to secure West Florida, but alienated London by challenging its commercial policies. He “tilted” to France prior to 1802 because it was the state that could, in his view, cause America the least injury, but quickly made preparations to contest a French occupation of Louisiana once word of Leclerc’s expedition reached him. In short, he lacked the single-minded determination of Metternich. While he was sure of what he wanted, he was unsure of what he wanted more at any given time. One thing is certain about Jefferson’s diplomacy: it was a thoroughly acquisitive construct, predicated upon increasing American influence within the Atlantic balance of power system.14 Metternich wanted to overturn this predatory system and institute a new one based on law; Jefferson wanted to preserve it and exploit it to his advantage. In internal politics Jefferson followed a conservative and strikingly defensive course and his policies were largely negative in outlook: he was more intent on preventing action by his opponents than with initiating novel ideas. Even the American Revolution, the greatest event of his generation, was conceived by Jefferson as a means of conserving, rather than diffusing, the political power and institutions of his beloved Virginia. Whereas Metternich sought to introduce a new constitution for his state, Jefferson initially opposed the one prepared in 1787 because he feared that Virginia’s status would be imperiled by its federal structure. Every domestic question he encountered was “filtered through a Virginia prism”, as Albert Bowman observed, and his ultimate objective was to preserve the status quo in the culture and institutions of southern agrarianism and insulate it from the stresses and strains of “centralization”. Jefferson wanted to protect Virginia from these corrosive and destabilizing doctrines, and his war with Marshall’s Supreme Court was a result of his attempt to build a carapace around the traditions, institutions, economy, and values of the colonial South. He even built his own university to pay homage to Southern values, and to keep the sons of the southern elite from attending Harvard, Yale, or Princeton where Hamiltonian ideas of “consolidation” were rampant.15   Kaplan, Entangling Alliances With None, pp. 111-113.  See appendix II.

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Jefferson was, in short, a parochial Virginia aristocrat, comfortable with the life he led and determined to maintain it for his progeny. Although he, like Metternich, clearly perceived flaws in the social structure around him, he failed to champion reform. His brilliant foretelling of a sectional quarrel over slavery in 1820, which went unsupported by a reformist policy proposal, is a signal example of this facet of Jefferson’s political personality. Thus it is impossible to label Jefferson’s social policy a success or failure, as it was largely static in character. He offered few new ideas of social policy, and placed himself, a devoted student of science and learning, at the service of decaying traditions and essentially retrograde principles. One of Jefferson’s greatest political gifts was his ability to shield himself from any controversial action or program injurious to his historical reputation and personal standing.16 Thus he is remembered more for his impressively progressive rhetoric and scientific dabblings than for any formal and systematic political policy. This, of course, is exactly what he intended. He took pains to insure that his philosophic achievements would be held in higher estimate than his politics, and thus the errors he made in the latter context could be excused as those of an amateur. While this has not held true in all cases, of course, such mythology—perpetuated by the nationalist historiography discussed earlier— has helped propel Jefferson into the highest rank of scholarstatesmen, when in actuality his motives and behavior differed little from those of the pettiest European prince at the time. He used intermediaries to handle sensitive matters, built an impressive coalition of northern and southern Republicans held together, as subsequent events would prove, by his own impressive diplomacy, and cultivated a close alliance between government and the press that enabled him to disseminate ideas through sympathetic supporters while keeping his power base secure. Tactically brilliant, but devoid of any coherent theoretical objective, Jefferson mastered the political universe because he was content simply to do so, rather than seek to change it in the manner of a Metternich or, for that matter, a Madison or Hamilton. Jefferson succeeded, albeit in a limited sense, because he was able to adapt to the changing fortunes of politics and shift positions without encumbering ideological or moral baggage. In the few instances that he could not do this, as in the case of his devotion to Virginia and Southern social interests, he was at least clever enough to present his views 16  See Frank Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy (Edinburgh: 2006).

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in vague and protean language. Thus he was able to “leave the bag”, as he put it, to his successors in 1812 and 1861 and remain comfortably removed from the chaos of these crises, even though his own policies had done much to provoke them. Metternich, who interpreted politics from the standpoint of immutable and universal laws, had no such option or political “escape hatch”. He could not compromise his ideals and accept what he considered irrational or traditional simply for convenience. The sense of forward movement in Metternich’s opinions and politics is inescapable, and typifies the Kantian dimension of the Enlightenment. He worked to achieve the “kingdom of ends”, but failed to recognize the politics is the art of the possible, a maxim Jefferson never forgot, except perhaps in the later stages of the Embargo crisis of 1808. Jefferson manipulated the immediate and thought in material terms; Metternich labored for the future and was consistently guided by a well-developed philosophy. In a purely abstract sense Metternich succeeded in bringing issues formerly discussed only in treatises and salons into the political arena, but ultimately encountered frustration because this universe proved recalcitrant to his rational, absolute, and predictive formulas. Jefferson, who never made this assumption, was able to at least capitalize on his achievements and minimize his failures because all were, in the final analysis, transitory developments rooted in immediate political circumstances. Thus by investigating the careers and contributions of two of the leading statesmen of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries we have been able to assess at least partially the impact of Enlightenment philosophy, by then fully matured, on European and American politics. Both Metternich and Jefferson were learned students of politics and history, and both prided themselves on their progressive outlooks. But Jefferson ultimately transcended the philosophical inclinations of reason and reform he absorbed from eighteenth century texts to pursue his own agenda based largely on interest and power. Metternich, on the other hand, sublimated these “particular” ideas to the cause of general European peace. Accepting the political world for what it was, Jefferson sought aggressively to promote and pursue the interests of his state. Metternich, who condemned this approach, worked to establish a permanent, general European peace. Both claimed the mantle of eighteenth century philosophy, but Jefferson outwitted it by keeping his philosophical treatises and politics distinct, while Metternich triumphantly carried the banner of Reason into the nineteenth century, only to find that he had few troops behind him.



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The legacy of the Enlightenment is a perennial question of political philosophy, and demands constant reassessment. This study of two dynamic, influential, and frequently misinterpreted statesmen is but one such effort. “Theory and Practice”, as Kant noted in 1792, must always be kept in balance, and to do justice to one we must thoroughly examine the other. Only through such an investigation can we separate rhetoric from reality, and truly prescriptive ideas from those that were merely used to justify policy. Such a project, after all, was the philosophical basis and inspiration for the eighteenth century Enlightenment and continues to provide us with new insights on the past as well as a model for understanding contemporary political questions.

Appendix I Note on the Classical-Liberal Debate on the Sources of Jefferson’s Thought and the Origins of the Republican Party

It is not essential for the purposes of this study to directly enter into the debate between the “liberals” and the “classicals” and their interpretations of the sources of Jefferson’s thought and the origins of the Republican Party. I am concerned only with assessing Jefferson’s political conduct in light of the principles he claimed governed his behavior. The literature addressed in this note is concerned more with collective entities such as parties and broad social movements. When they do discuss Jefferson, they are interested in understanding the sources from which his theories were derived. I am willing to accept Jefferson’s word on where his ideas came from, and am more concerned with seeing what he did with them. I will therefore only touch on the major points of this debate for the sake of providing a complete view of scholarly perspectives on Jefferson. The notion that Jefferson was a disciple of Locke stood virtually unchallenged for fifty years. Carl Becker’s The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas [New York: 1933] seemed to establish this proposition beyond doubt. Yet, like all commonly-held ideas in historiography, this one was in due course attacked. J.G.A. Pocock, in his Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, [Princeton: 1975], sought to radically revise this interpretation of early American history. He attempted to place the Founding Fathers in a broader intellectual tradition that had its roots in the Greek polis of Aristotle. His argument   Daniel T. Rogers has already given us a succint summary of it. See his “Republicanism: The Career of a Concept”.

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is that these classical ideas emigrated to Rome, were revived by Machiavelli and other civic humanists in the sixteenth century, and found their way to England in the seventeenth where they influenced writers such as Shakespeare and Harrington, and then came to America with the colonists and flourished in the neo-classical setting of the new republic in the eighteenth. Thus he concluded that both the American Revolution and Constitution in some sense form the last act of the civic Renaissance, and that the ideas of the civic humanist tradition—the blend of Aristotelian and Machiavellian thought concerning the zoon politikon—provide an important key to the parodox of modern tensions between individual self-awareness on the one hand and consciousness of society, property, and history on the other. [p. 462]

This thesis had been raised earlier both by Pocock and Gerald Stourzh in his brilliant study of Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government, [Stanford: 1970]. Stourzh, however, presented a more compelling case by focusing on the thought of a single statesman, one who was far more impressed with classical ideas than Jefferson, who dismissed most of them as “nonsense” (see Part II, ch. 1). It was Hamilton, after all, who venerated Caesar. Jefferson, on the other hand, was much more receptive to Newton and the skepticism of the British empiricists. To be sure, Pocock was more interested in exploring the alleged “renaissance” character of early America than in studying the thought of a particular statesman, and certainly his work gives us much to think about. The Enlightenment, after all, did not emerge from a vacuum and had strong antecedents in what came before it—antecedents that did go back to Rome, thought not all of them via Florence. But Pocock, in my view, does not satisfactorily measure these connections; and his last chapter on America is confining to say the least. In the attempt to trace the conformity of individuals (or to make the individuals conform) with the thought of three hundred years before, the complex issues and personalities of the early American period are blurred into a literal Renaissance tapestry. Lance Banning attempted to rectify this oversight in Pocock’s analysis in his study of The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology, [Ithaca: 1978]. He attempted to validate Pocock’s thesis by applying its argument specifically to the early American period. “It is the thesis of this work”, Banning explains, that many of the central concepts of the eighteenth century theory of the balanced constitution, along with the expectations, fears, and values that derived from eighteenth century British opposition thought, persisted in America long after 1789. They lived on not as fragmentary thoughts, but as a structured medium through which Americans continued to perceive the world and give expression to their hopes and discontents. Inherited ideas informed important aspects of the antifederalist persuasion...As the policies of Washington’s Administration took shape, too many governmental actions seemed to fall within the fearful pattern that had been predicted all



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along...helping to create a party that would call itself Republican and rest to a remarkable degree on a revival and Americanization of British opposition thought. [pp.92-3]

Banning argues that the Republicans replicated the model of Walpole’s Britain, which was in turn shaped by the forces that Pocock described. This argument is persuasive only if one accepts the theoretical material quoted by Jefferson and his colleagues on its face and considers it of prescriptive value. He does not attempt the sort of theory-to-practice methodology that would demonstrate the myriad flaws in such an argument, and certainly does not emphasize Jefferson’s alarm over Federalist incursions on tangible Southern interests. To Jefferson, most British opposition thought—with which he was intimately familiar—was of justificatory value only in the struggle for power in the new republic. Banning, an able intellectual historian, is more attentive to the philosophical side of the party than the political. Yet only by examining Jefferson’s theories and writings in their proper context and by submitting them to the acid test of practice can we fully understand his motives. The Pocock-Banning approach to early American politics has not gone uncriticized. In 1984 Joyce Appleby published a series of lectures under title Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s [New York: 1984]. Appleby attempts to resurrect the impact of Enlightenment liberalism on Jefferson. She argues that this ideology constituted a more radical break with previous political philosophy than Banning or Pocock acknowledge. Jefferson, she claims, “was temperamentally at odds with the reverence for the past nurtured by civic humanism. He neither venerated old institutional arrangements nor feared new ones, and he repeatedly insisted that his was the party of change.” [Appleby, “What is Still American?”] Appleby interprets Jefferson as an eighteenth century liberal: a student of free trade, market economics, and individualistic political theory. In sum, her Jefferson is a model of laissez-faire: “instrumental, utilitarian, individualistic, egalitarian, abstract, and rational, the liberal concept of liberty was everything that the classical republican concept was not.” [Capitalism, p. 21] In some respects Appleby is on solid ground. Her approach emphasizes the empiricism that Jefferson subscribed to at least in principle. He was, as we have seen, a more forceful proponent of free trade than Hamilton, who saw a close relationship between government and the economy as beneficial to both. Jefferson’s theory of states’ rights was also congruent with this theme as well as Montesquieu’s definition of political culture. Yet Jefferson took a conservative, and not innovative, approach to politics: his ideal state was rooted in the colonial experience and not based on an optimistic hope for a future “golden age.” Though in some respects congruent with liberalism, Jefferson’s policy was directed towards the preservation of material interests—principally those of the Virginia planting class—rather than the realization of abstract values. Although she is on the whole closer to the mark than Pocock and Banning, Appleby does not seek to vindicate her argument by squaring it with the po-

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litical realities of the period. Such is the weakness of a purely theoretical or ideological approach to the affairs of state and the motives of statesmen. Most recently, Garrett Ward Sheldon, in his brief overview of The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson [Baltimore: 1991], has attempted to synthesize this debate. He maintains that Jefferson subscribed to both of these schools of thought in his career, and that By the end of his life, Jefferson’s political theory had come full circle. The Lockean liberalism of his earlier revolutionary writings, superceded by the classicalism of his mature political thought, appeared again in his final writings concerning American federalism. And yet, while a Lockean or classical perspective may seem to have dominated during these particular periods, the other worldview was always, at least partially, present in the background, providing the closest example of a real synthesis of liberalism and republicanism yet found. [p. 93]

This may seem a classic demonstration of scholarly fence-sitting, but Sheldon at least pays respect to the complexities of the period and the dangers of subscribing to a narrow “school” of thought. However, he also tends to read Jefferson’s thought as more abstract than it was, and is also reluctant to assess its consistency in practice. The most valuable part of Sheldon’s study is the well-written extended bibliographic essay on the liberal-classical debate. [pp. 148-70] It should be clear by now that this study subscribes to neither of these schools of thought. Both, in my estimate, focus too much on ideology and not enough on its relationship to the political realities of the period and Jefferson’s own political stratagems. While I do not accept the fatalistic position of Caleb Patterson that “it makes little difference whether Jefferson copied [his] philosophy from James Wilson, who copied it from Burlamaqui, or whether he copied it from Locke, who copied it from Hooker”, I am more concerned with testing Jefferson’s adherence to, rather than the origins of, his professed political convictions. When dealing with a politician of Jefferson’s skill and experience, it is often misleading to take philosophical citations at face value. Theory, to Jefferson, was instrumental; it was rarely prescriptive. While these scholars have all provided insights and clues into the nature of his political beliefs, only by looking at what he did, and why, in political context can we distinguish between those ideas he firmly believed in and those that were of rhetorical value only.

 Patterson, Constitutional Principles of Jefferson, p. 49.



Appendix II A Note on the Political Origins of the University of Virginia

The University of Virginia, Jefferson’s “hobby of old age”, has long been considered the apotheosis of the American Enlightenment. Ostensibly dedicated to the advancement of knowledge in all the fields of learning, Jefferson’s educational program was founded upon his conviction that “reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error”, and the University was to be the locus of “free enquiry” in the western hemisphere. Rejecting any parochial interpretation of history and political philosophy, Jefferson declared to Benjamin Rush that “I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man”. In reality, however, Jefferson’s curriculum for the University would place a jaundiced and censorious reading of history and political theory at the service of Southern “republicanism”. Jefferson had expressed interest in advancing the education of “the common people” throughout his political career. In 1786 he urged his mentor George Wythe to “Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance”. In his Notes on Virginia he had outlined a system of state-sponsored education from from the level of local schools to a national university. Yet these proposals, while framed in the philosophical style of Rousseau’s Emile, were not without political motives: what type of education the people received, Jefferson realized, would profoundly influence their political ideology. The growing section   Notes, p. 159; TJ to Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800, Extracts, p. 320. TJ to George Wythe, August 13, 1786, Boyd X, p. 245. He expressed similar sentiments to Madison a year later, informing him that “above all things, I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty”. TJ to JM, December 20, 1787, Boyd XII, p. 442. His educational regime is outlined in Notes, pp. 145-8.

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al crisis developing from the Missouri controversy coincided with Jefferson’s efforts to establish a university and gave them added impetus. He was alarmed at the number of wealthy Virginians who were migrating northward to the institutions of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton for their education. “How many of our youth [the north] now has”, he lamented in 1821, “learning the lessons of anti-Missourianism, I know not; but a gentleman, lately from Princeton, told me he saw there the list of the students at that place, and more than half were Virginians. These will return home, no doubt, deeply impressed with the sacred principles of our Holy alliance of [slavery] Restrictionists”. Jefferson was convinced that the only way to preserve the political goals of his party and the political culture of the South was through the careful indoctrination of the states’ rights principle. This could only be accomplished in the friendly climate of Virginia, where his personal and political influence was dominant. As he observed to John Taylor in 1821, the schools of the North “are no longer proper for Southern students. The signs of the times admonish us to call them home. If knowledge is power we shall look to its advancement at home where our resource of power will be unwanting”. Southern principles and finances were being compromised to the principles of the “Anglo-men”. He observed to James Breckenridge that All, I fear, do not see the speck in our horizon which is to burst on us as a tornado, sooner or later. The line of division lately marked out between different portions of the confederacy, is such as will never, I fear, be obliterated, and we are now trusting to those who are against us in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affectations of our youth. If, has been estimated, we send 30,000 dollars a year to the Northern seminaries, for the instruction of our sons, then we must have there 500 of our sons imbibing principles in discord with those of their own country. This cancer is eating away at the vitals of our existence, and if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy. We are now certainly furnishing recruits to their school.

By 1821, therefore, the sectional quarrel had become a zero-sum game for Jefferson, and he was determined to protect Southern interests from the incursions of the “consolidationalists”. As a result, it is difficult to argue with Charles Moffat’s conclusion that “by 1821 Jefferson no longer planned that the University of Virginia should be a bulwark of the human mind in this hemisphere, as the sectional quarrel had become so acute that he visualized the institution as a bulwark of Southern rights”. The issues of slavery and sectionalism were not the only causes of Jefferson’s discomfort: he never ceased believing that dread spectre of Federalism might spontaneously regenerate itself on the American political scene. He would not allow the sons of the Virginia gentry to be “infected with the doctrines of consolidation” or Hamiltonian finance. Therefore he prohibited James Kent, a distinguished New York jurist, from teaching law at the University because he had ties to Hamilton’s political machine. “An an  TJ to Joseph Cabell, January 31, 1821, JPLC: Reel 88; TJ to John Taylor, February 19, 1821, L&B XVIII, p. 312. This was certainly an interesting application of Bacon’s dictum.



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gel from heaven who should inculcate such principles in our school of government should be rejected by me”, he solemnly declared. Jefferson’s increasing intolerance of ideas he deemed “heretical” led him to censor textbooks in the Departments of History, Law, and Politics, and to make his own brand of “political correctness” the standard for hiring faculty. “It is our duty, to guard against the dissemination of such [Federalist] principles among our youth, and the diffusion of that poison”, he stated in 1825, “by a previous prescription of the texts to be followed in their discussions”. He, of course, would be the judge of what would be taught. Jefferson was willing to allow professors in the fields of natural science to choose their texts, “because I believe none of us are so much at the heights of science in the several branches, as to undertake this, and therefore it will be best left to the Professors”. Politics, however, was another natter. “There is one branch in which I think we are the best judges”, he argued to Madison, “and the branch itself is of that interesting character to our state and the U.S. as to make it a duty in us, to lay down the principles which are to be taught. It is that of government...I think it a duty to guard against danger by a previous prescription of the texts to be adopted”. Jefferson’s paucity of political and intellectual toleration—an odd quality indeed in an admirer of Locke—led him on an expensive and unrewarding mission to recruit professors in Europe. He did not trust American scholars; most had been educated in the North and therefore lacked a proper appreciation of Southern values. Jefferson was not about to let “Richmond lawyers, who are rank Federalists as formerly denominated & now Consolidationalists”, to teach students how to interpret the Constitution. Also, the pay the University offered was so low as to be hardly competitive with that of Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. For these reasons it seemed to him best to look overseas for faculty. “Altho’ of secondary standing”, he informed Madison, “they will be preferable to the secondaries of our own country because the status of these is known, whereas those he [Francis Gilmer, Jefferson’s agent in London] would bring would be unknown, and would be readily imagined, as to be of the high grade we have hitherto calculated on”. This disingenuous inflation of his faculty’s credentials was a minor indiscretion compared to the method by which Jefferson sought to prescribe texts. Jefferson’s reading list for the departments of politics and law was the product of considerable reflection. Ironically, he stressed the importance of Locke’s Essay on Toleration as well as the Two Treatises of Government. Algernon Sidney’s Discourse on Government, the Declaration of Independence,   TJ to James Breckenridge, February 15, 1821, JPLC: Reel 88. Note that in using the phrase “their own country” Jefferson referred to Virginia, not the United States. Charles Moffat, “Jefferson’s Sectional Motives in Establishing the University of Virginia”, West Virginia History, [12(1950): 61-9], pp. 62-3; Malone VI, p. 417; TJ to Francis Gilmer, January 20, 1825, JPLC: Reel 92.   TJ to Joseph Cabell, February 3, 1825, JPLC: Reel 92; TJ to JM, February 1, 1825, JPLC: Reel 92.   TJ to JM, February 1, 1825, JPLC: Reel 92; TJ to JM, October 6, 1824, JPLC: Reel 92. Jefferson sent Gilmer to Europe in 1824 to recruit faculty. See Malone VI, pp. 397-402.

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and Coke’s Commentaries all occupied a place in Jefferson’s canon. He was insistent the the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions be read by all students in these fields of study, so that they could better understand and defend the states’ rights principle. Madison, more politically astute and broadminded, recoiled at this suggestion, holding that With respect to the Virginia document of 1799, there may be more room for hestitation. Tho’ corresponding with the predominant sense of the Nation; being of local origin & having reference to a state of Parties not yet extinct, an absolute prescription of it, might excite prejudices against the University as under Party Banners, and induce the more bigoted to withold from it their sons, even when destined for other than the studies of the Law School. It may be added that the Document is not on every point satisfactory to all who belong to the same Party. Are we sure that to our brethren on the Board [of Visitors] it is so?...The best that can be done in our case is to avoid the two extremes, by referring to selected Standards without requiring an absolute conformity to them.

As a compromise Jefferson included the Federalist, even though it contained objectionable selections by Hamilton and Jay as well as expressions of Madison’s more nationalistic philosophy. The works of Burke and Hume, denounced by Jefferson, were to be avoided. Jefferson decried the “Toryism” of Hume’s History of England and in 1810 approved of a plagiarism of the work by John Baxter, an English writer of Republican sympathies. Baxter had changed many of Hume’s conclusions without citation and passed off his mutilated edition as the original work. Jefferson, upon learning of this dishonesty, approved of it immensely. He argued to Matthew Carey in 1818 that Baxter’s edition: gives you the text of Hume, purely & verbally, till he comes to some misrepresentation or omission, some sophism or sarcasm meant to pervert the truth. He then alters the text silently, makes it what truth and candor say it should be, and resumes the original text again, so as it becomes innocent, without having warned you of your rescue from misguidance. And these corrections are so cautiously introduced that you are rarely sensible of the momentary change in your guide. You go on reading true history as if Hume himself had written it.

Jefferson’s “willingness to be a party to intellectual deception”, as Leonard Levy notes, marks one of the least edifying moments of his career. Jefferson   See the minutes of the Board of Visitors meeting of March 4, 1825, cited in Arthur Bestor, Three Presidents and their Books, [Ithaca: 1955], p. 43. Madison added that “I have, for your consideration, sketched a modification of the operative passage in your draught[sic], with a view to relax the absoluteness of its injunction, and added to your list of Documents the Inaugural Speech and Farewell Address of President Washington. They might help down what may be less readily swallowed, and contain nothing which is not good; unless it be the laudatory reference in the Address to the Treaty of 1795 with G.B....Above all, the most effectual safeguard against heretical intrusions in the School of Politics, will be an Able & Orthodox Professor...” JM to TJ, February 8, 1825, Hunt, Writings, IX, pp. 219-220.   On the Baxter episode, see Malone VI, pp. 205-8; Levy, ch. 7; and Douglas Wilson, “Jefferson versus Hume”, WMQ, [46(1989):49-70].   TJ to Matthew Carey, November 22, 1818. He urged Carey to reprint the work; in doing so, he argued, “you will deserve well of your country”. JPLC: Reel 85; Levy, p. 144.



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was no doubt intrigued by the Machiavellian subtlety with which republican principles could be made to emanate from the words of an alleged “Tory” author. Though Bestor observed that “it is embarassing, to say the least, to find Jefferson recommending such a sorry combination of plagiarism, expurgation, and clandestine emendation”, Jefferson did not see it this way. Though he had long been an advocate of the free circulation of books, even those deemed irreligious or offensive, when it came to shaping the minds of the future leaders of the nation he was unwilling to leave anything to chance. Thus, “by a careful selection of the instructors and by prescribing a rigid curriculum in conformity with his political principles, Jefferson was able to lay the groundwork for an effective and articulate school of Southern nationalism”. Jefferson’s chief political objective in founding the University was to restore the unrivalled power of Virginia in American politics. Realizing that within several decades its alumni would be occupying positions of power in the federal and state governments, Jefferson was determined that they be trained in the political principles he deemed vital to the existence of the South. “Our sister states”, he noted, “will be repairing to the same fountains of instruction, will bring hither their genius to be kindled at our fire, and will carry back the fraternal affections which, nourished by the same alma mater, will knit us to them by the indissoluble bond of early personal friendship. The good Old Dominion...will become a center of ralliance to the States whose youth she has instructed”. This was not an idealistic hope. Many of the future political and military leaders of the Confederacy were alumni of the University and were heavily influenced by its “emphatic imprimatur upon Republican theory”. The Law School trained a large proportion of the most influential members of the Southern bar and judiciary in the late nineteenth century. Jefferson’s curriculum for the University, which “narrowed political and legal science to a party platform”, did not give great emphasis to the art of political compromise.10 The intolerance displayed by Jefferson in framing the curriculum of the university is not surprising if one fully grasps his motives. Convinced that the political leadership of the 1820s could not sufficiently attack the entrenched advocates of “consolidation” in the federal bureaucracy, the Supreme Court, or even in that last refuge of “republicanism”, Congress, Jefferson sought to prepare another generation to carry on his legacy. His university was to be, as he   Jefferson defended a scientific work denounced as “irreligious” in Pennsylvania in 1814. Informed that a Philadelphia book dealer was criminally charged in the case, Jefferson wrote that “I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offense against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before a civil magistrate...are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy?” TJ to N.G. Dufief, April 19, 1814, L&B XIV, p. 127. Jefferson’s emphasis. The incident is discussed in Bestor, pp. 8-9; Moffat, p. 64. 10  TJ, February[undated] 1826, Ford XII, p. 448. He added to Madison on February 17 that “If we are true and vigilant in our trust, within a dozen or twenty years a majority of our own legislature will be of one school, and many disciples will have carried its doctrines home with them to their several states, and will have leavened thus the whole mass”. TJ to JM, February 17, 1826, Ford XII, p. 456. Five members of the Cabinet of President Jefferson Davis were UVA alumni. Moffat, p. 65.

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told Breckenridge, “the rallying centre of the South and the West”. Thus the University was the last expression of an extraordinary political ego. Truly the “lengthened shadow of the man”, the University would play an important role in Southern politics for decades. The Enlightenment principles he used to justify his proposal—those of free enquiry, education, and toleration of dissent— had little impact on his final curriculum for the institution. To make way for a truly free government, Jefferson had claimed, “free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to do it while we refuse it ourselves?”11 It was a question he may well have asked himself while outlining the politics curriculum at the University of Virginia in the 1820s.

11

 TJ to James Breckenridge, April 9, 1822, L&B XV, p. 365; Notes, pp. 159-61.

Select Bibliography Due to the comprehensive nature of this study, the bibliography is divided into three parts: one on Metternich, one on Jefferson, and a section of general works on eighteenth century political thought and European and American history of particular application to this work. It does not pretend to be an exhaustive list; all sections offer only a selected list of the most important and interesting works relevant to the particular field. In some cases judgment calls have been made as to where to list a particular title; all sections, as well as notes in individual chapters, should be consulted.

I. CLEMENS METTERNICH A.  Primary Sources 1.  Unpublished Primary Sources Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, Vienna: Staatskanzlei: Vorträge, 1819: Cartons 218-219. Interiora, 1816: Fasc. 78-79. Preussen: Fasc. 107. Deutsche Akten: Fasc. 89. Kabinetsarchiv: Konferenz-Akten, Cartons 1812-1814, 1815. Gesandschaftsarchiv: Frankfurter Weisungen: 1819-1821, Fasc. 3. Public Record Office, London: F.O. 7, vols. 141-148. [the above collections were used with the gracious permission of Professor Emeritus Enno E. Kraehe of the Department of History, University of Virginia, from materials in his personal files.]

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Microfilm Collection of “Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh from the Continent, 1814-1822”, published by the Public Record Office, London. U.S. Library of Congress Numbers 997-999. F.O. 92 F.O. 139

2.  Published Primary Sources Barnes, Thomas G., ed., Nationalism, Industrialization, and Democracy 18151914: A Documentary History of Modern Europe, v. 3, [New York: 1980]. Broglie, duc de, ed., Memoirs of Prince Talleyrand (5 vols.) trans. by Raphael de Beaufort, [New York: 1891-1893]. Burckhardt, Carl J., ed., Briefe des Staatskanzlers Fürsten Metternich-Winneburg und den österreichischen Minister des Allerhochsten Hauses und des Aussern, Grafen Buol-Schauenstein, aus den Jahren 1852-1859, [Munich: 1934]. Gentz, Friedrich von, Briefe von und an Friedrich von Gentz (2 vols.), ed. by Karl Mendelsohn-Bartholdy, [Leipzig: 1868]. —, Tagebücher von Friedrich von Gentz (4 vols.), [Leipzig: 1872-1874]. Kübeck, Carl Friedrich, Tagebücher des Carl Friedrich Freiherrn Kübeck von Kubau (2 vols.), [Vienna:1909]. Londonderry, Robert Stewart, Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh (12 vols.), ed. by Charles Vane, [London: 1848-1853]. Metternich, Clemens Wenzel Lothar, Fürst von, Aus Metternichs nachgelassenen Papieren (8 vols.), ed. Prince Richard Metternich, [Vienna: 18801884]. First five volumes translated in English as The Memoirs of Prince Metternich, [New York: 1880-1882]. Mika, Emil, ed., Geist und Herz verbündet: Metternichs Briefe an die Gräfin Lieven, [Vienna: 1942]. Prokesch-Osten, Anton Graf, Aus dem Nachlass des Grafen Prokesch-Osten. Briefwechsel mit Hernn von Gentz und Fürsten Metternich, [Vienna: 1881]. Quennel, Peter, ed., Letters of Princess Lieven to Prince Metternich, 18201826, [New York: 1938]. Ticknor, George, Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor (2 vols.), [Boston: 1876]. Walter, Friedrich, ed., Die Österreichische Zentralverwaltung. Part II: Von der Vereinung der österreichischen und böhmischen Hofkanzlei bis zur Einrichtung der Ministerialverfassung (1789-1848). Vol. I, no. 2, Part 2 and Vol. 5: Die Zeit Franz’ II und Ferdinands I (1792-1848), [Vienna: 1956]. Webster, Charles K., ed., British Diplomacy 1813-1815: Select Documents Dealing with the Reconstruction of Europe, [London: 1921].



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B.  Secondary Sources Bertier de Sauvingy, Guillaume de, Metternich and His Times (trans. by Peter Ryde), [London: 1962]. —, Metternich et la France aprés le Congres de Vienne (3 vols.), [Paris: 19681971]. —, “Sainte-Alliance et Alliance dans les conceptions de Metternich”, Revue Historique, [233(1960):249-75]. Bibl, Viktor, Metternich: Der Dämon Österreichs, [Vienna: 1936]. —, Der Zerfall Österreichs: I. Kaiser Franz und sein Erbe, [Vienna: 1922]. Robert Billinger, jr., Metternich and the German Question: States’ Rights and Federal Duties, 1820-1834, [Newark, DL: University of Delaware Press: 1991]. Brauer, K. and W.E. Wright, eds., Austria in the Age of the French Revolution, 1789-1815, [Minneapolis: 1990]. Bridge, F.R., The Habsburg Monarchy Among the Great Powers, 1815-1914, [New York: 1990]. Bridge, Ray, “Allied Diplomacy in Peacetime: The Failure of the ‘Conference System’, 1815-1823”, in Alan Sked, ed., Europe’s Balance of Power, 18151848, [London: 1979]. Buckland, Charles S., Metternich and the British Government From 1809 to 1813, [London: 1932]. Büssem, Eberhard, Die Karlsbader Beschlüsse von 1819, [Hildesheim: 1974]. Corti, Egon Cäsar, Metternich und die Frauen (2 vols.), [Vienna: 19481949]. Cresson, W.P., The Holy Alliance: The European Background of the Monroe Doctrine, [Oxford: 1922]. Dupuis, Charles, Le Droit des Gens et les Rapports des Grandes Puissances avec les autrés etats avant le pacta de la Societé des Nations, [Paris: 1921]. Emerson, Donald, Metternich and the Political Police, [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff: 1968]. Epstein, Klaus, The Genesis of German Conservatism, [Princeton: 1966]. Eyck, F. Gunther, “The Political Theories and Activities of the German Academic Youth Between 1815 and 1819”, Journal of Modern History, [27(1955): 27-38]. Ferrero, Guglielmo, The Reconstruction of Europe: Talleyrand and the Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815, [New York: 1941] Forsythe, Murray, “Friedrich von Gentz: An Assessment”, Studies in History and Politics, [2(1981-1982): 127-55]. —, “The Old European State-System: Gentz versus Hauterive”, The Historical Journal, [23(1980): 521-38]. Gagliardo, J.G., Reich and Nation: The Holy Roman Empire as Idea and Reality, 1763-1806, [Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press: 1980].

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Gooch, G.P., Germany and the French Revolution, [London: 1920]. Griewank, Karl, Die Wiener Kongress und die europäische Restauration, 1814-1815, [Leipzig: 1954]. Grimstead, Patricia Kennedy, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I: Political Attitudes and the Conduct of Russian Diplomacy, 1801-1825, [Berkeley: 1969]. Grössman, Karl, “Metternichs Plan eines italienischen Bundes”, Historische Blätter, [4(1931): 37-76]. Gruner, Wolf, “Was There a Balance of Power System or Cooperative Great Power Hegemony?”, American Historical Review, [97(1992): 725-32]. Gulick, Edward Vose, Europe’s Classical Balance of Power, [Ithaca: 1955]. Haas, Arthur, Metternich, Reorganization, and Nationality, 1813-1818: A Study of Foresight and Frustration in the Rebuilding of the Austrian Empire, [Wiesbaden: 1963]. Jervis, Robert, “A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power and the Concert”, American Historical Review, [97(1992): 716-24]. Kann, Robert A., A Study in Austrian Intellectual History From Late Baroque to Early Romanticism, [London: 1960]. —, “Metternich: A Reappraisal of His Impact on International Relations”, Journal of Modern History, [32(1960): 333-339]. —, The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848-1918 (2 vols.), [New York: 1950]. Kissinger, Henry A., A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace, 1812-1822, [Boston: 1957]. Kraehe, Enno E., “Austria, Russia, and the German Confederation, 18131820”, in Helmut Rumpler, ed., DeutscheBund und deutsche Frage 18151866: Europäische Ordnung, deutsche Politik und gesellschaftlischer Wandel im Zeitalter der bürgerlich-nationalien Emanzipation, [Munich: 1990]. —, “A Bipolar Balance of Power”, American Historical Review, [97(1992): 707-715]. —, “The Concert in the Age of Metternich: Variations on a Theme”, paper read for the Southern Historical Association, November 11, 1983, Charleston, S.C. —, “Foreign Policy and the Nationality Problem in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1800-1867”, Austrian History Yearbook, [3(1967): 3-36]. —, Metternich’s German Policy: vol. 1: The Contest With Napoleon, 17991814, [Princeton: 1963], vol. 2: The Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815, [Princeton: 1983]. —, “Metternich’s Theory of Revolution”, paper read for Southern Historical Association, November 9, 1962. Miami Beach, FL. —, “The Origins of the Carlsbad Decrees: Some Perspectives”, paper read for the American Historical Association, December 28, 1971. New York, NY. Mann, Golo, Secretary of Europe: The Life of Friedrich von Gentz, Enemy of Napoleon, [New Haven:1946].



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345

Markert, Werner, Osteuropa und die abendlandische Welt, [Göttingen: 1966]. Mayr, Joseph, Geschichte der österreischischen Staatskanzlei im Zeitalter des Fürsten Metternichs (2 vols) [Vienna: 1935]. Mendelsohn-Bartholdy, Karl, “Die orientalische Politik Metternichs”, Historische Zeitschrift, [18(1867): 41-76]. McGuigan, Dorothy Gies, Metternich and the Duchess, [New York: 1975]. Näf, Werner, Zur Geschichte der Heiligen Allianz, [Bern: 1928]. Phillips, Walter Alison, The Confederation of Europe: A Study of the European Alliance of 1813-1823 as an Experiment in the International Organization of Peace, [London: 1914]. Radvany, Egon, Metternich’s Projects for Imperial Reform in Austria, [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff: 1971]. Reinerman, Alan, Austria and the Papacy in the Age of Metternich (2 vols.), [Washington, D.C.: 1979-1989]. —, “Metternich and Reform: The Case of the Papal State, 1814-1848”, Journal of Modern History, [43(1970: 524-48]. Rieben, Hans, Prinzipiengrundlage und Diplomatie in Metternichs Europapolitik, 1814-1848, [Aarau: 1942]. Rohden, Peter Richard, Die klassische Diplomatie von Kaunitz bis Metternich, [Leipzig: 1939]. Rossler, Hellmuth, Graf Johann Philipp Stadion (2 vols.), [Munich: 1966]. Schmalz, Hans, Versuche einer gesamteuropäische Organisation, 1815-1820, [Aarau: 1940]. Schoeps, H.J., “Metternichs Kampf gegen die Revolution”, Historische Zeitschrift, [205(1967): 529-65]. Schroeder, Paul, “Did the Vienna System Rest on a Balance of Power?”, American Historical Review, [97(1992): 683-706]. —, Metternich’s Diplomacy at its Zenith, 1820-1823, [Austin: 1962]. —, “Metternich Studies Since 1925”, Journal of Modern History, [33(1961): 237-60]. —, “The Nineteenth Century System: Balance of Power or Political Equilibrium?”, Review of International Studies, [15(1989): 135-53]. —, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848, [Oxford: 1994]. Scott, Ivan, “Counter-Revolutionary Diplomacy and the Demise of AngloAustrian Cooperation, 1820-1823”, The Historian, [34(1972): 465-84]. Seton-Watson, R.W., “Metternich and Internal Austrian Policy”, Slavonic and East European Review, [17/18 (1939): 519-55; 129-41]. Seward, Desmond, Metternich: The First European, [New York: 1991]. Sheehan, James J., German History 1770-1866, [Oxford: 1989]. Sofka, James R. “Metternich’s Theory of European Order: A Political Agenda for ‘Perpetual Peace’”, Review of Politics [60(1998): 115-49]. Srbik, Heinrich Ritter von, “Der Ideengehalt des ‘Metternichischen Systems’”, Historische Zeitschrift, [131(1925): 241-62].

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—, Metternich: Der Staatsmann und der Mensch (3 vols.), [Munich and Vienna: 1925-1954]. —, “Metternichs Plan der Neuordnung Europas 1814-1815”, Mitteilungen des Institutes für österreichischen Geschichtsforschung, [50(1936): 109-26]. Stargardter, Steven, Niklas Vogt 1756-1836: A Personality of the late German Enlightenment and early Romantic Movement, [New York: 1991]. Sweet, Paul, Friedrich von Gentz: Defender of the Old Order, [Madison, WI: 1941]. —, Wilhelm von Humboldt: A Biography (2 vols.), [Columbus, OH: 19781980]. Szabo, Franz A.J., Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism, 1753-1780, [Cambridge: 1994]. —, “Prince Kaunitz and the Balance of Power”, International History Review, [1(1979): 399-408]. Temperley, Harold V., The Foreign Policy of Canning, 1822-1827, [London: 1925]. Treitschke, Heinrich von, The History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century (7 vols.), trans by Eden and Cedar Paul, [New York: 1915-1919]. Webster, Charles K., The Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815, [London: 1919]. —, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1812-1822 (2 vols.), [London: 19251931]. Woodward, E.L., Three Studies in European Conservatism, [London: 1963]. Zak, L.A., “Die Grossmachte under die deutschen Staaten am Ende der napoleonischen Kriege”, Zeitschrift f für Geschichtswissenschaft, [19(1971): 1536-47].

II. THOMAS JEFFERSON A.  Primary Sources 1.  Unpublished Primary Sources The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Library of Congress. Microfilm collection from the National Archives and the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 2.  Published Primary Sources: Adams, Dickinson, ed., Jefferson’s Extracts From the Gospels, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Second Series, [Princeton: 1983]. Adams, Henry, ed., The Writings of Albert Gallatin (3 vols.), [New York: 1879].



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Boyd, Julian, et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, [Princeton: 1950-]. Cappon, Lester, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, [Chapel Hill: 1987]. Ford, Paul Leicester, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (12 vols.), [New York: 1905]. Hans, N., ed., “Tsar Alexander and Jefferson: Unpublished Correspondence”, Slavonic and East European Review, [32(1953): 215-25]. Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), ed. by William Peden, [Chapel Hill: 1954]. Knox, Dudley, ed., Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars With the Barbary Powers (6 vols.), [Washington, D.C.: 1939-1944]. Kramnick, Isaac, ed., The Federalist Papers, [New York: 1987]. Kimball, Marie G., ed., “The Unpublished Correspondence of Madame de Stael With Thomas Jefferson”, North American Review, [208(1918): 6371]. Lipscomb, A.A. and A.E. Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (20 vols), [Washington, D.C.: 1903-1904]. Looney, J. Jefferson, et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, [Princeton: 2004-] Malone, Dumas, ed., The Correspondence Of Thomas Jefferson and Pierre Samuel DuPont de Nemours, [Boston: 1930]. Stagg, J.C.A. et al., The Papers of James Madison (17 vols.) [Chicago and Charlottesville: 1962-1991], The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series, [Charlottesville: 1984-]; Secretary of State Series, [Charlottesville: 1986-]. Syrett, Harold, et al., eds., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (26 vols.), [New York: 1961-1991]. Wilson, Douglas L., ed., Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Second Series, [Princeton: 1989].

B.  Secondary Sources Adair, Douglass, “That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science: David Hume, James Madison, and the 10th Federalist”, Huntington Library Quarterly, [20(1957): 343-60]. Adams, Henry, The History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (9 vols.), [New York: 1889-1894]. Adams, Mary, “Jefferson’s Reaction to the Treaty of San Ildefonso”, Journal of Southern History, [21(1955): 173-88]. Adams, William H., The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson, [New Haven: 1997].

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Allen, Gardener W., Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs, [New York: 1904]. Ammon, Harry, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity, [Charlottesville: 1971]. Appleby, Joyce, Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s, [New York:1984]. —, “Republicanism in Old and New Contexts”, WMQ, [43(1986): 20-34]. —, “What is Still American in the Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson?”, WMQ, [39(1982):287-309]. Bailyn, Bernard, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, [Cambridge, MA: 1967]. —, “Political Experience and Enlightenment Ideas in Eighteenth Century America”, American Historical Review, [67(1962): 339-51]. Banning, Lance, “Jeffersonian Ideology Revisited: Liberal and Classical Ideas in the New American Republic”, WMQ, [43(1986): 3-19]. —, The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology, [Ithaca: 1978]. Beard, Charles, The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, [New York: 1915]. Becker, Carl, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas, [New York: 1933]. Boorstin, Daniel, The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson, [Chicago: 1960]. Bowman, Albert, “Jefferson, Hamilton, and American Foreign Policy”, Political Science Quarterly, [71(1956): 18-41]. —, The Struggle for Neutrality: Franco-American Relations During the Federalist Era, [Knoxville, TN: 1974]. Burstein, Andrew, and Nancy Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, [New York: 2010]. Carrithers, David, “Montesquieu, Jefferson, and the Fundamentals of Eighteenth Century Republican Theory”, French-American Review, [6(1982): 160-88]. Chinard, Gilbert, “Jefferson Among the Philosophers”, Ethics, [53(1943): 255-68]. —, Thomas Jefferson: Apostle of Americanism, [Ann Arbor: 1929]. Cohen, William, “Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery”, Journal of American History, [56(1969):503-26]. Cogliano, Frank, Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy, [Edinburgh: 2006]. Colbourne, H. Trevor, “Jefferson’s Use of the Past”, WMQ, [15(1958): 56-70]. Commager, Henry S., Jefferson, Nationalism, and the Enlightenment, [New York: 1975]. Cox, Isaac J., “The American Intervention in West Florida”, American Historical Review, [17(1919): 290-311]. —, The West Florida Controversy, 1798-1813, [Baltimore: 1918]. —, “The Pan-American Policy of Jefferson and Wilkinson”, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, [1(1914):212-39].



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Crowley, John, The Privileges of Independence: Neomercantilism and the American Revolution, [Baltimore: 1993]. Cunningham, Noble E., The Process of Government Under Jefferson, [Princeton: 1978]. DeConde, Alexander, Entangling Alliance: Politics and Diplomacy Under George Washington, [New York: 1958]. —, The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War With France, 1797-1801, [New York: 1966]. —, This Affair of Louisiana, [New York: 1976]. Dorfman, Joseph, “The Economic Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson”, Political Science Quarterly, [55(1940):98-121]. Dull, Jonathan R., A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution, [New Haven: 1985]. Edling, Max, A Revolution in Favor of Government: Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the Making of the American State, [Oxford: 2008]. —, “’So Immense a Power in the Affairs of War’: Alexander Hamilton and the Restoration of Public Credit,” WMQ, [64(2007): 287-326]. Egan, Clifford, Neither Peace Nor War: Franco-American Relations, 18031812, [Baton Rouge: 1983]. —, “The United States, France, and West Florida, 1803-1807”, Florida Historical Quarterly, [47(1968-1969): 227-52]. Ellis, Joseph, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, [New York: 1997]. Foote, Henry, The Religion of Thomas Jefferson, [Boston: 1960]. Gilbert, Felix, To The Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy, [Princeton: 1960]. Gordon-Reed, Annette, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, [New York: 2008] —, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy [New York: 1997] Hendrickson, David C., Peace Pact: The Lost World of the American Founding, [Lawrence, KS: 2003] Hickey, Donald R., “The Monroe-Pinkney Treaty of 1806: A Reappraisal”, WMQ, [44(1987): 65-88]. Hofstadter, Richard, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, [New York: 1948]. Hutson, James, “Intellectual Foundations of Early American Diplomacy”, Diplomatic History, [1(1977): 1-19]. Irwin, Ray, The Diplomatic Relations of the United States With the Barbary Powers, 1776-1816, [Chapel Hill: 1931]. Johnstone, Robert M., jr., Jefferson and the Presidency: Leadership in the Young Republic, [Ithaca: 1978]. Kaplan, Lawrence, “Entangling Alliances With None”: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Jefferson, [Kent State: 1987].

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—, “Jefferson as Anglophile: Senility or Sagacity in the Era of Good Feelings?”, Diplomatic History, [16(1992): 487-94]. —, Jefferson and France: An Essay on Politics and Political Ideas, [New Haven: 1967]. Kastor, Peter, ed., The Louisiana Purchase: Emergence of an American Nation, [Washington, D.C.: 2002] Kenyon, Cecilia, “Alexander Hamilton: Rousseau of the Right”, Political Science Quarterly, [73(1958):161-78]. Ketcham, Ralph, James Madison: A Biography, [Charlottesville: 1971]. Koch, Adrienne, Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration, [Oxford: 1950]. —, and Harry Ammon, “The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798: An Episode in Jefferson’s and Madison’s Defense of Civil Liberties”, WMQ, [5(1948): 145-76]. —, The Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, [Chicago: 1943]. —, Power, Morals, and the Founding Fathers: Essays in the Interpretation of the American Enlightenment, [Ithaca: 1967]. Kurtz, Stephen, The Presidency of John Adams: The Collapse of Federalism, [Philadelphia: 1957]. Levy, Leonard, Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side, [Cambridge, MA: 1963]. Lewis, Anthony, “Jefferson’s ‘Summary View’ As a Chart of Political Union”, WMQ, [5(1948): 34-51]. Lokke, Carl, “Jefferson and the Leclerc Expedition”, American Historical Review, [33(1928): 322-8]. Lycan, Gilbert, Alexander Hamilton and American Foreign Policy, [Norman, OK: 1970]. Lyon, E.W., Louisiana in French Diplomacy, 1759-1804, [Norman, OK: 1934]. Malone, Dumas, Jefferson and His Time (6 vols.), [New York: 1948-1981]. Mannix, Richard, “Gallatin, Jefferson, and the Embargo of 1808”, Diplomatic History, [3(1979): 151-72]. Marzagalli, Silvia, and James R. Sofka and John J. McCusker, eds., Rough Waters: American Involvement with the Mediterranean in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, [Research in Maritime History, Number 44: 2010. Mayer, David, The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson, [Charlottesville: 1994]. McCoy, Drew R., The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America, [Chapel Hill: 1980]. Miller, John C., Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox, [New York: 1959]. —, The Federalist Era, 1789-1801, [New York: 1960]. —, A Wolf By the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, [Charlottesville: 1977].



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351

Moffat, Charles, “Jefferson’s Sectional Motives for Establishing the University of Virginia”, West Virginia History, [12(1950): 61-69]. Moore, Glover, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, [Lexington, KY: 1953]. Mullet, Charles F., “Classical Influences on the American Revolution”, Classical Journal, [35(1939):92-104]. Onuf, Peter, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies, [Charlottesville: 1993]. Palmer, Robert, “The Dubious Democrat: Thomas Jefferson In Bourbon France”, Political Science Quarterly, [72(1957): 388-404]. Patterson, Caleb, The Constitutional Principles of Thomas Jefferson, [Austin: 1953]. Perkins, Bradford, The First Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1795-1805, [Berkeley: 1955]. —, Prologue to War: England and the United States, 1805-1812, [Berkeley: 1961]. Peterson, Merrill D., The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, [Oxford: 1960]. —, “Thomas Jefferson and Commercial Policy, 1783-1793”, WMQ, [22(1965): 584-610]. —, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, [Oxford: 1971]. Randolph, Sarah, The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson, [Charlottesville: 1978]. Rebok, Sandra, “Two Exponents of the Enlightenment: Transatlantic Communication by Thomas Jefferson and Alexander von Humboldt”, Southern Quarterly [43(2006): 126–52] —, “Enlightened Correspondents: The Transatlantic Dialogue of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander von Humboldt “, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, [116(2008): 229-369] Ritcheson, Charles R., Aftermath of Revolution: British Policy Towards the United States, 1783-1795, [New York: 1971]. Sanford, Charles B., The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson, [Charlottesville: 1984]. Savelle, Max, “The American Balance of Power and European Diplomacy, 1713-1778”, in Richard B. Morris, ed., The Era of the American Revolution, [New York: 1939]. Schneider, Herbert, “The Enlightenment in Thomas Jefferson”, Ethics, [53(1943): 246-54]. Sears, Louis, Jefferson and the Embargo, [Durham: 1927]. —, “Jefferson and the Law of Nations”, American Political Science Review, [13(1919): 379-99]. Sheldon, Garrett Ward, The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, [Baltimore: 1991]. Sloan, Herbert, Principle and Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt, [Oxford: 1995].

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Smith, T.V., “Thomas Jefferson and the Perfectibility of Mankind”, Ethics, [53(1943): 293-310]. Sofka, James R., “The Jeffersonian Idea of National Security: Commerce, the Atlantic Balance of Power, and the Barbary War, 1786-1805”, Diplomatic History [21(1997): 519-44]. —, “American Neutral Rights Reappraised: Identity or Interest in the Foreign Policy of the Early Republic?”Review of International Studies [26(2000): 599-622]. Spivak, Burton, Jefferson’s English Crisis, [Charlottesville: 1979]. Stagg, J.C.A., Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783-1830, [Princeton: 1983]. Stourzh, Gerald, Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government, [Stanford: 1971]. —, Benjamin Franklin and American Foreign Policy, [Chicago: 1969]. Stuart, Reginald, The Half-Way Pacifist: Thomas Jefferson’s View of War, [Toronto: 1978]. —, “Thomas Jefferson and the Function of War”, Canadian Journal of History, [11(1976): 155-72]. Tucker, Robert W. and David C. Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson, [Oxford: 1990]. Van Alstyne, Richard, Empire and Independence: The International History of the American Revolution, [New York: 1965]. Whitaker, Arthur Preston, The Mississippi Question, 1795-1803, [New York: 1934]. White, Morton, The Philosophy of the American Revolution, [Oxford: 1978]. Wilson, Douglas, “Jefferson versus Hume”, WMQ, [46(1989): 49-70]. Wood, Gordon, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, [Chapel Hill: 1969]. —, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, [New York: 1993]. Zuckert, Michael P., “Self-Evident Truth and the Declaration of Independence”, Review of Politics, [49(1987): 319-39]. III. GENERAL STUDIES A.  The Political Thought of the Enlightenment Aris, Reinhold, Political Thought in Germany, 1789-1815, [London: 1936]. Beck, Lewis White, “Kant and the Right of Revolution”, Journal of the History of Ideas, [32 (1971): 423-32]. Becker, Carl, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers, [New Haven: 1932]. Behrens, C.B.A., Society, Government, and the Enlightenment: The Experience of Eighteenth Century France and Prussia, [New York: 1985].



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Beiner, Ronald and William James Booth, eds., Kant and Political Philosophy: The Contemporary Legacy, [New Haven: 1993]. Callot, Emile, La Philosophie de la Vie au XVIIIe Siecle: etudée chez Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Maupertuis, La Mettrie, Diderot, d’Holbach, Linne, [Paris: 1965]. Cassirer, Ernst, Kant’s Life and Thought, trans. by James Haden, [New Haven: 1981]. —, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, trans. by Fritz C.A. Koelln and James P. Pettegrove, [Princeton: 1951]. —, Rousseau, Kant, Goethe: Two Essays, trans. by James Guttmann, [Princeton: 1945]. Commager, Henry S., The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized The Enlightenment, [Oxford: 1977]. Diderot, Denis, Political Writings, ed. by John Hope Mason and Robert Wokler, [Cambridge: 1992]. Einaudi, Mario, The Early Rousseau, [Ithaca: 1967]. Forbes, Duncan, Hume’s Philosophical Politics, [Cambridge: 1975]. Gay, Peter, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (2 vols.), [New York: 19661969]. —, The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment, [New York: 1964]. —, Voltaire’s Politics: The Poet as Realist, [New Haven: 1988]. Godechot, Jacques, The Counter-Revolution: Doctrine and Action, 17891804, [Princeton: 1981]. Gusdorf, Georges, Les Sciences Humaines et la Pensée Occidentale au Siècle des Lumières (8 vols.), [Paris: 1966-78]. Hampson, Norman, A Cultural History of the Enlightenment, [London: 1968]. Harrington, James, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) and A System of Politics (1661), ed. by J.G.A. Pocock, [Cambridge: 1992]. Havens, George, The Age of Ideas: From Reaction to Revolution in Eighteenth Century France, [New York: 1955]. Hazard, Paul, The European Mind, 1680-1715, [New York: 1963]. —, European Thought in the Eighteenth Century, [New York: 1963]. Hoffmann, Stanley, “Rousseau on War and Peace”, in Stanley Hoffmann, ed., Janus and Minerva: Essays in the Theory and Practice of International Politics, [Boulder and London: 1987]. Hume, David, Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary (1741-1754), ed. by Eugene F. Miller, [Indianapolis: 1985] —, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740), ed. by Ernest C. Mossner, [London: 1969]. Hurrell, Andrew, “Kant and the Kantian Paradigm in International Relations”, Review of International Studies, [16(1989): 183-205]. Kant, Immanuel, Political Writings, ed. by Hans Reiss, [Cambridge: 1991].

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Kearns, Edward John, Ideas in Seventeenth Century France, [Manchester: 1982]. Keohane, Nannerl O., Philosophy and the State in France: The Renaissance to the Enlightenment, [Princeton: 1980]. Kohn, Hans, The Mind of Germany, [New York: 1960]. Körner, Stephan, Kant, [New Haven: 1955]. Kors, Alan Charles, D’Holbachs’s Coterie: An Enlightenment in Paris, [Princeton: 1976]. Kramnick, Isaac, Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole, [Ithaca: 1968]. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Political Writings, ed. by Patrick Riley, [Cambridge: 1988]. Manuel, Frank, The Age of Reason, [Ithaca: 1955]. May, Henry, The Enlightenment in America, [Oxford: 1976]. Merry, Henry J., Montesquieu’s System of Natural Government, [Purdue University Studies: 1970]. Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, The Spirit of the Laws (1748) ed. by Anne Cohler, Basia Miller, and Harold Stone, [Cambridge:1989]. Niklaus, Robert, A Literary History of France: The Eighteenth Century, 17151789, [London: 1970]. Onuf, Nicholas G., The Republican Legacy in International Thought, [Cambridge: 1998]. Pangle, Thomas L., Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism: A Commentary on the Spirit of the Laws, [Chicago: 1973]. Pocock, J.G.A., The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, [Princeton: 1975]. Raumer, Kurt von, Ewiger Friede: Friedensrufe und Friedenspläne seit der Renaissance, [Munich: 1953]. Reiss, Hans, “Kant und die französische Revolution”, Zeitschrift fur Pädagogik, [24(1989): 293-303]. —, Politisches Denken in der deutschen Romantik, [Munich: 1966]. Riley, Patrick, Kant’s Political Philosophy, [Totowa, NJ: 1983]. Rogers, Daniel T., “Republicanism: The Career of a Concept”, Journal of American History, [79(1992): 11-39]. Rothkrug, Lionel, Opposition to Louis XIV: The Political and Social Origins of the French Enlightenment, [Princeton:1965]. Ruddy, Francis, International Law in the Enlightenment, [New York: 1975]. Shklar, Judith N., Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau’s Social Theory, [Cambridge: 1969]. Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), ed. by Edwin Cannan, [New York: 1937]. —, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), ed. by D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, [Indianapolis: 1976].



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Smith, Norman Kemp, The Philosophy of David Hume: A Critical Study of its Origins and Central Doctrines, [London: 1964]. Struck, Walter, “Montesquieu als Politiker”, Historische Studien, #228, [Berlin: 1933]. Vaughan, C.E., ed., The Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2 vols.), [London: 1962]. Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet, Political Writings, ed. by David Williams, [Cambridge: 1994]. Wade, Ira, The Intellectual Origins of the French Enlightenment, [Princeton: 1972]. —, The Structure and Form of the French Enlightenment (2 vols.) [Princeton: 1977]. Willey, Basil, The Eighteenth Century Background, [New York: 1939]. Yovel, Yiramiyahu, Kant and the Philosophy of History, [Princeton: 1980].

B.  Political and Historical Studies Anderson, M.S., “Eighteenth Century Theories of the Balance of Power”, in R.M. Hatton and M.S. Anderson, eds., Studies in Diplomatic History, [London: 1970]. —, Eighteenth Century Europe, 1715-1789, [London: 1966]. —, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 1450-1919, [London: 1993]. Beitz, Charles R., Political Theory and International Relations, [Princeton: 1979]. Black, Jeremy, British Foreign Policy in an Age of Revolutions, 1783-1793, [Cambridge: 1994]. Butterfield, Herbert, and Martin Wight, eds., Diplomatic Investigations, [London: 1966]. Clark, Ian, The Hierarchy of States: Reform and Resistance in the International Order, [Cambridge: 1991]. Deutsch, H.C., The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism, [Cambridge, MA: 1938]. Deveze, Michel, L’Europe et le monde a la fin du XVIIIe Siècle, [Paris: 1970]. Dorn, Walter, Competition for Empire, 1740-1763, [New York: 1940]. Eade, J.C., ed., Romantic Nationalism in Europe, [Melbourne: 1983]. Elkins, Stanley and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800, [Oxford: 1993]. Gershoy, Leo, The French Revolution and Napoleon, [New York: 1933]. Gilbert, Felix, “The ‘New Diplomacy’ of the Eighteenth Century”, World Politics, [4(1951): 1-38]. Gilpin, Robert, The Political Economy of International Relations, [Princeton: 1987].

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Gipson, Lawrence Henry, “The American Revolution as an Aftermath of the Great War For the Empire, 1754-1763”, Political Science Quarterly, [60(1950): 86-104]. —, The British Empire Before the American Revolution, 1748-1776 (13 vols), [New York: 1939-1954]. Heckscher, E.F., The Continental System, [Oxford: 1922]. —, Mercantilism (2 vols.), [New York: 1956]. Hinsley, F.H., Power and the Pursuit of Peace: Theory and Practice in the History of Relations Between States, [Cambridge: 1966]. Holbraad, C., Middle Powers in International Politics, [London: 1984]. Kammen, Michael, Empire and Interest: The American Colonies and the Politics of Mercantilism, [New York: 1970]. Kaplan, Morton, System and Process in International Politics, [New York: 1957]. Koehn, Nancy, The Power of Commerce: Economy and Governance in the First British Empire, [Ithaca: 1994]. Little, Richard, “Deconstructing the Balance of Power: Two Traditions of Thought”, Review of International Studies, [15(1989): 87-100]. McCusker, John J. and Russell Menard, The Economy of British America, 1607-1789, [Chapel Hill: 1985]. Murphy, Orville T., Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes: French Diplomacy in the Age of Revolution, 1719-1787, [Albany: 1982]. Rein, Adolph, “Uber die Bedeutung der uberseeischen Ausdehnung für des europäische Staatensystem”, Historische Zeitscrift, [137(1927-1928): 2890]. Scott, H.M., British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution, [Oxford: 1990]. Sofka, James R., “The Eighteenth Century International System: Parity or Primacy?” Review of International Studies [27(2001): 147-64]. Viner, Jacob, “Power versus Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”, World Politics, [1(1948): 1-30]. Watson, J.S., The Reign of George III, [Oxford: 1960]. Wilentz, Sean, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, [New York: 2005] Williams, E.N., The Ancien Regime in Europe: Government and Society in the Major States, 1648-1789, [New York: 1970]. Wood, Gordon, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early American Republic, [Oxford: 2009] Zeller, George, “Le Principe de l’equilibre dans la politique internationale”, Revue Historique, [215(1956): 25-37].

james r. sofka

METTERNICH, JEFFERSON AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT: STATECRAFT AND POLITICAL THEORY IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

This study offers a comparative analysis of the foreign and domestic policies of Prince Clemens Metternich of Austria and Thomas Jefferson of the United States. Their statecraft is examined from the perspective of the philosophy of the Enlightenment, which both claimed provided a prescriptive agenda for their initiatives. The objective of this research is to trace what impact, if any, these ideas had on the actual political conduct of these representative statesmen of the early nineteenth century. Conventional treatments of Jefferson emphasize his archetypically “Enlightenment” political philosophy. Metternich, on the other hand, is commonly considered a reactionary or, at best, a callous Realpolitiker. After a careful examination of their political theories, the historical record, and the documentary sources, the study concludes that these assessments should be radically revised. Jefferson, it is argued, defined American interests largely in the material terms of a balance of power and followed a traditional and conservative approach to social policy. Metternich, conversely, was strongly attached to the Kantian idea of European federation, strove to create a legal foundation for a “cooperative” European states-system, and attempted a series of innovative and enlightened domestic reform projects. The “traditional” reading of their statecraft is a result of late nineteenth century nationalist historiography which interpreted their policies in a manner best suited for advancing particular ideological arguments. Both historical and theoretical sources are deployed to advance and defend the proposition that the ideas of the Enlightenment achieved political expression in the statecraft of Metternich, but were virtually ignored in practice by the more pragmatic Jefferson.

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james r. sofka

METTERNICH, JEFFERSON AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT: STATECRAFT AND POLITICAL THEORY IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTÍFICAS

James R. Sofka received his Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Virginia in 1995, where he also earned his M.A. in 1991. He received his B.A. with Honors from Franklin and Marshall College in 1989. He taught in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia from 1998 to 2006, where he also served as the Dean of the undergraduate honors program in the College of Arts and Sciences. Since 2007 he has taught at the Federal Executive Institute and also lectures regularly on Thomas Jefferson’s politics for the Brookings Institution. He resides in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dr. Sofka has published and lectured widely on international relations in the 18th and 19th centuries, with a particular focus on the foreign policy of the early American republic. He has received two research fellowships from, and presented at numerous symposia under the auspices of, the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. His most recent work is a volume of essays on American involvement in the Mediterranean region in the 18th and 19th he co-edited with Silvia Marzagalli and John McCusker.