NOTES
- In general, see Merrill D. Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960).
- Leonard W. Levy, “A Few Wholesome Prosecutions: The Problem of a Free Press,” in Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963), 65–67.
- For the Supreme Court decision that U.S. courts lacked common law jurisdiction in criminal cases, including seditious libel, see United States v. Hudson and Goodwin 11 U.S. Reports (February 1812): 32; Steven H. Hochman, “On the Liberty of the Press in Virginia: From Essay to Bludgeon, 1798–1803,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 84, no. 4 (1976): 431–45, 431. On the “Walker Affair,” see Dumas Malone, Jefferson the Virginian (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), 154–55.
- Cutler to Joseph Torrey, January 3, 1803, in William P. Cutler and Julia P. Cutler, Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Reverend Manasseh Cutler (Cincinnati: R. Clarke & Co., 1888), 2: 120.
- Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, Feb. 11, 1807, Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. Perhaps the most detailed account of the Republican vendetta in Connecticut, composed by Derek L. Mogck, an attorney in a law firm founded by descendants of one of the defendants in the case, is “Connecticut Federalists in President Jefferson's (Republican) Court: United States v. Hudson and Goodwin,” Connecticut History 41, no. 2 (Sept. 2002): 144–72. Mogck's attack on Jefferson argues that he probably initiated prosecution of the case, even though no evidence for this assumption exists. On Benjamin Franklin, see “An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, Viz. the Court of the Press,” Philadelphia Federal Gazette, Sept. 12, 1789. Ironically, Levy, comparing Jefferson unfavorably with Franklin, wrote, “His eagerness to make America safe for democracy made him forgetful of Franklin's wise aphorism that they who seek safety at the expense of liberty deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties, 169. Throughout this article, the terms “Republican” and “Democratic-Republican” are used interchangeably. This was the case in Jefferson's time and is accepted usage among most scholars.
- Jefferson's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805, in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1984), 520–22.
- Ibid., 521.
- Ibid., 521–22.
- Jefferson's draft of his second inaugural address, in Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. Peterson, Writings, 522, has an erroneous transcription, “provided by the State against false,” which might mislead readers into believing that Jefferson inconsistently recommended that the national “State” (in singular, capitalized orthography) exercise authority over the press.
- Notes on the State of Virginia, in Peterson, Writings, 251.
- Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, Aug. 18, 1799, in Peterson, Writings, 1066.
- Ibid., 1068–69.
- Ibid.
- Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, Peterson, Writings, 1078–79.
- Ibid., 1079.
- Ibid.
- Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, March 24, 1802, in Julian P. Boyd, Barbara B. Oberg et al., eds., Papers of Thomas Jefferson, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1950-), 37: 119. I have modernized the original spelling and punctuation for purposes of clarity.
- Ibid., 119–20. Capitalization has been modernized. Italics in original.
- Jefferson to Abigail Adams, Sept. 11, 1804 in Lester J. Cappon, ed., Adams-Jefferson Letters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 279.
- Jefferson to Abigail Adams, Sept. 11, 1804 in Cappon, Adams-Jefferson Letters, 279.
- See James Morton Smith, “The Sedition Law, Free Speech, and the American Political Process,” Political Science Quarterly 9, no. 4 (Oct. 1952): 497–511.
- Gerard W. Gawalt, ‘“Strict Truth’: The Narrative of William Armistead Burwell,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 101, no. 1 (June 1993): 103–32, information is on 118–19; New England Palladium, Jan. 18, 1805; Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948–1981), 1: 153–55, 447–51; 4: 216–23; 5: 14–15, 386, 391.
- Jefferson to Marc Auguste Pictet, Feb. 5, 1803, in Boyd, Oberg, et al., Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 39: 457. Punctuation has been modernized for clarity. See note 17 for full publication information.
- Jefferson's Draft of the Kentucky Resolutions, Oct. 1798, in Oberg, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 30: 450.
- “Backus, Azel,” in James G. Wilson, ed., Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, (New York: Appleton, 1895), 1: 129; Marian C. McKenna, Tapping Reeve and the Litchfield Law School (New York: Oceana Press 1986); and Harris E. Starr, “Backus, Azel,” in Allen Johnson and Dumas Moore, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 10 vols. (New York: Scribner, 1927–1936), 1: 467–68.
- Nevertheless, Reeve had to admit that, because of his prestige in Connecticut and his close association with the Republican federal district court judge, Pierpont Edwards, his prosecution was immediately canceled.
- Malone, Jefferson and His Time, vol. 5, Jefferson the President: Second Term (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), 391.
- Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Cooper, Feb. 10, 1814, and Jefferson to John Cartwright, June 5, 1824, in Peterson, Jefferson: Writings, 1321–29, 1494–95.
- Jefferson's 1783 Constitution, in Boyd, Oberg, et al., Jefferson Papers, 6: 304. Throughout his book, but especially in Chapter 4, “A Dictator in Extreme Cases: The Burr Conspiracy,” especially pages 80–92, Levy assumed that Jefferson had no compunction about suspending habeas corpus. He asserts that Jefferson desired to suspend habeas corpus in the case of those involved in the Burr Conspiracy and secretly advised that Senator William B. Giles of Virginia propose a law to that effect. Although Giles did propose such a law, there is no evidence to support the conclusion that Jefferson instructed him to do so.
- Jefferson to Madison, July 31, 1788, Boyd, Oberg, et al., Jefferson Papers, 13: 442–43, and William T. Hutchinson, W.M.E. Rachal, Robert A. Rutland, et al., eds., Papers of James Madison (Chicago and Charlottesville: University of Chicago and University of Virginia Press, 1960-), 11: 210–14. In defining the powers of Congress, the Constitution, Article 1, Section 9, states, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Jefferson would not have given Congress such a degree of discretion. During the Civil War, however, President Lincoln unconstitutionally suspended habeas corpus in Maryland and elsewhere. See, among many other works, Mark E. Neely, The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), and Burrus M. Carnahan, Lincoln on Trial: Southern Civilians and the Law of War (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2010).
- Jefferson to Alexander Donald, Feb. 7, 1788, in Peterson, Jefferson: Writings, 919.
- Jefferson to Madison, Dec. 20, 1787, in ibid., 915–916.
- Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, in ibid., 495.
- Jefferson's Autobiography, in ibid., 71–72.
- Jefferson to Madison, July 31, 1788, Boyd, Oberg, et al., Jefferson Papers, 13: 442–43, and Rachal, Rutland, et al., Madison Papers, 11: 210–14. Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties, 48–49, distorts the contents of this letter. Claiming it reveals Jefferson's political conservatism, Levy argues that Jefferson was trying to deter Madison from proposing radical views on freedom of the press in a bill of rights. Indeed, such distortion pervades Levy's entire, brief book.
- Malone, Jefferson, 5: 372.
- Ibid., 372–74.
- Hartford (Conn.) Courant, April 23, 1806.
- “The Charge,” Litchfield Witness, April 30, 1806. “The Charge” reprinted Edwards' instructions (“charge”) to the grand jury.
- On Bache's fate, see James Morton Smith, Freedom's Fetters: The Alien-Sedition Acts and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1956), 200–4; on the harassment of Duane, see Kim T. Phillips, “William Duane, Revolutionary Editor” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1968), 128–32.
- Malone, Jefferson, 5: 375.
- Ibid., 376.
- This paragraph is based on the account in Richard J. Purcell, Connecticut in Transition, 1775–1818 (Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1918), 275–76.
- Hartford (Conn.) Courant, Sept. 10, 1806.
- Hartford (Conn.) Courant, reprinted in Boston Repertory, Sept. 5, 1806.
- Jefferson to Madison, Aug. 25, 1807, in James Morton Smith, ed., Republic of Letters: The Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, 1776–1826 (New York: Norton, 1995), 3: 1491–92. Spelling modernized.
- Jefferson to Madison, Sept. 18, 1807, in Smith, Re-public of Letters, 3: 1497–98.
- Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, Oct. 8, 1807, Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress.
- Malone, Jefferson and His Time, vol. 5, Jefferson the President: Second Term, 388.
- Ibid., 388–89. See also Arthur Scherr, Thomas Jefferson's Haitian Policy: Myths and Realities (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2011), 389–90, 506–7.
- Gideon Granger to Jefferson, Feb. 22, 1814, and Jefferson to Granger, March 9, 1814, both in J. Jefferson Looney, ed., Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004-), 7: 206–7, 236–37. The scant surviving Burr correspondence published in Mary-Jo Kline, ed., Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), reveals little contact between Burr and Granger.
- Levy's chapter on Jefferson and seditious libel contains many ad hominem statements and factual errors. Even concerning such a basic fact as the identity of Coray, a Greek political theorist engaged in devising a constitution for Greece, which was struggling for independence against Turkey, Levy carelessly wrote that he was a French statesman involved in 1823 in writing a constitution for France. At that time, France was under the restored monarchy of Louis XVIII, freedom of the press was severely limited, and no one was talking about a constitutional convention.
- Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 344.
- Ibid., 347, note 10. For Jefferson's composing the state constitution, see Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, 235–36.
- Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 344–45, 353, 363.
- Ibid., 363 (“Rights Private and Public”). In order to buttress his depiction of Jefferson as a foe of freedom of the press, Levy's Jefferson and Civil Liberties omitted these quotations. When Levy quoted a private letter Jefferson wrote in 1823 expressing identical sentiments to the ones in these drafts of a constitution, he claimed that this was the first time that Jefferson advocated unrestricted freedom of the press.
- Albemarle County Instructions Concerning the Virginia Constitution, drawn up during the late summer or autumn of 1776, in Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 6: 282, 284–91, 288.
- Ibid., 6: 288; and Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties, 46–47.
- Jefferson's Draft of a Constitution for Virginia (1783), in Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 6: 304.
- Jefferson to Rabout de St. Etienne, with draft of a Charter of Rights, June 3, 1789, in Peterson, Jefferson: Writings, 955–956. Levy's blithe assumption that by “false facts” Jefferson included political opinions, which he always considered the antipode of facts in every realm, secular and religious, was surprisingly careless. Claiming that as early as 1776, and for the rest of his political career, Jefferson was ever-ready to prosecute (and persecute) his political enemies, Levy wrote, claiming to summarize Jefferson's intentions: “In politics one's truth is another's falsity. To endorse a state trial for the crime of falsity in political matters was to circumscribe the scope of political expression by the prejudices, or preferences for truth, of the government or the community.” Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties, 47.
- Jefferson to A. Coray, Oct. 31, 1823, in Lipscomb and Bergh, Writings of Jefferson, 15: 489, quoted in Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties, 69.
- Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties, 53.
- Steven H. Hochman, “On the Liberty of the Press in Virginia: From Essay to Bludgeon, 1798–1803,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 84, no. 4 (1976): 431–45.
- Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties, 54.