The Writings of Thomas Jefferson

Part 1

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THE WRITINGS OF

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Library Edition

CONTAINING HIS

AUTOBIOGRAPHY, NOTES ON VIRGINIA, PARLIAMENTARY MANUAL, OFFICIAL PAPERS, MESSAGES AND ADDRESSES, AND OTHER WRITINGS, OFFICIAL AND PRIVATE, NOW COLLECTED AND

PUBLISHED IN THEIR ENTIRETY FOR THE FIRST TIME

INCLUDING

ALL OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS, DEPOSITED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE AND PUBLISHED IN 1853 BY ORDER OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS

AND

A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYTICAL INDEX

ANDREW A. LIPSCOMB, Chairman Board of Governors EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ALBERT ELLERY BERGH MANAGING EDITOR

VOL. VI.

ISSUED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF

THE THOMAS JEFFERSON MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION

OF THE UNITED STATES

WASHINGTON, D. C.

1903

Copyright, 1903, by The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association

Transcriber's Note: Omitted text or text that was in cypher is denoted by asterisks.

JEFFERSON AS A TACTICIAN

The word "tactician" is usually applied to military movements, but it has a broader meaning than this; it embodies the idea of a peculiar skill or faculty--a nice perception or discernment which is characterized by adroit planning or management, artfully directed in politics or diplomacy in government.

"Of all creatures the sense of tact is most exquisite in man"--Ross: Microcosmia.

"To see in such a clime, Where science is new, men so exact In tactic art"--Davenant Madagascar.

True statesmanship is the masterful art. Poetry, music, painting, sculpture and architecture please, thrill and inspire, but the great statesman and diplomatist and leader in thought and action convinces, controls and compels the admiration of all classes and creeds. Logical thought, power of appeal and tactfulness never fail to command attention and respect. It has always been thus, and it will unquestionably so remain. Many really able and brilliant men, however, lack balance and the faculty of calculation. They are too often swayed by emotions, and their intellectual powers, which otherwise might exert a controlling influence, are thus weakened, and often result in failure. True greatness in a man is gauged by what he accomplished in life, and the impress he left upon his fellow-men. It does not consist of one act, or even of many, but rather their effect upon the times in which he lived, and how long they endure after the actor is gone from the throng of the living.

At the bar, in the pulpit, in the medical profession, and especially in political life, tact is the sine qua non to the highest degree of individual success. However gifted one may be, he cannot win conspicuous laurels in any calling or avocation, if he be deficient in tactfulness. The man who best understands human nature, knows how to approach people, and possesses the art of leading them, is the one who will invariably have the largest following and will possess the greatest amount of influence over his fellows. The fact cannot be disputed that men of great brilliancy of intellect, without tact, have been distanced by others far less talented, who possessed the knack of getting near to the masses with the object in view to lead and control them. A military commander who knows how to muster and marshal his men so as to make them most effective when a battle is pending, will be unquestionably successful in manoeuvres and successful also in battle; and it is equally true in statecraft, and in the learned professions as well. The skillful tactician is master of every situation and is the victor in every important contest. But more than in any other calling is this true in politics. The successful leader in legislative bodies,--he whose name is recorded on the legislative journal as the author of the most important measures which are enacted into laws--is, without exception, that member who is tactful, thoughtful, industrious and sincere. It makes no difference how great his natural endowments may be, if he be wanting in these elements his success will be restricted to a narrow sphere; and the greatest of these is tactfulness.

Part 2

The world's great tacticians are few. In America I can mention but three who are deserving of first rank,--Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay and James G. Blaine. Neither represented the same generation, and neither was the exact counterpart of the others, but all of them were renowned in their ability to control their fellow-men. Each possessed that peculiar magnetic power to draw men around them and to win their confidence and support. Each had but to say the word, and his wishes were carried out. Each needed only to give the command to follow, and, like drilled soldiers, the multitudes fell into line and were obedient to every order. They were evidently cast in a peculiar mould, and that particular mould is limited seemingly to a single man in every generation. Why it is thus we know not, and yet we know that it is so. As the precentor in a choir leads the masses with his baton, and under correct leadership they rarely miss a note, so does the great tactician issue his commands, and his wishes are supreme. I here write Jefferson, Clay and Blaine as America's intrepid leaders and commanders in civil life; these three, and the greatest of these was Jefferson, as he seemed to have learned in early life, more than any of his compeers, that a little management will often avoid resistance, which a vast force will strive in vain to overcome; and that it is wisdom to grant graciously what he could not refuse safely, and thus conciliate those whom he was otherwise unable to control.

In referring to a man who possesses a high grade of capacity in a particular calling, we usually say he is able--an able man. The term able, therefore, signifies more than capable, more than well-informed, whether applied to an artist, a general, a man of learning, or a judge. A man may have read all that has been written on war, and may have seen it, without being able to conduct a war. He may be capable of commanding, but to acquire the name of an able general he must command more than once with success. A judge may know all the laws, without being able to apply the principles of law properly. A learned man may not be able either to speak, or to write, or to teach in a commanding manner. An able man, then, is he who makes a valuable use of what he knows. A capable man can do a thing; an able one does it. The term able cannot, therefore, be properly applied to genius. It is not correct, according to my way of thinking, to say an "able poet," an "able painter," an "able musician," an "able orator," an "able sculptor," because it is talent or genius, or both, that gives one rank in these callings in life, or in these particular undertakings. The word "able," as I understand it, is applicable to those arts only which involve the exercise of the mind as a controlling factor. One may be a great orator, according to the usual acceptation of the term "great," and yet be only a declaimer and a rhetorician. That is to say, he may be able to captivate audiences by his superior action, as Demosthenes defines oratory to be, and at the same time his elocution and rhetoric may be unexceptionable, yet he maybe in fact totally lacking in every element which goes to make up real greatness.

It may be correctly claimed that one may win distinction and renown by energy and tact, and yet be deficient in both wit and learning. But usually men are measured by the success they make in life, just as a carpenter is measured by his "chips"; and accepting this measure, it is exceedingly rare to find one who reaches above the rank of a ward politician, unless he possesses those real elements of greatness which I choose to class as honesty, sobriety, manliness, sympathy, energy, education, knowledge and fairness. I agree that a great tactician may not per se be a great man, but I do say that one who possesses this element, usually embodies those other elements which are accepted ordinarily as the true ingredients of greatness.

Jefferson did not rank in oratory with the Adamses, the Randolphs, James Otis and Patrick Henry, who were contemporaneous with him. He was, therefore, not by nature great in the sphere of oratory, and in his public utterances he does not always show the habit of radical thought which gave the great Democratic party, which lived and ruled our country throughout the larger part of the nineteenth century, that tremendous moral force peculiar to that marvelous organization which he founded and fostered throughout his long, useful and eventful life. Yet his speeches, if they may be classed as such, were clear, logical, forceful, convincing. In politics, in literature, in everything that concerned the world's forward movement in his day, his intellectual sympathies were universal, or as nearly so as it was possible for any man's to be. Men less learned and with lesser power of reason and thoughtfulness than he, have moved audiences to frenzy and have carried them at will; but Jefferson, without this peculiar gift, certainly possessed a sufficiency of this power, which the broad culture of the scholar and the steadfast tension of the thinker can give to any man. His addresses and writings are pregnant with profound aphorisms, and through his great genius transient questions were often transformed into eternal truths. His arguments were condensed with such admirable force of clearness that his utterances always found lodgment in the minds of both auditors and readers. Sensitive in his physical organization, easily moved to tenderness, and incapable of malice, he had that ready responsiveness to his own emotions as well as to those of others, which always characterizes genius.

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