Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt Book

Dumas Malone picks up Volume IV of the life of Thomas Jefferson by reviewing the closing days of the disputed election of 1800, where the House of Representatives ended up choosing Jefferson over Aaron Burr. Malone continues his penchant for excusing away most of Jefferson's many flaws, and emphasizing his positive attributes whenever possible. I am not sure if it that the deeper I go in the series the more exposed I am to Malone's favorable treatment of Jefferson, or if Malone himself - through studying Jefferson so closely - becomes increasingly enamored with his subject. Malone spends the first few chapters defending Jefferson against any charges of a "deal" to provide quid pro quos to some Representatives in exchange for their votes in his favor regarding the House's responsibility to determine the ultimate winner of the deadlocked election. Once Jefferson takes office, the love-fest continues. On page 61, writing about Jefferson's management of his office and his administration, Dumas comments "...rarely if ever in the history of the presidency has there been equally skillful and successful administration that was based to the same extent on personality."

But there is no more glaring of a weakness in Malone's overly friendly treatment of Jefferson than when he discusses the possibility of Jefferson impregnating one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. Writing of these, at that time, unfounded charges on page 214 Malone states: "They are distinctly out of character, being virtually unthinkable in a man of Jefferson's moral standards and habitual conduct.... it is virtually inconceivable that this fastidious gentleman whose devotion to his dead wife's memory and to the happiness of his daughters... could have carried on through a period of years a vulgar liaison which his own family could not have failed to detect. It would be as absurd as to charge this consistently temperate man with being, through a long period, a drunkard." If Jefferson had still been alive when Malone wrote those words, I would seriously question how much Jefferson may have paid him to write such an encomium. If there were any remaining doubt as to whether Malone was able to view Jefferson's actions and the man himself objectively, I think the above passage makes that answer clear. Malone wrote this prior to the DNA testing that did confirm that Jefferson did father children with Hemings. I do not expect Malone to have assumed that Jefferson did this, but as a responsible biographer, I think his penchant for usually bathing Jefferson in sunshine and for almost refusing to even consider that the man may have done something like this is to call into question his ability to write an even-handed biography. I do not question Malone's dedication to his craft, nor that he was the preeminent Jefferson scholar of his time and probably all-time (all of the footnotes in these volumes by themselves prove that). But I do, at times, question his judgment in attempting to provide an accurate portrayal of the man.

Fortunately, when it comes to political matters, Malone, while still favorably disposed to Jefferson, is somewhat more objective in his treatment. Malone does excellent work in describing Jefferson's actions concerning the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson was not completely upfront about some of his motives and some of his behind-the-scenes maneuvering to obtain the vast swath of territory. He knew it was beyond the bounds of his Constitutional authority yet he could not pass up such an excellent opportunity to expand the borders of the young United States. Malone acknowledges that Jefferson was not above partisan feelings and that he knew his overwhelming support in Congress would help smooth the way for the passage of the treaty with France.

Malone handles Jefferson's presidency in a topical fashion, while trying to move along chronologically through his first term. Normally, I do not care for this approach as it tends to isolate what the subject is doing, but obviously Jefferson was engaged in many different things at the same time. However, Malone is so thorough in his treatment of each topic that it works for his style of writing. He also tries to mix policy-laden chapters (Jefferson's dealings with Congress and the Supreme Court, for example) with lighter sides of Jefferson's character, such as his family life. Speaking of the latter, it was sad to read about Jefferson's youngest daughter dying - she never quite recovered from having her seventh child. Jefferson was so guarded with his feelings though that if he did speak at length to anyone about how he felt, it was not recorded or repeated.

Malone's editor(s) must have been asleep at the wheel for a good part of this series. I re-read my review of Volume III and noted that Malone described ad nauseam the lack of a complete roof over Jefferson's house, Monticello. Well, on page 38 of this book, he mentions it again, when comparing it's living standards to that of the Executive Mansion (now known as the White House). Enough already about the roof at Monticello and whether it was on or off! I appreciate a thorough review of someone's life, and the diligent research that Malone clearly conducted on Jefferson, literally spending decades reading and writing about one of the most important figures in American history. But we do not need every single detail about the man's daily life to get an accurate picture of what his life was like. All too frequently in this series, Malone gets bogged down in excessive detail such this; detail that really adds nothing to our understanding of Jefferson.

In the end, like the other volumes in this series, this is a serious piece of scholarship blighted by some serious flaws, which ultimately stem from the subjectivity of the author for his subject. However, anyone wishing to really read and learn about Jefferson would need to read these works. The sheer volume of information that Malone chronicles makes them worthwhile from that point. No one has studied him more closely than Malone. But keep in mind that, while certainly not a hagiographer, many issues and events are strongly interpreted in Jefferson's favor.