character sketches
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
Jefferson was, after Washington and Franklin, the most celebrated
of the Founding Fathers, and the one who most completely combined intellectual
genius in many fields with practical political skill.
In his youth
Jefferson was a lighthearted socialite, horseman, and violinist, but he became
more serious and philosophical after an unhappy love affair, and especially
after the death of his young wife in 1782.
A poor public
speaker, Jefferson nevertheless excelled at legislative and political work
behind the scenes. His literary skill led Franklin, Adams, and the other
members of the drafting committee to assign him to write the Declaration of
Independence. His original version included an attack on slavery, but this was
removed.
Soft-spoken and
informal in manner, Jefferson liked to receive visitors at Monticello or the
White House in slippers and casual clothes and drape himself across furniture
as he spoke. The charge that he fathered children by one of his slaves, Sally
Hemings, grew out of contemporary rumors and was published by a hostile
journalist in 1802. Although Jefferson’s paternity was accepted as fact within
the black Hemings clan, Jefferson’s admirers contended over the years that
Jefferson’s nephew was the father. In the late 1990s, DNA tests of Jefferson’s
acknowledged white descendants and descendants of Hemings confirmed the very
high likelihood that Jefferson did have a liaison with Hemings. On his
tombstone Jefferson listed his three great achievements as being the author of
the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
and the founder of the University of Virginia.
Quote: “A government regulating itself by what is just and
wise for the many, uninfluenced by the local and selfish interests of the few
who direct their affairs, has not been seen, perhaps, on earth. . . . Still, I
believe it does exist here in a greater degree than anywhere else, and for its
growth and continuance I offer sincere prayers.” (Letter to John Adams, 1813)
reference: Noble
Cunningham, In Pursuit of Reason: The
Life of Thomas Jefferson (1987); Joseph Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (1997).
Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809)
Lewis was Jefferson’s private secretary and leader of the
expedition that explored the Louisiana Purchase territory.
He grew up as
Jefferson’s neighbor and friend. As Jefferson’s presidential secretary, he supervised
White House social life as well as official correspondence.
Jefferson and Lewis
had planned an expedition to the west coast even before the Louisiana Purchase.
William Clark was the geographer and manager of the expedition, while the
better-educated Lewis carried out the scientific and cultural side of the
mission. On the return trip from Oregon, Lewis was accidentally wounded by one
his men, who mistook him for a deer.
Shortly after being
made governor of Louisiana, Lewis was shot to death in a remote Tennessee inn.
Some people claimed he was murdered, but Jefferson said Lewis was subject to
frequent bouts of depression and believed he had committed suicide.
Quote: “We were now about to penetrate a country at least
two thousand miles in width, on which the foot of civilized man has not
trodden; the good or evil it had in store for us was an experiment yet to
determine.…Entertaining, as I do, the most confident hope of succeeding in a
voyage which has formed a project of mine for the last ten years, I could but
esteem this moment of departure as among the most happy of my life.” (Journal,
Fort Mandan, 1805)
reference: Stephen
Ambrose, Undaunted Courage (1996).
Sacajawea (1787?–1812?)
Sacajawea was the Shoshone Indian who served as translator and
negotiator on the Lewis and Clark expedition.
The daughter of a
chief, she was married, along with another Indian woman, to Toussaint
Charbonneau, a French-Canadian voyageur
who lived with the Indians. Charbonneau became an interpreter for Lewis and
Clark at Fort Mandan in Dakota, and Sacajawea joined the expedition even though
she had given birth two months before to a son, John Baptiste.
Contrary to legend,
Sacajawea did little guiding, but she did translate. When the expedition
reached her own people along the Snake River, she was overjoyed and learned
that her brother had become chief.
Clark became
attached to her son and offered to raise him. After initially refusing, she and
Charbonneau joined Clark in St. Louis, left their son with him, and returned to
Dakota.
Controversy
surrounds whether Sacajawea died shortly thereafter at Fort Mandan or lived to
old age on the Wind River reservation in Wyoming. Because she was taken up as a
heroine by American suffragists, there are more monuments to her than to any
other American woman.
reference: Ella
Clark and Margot Edmonds, Sacajawea of
the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1979).
Henry Clay (1777–1852)
Clay was a Kentucky congressman and senator who, along with
Webster and Calhoun, dominated congressional politics in the early nineteenth
century. Beginning his career as a spokesman for the new West, he spent most of
it as a Border State moderate trying to mediate between North and South.
Clay moved from
Virginia to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1797 and became the state’s most renowned
criminal lawyer. Although initially sympathetic to Aaron Burr’s schemes, he was
eventually convinced by Jefferson of Burr’s treasonous intentions.
Eloquent and
impetuous, Clay displayed a hot western temper. His lifelong feud with Jackson
began when he criticized Jackson’s invasion of Florida in 1819. He maneuvered
during his whole political life for the presidency but never attained it. His
statement “I would rather be right than be President” can be taken with a grain
of salt, since he frequently modified positions for political advantage,
notably in the presidential campaign of 1844.
Like other
westerners of the time, he loved horse racing, cards, liquor, and
dueling—though he finally gave up the last practice.
Quote: “An honorable cause is attainable by an efficient
war.…In such a cause, with the aid of Providence, we must come out crowned with
success. But if we fail, let us fail like men, lash ourselves to our gallant
tars, and expire together in one common struggle, fighting for Free Trade and
Seamen’s Rights.” (Congressional speech, 1811)
reference: Robert
Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the
Union (1991).
Tecumseh (1768–1813)
Tecumseh was a Shawnee warrior who organized a major Indian
confederacy against the United States just before the War of 1812.
His father, a
Shawnee chief, was killed in battle with whites in 1774. Between 1805 and 1810
Tecumseh worked to organize his own people and also became well known among the
Potawatomies and Kickapoos in Ohio and Indiana.
He was at first
subordinate to his brother Tenskwatawa—commonly called the Prophet—a Shawnee
shaman, or medicine man, who preached a revival of traditional Indian religion.
In 1810–1811 Tecumseh expanded his influence across the whole Northwest,
persuading each of the tribes not to sell land to whites without the consent of
all.
Ignoring Tecumseh’s
advice, his brother launched a premature battle against General Harrison at
Tippecanoe and was killed. Tecumseh and his remaining warriors joined the
British side in the War of 1812, but Tecumseh, too, was killed at the battle of
the Thames, ending the last Indian attempt at a united front against white
advance.
Quote: “The Great Spirit…gave this great island to his red
children. He placed the whites on the other side of the big water. They were
not content with their own, but came to take ours from us. They have driven us
from the sea to the lakes. We can go no farther. They have taken upon
themselves to say this tract belongs to the Miami, this to the Delawares, and
so on. But the Great Spirit intended it to be the common property of all the
tribes, nor can it be sold without the consent of all.” (Speech, 1810)
