Jefferson and Madison - the Great Collaboration

JEFFERSON AND MADISON- The Great Collaboration BY Adrienne Koch New York Alfred A. Knopf. PREFACE: LONG STUDY of the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson con vinced me of the need for further research into the devel opment of Jeffersons thought. And this became impossible without a systematic study of the friendship of Jefferson and Madison in working out a comprehensive ideology of democracy. Here were two men who had been joined in an intimate and congenial partnership for a period of almost fifty years. Their philosophic principles and political pur suits could not be isolated from the larger setting of their friendly collaboration and it was thus that Jefferson and Madison developed. A study, then, in the history of ideas, the book explores more fully than before the political theory that Jefferson and Madison jointly professed, and indicates their charac teristic differences as well as their basic agreement about political values. Their massive writings have often been consulted separately to throw light on one or the other man. Now the correspondence has been studied for the interplay of ideas between the two greatest philosopher statesmen of the American Enlightenment. The spotlight is on ideas and the interrelations of two minds. The ines capable conclusion of this investigation is that the political philosophy known simply as JtSersonhn s actually an amalgam of ideas, which owes very much to James Madison. Jefferson and Madison must inevitably cut across neat vn Preface academic boundaries in its effort to illuminate the philoso phy of democracy in a significant historical context. It in no way substitutes for conscientious and full-length biographies of Jefferson and Madison, nor they for it. The present gen eration will be given two rounded and detailed biographies, one of Jefferson by Dumas Malone and one of Madison by Irving Brant. But their work is clearly different from a study of the unique relationship of Jefferson and Madison in for mulating the principles of democracy and in attempting to realize their ideals. The material for this interpretation of Jefferson and Madison comes largely from research in the primary sources. The great historical undertaking now in progress at Princeton, the editing of The Papers of Tliomas Jeffer son, will in time make it obvious that close investigation of a vast body of manuscripts is essential for any genuine study of the philosophy and career of Jefferson, not in the interest of a cult of antiquarianism or out of some special pose of historic purism, but for a more authentic presentation of the American political tradition. It was necessary, even for the limited purposes of this study, to delve deeply into, the manuscript collections of Jefferson and Madison in the Li brary of Congress, and to fill in important gaps by consult ing photostats at Princeton of other manuscripts. It was natural that this extensive research into unpub lished primary sources should yield significant new facts. Some of the new information provides missing links in otherwise imperfectly known episodes. My account of The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions for example, embod ies several discoveries that permit a more accurate version of the crucial roles played by Jefferson and Madison. An other example is the account of their detailed collaboration on the University of Virginia a relationship that has not viii Preface previously been properly assessed...