Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

702 Pages·2012·5.48 MB·English

by  Jon Meacham

ALSO BY JON MEACHAM
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship
Voices in Our Blood: America’s Best on the Civil Rights Movement (editor)

This is an uncorrected eBook file. Please do not quote for
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Copyright © 2012 by Jon Meacham
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a
division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
[Permissions acknowledgments, if any, go here.]
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Meacham, Jon.
Thomas Jefferson: the art of power / Jon Meacham.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-40006766-4
eISBN 978-0-679-64536-8
1. Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826. 2. Presidents—United States—Biography. 3. United States—Politics and
government—1783–1809. I. Title.
E332.M48 2012 973.4’6092—dc23 2012013700
[B]
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
www.atrandom.com
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FIRST EDITION
Book design by Simon M. Sullivan
T H W
O ERBERT ENTZ
And, as ever, for Mary, Maggie, Sam, and Keith
A few broad strokes of the brush would paint the portraits of all the early
Presidents with this exception.… Jefferson could be painted only touch
by touch, with a fine pencil, and the perfection of the likeness depended
upon the shifting and uncertain flicker of its semi-transparent shadows.
—HENRY ADAMS, History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas
Jefferson
I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human
knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House,
with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
—PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY, at a dinner in honor of all living recipients of the Nobel Prize, 1962
CONTENTS
Cover
eBook Information
Also by Jon Meacham
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
A Note on the Text
Prologue · The World’s Best Hope
Part I · THE SCION · B S 1774
EGINNINGS TO PRING
ONE · A Fortunate Son
TWO · What Fixed the Destinies of My Life
THREE · Roots of Revolution
FOUR · Temptations and Trials
FIVE · A World of Desire and Denial
Part II · THE REVOLUTIONARY · S 1774 S 1776
PRING TO UMMER
SIX · Like a Shock of Electricity
SEVEN · There Is No Peace
EIGHT · The Famous Mr. Jefferson
NINE · The Course of Human Events
TEN · The Pull of Duty
Part III · REFORMER AND GOVERNOR · L 1776 1782
ATE TO
ELEVEN · An Agenda for Liberty
TWELVE · A Troublesome Office