thereafter by both his friends and hisnenemies. But, while there is no mystery,nthere is a great deal of confusion,narising out of subsequent efforts tonmanipulate his image as an aegis fornother causes of other days. Even hadnhe not been so complex a puzzle as anman, his role in American history is soncovered by ideological debris that realityncan only be uncovered inch by inch.n(Merrill D. Peterson’s tour de force,nThe Jefferson Image in the AmericannMind, 1960, showed the many andncontradictory uses to which he hasnbeen put.) In fact, the multivariousnmisunderstandings of Jefferson’s politicalncareer tell us little about him. Theyntell us a great deal about the fragmentation,nshallowness, and imagemongeringnthat characterized Americannpolitical and intellectual life afternhis time, a degeneration which henobserved in his last years.nJefferson had a chivalric and optimisticnfaith that the intelligence andnpatriotism of his fellow American freeholdersn(outside of Massachusetts andnConnecticut) were such that theyncould be trusted to rule themselves. Itnfollowed that a free republican governmentnwas the proper form of governmentnfor Americans and that this governmentnshould interfere in theirnprivate affairs and pick their pockets asnlitde as was consistent with publicnorder and national independence. Unlikenpersons in the 19th century andnsince who seized upon and universalizedna few words in the Declaration ofnIndependence, he did not insist thatnliberty and republicanism were appropriatento every people, condition, andntime. The element of messianic democraticnuniversalism that came to characterizenthe American approach to thenworld was a product of a later time andnwas a devolved expression of that NewnEngland Puritanism which Jeffersonndespised, and which hated him.nTo Jefferson and his friends, hisnvictory and theirs in 1800 meant simplynthat they had established his viewn(which was not something he inventednand promulgated from on high as andivine lawgiver, but something thatnarose naturally out of American conditions)nas predominant. Yet by the timenhe died, in John Quincy Adams’nwould-be activist presidency, Jeffersonnwell knew that his victory had beenntemporary.nThe LSU Press has inaugurated annew series of Southern biographies, ofnwhich this is an early entry. The goal isna readable one-volume treatment,nbased upon accumulated scholarshipnand reflection, but aimed, apparently,nat general readers. Given the alienationnbetween historical scholarship andnthe reading public (if such a thing stillnexists), this is laudable. But it is hard tonimagine a more difGcuIt subject to takenon in this way than Jefferson. Therenare many good specialized studies ofnparticular aspects of Jefferson andnroom for many more, but it is no easynmatter to boil him down to onensmooth volume. The author sought tonbypass all the accretions of confusionnand to see Jefferson afresh, while admittingnthat he presents only his ownnview of a complicated subject. This isnprobably the proper strategy for thenoccasion, but perhaps unavoidably, itncan succeed only at the cost of eitherndistortion or blandness, in this case thenlatter. This is, in a way, a redundantnbook, though responsibly and gracefullynwritten. Did I desire a readable andnup-to-date one-volume life of Jefferson,nI would hire the most skillednavailable editor to condense DumasnMalone’s six volumes, which are asnclose to definitive as history can evernbe. The book in hand fills a formalnrequirement, without adding anythingneither factual or interpretive to thenworld’s body of knowledge.nCunningham hoped to see Jeffersonnafresh and thus sought to reducenhis life to a clear and manageablentheme — his faith in reason in thenaffairs of man. Here I must part companynwith the author. While the observationnis true, it is so general as to bennearly meaningless or, what is worse,nlends itself to too many misrepresentations.nAlmost all the errors and confusionsnabout Jefferson result from usingnhis faith in man’s reasonableness tonprovide an endorsement for any laternmovement which appealed to reason,nno matter how different in spirit, inntacit assumptions, in social context, innintellectual fabric from Jefferson’snown. Alexander Hamilton also believednin reason, but he drew ratherndifferent conclusions about its propernuse. One would never gather fromnCunningham’s mild consensus historynthat the gentlemen’s disagreement betweennthe two reasoners was markednnnby violent sectional, ideological, andneconomic conflicts that reverberate tonthis day.nTo put it another way, the theme ofnreason tells us little about the blood,nsweat, and tears of Jefferson’s politics—nor those of his enemies. This isnnot only a political biography but also,nalas, a superficial one. It is a verbalnicon, a printed and bound version ofnthe New Deal-era monument innWashington which could make Jeffersonnpalatable to 20th-century Americansnonly by doctoring his quotationnabout slavery. This is not Malone’snJefferson, though it bears a resemblancento a fragment of that portrait. Itnis not Nock’s or Parrington’s or Bowers’nor Peterson’s or that of manynothers that could be named. It isnGeorge Bancroft’s Jefferson. Bancroftnwas a clever New England scribbler ofnthe 19th century who, unable to defeatnJefferson, took a narrow slice of himnand created a putative whole that henfound compatible; subsequent generationsnhave responded sympathetically.nExactly the same thing happenednmore recently when George Will andnothers converted Ronald Reagan, atnone time a wild man from the Westnand potential threat to the Establishment,ninto just another Republican,ntolerable if not beloved in Boston andnHartford.nAfter the violent twist of Americannsociety away from his dispensation innthe later 19th century, Jefferson can benmade to fit consensus history only by angood deal of selective emphasis. Cunninghamnthus follows the standard interpretationnthat Jefferson’s allegiance tonstates’ rights was merely a temporarynexpedient, adopted for the occasion,nfor the larger goal of the defense ofncivil liberties. But this is unhistorical.nIn his own time and several generationsnlater, the Kentucky Resolutionsnof 1798, affirming state sovereignty,nwere the core of his political position.n(Here we run into the mystificationnheaped up by the cleverly vengefulnindustry of several generations ofnAdamses, who convinced most laternobservers that Jefferson’s presidencynwas a contradiction of his earlier position.nIt was not so seen by most at thentime or for many decades following.)nThe real Jefferson, by modern interpretation,nput freedom ahead of states’nrights. This is to indulge in a too-easynFEBRUARY 1388 j 33n