Thomas Jefferson: ConservativenDumas Malone: The Sage of Monticellon(Volume Six of Jefferson andnHis Time); Little, Brown & Co.;nBoston.nby Clyde WilsonnIn 1809 Thomas Jefferson yieldednup the Presidency and crossed into Virginia.nIn the 17 active years remainingnto him he never left it. The first volumenof Malone’s masterpiece, published inn1948, -was Jefferson the Virginian. Thensixth and last is The Sage of Monticello.nJefferson begins and ends with Virginia.nKeep this fact in mind. It will save usnfrom many errors and lead us as near tonthe truth as we can get in regard to thisnsometimes enigmatic Founding Father.nNo great American, not even Lincoln,nhas been put to so many contradictorynuses by later generations of enemiesnand apologists, and therefore none hasnundergone so much distortion. In fact,nmost of what has been asserted aboutnJefferson in the last hundred years — andneven moreof what has been implied or assumednabout him—is so lacking in contextnand proportion as to be essentiallynfalse. What we commonly see is notnJefferson. It is a strange amalgam orncomposite in which the misconceptionsnof each succeeding generation have beenncombined and recombined until the originalnis no longer discernible.nPresuming we wish to know Jeffersonnrather than simply to manipulate hisnimage for our own purposes, Malone isnindispensable. Jefferson and His Timenis a conspicuous example of an increasinglynrare phenomenon, genuine scholarship.nI mean that term as a complimentn— to denote a work that avoids the extremesnof pedantry and superficiality,nthat is exhaustive, thorough, honest, balanced,nfelicitous, reasonable and exe-nDr. Wilson is professor of history at thenUniversity of South Carolina and associateneditor o/The Southern Partisan.n10nChronicles of Culturencuted on a noble scale.nFrom Malone, and especially from thenlatest volume, we can, if we wish, beginnto discern the real Jefferson. And thatnJefferson is, in the broad outline ofnAmerican history, identifiable in nonother way than as a conservative. Thenreal Jefferson is most visible in his lastnyears. I do not mean by this that Jeffersonnwas one of those proverbial persons whonwas liberal in youth and conservative innold age. There is no conflict between thenyoung Jefferson and the old Jeffersonnexcept in the perceptions of imagemanipulators.nJefferson was of a piece,nhis main themes were constant. But I donmean that the conservative Jeffersonnemerged most clearly in the last years,nwhen he was not in office, when he wasnnot bound by the necessary compromisesnof leading a party or speaking in the voicenof community consensus rather than hisnown voice, when he was down home innhis natural environment.nHow did we get so far afield that itnhas taken half the lifetime of a great historiannto recover the wherewithal of anproper understanding of Jefferson?nFirst, New Englanders, embittered bynthe half-century setback which Jeffersonnand his friends administered aftern1800 to their political style and goals,npainted him as an effete snob, a visionary,na kind of squeamish Jacobin. If thenNew England Federalists and theirnnndescendants lacked political power, theynmade up for it in cultural power. Theirnloss at the polls was turned into a victorynin the sophisticated battleground of historicalnwriting. The understanding ofnJefferson and his accomplishments thatnwas handed down to posterity was creatednby Henry Adams. Adams, with brilliance,npainstaking care and a cunninglyncontrived pseudo-objectivity, structuredna perception of Jefferson and his timesnfrom which American historians— untilnMalone—had never really escaped. Jefferson,neven when viewed sympathetically,nwas judged by New England standards.nThis meant that the essential outlinesnof his Virginian frame of referencenwere obliterated. Thus the mainspringsnof his belief and action could not bendetected accurately.nJefferson’s admirers have done himnlittle better. It seemed that the CivilnWar and Federalist historians had repudiatednand buried Jefferson forever..nThen along came Vernon L. Parrington,nthe son of an English socialist (butnraised in Kansas), who rediscoveredn