Introduction to the Book

Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson
and Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours

Dumas Malone

[Published by Housthton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1930]

THOMAS JEFFERSON made the acquaintance of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours while Minister to the Court of Louis XVI on the eve of the French Revolution. The ripe friendship between these two notable liberals ended only with the death of the elder in 1817. Born in Paris, December 14, 1739, less than four years before Jefferson first saw the light of day in the Piedmont of Virginia, Du Pont had attained eminence as an economist before his future friend had written the Declaration of Independence. 1 He had little more than attained his majority when he began to wield his pen against the ascendant philosophy of mercantilism, with its elaborate system of rules and restrictions, and in behalf of the doctrines of the physiocrats, who glorified agriculture and advocated freedom of commerce. Like Jefferson, he rooted his faith in the soil and sought the regeneration of mankind through the removal of artificial economic and intellectual barriers. So tireless a foe of privilege and restriction met inevitable repression in pre-revolutionary France. Expelled from the editorship of the Journal d* agriculture, du commerce et des finances in 1766, he soon assumed the editorship of the Ephtmirides du citoyen, which was suppressed in 1772. Then called to the Court of Poland, he there became secretary of the Council of Public Instruction, but hastened back to France when his friend Turgot be- came Comptroller-General in 1774.

During Turgot's all too brief tenure of office, Du Pont, sharing his hopes and labors, became his veritable alter-ego.* The fall of the financier (May 12, 1776) forced the exile of his devoted colleague, who betook himself to the country and there translated poetry and wrote two volumes of Memoires on the life and works of the statesman he adored. 2 After the death of Maurepas, however, Du Pont was recalled by Vergennes and entrusted with two important missions. He negotiated, with the secret envoy of Great Britain, the bases of the treaty which recognized the independence of the United States in 1782; and he drew up the conditions of the treaty of commerce signed by Great Britain and France four years later. He served also under Calonne, and became at length a Councillor of State. As director of commerce, he greatly aided Jefferson in the latter' s efforts to gain commercial privileges for the struggling young American republic, and impressed that minister as the ablest man in France. There is, however, only scant record of correspondence between them before Du Pont, endangered by political developments in his native land near the end of the century, turned toward the United States, where Jefferson was then in office as Vice-President, though not in political power.

Du Pont was imperiled before this. Elected by the third estate of Nemours to the Estates General, he showed himself distinctly a moderate as the Revolution developed. He opposed the creation of the assignats and hoped for the establishment of liberty by and with the monarchy. On August 10, 1792, he offered himself and his son in arms to protect the King and counseled the distracted monarch to defend himself. Soon proscribed, he escaped detection until the Reign of Terror neared its end. Then thrown into prison, he was saved only by the fall of Robespierre. The following year he was elected to the Council of the Elders. Strongly opposed to the Directory, he established a paper, L'Historien, as the medium of his opinions. After the coup d'tiat of i8th Fructidor (September 4, 1797), his printery was pillaged and he himself narrowly escaped deportation.

Such were the circumstances which caused Du Pont to turn his eyes hopefully to America. Though the government of the young republic across the Atlantic was then in the hands of a group bitterly hostile to subversive French influences, with which even so moderate a reformer as Du Pont may have been Identified by the extremists, he thought that here liberty was fixed in the habits of the nation. From the Federalists he doubtless expected fair treatment; from his old associate Jefferson he rightly anticipated a warm welcome. Combined with his desire to escape political embarrassment was the ambition to repair his personal fortunes in a land of vast economic promise. As early as 1797, he had outlined a grandiose plan for an agricultural and commercial establishment in the United States, which he was to direct and in which he was investing the greater part of the fortune remaining to him. The chief purpose of the company, for which he optimistically solicited subscriptions, was to buy and sell lands, preferably in western Virginia, and to organize commercial and industrial establishments there. He was certain that within ten years the invested capital would be quadrupled, and hopeful that it might be increased ten or twentyfold. Soon impelled to subordinate the element of land speculation, he announced only the purpose of doing a shipping business on commission. Subscriptions were fewer than he had anticipated, but in the autumn of 1799, feeling that he could wait no longer, he collected his family and set sail.

Though exigencies of finance were chiefly responsible for this delay, diplomatic complications may have played some part. Du Pont had originally coupled his project with a scientific mission from the Institut de France and had sought passports from Great Britain and the United States in this connection. Diplomatic relations between the latter country and France were then broken, and the projected expedition was viewed with distinct disfavor by President Adams, who felt that the United States had had too many French philosophers already. By the autumn of 17995 however, Adams was endeavoring to restore amicable relations with France and seems to have imposed no objection to the coming of Du Pont, whose motives were now ostensibly commercial.

Pierre Samuel, accompanied by a round dozen of descendants and relatives, sailed for America about October 1, 1799. His second wife and her son-in-law. Bureaux de Pusy, erstwhile companion of Lafayette, had preceded him and bought a house near New York. In the main party were Du Font's sons, Victor and Eleuthere Irenee, and their families, Madame du Pont's brother and her daughter, Madame de Pusy, with her baby. After ninety-three days at sea, they landed at Newport, Rhode Island, the first day of 1800 and soon repaired to the recently purchased house near New York. This Du Pont named "Good Stay.

Here he received a letter from Jefferson urging caution in the investment of his funds. This counsel, reinforced by personal conference in Philadelphia, caused him to refrain from all purchase of lands and to establish merely a commercial house in New York, Du Pont de Nemours, fils et cie. Subsequently, in order to facilitate the naturalization of his son Victor and take advantage of the commercial opportunities which were expected to center in Alexandria, Virginia, he purchased a house there. Du Pont de Nemours remained in the United States, where the difficulties of a foreign tongue greatly embarrassed him, only until the summer of 1802, when he returned to Paris to rearrange the affairs of his company. His son Victor continued in commerce in New York, while Irenee soon set up a powder factory near Wilmington, Delaware. The original company backed the two subsidiaries, but Du Pont, in order to protect the subscribers, separated it from them both. 2 The controlling firm was located in Paris until its failure in i8u. Victor du Pont's firm had failed in 1805, but the younger brother, increasingly successful as a manufacturer of powder, bolstered the family fortunes. Du Pont pere remained in Paris until 1815, when, again induced by political dangers, he yielded to the entreaties of his sons and returned to America, where he died two years later. His two periods of residence in the United States comprised less than five years. His correspondence with his most cherished American friend, however, continued from 1798 to 1817 with only slight interruption.

At first, naturally, they discussed Du Font's coming to America. Then they turned to the topic which also dominated their final letters. In effect, their correspondence began and ended with a discussion of education. The Vice-President, hoping that a university would one day be established in his native State, asked his learned friend for an outline of subjects which might be taught in such an institution. He did not anticipate the treatise which issued from the tireless pen of the French philosopher, nor entirely approve of the scheme of education, centering in a national university, which Du Pont elaborated and later published under the title, Sur V education nationale dans les Etats-Unis d'Amfrique. Indeed, he was somewhat embarrassed by the assiduity of Ms counselor and gave him no great encouragement in his persistent desire to have the work translated into English. Their correspondence, though rather one-sided, was marked by high mutual appreciation. During this twelvemonth, so fateful in Jefferson's political history, he procured the election of Du Pont to the American Philosophical Society, and the latter followed with constant concern the course of the campaign which eventuated in the election of his friend to the Presidency. The false report of Jefferson's death, referred to in several letters and by which Du Pont was so deeply moved, has been overlooked by practically all the writers on this tempestuous period.

Jefferson's accession to the Presidency provided the occasion for Du Pont to congratulate him enthusiastically, to discuss political problems with him, to seek his good offices for the powder factory, and, at length, to serve unofficially in connection with the negotiations which resulted in the purchase of Louisiana. His comments on domestic politics, often obscure and based on imperfect information, are significant chiefly in the confidence in Jefferson they disclose and the replies they elicited from the President. His references to the election of Jefferson to the Institut de France recall French recognition of the Virginian as the outstanding American intellectual. From the political point of view, the letters in regard to the Louisiana negotiations are perhaps the most important in the entire collection. Du Font's return to France in June, 1802, was chiefly due to considerations of business, but on personal and philosophical, as well as commercial, grounds lie strongly desired the preservation of peace between the United States and France. He would probably have returned to Paris in any case, but the opportunity to serve as courier, bearing important dispatches to the American Minister, to share the counsels of the President, and to contribute to a settlement of the vexing question created by the retrocession of Louisiana to France by Spain, may have constituted an additional inducement. It is difficult to determine how much he contributed to a settlement into which Napoleonic caprice so largely entered. Monroe thought that on the whole he had been helpful. His lengthy letters to Jefferson probably served to stimulate and clarify the latter's mind. Certainly they elicited replies which will always be cited in connection with the major accomplishments of his administration.

Literary tasks combined with business to keep Du Pont in France throughout the rest of Jefferson's Presidency and six years beyond. His labor of love in editing Turgot's works, which he published in nine volumes, 1808-11, reconciled him to separation from his sons and provided a constant excuse for his failure to return to America. His letters to his friend the President abounded in comments on American and international affairs, but centered in no single, vital question. He informed Jefferson of the medal awarded the latter by a French agricultural society for his improvements of the plough, urged In ways both sensible and fantastic the organization of defense in the United States, discussed possibilities in the matter of the Floridas, and persistently urged Jefferson to stand for a third term. The latter's replies, relatively few in number, were generally limited to questions raised by his correspondent. The most interesting of them all, written two days before his retirement, has been printed before and often quoted. Nowhere else did Jefferson describe more strikingly his relief at escaping from the shackles of office, and his joy in retiring to family, farm,, books, and the "tranquil pursuits of science/ 3 which were his supreme delight.

Between the withdrawal of Jefferson to his beloved mountain sanctuary in 1809 and the final visit of Du Pont to his children, the two men engaged in relatively disinterested discussion of problems of finance and government. The retired statesman outlined the development of American manufactures during the period of commercial restriction and predicted that the earlier condition of dependence upon Great Britain would never be restored. The economist responded with an elaborate discussion, only partially reproduced here, of the changes in the American system of taxation which he felt should follow the decline of income from imports. His rather abstract observations were duly passed on with mild approbation to the statesmen then in power, Madison and Gallatin, who probably pigeon- holed them. Subsequent letters from Du Pont during these years were even more theoretical. The intellectual garrulity of his old age was rather tedious. During this period his mind made no vital contact with that of his American friend.

Du Font's return to the United States, following his participation in the abortive first restoration of the Bourbons and the disquieting return of the loathed Corsican from Elba, restored realism to his correspondence with Jefferson, but failed to bring that personal contact which both men had so eagerly anticipated. From the vantage-point of his son's successful establishment, he congratulated himself upon freedom from political entanglements, discussed with optimism the future of the Latin- American republics, and even predicted the ultimate dismissal of kings by despot- ridden Europe. Jefferson despaired of France, but felt that if Du Pont would come with Correa da Serra, the naturalist, to Monticello, the three of them could settle the affairs of both hemispheres. To the mountain-top the Frenchman and Portuguese in time repaired, but found to their consternation that the Sage, by some extraordinary misunderstanding, was miles away at Poplar Forest, his estate in Bedford County, superintending building operations. After enjoying for three days the hospitality of Jefferson's daughter, Martha Randolph, and the chatter of a tiny granddaughter, the disappointed French veteran departed, leaving certain of his works behind. The master, on his belated return, described his mortification with characteristic literary felicity and expressed profound regret that he had missed so rich a feast. The failure of the veterans to meet, after all these years of correspondence, had in it elements both touching and ludicrous. Perhaps neither of them was free from absent-mindedness. This lost opportunity proved the last they ever had to come together. Their correspondence, however, was uninterrupted and was marked by expressions of mutual esteem approaching tenderness.

In one of his last letters, Jefferson, discussing Du Font's proposed constitution for certain of the Latin- American republics, set forth in some detail the differences between his own mature political philosophy and that of his revered friend. Both loved the people, but to the Frenchman they were yet children who might not be trusted without nurses; to the Virginian they were adults whom he would leave freely to self- government. Jefferson felt, however, that Du Pont had proposed for the Colombians as good a government as they could bear, and he gave, for the first time, his own approval of a literacy test for citizenship. It was here that he said, "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish.