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The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800
This is an examination of Thomas Jefferson through the critical lens of the French Revolution. Conor Cruise O'Brien argues that Jefferson, though enthralled with the ideological mystique of the French Revolution, nevertheless retained a shrewd political pragmatism, skillfully exploiting the Revolution's popularity with the American public. Ultimately, O'Brien suggests, Jefferson's egalitarian ideals came into conflict with his staunch political support for the slave-based southern economy. Following the French-inspired slave insurrection in Santo Domingo, his revolutionary zeal began to cool. The book concludes with an evaluation of Jefferson's current role in the system of American political beliefs.
367 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
Conor Cruise O'Brien
46 books32 followersIrish politician, writer, historian and academic.
Member of the Irish Parliament for the socialist Labour Party.
Member of the Northern Ireland Forum for the United Kingdom Unionist Party, which advocated direct rule of Northern Ireland from London.
Virulently anti-IRA.
Member of the Irish Parliament for the socialist Labour Party.
Member of the Northern Ireland Forum for the United Kingdom Unionist Party, which advocated direct rule of Northern Ireland from London.
Virulently anti-IRA.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 12, 2011
08/06/2006
A Great but Flawed Man
Conor Cruise O'Brien has here given us an extremely interesting, if troubling, book on Jefferson's views on the French Revolution and slavery. In a nutshell, O'Brien has two charges against Jefferson to bring: first, he believes that Jefferson's support of the French Revolution was for the most part sincere, but convenient. Secondly, and most provocatively, O'Brien not only argues that our third president was a racist, not merely when judged by exacting late Twentieth Century standards, but when judged by Eighteenth Century Virginian standards. And that when white extremists claim to be his genuine heirs, they are not entirely wrong! An extraordinary charge, given the general view of Jefferson as the most 'liberal' and progressive of the Founders. A charge to which we will return momentarily.
But first, Mr. O'Brien's discussion of Jefferson and the French Revolution runs something like this: Slaveholders of the American South were being attacked and ridiculed, not only by their rivals in the northern states but by the French and English, for their hypocrisy. It was this combination of embarrassment about slavery and political struggle with the Federalists that led Jefferson and most of the South to answer their enemies by the amazing stratagem of virtually unconditional support of the French Revolution.
I say amazing, though ingenious comes to mind, because at first blush it would seem that support of the French Revolution would mean support of her humanitarian principles. But Jefferson, the South, and the Republicans needed political support from voters in the North, they needed a unifying theme to counterbalance the particularism and divisiveness of slavery. Their policy of fervent public support for the French Revolution did that very well indeed. Jefferson's party was to successively place three men, himself, Madison and Monroe, in the presidency in the first two decades of the nineteenth century.
But I honestly find the whole discussion of Jefferson's maneuvers, and O'Briens purported shock at them, disingenuous and unconvincing. Imagine! Politicians playing at Politics!!! If anything, we end up impressed by the political acumen of Jefferson and the Republicans. Not only did they make so many people forget that so many of their leaders were slaveowning patricians, but they were able to saddle the Federalists, within a generation of the Revolutionary War, with the defense of the hated British Empire! What I did find deeply disturbing, however, was O'Briens discussion of Jefferson's views of slavery.
What O'Brien tries to show, and I think very much succeeds in showing is, first, that Jefferson's reputation as the outstanding liberal of his generation is sentimental nonsense. Not only did he never seriously consider any practical way of ending the slave/plantation system, but he was among its most ardent defenders. In his beloved Virginia, around the time of his Declaration, he was a member of a committee chosen to revise, modernize and codify the statutes of Virginia, including laws dealing with slaves. Among the enlightened additions to the law that came out of this committee were that no free blacks would be allowed to emigrate into Virginia, though God only knows why they would want to, and any white woman having a child of a black man would have to leave the state! Thus spoke the author of the Declaration of Independence.
Later, during a slave revolt in the French colony Saint Dominique (Haiti), Jefferson behaved in an equally abominable fashion. He sweats blood over the sufferings of the former masters, gone into penurious exile, "Never was so deep a tragedy presented to the feelings of man"! But as to the recently self-emancipated slaves, our third president advises the French, in the person of Louis A. Pichon (the Charge d' Affairs) to reduce Toussaint [the Haitian leader] to starvation after making peace, and in collusion, with England! In other words, Jefferson advises France to abandon the Revolution and Revolutionary Principles because there are free black in the Caribbean! During his second administration, after the failure of the French to retake the island, he imposed an embargo on the Haitians...
Jeffersonians are forever drawing our attention to the words, the magnificent words, on the Jefferson Memorial: "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free." But O'Brien wonders, as do we, about the words that follow those quoted above. Can the man who, in his Autobiography, wrote "Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Native habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them", still be an unquestionable monument in our multi-cultural society?
Why this spiteful, evil, resentful hatred of the slaves (indeed, all black people) who toiled so endlessly for him? Those of us alive today in the United States have little understanding of slavery, having never lived under it, whether as masters or slaves. Perhaps if we were to compare modern slavery with ancient slavery we could shed some more light on the institution of slavery.
Jefferson, Virginians, and other modern slaveowners, were mightily given over to the conceit of comparing themselves to ancient slaveholders. After all, if such paragons of virtue and principle like Brutus and Cato could own slaves, what could be essentially wrong with the "peculiar institution"? This argument is, to be honest, idiotic. Just because Cato is politically incorruptible, an icon (in his own time!) in the resistance to Caesar, does not mean that everything he does is magnificent or beyond reproach. If this were so he would have been able to put together a coalition to thwart Caesar long before Caesar crossed the Rubicon.
The comparison of ancient and modern slavery, however, is interesting. Is there anything that sets them apart? Why did (some) slaves in antiquity rise to such 'recognized' preeminence in science, humanities, or the arts, while this was so rare, as to be nonexistent, in Jefferson's Virginia, the rest of the American South, or, to a lesser extent, Brazil and Haiti? Jefferson himself observes that some ancient slaves excelled in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their masters' children. Characteristically, he points out that these slaves, of the Greeks and Romans, "were of the race of whites." Thus it would seem that it is the psuedo-scientific notion of race is what separates ancient and modern forms of slavery. Unfortunately, in the limited space that Amazon allows, this topic must await another review.
In closing I want to say that I don't believe that Jefferson was a premature Nazi, and neither does Mr. O'Brien. But Jefferson's speculations and his actions have given credence to lunatics like Timothy McVeigh claiming our Third President as their hero. These facts should lead us not to the contemptuous dismissal of Jefferson, which is what he did to black people, but rather admiration for what was genuinely admirable in the man, and contempt for what was contemptible.
A Great but Flawed Man
Conor Cruise O'Brien has here given us an extremely interesting, if troubling, book on Jefferson's views on the French Revolution and slavery. In a nutshell, O'Brien has two charges against Jefferson to bring: first, he believes that Jefferson's support of the French Revolution was for the most part sincere, but convenient. Secondly, and most provocatively, O'Brien not only argues that our third president was a racist, not merely when judged by exacting late Twentieth Century standards, but when judged by Eighteenth Century Virginian standards. And that when white extremists claim to be his genuine heirs, they are not entirely wrong! An extraordinary charge, given the general view of Jefferson as the most 'liberal' and progressive of the Founders. A charge to which we will return momentarily.
But first, Mr. O'Brien's discussion of Jefferson and the French Revolution runs something like this: Slaveholders of the American South were being attacked and ridiculed, not only by their rivals in the northern states but by the French and English, for their hypocrisy. It was this combination of embarrassment about slavery and political struggle with the Federalists that led Jefferson and most of the South to answer their enemies by the amazing stratagem of virtually unconditional support of the French Revolution.
I say amazing, though ingenious comes to mind, because at first blush it would seem that support of the French Revolution would mean support of her humanitarian principles. But Jefferson, the South, and the Republicans needed political support from voters in the North, they needed a unifying theme to counterbalance the particularism and divisiveness of slavery. Their policy of fervent public support for the French Revolution did that very well indeed. Jefferson's party was to successively place three men, himself, Madison and Monroe, in the presidency in the first two decades of the nineteenth century.
But I honestly find the whole discussion of Jefferson's maneuvers, and O'Briens purported shock at them, disingenuous and unconvincing. Imagine! Politicians playing at Politics!!! If anything, we end up impressed by the political acumen of Jefferson and the Republicans. Not only did they make so many people forget that so many of their leaders were slaveowning patricians, but they were able to saddle the Federalists, within a generation of the Revolutionary War, with the defense of the hated British Empire! What I did find deeply disturbing, however, was O'Briens discussion of Jefferson's views of slavery.
What O'Brien tries to show, and I think very much succeeds in showing is, first, that Jefferson's reputation as the outstanding liberal of his generation is sentimental nonsense. Not only did he never seriously consider any practical way of ending the slave/plantation system, but he was among its most ardent defenders. In his beloved Virginia, around the time of his Declaration, he was a member of a committee chosen to revise, modernize and codify the statutes of Virginia, including laws dealing with slaves. Among the enlightened additions to the law that came out of this committee were that no free blacks would be allowed to emigrate into Virginia, though God only knows why they would want to, and any white woman having a child of a black man would have to leave the state! Thus spoke the author of the Declaration of Independence.
Later, during a slave revolt in the French colony Saint Dominique (Haiti), Jefferson behaved in an equally abominable fashion. He sweats blood over the sufferings of the former masters, gone into penurious exile, "Never was so deep a tragedy presented to the feelings of man"! But as to the recently self-emancipated slaves, our third president advises the French, in the person of Louis A. Pichon (the Charge d' Affairs) to reduce Toussaint [the Haitian leader] to starvation after making peace, and in collusion, with England! In other words, Jefferson advises France to abandon the Revolution and Revolutionary Principles because there are free black in the Caribbean! During his second administration, after the failure of the French to retake the island, he imposed an embargo on the Haitians...
Jeffersonians are forever drawing our attention to the words, the magnificent words, on the Jefferson Memorial: "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free." But O'Brien wonders, as do we, about the words that follow those quoted above. Can the man who, in his Autobiography, wrote "Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Native habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them", still be an unquestionable monument in our multi-cultural society?
Why this spiteful, evil, resentful hatred of the slaves (indeed, all black people) who toiled so endlessly for him? Those of us alive today in the United States have little understanding of slavery, having never lived under it, whether as masters or slaves. Perhaps if we were to compare modern slavery with ancient slavery we could shed some more light on the institution of slavery.
Jefferson, Virginians, and other modern slaveowners, were mightily given over to the conceit of comparing themselves to ancient slaveholders. After all, if such paragons of virtue and principle like Brutus and Cato could own slaves, what could be essentially wrong with the "peculiar institution"? This argument is, to be honest, idiotic. Just because Cato is politically incorruptible, an icon (in his own time!) in the resistance to Caesar, does not mean that everything he does is magnificent or beyond reproach. If this were so he would have been able to put together a coalition to thwart Caesar long before Caesar crossed the Rubicon.
The comparison of ancient and modern slavery, however, is interesting. Is there anything that sets them apart? Why did (some) slaves in antiquity rise to such 'recognized' preeminence in science, humanities, or the arts, while this was so rare, as to be nonexistent, in Jefferson's Virginia, the rest of the American South, or, to a lesser extent, Brazil and Haiti? Jefferson himself observes that some ancient slaves excelled in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their masters' children. Characteristically, he points out that these slaves, of the Greeks and Romans, "were of the race of whites." Thus it would seem that it is the psuedo-scientific notion of race is what separates ancient and modern forms of slavery. Unfortunately, in the limited space that Amazon allows, this topic must await another review.
In closing I want to say that I don't believe that Jefferson was a premature Nazi, and neither does Mr. O'Brien. But Jefferson's speculations and his actions have given credence to lunatics like Timothy McVeigh claiming our Third President as their hero. These facts should lead us not to the contemptuous dismissal of Jefferson, which is what he did to black people, but rather admiration for what was genuinely admirable in the man, and contempt for what was contemptible.
January 26, 2017
Very interesting book concerning Jefferson's views, thoughts and behavior towards the French Revolution. An interpretation by the author through original research and readings of other Jeffersonian experts. It is clear the Jefferson thought the Revolution was wonderful, even during the heat of the Terror. He was a fan of Robespierre up until the February 1794 Slavery Emancipation Act that freed all the slaves in France, French colonies (and even Great Britain, according to the proclamation). At this point, Jefferson was not a fan of Robespierre and was thrilled to see he go.
As with all books on Jefferson, the other leading figures are discussed throughout this book: Hamilton and his preference towards Great Britain and his hatred of slavery; Washington, his preference towards Great Britain and his non-chalance towards slavery; Franklin and his love of France and his views against slavery; Madison and Monroe, both supporters of Jefferson (although Jefferson was not as supportive towards them) and more.
Jefferson seemed to enjoy uprisings, such as the Whiskey Rebellion. Our schools do not discuss the linkage between the French Revolution and the Whiskey Rebellion, but at this time, our leaders were quite alarmed at what was happening in Paris and the fear it could spread. The Whiskey Rebellion lit up these fears and Jefferson egg the rebels on. Washington was an opponent to the societies that led the rebellion, whereas Jefferson was supportive.
An interesting take on Jefferson.
As with all books on Jefferson, the other leading figures are discussed throughout this book: Hamilton and his preference towards Great Britain and his hatred of slavery; Washington, his preference towards Great Britain and his non-chalance towards slavery; Franklin and his love of France and his views against slavery; Madison and Monroe, both supporters of Jefferson (although Jefferson was not as supportive towards them) and more.
Jefferson seemed to enjoy uprisings, such as the Whiskey Rebellion. Our schools do not discuss the linkage between the French Revolution and the Whiskey Rebellion, but at this time, our leaders were quite alarmed at what was happening in Paris and the fear it could spread. The Whiskey Rebellion lit up these fears and Jefferson egg the rebels on. Washington was an opponent to the societies that led the rebellion, whereas Jefferson was supportive.
An interesting take on Jefferson.
February 4, 2019
An important and unheralded contribution to the Jefferson Canon. O'Brien argues persuasively that Jefferson knew little, and cared less, about what was actually happening in France. Moreover, his affinity for that revolution, according to O'Brien, soured after Haiti. If true, that would provide an important window into Jefferson's attitude about slavery during his later years.
January 16, 2017
Slightly biased here. I was Dr. O'Brien's research assistant for the better part of a year while I was in graduate school. This was one of the projects on which I worked with him.
June 1, 2016
A fascinating topic however O'Brien's book leaves much to be desired.
There is a place to criticize the hagiographic attitudes of previous Jeffersonian scholarship but this book is not that place. O'Brien isn't bringing these critiques up to disprove them instead be just brings them up continually to show how he /isn't/ doing that.
While bringing up these issues he then turns around and repeats the counter revolutionary propagandistic attitude towards Robespierre, depicting he and St. Just (while not mentioning the 10 other members of the Committee of Public Safety) as vindictive and bloodthirsty, seeking out their personal enemies to execute while not citing a single history of the French Revolution. It's incredible to me that someone can write of the French Revolution and then fail to understand so much of the French Revolution.
His epilogue is an incoherent mess and adds very little to the work as a whole.
His chapter on Jefferson and slavery is by far the best which is interesting since idly stands as more of an addendum rather than relating to the French Revolution. However by putting it as the last chapter it reads as more of an after thought than a critical examination of Jefferson's hypocrisy.
He also leaves miscellaneous French phrases untranslated for no apparent reason.
There is a place to criticize the hagiographic attitudes of previous Jeffersonian scholarship but this book is not that place. O'Brien isn't bringing these critiques up to disprove them instead be just brings them up continually to show how he /isn't/ doing that.
While bringing up these issues he then turns around and repeats the counter revolutionary propagandistic attitude towards Robespierre, depicting he and St. Just (while not mentioning the 10 other members of the Committee of Public Safety) as vindictive and bloodthirsty, seeking out their personal enemies to execute while not citing a single history of the French Revolution. It's incredible to me that someone can write of the French Revolution and then fail to understand so much of the French Revolution.
His epilogue is an incoherent mess and adds very little to the work as a whole.
His chapter on Jefferson and slavery is by far the best which is interesting since idly stands as more of an addendum rather than relating to the French Revolution. However by putting it as the last chapter it reads as more of an after thought than a critical examination of Jefferson's hypocrisy.
He also leaves miscellaneous French phrases untranslated for no apparent reason.
March 19, 2016
This was an interesting read. My only problem with it was that the author waited to bring up the fact of Jefferson's virulent racism until the last chapter (and the epilogue). It seemed that his views on race were relevant to his views on the French Revolution, and should have been discussed earlier in the book: for example, how Jefferson's views were changed by the successful slave revolt in Saint Domingue. By waiting to discuss race until the last chapter, O'Brien fell into the same trap as other writers: treating white supremacy as a footnote to American history, when it was actually an integral part.
July 15, 2013
Ok... so honestly, the main reviewer's claim that this book would destroy the perceptions of T. Jefferson and America from within are a bit overblown. A good book if you want to think of Thomas as a man... just a man, that had to act though greatness was thrust upon him. You do that and you'll be just fine.
August 25, 2013
This is a good one. It lacks the fanboy nature of many books on Jefferson and casts a stark light on some of Jefferson's more duplicitous political maneuverings.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews