01x04 - Jefferson in Paris (1784-1793)

[bunniefuu]

- Previously on

"Thomas Jefferson"

- In 1779, when the w*r

is making its way south,

Thomas Jefferson

is elected governor

of the new Commonwealth

of Virginia.

- It's a chess match.

British want to capture

the governor of Virginia.

Jefferson is the prize.

- And then Jefferson

has to flee.

The citizens of Virginia

think he's left his duty

at the moment of great peril.

- Which led him

to a lifetime of regret

about what he had left undone

in those governor years.

- So the revolution ends

after the Battle of Yorktown.

And he's disillusioned

and exits public life

to live with his family.

- But he can't just stay home.

Somewhere he has to be part

of creating a new world.

[dramatic music]

[exciting orchestral music]

- In September 1783,

Benjamin Franklin, John Adams,

and John Jay signed

the Treaty of Paris

in the city

for which it is named.

The agreement effectively

ends the Revolutionary w*r

and catapults the new

United States of America

onto the world stage.

But while his fellow

forefathers established

diplomatic ties overseas,

Thomas Jefferson

remains at Monticello,

mourning the tragic loss

of his wife.

- This is a blow which

is very, very difficult

for him to recover from,

but in an attempt

to save their friend,

his friends in Virginia,

particularly James Madison,

arrange for him to be posted

as a diplomat abroad.

♪♪

Paris is very attractive

to Jefferson in many respects

because, as somebody

who considers himself

an enlightened philosophe

and as somebody

who studied French

throughout his life,

France held a special place

in Jefferson's heart.

♪♪

- And so Jefferson goes

to get the French

to go all in to support

this upstart idea

of the United States

of America.

- Because France is also

important diplomatically.

Britain would like to separate

the United States from France,

and the French

are aware of this.

So it's an interesting

moment for him

to serve as a diplomat.

♪♪

He arrives at the court

of Louis XVI

and Marie Antoinette

at a point

when that court is the most

important court in Europe.

And it's characterized

by excesses and glamour.

But there's a great deal

of unease and discord

really brewing.

[dramatic music]

We're a few years off

from the French Revolution,

but the underlying causes

of that revolution,

the disparities of wealth,

are there.

- Paris is alive at this point

with revolutionary fervor.

When he gets to Paris,

we are on the cusp

of a world-changing event.

♪♪

- On July 5, 1784, Jefferson,

his oldest daughter, Martha,

and his enslaved chef,

James Hemings,

arrive in Paris.

♪♪

- It's the most opulent place

he'd ever lived in.

He is in love

with the architecture,

and he talks about going

to the Hotel de Salm

and gazing at it like

a lover at his mistress.

♪♪

He bought all the wine,

and he bought all the food.

- Paris offered all the things

that the real Jefferson

really loved,

music, theater, the arts.

He sent home crates of stuff,

paintings, books.

This was a material,

consumer engagement

with the City of Light.

- A lot of the things

that define him

and the qualities

of his personality

are best put to use precisely

in an appointment

like ambassador to France

because Jefferson carries

the influence

of those intimate dinners

of Virginia society forward

into a dinner table diplomacy,

where Jefferson saw how

to work things out

of small groups.

There's

the interpersonal politics

within a court context.

There's no direct conflict.

There is a wooing of people

around dinner tables.

He hits his stride in France.

- While Jefferson

expertly maneuvers

around the French court,

he still grieves the loss

of his beloved wife

and finds himself unable

to connect again romantically.

- The French women

were kind of scary to him.

♪♪

He saw the French men and

women had adulterous affairs

right and left.

And so he professed to be

disappointed that marriage

wasn't based on affection,

as he believed it was

in his world.

- He says, young American men

shouldn't come to France

when they're too young

because they're

going to be seduced by women.

They'll be corrupted.

But if you're in your 40s,

like me, it's OK

because we have

enough republican fiber

to resist this.

- But then he became

involved with Maria Cosway,

an artist who was married.

- Maria's husband, Richard,

served as the painter

for the Prince of Wales.

Unlike most of the women

Jefferson had met,

who never left rural Virginia,

Maria is cultured

and cosmopolitan.

He becomes enamored of her.

♪♪

- She spoke a musical

mélange of languages.

♪♪

They went to museums together,

went to the countryside,

where they were able

to spend time alone.

♪♪

And it is here that Jefferson

fell on his right wrist

and fractured it.

So as she was about

to leave with her husband

to England, Jefferson,

who was by this time

tremendously smitten by her,

he writes the famous 12-page

"Head and Heart" letter.

It must have taken him

an entire day,

writing painstakingly

with his left hand.

♪♪

- In the letter, Jefferson's

heart pines for Cosway,

while his head

chastises his heart

for forming

emotional attachments

that can only result

in the pain of loss.

♪♪

"Head, well, friend, you

seem to be in a pretty trim.

"Heart, I am indeed

the most wretched

"of all earthly beings,

overwhelmed with grief,

"every fiber

of my frame distended

beyond its natural

powers to bear."

♪♪

- The heart disputes

the head's formula,

saying, without one generous

spasm of the heart,

nothing is worth anything.

The heart wins the argument.

All in all, it gives us

a lot of intimate detail

about the way

Jefferson perceived himself.

It was a testament to

his own capacity for feeling.

- And at some point,

she writes to him,

and he doesn't

answer these letters

for long stretches of time.

So he was infatuated with her,

but it sort of cooled

at some point.

- As Jefferson's

feelings for Maria wane,

he continues to wine and dine

the French court.

♪♪

Meanwhile,

across the Atlantic,

his fellow founding fathers

begin to debate

what the laws and tenets

of the new American

government will be.

And then in May 1787,

55 delegates from 12 states

meet in Philadelphia at what

will eventually be known

as the Constitutional

Convention.

♪♪

- Jefferson

and John Adams miss it.

♪♪

- Adams is also serving

as an ambassador overseas,

getting loans

from the Dutch and the British.

- Jefferson called

the Constitutional Convention

an assembly of demigods.

One wonders--in the same way

that we don't

have tone in email,

we don't have tone

in mail from the 18th century--

whether he was being

sarcastic or not.

He's aware of what's

going to happen,

and he follows the events

to the extent he can,

but it's very difficult

because there's almost

no information coming

out of Philadelphia

during the summer of 1787.

♪♪

Now, his relationship

with his protege and ally,

James Madison,

was very, very close.

♪♪

And Madison is going

to be the architect

of the federal Constitution

in Philadelphia.

♪♪

So Jefferson plays

an indirect but important role

via his correspondence

with Madison,

particularly sending him

hundreds and hundreds of books

relating to the history

of republics,

and confederacies,

and constitutions.

Jefferson's fear is

they're going to be restoring

monarchy to the United States.

- But, remember,

this is a 4-mile-an-hour world.

And Jefferson is receiving

information from Madison,

but the information is

not happening overnight.

It takes eight weeks

to sail across the Atlantic.

- And so when Madison

sends him the Constitution,

he's disappointed because

Jefferson sort of says,

well, meh, it's OK.

Madison's saying,

I'm tearing my hair out.

I sweated blood over this.

Jefferson says,

well, it could be improved.

♪♪

- And one of the reasons why

Jefferson had mixed feelings

about the Constitution

is he didn't see

the Constitution as being

essential to the creation

of a more perfect union.

In fact, he thought,

if you got it wrong,

it would actually drive

the states apart.

- He's a little worried

about the strength

of the presidency.

And he's very concerned

about the absence

of a Bill of Rights.

- Jefferson is adamant

that the government guarantee

personal liberties,

such as freedom of religion,

freedom of the press,

and trial by jury.

The Bill of Rights,

enshrining these values,

will be ratified

four years later in 1791.

- Jefferson also writes

that constitutions

should be temporary,

and they shouldn't last

more than 19 years,

and every generation

should govern itself.

♪♪

- He says, how can

you own a constitution

from some dead generation

from decades ago?

- But people

like James Madison,

who know how hard it was

to work out a compromise, say,

has this guy lost it?

How is it possible

that this person

doesn't realize how

hard it is to create

political compromise?

- So he says,

you know, we could

have a second convention.

But Madison

and his fellow founders,

they say, don't mess with it.

♪♪

- The Constitution is

ratified in September 1787.

And eventually,

Jefferson comes to support it.

♪♪

But as he comes to terms

with its compromises,

across the Atlantic,

a surprising visitor prepares

for a life-changing journey.

♪♪

[dramatic music]

- Throughout 1787,

while the nuances

of the new American laws

are debated in the States,

Jefferson continues to foster

diplomatic relationships

and raise his 15-year-old

daughter in France.

♪♪

- When Jefferson

was sent to France,

he took with him

his oldest daughter, Martha.

But he left his two

other daughters home.

♪♪

- In 1784,

his younger daughter, Lucy,

died of smallpox.

♪♪

And he is missing

his other daughter, Maria.

♪♪

And so in 1787, Jefferson

insists that his daughter

Maria come to France.

♪♪

- And he says,

"She should come

with a careful n*gro woman,

such as Isabel."

And Isabel Hern was 28, 29,

but she was pregnant

at this time.

And instead,

they send Sally Hemings,

who is at the time

14 years old.

♪♪

- Sally Hemings' parents

are Elizabeth Hemings,

who's an enslaved woman,

a matriarch of the enslaved

community at Monticello,

and John Wayles, who was

Thomas Jefferson's

father-in-law.

So that makes Sally Hemings,

Martha Jefferson,

Thomas Jefferson's late wife,

makes them half-sisters.

♪♪

- So 14-year-old

Sally Hemings,

who has known Virginia

her whole life,

is asked to be the company

for young Maria Jefferson

on this weeks at sea

and then arrival in France.

♪♪

- In July of 1787,

Thomas Jefferson

and his eldest daughter,

Martha,

welcome his eight-year-old daughter,

Maria, and Sally Hemings

to the City of Lights.

♪♪

- There will be

dramatic changes

in both his and Sally Hemings'

personal life

during his time in Paris.

- When they get to Paris,

Sally Hemings

is very quickly thrust

into a position

that many Americans,

especially the enslaved people,

were never in.

She traveled over the ocean

and into this

unfamiliar territory.

- She'd come from an extremely

rural place to a metropolis.

♪♪

Paris was a very active place.

So it would have been

a very exciting time for her

but kind of scary.

♪♪

- She's by herself.

She's got an older brother,

but he's also hired out,

training to become

a professional chef.

♪♪

She can't speak French.

And the only people

that she knows

are Jefferson

and his daughters.

♪♪

And so her world in France

would have been

pretty confusing

because Jefferson is attempting

to conceal that he

has enslaved people in France

because French law

actually prohibits

enslaved people in the city.

- Although sl*very isn't

officially outlawed in France

until 1794,

the Freedom Principle

had long held

that any enslaved person

who set foot on French soil

was considered free.

♪♪

After the Enlightenment,

sl*very fell

out of fashion in Paris.

And the number of enslaved

who sued for their freedom

nearly doubled between 1762

and when Sally Hemings

arrives in 1787.

♪♪

- Both of the Hemingses could

have sued for their freedom.

♪♪

- So Jefferson has

to grapple with the rights

they have in France

that they would

not have in the United States.

- Jefferson writes,

saying that the law

is on the side

of the enslaved person.

And there's nothing

you can do if they

find out that they are free.

♪♪

- It will be difficult,

if not impossible,

to interrupt the course

of the law.

Nevertheless,

I have known an instance

where a person

bringing in a sl*ve

and saying nothing

about it has not been

disturbed in his possession.

- The person Jefferson

refers to in the letter

is of course himself.

He can only hope

that the language barrier

is enough to keep

Sally and James unaware

of their options

while they're in France.

- Because if she'd gone to

the Admiralty Court and said,

this man is trying

to keep me from my freedom,

it would have been a disaster

for his reputation.

And Jefferson has his status

as the apostle of liberty

among all these other people

who admire him in France.

That would be damaged

irrevocably if they knew

he had enslaved people

with him.

That would have been

a huge embarrassment.

And so because he kept

a record of every transaction

that he made,

we know eventually

he begins to pay wages

because he understands

that it's a different status

than if they were in Virginia.

And so at that point,

she begins living a life

that was unlike anything

that she probably could

have imagined

before that time period.

♪♪

- Sally Hemings becomes

the maid for his daughters.

♪♪

So she would have had

to have been in society

accompanying her charges.

♪♪

- But we don't

really even know exactly

what Sally is doing all day

because the girls

are in school.

But we might extrapolate

from research,

she eventually went

from being the lady's maid

to Jefferson's daughters

to being a chambermaid

because she's being paid

with the servants

at the Hotel de Langeac,

which is Jefferson's residence.

And then in 1789,

when she's 16 years old,

Jefferson starts buying her

a good amount of clothing.

Before, he's just

paying her the salary,

but then he's

buying clothes for her.

- Jefferson's in his 40s.

His wife has died.

He is used to having people

around him who tend his body,

who dress him and undress him.

It's clear

that Sally and Jefferson

begin a sexual relationship.

♪♪

- When exactly

Thomas Jefferson begins

his sexual relationship

with the enslaved

Sally Hemings is unknown,

but it is clear

that the physical relationship

begins while she is in France,

between 1787 and 1789,

when she would have been

between 14 and 16 years old.

[dramatic music]

- There is no ethical landscape

in our world today that says

that a sexual relationship

between a 40-year-old male

and a 16-year-old

enslaved female is OK.

It's an unequal

power relationship.

That is absolutely certain.

But many people

in early Virginia

got married at the age of 16,

men and women.

Some people got

married younger.

It was not the scandal

in the 18th century

that certainly it

would be today.

- It's hard for us.

This is so out of bounds,

but it wasn't out of bounds

at that time.

I'm talking

about the age part of it.

The sl*very part,

that's always a problem.

♪♪

- There has been

much speculation

about the nature of Sally

and Jefferson's relationship.

Many historians have

presented theories

that there was a deep

affection between them,

possibly even love.

- Her grandchildren say

Mr. Jefferson loved her dearly.

They don't talk

about what she felt about him.

♪♪

- Does she feel

flattered and adored?

Or does she feel like

she has no choice

because,

after all, he owns her?

♪♪

We don't know.

I think for somebody to say

that it is a deep love affair

is to make up a story

because we don't have

any evidence.

- Sally Hemings,

being an enslaved woman,

could not have consented.

She could not have

refused his advances.

There's a gross imbalance

of power.

♪♪

- To think about love

and to think about things

in that way without thinking

about the vulnerability

in the position

that particularly

enslaved women were in,

it makes it a very,

very fraught subject.

- And I don't know how

we position a story

that is rooted in such

an exploitative relationship

as something benevolent,

as something

that was good for her.

♪♪

- As Jefferson navigates

his complicated relationship

with Sally Hemings,

unrest between France's

sharply distinct classes

escalates.

♪♪

In April 1789,

the tension comes to a head

when factory riots lead

to the death of 25 people

at the hands of police.

♪♪

In the wake

of the American Revolution,

Jefferson can see the signs

of a burgeoning crisis

in France and wants

to understand its roots.

♪♪

- Something was rotten

in the state of France.

This was a period of the

crisis of the French monarchy.

Things were not

working all that well.

The monopolies, the abuses

of the French aristocracy,

the barriers to free exchange,

all of these things

were impoverishing

the French people.

♪♪

- Jefferson at one point goes

to visit a peasant's hovel.

On one hand, he provides us

with an account which explains

the conditions

that are going to lead

to the French Revolution.

On the other hand,

think of this poor peasant

who this ambassador

is kind of examining

his house as though

he's visiting, you know,

a scientific exhibit.

- Jefferson really believes

that the more

the economic interests

of the government

are aligned with the economic

interests of elites,

the more likely it is that

the liberties and opportunities

for ordinary people to pursue

life, liberty, and happiness

would be limited.

It's ironic because Jefferson

was an elite member

of the Virginia gentry.

But he saw firsthand,

French peasants

barely had enough to eat while

the elite lived in grandeur.

- And for Jefferson,

this was all proof

that the old regime

in Europe was corrupt,

and America was better

because poor people

were better off in America,

if you don't factor in

the enslaved people, of course.

♪♪

- Then the revolutionary

struggle becomes hotter,

and hotter, and hotter,

and sort of explodes.

♪♪

- In May 1789, the French

Revolution officially

begins when riots break

out at the Etats Généraux,

an assembly of representatives

from the feuding classes.

More than a hundred people

are k*lled in the mayhem.

- The revolution was

underway and would have

followed its course whether

he'd been there or not,

but he does host meetings with

some of the revolutionaries.

I mean, you can't escape it

in Paris in 1789.

- Jefferson drafts

a Charter of Rights

with his friend,

Marquis de Lafayette,

a French aristocrat who fought

in the American Revolution.

In August, just a month after

French insurgents stormed

a medieval political prison

known as the Bastille,

Lafayette and other French liberals

meet secretly

at Jefferson's home to discuss

a new French constitution.

- He says, "The Republican

movement in France

is a continuation

of our revolution."

So when other Americans

are put off by the terror

and because now there had

been violence, Jefferson says,

no, we've got to support this.

This was part of a global

movement for liberty.

♪♪

- But in September, five years

after arriving in Paris,

watching yet another violent

revolution erupt around him,

Jefferson wonders if it

may be time to return home.

♪♪

- In September of 1789,

as the French Revolution

gains steam,

Jefferson decides

it's time to return home.

- When it's time to come home,

Jefferson has the idea

that he's going

to take Sally and her brother,

James Hemings,

back to Monticello with him.

[dramatic music]

- Despite Jefferson's

best efforts

to keep Sally

and James in the dark

about French sl*very laws,

they are both aware

of the choices

they now have.

- So the decision

would have been,

do you stay in France,

where you have freedom?

Or do you return

to sl*very in the States?

- Sally Hemings decides

that she was free in France,

she was enjoying herself,

and she wanted to stay there.

- But Jefferson pleads

with Sally to return

to Monticello with him.

♪♪

- And so Jefferson

is forced into a position

of negotiating for what that

relationship is going to be.

- Historians can't prove this.

To produce documents

with her name,

telling people how he was

going to take care of her,

it would have

been an admission.

But this is one of the things

that historians

say is likely true.

Jefferson promises her

she would have a good life

at Monticello and that

any children she had

would be freed

when they were 21.

She agrees to that.

And she decides

to come home with him.

♪♪

- I'm in awe of Sally Hemings,

the courage

this young woman showed

to stand up to the man

who owned her,

to tell one of the most

powerful people in the world

the terms on which

she would do something.

♪♪

- Even though I imagine

she knew once she comes back

to Virginia he could say,

nah, never mind,

he could die,

and it was a huge risk.

♪♪

And so people ask me

all the time,

well, why did she do that?

But you have

to think about choice

under those circumstances.

- She was far from her mother.

She was far from her family.

It's not as simple

as sl*very or freedom.

♪♪

- And I don't know

that France would

have been a real viable

solution to her at the time.

♪♪

When the French Revolution

is emerging in France,

what choices would she have

had as a young Black woman

not of an adult age?

Where was she going

to live in France, with whom?

- And that's a dilemma

that a number

of enslaved people faced,

even when people were deciding

whether to take their freedom

or run away when they

were in the United States.

It's great to be free,

but would you want

to be away from your family?

♪♪

- Well, here's what some

of the descendants and I feel.

We don't know.

There's no documentation.

♪♪

But we think

that she wanted to come back.

But she was really smart.

And she thought,

this man wants to be with me.

And she exercised

her own agency

because, by the way,

Sally Hemings was pregnant.

♪♪

- In September 1789,

Jefferson returns home

to Virginia

with his enslaved mistress,

Sally Hemings.

- When she's 17,

Sally Hemings gives birth

to her first child.

The child died.

But her relations

with Jefferson would continue.

- Jefferson moves Sally

from enslaved quarters

to a stone room

below Monticello

so that she can be closer

to his room

in the main mansion.

- Sally negotiated

with Jefferson

an easier life for herself

within Monticello's

plantation system.

- And so Sally Hemings

becomes a seamstress,

which is relatively

light labor compared

to what other enslaved women

would have been doing.

- Sally will occupy

her quarters under Monticello

for the next 40 years.

Over the course of that time,

she will bear

six more children.

- Her children

are able to remain with her,

which is different

than a lot of enslaved women.

And there's a lot more work

that I think the Hemings

are largely spared from

because of their position

within the enslaved community.

- Was there hierarchy?

Yes, there was hierarchy.

We must always remember,

members of the Hemings family

were related to their owners.

We know that other Hemings

siblings were related

to Jefferson's wife's father.

And, as a result,

they were light-skinned people.

- In the 1790s,

the Duke of Rochefoucauld

comes to Monticello.

And he reports

that there are some members

of the enslaved families

who are just as white,

if not even whiter, than he is.

♪♪

- Yes, many of the enslaved

people related to their owners

had privileges.

And so unfortunately, this idea

that the lighter your skin is,

the closer you are

to privileged people continues

to plague our society.

♪♪

- We need

to challenge ourselves

about our understanding

about race and beauty

and how it affects

how we view history.

Even though we embrace

our multiculturalism today,

we still do rank

our multiculturalism.

Our fascination

with Sally Hemings

has a lot to do

with our exoticism of her.

If she had been

an African woman

unmixed by any European blood,

I think that it might have

been even more cause

for consternation.

She's accepted now

as having been his mistress.

But I often wonder if it's

not qualified by the fact

that she is,

by many standards, half white.

I wonder if we would

be able to accept him

having a sexual relationship

with a woman

who was not mixed race.

♪♪

- While Jefferson settles

into a quiet life

with Sally at Monticello,

the new American government

under its first president

is beginning

to take shape without him.

[dramatic music]

- In April 1789,

while Jefferson

was still in Paris,

his friend and fellow

Virginian George Washington

had been sworn in

as the first president

of the United States.

And all of the most powerful

voices of the revolution

are vying for seats

in his cabinet.

♪♪

- Washington is a president

without precedent.

He is filling in the role

of president

with only the broadest outlines

being established

by the Constitution.

- He wants Jefferson

to be secretary of state,

particularly because Jefferson

has all this international

experience as a diplomat.

But Washington has to beg

Jefferson to take the job.

And he sends

James Madison to see him.

He says, hey,

are you going to accept this?

And Jefferson says,

I'm not sure.

And Madison has to tell

Washington to ask him again.

♪♪

This is testimony

to how highly Washington

thought of Jefferson.

He sort of bites his lip

and writes to him again

and says, please serve

as secretary of state.

The country really needs you.

And Jefferson goes,

well, if you really want me,

I guess I'll do it.

♪♪

- Jefferson had intended to

eventually return to France,

but in March of 1790, he heads

to the new U.S. capital

in New York City to serve

in America's first cabinet

alongside his soon-to-be rival,

Revolutionary w*r hero

Alexander Hamilton.

♪♪

- Hamilton, Washington's

young aide de camp,

is tapped

as Treasury secretary.

Now, Hamilton and Jefferson

famously feuded

throughout most

of their adult life.

And one of Hamilton's

attacks on Jefferson

was that he was an elite

who talked about populism.

And Jefferson looked

down on Hamilton

as an immigrant upstart.

- Fundamentally,

each believes the other

represents an existential

threat to the republic.

♪♪

Hamilton believes

that Jefferson

wants to overthrow all order.

Jefferson believes

that Hamilton is restoring

monarchy to the United States.

- Jefferson is

horrified to realize

that the system of government

that has been set up

while he was in France

seems to be heading

towards more centralized power,

what he sees

as a more British direction,

in particular

in Hamilton's plan

to centralize

the federal Treasury

and to begin accumulating debt

to build the United States.

♪♪

- Hamilton's financial plan,

which is modeled

on the Bank of England,

is to consolidate

one national debt

that the Treasury controls

and the government repays.

- It's a system built on

a recognizable British model,

and Jefferson hates that.

And he also wants to get

the cabinet out of New York.

He doesn't like cities.

He doesn't like New York City.

- He believes cities

were sources of corruption.

They were sources

of inequality.

The residents of cities,

in his view,

didn't make good citizens.

- He wants to move

the center of gravity

further towards the south.

And so one of the great

critical compromises

in American history is where,

over dinner

at Jefferson's house,

he brings together

Madison and Hamilton

and negotiates

moving the capital

down to Virginia area

off the Potomac,

but accepting

Hamilton's financial plan

for a more centralized

financial system.

But the banking center

will remain in New York.

In the infamous room

where it happened,

they both got what

they most wanted.

And it ends up

being a pretty good trade

in the fullness of time.

- And so there

was an opportunity there

when they did work

together productively.

- But you get that sense

of the seeds of disagreement

that will really rupture.

- And the differences

between Hamilton and Jefferson

will quickly spread

beyond the cabinet room

to the public at large.

- Despite

their successful compromise,

Jefferson and Hamilton

continue to clash.

And in this divide, America's

two-party political system

is born.

Supporters of Hamilton become

known as the Federalists.

They support

centralized government,

a national bank,

alliance with Britain,

and an economy

based on merchants and trade.

Supporters of Jefferson become

the Democratic

Republican Party.

They support states' rights,

strict interpretation

of the Constitution,

an agricultural economy,

and an alliance with France.

- It's hard for us

to imagine just how

acrimonious the 1790s were.

♪♪

You really had

two opposing parties form,

each of whom thought that

if the other group had power,

the American experiment

would fail.

- Jefferson and Hamilton seem

to be fighting

over everything.

And Jefferson

is telling Washington,

look,

Hamilton's out to get you.

Hamilton's going

to overthrow the republic

and institute a monarchy.

And Washington is saying,

no, he's not going to do that.

♪♪

- Jefferson thought

that Washington

would side with him,

naturally,

because they're

both Virginians.

But Hamilton and Washington had

been through the w*r together,

and Jefferson had not been.

He admired Washington.

And he wanted to be

the favored son of Washington.

And that didn't happen.

♪♪

[dramatic music]

- In 1793, as the American

government is taking shape,

Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI

are brutally ex*cuted

in France.

And once again,

Thomas Jefferson

and Alexander Hamilton find

themselves on opposite sides

of the political fence.

♪♪

- The whole world

was fighting with itself

in the 1790s in the wake

of the French Revolution.

And the reverberations

of the bloodbath

in France were felt in America.

♪♪

- Jefferson feels

the French Revolution is being

inspired by America's example.

And they topple their king,

so much the better,

despite the fact

that the king is the person

who'd bailed out

the United States

during the Revolutionary w*r.

And Jefferson's idealism

in this regard,

his radicalism

becomes a little bloody.

The statements he makes

excusing the excesses,

the mob

in the French Revolution,

are pretty close

to indefensible.

♪♪

- He writes one

of his most infamous letters

in response

to the French Revolution.

- My own affections have

been deeply wounded

by some of the martyrs

to this cause.

But rather than it

should have failed,

I would have seen half

the Earth desolated.

Were there but an Adam and

an Eve left in every country

and left free, it would be

better than as it is now.

- It doesn't quite say,

you need to break

a few eggs to make an omelet,

but that's

kind of the thinking.

- He is fine

with a bunch of heads

rolling down in the wake

of a guillotine.

He's an ends-just-the-means

kind of guy

when it comes to liberty.

But Washington, Hamilton, Adams

are much more concerned

that anarchy can turn

into a new type of tyranny.

Washington declares a policy

of strict neutrality.

He says, we are not

going to get dragged

into continental squabbles.

We are going to focus

on building our own strength,

economically and militarily,

and expanding and solidifying

our new nation.

Jefferson is

secretary of state,

but he disagrees with his

government's foreign policy.

Jefferson crucially

sees neutrality

as aligning the United States

with the British

and is a betrayal of this idea

of an empire of liberty.

- And so Jefferson

starts to engage

in sort of really

kind of dirty politics.

- So there's the "Gazette

of the United States,"

which is

a proadministration organ.

And Jefferson thinks

it needs a counterpoint.

And so there's a critical

excursion up the Hudson River

that Jefferson takes

with Madison.

They stop off and recruit

a newspaper editor

named Philip Freneau,

who had gone to college

at Princeton with Madison,

to be the editor

of a new opposition newspaper.

Philip Freneau

hates the British.

He'd been briefly captured

by them during the w*r.

But he says, you know what?

I can't make enough money

running a newspaper.

Jefferson says,

don't worry about it.

We'll hire you in the State

Department as a translator.

So Jefferson is serving

in the cabinet

as secretary of state,

furious about a foreign policy

he doesn't support.

But not only doesn't

he support it,

he's actively trying to subvert

it by funding and incubating

a new newspaper whose

sole purpose is to attack

the foreign policy

of the government

that he is serving

as secretary of state in.

♪♪

It's close to treasonous.

In any other context,

it would be called just that.

And it is driving

Washington nuts

to see himself being attacked

in the press.

- But Hamilton also

sponsors a newspaper,

which is basically

the party organ

of the Treasury Department.

And so what we see

is the media being used

to mobilize political opinion

in the United States

for the first time.

- They're starting

two political parties

under the nose of Washington

and against

his express wishes.

Washington was not a member

of a political party

as a matter of principle,

our first and only

independent president.

The hope was that people

in Congress

would represent

their conscience

and their constituents,

that they could do this

without retreating to faction.

♪♪

- In 1793,

George Washington begins

his second term as president.

And he, his vice president,

John Adams,

and secretary of the Treasury,

Alexander Hamilton,

continue on

with the Federalist initiative

for international neutrality

and a centralized

federal government.

- And so Jefferson

concludes that he's

always the odd man out.

He feels that he's not

getting anything accomplished

and that Washington isn't

listening to him anymore.

- He eventually resigns

in a huff.

♪♪

- In December 1793,

Jefferson retires once more

to Monticello

as the country falls deeper

into political divide.

Just 20 years after the Sons

of Liberty threw 46 tons

of tea into Boston Harbor,

the new nation appears

to be charging

toward Civil w*r.

And despite Thomas Jefferson's

best efforts to remove himself

from the fight,

he will soon be thrust

right back

onto the front lines

of dirty partisan politics.

♪♪