American Sphinx: The Character Of Thomas Jefferson (1998) - Plot & Excerpts
I can't say that I understand some of the negative reviews about this book here on this site. If Ellis had been calling the man a power-hungry hypocrite, then I could quite possibly commiserate. But this book is not an attempt to besmirch Jefferson as a villian; nor is it an uncritical celebration of a wrongly conceived patriotic rendering of a two-dimensional Jefferson. It is, instead, an honest attempt to sift through primary historical documents and examine the multitude of very stark contradictions in Jefferson's own beliefs/actions in his own life with his later legacy in American politics. And if you believe that Jefferson did not have contradictions, you would be well advised to read other biographies of American founder figures like Hamilton and Washington -- you'll get your fill in those books since those writers have no reason to celebrate the man and are rather harsh on him as a result (Chernow especially).In fact, I would argue the main reason I read this book was because I wanted to get a balanced picture of Jefferson. Meachem didn't give me this much of a full picture of his chracter. Gordon Wood overdid the praise of Jefferson and his Republican ideas in "Empire of Liberty". Chernow and McCullough had come down rather harshly on him, in contrast, with the usual charges of hypocrisy and being too devious by far for political power. Having read all of this conflicting material and the differing lines of thought about the man, I needed to find a source that could give me a more neutral reading of his personality, ideas, and the like. Ellis presents many intriguing if speculative possibilities about him:He wanted to be on the record as morally against slavery even though he was a white supremacist at times and did not believe in an integrated black/white social arrangment. He also wanted to ship slaves to some place far out of sight and mind so he could conveniently forget about them.His belief about government was essentially to be as restricted as possible -- hence any talk about welfare benefits, equal rights to living standards or education, and so on would not have found a place in his schemes. His focus was on the idea of negative liberties -- that individuals should do as they please, that they practice religion as they please, and etc. For him, the individual was sovereign and trumped any communal unit (in theory).He was a master of dupliticous politics and diplomacy -- he seemed able to tell each person he was addressing only what he wanted to hear and no more. Not a bad skill to have when you essentially covet the head position of a government that you believe, in theory, should not exist in an ideal world. It provides a good way to cover your ambiguities and two-timing in your own mind from the actual realities. It's also a useful skill when you lead a society in which you believe the individual truly has the power and you have to appease multiple warring interests for your time and approval. No wonder he still inspires modern American politicians who still need this very skill to survive.He was incapable of seeing the complexities in most political situations in his own life. He could not accurately analyze the complexities of the 1776 Revolution at the time -- preferring to see instead virtuous shining America vs. villian England as through an odd rendering of "Country Whig" politics. Likewise, he never truly supported a multi-party system; he cast all those were not Republicans at the time of the election as either with him or not with him with some hope held out for those he believed that he could bring to his cause. In this way, ironically, he mastered party politics while telling himself he was not engaged in them. This odd need to create dualities also later was evident when he started to envision northern senators against the practice of slavery as simply consolidationist and against "the people" even if he had continually denounced slavery in the past. In his mind, then, the slaveholding planation owners became individuals who could not enjoy their liberties. His role in the eventual destruction of Native Americans is also briefly explored here. As an idealist, he admired their small scale societies and way of life, but, like most whites of his day, he also wanted them to integrate or get out of the way. Thus westward expansion became an easy answer in his mind for a lot of problems that would, in fact, stick around as thorns in the side of the country (slavery, genocide, etc.). There is also good material on his positive points: his commitment to his country and his long record of public service, his good work as a diplomat, his commitment to individual freedoms, his optimism about the future of the country, and so on. This is not to say that all of the above is necessarily true -- Jefferson is given a speculative historical treatment in terms of psychology and you are certainly free to disagree with what I wrote above and what you read in the book. The author says as much in the introduction -- it's his personal quest to confront who Jefferson really was and why we still value him in this day and age. I think he succeeds quite well at this goal. None of us is without flaws of some sort and Jefferson is no different.I look forward to reading the books on Washington and Adams now. I also agree with another reviwer here that we can't help be a bit disappointed with the real man as compared to his ideals simply because they were so arrogantly lofty. Reality never works that way in practice and idealism can be a double-edged sword even in the best of people.
As I read "American Sphinx", an odd thing happened. The more I learnt about Jefferson the less I liked him. The Jefferson of Ellis' biography is an arrogant, obsessive ideologue, whose successes are the lucky results of others' hard work, and whose failures are inevitable given his substantial flaws. As someone who was looking to like Jefferson, this was all pretty disappointing. Ellis' biography follows Jefferson from his first entrance into public life right until his providential death on July 4th 1826 (and the same day as his friend/enemy John Adams). Over the course of this journey, we see Jefferson evolve from a quiet but brilliant polemicist into the leader of the "Republican" faction, which calls for a small and relatively weak central government.In modern terms, Jefferson of course would have been a contradiction: a progressive who fought his entire life for smaller government. It's this defying of modern political boundaries that allow both sides today to claim as their own.If Ellis has "an angle", it is his attempt to delve into Jefferson's psyche. His contradictions were too overt, argues Ellis, yet his dialogue too sincere to be hypocrisy. His conclusion is that Jefferson was a master not (just) of deception but of SELF-deception -- he "compartmentalized" certain ideas in parts of his brain where they needed not be bothered by other contradictory ideas that he held just as sincerely. Thus, the small-government president who purchases Louisiana from the French, the anti-slave crusader who is himself a slaveowner, the self-indulgent aristocrat who surrounds himself with luxury, yet spend his entire life in crushing debt, and passes his debt to his children when he dies. This is not hypocrisy, argues Ellis, this is "compartmentalization".Of course such an argument sounds ridiculous when stated so baldly, and I think for good reason. Ellis is attempting to draw deep psychological conclusions from sources that are entirely public: letters that Jefferson wrote, often with the intention of their being published. Positions he publicly took, or speeches he gave. Each and every one of these had an agenda, and while we may want to believe in "compartmentalization" since it leaves intact the image of the honest Jefferson, there's another much more obvious explanation that Occam demands we accept: political expediency.Even if -- horror of horrors -- Jefferson turns out to have been a politician, he remains one of the most visionary and influential of our history, and if I took one major realization away from this book, it was this: that one of the central essences of our American flavor of democracy -- the conscious limiting of the rights and powers of the central government, and the constant clamoring for smaller and less at the federal level -- comes directly and almost singularly from Jefferson. Had it been up to Washington, Adams and Hamilton, early democracy in the United States would not doubt have taken a far more European form. As is, Jefferson and his disciples (Madison and Monroe) provided a crucial opposition voice at a crucial time -- a voice that continues to resonate in today's conservative circles and the Tea Party movement. And while I might not agree with that voice all the time, I'm glad it's there.I would not recommend this book to others as an introduction to Jefferson for three reasons. The first, the psycho-babble described above. Second, the book's odd chronology -- it leaves large gaps in the Jefferson story, including for example, his entire tenure as Secretary of State under Washington, and his second term as president. Was this period really so uneventful, that it doesn't deserve mention? (And really practically no mention is given.)Third is, I really can't be sure that the portrait Ellis is painting might not itself be a politically skewed one. His portrayal so one-sided that one puts down the book longing for a more objective take. I suspected throughout that Ellis felt his own conclusion so strongly -- that Jefferson was a self-deceiver -- that he was arguing it with his every decision of inclusion or omission. The result is a Jefferson that is at best, a self-deceiver, at worst, a craven hypocrite.One way or another, Jefferson -- whether the Jefferson of American Sphinx or the Jefferson of Wikipedia -- DOES end up disappointing, if only because the soaring of his ideals clashes so jarringly with his somewhat uglier reality.
What do You think about American Sphinx: The Character Of Thomas Jefferson (1998)?
Biographers have a choice on what to emphasize, their subject, the subject’s times or a combination of their subject and times. Again, the writer’s choice is one of emphasis and not one of exclusion. Ellis, who won the National Book Award in 1997 for American Sphinx, chose to emphasize Thomas Jefferson’s character first and then how he related to such events as writing the Declaration of Independence, representing the United States in Paris, serving as Adams Secretary of State and as President.W
—Bill
A book on tape: Ellis took on the president that David McCullough started to write about but gave up in disgust. He was a study in contrasts, and even today is a totem brought out by all sides of our political debates. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, but opposed the new constitution. He wanted the smallest government possible but bought Louisiana from Napoleon. He didn't believe in a Federal navy, but sent the few ships Adams had built to fight the Barbary pirates. He was the inspiration behind the creation of party politics in American, treating those who disagreed with him, such as Adams and Hamilton, as traitors. His Declaration of Independence inspired Lincoln, but he never freed his own slaves.
—Rob Springer
I was so disappointed with this book. From the very first pages, you could sense the author was antagonistic towards his subject; and this continued throughout the book. I cannot count the number of times Ellis alluded to Jefferson as some kind of narcissistic mental case. As a grandmother to two children with autism, I could easily have seen Jefferson as being on the spectrum! He was incredibly intelligent, and his devotion to the building of Monticello and his love for agriculture as all-encompassing could easily be explained by autism. But, Ellis doesn't cut him any slack as he criticizes him at every turn. His disdain for Jefferson's politics, even suggesting some type of plagarism on some of Jefferson's writing, indicate the writer's dislike for President Jefferson. So sad, because Ellis is a gifted writer; but I expected better treatment, not sympathetic, but just even-handed, of his subject.
—Donnac
