91桃色

The 612 documents in this volume include Jefferson鈥檚 notes on his early career, one of the lengthiest documents of his retirement. Often misleadingly called his autobiography, the text describes Jefferson鈥檚 experience as an American revolutionary, a legislator shaping and revising Virginia鈥檚 laws, and a United States diplomat in France as its own revolution neared.

Jefferson sits for a portrait by Thomas Sully commissioned for West Point. He takes the unusual step of allowing his recommendation of a book by John Taylor to be published, insuring a wide circulation of Jefferson鈥檚 views on the proper balance between state and federal powers. In a private letter he asserts that the federal judiciary is amassing overarching power, 鈥渆ver acting, with noiseless foot, & unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains.鈥� Jefferson receives a description of an African American commemoration of the nation鈥檚 1807 ban on the importation of slaves.

Jefferson advises that the opening of the University of Virginia is not imminent even as he oversees its construction and defends the high cost, stating as his goal, 鈥渢o do, not what was to perish with ourselves, but what would remain, be respected and preserved thro鈥� other ages.鈥�