Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase [Hardcover]

Roger G. Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2003

Thomas Jefferson advocated a republic of small farmers--free and independent yeomen. And yet as president he presided over a massive expansion of the slaveholding plantation system--particularly with the Louisiana Purchase--squeezing the yeomanry to the fringes and to less desirable farmland. Now Roger Kennedy conducts an eye-opening examination of that gap between Jefferson's stated aspirations and what actually happened.
Kennedy reveals how the Louisiana Purchase had a major impact on land use and the growth of slavery. He examines the great financial interests (such as the powerful land companies that speculated in new territories and the British textile interests) that beat down slavery's many opponents in the South itself (Native Americans, African Americans, Appalachian farmers, and conscientious opponents of slavery). He describes how slaveholders' cash crops (first tobacco, then cotton) sickened the soil and how the planters moved from one desolated tract to the next. Soon the dominant culture of the entire region--from Maryland to Florida, from Carolina to Texas--was that of owners and slaves producing staple crops for international markets. The earth itself was impoverished, in many places beyond redemption.
None of this, Kennedy argues, was inevitable. He focuses on the character, ideas, and ambitions of Thomas Jefferson to show how he and other Southerners struggled with the moral dilemmas presented by the presence of Indian farmers on land they coveted, by the enslavement of their workforce, by the betrayal of their stated hopes, and by the manifest damage being done to the earth itself. Jefferson emerges as a tragic figure in a tragic period.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This aggravating book, published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, has considerable value despite itself. Like the Shenandoah River, Kennedy can't go from place to place in a straight line as he makes up words and terms ("preemptive humanism"). Yet amid the disorder and occasional pretentiousness, there's serious intent and plausible argument. Kennedy, director emeritus of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and author of Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson, believes that, while human decisions created the American plantation system and its slave laboring force, the spread of slavery had its own momentum. Much of that, he argues, can be attributed to Thomas Jefferson, the tragic figure in this drama. Kennedy shrewdly characterizes Jefferson as someone who couldn't finish projects he started or free himself from dilemmas of his own creating, such as the purchase of an inland empire destined to be filled, not with dependent farmers-Jefferson's ideal-but with slaves, cinching slavery's hold on the nation. Of all the curious characters here, none is more central than the previously little-known Fulwar Skipwith, a Virginian who fetched up in France, Florida and Louisiana. Kennedy takes the aspirations and wanderings of Skipwith, whose tale is worth the book, to symbolize the hold of Virginia's ways over the entire South. Kennedy is at his best when writing of farming, soil exhaustion and the environmental degradation brought on by the plantation system. But for learning about the nation's doubling of territory in 1803, general readers will do much better to turn to Charles Cerami's Jefferson's Great Gamble. 25 illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Fresh, endlessly fascinating, and altogether extraordinary.... A sweeping, continent-wide reinterpretation of early US history.... Thematically rich and full of subtle arguments, Kennedy's study forces a reconsideration of accepted views. It couldn't come at a better time, given the soon-to-be widely commemorated bicentenary of the Lewis and Clark expedition."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Roger Kennedy's throws down the gauntlet in his engaging new book. Was the freedom-loving, slave-holding Thomas Jefferson responsible for the coming of the Civil War? Kennedy's bold argument will certainly stir up controversy among the specialists, but it will also force them to rethink some of the most important questions in the history of the early American republic. Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause is vintage Kennedy, serving up a characteristically rich offering of fascinating stories, deft character sketches, and provocative conclusions."--Peter Onuf, University of Virginia

"Mr. Kennedy's astringency forces us to reconsider settled opinions, always a good thing."--Wall Street Journal

"Though in many ways a willful architect of the nation, Thomas Jefferson failed to build the foundation he envisioned in his heart of hearts: an Arcadian society of small farmers. His dream was trampled by a parade of vanities, intrigues, and missed opportunities, all marching lock step with the determinations of social history and natural history. Roger Kennedy highlights this fascinating story for us--he weaves it with stunning erudition, and delivers it with bounteous wit. Kennedy provides novel insights on Jefferson and numerous contemporaries, and he plows bare the roots of American land policy, revealing factors that are still germane after two centuries."--Daniel J. Gelo, University of Texas, San Antonio

"From this world of filibusters and spies, slaves and masters, tribal leaders and imperial politicians, Roger Kennedy has assembled as fascinating a cast as American history has ever produced."--Richard White, Stanford University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1ST edition (March 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195153472
• ISBN-13: 978-0195153477
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,813,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating History of the American South, February 25, 2004

By 

Scott Snyder (Northern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase (Hardcover)

This book had strong content and very weird organization.

On the plus side: Kennedy puts together a commanding set of facts to show that while Jefferson's words rang strong and true, the man himself was hamstrung by his allegiance to his class and could not affect any change regarding slavery in America.

One reviewer called Kennedy's work a Marxist critique of southern history. I would argue precisely the opposite. The "lost cause" of the title was the idea that yeoman farmers, tending their own farms for their own benefit would lead to a strong, engaged and committed citizenry. This was originally a Roman idea shared by men such as Adam Smith, James Oglethorpe, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. This practice was in place in the Northern colonies and later the Northwest Territory, and led to economic development and economic independence from Great Britain, industrialization, wealthy citizens and a diversified economy.

In the South, the plantation system meant large farms run by absentee landlords who exploited and ruined the soil, enslaved and robbed people of self-initiative (those people being the slaves), stifled diversification (all hail King Cotton), discouraged industrialization, and prolonged dependence and subservience to textile manufacturers in Liverpool and Manchester. Since the people actually working the land did not have a stake in it, or in the care of the tools they used, the factors of economic production - capital, land, tools and labor -all were "run into the ground."

The lasting effect of the plantation system - low wages, demoralized citizens lacking entrepreneurial spirit, ruined tools, ruined fields, death and suffering - strongly parallel the effects of 60+ years of Communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and before that the effects of British absentee ownership of Ireland. Indeed only in the past couple decades, a full century after the fall of the plantation system, is the South now reviving with manufacturing, entrepreneurship and economic diversification. Post Communist Eastern Europe has strong resemblances to the Reconstruction South.

Therefore, if anything, Kennedy's book affirms the social, moral and economic benefits of the Capitalist market system of small time farmers and business owners over the ruin that stems from collectivization of any sort - Communist or Plantation.

The rest of the book is a wonderful excursion through the history of the deep South. This is what I enjoyed about the book.

On the negative side: the book needs a new title, the current one is misleading. The book is not really about the Louisiana purchase as much as it is about how Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and their cohorts lead the nation down a path to a condition that would only be rectified with much bloodshed in the 1860s.

The book needs better organization (this is the worst organized book I've ever encountered).

It needs a new appendix. The book mentions Aaron Burr and his doings, trial, conspiracy, sentencing, exile, etc. without provide some sort of appendix to tell us about Aaron Burr. All I know about the man is that he dueled with Alexander Hamilton and won. I think the author presume much to much on the readers part when it comes to Burr. That was troublesome.

The matter of how and why the Louisiana Purchase came to be is found in ONE obscure paragraph buried deep in the book: Napoleon's real interest was the income from sugar plantations in Haiti - Louisiana served only as a source of material to operate the plantations in Haiti -- and when Haitian rebels took over (sound familiar?) France was forced out of the sugar business and found a better use for Louisiana: cash it in - cheap.

Finally, the book comes together only on the final page when Kennedy sums up Jefferson's accomplishments and failings, especially how his ideas finally came to fruition under Lincoln and in the various Homestead Acts.

All in all, despite its numerous faults, I highly recommend this book. It is a very interesting and engrossing history of the US acquisition of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas; the personalities of Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Monroe; Native American-African American-European and American relations and quite a bit more. Lots of food for thought here. Great book.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating, July 18, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase (Hardcover)

I found this book fascinating on many counts.

First, the description of how the plantations east of the Allegheny Mountains were viewed as disposable by the men who ran them, since it was cheaper to buy new land on the frontier than properly maintain the land they currently possessed. Also, how these same men for various reasons and led by Jefferson resisted the industrialization that would diversified the economy of the south.

Second, how Jefferson and his allies catered to the land gluttony displayed by those early planters as new land was acquired for the United States. This was largely accomplished by dispossessing the people inconveniently already settling the land, and handing large swathes of land over to slave-holding planters emigrating from the lands they had exhausted.

Kennedy in fact dwells for much of the book on the territory of Florida (expanding beyond the current borders of that state across much of the South) possessed by Spain and settled prior to US acquisition by a mixture of Indians, whites and blacks who out of neccessity practiced sustainable agriculture on a small scale. I found the picture of Florida in that period to be one of the particularly interesting parts of the book. The relationship between the US and the people already settled on lands it wished to acquire (especially Indians), using Florida as a case study, was enlightening.

Kennedy provides some critical information for evaluating Jefferson's political leadership on the most compelling moral issue facing the young republic-the endurance and expansion of slavery within its boundaries. First, although the debate in Congress during his presidency over the expansion of slavery into new territories was very close, Jefferson refrained from using his influence to lead in this controversy. Thus, his anti-slavery rhetoric was saved for moments in his life (early and late in his career) when it was unlikely to influence policy, and perhaps as no coincidence his self-interest and the interest of his landed friends. Indeed, once Jefferson's agriculturally impoverished land would no longer yield a profit, rather than join other planters heading west, he decided he could support himself most easily by breeding slaves to be sold to those emigrants. In this way, the man who despised the merchant and industrial classes for their supposed lack of moral character, supported his own extravagent lifestyle. In this, as on many other issues, Jefferson was an impressively self-indulgent hypocrite. Sadly, this supposedly great president was striking for his lack of will and vision on how best to establish a republic in which the AVERAGE citizen would have a reasonable opportunity to pursue happiness.

I would have liked to have given this book 4 1/2 stars, because there was a certain lack of organization, and some parts were confusing, so I can't say it was perfectly written. But I found the subject matter truly eye-opening and heartily recommend it to anyone interested in the subject matter.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, frustrating, finally disappointing, March 9, 2003

By 

Roger Sweeny (Norwood, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase (Hardcover)

Thomas Jefferson wrote eloquently against slavery and in favor of a nation of small farmers. He also ran a large plantation worked by several hundred slaves. Traditionally, Americans have emphasized the former, and found excuses for the latter. Kennedy does exactly the opposite. In fact, he argues that Jefferson was in a real sense responsible for preserving and extending slavery--and the system of large estates owned by "planters" that went with it.

During the Revolutionary War, a number of Virginians felt that slavery would eventually have to be ended. Jefferson did not support them, and slavery became more firmly established. In 1784, the government set up by the Articles of Confederation began to decide what to do with the new territories outside the 13 original states. A number of people felt that slavery should not be allowed there. Jefferson did not support them, and slavery was extended. In 1802, Jefferson, now president, bought the giant Louisiana Territory from France. A number of Americans felt that slavery should not be allowed there. Jefferson did not support them, and slavery was further extended.

Why would Jefferson do this, especially since slavery made impossible a country of small farmers? Kennedy has several answers. First, Jefferson wasn't really that fond of small farmers. He considered many of them to be uncivilized bumpkins. But he positively hated industrialization, and felt especially bad about free black "mechanics." He thought that the only proper way to treat freed slaves was the bring them back to Africa (or maybe Haiti). Until that would happen, it was "not yet" time for emancipation. Jefferson was a planter himself and felt that other planters were his peers. He wanted them to like him, and he relied on them politically. Kennedy also seems to say that Jefferson was an unwitting stooge of British merchants. They wanted to lend the planters money, buy their cotton, and sell them English manufactured goods. Had the South developed like the North, with towns and workshops constantly springing up amidst the family farms, this "neo-colonialism" (or "colonial-imperialism") couldn't have happened.

Kennedy thinks slavery was especially environmentally destructive. Compared to owner-worked small farms, slave-worked plantations killed the soil. This is a difficult argument to make. No landowner deliberately exhausts his land in ten years if he can keep it productive for 20 or 30 or more. There was new land in the west that one could move to, but you didn't have to be a plantation-owner to sell and move (and if your land is ruined, why will anyone pay you much money for it?). However, says Kennedy, more small-holders were too poor to move, and out of necessity, they took better care of their land. Besides, caring for the land required initiative and local knowledge or complex procedures or special tools. Slave-owners would not permit their slaves to do much besides follow simple orders and use simple tools.

And Kennedy is heart-broken at what could have been. Maybe free soil outside the old slave south, maybe freed slaves as yeoman, maybe decent treatment of the Indians, maybe well-cared for land. The second half of the book might be summarized: merchants sell individual Indians money on credit, then with the US Army at their back, force Indian nations to give up vast tracts of land to discharge the debt. Slave-owners move in and ruin the land. Americans settle beyond the boundaries of the United States. Then when the local Indians, escaped slaves, "maroons" (mixed Indian and African), and European colonial governments resist, get the US armed forces to enforce their stealing. Slave-owners move in and ruin the land. I was unclear exactly how this related to Jefferson. Kennedy seems to be saying, "He knew about a lot about it; he was happy about it; sometimes he took positive action to bring it about; even when he was no longer president, he did nothing to stop it."

I liked the way this book takes on hypocrisy, pretension, and myth, e.g., the myth of the "independence" of southern plantations. Planters borrowed money every year, and every year had to sell their crop on the world market. Prices and interests rates were never the same from one year to the next, and planters see-sawed between boom and bust. Yet Kennedy then buys into an equally ridiculous myth: that English merchants just decided on their own what prices and interst rates would be. He can't seem to comprehend that in these markets, everyone had "exposure" and no one was "in control." A major flaw of the book is the idea that after the Revolution the South became part of "an invisible empire manipulated from London and the [English] Midlands."

I feel like I should have liked this book but I didn't. Why? The book has some beautiful phrases and sentences but too often they were like raisins in a poorly cooked pudding. Sometimes it's hard to tease out exactly what Kennedy is saying and sometimes he just sounds silly. Along with the raisins are some awful jellied currants (a failed metaphor? now you know how this reader felt).

Kennedy has been head of the Smithsonian's American history museum and of the National Park Service. This book left me with the impression that Kennedy feels, "Once I had to uphold the icons. But now I may indulge myself. In an oh-so-civilized way, I will skewer those who are unjustly worshipped and elevate those unjustly scorned." All too often it sounded bureaucratic and snide.

The book just doesn't flow well. It was exceedingly difficult to keep all the people and places straight. And THIS was maddening: three quarters of the way through the book I turned the page and found 8 glossy pages of prints and rudimentary maps. They would have been some help. Yet nowhere, NOWHERE in the book are these pages mentioned, not when the people shown are introduced, not when places are mentioned, not in the table of contents, not anywhere.

Toward the end I began to feel like I was reading some of the anti-Clinton investigative journalism that blossomed at the end of his presidency. I was glad someone had the energy and the commitment to do it but I was overwhelmed by the minutiae. And I knew that I was getting a one-sided picture.

I give it four stars for content, two for presentation.