The first compilation of Jefferson's letters, by his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph, appeared in 1830. Monroe and Madison, the closest intimates to Jefferson after his presidency, were still living, not to mention some of the opposition whose feelings might be touched. They knew some years in advance that this work was in preparation, yet neither attempted to interfere or to control what should be inserted. Randolph possessed the courage of his necessities, for on the last pages of the last volume he printed the Anas, that body of comment which is so characteristic of the Jefferson epos. Yet he did not let stand the criticism of Washington or the word which made John Marshall the mountebank of the X. Y. Z. mission, and he omitted more than half of the record as of lesser importance. Jefferson's opinions invited dissension, and the publication of the volumes led to an exchange of epithets that enlivened, even if it did not much enlighten, the history and practice of politics. Having gone as far as he did, Randolph need have omitted no part of the record. Those who disliked Jefferson were convinced of the soundness of their dislike; those who practised politics as a profession busily engaged themselves in constructing that Jeffersonian myth which still persists and, judiciously used, has exerted a constant effect in hypnotizing the wavering voter.
These lights of the War for Independence used language unrestrained by a fear of publication. They lived in the day of a newspaper which seems singularly harmless for attack. The party scribblers of low character might dip their pens in venom; the very excess of their invective discounted and the small circulation deadened its force. When Callender turned upon Jefferson, his benefactor, he was obliged to set up a sheet of his own, and the few copies in existence are eloquent on his poverty and incapacity. In the respectable press the discussion of men and measures rarely rose above mediocrity, and mere personalities could not explain policies. Hamilton, one of the best controversialists of his time, might have repeated his letter to John Adams six times over, with six different objects, and had either the Diary or letters of John Adams seen the light in his day, the pot of discord would have remained at boiling point. Both men in their own time experienced the effect of an untoward publication of confidential communications, and the experience embittered their later years. Hamilton's papers drifted for years looking for a biographer, and when at last in 1840 they were used by a son, his brothers openly expressed their disapprobation and regret on the event.
In this early period of personal relations the editor had no
