On most subjects, Jefferson's opinions were dictated by his feelings. He takes so little pains to conceal this weakness, that we can hardly suppose he was aware of it. Contradiction he could not bear. Opposition of any kind produced a bitter feeling. Vanity, latent perhaps, but acrid, corroded his judgment of his adversaries. In France Governeur Morris remarked that he was too fond of calling fools those who did not agree with him; a sure sign of want of strength. Great minds are essentially tolerant of the opinions of others. They know how easy it is to err. There was a good deal, too, of the Pharisee about Jefferson. 'He was of no party, nor yet a trimmer between parties. If he could not go to heaven but with a party, he would not go there at all.' But he thanked God he was not as the Federalists were: Anglomen, monarchists, workers of corruption! nor even as this Washington! He boasted, too, that he had never written a line for the public press; his method was to suggest his views to others, and employ them to put them into print.
Careful not to speak out too boldly when it was not altogether safe to do so, and wanting rather in moral courage, he was a persevering man, pursuing his plans with the eagerness of women, who always have a thousand excellent reasons, however illogical and inconsistent they may be, for doing as they please--and like women, he was not over scrupulous as to the means he employed to reach his object.
The same envious vanity and inability to resist his feelings which warped his judgment into so many contradictions, led him into actions that have damaged his character as a gentleman. For instance, his behavior to Washington. When a member of Washington's cabinet, protesting the warmest friendship to him, his confidential adviser by virtue of the office he held, he permitted, not to say encouraged, those attacks in Freneau's paper which were outrages on common decency. His intimacy with the President enabled him to judge of the effect of the blows. He noticed, with the cool precision of an experimental observer, the symptoms of pain and annoyance which Washington could not always conceal. Freneau was Jefferson's clerk; a word would have stopped him. 'But I will not do it,' Jefferson says; 'his paper has saved our Constitution, which was galloping forth into monarchy.' Jefferson's underhand attack upon Vice-President Adams, in the note he wrote by way of preface to the American publisher of Paine's 'Rights of Man,' is a domestic treachery of the same kind, though very much less in degree. That note might have been written on the impulse of the moment; but what shall we say of his practice of committing to paper Hamilton's sayings in the freedom of after-dinner conversation--a time when open-hearted men are apt to forget that there may be a Judas at table--and of saving them up to be used against him in the future? Jefferson explains away these and other dubious passages in his life with great ingenuity. He had to make such explanations too often. An apology implies a mistake, wilful or accidental. Too many indicate, to say the least, a lack of discretion. What a difference between these explanations, evasions, excuses, denials, and the majestic manliness of Washington, who never did or wrote or said anything which he hesitated to avow openly and without qualification!