Negro President

by Wills, Garry

• ISBN13: 9780618485376
• ISBN10: 0618485376
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-09-14
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

In 1800 Thomas Jefferson won the presidential election with Electoral College votes derived from the three-fifths representation of slaves -- slaves who could not vote but were still partially counted as citizens. Moving beyond the recent revisionist debate over Jefferson"s own slaves and his relationship with Sally Hemings, Garry Wills instead probes the heart of Jefferson"s presidency and political life, revealing how the might of the slave states remained a concern behind his most important policies and decisions. Jefferson"s foil was Thomas Pickering, who along with the Federalists fought the president and the institutions that supported him. In an eye-opening, ingeniously argued expose, Wills restores Pickering and his allies" dramatic struggle to our understanding of Jefferson, the creation of the new nation, and the evolution of our representative democracy.

Author Biography

GARRY WILLS, a distinguished historian and critic, is the author of numerous books, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lincoln at Gettysburg, Saint Augustine, and the best-selling Why I Am a Catholic.
A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, he has won many awards, among them two National Book Critics Circle Awards and the 1998 National Medal for the Humanities. He is a history professor emeritus at Northwestern University.

Table of Contents

Key to Brief Citations	x
Foreword: The Great Divide	xi
Prologue: Coming to Terms with Jefferson	xvi
Introduction: The Three-Fifths Clause	1	(14)
Before 1800	15	(32)
Pickering vs. Jefferson: The Northwest	18	(15)
Pickering vs. Jefferson: Toussaint	33	(14)
``Second Revolution''	47	(56)
1800: Why Were Slaves Counted?	50	(12)
1800: The Negro-Burr Election	62	(11)
1801: Jefferson or Burr?	73	(17)
1801 Aftermath: Turning Out the Federalists	90	(13)
Pickering in Congress	103	(92)
1803: The Twelfth Amendment	106	(8)
1803: Louisiana	114	(13)
1804: Pickering and Burr	127	(13)
1804--1805: Impeachments	140	(7)
1808: Embargo	147	(12)
1808: Pickering and Governor Sullivan	159	(12)
1808: Pickering and J. Q. Adams	171	(11)
1809--1815: Pickering and Madison	182	(13)
The Pickering Legacy	195	(31)
J. Q. Adams: The Federal (Slave) District	200	(14)
J. Q. Adams: Petition Battles	214	(12)
Epilogue: Farewell to Pickering	226	(7)
Notes	233	(26)
Acknowledgments	259	(1)
Index	260