American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson.

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. By Joseph J. Ellis. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Pp. xiv, 365, ISBN 0-679-44490-4.)

Some would say that another biography of Jefferson is like another biography of Lincoln, just old wine in new bottles. But Joseph J. Ellis believes there is a reason for another look at Jefferson, to perform an "autopsy" in the author's stretched metaphor. "It was as if a pathologist," he writes, "just about to begin an autopsy, had discovered that the body on the operating table was still breathing" (p. 10). Ellis exposes minute details of the "Great Sphinx of American history" (p. 10), and his vivisection suggests that hyperbolic dichotomies describing the man are wrong. Jefferson is not either a liberal or a conservative, a populist or an aristocrat, antislavery or proslavery, an agrarian or an industrialist, a devoted husband and father or father of slaves. Jefferson is all of these in one complex personality; to Ellis he is "Everyman" (p. 11). "The best and worst of American history are inextricably tangled together in Jefferson," the author claims, "and anyone who confines his search to one side of the moral equation is destined to miss a significant portion of the story" (p. xi).

Ellis concedes that his study is selective. He investigates only "propitious moments" in Jefferson's life. For those who question the choice of where "to zoom in on his thoughts and actions," one is directed to Dumas Malone, Merrill D. Peterson, Eric McKitrick, Paul Finkelman, and Peter S. Onuf, among others (p. xi-xii). Ellis states that he is not writing for fellow historians anyway but for "ordinary people with a general but genuine interest in Thomas Jefferson" (p. xii). Taking him at his own standard he has succeeded in meeting it remarkably well; yet, as the endnotes testify, he has mastered the scholarly literature on his subject.

Ellis first presents Jefferson in 1775 as a methodical yet brilliant essayist on Whig principles. He is next seen in Paris (1784-1789) as a mature, more complicated individual "grown more handsome with age" who is nothing if not overconfident of his abilities and accomplishments (p. 65). As a recluse at Monticello between 1794 and 1797 Ellis plumbs the depths of Jefferson's psyche, especially his views on race and his love of democracy. As a first-term president the author explores Jefferson's tortured relationship with John Marshall, his incessant socializing with congressmen, and his establishment of a minimalist federal government and presidency. Finally in the years 1816 through 1826 we see the "vintage Jefferson" in daily routine. Here Ellis deftly interprets the renewed correspondence between the Sage of Monticello and the Sage of Quincy. In chapter four and in an appendix he touches on the Sally Hemings scandal. He acquits Jefferson, concluding that "the alleged relationship ... if it did exist, defied the dominant patterns of his personality" (p. 306). But on this controversial subject Ellis was prescient. Two years before the appearance of Dr. E. A. Foster's article in the November 5, 1998, issue of Nature, he wrote that we will never know the "truly defining truth" about the Sally Hemings story except through "an exhumation of Jefferson's remains and a DNA comparison with Hemings's descendants" (p. 21).

The book, however, has flaws. It is really a psychological biography and one comes away with new insights into Jefferson's character but not with a deeper understanding of the man himself and his times. There are some gaping holes. Ellis has only a couple of pages on Jefferson's youthful development and introduces him in 1775 as a six-feet-two-inch, thirty-two-year-old delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Jefferson's contributions as secretary of state and his all-important role in leading, or not leading, the nation toward the needless War of 1812 are, as the author concedes, untouched. Jefferson's motives in formulating the states' rights resistance to the Sedition Act, likewise, are neglected. Finally, some individuals would, with justification, challenge Ellis's basic premise, doubt the manichean historiography on Jefferson that the author claims in his prologue, and feel that he has set up a straw man. In that case there might be little reason for scholars to read the book. This reviewer tends to be one of those individuals. Nevertheless, American Sphinx is an imaginative, lively series of vignettes and, most decidedly, a "good read."

ROBERT P. SUTTON

Western Illinois University