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Volume 9, Number 2 (1985) reprinted by permission Legal Studies Forum AMERICAN DREAMS RUTH KNIGHT Scottsville, Virginia The fragrance of honeysuckle drifted lightly in the countryMine, after all, may be a utopian Virginia air as Marianne Jones entered the ash lined lane of the old plantation. The pleasure of her part-time work as a tour guide softened the pain of getting no job offer even though she had a college degree. People on her tours often commented that, although the house compared most humbly to neighboring Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, it was comfortable, the kind of place one could imagine bustling with life. Shooing a longtailed peacock from the porch, Marianne checked the front window to make sure the previous tour had moved on, and then invited the guests in the garden to join her. 'Good afternoon. Welcome to Ash Lawn, home of James Monroe, fifth President of the United States. My name is Marianne Jones." President Monroe's life is fascinating in that he was not an aristocrat in a day when government leaders were. He came from a middle class farm family in Westmoreland County, Virginia. An uncle recognized Monroe's intellectual potential and financially established him as a student at the College of William and Mary in 1774. But soon, the Revolutionary War broke out, and James joined the Third Virginia Infantry. He distinguished himself as a military hero after demonstrating "conspicuous gallantry" in the Battle of Trenton and wintering at Valley Forge with General Washington. Thomas Jefferson, author of many of the ideals Monroe fought for, envisioned a nation wherein a man of ordinary circumstances could rise to great political power on the basis of talent, without regard to parentage or landholdings. Jefferson, himself an aristocrat, hoped young Colonel Monroe would prove this ideal to be reasonable in New America. Thus, Monroe was invited to read law under Jefferson's tutelage, in preparation for a political career." "Excuse me, Miss." A distinguished gentleman in the back interrupted. "The honorable George Wythe was a professor of law at the College of William and Mary at the end of the American Revolution. Why didn't Monroe study law under him, in a proper law school?" "He did consider it, sir. However, his uncle convinced him that the patronage of Thomas Jefferson was more important to his future. his uncle pointed out that reading law under Jefferson could not be compared to the clerical drudge work performed by many legal apprentices of the day. In contrast, Jefferson believed that legal principles formed only a skeletal framework for a life in law, that a law student was not prepared properly until he assimilated the thinking from books which illuminated the fundamental principles of the social order and gave meaning to the law. And in addition, the student needed to practice generating new thoughts." "So you are telling me that when one studied law with Thomas Jefferson he received more than legal basics--he got a liberal education, not to mention a liberal interaction with Jefferson philosophising?" Marianne nodded with a gracious smile and resumed, thankful to have read Ammon's biography of Monroe. After the tour, the gentleman complimented her presentation and added thoughtfully, "You obviously are under the impression that James Monroe was the epitome of the American dream.... I am not so sure." "Well," Marianne replied, "Monroe did rise from humble circumstances to hold more government offices than any other president before or since. He was a farm boy, whose parents could not even afford to send him to college. Yet, he negotiated the purchase of five million acres of land from France, served as both secretary of state and secretary of defense when the nation was at war, authored the Monroe Doctrine. - . - Certainly, these accomplishments reach beyond the dreams of most people." "Most people, yes. I will agree with you there. But don't you think Jefferson hoped for more in James Monroe?" "What more could you ask? Monroe was President of the United States during an 'Era of Good Feeling!... "But that is not the point. You expertly explained the difference between the study of law with Thomas Jefferson and the study of law in a law school or with another lawyer. Compare that to politics, or to life in general. If you read Monroe's letters to Jefferson, you can't help but notice that in four decades Monroe never wrote on theories of government, society, and the nature of man--all those elevated thoughts to which Jefferson gave so much attention in his correspondence with Madison and others. On the contrary, Monroe's letters deal exclusively with the world of practical affairs. Clearly, Monroe was devoted to the nation and was diligent, knowledgeable, analytic, and thorough. He established national and international policies in the traditional mold. But did he generate visions? Can he be the American Dream if he did not dream?" Marianne talked with her knowledgeable guest a while longer and then excused herself politely to begin the next tour, ruefully remarking to herself that this history buff had a new twist on the old refrain of, "Jefferson's house was so much nicer. . . ." Her next tour was a group of senior citizens from Missouri. Marianne changed her spiel to include more information on architecture, crafts, and furnishings when she saw arthritic hands reach lovingly toward the antiques, in spite of her earlier request not to touch. One tiny lady knelt beside the Monroe bed and adjusted her bifocals so she could count ten stitches to the inch quilting on the coverlet. Tears rose to the women's eyes as she said, "To think that over two hundred years ago someone designed this lovely quilt, pieced it--look, the pieces are as small as my watch face--bound it, appliqued it, and placed a million even little stiches. . . . Though she is long dead, we still have her handiwork to inspire us." Her embarrassed husband pulled her to her feet and she silently enjoyed the clock with the handcarved wooden works, the handwoven French tapestries, and the carefully painted china faces of the dolls Monroe's grandchildren played with. After the presentation, she escaped her husband long enough to thank Marianne for pointing out the "little things that give this country its texture and depth." After the last tour of the day, Marianne said goodnight to the other guides who had arrived earlier then she, and began to lock up. In the oldest portion of the house, Marianne slid the worn wooden bars into place over the doors, noticing the silhouette of Elizabeth Monroe, a beautiful and stylish lady, whose family lost its sizeable fortune during the revolution. Acquaintances in Albemarle County referred to James Monroe affectionately as "The Colonel," a friendly, simple, "homespun" neighbor. He called this small house his "cabin castle" during the twenty-three years it was home. Marianne wondered what Elizabeth called it. Elizabeth, who, though she was never fully reimbursed, elegantly and tastefully furnished the White House in fine brass-inlayed French empire furnishings after its War of 1812 destruction. Elizabeth was recognized in the court of Napolean and her etiquette impressed foreign dignitaries. For two decades the Monroes assured visitors this was just a temporary abode, that a grander home was soon to be constructed. But their financial difficulties were continuous. Monroe's constant attention to public duties for which he was inadequately paid forced him to rely on overseers whom he was in no position to supervise. The genteel planters who traditionally went into politics "patriotically" drew on their personal fortunes instead of asking for expense allowances or higher pay while they distinguished themselves in public service and established important ideals for the masses to emulate. When Monroe was in public office he was expected to maintain a standard of living traditionally suitable to that office. Thus, he followed the example of his colleagues in attempting to establish a plantation that ran itself. After extinguishing the candles in the brass sconces, Marianne descended the outside stairs to the kitchen yard to lock the basement rooms with a ring of giant iron keys. She had never ventured beyond the restored basement kitchen to the unrestored, dirt floored, earth smelling cellars hidden from the gaze of tourists. On impulse, she lit a candle and pushed open the heavy hand hewn door. Stepping over and between dented apple butter caldrons, wash boilers, spider legged pots, and large mechanical gadgets so long out of use that their purposes were forgotten, she reached the back of the storeroom and pushed the door in its rear wall that opened into damp blackness. When her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she moved the candle flame along the stone walls to see the dilapidated remains of what must have been wine racks. Remnants of whitewash clung to the large stones of the foundation walls and the huge beams overhead that still firmly held up the house. In Charlottesville people still speak of "the late Mr. Jefferson" as though he was almost still alive, and retell the polished stories of his casual visits with Madison and Monroe in courthouse square. Tourists flock to historic homes to glimpse the objects these great men touched and the paths they walked. But the people who carved these foundation stones out of remote quarries, lifted rough beams into place, and supported the lifestyles of those shapers of America are dimly remembered, if remembered at all. Was it because they had no dreams, or because their dreams were less valuable to the future? As Marianne turned to leave, her thoughts were distant and she slipped on the wet clay floor, her candle snuffing itself in a shallow puddle. Not certain just how long she sat there in the cool darkness, she finally groped her way out into the evening, hoping to find a flashlight in the staffroom so she could locate where she dropped the keys and the candle. Up the outside stairs, and ... strange . . . . The post Civil War addition to the house was gone. She stood on the upper porch and scanned the kitchen yard. Smoke came from the chimney of the overseer's cottage and faint lights glowed from windows far out in a field that, yesterday, had been empty except for a few cows. The Monroe house was dark, so Marianne made her way across the yard, marveling that outbuildings had sprung from nowhere. She knocked loudly on the door of the overseer's cottage, but no one answered. Through the wavy glass of the window, she could see a man and a women and several children, but they did not hear her even when she pounded. The man looked grim. The women spoke with a heavy country dialect, "You can't blame yourself. None of the plantations have been producing, I heard from Betsy up at Monticello that even Mr. Jefferson's finances was in such a state last year that he asked the legislature if he could dispose of the whole plantation in a lottery. Mr. Monroe is worse off because he don't have as much to sell. I heard he was $75,000 in debt--can you imagine--and the bank let him turn this place over and called it $25,000 since that was what he owed, and, as president, he could keep up appearances. "Appearances!" The man's voice rose and he ran his fingers wildly through his heir. "Mrs. Monroe up there in her dresses from Paris, riding in carriages with silk cushions, inviting famous people to dinner then wondering why I can't make money for her. I will tell you why I can't make this place pay--it ain't mine. I can't even save enough on these wages to buy a piece of ground in Fluvanna." He turned to face her. "Do you know what them darkies done today? I told them this morning that the traders was coming to appraise them and that they needed to show how hard they could work. I told them to smile. I wanted them to look expensive and well cared for. Instead they go out in the most tattered rags they can find, and move slow and kind of sick-like, as if that would keep 'em from being sold or something. I had to horsewhip the ringleader for that little trick, I did. That Amos, he just looks at me, baleful, like a mule too stupid or stubborn to do what he is told, no matter how many stripes he gets. The man shook his head and changed the subject. "Maybe we should go west. If we could just get out there, they say the government's giving away land in Ohio .... " In a shack near the trees, a man with a fragile brown face, wearing a coarse, homespun workshirt, finished writing with a quill in a binder labeled "Farm Book." Then, pushing aside the blanket that covered the door, he paced outside taking all of Monticello mountain and the starry sky into his gaze. Realizing he could not see her, Marianne's curiousity drew her into the cabin and the Farm Book. After pages of figures and lists she found crude letters laboriously scrawled over the ledger lines of the last half of a partly used accounting record.
[221] It should not be like we never was here. We live here [222] like we all do. The dream of all men being equal with a rightSuddenly interrupted by loud voices, Marianne dropped the Farm Book and ran outside. The darkest, fiercest young man she had ever seen stood with his back to her and the faint light from the cabin. A salve that smelled of mint covered the oozing bloody welts on his shoulders, and he shouted at Ishrael. Then he whirled around and lunged right at Marianne. Like she was not even there he slammed into the cabin and started pulling things off the wall pegs and looking under the bed. When he spied the Farm Book, he shook it in Ishrael's face, crying that slaves do not write history. That the ugly silence must speak their dreams to the future. Then he flung the book into the flames and held Ishrael back while the burning pages flared immortally in the reflection of their eyes. Marianne lept to the fire and thrust her hands into it after the book but it was not hot. It was not fire. It was the cool, uncut grass of the cow pasture. Looking back she saw the eighteen sixties addition towering over the Monroe house as always, and returned slowly, thinking. Monroe had dreams. He dreamed of making America more American, less European. He dreamed of upward mobility. He dreamed of improving his ability to provide well for his family. But mostly, he took a blueprint he trusted and went to work. The plan he used, like fine art, has been interpreted many ways in the years since, and many builders have been accused of not reading it accurately. Subsequent edifices constructed with it as a basis, both public and private, too often appeal best to the rich and powerful, never quite reflecting the vibrancy of a true vision. Some people even go so far as to say that the blueprint is utopian, impossible for imperfect beings to follow. But some say a truly great dream grows as it is implemented, however imperfectly. As Marianne drove the winding road home past Monticello into Charlottesville, she asked herself: Shall I cast the American dream in the fire or do I keepOn entering her apartment, the first thing to meet Marianne's eyes was the photograph of her parents the day they graduated from Southeastern Negro Teacher's College. Next to it hung her own diploma from Mr. Jefferson's University. In her own ebony reflection in the hall mirror, she was unable to discern whether the fire in her eyes was generated from Ishreel or Amos . . . or from the depths of her own soul where burned the renaissance dream that each and every person is potentially extraordinary. |
