Conclusion

It is the duty of the philosophe engage, following Voltaire’s lead, to guide the present along a path to a better future. In The Founding Fathers Recon­sidered, R. B. Bernstein remarks on the tendency of many participants at the founding to see ‘the Enlightenment as an opportunity for a gigantic project of sorting human wisdom - identifying and conserving what was worth conserving in the best of the past while setting aside what had to be revised or replaced’.⁵⁷

Jefferson saw the future of the nascent republic - by 1801 twice founded - as viable only to the extent that it took responsibility for its destiny.

Hatsell’s Precedents of Proceedings furnished readers with a store of data that was pre-sampled and pre-digested. Jefferson accepted Hatsell’s premises and built on them as if they were foundations for his - and America’s - great forward-looking project. For Jefferson the supreme goal was to liberate pos­terity so it might determine its way forward. The standards Jefferson invoked were of Palladian dignity: accuracy in business, economy of time, order, uni­formity and impartiality. When members constructed a code of rules or mere mini-code of prescriptions, these standards were available to frame the behav­iour of members as they laboured on these projects in the course of becoming.

Jefferson offered a minimal pedigree for the Senate’s Rules. British prac­tices were there to supply comparisons but did not supply ancestry.

A code did not require a massive substructure. However, when it came to performance standards - ready to be deployed at any encounter with the procedural present - Jefferson was all detail and nuance. He declared his standards for the reader. Only at that point did Jefferson quote Hatsell’s standards for procedural rules. ‘It is very material that order, decency, and regularity be preserved in a dignified public body. 2 Hats. 149’.

Jefferson conceived of getting everything he wanted to say - and everything we needed to hear - into a work of 31,000 words. He accomplished this purpose by compressing over 30 years of sporadic and uneven study - as evi­denced by his Pocket-Book - into his Manual. Jefferson was the first scholar in the nineteenth century who rose to the challenge of building on Hatsell’s Precedents of Proceedings. It helps to be first in any literary enterprise and Jefferson was not one to let such a golden opportunity slip from his grasp.

Notes

1 Howell, British Logic.

2 See text at 51-52.

3 Maurois, Voltaire, 131-132.

4 The following well-worn quotation is apocryphal: French foreign minister Count de Vergennes is said to have remarked to Jefferson, ‘You replace Monsieur Franklin, I hear’. Jefferson replied, ‘I succeed. No man can replace him’. This exchange is attributable to the industrious Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909).

5 Jefferson, Parliamentary Writings, 43-46.

6 monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/debt; last retrieved 20 February 2017.

7 John Adams to Timothy Pickering on 6 August 1822. Founders Online, National Archives, last modified 28 December 2016; last retrieved 31 January 2017. http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7674.

8 See inaugural.senate.gov/about/past-inaugural-ceremonies/3rd-inaugural-ceremo nies/ Last retrieved 16 February 2017.

9 Jefferson, Manual, 369.

10 Jefferson, Parliamentary Writings, 38.

11 Maddicott, Origins, 255.

12 Ibid, 453, 451.

13 Jefferson, Manual, 355.

14 Ibid.

15 Documentary History, 1:18-20 [Senate]; III:11-15 [House of Representatives].

16 Ibid., I: 84 [House of Representatives].

17 The ratio in unmediated citations to the Commons Journal against the Lords Journal is 12 to 3 by author’s count.

18 Jefferson, Manual, 419.

19 Ibid., 355.

20 Jefferson, Parliamentary Writings, 45.

21 Ibid.

22 Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe on 28 February 1800. Founders Online, National Archives, last modified 28 December 2016; last retrieved 31 Janu­ary 2017. http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-31-02-0342.

23 George Wythe to Thomas Jefferson, “Enclosure: Queries on Parliamentary Procedure,” on 7 December 1800. Founders Online, National Archives, last modified 28 December 2016;last retrieved 31 January 2017. http://founders. archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-32-02-0191.

24 Ibid.

25 Jefferson, Manual, 402.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., 377.

28 Burke, Works, 3:231 at 310; Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Hamilton, Papers, 2:400-403. Blackstone, Commentaries, 151.

29 Records, 1:153, 7 June 1787; 2:278, 13 August 1787.

30 Jefferson, Papers, 1:121-37. ‘A Summary View of the Rights of America’. [MS Text].

31 Ibid., 3:304-08. To Dr. Benjamin Rush, 16 January 1811.

32 Jefferson, Parliamentary Writings, 47, 49, 101.

33 Ibid., 6.

34 Ibid., 107.

35 Ibid., 101. W. S. Howell employed ‘Hakewill’; TJ used abbreviations Hakew, Hek- ewel and Hakewell. TJ’s reference here is to Modus Tenendi Parliamentum (1671). Other editions were cited by eighteenth century authors, such as Clerk of the House of Commons Nicholas Hardinge who served as Clerk from 1732 to 1748.

36 Scobell, Memorials, 41.

37 Ibid., 40.

38 Word and citation counts by author.

39 Documentary History I:84 [Madison’s proposal referred to Committee of the Whole House].

40 Westv. Barnes, 2 U.S. 401 (1791) [Supreme Court’s first decision; 3 August 1791].

41 The decision - handed down 18 February 1793 - was overturned by adop­tion and ratification of 11th Amendment; declaration of ratification 8 January 1798].

42 Jefferson, Papers, 29:275-76. Letter to Geo. Wythe, 22 January 1797.

43 Jefferson, Manual, 355.

44 Ibid.

45 Palladio, Four Books, 41.

46 Vitruvius, De Architectura.

47 Ibid., 2.1.

48 Palladio, Four Books, 41.

49 Hatsell, Members/Speaker, 150.

50 Jefferson, Manual, 356.

51 Vitruvius, De Architectura, 1.1.

52 Jefferson, Manual, 355.

53 Ibid., 393.

54 Jefferson, Papers, 33:134-52. First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801.

55 Ibid.

56 Tavernor, Palladio, 209.

57 Bernstein, Founding Fathers, 23.