‘The motion of the machinery’
Speakers and writers in the eighteenth century found it convenient to conÂvey, in metaphor, the relationship between political and civil society. ‘GovÂernment is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants’, Burke observed in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
HamÂilton preceded him in detailing measures to ‘give new life and energy to the operations of government’ (1780), whereas Blackstone supplied an earÂlier source for the ‘distinct powers in mechanics [which] jointly impel the machine of government’ (1765). Blackstone was speaking of the various‘I have begun a sketch’ 83 functions that political society distributes among the actors and bodies who operate in its sphere.28
‘Let our Govt. be like that of the solar System; let the Genl. Govt. be the Sun and the States the Planets repelled yet attracted’, John Dickenson drew his metaphor from space, enthusing ‘the whole’ system ‘moving regularly and harmoniously in their respective Orbits’. A delegate to the federal convention at Philadelphia (1787), Dickenson also applied the machine metaphor when he warned that experience at Westminster ‘must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us. It was not Reason that discovered the singular & admirable mechanism of the English Constitution’.29
Jefferson’s contribution appeared in his pamphlet A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774). The Summary View was the essay into public print that launched Jefferson’s career from the Virginia House of Burgesses and into the Continental Congress. Jefferson drew on the SumÂmary View for his draft of the Declaration of Independence. His Majesty, he wrote
will think we have reason to expect, when he reflects that he was no more than the chief officer of the people, appointed by the laws, and cirÂcumscribed with definite powers, to assist in working the great machine of government, erected for their use, and, consequently, subject to their superintendence.30
In November 1800, when the President’s Palace was under construction, Jefferson paid a courtesy call on President John Adams.
Adams exhibited his surly self on the occasion of Jefferson’s visit; he remained inconsolable at his third place finish in that year’s presidential election. Adams mainÂtained his truculent stance, misbehaving to the point of refusing to attend Jefferson’s inauguration in March 1801. Only Adams, among sitting Presidents defeated at the polls, has declined the courtesy that a nation expects of its leaders when a peaceful transition of power takes place.Jefferson recalled his attempt to make polite conversation with Adams. ‘Were we both to die to-day to-morrow two other names would be in the place of ours, without any change in the motion of the machinery. Its motion is from its principle, not from you or myself’.31 It was one of the oddities of history that Adams and Jefferson died on the same day: 4 July 1826, the day the new republic celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.