Protégé sons
What would the lives be like for the sons of prominent political figures be like*
#2
Peter Wayles Jefferson was born on May 28, 1777, at Monticello, his father's estate in Virginia, which had declared the former British Colony to become a free and independent state on May 15, 1776. His father was Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and his mother was Martha Wayles Skelton.
His paternal grandparents were Peter Jefferson, his name sake, who was a planter and surveyor, and Jane Randolph, while his maternal grandparents were John Wayles (1715–1773), an attorney, slave trader, business agent for Bristol-based merchants Farrell & Jones, and prosperous planter and his first wife, Martha Eppes (1712–1748)
During his parents' ten years of marriage, they had six children: Martha "Patsy" (1772–1836); Jane (1774–1775); himself (1777-1860); Mary Wayles "Polly" (1778–1804); Lucy Elizabeth (1780–1781); and another Lucy Elizabeth (1782–1784). Out of these six children, only Martha, Mary and Peter survived into adulthood.
The family lived a genteel lifestyle and Peter was initially schooled at home, while his father, was away in Philadelphia. His studies included learning French, History and Latin. When he was two years of age, his father was elected on June 1, 1779, becaming the governor of Virginia and the family first lived in Williamsburg. The government moved to Richmond in 1780 and the family relocated there. British troops advanced to Richmond in May 1781 and, due to advance warning, the Jeffersons escaped to their country home, Poplar Forest.
A few months after his fifth birthday, his mother died on September 6, 1782, four months after the birth of the Jeffersons' last child, at age 33. The whole family shared in their father's grief, with his older sister Patsy stating, "in those melancholy rambles I was his constant companion, a solitary witness to many a violent burst of grief and became surrogate mother to her siblings." Patsy was only 10 years of age when her mother died.
Although only seven years old, Peter was invited to travel with his older sister Patsy and their father, to Boston, along with their African-American slave, James Hemings. They set sail for Paris on the ship Ceres on July 5, 1784 and arrived in France on August 6, 1784. The two children would live in Paris with their father, while he served as U.S. Minister to France.
Thomas Jefferson enrolled his daughter into the Pentemont Abbey, an exclusive convent school, after receiving assurances that Protestant students were exempt from religious instruction, while Peter, was sent to the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand, located in the heart of the Quartier Latin, the traditional student district of Paris, where he learnt learning learned arithmetic, geography, world history, Latin and three speaking languages.
In September 1789, after the beginning of the French Revolution, 13 year old, Peter Jefferson, his father, his sisters, and James and Sally Hemings sailed for home.
In 1792, at the age of 15, while his father was serving President George Washington as 1st United States Secretary of State, Peter went to his father's former College of William & Mary, where he studied ethics, logic, languages and law underneath professor George Wythe, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, mentor of his father, and judge on Virginia's High Court of Chancery. He also studied along side, fellow Virginian born, Henry Clay, whom became a life long friend.
Hampered by a crippled hand, Wythe would ask that Clay and Jefferson would assist him as his secretary and amanuensis
The pair would graduate in the early months of 1796, Wythe arranged for both his key students to take a position with the Virginia attorney general, Robert Brooke, with the understanding that Brooke would finish their legal studies.
In the same year, Peter married his third cousin, Jane Cary Randolph, daughter of Thomas Mann Randolph Sr. and sister of Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., a Virginian planter, soldier, Virginia Senator and future Governor of Virginia, who was married to his sister, Martha Jefferson. It would be on November 2 that his father would be defeated by Vice President John Adams, in the U.S. presidential election,but by coming second, Thomas would be the next Vice President.
Under Brooke's tutelage, Henry Clay and Peter Jefferson was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1797; while Clay would travel to Lexington, Kentucky, Jefferson, would take practice law in his home town, while also taking care of Monticello plantation.
On December 28th, 1799, Jefferson would serve as secretary to 12th Governor of Virginia, James Madison, being in the right place at the right time, saw his next opportunity, when Robert Brooke, stood down as Attorney General of Virginia, on February 27, 1800, Governor Madison and then elected by General Assembly. Jefferson would hold this office, for over 17 years, until being offered another office by his former governor.
President James Monroe, would appoint, Peter Jefferson as the ninth Attorney General of the United States, a position he held for 12 years, through the administration of
John Quincy Adams, until 1829, an accomplish that would not be beaten, making him the record holder for the longest tenure in history of any U.S. attorney general.
On the death of his father, on 4th July 1826, 49 year old Peter, believed that it was time to leave his father's party, which had fractured and been dividing itself for years due to it being the only national American political party for over a decade, to join the National Republicans.
Following John Q. Adams defeat in 1828, to Andrew Jackson, Peter Jefferson, was asked to step down from the Attorney General office, but was offered the position of, United States Minister to France, Peter Jefferson took office, 44 years after his father served that same office, high demands from Americans, for compensation after the capturing of American ships and sailors, dating from the Napoleonic era, caused strained relations between the American and French governments.
The French Navy had captured and sent American ships to Spanish ports while holding their crews captive forcing them to labor without any charges or judicial rules. According to Secretary of State, Martin Van Buren, relations between the U.S. and France were "hopeless."
However, with his fluent French speeches and links with childhood friend, Jefferson was able to convince the French government to sign a reparations treaty on June 27, 1831, that would award the United States, ₣50,000,000 ($10,000,000) in damages.
The French government became delinquent in payment due to internal financial and political difficulties, but after firm insistence from the United States, payments were finally made in February 1836.
During the 1831, National Republican Convention, Jefferson's name, was suggested as a candidate for the Presidential nomination, however he decline the nomination, instead supporting Henry Clay. Jefferson would also decline the Vice Presidential nomination, stating that the ticket needed a northern candidate, nominating former New Jersey Attorney General and US Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen; whom in the Senate, had shown strong opposition to President Andrew Jackson's policy of Indian removal.
The election of 1832 was a close one, with the backing and campaigning of Peter Jefferson, the Nation Republican party was able to form an Anti-Jackson coalition with disaffected Jacksonians, and small remnants of the Federalist Party whose last political activity was with them a decade before, with the ordinary northern population, seeing that there was no privileged elite and that the National Republican's were working for them and not "King Andrew"
Andrew Jackson, lost South Carolina to John Floyd's Nullifier Party, while many states in the North was lost to Henry Clay.
With Henry Clay as President, Peter Jefferson, was nominated and approved to the office of Secretary of State, another office, shared with his father. During this term, the coalition of Anti-Jacksons saw the party change its name to simply being called Republican, while the Jacksonites formed the Democrats.
In July 1836, Henry Clay would nominate Jefferson to succeed Chief Justice
John Marshall, who had died earlier in 1835, some historians believe Clay wanted Jefferson away from running in the upcoming election, while diary's later found that Jefferson, wrote that he never wanted the office of President, seeing the Chief Justice, a more important office of holding the legislative and executive offices to account.
Peter Jefferson would hold the office of Chief Justice for 26 years, being famous for delivering the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), ruling that African-Americans were to be considered citizens, stating that his father said "all men were created equal" and that Congress was in a position to prohibit slavery in the new territories of the United States, Jefferson preside over a jurisprudential support federal authority but not rejecting states' rights or go as far as to push for the absolute abolishment of slavery in the Southern States.
Like his father, Peter was widely respected, and many elected officials looked to the Supreme Court to settle the national debate over slavery. Jefferson had been silent on slavery, but had private conversations stating that he would not like to be asked to deal with any cases regarding Northern attacks on the institution, as he saw them as doing the lords work, and he sought to use his Dred Scott decision to progressively push slavery away from the subject of national debate.
However all it did was rally the pro-slavery Democratic Party, who in 1860, rallied behind Kentucky Senator, John C. Breckinridge, hoping to use the office of President to change the ruling, luckily the American, though northern and western states, elected New York Governor, William H. Seward and his running mate, Senator Charles Sumner from Massachusetts.
On 4 March 1861, 83 year old, frail Chief Justice, Peter Jefferson shuffled onto the top of the steps at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. to administer the presidential oath of office to President William H. Seward. Over a month later, his house maid, would find him dead in his bed, peacefully, next to him on his bedside cabinet, was a dream journal opened to a page which simply read, "I dreamt of the promise land, talk to William, Peter and Thomas"
Peter became the first non-presidential state funeral, his remains were transported by a cavalry regiment to the Capitol where he lay in state in the rotunda on April 11, until the morning of April 13. After a short funeral service, Jefferson's remains were meant to be taken back to the family tomb, for interment, however due to the Civil War, that broke the day after his death, his body was buried in the ground of the White House, until the end of the war when on May 11, 1865, he finally returned to Monticello, Virgina.
It has come to historian's knowledge that Peter Jefferson had been informed by his father that Thomas had long-term sexual relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and Peter had taken it as his duty to adopt the four of Hemings's children, who survived into adulthood as his half-siblings, free from slavery.
This is in no way means to be sexist, its just taking on the fact that the generic gender of western political officers holders in the past have been male.
Previous Protege Sons
1)
George Augustine Washington