01x03 - Jefferson at w*r (1777-1784)

[bunniefuu]

- Previously on

"Thomas Jefferson"

[dramatic music]

- Jefferson writes

a letter called

"A Summary View of the Rights

of British America."

- It's an outlay of everything

that the British government

and everything the king,

George III,

has kind of done wrong.

- The British imposed

a series of taxes

that causes people

on both sides of the Atlantic

to reevaluate

that relationship

and think about who's

in charge.

♪♪

- At the Second

Continental Congress,

all the great leading lights

of the colonies are convening.

- John Hancock appoints

a committee of five men

to draft a declaration

of American independence.

- The glamorous work

is giving the speeches.

The hard work is

being delegated

to this younger Virginian

who wields a great pen

and is known for that.

And so Jefferson gets

drafted to be the draftsman.

- What sets Jefferson apart

is the capacity

and the gift of articulation.

Nobody wrote better.

He mobilized

the English language

and sent it into battle.

And in this case,

it was the battle for an ethos

and an aspiration of liberty.

- But as Jefferson

is talking about,

"All men are created equal,"

he's there with his wife's

enslaved half-brother.

- The fact

that the core contradiction

of the idea that all men

are created equal,

and Jefferson being

a sl*ve owner,

and that original sin

being baked in that cake

gnaws at us still.

But it ultimately

doesn't reduce its power.

- Because signing

the Declaration was signing

your own death warrant.

♪♪

They were subjects

of King George III.

And now they were rebels.

- Now the hard work begins.

They need to win the w*r.

♪♪

♪♪

- As the celebrations

of independence quiet

in the summer of 1776

♪♪

Reality sets in

for a new nation at w*r.

- The story of the Revolution

is immensely more

complicated than

Declaration of Independence,

joyous new nation.

Debt, foreign relations,

relationships between the states, defense,

all of these things

were still unfolding.

- In the summer of 1776,

just as Congress votes

in favor of independence

and adopts this declaration,

a 30,000-man expeditionary

force arrives in New York

to suppress this rebellion.

♪♪

It's the largest expeditionary

force the British had ever

sent abroad to that point.

It's a massive army by the

standards of the 18th century.

♪♪

- At that point, Americans

are a ragtag conglomeration

of colonial militias.

♪♪

How can we possibly accomplish

this in the face of one

of the mightiest armies

upon the globe?

♪♪

- The British capture

New York pretty easily.

They rout the Continental Army

at Brooklyn,

and then they end up

chasing Washington

and the Continental Army

up into Westchester

and then southwest

across New Jersey.

♪♪

There's a great deal

of uncertainty

in the summer of 1776.

♪♪

- Because you've

got to remember,

a significant portion

of the citizenry

doesn't want independence

from Britain.

So you've got British loyalists

who aren't on board.

And they're your friends

and your neighbors,

and they're

actively cooperating

with the redcoats,

who are coming

to reassert their primacy.

- The sentiment at the time

was a very profound

and intense mixture

of exultation and fear.

- But while soldiers

are fighting and dying,

Jefferson doesn't partake

in the military, notably.

He tries to serve his state,

his attempted newfound nation

in other ways.

♪♪

- Jefferson's leadership

during the w*r

was in a more

civilian capacity.

♪♪

- The states have

to redraft their laws.

They can't use

their old colonial charters.

They have to start

from scratch.

♪♪

Virginia is closest

to Jefferson's heart.

It's a place

of great importance

in this new

republican experiment.

Jefferson knew himself

and knew his strengths,

and so Jefferson comes back

from Philadelphia

to help redraft the laws

of Virginia.

Jefferson says,

this lawmaking is as important

as the w*r of Independence.

And when Washington's

at Valley Forge,

he might not be

thinking the same thing.

But he said,

this is the real work

because otherwise,

it doesn't matter.

♪♪

And so he sets about reforming

and revolutionizing Virginia.

♪♪

Prior to independence,

Virginia had a state church.

It was the Anglican church.

It wasn't very well attended,

necessarily,

but it was state supported

in the sense

that people's taxes

went to support

this religious establishment.

And it was his strong belief,

and he became really skeptical

in matters of religion,

that there shouldn't

be state-supported religion.

♪♪

- Jefferson was not

a conventional Christian

in any way.

He did not believe in the

divinity of Jesus of Nazareth.

He did not believe

in the Trinity.

He called those kinds

of theological arguments

"monkish superstition."

♪♪

- And so very early on,

Jefferson is interested

in the separation

of church and state,

because he thought, along

with Enlightenment thinkers,

the church had had too much

of an influence in Europe.

♪♪

- You know, as Englishmen,

they believed

in dieu et mon droit,

"God is my right,"

the motto of the royal family.

♪♪

- But Jefferson understands,

because he reads history,

that whenever religion and

the government get together,

it's bad.

It's bad for the people.

It's bad for the government.

It's also, by the way,

bad for the religion.

♪♪

- He writes that there should

be a wall of separation

between church and state.

Now, that wall

is doing two things.

Just as there shouldn't be

undue influence of religion

on the state,

there should not be

undue influence by the state

interfering with religion.

- In 1777, Jefferson drafts

the Virginia Statute

for Religious Freedom,

a statement about both freedom

of conscience

and the principle

of separation

of church and state.

Though it will

not be written into law

for another seven years,

the statute is the basis

for what will become one

of the defining tenets

of the American government,

the First Amendment.

- He says, this is what makes

us better than Europeans.

We're not forced

to pay taxes to support

a religious establishment.

And Jefferson's very,

very proud of this.

Virginia,

as he sees it, is first

in disestablishing religion.

- The separation

of church and state

is a key indicator

of freedom for him,

but it is a rebellion

against orthodoxy.

And an orthodoxy has a general

tendency to impose itself

upon individual freedom

and especially freedom

of conscience, so you see

Jefferson waving the banner

of individual freedom

of conscience

against any imposition by

larger forces or orthodoxies.

- And this is a really

important and powerful step,

and a big part of what

the country we know today

is supposedly about.

♪♪

- Jefferson's closest partner

in authoring the statute

for Separation

of Church and State

is newcomer to the Virginia

legislature, James Madison.

♪♪

- Madison is

the junior partner.

He's small.

He's brilliant.

He's a writer.

He's who Jefferson is

in closest contact with.

And Jefferson drafts Madison

into his camp over time.

♪♪

- Friendship was a very

important thing to Jefferson.

And Jefferson

and Madison were friends.

His political allies were not

just instrumental connections.

These were his people.

- Between 1777 and 1778,

Jefferson and Madison

draft over a hundred bills

that go on to shape Virginian

and then federal laws.

♪♪

But while Jefferson

toils over statutes,

the w*r begins to move south.

- In the north,

the British focused

on occupying major cities,

Boston,

and New York,

and Philadelphia.

As the w*r moves south,

the British strategy changes.

The southern w*r

is guerrilla w*r.

It's a much more chaotic w*r.

♪♪

- And then, in 1779,

Thomas Jefferson

is voted in as the second

elected governor

of the New Commonwealth

of Virginia.

This is during the time

when the w*r is raging all

throughout the colonies

and is making its way

more directly to Virginia.

- And at this point, thanks

to the "Summary View

of the Rights

of British America,"

he's an important political

figure in Virginia.

But Jefferson's

governorship is one

of the most controversial

periods of his life,

and certainly

of his public life.

- And now,

Jefferson the enlightened,

naive young lawyer,

philosopher, would-be statesman

has a reality check.

- Jefferson's sharpest weapon

has always been his intellect.

♪♪

Now he's thrust into a place

he'd never imagined he'd be,

the front lines of w*r.

♪♪

[dramatic music]

- In the summer of 1779,

as Jefferson settles

into his role as governor,

the w*r begins to move south,

and the threat of violence

looms over Virginia.

♪♪

- The British had

been waging w*r

for five years at this point.

They're angry.

This w*r has been very

unpleasant for the British.

It hasn't gone very well.

- It's one thing

to go into a country

and try to depose

a set of rulers.

It's another thing

to try to occupy

a large swath of territory.

♪♪

Armies take.

They need food,

they need shelter, space.

They generate hostility

to their presence.

♪♪

The British Army just couldn't

manage the process of being

an occupying force against

what was a much weaker power,

but had the home

field advantage.

♪♪

- So it's been a nasty,

intractable insurgency

in many respects.

And they've kind of

taken off the gloves.

♪♪

- But as Jefferson bears

the weight on his shoulders

for the responsibility

of protecting and defending

the Commonwealth of Virginia,

Jefferson and others just

do not believe that the enemy

is going to have

any effect on Virginia.

He says the w*r

is happening up north.

♪♪

And he says Virginian farmers

need to return to business.

They need to return

to farming and the sustenance

of their families.

- However, at the end of 1779

and the beginning of 1780,

British ships have been seen

off the coast of Virginia.

♪♪

And he's slow

in reacting to that.

♪♪

- That year of 1779 to 1780,

Jefferson finally

begins to worry

about keeping the capital

in Williamsburg

because the enemy could

sail up the James River

and lay siege.

♪♪

So they moved

the capital that spring

to much better defended ground

on the heights of Richmond.

♪♪

But then they receive

information and knowledge

that the enemy is sailing up

the James River to Richmond.

- His letters during this time

are calls for help.

♪♪

He's trying to conscript

people back to his side.

He's saying,

we're being attacked.

- We shall omit nothing

in our power for the support

of the troops,

but I must appraise you

that our means of supply

are not at present

what they have been,

so that they

may perhaps suffer,

though they shall not

if we can prevent it.

♪♪

- But Washington doesn't have

that many troops to spare

and doesn't quite say,

well, you're on your own,

but that's kind of

the implication.

- And then on January 1, 1781,

1,600 British troops,

including an elite green coat

division under Benedict Arnold

known as Dragoons,

storm Richmond and wreak havoc

on the new capital city.

- There are constant

British attacks,

a very fateful one

of which is led by the traitor

Benedict Arnold.

- When the British come,

an enslaved man says

within ten minutes

there wasn't a white man

to be seen in town.

♪♪

Everybody else had

scattered to the four winds.

♪♪

- Jefferson is struggling

to govern a society

that is falling apart

around him.

- When British forces arrive,

the Virginia troops

don't stand a chance.

- The invasion of Virginia is

an existential moment for him.

You have the most powerful army

in the world

in your neighborhood.

And from a quarry

as significant

as Thomas Jefferson,

there would be

immense personal insecurity

about falling

into the hands of the British.

- And then Jefferson

himself is almost

captured by Arnold's forces.

♪♪

- The British officers said,

where is Governor Jefferson?

We are here

with these silver handcuffs

to take

Governor Jefferson prisoner.

♪♪

- But he escapes.

And the government

has to flee Richmond.

They go to Charlottesville.

♪♪

Virginia's a mess.

♪♪

- Just over a week after

fleeing from Williamsburg

to Richmond,

Virginia officials are forced

to set up a new capital

in Charlottesville,

only 4 miles

from Jefferson's home.

For safety,

Jefferson takes the highest

ranking members of the

Virginia House of Delegates

in at Monticello.

He is living there

with his wife,

his nine-year-old daughter,

Martha,

and his three-year-old

daughter, Maria.

- Jefferson,

during this entire period,

is wondering whether,

first and foremost,

we can still conduct

our government

out west in Virginia,

but what is going

to happen to my family, to me?

♪♪

All of this turmoil,

all of this upheaving

is naturally going to have

an effect on their family

♪♪

And have an effect

on a young Mrs. Jefferson,

who is constantly pregnant.

♪♪

We know that childbirth was

extremely difficult for her.

Over a period of ten years,

she gives birth

to six children.

♪♪

Martha is the eldest.

The second child,

a little girl, Jane,

does not live very long.

The third child

is a little boy,

Peter, named

for Jefferson's father,

doesn't survive

but a few days.

Their fourth child is Maria.

She does survive infancy.

In the winter of 1781,

his wife had just

suffered the death

of their fifth child

and would be pregnant

with their sixth child.

♪♪

- Meanwhile, the British

troops continue moving west,

closer to Monticello.

♪♪

- The British dragoons seek

the capture of as many members

of the Virginia

House of Delegates

in Charlottesville, where

they know they are in hiding.

But certainly, the one who has

the highest price on his head

is the governor of

the Commonwealth of Virginia.

♪♪

- It's a chess match.

The British want to capture

the governor of Virginia.

Jefferson is the prize.

♪♪

[dramatic music]

- As British troops march

west through Virginia,

the threat

against Jefferson grows.

With each passing day,

the British

get closer and closer

to the new capital

in Charlottesville

and his home, Monticello.

♪♪

- So in May of 1781, he sends

a letter to George Washington.

♪♪

It's another plea

to Washington for help.

- Jefferson writes

to Washington,

the whole force of the enemy

within this state

I think is about 7,000 men.

Your excellency will judge

from this state of things

and from what you know

of your own country

what it may probably suffer

during the present campaign.

- And the British continue to

attempt to capture Jefferson.

♪♪

- And then a man

named Jack Jouett,

who owns and operates

the tavern in Cuckoo, Virginia,

he overhears a number

of British dragoons

reveal themselves,

the more they consume,

of the orders

of British Lieutenant Colonel

Banastre Tarleton

to proceed westward

and seek the capture

of Governor Jefferson.

♪♪

- Jouett road

overnight 40 miles.

It's very much like

Paul Revere warning

that the British were going to

attack Lexington and Concord

five years before.

In fact,

it's a much longer ride.

And he arrives at Monticello

before the British do.

- And Jouett forewarns them,

saying, gentlemen,

they may be

but a few moments behind me.

♪♪

- According to the legend,

Jefferson gave him

a glass of Madeira,

thanked him for his efforts.

But Jefferson didn't

leave right away.

He put his family

in a carriage,

sending them on their way down

to land that Jefferson owned

down near Lynchburg, Virginia.

But he waited to leave.

♪♪

- Taking his time,

Jefferson proceeds

very calmly to bury the state

papers below the floorboards

of his dining room.

And then finally,

at the last moment,

Jefferson sets off

on horseback.

♪♪

And he rides to Montalto,

the taller mountain

just to the west

of Monticello.

- Enslaved people had shoed

the horse shoes on backwards,

so that way when the horse

is running down the mountain,

it looks like

Jefferson is actually

running up the mountain.

And it confuses the British.

- He rides up along

the side of the mountain.

And then he dismounts

from his horse

to look back at Monticello

through his spyglass.

♪♪

And there they are.

- When Jefferson

flees Monticello,

he leaves it in the hands

of his most trusted

enslaved family,

the Hemingses.

- They storm Monticello.

And Martin Hemings, who is

Elizabeth Hemings' eldest son,

greets them at the front door

and refuses

to allow them entry,

and refuses to tell them

where Jefferson is.

Of course, they were going to

k*ll him if they had done so.

♪♪

- The captain

of the British dragoons

takes from his side saddle

a p*stol

♪♪

Says, "You will tell me where

Governor Jefferson is,

or I will inflict

a mortal wound."

♪♪

To which,

Hemings pulls his coat back,

replies, "Fire away."

♪♪

- But British troops

stormed past Hemings,

determined to find

the governor they assume

is still inside.

- Below Martin Hemings,

in a secret panel,

is an enslaved person who has

gathered up all the silver

and all of the valuables

in the home,

and was keeping them

beneath the secret space.

♪♪

So he can hear everything

that's happening.

And the story goes that it's

a couple of hours to a day

that this enslaved

man is below,

having kept all the valuables.

The Jefferson family tells the

story that that enslaved man

was such a loyal servant.

But read through the

African American perspective,

this man is keeping

himself safe, one.

And secondly, just in case

the British do actually end up

capturing Jefferson, say,

winning the Revolutionary w*r,

well, he has all

the silver in his hands.

♪♪

- After tearing

Monticello apart as they

search for Jefferson,

the British

realize they are too late.

- Captain McLeod says,

"Come on, boys,

"I understand Jefferson

has the best stocked

wine cellar

in all of Virginia."

They all help themselves.

♪♪

It happens to be

King George III's birthday,

June the 4th.

There might have been a toast.

They placed the wine bottles

in their satchels,

and they ride off.

♪♪

- Monticello is left intact.

But Jefferson,

whose second term as governor

ended two days prior,

is brutally criticized

for how he handled

the invasion.

♪♪

- The citizens of Virginia

think he's left his duty

at the moment of great peril.

♪♪

He's totally disgraced.

♪♪

- The House of Delegates

launches an inquiry

into his actions

as governor of Virginia

in organizing

the defense of the state.

It's a low point

of his public life.

Washington sends him

a very thoughtful

and measured and kind letter,

saying, you're a good friend,

and your service was great.

And he more or less says,

you're being

unfairly criticized.

But part of being

a man in Virginia,

a man of that elite class,

meant showing physical bravery

and showing tenacity.

This is an honor culture,

and it was a very

military culture.

It's a culture

that valued military service.

This is why

these men fight duels.

This is why Washington

is so admired in this period,

and Jefferson

admired Washington.

But Jefferson's skills

didn't lie in that area.

And so he's presented

as a coward.

- Jefferson leaves

his governorship

as a laughingstock.

The once-celebrated

revolutionary retreats back

to Monticello in disgrace.

♪♪

- By the fall of 1781,

the tides of w*r

begin to turn in favor

of the Americans,

as Spanish, Dutch,

and French forces

join the rebels in

their fight against Britain.

[dramatic music]

The w*r culminates

in Yorktown, Virginia.

British troops

under General Cornwallis

had set up a base at Yorktown.

♪♪

But on September 28, 1781,

Washington's troops

and his French allies

placed Cornwallis' base

under siege.

♪♪

After more than three weeks

of relentless battle,

the British surrender,

essentially ending

the Revolutionary w*r.

♪♪

- After the surrender

at Yorktown,

things are winding down.

The peril has passed

for the state.

♪♪

- Jefferson has

returned to Monticello.

His whole retreat

from Charlottesville

was looked on

with disdain by many

of his political opponents.

♪♪

- In December of 1781, he is

cleared by a board of inquiry

established by the House of Delegates,

but he never really feels

that he's off the hook.

♪♪

- I think what he learns

as a politician,

rooted in his wartime

service as governor,

is that circumstances

change very quickly,

and that it is

a foolhardy politician,

a foolhardy officeholder,

who stands

by a philosophical creed

in the face

of adverse circumstances.

- After this inquiry

clears him,

he believes

he's exiting public life.

He's still got a bit

of a cloud over him.

And he's disillusioned.

- Jefferson tells

the House of Delegates

that he has retired

from politics.

♪♪

He retreats back to Monticello

to continue building

his estate and to care

for his two young daughters

and pregnant wife.

♪♪

- The fact

that Jefferson and Martha

got pregnant again

and again suggests

a healthy physical

relationship.

- We have scraps

of evidence to suggest

that it was a very,

very close marriage,

seemingly a happy one.

Jefferson was often away.

But by comparison,

George Washington

leaves to go attend

the Continental Congress

in the spring of 1775

and doesn't come home again

for eight years.

The Second

Continental Congress,

Jefferson was

constantly going home,

to the point where people are

saying, hey, where are you?

And he constantly says,

"I want to be with my wife."

♪♪

- And even though she's

pregnant a significant amount

of that time,

she's highly competent

in running a household.

She understands how

to raise her daughters.

- Also, Martha seems

to be very patient

because they build the first

Monticello in January of 1772,

but he can't stop

tinkering with it.

It's constant work.

And it must have

been incredibly difficult

to establish a family

in a building site.

♪♪

- Jefferson loved

reworking this house.

He says,

"Pulling down and putting up

is one

of my greatest passions."

♪♪

He draws plan after plan,

working out what should

the sequence of rooms be,

where will his books be,

the size of his library?

He has a room

that's going to be a museum.

How will that fit

into the house?

♪♪

- Monticello was

a never-ending process.

He had to literally flatten

the top of the mountain

to build his house there.

- He loves this place.

He loves that mountain.

And he's seeking to impose

his vision and his will on it.

Now, when I say

he's doing it, of course,

he's not doing that labor.

♪♪

- It's stunningly beautiful.

But it's also very much

a Virginia house in the way

it accommodates sl*very.

♪♪

- It's really designed to put

sl*very almost out of view.

♪♪

- Jefferson is hiding

the work of food and hygiene,

of laundry, of firewood,

in little staircases

and lateral passageways.

- But we can actually

see children's imprints

in the bricks.

And that tells us

that these young hands

were put to work.

♪♪

- At Monticello,

you find yourself face to face

with Jefferson,

both what made him great

and also where he failed.

♪♪

- Monticello is a metaphor,

as a statement

that Jefferson

and the United States

is built on enslaved labor.

And this vision,

the story, can only be

this special and exquisite

if you can't see

what's happening underneath.

♪♪

[dramatic music]

- After the colonists

declare themselves free

from the tyranny

of British kings,

in the early 1780s,

many consider the rights

of the enslaved as well.

- In the mid-Atlantic,

in places like New York

and Pennsylvania,

you have the start

of movements against sl*very.

And even in places

like Virginia,

there was a thought

that sl*very would over time

diminish in importance.

- After the Revolution,

a number of sl*ve owners

emancipate all of their sl*ves.

One of his own cousins,

Richard Randolph, did.

William Short did, a man

named William Ludwell Lee.

Jefferson knows many

of these people.

He's related to many

of these people.

Jefferson does not choose

to emancipate his sl*ves.

♪♪

- An enslaved man,

Israel Gillette Jefferson,

talks about when

he's within earshot

of a conversation

between Jefferson

and one of his good friends.

And his friend is basically

trying to convince Jefferson

that sl*very needs

to be ended,

that the enslaved people

need to be freed.

♪♪

He hears Jefferson struggle,

saying, yeah,

I know sl*very is bad,

but I don't think

we can end it.

♪♪

Imagine if you're

a young enslaved person

overhearing this conversation.

- You can't say

he was just a man of his time

because other people

at his time

free those enslaved people.

♪♪

- But Jefferson does not know

how to undo all the things

that he wants from his perfect

and idyllic house

on a mountain.

- sl*very is so essential to

his economic and social system

that even though

it's questioned,

it's very hard

to imagine extracting

oneself from that system.

♪♪

- After the w*r,

most of the founding fathers

continued to debate

the foundational principles

of the new union,

but Jefferson remains at home

with his family at Monticello.

♪♪

While there, he establishes

a correspondence

with Francois Barbé-Marbois,

the secretary

of the French delegation

in Philadelphia.

Marbois sends Jefferson a set

of questions in an attempt

to learn more

about the new country.

Jefferson's responses

to these queries

are eventually compiled

and published

in what will become

his first book,

entitled "Notes

on the State of Virginia."

- So the secretary

of the French delegation

asked Jefferson about

the landscape in Virginia,

the flora and the fauna

and what kind

of animals there are.

- And then he says,

tell us about how

Native Americans live.

Tell us about what sl*very

means to how people live.

- The interesting thing

about Thomas Jefferson was

the way that he looked

at Native people and the way

that he looked

at African Americans

are really different.

♪♪

- "Notes on the State

of Virginia"

comes from Jefferson's view

of himself

as a kind of scientist,

but Jefferson always blurs

the line between what

he thinks of as observation

and what are truly

his opinions.

In the answer to the query

about Native Americans,

Jefferson starts out

with a bunch of charts.

♪♪

This is the name

of this group,

this is how many

of them there are,

and it goes

on and on like that,

until all of a sudden,

he's off into speculation

about, first,

Native American culture,

but then their intelligence.

- Native people of

the Old South, their farming,

from corn crops

and everything,

are quite impressive,

and probably better

than some white settlers

moving into the area.

And so they're almost

like the role models.

- He writes,

"Their execution are

"much stronger than with us

because they

"are more exercised.

"I believe the Indian then

to be in body

and mind

equal to the white man."

♪♪

- So he says, they're the equal

sort of humanly of us.

They just have not

been civilized.

- He claimed if they start

to speak English and live

like we do, at the cost

of their culture, of course,

they could become

the equal to whites.

- There's the idea of already

being partially civilized

because of what they do.

They won't have to be taught,

where African Americans have

to be taught because

they're pulled, clearly,

out of their natural world and

then brought to the Americas.

- But when he writes

about Black people

in "Noted on the State

of Virginia,"

he seems to traffic

in stereotypes.

- He goes on for pages

about race.

He clearly believes

that Black people

are genetically, biologically

inferior to white people.

And he says this.

♪♪

- I advance it

that the Blacks,

whether originally

a distinct race

or made distinct

by time and circumstances,

are inferior to the whites

in the endowments

both of body and mind.

♪♪

- He also says

they're essentially

intellectually useless.

- "Comparing them by their

faculties of memory, reason,

"and imagination,

it appears to me

"that in memory,

they are equal to the whites,

"in reason, much inferior,

"as I think one could

scarcely be found capable

"of tracing and comprehending

the investigations of Euclid,

"and that in imagination,

they are dull,

tasteless, and anomalous."

- Jefferson's surrounded

by enslaved people

who learned to read and write.

He's surrounded

by enslaved people who trained

for a decade or more

to be French chefs,

enslaved people

with great skill.

And yet he writes in the "Notes

on the State of Virginia"

that to free enslaved people

would be like

to free children,

that they wouldn't be able

to take care of themselves.

And yet, everything in his life

is provided by the labor

of enslaved people.

♪♪

- We don't do ourselves

or Jefferson any favors

by glossing that over.

We do need to see

that Jefferson's views

on racial ranking

and alleged inferiority

were part of a culture

of thought

that prevailed

in the United States

for another century.

- He did not believe

that Blacks and whites could

live together in harmony.

He says that we'll never

get over our prejudices.

They will never forgive us

for the things

that have been done.

♪♪

- "Deep rooted prejudices

entertained by the whites,

"10,000 recollections

by the Blacks of the injuries

"they have sustained

will probably never end

but in the extermination

of the one or the other race."

♪♪

- He had had the experience

with the Revolution of seeing

African American people join

the British forces to fight,

to fight

against the American colonists

for their own freedom.

And so

after the American Revolution

and the Revolutionary w*r,

he fears Black men.

♪♪

- People are quick

to hold on to the good words

that Jefferson wrote,

but they do not grapple

with the "Notes

on the State of Virginia.

It has been too easy

for people to say

Jefferson is a great success,

he did these things

for our nation,

he helped give us

this founding creed,

without grappling

with the duality of his legacy.

- Part of history is not

excusing people for what they

believed in real time,

but understanding

that if even the best people

of a given era,

the most articulate people,

if even they could be

so woefully wrong

about such elemental things,

what are we missing

in our own time?

♪♪

[dramatic music]

- In the spring of 1782,

Jefferson is living

a quiet and peaceful life

at Monticello.

♪♪

While he busies himself

with literature

and the ongoing construction

of his estate,

Martha gives birth to their

sixth child, Lucy Elizabeth.

♪♪

But their domestic bliss

will be short-lived.

♪♪

- After giving birth

to a daughter, Lucy,

Martha Jefferson has severe

postpartum health problems

throughout the summer of 1782.

♪♪

- Martha Jefferson

suffered greatly

during that childbirth.

Her ensuing illness

is heartbreaking.

Jefferson is at her bed

incessantly,

day in, day out,

doing everything

he possibly can

to engage her

to continue to live.

They both have enjoyed

reading to one and the other

throughout the years

from Laurence Sterne's

"Life And Opinions

of Tristram Shandy."

There is a moment

when Mrs. Jefferson tried

to write a passage from it.

- It's his wife's handwriting,

very, very faint.

It's hardly legible.

And then, in his very careful,

orderly script,

Thomas Jefferson picks up

where Martha left off.

♪♪

- Jefferson folded

that piece of paper.

He put it in an envelope that

included the locks of hair

of their deceased children.

- Then, on September 6, 1782,

at the age of 33,

Martha Jefferson dies.

♪♪

- There is the belief

that he promised his wife

before she breathed her last

that he would

never marry again.

♪♪

He has to be pulled away

from the bed.

- He has to be

physically lifted up.

♪♪

- The daughter, Martha,

is so overwhelmed.

She's only ten years old.

And we know her aunt,

Mrs. Jefferson's sister,

Elizabeth Eppes,

is right there.

And she instructs

her niece, Martha,

"Go look after your father.

There's nothing

you can do now."

You must go

and look after the living.

- He is grief stricken,

goes into, really,

a spiral of depression.

It was deep,

and it was long lasting.

♪♪

- Jefferson more or less shuts

down for weeks, or even months.

♪♪

It's clear that he

didn't know what to do,

and people around him

didn't know what to do

to help him in this grief.

♪♪

- His daughters

and friends actually despair

for his life at that point,

they're so worried.

♪♪

- They tried to get

Jefferson to ride out

into his native woods

and fields on horseback.

That's his greatest pleasure.

♪♪

And they continued

to lose him,

day in and day out.

The horse just meanders away

with hardly any attention

from him.

♪♪

It is clear

that she held a very,

very deep place in his heart

that he never forgot.

♪♪

- I mean, death is

a constant in his life.

He's lost a lot of children.

But this is a blow

which is very, very difficult

for him to recover from.

- Despite the criticism

he faced as governor,

Jefferson remains in high

standing among his friends

and colleagues.

Desperate to pull him out

of his depression,

they appeal to his affinity

for European luxury

and philosophy

and arrange for him to be sent

to France as a diplomat.

♪♪

- This is as much an attempt

to save their friend as it is

to try and serve the public.

- He thinks he has retired

from public service.

He's told his friends

that he has.

The world he envisioned

with Martha was shattered.

But somewhere, he has to be

part of creating a new world.

♪♪

- And so he goes to France.

He's a widower

with three young children.

And there will be dramatic

changes in his personal life

during his time in Paris.

- Jefferson's time in France

will redefine

his personal

and professional life.

He will thrive as a diplomat

and politician,

and develop a shocking

relationship

that will unexpectedly

transform not only

the next 40 years of his life,

but his enduring legacy today.

♪♪