<i>The Other Presidency: Thomas Jefferson and the American Philosophical Society.</i> By Patrick Spero

In my introductory graduate school American history class, I often found myself quipping that an assigned book could have been a good article. In the case of Patrick Spero's new book, The Other Presidency, concerning Thomas Jefferson's association with the American Philosophical Society (APS), we are left wishing that this very short monograph—republishing an essay prepared for the APS's 275th anniversary with an introduction by Andrew O'Shaughnessy and a new afterword by Spero—might have been longer.Jefferson, of course, has launched a million pages of print, but Spero, somewhat incredulous at the relative paucity of material concerning Jefferson's involvement with the APS, heartily engages the question. He argues persuasively that APS “played a significant role in Jefferson's life and, conversely, Jefferson played a key role in the Society's development” (53). It was a refuge in the difficult partisan years of the 1790s, then a useful tool as President Jefferson sought to encourage a nation of yeoman farmers, and finally a delight as he pursued science and useful knowledge in retirement. One might take with a large grain of salt Jefferson's declaration that election to the presidency of the APS was “the most flattering incident of my life,” but it was clearly more important than is often credited in a perfunctory footnote.With a mission to promote useful knowledge, APS seemed made for the polymath Jefferson. After Benjamin Franklin created the APS with great hopes in 1743 (fortuitously, Jefferson's birth year), the organization had become relatively somnambulant by the time Jefferson was admitted in 1780. Over his forty-six years of affiliation, seventeen years as president, Jefferson took a leading role in making the APS an important institution. Spero particularly investigates how APS took on “subtle but significant political elements” under Jefferson's guidance (16). For example, as the APS became reinvigorated in the last decade of the eighteenth century, its membership leaned in a clearly Jeffersonian direction (29), a bias that, interestingly, tended to diminish after 1800 (46).Jeffersonian influence was evidenced in a strong APS interest in natural history, including Native American culture and languages (15), as opposed to a more Federalist interest in manufacturing and mathematics (29). The focus on natural history would “support his vision of an expanding, agrarian republic” (19). It was also useful in Jefferson's extended crusade against the Comte de Buffon's view of the degeneracy of North America (23). APS's support for research was likewise a convenient way for Jefferson to emphasize the value of private (over governmental) organizations for pursuit of knowledge. In the case of APS's support of the abortive André Michaux expedition to explore the west, “Jefferson knew that ‘it was a matter for the American Philosophical Society, not the American Government’” (21, quoting Kevin J. Hayes, The Road to Monticello). Spero recognizes that Jefferson largely abandoned qualms about government support for research when he controlled the levers of government.As the author suggests in the afterword, there are many questions yet to be explored. One is left wondering, for example, about Jefferson's perceived need for a separate set of natural laws adapted to America's unique nature (20) and his loss of his own “Native [American] fieldwork to theft” (25). A simple example: while Spero notes in several places (13, 49) Jefferson's election to the presumably auspicious position, we are left to ask, “What is the role of an APS ‘councilor’?” More substantively, one might question the conclusion that in the 1790s “it is likely that he [Jefferson] dedicated more of his attention to his duties as APS president than to his duties as vice president,” given his punctual attention to his role as “president” of the Senate and drafting of Senate parliamentary manual (14). Other examples might be given, and future scholars will undoubtedly take up the quest.Naturally, there is always a danger of being captured by Jefferson's rhetoric and perspective. While Spero warns against hagiography (62), he can be decidedly Jeffersonian. For example, Spero states simply that Jefferson was “an outsider to the Federalist administrations that he served as secretary of state and vice president” (30), and that, as president, he was “at the head of the federal government, rather than opposed to it as he had been when the Federalists controlled the presidency” (37–38). But Jefferson's involvement in the early years of the Washington administration cannot be simply labeled as that of an outsider. Similarly, in noting that French minister Edmund Charles Genêt was reviled by Federalists (20), Spero doesn't mention Genêt's interfering with American neutrality and, what was truly unforgiveable, publicly insulting George Washington (20–21). And in discussing Jefferson's 1791 New England venture with James Madison, ostensibly to study the Hessian fly for the APS, Spero initially concludes that “critics of Jefferson” saw the trip as partially political, certainly an understatement (18).Spero makes several interesting statistical and data interventions, but there are places where such analysis might have been more thorough. In noting the Jeffersonian influence, he mentions that APS appointed fifty-five French members, compared to only thirty-three British members, between 1775 and 1800 (28). But the French population was nearly three times as large as the British, not to mention that during the American Revolution France was a devoted ally and Britain a detested enemy. What Spero establishes is that Jefferson turned the APS into an institution that pursued distinctly Jeffersonian interests that supported his hopes for a nation of yeoman farmers. This work provides a new insight into the ever-interesting, ever-perplexing Jefferson. It is a quick, lively, and enjoyable read that will appeal to Jefferson scholars and those interested in the APS.