Lafayette: The Quality of the Intellect in America is Equal to That in Europe, and There is a Greater Freedom of Expression There Than in the Old World

“I don’t understand the diffidence of American printers in publishing native books, to which you allude, as there is to be sure as intrinsic genius on their as on this side of the Atlantic, with the advantage of more freedom to inspire and the higher sphere to display the power of the mind.”

On December 7, 1776, Silas Deane struck an agreement with two French officers in sympathy with the American revolutionary cause, Baron DeKalb and his young protégé, the Marquis de Lafayette, to offer their military knowledge and services to help achieve American independence. Lafayette was threatened with arrest for leaving, but he managed to set sail and arrived in America on June 13, 1777. Lafayette then traveled to Philadelphia and tendered his services to Congress. Although Lafayette’s youth (he was just 19) made Congress reluctant to promote him over more experienced officers, the young Frenchman’s willingness to volunteer his services without pay won their respect and Lafayette was commissioned as a major-general. He became Washington’s aide-de-camp, and a close personal, virtually father to son, relationship developed between the two men. Lafayette was active at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, and was wounded; after the battle, Washington cited him for “bravery and military ardor.” He was with Washington at Valley Forge, and then participated in the Battle of Monmouth. Following the formal treaty of alliance with France, Lafayette asked to return to France to consult the King and to act as an advocate of the American cause. In 1779, Benjamin Franklin reported from Paris that Lafayette was performing the latter function very effectively at the French court. Following a six-month respite in France, Lafayette returned American and was involved in the war effort in Virginia. He played a key role in the successful siege of Yorktown in 1781, helping contain British forces long enough for them to be trapped and have no alternative but surrender. After the war Lafayette, a true hero in American eyes, returned to France.

In 1824 the United States was in the midst of the Era of Good Feelings, was growing and progressing, and seeing a brilliant future. At the same time the generation of the Founding Fathers and Mothers who had created the republic was passing from the scene; the memory of their deeds and their ideals was growing dim, even as their grandchildren enjoyed the benefits of their labors. So the nation was looking forward and backward at the same time. Lafayette was the last surviving general of the Revolution, and his story, and his relationship with the beloved Washington, were all part of the American legend. President Monroe invited him to visit. He accepted, and his 1824-5 visit to the United States became one of the landmark events of the first half of the 19th Century in America. For those who had been involved in that fight—the Revolutionary officers and those of the Society of the Cincinnati and similar organizations—the visit of their old chief would be the occasion to again light the torch just on time to pass it to a new generation. For their progeny, it would be the chance to bid a symbolic farewell to the fading, revered generation of the Revolution.

As Lafayette arrived in New York Harbor on August 15, 1824, a salute was fired and the sea was filled with ships containing admiring onlookers eager to catch a glimpse of the returning hero. This pandemonium was only a foretaste of what was to come. During his trip, he visited all 24 American states, traveling more than 6,000 miles. He toured the northern and eastern states in the fall of 1824, then went south. However, Lafayette was asked to return to Bunker Hill at the end of his tour the following year, before parting for France, in order to lay the cornerstone for the planned Bunker Hill Monument. So he went north again in the spring of 1825.

On October 18, 1824, Lafayette arrived in Yorktown, the site of the American and French victory over the British. A water-borne honor guard escorted him to a specially constructed Yorktown wharf, where he was greeted by a crowd of 15,000 people. Gov. James Pleasants and others gave speeches in his honor. During the visit, the party visited temporary monuments, including a 76-foot tall obelisk at the site of the British surrender. A mass assembly greeted him at Surrender Field. It was a never to be forgotten day. Also in Virginia, at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson excitedly met him on the lawn; they embraced and kissed each other’s cheeks, French style. Soon Lafayette was surrounded by Jefferson’s family and his guests, among whom were James and Dolley Madison. He was received by President Monroe at the White House.

Daniel Bryan was a poet, a lawyer, and a member of the Senate of Virginia. Publishing his works in periodicals and short books, he corresponded with several important figures of his day, including Edgar Allan Poe, who praised Bryan’s verse. Bryan is now remembered chiefly for his epic about Daniel Boone, a poem that provides a wealth of information about American ideals and aspirations early in the nineteenth century. Bryan was in attendance when Lafayette visited Yorktown, and in 1826 he published the poem “The Lay of Gratitude: Consisting of Poems Occasioned by the Recent Visit of Lafayette to the United States”. In its introduction, Bryan wrote, “The reader is requested to bear in mind that the following Poem appears in the character of an Address to General Lafayette in the presence of an immense assembly convened on the plains of Yorktown to celebrate the anniversary of the surrender at that place to General Washington and his patriotic band of the British Army under Lord Cornwallis that this glorious event formed the closing scene of the American Revolution and that General Lafayette there met after an absence of forty years a remnant of those gallant veterans who had partaken with him the dangers and the triumphs of that ever memorable day.”

Autograph Letter Signed, in English, Paris, January 26th, 1826, to Daniel Bryan, care of Bryan’s brother-in-law, James Barbour, who was then U.S. Secretary at War, in response to Bryan’s request for help with a potential work on the French Revolution, but receiving instead was referred to Thomas Jefferson, and Lafayette’s opinion that the intellect in America was equal to that in Europe. “I am indebted to you for your very interesting letter, very fine poetry, and sentiments very kind to me all of which at the moment of my departure have on our ferry passage I could not acknowledge. Here I request you to accept my best thanks and to convey them to my sweet young friend Mariana who I hope will not forget the old soldier that had the good fortune to bow and smile in gratitude to her. I have since my return to France generally lived at La Grange out of the way of inquiries respecting the translation of our present. Had they been printed in the U.S. or Great Britain, the task would have been less difficult, although your new translation, and translations in books are not an easy matter. Nor is it much in my power, however penetrated I am with the kindness of your intention…of your talents to publish them to furnish you with more documents than what you find in memoirs of the times. Was our good friend Girardin living he might assist you in those recherches [researches] the more so as he was intimately acquainted with Mr. Jefferson who knows much about the French Revolution.

“As situated as I am, and the object being an eugelium of me, you see how many difficulties would be in my way. I don’t understand the diffidence of American printers in publishing native books, to which you allude, as there is to be sure as intrinsic genius on their as on this side of the Atlantic, with the advantage of more freedom to inspire and the higher sphere to display the power of the mind. I thank you, my dear sir, for the account you give me of your…life and feelings, and offer you the expression of my cordial and grateful regard.” Mariana was Bryan’s daughter. The ink on the letter is somewhat light, though fully legible.