ABSTRACT
Thomas Jefferson was angry. Chief Justice John Marshall was writing a biography of George Washington - a history lauded as the most accurate to date, based on Washington's actual correspondence, the most authentic of evidence. Jefferson responded to this impending Federalist lie as he always had. He devised a way to circulate the "truth". In the past, he had relied on political weapons both printed and oral to expose partisan intrigue to the American people. Sometime between 1809 and 1818 Jefferson decided upon a new strategy. He would let his official correspondence as secretary of state speak for itself. Despite the care with which Jefferson arranged his public papers and memoranda, his history never was published as compiled. Taken as a whole, Jefferson's recorded conversations speak with one voice. New Yorker William Seton heard so much gossip that he could offer Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton "the whisper of the day".
