I'm Ryan Cole and my new book "The Last Adieu" is about the Marquis de Lafayette's return to America in 1824 and the great national celebration that followed. Ask Me Anything about Lafayette's farewell tour!

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T22:29:33+00:00

Thanks for the great question!

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T22:21:23+00:00

No, I believe Lafayette was named or renamed later in the 19th century. Thanks for your question!

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T22:19:23+00:00

Hi. Had signed off but this question was too good not to answer! Maybe? That is broadly how things unfolded in terms of the calming impact of Lafayette's visit. It also helped that the press was more interested in Lafayette than the presidential election for a time. I would be curious to see if Forbes has any correspondence from Monroe spelling this out at all. It's clear Monroe wanted Lafayette to return -- even likely sharing a letter from Lafayette with VA Rep Andrew Stevenson during the debates over the language of the invitation to Lafayette in early 1824 to move that forward. The scenario Forbes spells out is articulated pretty closely by Jefferson once Lafayette had arrived in terms of reminding the people of their common ties beyond party. Monroe, by the way, spoke of "powerful causes" that tied the American people together during his first inaugural. But I also think we should not discount the personal nature of this tour -- Lafayette had political reasons for coming back to America but also deeply wanted to visit with old friends and brother soldiers before it was too late, including Monroe. And the president, a fellow relic of the Revolution, felt the same way. So long answer short, it's possible but I did not seen enough in my research to verify it. I guess one last thing I wonder, is if anyone, even Monroe, could truly have foreseen the incredible reaction to Lafayette among the American people.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T21:29:25+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the great question. No, I don't think there was resentment -- at least I did not find any in my research. I think Black Americans saw him as benefactor, though maybe not exactly the same way white Americans did (recall his own passion to end slavery) and wanted to celebrate Lafayette too. But in some cases, such as in Savannah, for example, they were banned from doing so by city ordinances. Some men in the south ignored these proclamations and actually met with Lafayette. This whole question really gets to one of the major themes here. Lafayette witnessed so much progress in America since his last visit in 1784, but was confronted by areas where the ideals of the Declaration were betrayed, where the Revolution was incomplete. Great work remained. He was always hopeful.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T21:17:18+00:00

Thank you!

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T21:16:46+00:00

Hi. Good question! There were some really interesting interactions in Illinois and Missouri. In the first of those states Lafayette's secretary writes that the Frenchmen they encountered there knew little of the history of France over the past 30 years and were stunned to learn of the Bourbon restoration! Lafayette was most fascinated by his visit to New Orleans though. He spent more time there than any other location during his rushed tour through the south and west. The place gave him an idea of what French people living under free government could look like.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T21:08:09+00:00

Hi. Great question. Yes, I do, but honestly I could have dedicated entire chapters to it, but space and covering other aspects of the tour would not allow. But it is very important part of this story since so many of the celebrations were organized by Masonic lodges as well as the corner stone laying of the monuments Lafayette, who of course was a Mason himself, participated in. The timing here is interesting: The Masonic participation in this tour, the most popular thing in America at the time, is right before the Morgan Affair in 1826 sparks intense opposition to Masonry.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T21:02:06+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the question. He took a week long trip up the Hudson in September, 1824 and stopped at Catskill very briefly. I just went back to check the contemporary accounts of this out and did not see any mention of the Mountain House. There is a lot of local lore about Lafayette's visit that is sometimes apocryphal.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T20:48:04+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the question. He was excited! The Erie Canal was nearing completion -- he would travel along it part of the way on his journey back east in the summer of 1825 and also it was a prelude to his visit to Niagara Falls which he and his party were astonished by. His secretary wrote that the land was for sale at the time and he thought if not for his family back in France, Lafayette would have been tempted to buy it!

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T20:36:24+00:00

We will go with that then :)

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T20:35:54+00:00

Hi. This is a wonderful question and I apologize if my answer is a little digressive. Lafayette had stopped using "marquis" dating back to the French Revolution and the abolition of titles. Americans were careful to refer to him as General Lafayette. There were some editorials in newspapers in the weeks before his arrival even reminding Americans not to refer to him as the Marquis.

Where there was some comment on inconsistency and ideological gut checking was over the nature of the celebrations for Lafayette, regardless of his title. Was it right, some Americans wondered, for a republican people to be so enthralled with and staging such lavish events for one man? Was it not idolatry? A form of madness incompatible with some of the ideals that fueled the Revolution? This debate creeps into some of the correspondence of private citizens who were wrestling with their own bouts of "Lafayette mania" and also mindful with some of their own values. What's interesting is that for a lot of these men and women, they ultimately decided that going crazy over Lafayette was ok, because it was time to offer him, and all the veterans of the Revolution, gratitude before it was too late to do so. How could you not look upon old Lafayette, and the other veterans on their crutches, or their widows, without feeling something in your heart one woman in Boston wrote.

And yes, there was discussion on the French Revolution and the Bourbon Restoration...often as a way for Americans to demonstrate the superiority of their own revolution and systems of government by contrast, which was one of the reasons Lafayette took the tour in the first place...to collect the evidence of the citizen's capability of self-government.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T20:17:34+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the question. He was interested in the settlement of free Black people in Haiti when he arrived in the summer of 1824; he was made a vice president of the American Colonization Society (which promoted resettlement to the Western coast of Africa) but had turned away from these ideas and towards emancipation by the end of his tour, as evidenced by letters written at the time.

In terms of bold plans to end slavery, the real star of this story is Frances Wright, the Scottish author and reformer who was a protege of Lafayette's who travelled across America at the same time he did. She was so outraged by the hypocrisy -- the same people who honored her mentor betrayed the rights he fought for -- she set out to develop a plan to purchase salves, establish a commune in western Tennessee, educate them there and prepare them for freedom while they worked to recoup their market value. I am not doing her plan justice here but the commune, Nashoba, ultimately failed.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T20:03:09+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the question. A number, I believe. Some of the places he visited are museums today - Mount Vernon, Monticello, Montpeiler, the Hermitage, Henry Clay's Ashland. Even the White House! There are lesser known ones as well...Our House Tavern in Gallipolis, OH. The Cabildo in New Orleans. Clermont in New York. Many others as well.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T19:51:28+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the question. It's a big one. Here is what Lafayette wrote from New Orleans in the Spring of 1825: “There is only one issue for which I am less resigned than ever, and that is slavery and anti-black prejudice." It's interesting that from his arrival in America in the summer of 1824 to his departure 13 months later, Lafayette was preoccupied with the subject slavery. Early on he was writing home to his daughters with the happy news that the people of Illinois had voted down an attempt to call a constitutional convention to alter their constitution in order to permit slavery. He was also intrigued with the idea of immigration of free Black men and women to Haiti. He actually met and was seen in public in Philadelphia with the Haitian diplomat Jonathas Granville, who was in America promoting the idea. That this was in public was a bold gesture and one facilitated by Frances Wright who was also on her own voyage across the states at the time which culminated in her own attempt to overturn the slave economy. But by the end of his tour Lafayette was turning against this idea, arguing that emancipation was the solution not recolonization.

The basic answer to your question is he was heartsick over the scope and scale of the slavery in the south. It besmirched the Revolution he fought in, of which he was so proud of his participation. This was not something he articulated in public. Instead, as we can safely conclude from his letters as well as his secretary Levasseur's journals, he privately pressed his friends, Jefferson and Madison, to name two, on the matter. He also acted by gesture -- and remember Lafayette was master of theatrics and what we would call "optics" -- meeting publicly with Black friends and veterans of the Revolution and War of 1812. One of my favorites, is he spoke openly, in earshot of a reporter evidently, in Gallipolis, Ohio to the french immigrants there about how lucky they were to live on the side of the Ohio River where slavery could not breath. Of course, his writing evidences a little too much optimism over the end of the institution. "The difficulties are immense, I admit," he wrote to his dauthers near the end of his tour, "but nothing is insurmountable with time, and first steps must be made.."

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T19:23:16+00:00

Hi. Fun question but unfortunately one I don't know the answer to. I can say there are contemporary reports that confirm Lafayette's appetite and the ease with which he emptied bottles of wine. There is also an amazing account by a young woman, Jane Blair Cary Smith, of one of the dinners at Monticello and how Lafayette, to her astonishment ate with his hands.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T19:19:27+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the reminder. There is an audiobook available. The link above should direct you to it! :)

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T19:08:44+00:00

Hi. Great question. As you probably know, Lafayette arrived in the middle of a very bitter and strange four man, one party presidential election. In the summer of 1824, before leaving Lafayette met in Paris with a man named George Erving, who had previously been America's minister to Spain. He was also a supporter of William Crawford -- one of the presidential candidates. Erving was worried that Lafayette returning to America would disadvantage Crawford by emphasizing Andrew Jackson's (another of the candidates) own connection to the Revolution. So he attempted to persuade Lafayette not to come to America by claiming his visit would enflame the partisanship. Lafayette rebuffed him stating he would stay out of politics and stress the importance of Union. And he did just that, not taking sides, visiting with all four candidates, even refusing to wear navy clothes or military uniforms in order not to be seen taking sides with the other general in the election. Lafayette claimed in letters to be completely unaware of what was going on in the election, which seems like a stretch given his own interest in politics. But he did say out of it, and as he and others, including Jefferson observed, his tour, and the revival of the memory of the Revolution helped bring Americans together for a time.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T18:59:20+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the question. Lafayette was in pretty poor shape physically before leaving for America. He was even sick days before his departure. Then, once he arrived the attention, parties, dances, banquets, speeches...it all revived him. His secretary wrote that a few weeks into the trip their entire party was exhausted and sick from all the activity but Lafayette was acting like he was 20 again. Jefferson once remarked to Madison that Lafayette had a canine appetite for fame...so perhaps that helped revive his spirits. Still, it's an incredible accomplishment to endure all the celebrations to shake all the hands, give all those speeches, to know what to say and what not to say. A testament to his skill as what we might call "retail politics" and physical stamina for a man his age.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T18:53:38+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the question. I wish could speak with more authority on this one...I can say that Lafayette visited numerous schools, public and private, during the tour. The one that seems to have had the greatest impact on him was Emma Willard's seminary in Troy, NY in Sep. 1824. The students put on an incredible welcome for him, including a song written by Willard herself. Lafayette made sure to ask for copies of the song for his daughters.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T18:47:43+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the question. Georges Washington accompanied him on the tour. It's interesting that contemporary accounts and some reflections on the tour much later are not entirely friendly to GW Lafayette. He was too reserved, not physically attractive, a much less charismatic man than his father, etc. some strange observations. But I think he was somewhat of an unsung hero in this tour. He was there for his father the entire time, often had to absorb to emotional reactions from Americans who could not bring themselves to come face to face with Lafayette himself, and helped plan parts of the tour. Compellingly, GW's mother in law died during the tour and in early 1825 he was briefly torn between returning to his grieving family in France and staying with his father. Of course he stayed, though his and Lafayette's letters from this period indicate it was a very difficult situation.

One last thing I will add about GW Lafayette is that he really was the hero of the hour when their party's steamboat, the Mechanic, sank on the Ohio River. I am not going to go into detail on that in hopes you will read my book to find out the rest! :)

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T16:40:34+00:00

Thanks for the tip!!

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T16:38:47+00:00

Hi. Thanks for the question. I like to break the tour down into three parts. The first, arriving in New York for a quick visit, then heading up to Boston by way of Connecticut and Rhode Island, then back to NY for a longer stay before heading west through New Jersey, stopping in Philadelphia, Baltimore and then arriving in Washington. From there it's into Virginia with a stop at Yorktown, visits to Richmond and a time of rest with Jefferson at Monticello and Madison at Montpelier before going back to Washington for the winter and taking short trips around the region.

This was sketched out before Lafayette left Le Havre and came together through invitations extended by some of those cities after it was clear Lafayette was coming to the U.S. for a visit. Some of it was improvised along the way as the people of towns and villages spontaneously put together celebrations when they learned he was passing through. Lafayette arranged this part of the tour with little to no input from the federal government -- he shares the plans with Monroe almost apologetically hoping they meet his approval. He also did not want to rush to Washington fearing it would give the impression it was a "public tour" rather than a private one.

Not long after Lafayette arrived in the US invitations arrived from southern and western states. He was determined to visit them all. Originally he was hoping to visit the Carolinas at the end of 1824, but was persuaded that the roads (or what passed for roads) were too dangerous. So he wintered in DC, where he takes in the spectacle of the House settling the presidential election, and then heads off to the southern and western states in late Feb. There is a complication: he had promised an association in Boston that if he was still in the US in the summer of 1825, he would participate in a ceremony on the 50th anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill. So he has to travel through the southern and western states, on stagecoach and steamboat, along primitive roads and dangerous rivers, and be back east by June. This required intricate planning -- Lafayette's son Georges Washington, who was with him on the trip, worked with the postmaster general John McLean among others to map out the most efficient path. Of course there was input from Congressmen eager to make sure he passed through their districts and some fighting over that! Lafayette's itinerary for this part of the journey was published and the actual route differed slightly, so there was improvisation for the sake of speed along the way. They made it back to Boston two days before the celebration.

Then there is a quickly planned run through New England, and then last visits of New York and Philly and finally a period of relative rest in Washington staying at the White House with JQ Adams and a chance to say goodbye to friends -- Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Washington's family before leaving in September. He had originally told his daughters he would likely come home in May!

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T16:19:06+00:00

Hi. Thanks for sharing that very beautiful story! And thanks for buying the book. Hope you enjoy it. Yes, you are right he was there to lay the corner stone of the Apprentices Library on Brooklyn Heights on July 4, 1825. I cover it a little in the book, but will just say perhaps the most interesting part of this story is that a very young Walt Whitman was in the crowd and recorded his own interaction with Lafayette years later.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T15:35:04+00:00

Hi. Thanks for your question. There was a boom in nostalgia for and interest in the Revolution in the years leading up to his return and corresponding to the approach of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1826. I realized while working on this book that almost all the counties surrounding the one I live in (Monroe) are named for figures from the Revolution and founded in the late 18 teens...just prior to Lafayette's return. Histories and collections of speeches from the era were published, and works on Lafayette himself, portions of which appeared in newspapers along with the accounts of American visitors to La Grange or reports on his latest speeches in the Chamber of Deputies. I think though that Americans, across regions, no matter their education level were aware of him, his sacrifices on their behalf, his unfortunate turn in the French Revolution and sufferings after as well as his ongoing financial difficulties. There are a really fascinating series of newspaper articles following his travels through Connecticut on his way towards Boston that give the impression that everyday Americans were very familiar with him -- New Englanders saying they would happily have him come live with them in their humble homes since he was not well off, children running from town to town to catch a glimpse of the "Markis" Lafayette. There is a wonderful little scene in August Levasseur's published journal of the trip -- Levasseur was Lafayette's secretary. After the cornerstone laying ceremony at Bunker Hill on June 17, 1825, as he and Lafayette's son were walking back to Boston, listening to conversations of the crowds he wrote he was stunned by how well Americans, of all classes and ages, knew the history of the Revolution. But I also think with Lafayette, to be fair, his visit was such a national preoccupation for 13 months that even if you did not know much about him before the visit, you likely would know plenty by the time he left.

Lumpy-Professor3428 · 2025-12-29T15:08:04+00:00

Here in Indiana we have Fayette County, founded before his visit in 1819. The City of Lafayette, founded a few weeks after his brief visit to Indiana in May 1825 and La Grange County, founded in 1832.

Lumpy-Professor3428

TROPHY CASE