and let Monticello go back to the Jefferson family.

Captain Levy refused to part with his bargain, but at his death he willed Monticello to 'the people of the United States to be held as a memorial of Thomas Jefferson'....

The Levy heirs contested the will, and it was finally decided upon a technicality that 'the people of the United States' was too indefinite a term to make the bequest binding, and the estate passed into the hands of the Levys, and so to its present owner...." In a biographical note upon the latter, the Congressional Directory states that the house is "kept open to the public all the year." My companion and I were admitted to the grounds, but were informed that, though the building was unoccupied, no one was permitted to enter.

While we were in the vicinity of the house we were attended by one of the men employed on the place, who told us that when people were allowed to roam about at will, there had been much vandalism; ivy had been pulled from the walls, shrubbery broken, pieces of brick chipped out of the steps, and teeth knocked from the heads of the marble lions which flank them.
Of recent years there has been on foot a movement, launched, I believe, by Mrs.Martin W.Littleton, of New York, to influence the Government to purchase Monticello from its present owner.

It is difficult to see precisely how Mr.Levy could be forced to part with his property, if he did not wish to.