Monticello, June 7, 1816.
Dear Sir,—I received a few days ago from Mr. Dupont the
enclosed manuscript, with permission to read it, and a request,
when read, to forward it to you, in expectation that you would
translate it. It is well worthy of publication for the instruction
of our citizens, being profound, sound, and short. Our legislators
are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their
power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our
natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No
man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights
of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain
him; every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the
necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce
on him; and, no man having a natural right to be the judge between
himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to
the umpirage of an impartial third. When the laws have declared
and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions,
and the idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society we
give up any natural right. The trial of every law by one of
these texts, would lessen much the labors of our legislators, and
lighten equally our municipal codes.
There is a work of the
first order of merit now in the press at Washington, by Destutt
Tracy, on the subject of political economy, which he brings into
the compass of three hundred pages, octavo. In a preliminary
discourse on the origin of the right of property, he coincides
much with the principles of the present manuscript; but is more
developed, more demonstrative. He promises a future work on
morals, in which I lament to see that he will adopt the principles
of Hobbes, or humiliation to human nature; that the
sense of justice and injustice is not derived from our natural organization,
but founded on convention only. I lament this the
more, as he is unquestionably the ablest writer living, on abstract
subjects. Assuming the fact, that the earth has been created in
time, and consequently the dogma of final causes, we yield, of
course, to this short syllogism. Man was created for social intercourse;
but social intercourse cannot be maintained without a
sense of justice; then man must have been created with a sense
of justice. There is an error into which most of the speculators
on government have fallen, and which the well-known state
of society of our Indians ought, before now, to have corrected.
In their hypothesis of the origin of government, they suppose it
to have commenced in the patriarchal or monarchical form. Our
Indians are evidently in that state of nature which has passed
the association of a single family; and not yet submitted to the
authority of positive laws, or of any acknowledged magistrate.
Every man, with them, is perfectly free to follow his own inclinations.
But if, in doing this, he violates the rights of another,
if the case be slight, he is punished by the disesteem of his society,
or, as we say, by public opinion; if serious, he is tomahawked
as a dangerous enemy. Their leaders conduct them by
the influence of their character only; and they follow, or not,
as they please, him of whose character for wisdom or war they
have the highest opinion. Hence the origin of the parties
among them adhering to different leaders, and governed by their
advice, not by their command. The Cherokees, the only tribe
I know to be contemplating the establishment of regular laws,
magistrates, and government, propose a government of representatives,
elected from every town. But of all things, they least
think of subjecting themselves to the will of one man. This,
the only instance of actual fact within our knowledge, will be
then a beginning by republican, and not by patriarchal or monarchical
government, as speculative writers have generally conjectured.
We have to join in mutual congratulations on the appointment
of our friend Correa, to be minister or envoy of Portugal, here.
This, I hope, will give him to us for life. Nor will it at all interfere
with his botanical rambles or journeys. The government of
Portugal is so peaceable and inoffensive, that it has never any altercations
with its friends. If their minister abroad writes them
once a quarter that all is well, they desire no more. I learn,
(though not from Correa himself,) that he thinks of paying us a
visit as soon as he is through his course of lectures. Not to lose
this happiness again by my absence, I have informed him I shall
set out for Poplar Forest the 20th instant, and be back the first
week of July. I wish you and he could concert your movements
so us to meet here, and that you would make this your head
quarters. It is a good central point from which to visit your connections;
and you know our practice of placing our guests at their
ease, by showing them we are so ourselves and that we follow
our necessary vocations, instead of fatiguing them by hanging
unremittingly on their shoulders. I salute you with affectionate
esteem and respect.
Monticello, June 20, 1816.
Dear Sir,—I am about to sin against all discretion, and knowingly,
by adding to the drudgery of your letter-reading, this acknowledgment
of the receipt of your favor of May the 31st, with
the papers it covered. I cannot, however, deny myself the gratification
of expressing the satisfaction I have received, not only
from the general statement of affairs at Paris, in yours of December
the 12th, 1814. (as a matter of history which I had not before
received.) but most especially and superlatively, from the
perusal of your letter of the 8th of the same month to Mr. Fisk,
on the subject of draw-backs. This most heterogeneous principle
was transplanted into ours from the British system, by a
man whose mind was really powerful, but chained by native partialities
to everything English; who had formed exaggerated
ideas of the superior perfection of the English constitution, the
superior wisdom of their government, and sincerely believed it
for the good of this country to make them their model in everything;
without considering that what might be wise and good
for a nation essentially commercial, and entangled in complicated
intercourse with numerous and powerful neighbors, might not be
so for one essentially agricultural, and insulated by nature from
the abusive governments of the old world.
The exercise, by our own citizens, of so much commerce as
may suffice to exchange our superfluities for our wants, may be
advantageous for the whole. But it does not follow, that with a
territory so boundless, it is the interest of the whole to become a
mere city of London, to carry on the business of one half the
world at the expense of eternal war with the other half. The
agricultural capacities of our country constitute its distinguishing
feature; and the adapting our policy and pursuits to that, is more
likely to make us a numerous and happy people, than the mimicry
of an Amsterdam, a Hamburgh, or a city of London. Every society
has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association,
and to say to all individuals, that, if they contemplate pursuits
beyond the limits of these principles, and involving dangers
which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else
for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral
and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them
from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease. Such
is the situation of our country. We have most abundant resources
of happiness within ourselves, which we may enjoy in
peace and safety, without permitting a few citizens, infected with
the mania of rambling and gambling, to bring danger on the
great mass engaged in innocent and safe pursuits at home. In
your letter to Fisk, you have fairly stated the alternatives between
which we are to choose: 1, licentious commerce and
gambling speculations for a few, with eternal war for the many;
or, 2, restricted commerce, peace, and steady occupations for all.
If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation
with the first alternative, to a continuance in union without it, I
have no hesitation in saying, "let us separate." I would rather
the States should withdraw, which are for unlimited commerce
and war, and confederate with those alone which are for peace
and agriculture. I know that every nation in Europe would join
in sincere amity with the latter, and hold the former at arm's
length, by jealousies, prohibitions, restrictions, vexations and
war. No earthly consideration could induce my consent to contract
such a debt as England has by her wars for commerce, to
reduce our citizens by taxes to such wretchedness, as that laboring
sixteen of the twenty-four hours, they are still unable to afford
themselves bread, or barely to earn as much oatmeal or potatoes
as will keep soul and body together. And all this to feed
the avidity of a few millionary merchants, and to keep up one
thousand ships of war for the protection of their commercial
speculations. I returned from Europe after our government had
got under way, and had adopted from the British code the law
of draw-backs. I early saw its effects in the jealousies and
vexations of Britain; and that, retaining it, we must become like
her an essentially warring nation, and meet, in the end, the catastrophe
impending over her. No one can doubt that this alone
produced the orders of council, the depredations which preceded,
and the war which followed them. Had we carried but our own
produce, and brought back but our own wants, no nation would
have troubled us. Our commercial dashers, then, have already
cost us so many thousand lives, so many millions of dollars, more
than their persons and all their commerce were worth. When
war was declared, and especially after Massachusetts, who had
produced it, took side with the enemy waging it, I pressed on
some confidential friends in Congress to avail us of the happy opportunity
of repealing the draw-back; and I do rejoice to find
that you are in that sentiment. You are young, and may be in
the way of bringing it into effect. Perhaps time, even yet, and
change of tone, (for there are symptoms of that in Massachusetts,)
may not have obliterated altogether the sense of our late feelings
and sufferings; may not have induced oblivion of the friends we
have lost, the depredations and conflagrations we have suffered,
and the debts we have incurred, and have to labor for through
the lives of the present generation. The earlier the repeal is proposed,
the more it will be befriended by all these recollections
and considerations. This is one of three great measures necessary
to insure us permanent prosperity. This preserves our
peace. A second should enable us to meet any war, by adopting
the report of the war department, for placing the force of the nation
at effectual command; and a third should insure resources
of money by the suppression of all paper circulation during peace,
and licensing that of the nation alone during war. The metallic
medium of which we should be possessed at the commencement
of a war, would be a sufficient fund for all the loans we should
need through its continuance; and if the national bills issued, be
bottomed (as is indispensable) on pledges of specific taxes for
their redemption within certain and moderate epochs, and be of
proper denominations for circulation, no interest on them would
be necessary or just, because they would answer to every one the
purposes of the metallic money withdrawn and replaced by them.
But possibly these may be the dreams of an old man, or that
the occasions of realizing them may have passed away without
return. A government regulating itself by what is wise and just
for the many, uninfluenced by the local and selfish views of the
few who direct their affairs, has not been seen perhaps, on earth.
Or if it existed, for a moment, at the birth of ours, it would not
be easy to fix the term of its continuance. Still, I believe it
does exist here in a greater degree than anywhere else; and for
its growth and continuance, as well as for your personal health
and happiness, I offer sincere prayers, with the homage of my
respect and esteem.
Monticello, July 12, 1816.
Sir,—I duly received your favor of June the 13th, with the
copy of the letters on the calling a convention, on which you are
pleased to ask my opinion. I have not been in the habit of
mysterious reserve on any subject, nor of buttoning up my opinions
within my own doublet. On the contrary, while in public
service especially, I thought the public entitled to frankness, and
intimately to know whom they employed. But I am now retired:
I resign myself, as a passenger, with confidence to those
at present at the helm, and ask but for rest, peace and good will.
The question you propose, on equal representation, has become a
party one, in which I wish to take no public share. Yet, if it be
asked for your own satisfaction only, and not to be quoted before
the public, I have no motive to withhold it, and the less from
you, as it coincides with your own. At the birth of our republic,
I committed that opinion to the world, in the draught of a
constitution annexed to the "Notes on Virginia," in which a provision
was inserted for a representation permanently equal. The
infancy of the subject at that moment, and our inexperience of
self-government, occasioned gross departures in that draught from
genuine republican canons. In truth, the abuses of monarchy
had so much filled all the space of political contemplation, that
we imagined everything republican which was not monarchy.
We had not yet penetrated to the mother principle, that "governments
are republican only in proportion as they embody the will
of their people, and execute it." Hence, our first constitutions
had really no leading principles in them. But experience and
reflection have but more and more confirmed me in the particular
importance of the equal representation then proposed. On that
point, then, I am entirely in sentiment with your letters; and
only lament that a copy-right of your pamphlet prevents their
appearance in the newspapers, where alone they would be generally
read, and produce general effect. The present vacancy too,
of other matter, would give them place in every paper, and bring
the question home to every man's conscience.
But inequality of representation in both Houses of our legislature,
is not the only republican heresy in this first essay of our
revolutionary patriots at forming a constitution. For let it be
agreed that a government is republican in proportion as every
member composing it has his equal voice in the direction of its
concerns, (not indeed in person, which would be impracticable
beyond the limits of a city, or small township, but) by representatives
chosen by himself, and responsible to him at short periods,
and let us bring to the test of this canon every branch of our
constitution.
In the legislature, the House of Representatives is chosen by
less than half the people, and not at all in proportion to those who
do choose. The Senate are still more disproportionate, and for
long terms of irresponsibility. In the Executive, the Governor is
entirely independent of the choice of the people, and of their control;
his Council equally so, and at best but a fifth wheel to a
wagon. In the Judiciary, the judges of the highest courts are
dependent on none but themselves. In England, where judges
were named and removable at the will of an hereditary executive,
from which branch most misrule was feared, and has flowed, it
was a great point gained, by fixing them for life, to make them
independent of that executive. But in a government founded on
the public will, this principle operates in an opposite direction,
and against that will. There, too, they were still removable on
a concurrence of the executive and legislative branches. But we
have made them independent of the nation itself. They are
irremovable, but by their own body, for any depravities of conduct,
and even by their own body for the imbecilities of dotage.
The justices of the inferior courts are self-chosen, are for life, and
perpetuate their own body in succession forever, so that a faction
once possessing themselves of the bench of a county, can never
be broken up, but hold their county in chains, forever indissoluble.
Yet these justices are the real executive as well as judiciary,
in all our minor and most ordinary concerns. They tax
us at will; fill the office of sheriff, the most important of all the
executive officers of the county; name nearly all our military
leaders, which leaders, once named, are removable but by themselves.
The juries, our judges of all fact, and of law when they
choose it, are not selected by the people, nor amenable to them.
They are chosen by an officer named by the court and executive.
Chosen, did I say? Picked up by the sheriff from the
loungings of the court yard, after everything respectable has retired
from it. Where then is our republicanism to be found?
Not in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our
people. That would oblige even a despot to govern us republicanly.
Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our
constitution, all things have gone well. But this fact, so triumphantly
misquoted by the enemies of reformation, is not the fruit
of our constitution, but has prevailed in spite of it. Our functionaries
have done well, because generally honest men. If any
were not so, they feared to show it.
But it will be said, it is easier to find faults than to amend
them. I do not think their amendment so difficult as is pretended.
Only lay down true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly.
Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of
the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of
the people. If experience be called for, appeal to that of our
fifteen or twenty governments for forty years, and show me
where the people have done half the mischief in these forty
years, that a single despot would have done in a single year; or
show half the riots and rebellions, the crimes and the punishments,
which have taken place in any single nation, under kingly
government, during the same period. The true foundation
of republican government is the equal right of every citizen, in
his person and property, and in their management. Try by this,
as a tally, every provision of our constitution, and see if it hangs
directly on the will of the people. Reduce your legislature to a
convenient number for full, but orderly discussion. Let every
man who fights or pays, exercise his just and equal right in their
election. Submit them to approbation or rejection at short intervals.
Let the executive be chosen in the same way, and for
the same term, by those whose agent he is to be; and leave no
screen of a council behind which to skulk from responsibility.
It has been thought that the people are not competent electors
of judges learned in the law. But I do not know that this is
true, and, if doubtful, we should follow principle. In this, as in
many other elections, they would be guided by reputation, which
would not err oftener, perhaps, than the present mode of appointment.
In one State of the Union, at least, it has long been
tried, and with the most satisfactory success. The judges of
Connecticut have been chosen by the people every six months,
for nearly two centuries, and I believe there has hardly ever been
an instance of change; so powerful is the curb of incessant responsibility.
If prejudice, however, derived from a monarchical
institution, is still to prevail against the vital elective principle
of our own, and if the existing example among ourselves of
periodical election of judges by the people be still mistrusted,
let us at least not adopt the evil, and reject the good, of the English
precedent; let us retain amovability on the concurrence of
the executive and legislative branches, and nomination by the
executive alone. Nomination to office is an executive function.
To give it to the legislature, as we do, is a violation of the principle
of the separation of powers. It swerves the members from
correctness, by temptations to intrigue for office themselves, and
to a corrupt barter of votes; and destroys responsibility by dividing
it among a multitude. By leaving nomination in its proper
place, among executive functions, the principle of the distribution
of power is preserved, and responsibility weighs with its heaviest
force on a single head.
The organization of our county administrations may be thought
more difficult. But follow principle, and the knot unties itself.
Divide the counties into wards of such size as that every citizen
can attend, when called on, and act in person. Ascribe to them
the government of their wards in all things relating to themselves
exclusively. A justice, chosen by themselves, in each, a constable,
a military company, a patrol, a school, the care of their
own poor, their own portion of the public roads, the choice of
one or more jurors to serve in some court, and the delivery,
within their own wards, of their own votes for all elective officers
of higher sphere, will relieve the county administration of
nearly all its business, will have it better done, and by making
every citizen an acting member of the government, and in the
offices nearest and most interesting to him, will attach him by
his strongest feelings to the independence of his country, and its
republican constitution. The justices thus chosen by every
ward, would constitute the county court, would do its judiciary
business, direct roads and bridges, levy county and poor rates,
and administer all the matters of common interest to the whole
country. These wards, called townships in New England, are
the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves
the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for
the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation.
We should thus marshal our government into, 1, the general
federal republic, for all concerns foreign and federal; 2, that of
the State, for what relates to our own citizens exclusively; 3,
the county republics, for the duties and concerns of the county;
and 4, the ward republics, for the small, and yet numerous and
interesting concerns of the neighborhood; and in government, as
well as in every other business of life, it is by division and subdivision
of duties alone, that all matters, great and small, can be
managed to perfection. And the whole is cemented by giving
to every citizen, personally, a part in the administration of the
public affairs.
The sum of these amendments is, 1. General suffrage. 2.
Equal representation in the legislature. 3. An executive chosen
by the people. 4. Judges elective or amovable. 5. Justices,
jurors, and sheriffs elective. 6. Ward divisions. And 7. Periodical
amendments of the constitution.
I have thrown out these as loose heads of amendment, for
consideration and correction; and their object is to secure self-government
by the republicanism of our constitution, as well as
by the spirit of the people; and to nourish and perpetuate that
spirit. I am not among those who fear the people. They, and
not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to
preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us
with perpetual debt. We must make our election between
economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into
such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our
drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our
amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of
England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen
hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to
the government for their debts and daily expenses: and the sixteenth
being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they
now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no
means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain
subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the
necks of our fellow-sufferers. Our land-holders, too, like theirs,
retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs,
but held really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs,
in foreign countries, and be contented with penury, obscurity,
exile, and the glory of the nation. This example reads to us
the salutary lesson, that private fortunes are destroyed by public
as well as by private extravagance. And this is the tendency
of all human governments. A departure from principle in one
instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a
third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be
mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for
sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium
in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general
in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the
abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team
is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness
and oppression.
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence,
and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be
touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom
more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.
I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with
it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present,
but without the experience of the present; and forty years
of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading;
and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the
dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried
changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections
had better be borne with; because, when once known, we
accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting
their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions
must go hand in hand with the progress of the human
mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as
new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and
opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions
must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might
as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him
when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen
of their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea
which has lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead
of wisely yielding to the gradual change of circumstances,
of favoring progressive accommodation to progressive improvement,
have clung to old abuses, entrenched themselves behind
steady habits, and obliged their subjects to seek through blood
and violence rash and ruinous innovations, which, had they been
referred to the peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom of the
nation, would have been put into acceptable and salutary forms.
Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one
generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself,
and of ordering its own affairs. Let us, as our sister States have
done, avail ourselves of our reason and experience, to correct the
crude essays of our first and unexperienced, although wise, virtuous,
and well-meaning councils. And lastly, let us provide in
our constitution for its revision at stated periods. What these
periods should be, nature herself indicates. By the European
tables of mortality, of the adults living at any one moment of
time, a majority will be dead in about nineteen years. At the
end of that period then, a new majority is come into place; or,
in other words, a new generation. Each generation is as independent
of the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone
before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the
form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness;
consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances in
which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and it
is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity
of doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided
by the constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical
repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time, if
anything human can so long endure. It is now forty years since
the constitution of Virginia was formed. The same tables inform
us, that, within that period, two-thirds of the adults then
living are now dead. Have then the remaining third, even if
they had the wish, the right to hold in obedience to their will,
and to laws heretofore made by them, the other two-thirds, who,
with themselves, compose the present mass of adults? If they
have not, who has? The dead? But the dead have no rights.
They are nothing; and nothing cannot own something. Where
there is no substance, there can be no accident. This corporeal
globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present corporeal
inhabitants, during their generation. They alone have a right
to direct what is the concern of themselves alone, and to declare
the law of that direction; and this declaration can only be made
by their majority. That majority, then, has a right to depute
representatives to a convention, and to make the constitution
what they think will be the best for themselves. But how collect
their voice? This is the real difficulty. If invited by private
authority, or county or district meetings, these divisions are
so large that few will attend; and their voice will be imperfectly,
or falsely pronounced. Here, then, would be one of the advantages
of the ward divisions I have proposed. The mayor of
every ward, on a question like the present, would call his ward
together, take the simple yea or nay of its members, convey these
to the county court, who would hand on those of all its wards
to the proper general authority; and the voice of the whole people
would be thus fairly, fully, and peaceably expressed, discussed,
and decided by the common reason of the society. If
this avenue be shut to the call of sufferance, it will make itself
heard through that of force, and we shall go on, as other nations
are doing, in the endless circle of oppression, rebellion, reformation;
and oppression, rebellion, reformation, again; and so on
forever.
These, Sir, are my opinions of the governments we see among
men, and of the principles by which alone we may prevent our
own from falling into the same dreadful track. I have given
them at greater length than your letter called for. But I cannot
say things by halves; and I confide them to your honor, so to
use them as to preserve me from the gridiron of the public papers.
If you shall approve and enforce them, as you have done that of
equal representation, they may do some good. If not, keep them
to yourself as the effusions of withered age and useless time. I
shall, with not the less truth, assure you of my great respect and
consideration.
Monticello, July 16, 1816.
Dear Sir,—Yours of the 10th is received, and I have to acknowledge
a copious supply of the turnip seed requested. Besides
taking care myself, I shall endeavor again to commit it to
the depository of the neighborhood, generally found to be the
best precaution against losing a good thing. I will add a word
on the political part of our letters. I believe we do not differ on
either of the points you suppose. On education certainly not;
of which the proofs are my bill for the diffusion of knowledge,
proposed near forty years ago, and my uniform endeavors, to this
day, to get our counties divided into wards, one of the principal
objects of which is, the establishment of a primary school in
each. But education not being a branch of municipal government,
but, like the other arts and sciences, an accident only, I did
not place it, with election, as a fundamental member in the structure
of government. Nor, I believe, do we differ as to the county
courts. I acknowledge the value of this institution; that it is in
truth our principal executive and judiciary, and that it does
much for little pecuniary reward. It is their self-appointment I
wish to correct; to find some means of breaking up a cabal,
when such a one gets possession of the bench. When this takes
place, it becomes the most afflicting of tyrannies, because its powers
are so various, and exercised on everything most immediately
around us. And how many instances have you and I known of
these monopolies of county administration? I knew a county
in which a particular family (a numerous one) got possession of
the bench, and for a whole generation never admitted a man
on it who was not of its clan or connexion. I know a county
now of one thousand and five hundred militia, of which sixty
are federalists. Its court is of thirty members, of whom twenty
are federalists, (every third man of the sect.) There are large
and populous districts in it without a justice, because without a
federalist for appointment; the militia are as disproportionably
under federal officers. And there is no authority on earth which
can break up this junto, short of a general convention. The remaining
one thousand four hundred and forty, free, fighting, and
paying citizens, are governed by men neither of their choice or
confidence, and without a hope of relief. They are certainly
excluded from the blessings of a free government for life, and indefinitely,
for aught the constitution has provided. This solecism
may be called anything but republican, and ought undoubtedly
to be corrected. I salute you with constant friendship and respect.
Monticello, July 21, 1816.
I thank you, Sir, for the copy you have been so good as to
send me, of your late speech to the Legislature of your State,
which I have read a second time with great pleasure, as I had before
done in the public papers. It is replete with sound principles,
and truly republican. Some articles, too, are worthy of peculiar
notice. The idea that institutions established for the use
of the nation cannot be touched nor modified, even to make them
answer their end, because of rights gratuitously supposed in those
employed to manage them in trust for the public, may perhaps
be a salutary provision against the abuses of a monarch, but is
most absurd against the nation itself. Yet our lawyers and
priests generally inculcate this doctrine, and suppose that preceding
generations held the earth more freely than we do; had a
right to impose laws on us, unalterable by ourselves, and that we,
in like manner, can make laws and impose burthens on future
generations, which they will have no right to alter; in fine, that
the earth belongs to the dead and not the living. I remark also
the phenomenon of a chief magistrate recommending the reduction
of his own compensation. This is a solecism of which the
wisdom of our late Congress cannot be accused. I, however,
place economy among the first and most important of republican
virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be
feared. We see in England the consequences of the want of it,
their laborers reduced to live on a penny in the shilling of their
earnings, to give up bread, and resort to oatmeal and potatoes for
food; and their landholders exiling themselves to live in penury
and obscurity abroad, because at home the government must have
all the clear profits of their land. In fact, they see the fee simple
of the island transferred to the public creditors, all its profits
going to them for the interest of their debts. Our laborers and
landholders must come to this also, unless they severely adhere
to the economy you recommend. I salute you with entire esteem
and respect.
Monticello, July 23, 1816.
Dear Sir,—I have received and read with great pleasure the
account you have been so kind as to send me of the interview
between the Emperor Alexander and Mr. Clarkson, which I now
return, as it is in manuscript. It shows great condescension of
character on the part of the Emperor, and power of mind also, to
be able to abdicate the artificial distance between himself and
other good, able men, and to converse as on equal ground. This
conversation too, taken with his late Christian league, seems to
bespeak in him something like a sectarian piety; his character is
undoubtedly good, and the world, I think, may expect good effects
from it. I have no doubt that his firmness in favor of France,
after the deposition of Bonaparte, has saved that country from
evils still more severe than she is suffering, and perhaps even from
partition. I sincerely wish that the history of the secret proceedings
at Vienna may become known, and may reconcile to our
good opinion of him his participation in the demolition of ancient
and independent States, transferring them and their inhabitants
as farms and stocks of cattle at a market to other owners, and
even taking a part of the spoil to himself. It is possible to suppose
a case excusing this, and my partiality for his character encourages
me to expect it, and to impute to others, known to have
no moral scruples, the crimes of that conclave, who, under pretence
of punishing the atrocities of Bonaparte, reached them
themselves, and proved that with equal power they were equally
flagitious. But let us turn with abhorrence from these sceptered
Scelerats, and disregarding our own petty differences of opinion
about men and measures, let us cling in mass to our country and
to one another, and bid defiance, as we can if united, to the plundering
combinations of the old world. Present me affectionately
and respectfully to Mrs. Logan, and accept the assurance of my
friendship and best wishes.
Monticello, July 26, 1816.
Dear Sir,—In compliance with the request of your letter of
the 6th inst., with respect to Peyton Randolph, I have to observe
that the difference of age between him and myself admitted my
knowing little of his early life, except what I accidentally caught
from occasional conversations. I was a student at college when
he was already Attorney General at the bar, and a man of established
years; and I had no intimacy with him until I went to
the bar myself, when, I suppose, he must have been upwards of
forty; from that time, and especially after I became a member
of the legislature, until his death, our intimacy was cordial, and
I was with him when he died. Under these circumstances, I
have committed to writing as many incidents of his life as memory
enabled me to do, and to give faith to the many and excellent
qualities he possessed, I have mentioned those minor ones which
he did not possess; considering true history, in which all will be
believed, as preferable to unqualified panegyric, in which nothing
is believed. I avoided, too, the mention of trivial incidents,
which, by not distinguishing, disparage a character; but I have
not been able to state early dates. Before forwarding this paper
to you, I received a letter from Peyton Randolph, his great
nephew, repeating the request you had made. I therefore put
the paper under a blank cover, addressed to you, unsealed,
and sent it to Peyton Randolph, that he might see what dates
as well as what incidents might be collected, supplementary to
mine, and correct any which I had inexactly stated; circumstances
may have been misremembered, but nothing, I think, of
substance. This account of Peyton Randolph, therefore, you
may expect to be forwarded by his nephew.
You requested me when here, to communicate to you the particulars
of two transactions in which I was myself an agent, to
wit: the coup de main of Arnold on Richmond, and Tarleton's
on Charlottesville. I now enclose them, detailed with an exactness
on which you may rely with an entire confidence. But,
having an insuperable aversion to be drawn into controversy in
the public papers, I must request not to be quoted either as to
these or the account of Peyton Randolph. Accept the assurances
of my esteem and respect.
Monticello, July 31, 1816.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of November 1st came but lately to
my hand. It covered a prospectus of your code of health and
longevity, a great and useful work, which I shall be happy to
see brought to a conclusion. Like our good old Franklin, your
labors and science go all to the utilities of human life.
I reciprocate congratulations with you sincerely on the restoration
of peace between our two nations. And why should there
have been war? for the party to which the blame is to be imputed,
we appeal to the "Exposition of the causes and character of
the war," a pamphlet which, we are told, has gone through some
editions with you. If that does not justify us, then the blame is
ours. But let all this be forgotten; and let both parties now
count soberly the value of mutual friendship. I am satisfied both
will find that no advantage either can derive from any act of injustice
whatever, will be of equal value with those flowing from
friendly intercourse. Both ought to wish for peace and cordial
friendship; we, because you can do us more harm than any other
nation; and you, because we can do you more good than any
other. Our growth is now so well established by regular enumerations
through a course of forty years, and the same grounds
of continuance so likely to endure for a much longer period, that,
speaking in round numbers, we may safely call ourselves twenty
millions in twenty years, and forty millions in forty years. Many
of the statesmen now living saw the commencement of the first
term, and many now living will see the end of the second. It is
not then a mere concern of posterity; a third of those now in life
will see that day. Of what importance then to you must such a
nation be, whether as friends or foes. But is their friendship, dear
Sir, to be obtained by the irritating policy of fomenting among
us party discord, and a teasing opposition; by bribing traitors,
whose sale of themselves proves they would sell their purchasers
also, if their treacheries were worth a price? How much cheaper
would it be, how much easier, more honorable, more magnanimous
and secure, to gain the government itself, by a moral, a
friendly, and respectful course of conduct, which is all they
would ask for a cordial and faithful return. I know the difficulties
arising from the irritation, the exasperation produced on both
sides by the late war. It is great with you, as I judge from your
newspapers; and greater with us, as I see myself. The reason
lies in the different degrees in which the war has acted on us.
To your people it has been a matter of distant history only, a
mere war in the carnatic; with us it has reached the bosom of
every man, woman and child. The maritime parts have felt it
in the conflagration of their houses, and towns, and desolation
of their farms; the borderers in the massacres and scalpings of
their husbands, wives and children; and the middle parts in their
personal labors and losses in defence of both frontiers, and the revolting
scenes they have there witnessed. It is not wonderful
then, if their irritations are extreme. Yet time and prudence on
the part of the two governments may get over these. Manifestations
of cordiality between them, friendly and kind offices made
visible to the people on both sides, will mollify their feelings,
and second the wishes of their functionaries to cultivate peace,
and promote mutual interest. That these dispositions have been
strong on our part, in every administration from the first to the
present one, that we would at any time have gone our full half-way
to meet them, if a single step in advance had been taken by
the other party, I can affirm of my own intimate knowledge of
the fact. During the first year of my own administration, I
thought I discovered in the conduct of Mr. Addington some
marks of comity towards us, and a willingness to extend to us
the decencies and duties observed towards other nations. My
desire to catch at this, and to improve it for the benefit of my
own country, induced me, in addition to the official declarations
from the Secretary of State, to write with my own hand to Mr.
King, then our Minister Plenipotentiary at London, in the following
words: "I avail myself of this occasion to assure you of
my perfect satisfaction with the manner in which you have conducted
the several matters committed to you by us; and to express
my hope that through your agency, we may be able to remove
everything inauspicious to a cordial friendship between this
country, and the one in which you are stationed; a friendship
dictated by too many considerations not to be felt by the wise
and the dispassionate of both nations. It is, therefore, with the
sincerest pleasure I have observed on the part of the British government
various manifestations of a just and friendly disposition
towards us; we wish to cultivate peace and friendship with all
nations, believing that course most conducive to the welfare of
our own; it is natural that these friendships should bear some
proportion to the common interests of the parties. The interesting
relations between Great Britain and the United States are
certainly of the first order, and as such are estimated, and will be
faithfully cultivated by us. These sentiments have been communicated
to you from time to time, in the official correspondence
of the Secretary of State; but I have thought it might not
be unacceptable to be assured that they perfectly concur with my
own personal convictions, both in relation to yourself, and the
country in which you are."
My expectation was that Mr. King would show this letter to
Mr. Addington, and that it would be received by him as an overture
towards a cordial understanding between the two countries.
He left the ministry, however, and I never heard more of it, and
certainly never perceived any good effect from it. I know that
in the present temper, the boastful, the insolent, and the mendacious
newspapers on both sides, will present serious impediments.
Ours will be insulting your public authorities, and boasting of
victories; and yours will not be sparing of provocations and
abuses of us. But if those at our helms could not place themselves
above these pitiful notices, and throwing aside all personal
feelings, look only to the interests of their nations, they would be
unequal to the trusts confided to them. I am equally confident,
on our part, in the administration now in place, as in that which
will succeed it; and that if friendship is not hereafter sincerely
cultivated, it will not be their fault. I will not, however, disguise
that the settlement of the practice of impressing our citizens
is a sine quâ non, a preliminary, without which treaties of
peace are but truces. But it is impossible that reasonable dispositions
on both parts should not remove this stumbling block,
which unremoved, will be an eternal obstacle to peace, and lead
finally to the deletion of the one or the other nation. The regulations
necessary to keep your own seamen to yourselves are
those which our interests would lead us to adopt, and that interest
would be a guarantee of their observance; and the transfer
of these questions from the cognizance of their naval commanders
to the governments themselves, would be but an act of mutual
as well as of self-respect.
I did not mean, when I began my letter, to have indulged my
pen so far on subjects with which I have long ceased to have
connection; but it may do good, and I will let it go, for although
what I write is from no personal privity with the views or wishes
of our government, yet believing them to be what they ought to
be, and confident in their wisdom and integrity, I am sure I
hazard no deception in what I have said of them, and I shall be
happy indeed if some good shall result to both our countries,
from this renewal of our correspondence and ancient friendship.
I recall with great pleasure the days of our former intercourse,
personal and epistolary, and can assure you with truth that in no
instant of time has there been any abatement of my great esteem
and respect for you.
Monticello, August 1, 1816.
Dear Sir,—Your two philosophical letters of May 4th and
6th have been too long in my carton of "letters to be answered."
To the question, indeed, on the utility of grief, no answer
remains to be given. You have exhausted the subject. I
see that, with the other evils of life, it is destined to temper the
cup we are to drink.
Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood,
The source of evil one, and one of good;
From thence the cup of mortal man he fills,
Blessings to these, to those distributes ills;
To most he mingles both.
Putting to myself your question, would I agree to live my
seventy-three years over again forever? I hesitate to say. With
Chew's limitations from twenty-five to sixty, I would say yes;
and I might go further back, but not come lower down. For,
at the latter period, with most of us, the powers of life are sensibly
on the wane, sight becomes dim, hearing dull, memory constantly
enlarging its frightful blank and parting with all we have
ever seen or known, spirits evaporate, bodily debility creeps on
palsying every limb, and so faculty after faculty quits us, and
where then is life? If, in its full rigor, of good as well as evil,
your friend Vassall could doubt its value, it must be purely a negative
quantity when its evils alone remain. Yet I do not go
into his opinion entirely. I do not agree that an age of pleasure
is no compensation for a moment of pain. I think, with you,
that life is a fair matter of account, and the balance often, nay
generally, in its favor. It is not indeed easy, by calculation of
intensity and time, to apply a common measure, or to fix the
par between pleasure and pain; yet it exists, and is measurable.
On the question, for example, whether to be cut for the stone?
The young, with a longer prospect of years, think these overbalance
the pain of the operation. Dr. Franklin, at the age of
eighty, thought his residuum of life not worth that price. I
should have thought with him, even taking the stone out of the
scale. There is a ripeness of time for death, regarding others as
well as ourselves, when it is reasonable we should drop off, and
make room for another growth. When we have lived our generation
out, we should not wish to encroach on another. I enjoy
good health; I am happy in what is around me, yet I assure you
I am ripe for leaving all, this year, this day, this hour. If it
could be doubted whether we would go back to twenty-five,
how can it be whether we would go forward from seventy-three?
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations
the most abhorrent is body without mind. Perhaps,
however, I might accept of time to read Grimm before I go.
Fifteen volumes of anecdotes and incidents, within the compass
of my own time and cognizance, written by a man of genius, of
taste, of point, an acquaintance, the measure and traverses of
whose mind I know, could not fail to turn the scale in favor of
life during their perusal. I must write to Ticknor to add it to
my catalogue, and hold on till it comes. There is a Mr. Vanderkemp
of New York, a correspondent, I believe, of yours, with
whom I have exchanged some letters without knowing who he
is. Will you tell me? I know nothing of the history of the
Jesuits you mention in four volumes. Is it a good one? I dislike,
with you, their restoration, because it marks a retrograde
step from light towards darkness. We shall have our follies
without doubt. Some one or more of them will always be
afloat. But ours will be the follies of enthusiasm, not of bigotry,
not of Jesuitism. Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid
minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and
free discussion are the antidotes of both. We are destined to be
a barrier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old
Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along
by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings,
as she can. What a colossus shall we be when the southern
continent comes up to our mark! What a stand will it secure as
a ralliance for the reason and freedom of the globe! I like the
dreams of the future better than the history of the past,—so good
night! I will dream on, always fancying that Mrs. Adams and
yourself are by my side marking the progress and the obliquities
of ages and countries.
Monticello, August 6, 1816.
I have received, dear Madam, your very friendly letter of July
21st, and assure you that I feel with deep sensibility its kind expressions
towards myself, and the more as from a person than
whom no others could be more in sympathy with my own affections.
I often call to mind the occasions of knowing your
worth, which the societies of Washington furnished; and none
more than those derived from your much valued visit to Monticello.
I recognize the same motives of goodness in the solicitude
you express on the rumor supposed to proceed from a letter
of mine to Charles Thomson, on the subject of the Christian religion.
It is true that, in writing to the translator of the Bible
and Testament, that subject was mentioned; but equally so that
no adherence to any particular mode of Christianity was there
expressed, nor any change of opinions suggested. A change
from what? the priests indeed have heretofore thought proper to
ascribe to me religious, or rather anti-religious sentiments, of
their own fabric, but such as soothed their resentments against the
act of Virginia for establishing religious freedom. They wished
him to be thought atheist, deist, or devil, who could advocate
freedom from their religious dictations. But I have ever thought
religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences,
for which we were accountable to him, and not to the priests.
I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another. I
never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's
creed. I have ever judged of the religion of others by their
lives, and by this test, my dear Madam, I have been satisfied
yours must be an excellent one, to have produced a life of such
exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not
from our words, that our religion must be read. By the same
test the world must judge me. But this does not satisfy the
priesthood. They must have a positive, a declared assent to all
their interested absurdities. My opinion is that there would
never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest.
The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral
systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts
those who think for themselves, and who read in that system
only what is really there. These, therefore, they brand with
such nick-names as their enmity choses gratuitously to impute.
I have left the world, in silence, to judge of causes from their
effects; and I am consoled in this course, my dear friend, when
I perceive the candor with which I am judged by your justice
and discernment; and that, notwithstanding the slanders of the
saints, my fellow citizens have thought me worthy of trusts.
The imputations of irreligion having spent their force; they think
an imputation of change might now be turned to account as a
bolster for their duperies. I shall leave them, as heretofore, to
grope on in the dark.
Our family at Monticello is all in good health; Ellen speaking
of you with affection, and Mrs. Randolph always regretting the
accident which so far deprived her of the happiness of your former
visit. She still cherishes the hope of some future renewal
of that kindness; in which we all join her, as in the assurances
of affectionate attachment and respect.
Quincy, August 9, 1816.
Dear Sir,—The biography of Mr. Vander Kemp would require
a volume which I could not write if a million were offered
me as a reward for the work. After a learned and scientific education
he entered the army in Holland, and served as captain,
with reputation; but loving books more than arms he resigned
his commission and became a preacher. My acquaintance with
him commenced at Leyden in 1790. He was then minister of
the Menonist congregation, the richest in Europe; in that city,
where he was celebrated as the most elegant writer in the Dutch
language, he was the intimate friend of Luzac and De Gysecaar.
In 1788, when the King of Prussia threatened Holland
with invasion, his party insisted on his taking a command in the
army of defence, and he was appointed to the command of the
most exposed and most important post in the seven provinces.
He was soon surrounded by the Prussian forces; but he defended
his fortress with a prudence, fortitude, patience, and perseverance,
which were admired by all Europe; till, abandoned by his nation,
destitute of provisions and ammunition, still refusing to surrender,
he was offered the most honorable capitulation. He accepted
it; was offered very advantageous proposals; but despairing
of the liberties of his country, he retired to Antwerp, determined
to emigrate to New York; wrote to me in London, requesting
letters of introduction. I sent him letters to Governor
Clinton, and several others of our little great men. His history
in this country is equally curious and affecting. He left property
in Holland, which the revolutions there have annihilated; and I
fear is now pinched with poverty. His head is deeply learned
and his heart is pure. I scarcely know a more amiable character.
* * * * * * * *
He has written to me occasionally, and I have answered his
letters in great haste. You may well suppose that such a man
has not always been able to understand our American politics.
Nor have I. Had he been as great a master of our language as
he was of his own, he would have been at this day one of the
most conspicuous characters in the United States.
So much for Vander Kemp; now for your letter of August 1st.
Your poet, the Ionian I suppose, ought to have told us whether
Jove, in the distribution of good and evil from his two urns, observes
any rule of equity or not; whether he thunders out flames
of eternal fire on the many, and power, and glory, and felicity on
the few, without any consideration of justice?
Let us state a few questions sub rosâ.
1. Would you accept a life, if offered you, of equal pleasure
and pain? For example. One million of moments of pleasure, and
one million of moments of pain! (1,000,000 moments of pleasure
= 1,000,000 moments of pain.) Suppose the pleasure as exquisite
as any in life, and the pain as exquisite as any; for example,
stone-gravel, gout, headache, earache, toothache, cholic,
&c. I would not. I would rather be blotted out.
2. Would you accept a life of one year of incessant gout,
headache, &c., for seventy-two years of such life as you have
enjoyed? I would not. (One year of cholic = seventy-two of
Boule de Savon; pretty, but unsubstantial.) I had rather be extinguished.
You may vary these Algebraical equations at pleasure
and without end. All this ratiocination, calculation, call it
what you will, is founded on the supposition of no future state.
Promise me eternal life free from pain, although in all other respects
no better than our present terrestrial existence, I know not
how many thousand years of Smithfield fevers I would not endure
to obtain it. In fine, without the supposition of a future
state, mankind and this globe appear to me the most sublime and
beautiful bubble, and bauble, that imagination can conceive.
Let us then wish for immortality at all hazards, and trust the
Ruler with his skies. I do; and earnestly wish for his commands,
which to the utmost of my power shall be implicitly and
piously obeyed.
It is worth while to live to read Grimm, whom I have read;
and La Harpe and Mademoiselle D'Espinasse the fair friend of
D'Alembert, both of whom Grimm characterizes very distinguished,
and are, I am told, in print. I have not seen them, but hope
soon to have them.
My history of the Jesuits is not elegantly written, but is supported
by unquestionable authorities, is very particular and very
horrible. Their restoration is indeed a "step towards darkness,"
cruelty, perfidy, despotism, death and ——! I wish we were
out of "danger of bigotry and Jesuitism"! May we be "a barrier
against the returns of ignorance and barbarism"! "What a
colossus shall we be"! But will it not be of brass, iron and
clay? Your taste is judicious in liking better the dreams of the
future, than the history of the past. Upon this principle I prophecy
that you and I shall soon meet, and be better friends than
ever. So wishes,
J. A.
Monticello, August 26, 1816.
Sir,—In answer to your inquiry as to the merits of Gillies'
translation of the Politics of Aristotle, I can only say that it has
the reputation of being preferable to Ellis', the only rival translation
into English. I have never seen it myself, and therefore
do not speak of it from my own knowledge. But so different
was the style of society then, and with those people, from what
it is now and with us, that I think little edification can be obtained
from their writings on the subject of government. They
had just ideas of the value of personal liberty, but none at all of
the structure of government best calculated to preserve it. They
knew no medium between a democracy (the only pure republic,
but impracticable beyond the limits of a town) and an abandonment
of themselves to an aristocracy, or a tyranny independent of
the people. It seems not to have occurred that where the citizens
cannot meet to transact their business in person, they alone have
the right to choose the agents who shall transact it; and that in
this way a republican, or popular government, of the second grade
of purity, may be exercised over any extent of country. The
full experiment of a government democratical, but representative,
was and is still reserved for us. The idea (taken, indeed, from
the little specimen formerly existing in the English constitution,
but now lost) has been carried by us, more or less, into all our
legislative and executive departments; but it has not yet, by any
of us, been pushed into all the ramifications of the system, so
far as to leave no authority existing not responsible to the people;
whose rights, however, to the exercise and fruits of their own
industry, can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers
not subject to their control at short periods. The introduction
of this new principle of representative democracy has rendered
useless almost everything written before on the structure of government;
and, in a great measure, relieves our regret, if the political
writings of Aristotle, or of any other ancient, have been lost,
or are unfaithfully rendered or explained to us. My most earnest
wish is to see the republican element of popular control
pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I shall then
believe that our government may be pure and perpetual. Accept
my respectful salutations.
Quincy, September 3, 1816.
Dear Sir,—Dr. James Freeman is a learned, ingenious, honest
and benevolent man, who wishes to see President Jefferson,
and requests me to introduce him. If you would introduce some
of your friends to me, I could, with more confidence, introduce
mine to you. He is a Christian, but not a Pythagorian, a Platonic,
or a Philonic Christian. You will ken him, and he will
ken you; but you may depend he will never betray, deceive, or
injure you.
Without hinting to him anything which had passed between
you and me, I asked him your question, "What are the uses of
grief?" He stared, and said "The question was new to him."
All he could say at present was, that he had known, in his own
parish, more than one instance of ladies who had been thoughtless,
modish, extravagant in a high degree, who, upon the death of
a child, had become thoughtful, modest, humble; as prudent,
amiable women as any he had known. Upon this I read to him
your letters and mine upon this subject of grief, with which he
seemed to be pleased. You see I was not afraid to trust him,
and you need not be.
Since I am, accidentally, invited to write to you, I may add a
few words upon pleasures and pains of life. Vassall thought, an
hundred years, nay, an eternity of pleasure, was no compensation
for one hour of bilious cholic. Read again Molliores Spsyke,
act 2d, scene 1st, on the subject of grief. And read in another
place, "on est payè de mille maux, par un heureux moment."
Thus differently do men speak of pleasures and pains. Now,
Sir, I will tease you with another question. What have been
the abuses of grief?
In answer to this question, I doubt not you might write an
hundred volumes. A few hints may convince you that the subject
is ample.
1st. The death of Socrates excited a general sensibility of
grief at Athens, in Attica, and in all Greece. Plato and Xenophon,
two of his disciples, took advantage of that sentiment, by
employing their enchanting style to represent their master to be
greater and better than he probably was; and what have been
the effects of Socratic, Platonic, which were Pythagorian, which
was Indian philosophy, in the world?
2d. The death of Cæsar, tyrant as he was, spread a general
compassion, which always includes grief, among the Romans.
The scoundrel Mark Antony availed himself of this momentary
grief to destroy the republic, to establish the empire, and to proscribe
Cicero.
3d. But to skip over all ages and nations for the present, and
descend to our own times. The death of Washington diffused a
general grief. The old tories, the hyperfederalists, the speculators,
set up a general howl. Orations, prayers, sermons, mock
funerals, were all employed, not that they loved Washington,
but to keep in countenance the funding and banking system; and
to cast into the background and the shade, all others who had
been concerned in the service of their country in the Revolution.
4th. The death of Hamilton, under all its circumstances, produced
a general grief. His most determined enemies did not
like to get rid of him in that way. They pitied, too, his widow
and children. His party seized the moment of public feeling to
come forward with funeral orations, and printed panegyrics, reinforced
with mock funerals and solemn grimaces, and all this
by people who have buried Otis, Sam Adams, Hancock, and
Gerry, in comparative obscurity. And why? Merely to disgrace
the old Whigs, and keep the funds and banks in countenance.
5th. The death of Mr. Ames excited a general regret. His
long consumption, his amiable character, and reputable talents,
had attracted a general interest, and his death a general
mourning. His party made the most of it, by processions,
orations, and a mock funeral. And why? To glorify the
Tories, to abash the Whigs, and maintain the reputation of
funds, banks, and speculation. And all this was done in honor
of that insignificant boy, by people who have let a Dance, a
Gerry, and a Dexter, go to their graves without notice.
6th. I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most
fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind
has preserved—The Cross. Consider what calamities that
engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect which
is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that
fill, or might fill, the blackest and bloodiest pages of human
history.
I am with ancient friendly sentiments,
Monticello, September 5, 1816.
Sir,—Your letter of August the 16th is just received. That
which I wrote to you under the address of H. Tompkinson, was
intended for the author of the pamphlet you were so kind as to
send me, and therefore, in your hands, found its true destination.
But I must beseech you, Sir, not to admit a possibility of its
being published. Many good people will revolt from its doctrines,
and my wish is to offend nobody; to leave to those who
are to live under it, the settlement of their own constitution, and
to pass in peace the remainder of my time. If those opinions
are sound, they will occur to others, and will prevail by their
own weight, without the aid of names, I am glad to see that
the Staunton meeting has rejected the idea of a limited convention.
The article, however, nearest my heart, is the division of
counties into wards. These will be pure and elementary republics,
the sum of all which, taken together, composes the State,
and will make of the whole a true democracy as to the business
of the wards, which is that of nearest and daily concern. The
affairs of the larger sections, of counties, of States, and of the
Union, not admitting personal transaction by the people, will be
delegated to agents elected by themselves; and representation
will thus be substituted, where personal action becomes impracticable.
Yet, even over these representative organs, should they
become corrupt and perverted, the division into wards constituting
the people, in their wards, a regularly organized power, enables
them by that organization to crush, regularly and peaceably,
the usurpations of their unfaithful agents, and rescues them
from the dreadful necessity of doing it insurrectionally. In this
way we shall be as republican as a large society can be; and
secure the continuance of purity in our government, by the salutary,
peaceable, and regular control of the people. No other
depositories of power have ever yet been found, which did not
end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed
to their charge. George the III. in execution of the trust
confided to him, has, within his own day, loaded the inhabitants
of Great Britain with debts equal to the whole fee-simple value
of their island, and under pretext of governing it, has alienated
its whole soil to creditors who could lend money to be lavished
on priests, pensions, plunder and perpetual war. This would not
have been so, had the people retained organized means of acting
on their agents. In this example then, let us read a lesson for
ourselves, and not "go and do likewise."
Since writing my letter of July the 12th, I have been told,
that on the question of equal representation, our fellow citizens in
some sections of the State claim peremptorily a right of representation
for their slaves. Principle will, in this, as in most other
cases, open the way for us to correct conclusion. Were our State
a pure democracy, in which all its inhabitants should meet together
to transact all their business, there would yet be excluded from
their deliberations, 1, infants, until arrived at years of discretion.
2. Women, who, to prevent depravation of morals and ambiguity
of issue, could not mix promiscuously in the public meetings of
men. 3. Slaves, from whom the unfortunate state of things with
us takes away the rights of will and of property. Those then
who have no will could be permitted to exercise none in the popular
assembly; and of course, could delegate none to an agent
in a representative assembly. The business, in the first case,
would be done by qualified citizens only. It is true, that in
the general constitution, our State is allowed a larger representation
on account of its slaves. But every one knows, that that
constitution was a matter of compromise; a capitulation between
conflicting interests and opinions. In truth, the condition of different
descriptions of inhabitants in any country is a matter of
municipal arrangement, of which no foreign country has a right
to take notice. All its inhabitants are men as to them. Thus, in
the New England States, none have the powers of citizens but
those whom they call freemen; and none are freemen until admitted
by a vote of the freemen of the town. Yet, in the General
Government, these non-freemen are counted in their quantum
of representation and of taxation. So, slaves with us have no
powers as citizens; yet, in representation in the General Government,
they count in the proportion of three to five; and so also
in taxation. Whether this is equal, is not here the question. It
is a capitulation of discordant sentiments and circumstances, and
is obligatory on that ground. But this view shows there is no
inconsistency in claiming representation for them for the other
States, and refusing it within our own. Accept the renewal of
assurances of my respect.
Monticello, October 14, 1816.
Your letter, dear Sir, of May the 6th, had already well explained
the uses of grief. That of September the 3d, with equal
truth, adduces instances of its abuse; and when we put into the
same scale these abuses, with the afflictions of soul which even
the uses of grief cost us, we may consider its value in the economy
of the human being, as equivocal at least. Those afflictions
cloud too great a portion of life to find a counterpoise in any
benefits derived from its uses. For setting aside its paroxysms
on the occasions of special bereavements, all the latter years of
aged men are overshadowed with its gloom. Whither, for instance,
can you and I look without seeing the graves of those
we have known? And whom can we call up, of our early companions,
who has not left us to regret his loss? This, indeed,
may be one of the salutary effects of grief; inasmuch as it prepares
us to loose ourselves also without repugnance. Doctor
Freeman's instances of female levity cured by grief, are certainly
to the point, and constitute an item of credit in the account we
examine. I was much mortified by the loss of the Doctor's visit,
by my absence from home. To have shown how much I feel
indebted to you for making good people known to me, would
have been one pleasure; and to have enjoyed that of his conversation,
and the benefits of his information, so favorably reported
by my family, would have been another. I returned home on
the third day after his departure. The loss of such visits is among
the sacrifices which my divided residence costs me.
Your undertaking the twelve volumes of Dupuis, is a degree of
heroism to which I could not have aspired even in my younger
days. I have been contented with the humble achievement of
reading the analysis of his work by Destutt Tracy, in two hundred
pages octavo. I believe I should have ventured on his own
abridgment of the work, in one octavo volume, had it ever come
to my hands; but the marrow of it in Tracy has satisfied my appetite;
and even in that, the preliminary discourse of the analyzer
himself, and his conclusion, are worth more in my eye than the
body of the work. For the object of that seems to be to smother
all history under the mantle of allegory. If histories so unlike as
those of Hercules and Jesus, can, by a fertile imagination and allegorical
interpretations, be brought to the same tally, no line of
distinction remains between fact and fancy. As this pithy morsel
will not overburthen the mail in passing and repassing between
Quincy and Monticello, I send it for your perusal. Perhaps it
will satisfy you, as it has me; and may save you the labor of
reading twenty-four times its volume. I have said to you that it
was written by Tracy; and I had so entered it on the title page,
as I usually do on anonymous works whose authors are known to
me. But Tracy requested me not to betray his anonyme, for
reasons which may not yet, perhaps, have ceased to weigh. I am
bound, then, to make the same reserve with you. Destutt Tracy
is, in my judgment, the ablest writer living on intellectual subjects,
or the operations of the understanding. His three octavo
volumes on Ideology, which constitute the foundation of what
he has since written, I have not entirely read; because I am not
fond of reading what is merely abstract, and unapplied immediately
to some useful science. Bonaparte, with his repeated
derisions of Ideologists (squinting at this author), has by this time
felt that true wisdom does not lie in mere practice without principle.
The next work Tracy wrote was the Commentary on
Montesquieu, never published in the original, because not safe;
but translated and published in Philadelphia, yet without the
author's name. He has since permitted his name to be mentioned.
Although called a Commentary, it is, in truth, an elementary
work on the principles of government, comprised in
about three hundred pages octavo. He has lately published a
third work, on Political Economy, comprising the whole subject
within about the same compass; in which all its principles are
demonstrated with the severity of Euclid, and, like him, without
ever using a superfluous word. I have procured this to be translated,
and have been four years endeavoring to get it printed;
but as yet, without success. In the meantime, the author has
published the original in France, which he thought unsafe while
Bonaparte was in power. No printed copy, I believe, has yet
reached this country. He has his fourth and last work now in
the press at Paris, closing, as he conceives, the circle of metaphysical
sciences. This work, which is on Ethics, I have not
seen, but suspect I shall differ from it in its foundation, although
not in its deductions. I gather from his other works that he
adopts the principle of Hobbes, that justice is founded in contract
solely, and does not result from the construction of man. I believe,
on the contrary, that it is instinct and innate, that the moral
sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing,
or hearing; as a wise creator must have seen to be necessary
in an animal destined to live in society; that every human mind
feels pleasure in doing good to another; that the non-existence
of justice is not to be inferred from the fact that the same act is
deemed virtuous and right in one society which is held vicious
and wrong in another; because, as the circumstances and opinions
of different societies vary, so the acts which may do them
right or wrong must vary also; for virtue does not consist in the
act we do, but in the end it is to effect. If it is to effect the happiness
of him to whom it is directed, it is virtuous, while in a society
under different circumstances and opinions, the same act
might produce pain, and would be vicious. The essence of virtue
is in doing good to others, while what is good may be one thing
in one society, and its contrary in another. Yet, however we
may differ as to the foundation of morals, (and as many foundations
have been assumed as there are writers on the subject nearly,)
so correct a thinker as Tracy will give us a sound system of morals.
And, indeed, it is remarkable, that so many writers, setting
out from so many different premises, yet meet all in the same
conclusions. This looks as if they were guided, unconsciously,
by the unerring hand of instinct.
Your history of the Jesuits, by what name of the author or
other description is it to be inquired for?
What do you think of the present situation of England? Is
not this the great and fatal crush of their funding system, which,
like death, has been foreseen by all, but its hour, like that of
death, hidden from mortal prescience? It appears to me that all
the circumstances now exist which render recovery desperate.
The interest of the national debt is now equal to such a portion
of the profits of all the land and the labor of the island, as not
to leave enough for the subsistence of those who labor. Hence
the owners of the land abandon it and retire to other countries,
and the laborer has not enough of his earnings left to him to
cover his back and to fill his belly. The local insurrections, now
almost general, are of the hungry and the naked, who cannot be
quieted but by food and raiment. But where are the means of
feeding and clothing them? The landholder has nothing of his
own to give; he is but the fiduciary of those who have lent him
money; the lender is so taxed in his meat, drink and clothing,
that he has but a bare subsistence left. The landholder, then,
must give up his land, or the lender his debt, or they must compromise
by giving up each one-half. But will either consent,
peaceably, to such an abandonment of property? Or must it not
be settled by civil conflict? If peaceably compromised, will
they agree to risk another ruin under the same government unreformed?
I think not; but I would rather know what you
think; because you have lived with John Bull, and know better
than I do the character of his herd. I salute Mrs. Adams and
yourself with every sentiment of affectionate cordiality and respect.
Monticello, October 16, 1816.
Dear Sir,—If it be proposed to place an inscription on the
capitol, the lapidary style requires that essential facts only should
be stated, and these with a brevity admitting no superfluous word.
The essential facts in the two inscriptions proposed are these:
FOUNDED 1791.—BURNT BY A BRITISH ARMY 1814.—RESTORED BY CONGRESS 1817.
The reasons for this brevity are that the letters must be of extraordinary
magnitude to be read from below; that little space is
allowed them, being usually put into a pediment or in a frieze, or
on a small tablet on the wall; and in our case, a third reason
may be added, that no passion can be imputed to this inscription,
every word being justifiable from the most classical examples.
But a question of more importance is whether there should be
one at all? The barbarism of the conflagration will immortalize
that of the nation. It will place them forever in degraded comparison
with the execrated Bonaparte, who, in possession of
almost every capitol in Europe, injured no one. Of this, history
will take care, which all will read, while our inscription will be
seen by few. Great Britain, in her pride and ascendency, has
certainly hated and despised us beyond every earthly object.
Her hatred may remain, but the hour of her contempt is passed
and is succeeded by dread; not a present, but a distant and deep
one. It is the greater as she feels herself plunged into an abyss
of ruin from which no human means point out an issue. We
also have more reason to hate her than any nation on earth. But
she is not now an object for hatred. She is falling from her
transcendent sphere, which all men ought to have wished, but not
that she should lose all place among nations. It is for the interest
of all that she should be maintained, nearly on a par with other
members of the republic of nations. Her power, absorbed into
that of any other, would be an object of dread to all, and to us
more than all, because we are accessible to her alone and through
her alone. The armies of Bonaparte with the fleets of Britain,
would change the aspect of our destinies. Under these prospects
should we perpetuate hatred against her? Should we not, on
the contrary, begin to open ourselves to other and more rational
dispositions? It is not improbable that the circumstances of the
war and her own circumstances may have brought her wise men
to begin to view us with other and even with kindred eyes.
Should not our wise men, then, lifted above the passions of the
ordinary citizen, begin to contemplate what will be the interests of
our country on so important a change among the elements which
influence it? I think it would be better to give her time to show
her present temper, and to prepare the minds of our citizens for
a corresponding change of disposition, by acts of comity towards
England rather than by commemoration of hatred. These
views might be greatly extended. Perhaps, however, they are
premature, and that I may see the ruin of England nearer than
it really is. This will be matter of consideration with those to
whose councils we have committed ourselves, and whose wisdom,
I am sure, will conclude on what is best. Perhaps they may let
it go off on the single and short consideration that the thing can
do no good, and may do harm. Ever and affectionately yours.
Poplar Forest, November 25, 1816.
I receive here, dear Sir, your favor of the 4th, just as I am
preparing my return to Monticello for winter quarters, and I hasten
to answer to some of your inquiries. The Tracy I mentioned
to you is the one connected by marriage with Lafayette's family.
The mail which brought your letter, brought one also from him.
He writes me that he is become blind, and so infirm that he is
no longer able to compose anything. So that we are to consider
his works as now closed. They are three volumes of Ideology,
one on Political Economy, one on Ethics, and one containing
his Commentary on Montesquieu, and a little tract on Education.
Although his commentary explains his principles of government,
he had intended to have substituted for it an elementary and regular
treatise on the subject, but he is prevented by his infirmities.
His Analyse de Dupuys he does not avow.
My books are all arrived, some at New York, some at Boston,
and I am glad to hear that those for Harvard are safe also, and
the Uranologia you mention without telling me what it is. It is
something good, I am sure, from the name connected with it;
and if you would add to it your fable of the bees, we should receive
valuable instruction as to the Uranologia both of the father
and son, more valuable than the Chinese will from our bible societies.
These incendiaries, finding that the days of fire and
fagot are over in the Atlantic hemisphere, are now preparing to
put the torch to the Asiatic regions. What would they say were
the Pope to send annually to this country, colonies of Jesuit
priests with cargoes of their missal and translations of their Vulgate,
to be put gratis into the hands of every one who would accept
them? and to act thus nationally on us as a nation?
I proceed to the letter you were so good as to enclose me. It
is an able letter, speaks volumes in few words, presents a profound
view of awful truths, and lets us see truths more awful,
which are still to follow. George the Third then, and his
minister Pitt, and successors, have spent the fee simple of the
kingdom, under pretence of governing it; their sinecures, salaries,
pensions, priests, prelates, princes and eternal wars, have
mortgaged to its full value the last foot of their soil. They are
reduced to the dilemma of a bankrupt spendthrift, who, having
run through his whole fortune, now asks himself what he is to
do? It is in vain he dismisses his coaches and horses, his
grooms, liveries, cooks and butlers. This done, he still finds he
has nothing to eat. What was his property is now that of his
creditors; if still in his hands, it is only as their trustee. To
them it belongs, and to them every farthing of its profits must go.
The reformation of extravagances comes too late. All is gone.
Nothing left for retrenchment or frugality to go on. The debts
of England, however, being due from the whole nation to one
half of it, being as much the debt of the creditor as debtor, if it
could be referred to a court of equity, principles might be devised
to adjust it peaceably. Dismiss their parasites, ship off their paupers
to this country, let the landholders give half their lands to
the money lenders, and these last relinquish one half of their
debts. They would still have a fertile island, a sound and effective
population to labor it, and would hold that station among
political powers, to which their natural resources and faculties
entitle them. They would no longer, indeed, be the lords of the
ocean and paymasters of all the princes of the earth. They
would no longer enjoy the luxuries of pirating and plundering
everything by sea, and of bribing and corrupting everything by
land; but they might enjoy the more safe and lasting luxury of
living on terms of equality, justice and good neighborhood with
all nations. As it is, their first efforts will probably be to quiet
things awhile by the palliatives of reformation; to nibble a little
at pensions and sinecures, to bite off a bit here, and a bite there
to amuse the people; and to keep the government a going by
encroachments on the interest of the public debt, one per cent.
of which, for instance, withheld, gives them a spare revenue of ten
millions for present subsistence, and spunges, in fact, two hundred
millions of the debt. This remedy they may endeavor to administer
in broken doses of a small pill at a time. The first
may not occasion more than a strong nausea in the money lenders;
but the second will probably produce a revulsion of the
stomach, borborisms, and spasmodic calls for fair settlement and
compromise. But it is not in the character of man to come
to any peaceable compromise of such a state of things. The
princes and priests will hold to the flesh-pots, the empty bellies will
seize on them, and these being the multitude, the issue is obvious,
civil war, massacre, exile as in France, until the stage is
cleaned of everything but the multitude, and the lands get
into their hands by such processes as the revolution will engender.
They will then want peace and a government, and
what will it be? certainly not a renewal of that which has already
ruined them. Their habits of law and order, their ideas
almost innate of the vital elements of free government, of trial
by jury, habeas corpus, freedom of the press, freedom of opinion,
and representative government, make them, I think, capable
of bearing a considerable portion of liberty. They will
probably turn their eyes to us, and be disposed to tread in our
footsteps, seeing how safely these have led us into port. There
is no part of our model to which they seem unequal, unless perhaps
the elective presidency; and even that might possibly be
rescued from the tumult of elections, by subdividing the electoral
assemblages into very small parts, such as of wards or townships,
and making them simultaneous. But you know them so
much better than I do, that it is presumption to offer my conjectures
to you.
While it is much our interest to see this power reduced from
its towering and borrowed height, to within the limits of its
natural resources, it is by no means our interest that she should
be brought below that, or lose her competent place among the
nations of Europe. The present exhausted state of the continent
will, I hope, permit them to go through their struggle without
foreign interference, and to settle their new government according
to their own will. I think it will be friendly to us, as
the nation itself would be were it not artfully wrought up by
the hatred their government bears us. And were they once under
a government which should treat us with justice and equity
I should myself feel with great strength the ties which bind us
together, of origin, language, laws and manners; and I am persuaded
the two people would become in future, as it was with
the ancient Greeks, among whom it was reproachful for Greek
to be found fighting against Greek in a foreign army. The individuals
of the nation I have ever honored and esteemed, the
basis of their character being essentially worthy; but I consider
their government as the most flagitious which has existed since
the days of Philip of Macedon, whom they make their model.
It is not only founded in corruption itself, but insinuates the
same poison into the bowels of every other, corrupts its councils,
nourishes factions, stirs up revolutions, and places its own happiness
in fomenting commotions and civil wars among others, thus
rendering itself truly the hostis humani generis. The effect is
now coming home to itself. Its first operation will fall on the
individuals who have been the chief instruments in its corruptions,
and will eradicate the families which have from generation
to generation been fattening on the blood of their brethren; and
this scoria once thrown off, I am in hopes a purer nation will result,
and a purer government be instituted, one which, instead of
endeavoring to make us their natural enemies, will see in us,
what we really are, their natural friends and brethren, and more
interested in a fraternal connection with them than with any other
nation on earth. I look, therefore, to their revolution with
great interest. I wish it to be as moderate and bloodless as will
effect the desired object of an honest government, one which
will permit the world to live in peace, and under the bonds of
friendship and good neighborhood.
In this tremendous tempest, the distinctions of whig and tory
will disappear like chaff on a troubled ocean. Indeed, they have
been disappearing from the day Hume first began to publish his
history. This single book has done more to sap the free principles
of the English constitution than the largest standing army
of which their patriots have been so jealous. It is like the portraits
of our countryman Wright, whose eye was so unhappy as
to seize all the ugly features of his subject, and to present them
faithfully, while it was entirely insensible to every lineament of
beauty. So Hume has concentrated, in his fascinating style, all
the arbitrary proceedings of the English kings, as true evidences
of the constitution, and glided over its whig principles as the
unfounded pretensions of factious demagogues. He even boasts,
in his life written by himself, that of the numerous alterations
suggested by the readers of his work, he had never adopted one
proposed by a whig.
But what, in this same tempest, will become of their colonies
and their fleets? Will the former assume independence, and the
latter resort to piracy for subsistence, taking possession of some
island as a point d'appui? A pursuit of these would add too
much to the speculations on the situation and prospects of England,
into which I have been led by the pithy text of the letter
you so kindly sent me, and which I now return. It is worthy
the pen of Tacitus. I add, therefore, only my affectionate and
respectful souvenirs to Mrs. Adams and yourself.
Quincy, December 16, 1816.
Your letter, dear Sir, of November 25th, from Poplar Forest,
was sent to me from the post-office the next day after I had sent
"The Analysis," with my thanks to you.
"Three vols. of Idiology!" Pray explain to me this Neological
title! What does it mean? When Bonaparte used it, I was
delighted with it, upon the common principle of delight in everything
we cannot understand. Does it mean Idiotism? The
science of non compos mentuism? The science of Lunacy? The
theory of delirium? or does it mean the science of self-love? Of
amour propre? or the elements of vanity?
Were I in France at this time, I could profess blindness and
infirmity, and prove it too. I suppose he does not avow the analysis,
as Hume did not avow his essay on human nature. That
analysis, however, does not show a man of excessive mediocrity.
Had I known any of these things two years ago, I would have
written him a letter. Of all things, I wish to see his Idiology
upon Montesquieu. If you, with all your influence, have not
been able to get your own translation of it, with your own notes
upon it, published in four years, where and what is the freedom
of the American press? Mr. Taylor of Hazelwood, Port Royal,
can have his voluminous and luminous works published with
ease and despatch.
The Uranologia, as I am told, is a collection of plates, stamps,
charts of the Heavens upon a large scale, representing all the
constellations. The work of some Professor in Sweden. It is
said to be the most perfect that ever has appeared. I have not
seen it. Why should I ride fifteen miles to see it, when I can
see the original every clear evening; and especially as Dupuis
has almost made me afraid to inquire after anything more of it
than I can see with my naked eye in a star-light night?
That the Pope will send Jesuits to this country, I doubt not;
and the church of England, missionaries too. And the Methodists,
and the Quakers, and the Moravians, and the Swedenburgers,
and the Menonists, and the Scottish Kirkers, and the Jacobites,
and the Jacobins, and the Democrats, and the Aristocrats, and the
Monarchists, and the Despotists of all denominations: and every
emissary of every one of these sects will find a party here already
formed, to give him a cordial reception. No power or intelligence
less than Raphael's moderator, can reduce this chaos to order.
I am charmed with the fluency and rapidity of your reasoning
on the state of Great Britain. I can deny none of your premises;
but I doubt your conclusion. After all the convulsions that you
foresee, they will return to that constitution which you say has
ruined them, and I say has been the source of all their power and
importance. They have, as you say, too much sense and knowledge
of liberty, ever to submit to simple monarchy, or absolute
despotism, on the one hand; and too much of the devil in them
ever to be governed by popular elections of Presidents, Senators,
and Representatives in Congress. Instead of "turning their eyes
to us," their innate feelings will turn them from us. They have
been taught from their cradles to despise, scorn, insult, and abuse
us. They hate us more vigorously than they do the French.
They would sooner adopt the simple monarchy of France, than
our republican institutions. You compliment me with more
knowledge of them than I can assume or pretend. If I should
write you a volume of observations I made in England, you
would pronounce it a satire. Suppose the "Refrain," as the
French call it, or the Burthen of the Song, as the English express
it, should be, the Religion, the Government, the Commerce, the
Manufactures, the Army and Navy of Great Britain, are all reduced
to the science of pounds, shillings and pence. Elections
appeared to me a mere commercial traffic; mere bargain and sale.
I have been told by sober, steady freeholders, that "they never
had been, and never would go to the poll, without being paid
for their time, travel and expenses." Now, suppose an election
for a President of the British empire. There must be a nomination
of candidates by a national convention, Congress, or caucus—in
which would be two parties—Whigs and Tories. Of course
two candidates at least would be nominated. The empire is instantly
divided into two parties at least. Every man must be
paid for his vote by the candidate of his party. The only question
would be, which party has the deepest purse. The same
reasoning will apply to elections of Senators and Representatives
too. A revolution might destroy the Burroughs and the Inequalities
of representation, and might produce more toleration; and
these acquisitions might be worth all they would cost; but I dread
the experiment.
Britain will never be our friend till we are her master.
This will happen in less time than you and I have been struggling
with her power; provided we remain united. Aye! there's
the rub! I fear there will be greater difficulties to preserve our
Union, than you and I, our fathers, brothers, friends, disciples
and sons have had, to form it. Towards Great Britain, I would
adopt their own maxim. An English jockey says, "If I have a
wild horse to break, I begin by convincing him I am his master;
and then I will convince him that I am his friend." I am well
assured that nothing will restrain Great Britain from injuring us,
but fear.
You think that "in a revolution the distinction of Whig and
Tory would disappear." I cannot believe this. That distinction
arises from nature and society; is now, and ever will be,
time without end, among Negroes, Indians, and Tartars, as well
as federalists and republicans. Instead of "disappearing since
Hume published his history," that history has only increased the
Tories and diminished the Whigs. That history has been the
bane of Great Britain. It has destroyed many of the best effects
of the revolution of 1688. Style has governed the empire.
Swift, Pope and Hume, have disgraced all the honest historians.
Rapin and Burnet, Oldmixen and Coke, contain more honest
truth than Hume and Clarendon, and all their disciples and imitators.
But who reads any of them at this day? Every one of
the fine arts from the earliest times has been enlisted in the service
of superstition and despotism. The whole world at this day
gazes with astonishment at the grossest fictions, because they
have been immortalized by the most exquisite artists—Homer
and Milton, Phideas and Raphael. The rabble of the classic
skies, and the hosts of Roman Catholic saints and angels, are
still adored in paint, and marble, and verse. Raphael has sketched
the actors and scenes in all Apuleus's Amours of Psyche and
Cupid. Nothing is too offensive to morals, delicacy, or decency,
for this painter. Raphael has painted in one of the most ostentatious
churches in Italy—the Creation—and with what genius?
God Almighty is represented as leaping into chaos, and boxing
it about with his fists, and kicking it about with his feet, till he
tumbles it into order!
Nothing is too impious or profane for this great master, who
has painted so many inimitable virgins and children.
To help me on in my career of improvement, I have now read
four volumes of La Harpe's correspondence with Paul and a Russian
minister. Philosophers! Never again think of annulling
superstition per Saltum. Testine cente.
Monticello, December 31, 1816.
Sir,—Your favor of November 23d, after a very long passage,
is received, and with it the map which you have been so kind
as to send me, for which I return you many thanks. It is handsomely
executed, and on a well-chosen scale; giving a luminous
view of the comparative possessions of different powers in our
America. It is on account of the value I set on it, that I will
make some suggestions. By the charter of Louis XIV. all the
country comprehending the waters which flow into the Mississippi,
was made a part of Louisiana. Consequently its northern
boundary was the summit of the highlands in which its northern
waters rise. But by the Xth Art. of the Treaty of Utrecht,
France and England agreed to appoint commissioners to settle the
boundary between their possessions in that quarter, and those
commissioners settled it at the 49th degree of latitude. See
Hutchinson's Topographical Description of Louisiana, p. 7. This
it was which induced the British Commissioners, in settling the
boundary with us, to follow the northern water line to the Lake
of the Woods, at the latitude of 49°, and then go off on that
parallel. This, then, is the true northern boundary of Louisiana.
The western boundary of Louisiana is, rightfully, the Rio
Bravo, (its main stream,) from its mouth to its source, and thence
along the highlands and mountains dividing the waters of the
Mississippi from those of the Pacific. The usurpations of Spain
on the east side of that river, have induced geographers to suppose
the Puerco or Salado to be the boundary. The line along
the highlands stands on the charter of Louis XIV. that of the
Rio Bravo, on the circumstance that, when La Salle took possession
of the Bay of St. Bernard, Panuco was the nearest possession
of Spain, and the Rio Bravo the natural half-way boundary
between them.
On the waters of the Pacific, we can found no claim in right
of Louisiana. If we claim that country at all, it must be on
Astor's settlement near the mouth of the Columbia, and the principle
of the jus gentium of America, that when a civilized nation
takes possession of the mouth of a river in a new country,
that possession is considered as including all its waters.
The line of latitude of the southern source of the multnomat
might be claimed as appurtenant to Astoria. For its northern
boundary, I believe an understanding has been come to between
our government and Russia, which might be known from some
of its members. I do not know it.
Although the irksomeness of writing, which you may perceive
from the present letter, and its labor, oblige me now to withdraw
from letter writing, yet the wish that your map should set to
rights the ideas of our own countrymen, as well as foreign nations,
as to our correct boundaries, has induced me to make these
suggestions, that you may bestow on them whatever inquiry
they may merit. I salute you with esteem and respect.
Monticello, January 11, 1817.
I owe you, dear Madam, a thousand thanks for the letters communicated
in your favor of December 15th, and now returned.
They give me more information than I possessed before, of the
family of Mr. Tracy. But what is infinitely interesting, is the
scene of the exchange of Louis XVIII. for Bonaparte. What
lessons of wisdom Mr. Adams must have read in that short space
of time! More than fall to the lot of others in the course of a
long life. Man, and the man of Paris, under those circumstances,
must have been a subject of profound speculation! It would
be a singular addition to that spectacle, to see the same beast in
the cage of St. Helena, like a lion in the tower. That is probably
the closing verse of the chapter of his crimes. But not so
with Louis. He has other vicissitudes to go through.
I communicated the letters, according to your permission, to
my grand-daughter, Ellen Randolph, who read them with pleasure
and edification. She is justly sensible of, and flattered by
your kind notice of her; and additionally so, by the favorable
recollections of our northern visiting friends. If Monticello has
anything which has merited their remembrance, it gives it a
value the more in our estimation; and could I, in the spirit of
your wish, count backwards a score of years, it would not be
long before Ellen and myself would pay our homage personally
to Quincy. But those twenty years! Alas! where are they?
With those beyond the flood. Our next meeting must then be
in the country to which they have flown,—a country for us not
now very distant. For this journey we shall need neither gold nor
silver in our purse, nor scrip, nor coats, nor staves. Nor is the
provision for it more easy than the preparation has been kind.
Nothing proves more than this, that the Being who presides over
the world is essentially benevolent. Stealing from us, one by
one, the faculties of enjoyment, searing our sensibilities, leading
us, like the horse in his mill, round and round the same beaten
circle,
——To see what we have seen,
To taste the tasted, and at each return
Less tasteful; o'er our palates to decant
Another vintage—
Until satiated and fatigued with this leaden iteration, we ask our
own congé. I heard once a very old friend, who had troubled
himself with neither poets nor philosophers, say the same thing
in plain prose, that he was tired of pulling off his shoes and
stockings at night, and putting them on again in the morning.
The wish to stay here is thus gradually extinguished; but not
so easily that of returning once, in awhile, to see how things
have gone on. Perhaps, however, one of the elements of future
felicity is to be a constant and unimpassioned view of what is
passing here. If so, this may well supply the wish of occasional
visits. Mercier has given us a vision of the year 2440; but
prophecy is one thing, and history another. On the whole, however,
perhaps it is wise and well to be contented with the good
things which the master of the feast places before us, and to be
thankful for what we have, rather than thoughtful about what
we have not. You and I, dear Madam, have already had more
than an ordinary portion of life, and more, too, of health than the
general measure. On this score I owe boundless thankfulness.
Your health was, some time ago, not so good as it has been; and
I perceive in the letters communicated, some complaints still. I
hope it is restored; and that life and health may be continued to
you as many years as yourself shall wish, is the sincere prayer
of your affectionate and respectful friend.
Monticello, January 11, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Forty-three volumes read in one year, and twelve
of them quarto! Dear Sir, how I envy you! Half a dozen
octavos in that space of time, are as much as I am allowed. I
can read by candlelight only, and stealing long hours from my
rest; nor would that time be indulged to me, could I by that
light see to write. From sunrise to one or two o'clock, and
often from dinner to dark, I am drudging at the writing table.
And all this to answer letters into which neither interest nor inclination
on my part enters; and often from persons whose names
I have never before heard. Yet, writing civilly, it is hard to refuse
them civil answers. This is the burthen of my life, a very
grievous one indeed, and one which I must get rid of. Delaplaine
lately requested me to give him a line on the subject of
his book; meaning, as I well knew, to publish it. This I constantly
refuse; but in this instance yielded, that in saying a word
for him, I might say two for myself. I expressed in it freely my
sufferings from this source; hoping it would have the effect of
an indirect appeal to the discretion of those, strangers and others,
who, in the most friendly dispositions, oppress me with their
concerns, their pursuits, their projects, inventions and speculations,
political, moral, religious, mechanical, mathematical, historical,
&c., &c., &c. I hope the appeal will bring me relief,
and that I shall be left to exercise and enjoy correspondence with
the friends I love, and on subjects which they, or my own inclinations
present. In that case, your letters shall not be so long
on my files unanswered, as sometimes they have been, to my
great mortification.
To advert now to the subjects of those of December the 12th
and 16th. Tracy's Commentaries on Montesquieu have never
been published in the original. Duane printed a translation from
the original manuscript a few years ago. It sold, I believe,
readily, and whether a copy can now be had, I doubt. If it can,
you will receive it from my bookseller in Philadelphia, to whom
I now write for that purpose. Tracy comprehends, under the
word "Ideology," all the subjects which the French term Morale,
as the correlative to Physique. His works on Logic, Government,
Political Economy and Morality, he considers as making
up the circle of ideological subjects, or of those which are within
the scope of the understanding, and not of the senses. His
Logic occupies exactly the ground of Locke's work on the Understanding.
The translation of that on Political Economy is
now printing; but it is no translation of mine. I have only had
the correction of it, which was, indeed, very laborious. Le premier
jet having been by some one who understood neither
French or English, it was impossible to make it more than faithful.
But it is a valuable work.
The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading, in
the four words, "Be just and good," is that in which all our inquiries
must end; as the riddles of all the priesthoods end in four
more, "ubi panis, ibi deus." What all agree in, is probably
right. What no two agree in, most probably wrong. One of
our fan-coloring biographers, who paints small men as very great,
inquired of me lately, with real affection too, whether he might
consider as authentic, the change in my religion much spoken
of in some circles. Now this supposed that they knew what
had been my religion before, taking for it the word of their
priests, whom I certainly never made the confidants of my creed.
My answer was, "say nothing of my religion. It is known to
my God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to
be sought in my life; if that has been honest and dutiful to society,
the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one."
Affectionately adieu.
Monticello, January 16, 1817.
Dear Sir,—I received, three days ago, a letter from M. Martin,
2d Vice President, and M. Parmantier, Secretary of "the French
Agricultural and Manufacturing Society," dated at Philadelphia the
5th instant. It covered resolutions proposing to apply to Congress
for a grant of two hundred and fifty thousand acres of
land on the Tombigbee, and stating some of the general principles
on which the society was to be founded; and their letter
requested me to trace for them the basis of a social pact for the
local regulations of their society, and to address the answer to
yourself, their 1st Vice President at Washington. No one can
be more sensible than I am of the honor of their confidence in
me, so flatteringly manifested in this resolution; and certainly
no one can feel stronger dispositions than myself to be useful to
them, as well in return for this great mark of their respect, as
from feelings for the situation of strangers, forced by the misfortunes
of their native country to seek another by adoption, so
distant and so different from that in all its circumstances. I
commiserate the hardships they have to encounter, and equally
applaud the resolution with which they meet them, as well as
the principles proposed for their government. That their emigration
may be for the happiness of their descendants, I can believe;
but from the knowledge I have of the country they have
left, and its state of social intercourse and comfort, their own
personal happiness will undergo severe trial here. The laws,
however, which must effect this must flow from their own habits,
their own feelings, and the resources of their own minds. No
stranger to these could possibly propose regulations adapted to
them. Every people have their own particular habits, ways of
thinking, manners, &c., which have grown up with them from
their infancy are become a part of their nature, and to which the
regulations which are to make them happy must be accommodated.
No member of a foreign country can have a sufficient sympathy
with these. The institutions of Lycurgus, for example, would
not have suited Athens, nor those of Solon, Lacedæmon. The
organizations of Locke were impracticable for Carolina, and those
of Rousseau and Mably for Poland. Turning inwardly on myself
from these eminent illustrations of the truth of my observation,
I feel all the presumption it would manifest, should I undertake
to do what this respectable society is alone qualified to do
suitably for itself. There are some preliminary questions, too,
which are particularly for their own consideration. Is it proposed
that this shall be a separate State? or a county of a State?
or a mere voluntary association, as those of the Quakers, Dunkars,
Menonists? A separate State it cannot be, because from
the tract it asks it would not be more than twenty miles square;
and in establishing new States, regard is had to a certain degree
of equality in size. If it is to be a county of a State, it cannot
be governed by its own laws, but must be subject to those of the
State of which it is a part. If merely a voluntary association,
the submission of its members will be merely voluntary also; as
no act of coercion would be permitted by the general law.
These considerations must control the society, and themselves
alone can modify their own intentions and wishes to them. With
this apology for declining a task to which I am so unequal, I
pray them to be assured of my sincere wishes for their success
and happiness, and yourself particularly of my high consideration
and esteem.
Monticello, February 8, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of January 2d did not come to my
hands until the 5th instant. I concur entirely in your leading
principles of gradual emancipation, of establishment on the coast
of Africa, and the patronage of our nation until the emigrants
shall be able to protect themselves. The subordinate details
might be easily arranged. But the bare proposition of purchase
by the United States generally, would excite infinite indignation
in all the States north of Maryland. The sacrifice must fall on
the States alone which hold them; and the difficult question will
be how to lessen this so as to reconcile our fellow citizens to it.
Personally I am ready and desirous to make any sacrifice which
shall ensure their gradual but complete retirement from the State,
and effectually, at the same time, establish them elsewhere in freedom
and safety. But I have not perceived the growth of this
disposition in the rising generation, of which I once had sanguine
hopes. No symptoms inform me that it will take place in
my day. I leave it, therefore, to time, and not at all without
hope that the day will come, equally desirable and welcome to
us as to them. Perhaps the proposition now on the carpet at
Washington to provide an establishment on the coast of Africa
for voluntary emigrations of people of color, may be the corner
stone of this future edifice. Praying for its completion as early
as may most promote the good of all, I salute you with great
esteem and respect.
Quincy, April 19, 1817.
Dear Sir,—My loving and beloved friend Pickering, has been
pleased to inform the world that I have "few friends." I wanted
to whip the rogue, and I had it in my power, if it had been
in my will to do it, till the blood came. But all my real friends,
as I thought then, with Dexter and Gray at their head, insisted
"that I should not say a word; that nothing that such a person
could write would do me the least injury; that it would betray
the constitution and the government, if a President, out or in,
should enter into a newspaper controversy with one of his ministers,
whom he had removed from his office, in justification of
himself for that removal, or anything else;" and they talked a
great deal about the Dignity of the office of President, which I
do not find that any other person, public or private regards very
much.
Nevertheless, I fear that Mr. Pickering's information is too true.
It is impossible that any man should run such a gauntlet as I
have been driven through, and have many friends at last. This
"all who know me know," though I cannot say; who love me,
tell.
I have, however, either friends who wish to amuse and solace
my old age, or enemies who mean to heap coals of fire on my
head, and kill me with kindness; for they overwhelm me with
books from all quarters, enough to obfuscate all eyes, and smother
and stifle all human understanding. Chateaubriand, Grimm,
Tucker, Dupuis, La Harpe, Sismondi, Eustace, a new translation
of Herodotus, by Bedloe, with more notes than text. What
should I do with all this lumber? I make my "woman-kind,"
as the antiquary expresses it, read to me all the English, but as
they will not read the French, I am obliged to excruciate my
eyes to read it myself; and all to what purpose? I verily believe
I was as wise and good, seventy years ago, as I am now.
At that period Lemuel Bryant was my parish priest, and Joseph
Cleverly my Latin schoolmaster. Lemuel was a jolly, jocular,
and liberal scholar and divine. Joseph a scholar and a gentleman;
but a bigoted Episcopalian, of the school of Bishop
Saunders, and Dr. Hicks,—a downright conscientious, passive
obedience man, in Church and State. The parson and the pedagogue
lived much together, but were eternally disputing about
government and religion. One day, when the schoolmaster had
been more than commonly fanatical, and declared "if he were
a monarch, he would have but one religion in his dominions;"
the parson coolly replied, "Cleverly! you would be the best man
in the world if you had no religion."
Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been
on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all
possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this
exclamation I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly.
Without religion this world would be something not fit to
be mentioned in polite society, I mean hell. So far from believing
in the total and universal depravity of human nature, I
believe there is no individual totally depraved. The most abandoned
scoundrel that ever existed, never yet wholly extinguished
his conscience, and while conscience remains there is some religion.
Popes, Jesuits, and Sorbonists, and Inquisitors, have some
conscience and some religion. So had Marius and Sylla, Cæsar,
Catiline and Antony; and Augustus had not much more, let
Virgil and Horace say what they will.
What shall we think of Virgil and Horace, Sallust, Quintilian,
Pliny, and even Tacitus? and even Cicero, Brutus and Seneca?
Pompey I leave out of the question, as a mere politician and
soldier. Every one of the great creatures has left indelible
marks of conscience, and consequently of religion, though every
one of them has left abundant proofs of profligate violations of
their consciences by their little and great passions and paltry interests.
The vast prospect of mankind, which these books have passed
in review before me, from the most ancient records, histories, traditions
and fables, that remain to us to the present day, has sickened
my very soul, and almost reconciled me to Swift's travels
among the Yahoos; yet I never can be a misanthrope—Homo
sum. I must hate myself before I can hate my fellow men;
and that I cannot, and will not do. No! I will not hate any of
them, base, brutal, and devilish as some of them have been to me.
From the bottom of my soul, I pity my fellow men. Fears
and terrors appear to have produced an universal credulity. Fears
of calamities in life, and punishments after death, seem to have
possessed the souls of all men. But fear of pain and death,
here, do not seem to have been so unconquerable, as fear of what
is to come hereafter. Priests, Hierophants, Popes, Despots, Emperors,
Kings, Princes, Nobles, have been as credulous as shoe-blacks,
boots and kitchen scullions. The former seem to have
believed in their divine rights as sincerely as the latter.
Auto de feés, in Spain and Portugal, have been celebrated with
as good faith as excommunications have been practised in Connecticut,
or as baptisms have been refused in Philadelphia.
How is it possible that mankind should submit to be governed,
as they have been, is to me an inscrutable mystery. How they
could bear to be taxed to build the temple of Diana at Ephesus,
the pyramids of Egypt, Saint Peter's at Rome, Notre Dame at
Paris, St. Paul's in London, with a million et ceteras, when my
navy yards and my quasi army made such a popular clamor, I
know not. Yet all my peccadillos never excited such a rage as
the late compensation law!
I congratulate you on the late election in Connecticut. It is
a kind of epocha. Several causes have conspired. One which
you would not suspect. Some one, no doubt instigated by the
devil, has taken it into his head to print a new edition of the
"Independent Whig," even in Connecticut, and has scattered the
volumes through the State. These volumes, it is said, have produced
a burst of indignation against priestcraft, bigotry and intolerance,
and in conjunction with other causes, have produced
the late election.
When writing to you I never know when to subscribe,
J. A.
Monticello, May 5, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Absences and avocations had prevented my acknowledging
your favor of February the 2d, when that of April
the 19th arrived. I had not the pleasure of receiving the former
by the hands of Mr. Lyman. His business probably carried him
in another direction; for I am far inland, and distant from the
great line of communication between the trading cities. Your
recommendations are always welcome, for indeed, the subjects
of them always merit that welcome, and some of them in an extraordinary
degree. They make us acquainted with what there
is excellent in our ancient sister State of Massachusetts, once
venerated and beloved, and still hanging on our hopes, for what
need we despair of after the resurrection of Connecticut to light
and liberality. I had believed that the last retreat of monkish
darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind
which had carried the other States a century ahead of them.
They seemed still to be exactly where their forefathers were
when they schismatized from the covenant of works, and to consider
as dangerous heresies all innovations good or bad. I join
you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the
priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom
is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If
by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no
two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is
just, "that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there
were no religion in it." But if the moral precepts, innate in man,
and made a part of his physical constitution, as necessary for a
social being, if the sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism
taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in which all agree, constitute
true religion, then, without it, this would be, as you again say,
"something not fit to be named, even indeed, a hell."
You certainly acted wisely in taking no notice of what the
malice of Pickering could say of you. Were such things to be
answered, our lives would be wasted in the filth of fendings and
provings, instead of being employed in promoting the happiness
and prosperity of our fellow citizens. The tenor of your life is
the proper and sufficient answer. It is fortunate for those in
public trust, that posterity will judge them by their works, and
not by the malignant vituperations and invectives of the Pickerings
and Gardiners of their age. After all, men of energy of
character must have enemies; because there are two sides to
every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it
with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile in
proportion as they feel that effect. Thus, in the revolution, Hancock
and the Adamses were the raw-head and bloody bones of
tories and traitors who yet knew nothing of you personally but
what was good. I do not entertain your apprehensions for the
happiness of our brother Madison in a state of retirement. Such
a mind as his, fraught with information and with matter for reflection,
can never know ennui. Besides, there will always be
work enough cut out for him to continue his active usefulness to
his country. For example, he and Monroe (the President) are
now here on the work of a collegiate institution to be established
in our neighborhood, of which they and myself are three of six
visitors. This, if it succeeds, will raise up children for Mr. Madison
to employ his attention through life. I say if it succeeds;
for we have two very essential wants in our way, first, means to
compass our views; and, second, men qualified to fulfil them.
And these, you will agree, are essential wants indeed.
I am glad to find you have a copy of Sismondi, because his
is a field familiar to you, and on which you can judge him. His
work is highly praised, but I have not yet read it. I have been
occupied and delighted with reading another work, the title of
which did not promise much useful information or amusement,
"l'Italia avanti il dominio dei Romani dal Micali." It has
often, you know, been a subject of regret, that Carthage had no
writer to give her side of her own history, while her wealth,
power and splendor, prove she must have had a very distinguished
policy and government. Micali has given the counterpart of
the Roman history, for the nations over which they extended
their dominion. For this he has gleaned up matter from every
quarter, and furnished materials for reflection and digestion to
those who, thinking as they read, have perceived that there was
a great deal of matter behind the curtain, could that be fully
withdrawn. He certainly gives new views of a nation whose
splendor has masked and palliated their barbarous ambition. I
am now reading Botta's history of our own Revolution. Bating
the ancient practice which he has adopted, of putting speeches
into mouths which never made them, and fancying motives of
action which we never felt, he has given that history with more
detail, precision and candor, than any writer I have yet met with.
It is, to be sure, compiled from those writers; but it is a good secretion
of their matter, the pure from the impure, and presented
in a just sense of right, in opposition to usurpation.
Accept assurances for Mrs. Adams and yourself of my affectionate
esteem and respect.
Monticello, May 10, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of April 2d is duly received. I am
very sensible of the partiality with which you are so good as to
review the course I have held in public life, and I have also to
be thankful to my fellow-citizens for a like indulgence generally
shown to my endeavors to be useful to them. They give quite
as much credit as is merited to the difficulties supposed to attend
the public administration. There are no mysteries in it. Difficulties
indeed sometimes arise; but common sense and honest intentions
will generally steer through them, and, where they cannot
be surmounted, I have ever seen the well-intentioned part of our
fellow citizens sufficiently disposed not to look for impossibilities.
We all know that a farm, however large, is not more difficult to
direct than a garden, and does not call for more attention or skill.
I hope with you that the policy of our country will settle down
with as much navigation and commerce only as our own exchanges
will require, and that the disadvantage will be seen of
our undertaking to carry on that of other nations. This, indeed,
may bring gain to a few individuals, and enable them to call off
from our farms more laborers to be converted into lackeys and
grooms for them, but it will bring nothing to our country but
wars, debt, and dilapidation. This has been the course of England,
and her examples have fearful influence on us. In copying
her we do not seem to consider that like premises induce like
consequences. The bank mania is one of the most threatening
of these imitations. It is raising up a monied aristocracy in our
country which has already set the government at defiance, and
although forced at length to yield a little on this first essay of
their strength, their principles are unyielded and unyielding.
These have taken deep root in the hearts of that class from which
our legislators are drawn, and the sop to Cerberus from fable has
become history. Their principles lay hold of the good, their
pelf of the bad, and thus those whom the constitution had placed
as guards to its portals, are sophisticated or suborned from their
duties. That paper money has some advantages, is admitted.
But that its abuses also are inevitable, and, by breaking up the
measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot
be denied. Shall we ever be able to put a constitutional veto on it?
You say I must go to writing history. While in public life I
had not time, and now that I am retired, I am past the time.
To write history requires a whole life of observation, of inquiry,
of labor and correction. Its materials are not to be found among
the ruins of a decayed memory. At this day I should begin
where I ought to have left off. The "solve senes centem equum,"
is a precept we learn in youth but for the practice of age; and
were I to disregard it, it would be but a proof the more of its
soundness. If anything has ever merited to me the respect of
my fellow citizens, themselves, I hope, would wish me not to
lose it by exposing the decay of faculties of which it was the reward.
I must then, dear Sir, leave to yourself and your brethren
of the rising generation, to arraign at your tribunal the actions
of your predecessors, and to pronounce the sentence they may
have merited or incurred. If the sacrifices of that age have resulted
in the good of this, then all is well, and we shall be rewarded
by their approbation, and shall be authorized to say, "go
ye and do likewise." To yourself I tender personally the assurance
of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, May 14, 1817.
Although, dear Sir, much retired from the world, and meddling
little in its concerns, yet I think it almost a religious duty to
salute at times my old friends, were it only to say and to know
that "all's well." Our hobby has been politics; but all here is
so quiet, and with you so desperate, that little matter is furnished
us for active attention. With you too, it has long been forbidden
ground, and therefore imprudent for a foreign friend to tread,
in writing to you. But although our speculations might be intrusive,
our prayers cannot but be acceptable, and mine are sincerely
offered for the well-being of France. What government
she can bear, depends not on the state of science, however exalted,
in a select band of enlightened men, but on the condition
of the general mind. That, I am sure, is advanced and will advance;
and the last change of government was fortunate, inasmuch
as the new will be less obstructive to the effects of that advancement.
For I consider your foreign military oppressions as
an ephemeral obstacle only.
Here all is quiet. The British war has left us in debt; but
that is a cheap price for the good it has done us. The establishment
of the necessary manufactures among ourselves, the proof
that our government is solid, can stand the shock of war, and is
superior even to civil schism, are precious facts for us; and of
these the strongest proofs were furnished, when, with four eastern
States tied to us, as dead to living bodies, all doubt was removed
as to the achievements of the war, had it continued. But
its best effect has been the complete suppression of party. The
federalists who were truly American, and their great mass was so,
have separated from their brethren who were mere Anglomen, and
are received with cordiality into the republican ranks. Even
Connecticut, as a State, and the last one expected to yield its
steady habits (which were essentially bigoted in politics as well
as religion), has chosen a republican governor, and republican
legislature. Massachusetts indeed still lags; because most deeply
involved in the parricide crimes and treasons of the war. But
her gangrene is contracting, the sound flesh advancing on it, and
all there will be well. I mentioned Connecticut as the most
hopeless of our States. Little Delaware had escaped my attention.
That is essentially a Quaker State, the fragment of a religious
sect which, there, in the other States, in England, are
a homogeneous mass, acting with one mind, and that directed by
the mother society in England. Dispersed, as the Jews, they
still form, as those do, one nation, foreign to the land they live
in. They are Protestant Jesuits, implicitly devoted to the will
of their superior, and forgetting all duties to their country in the
execution of the policy of their order. When war is proposed
with England, they have religious scruples; but when with
France, these are laid by, and they become clamorous for it.
They are, however, silent, passive, and give no other trouble
than of whipping them along. Nor is the election of Monroe an
inefficient circumstance in our felicities. Four and twenty years,
which he will accomplish, of administration in republican forms
and principles, will so consecrate them in the eyes of the people
as to secure them against the danger of change. The evanition
of party dissensions has harmonized intercourse, and sweetened
society beyond imagination. The war then has done us all this
good, and the further one of assuring the world, that although
attached to peace from a sense of its blessings, we will meet war
when it is made necessary.
I wish I could give better hopes of our southern brethren.
The achievement of their independence of Spain is no longer a
question. But it is a very serious one, what will then become
of them? Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable
of self-government. They will fall under military despotism,
and become the murderous tools of the ambition of their
respective Bonapartes; and whether this will be for their greater
happiness, the rule of one only has taught you to judge. No
one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see them and all mankind exercising
self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the
question is not what we wish, but what is practicable? As their
sincere friend and brother then, I do believe the best thing for
them, would be for themselves to come to an accord with Spain,
under the guarantee of France, Russia, Holland, and the United
States, allowing to Spain a nominal supremacy, with authority
only to keep the peace among them, leaving them otherwise all
the powers of self-government, until their experience in them,
their emancipation from their priests, and advancement in information,
shall prepare them for complete independence. I exclude
England from this confederacy, because her selfish principles
render her incapable of honorable patronage or disinterested co-operation;
unless, indeed, what seems now probable, a revolution
should restore to her an honest government, one which will
permit the world to live in peace. Portugal grasping at an extension
of her dominion in the south, has lost her great northern
province of Pernambuco, and I shall not wonder if Brazil should
revolt in mass, and send their royal family back to Portugal.
Brazil is more populous, more wealthy, more energetic, and as
wise as Portugal. I have been insensibly led, my dear friend,
while writing to you, to indulge in that line of sentiment in
which we have been always associated, forgetting that these are
matters not belonging to my time. Not so with you, who have
still many years to be a spectator of these events. That these
years may indeed be many and happy, is the sincere prayer of
your affectionate friend.
Quincy, May 18, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Lyman was mortified that he could not visit Monticello.
He is gone to Europe a second time. I regret that he
did not see you, he would have executed any commission for you
in the literary line, at any pain or any expense. I have many
apprehensions for his health, which is very delicate and precarious,
but he is seized with the mania of all our young clerical
spirits for foreign travel; I fear they will lose more than they acquire,
they will lose that unadulterated enthusiasm for their native
country, which has produced the greatest characters among
us.
Oh! Lord! Do you think that Protestant Popedom is annihilated
in America? Do you recollect, or have you ever attended
to the ecclesiastical strifes in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York,
and every part of New England? What a mercy it is that these
people cannot whip, and crop, and pillory, and roast, as yet in
the United States! If they could, they would. Do you know
the General of the Jesuits, and consequently all his host, have
their eyes on this country? Do you know that the Church of
England is employing more means and more art, to propagate
their demi-popery among us, than ever? Quakers, Anabaptists,
Moravians, Swedenborgians, Methodists, Unitarians, Nothingarians
in all Europe are employing underhand means to propagate
their sectarian system in these States.
The multitude and diversity of them, you will say, is our security
against them all. God grant it. But if we consider that
the Presbyterians and Methodists are far the most numerous and
the most likely to unite, let a George Whitefield arise, with a
military cast, like Mahomet or Loyola, and what will become of
all the other sects who can never unite?
My friends or enemies continue to overwhelm me with books.
Whatever may be their intention, charitable or otherwise, they
certainly contribute to continue me to vegetate, much as I have
done for the sixteen years last past.
Sir John Malcolm's history of Persia, and Sir William Jones'
works, are now poured out upon me, and a little cargo is coming
from Europe. What can I do with all this learned lumber? Is
it necessary to salvation to investigate all these Cosmogonies and
Mythologies? Are Bryant, Gebelin, Dupuis, or Sir William Jones,
right? What a frown upon mankind was the premature death
of Sir William Jones! Why could not Jones and Dupuis have
conversed or corresponded with each other? Had Jones read
Dupuis, or Dupuis Jones, the works of both would be immensely
improved, though each would probably have adhered to his
system.
I should admire to see a counsel composed of Gebelin, Bryant,
Jones and Dupuis. Let them live together and compare notes.
The human race ought to contribute to furnish them with all the
books in the Universe, and the means of subsistence.
I am not expert enough in Italian to read Botta, and I know
not that he has been translated. Indeed, I have been so little satisfied
with histories of the American revolution, that I have long
since ceased to read them. The truth is lost, in adulatory panegyrics,
and in vituperary insolence. I wish you, Mr. Madison, and
Mr. Monroe, success in your collegiate institution. And I wish
that superstition in religion, exciting superstition in politics, and
both united in directing military force, alias glory, may never
blow up all your benevolent and philanthropic lucubrations. But
the history of all ages is against you.
It is said that no effort in favor of virtue is ever lost. I doubt
whether it was ever true; whether it is now true; but hope it
will be true. In the moral government of the world, no doubt
it was, is, and ever will be true; but it has not yet appeared to
be true on this earth.
I am, Sir, sincerely your friend.
P. S. Have you seen the Philosophy of Human Nature, and
the History of the War in the western States, from Kentucky?
How vigorously science and literature spring up, as well as patriotism
and heroism, in transalleganian regions? Have you seen
Wilkinson's history? &c., &c.
Quincy, May 26, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Mr. Leslie Combes of Kentucky has sent me a
history of the late war, in the western country, by Mr. Robert
B. M'Siffee, and the Philosophy of Human Nature, by Joseph
Buchanan. The history I am glad to see, because it will preserve
facts to the honor and immortal glory of the western people.
Indeed, I am not sorry that the Philosophy has been published,
because it has been a maxim with me for sixty years at least,
never to be afraid of a book.
Nevertheless, I cannot foresee much utility in reviewing, in
this country, the controversy between the Spiritualists and the Materialists.
Why should time be wasted in disputing about two
substances, when both parties agree that neither knows anything
about either.
If spirit is an abstraction, a conjecture, a chimera; matter is an
abstraction, a conjecture, a chimera; for we know as much, or
rather as little, about one as the other. We may read Cudworth,
Le Clerc, Leibnitz, Berkley, Hume, Bolingbroke and Priestley, and
a million other volumes in all ages, and be obliged at last to confess
that we have learned nothing. Spirit and matter still remain
riddles. Define the terms, however, and the controversy
is soon settled. If spirit is an active something, and matter an
inactive something, it is certain that one is not the other. We
can no more conceive that extension, or solidity, can think, or
feel, or see, or hear, or taste, or smell; than we can conceive
that perception, memory, imagination, or reason, can remove a
mountain, or blow a rock. This enigma has puzzled mankind
from the beginning, and probably will to the end. Economy of
time requires that we should waste no more in so idle an amusement.
In the eleventh discourse of Sir William Jones, before the
Asiatic Society, vol. iii., page 229, of his works, we find that
Materialists and Immaterialists existed in India, and that they
accused each other of atheism, before Berkley, or Priestley, or
Dupuis, or Plato, or Pythagoras, were born.
Indeed, Newton himself appears to have discovered nothing
that was not known to the ancient Indians. He has only furnished
more complete demonstrations of the doctrines they taught.
Sir John Malcolm agrees with Jones and Dupuis, in the Astrological
origin of heathen mythologies. Vain man! mind your
own business! Do no wrong;—do all the good you can! Eat
your canvas-back ducks! Drink your Burgundy! Sleep your
siesta when necessary, and TRUST IN GOD!
What a mighty bubble, what a tremendous waterspout, has
Napoleon been, according to his life, written by himself! He
says he was the creature of the principles and manners of the
age; by which, no doubt, he means the age of Reason; the progress
of Manilius' Ratio, of Plato's Logos, &c. I believe him.
A whirlwind raised him, and a whirlwind blowed him away to
St. Helena. He is very confident that the age of Reason is not
past, and so am I; but I hope that Reason will never again
rashly and hastily create such creatures as him. Liberty, equality,
fraternity, and humanity, will never again, I hope, blindly
surrender themselves to an unbounded ambition for national conquests,
nor implicitly commit themselves to the custody and
guardianship of arms and heroes. If they do, they will again
end in St. Helena, Inquisitions, Jesuits, and sacre liques.
Poor Laureate Southey is writhing in torments under the laugh
of the three kingdoms, all Europe, and America, upon the publication
of his "Wat Tyler." I wonder whether he or Bonaparte
suffers most. I congratulate you, and Madison, and Monroe, on
your noble employment in founding a university. From such a
noble Triumvirate, the world will expect something very great
and very new; but if it contains anything quite original, and
very excellent, I fear the prejudices are too deeply rooted to suffer
it to last long, though it may be accepted at first. It will not
always have three such colossal reputations to support it.
The Pernambuco Ambassador, his Secretary of legation, and
private Secretary, respectable people, have made me a visit.
Having been some year or two in a similar situation, I could not
but sympathize with him. As Bonaparte says, the age of Reason
is not ended. Nothing can totally extinguish, or eclipse the light
which has been shed abroad by the press.
I am, Sir, with hearty wishes for your health and happiness,
your friend and humble servant.
Monticello, June 12, 1817.
Sir,—Your favor of May 20th has been received some time
since, but the increasing inertness of age renders me slow in
obeying the calls of the writing-table, and less equal than I have
been to its labors.
My opinion on the right of Expatriation has been, so long ago
as the year 1776, consigned to record in the act of the Virginia
code, drawn by myself, recognizing the right expressly, and prescribing
the mode of exercising it. The evidence of this natural
right, like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties,
the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical
investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of
every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings
or legislators, but under the King of kings. If he has made it
a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, he has
left him free in the choice of place as well as mode; and we
may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce
the map on which Nature has traced, for each individual, the
geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of
happiness. It certainly does not exist in his mind. Where,
then, is it? I believe, too, I might safely affirm, that there is
not another nation, civilized or savage, which has ever denied
this natural right. I doubt if there is another which refuses its
exercise. I know it is allowed in some of the most respectable
countries of continental Europe, nor have I ever heard of one in
which it was not. How it is among our savage neighbors, who
have no law but that of Nature, we all know.
Though long estranged from legal reading and reasoning, and
little familiar with the decisions of particular judges, I have considered
that respecting the obligation of the common law in this
country as a very plain one, and merely a question of document.
If we are under that law, the document which made us so can
surely be produced; and as far as this can be produced, so far we
are subject to it, and farther we are not. Most of the States did,
I believe, at an early period of their legislation, adopt the English
law, common and statute, more or less in a body, as far as localities
admitted of their application. In these States, then, the
common law, so far as adopted, is the lex-loci. Then comes the
law of Congress, declaring that what is law in any State, shall
be the rule of decision in their courts, as to matters arising within
that State, except when controlled by their own statutes. But
this law of Congress has been considered as extending to civil
cases only; and that no such provision has been made for criminal
ones. A similar provision, then, for criminal offences, would,
in like manner, be an adoption of more or less of the common
law, as part of the lex-loci, where the offence is committed; and
would cover the whole field of legislation for the general government.
I have turned to the passage you refer to in Judge
Cooper's Justinian, and should suppose the general expressions
there used would admit of modifications conformable to this doctrine.
It would alarm me indeed, in any case, to find myself
entertaining an opinion different from that of a judgment so accurately
organized as his. But I am quite persuaded that, whenever
Judge Cooper shall be led to consider that question simply
and nakedly, it is so much within his course of thinking, as
liberal as logical, that, rejecting all blind and undefined obligation,
he will hold to the positive and explicit precepts of the law
alone. Accept these hasty sentiments on the subjects you propose,
as hazarded in proof of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, June 13, 1817.
Dear Sir,—The receipt of your Distributio Geographica
Plantarum, with the duty of thanking you for a work which
sheds so much new and valuable light on botanical science, excites
the desire, also, of presenting myself to your recollection,
and of expressing to you those sentiments of high admiration
and esteem, which, although long silent, have never slept. The
physical information you have given us of a country hitherto so
shamefully unknown, has come exactly in time to guide our understandings
in the great political revolution now bringing it into
prominence on the stage of the world. The issue of its struggles,
as they respect Spain, is no longer matter of doubt. As it
respects their own liberty, peace and happiness, we cannot be
quite so certain. Whether the blinds of bigotry, the shackles
of the priesthood, and the fascinating glare of rank and wealth,
give fair play to the common sense of the mass of their people, so
far as to qualify them for self-government, is what we do not
know. Perhaps our wishes may be stronger than our hopes.
The first principle of republicanism is, that the lex-majoris partis
is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal
rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority
of a single vote, as sacred as if unanimous, is the first of
all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt.
This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force,
which ends necessarily in military despotism. This has been
the history of the French revolution, and I wish the understanding
of our Southern brethren may be sufficiently enlarged and
firm to see that their fate depends on its sacred observance.
In our America we are turning to public improvements.
Schools, roads, and canals, are everywhere either in operation or
contemplation. The most gigantic undertaking yet proposed, is
that of New York, for drawing the waters of Lake Erie into the
Hudson. The distance is 353 miles, and the height to be surmounted
661 feet. The expense will be great, but its effect incalculably
powerful in favor of the Atlantic States. Internal
navigation by steamboats is rapidly spreading through all our
States, and that by sails and oars will ere long be looked back to
as among the curiosities of antiquity. We count much, too, on
its efficacy for harbor defence; and it will soon be tried for navigation
by sea. We consider the employment of the contributions
which our citizens can spare, after feeding, and clothing,
and lodging themselves comfortably, as more useful, more moral,
and even more splendid, than that preferred by Europe, of destroying
human life, labor and happiness.
I write this letter without knowing where it will find you.
But wherever that may be, I am sure it will find you engaged in
something instructive for man. If at Paris, you are of course in
habits of society with Mr. Gallatin, our worthy, our able, and excellent
minister, who will give you, from time to time, the details
of the progress of a country in whose prosperity you are so
good as to feel an interest, and in which your name is revered
among those of the great worthies of the world. God bless you,
and preserve you long to enjoy the gratitude of your fellow men,
and to be blessed with honors, health and happiness.
Monticello, June 14, 1817.
I thank you, dear Sir, for the copy of the interesting narrative
of the Complet d'Arnold, which you have been so kind as to
send me. It throws light on that incident of history which we
did not possess before. An incident which merits to be known,
as a lesson to mankind, in all its details. This mark of your
attention recalls to my mind the earlier period of life at which I
had the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, and renews the
sentiments of high respect and esteem with which that acquaintance
inspired me. I had not failed to accompany your personal
sufferings during the civil convulsions of your country, and had
sincerely sympathized with them. An awful period, indeed, has
passed in Europe since our first acquaintance. When I left
France at the close of '89, your revolution was, as I thought,
under the direction of able and honest men. But the madness
of some of their successors, the vices of others, the malicious intrigues
of an envious and corrupting neighbor, the tracasserie of
the Directory, the usurpations, the havoc, and devastations of
your Attila, and the equal usurpations, depredations and oppressions
of your hypocritical deliverers, will form a mournful period
in the history of man, a period of which the last chapter will
not be seen in your day or mine, and one which I still fear is
to be written in characters of blood. Had Bonaparte reflected
that such is the moral construction of the world, that no national
crime passes unpunished in the long run, he would not now be
in the cage of St. Helena; and were your present oppressors to
reflect on the same truth, they would spare to their own countries
the penalties on their present wrongs which will be inflicted on
them on future times. The seeds of hatred and revenge which
they are now sowing with a large hand, will not fail to produce
their fruits in time. Like their brother robbers on the highway,
they suppose the escape of the moment a final escape, and deem
infamy and future risk countervailed by present gain. Our lot
has been happier. When you witnessed our first struggles in
the war of independence, you little calculated, more than we
did, on the rapid growth and prosperity of this country; on the
practical demonstration it was about to exhibit, of the happy
truth that man is capable of self-government, and only rendered
otherwise by the moral degradation designedly superinduced on
him by the wicked acts of his tyrants.
I have much confidence that we shall proceed successfully for
ages to come, and that, contrary to the principle of Montesquieu,
it will be seen that the larger the extent of country, the more firm
its republican structure, if founded, not on conquest, but in principles
of compact and equality. My hope of its duration is built
much on the enlargement of the resources of life going hand in
hand with the enlargement of territory, and the belief that men are
disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them.
With the consolation of this belief in the future result of our labors,
I have that of other prophets who foretell distant events, that I
shall not live to see it falsified. My theory has always been,
that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and
pleasanter than the gloom of despair. I wish to yourself a long
life of honors, health and happiness.
Monticello, June 16, 1817.
Dear Sir,—The importance that the enclosed letters should
safely reach their destination, impels me to avail myself of the
protection of your cover. This is an inconvenience to which
your situation exposes you, while it adds to the opportunities of
exercising yourself in works of charity.
According to the opinion I hazarded to you a little before your
departure, we have had almost an entire change in the body of
Congress. The unpopularity of the compensation law was completed,
by the manner of repealing it as to all the world except
themselves. In some States, it is said, every member is changed;
in all, many. What opposition there was to the original law,
was chiefly from southern members. Yet many of those have
been left out, because they received the advanced wages. I
have never known so unanimous a sentiment of disapprobation;
and what is remarkable is, that it was spontaneous. The newspapers
were almost entirely silent, and the people not only unled
by their leaders, but in opposition to them. I confess I was
highly pleased with this proof of the innate good sense, the vigilance,
and the determination of the people to act for themselves.
Among the laws of the late Congress, some were of note; a
navigation act, particularly, applicable to those nations only who
have navigation acts; pinching one of them especially, not only
in the general way, but in the intercourse with her foreign possessions.
This part may re-act on us, and it remains for trial
which may bear longest. A law respecting our conduct as a
neutral between Spain and her contending colonies, was passed
by a majority of one only, I believe, and against the very general
sentiment of our country. It is thought to strain our complaisance
to Spain beyond her right or merit, and almost against the
right of the other party, and certainly against the claims they
have to our good wishes and neighborly relations. That we
should wish to see the people of other countries free, is as natural,
and at least as justifiable, as that one King should wish to see the
Kings of other countries maintained in their despotism. Right
to both parties, innocent favor to the juster cause, is our proper
sentiment.
You will have learned that an act for internal improvement,
after passing both Houses, was negatived by the President. The
act was founded, avowedly, on the principle that the phrase in
the constitution which authorizes Congress "to lay taxes, to pay
the debts and provide for the general welfare," was an extension
of the powers specifically enumerated to whatever would promote
the general welfare; and this, you know, was the federal doctrine.
Whereas, our tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is almost the
only landmark which now divides the federalists from the republicans,
that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for
the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated;
and that, as it was never meant they should provide
for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers,
so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes
which the enumeration did not place under their action;
consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of
the purposes for which they may raise money. I think the passage
and rejection of this bill a fortunate incident. Every State
will certainly concede the power; and this will be a national
confirmation of the grounds of appeal to them, and will settle
forever the meaning of this phrase, which, by a mere grammatical
quibble, has countenanced the General Government in a
claim of universal power. For in the phrase, "to lay taxes, to
pay the debts and provide for the general welfare," it is a mere
question of syntax, whether the two last infinitives are governed
by the first or are distinct and co-ordinate powers; a question
unequivocally decided by the exact definition of powers immediately
following. It is fortunate for another reason, as the
States, in conceding the power, will modify it, either by requiring
the federal ratio of expense in each State, or otherwise, so
as to secure us against its partial exercise. Without this caution,
intrigue, negotiation, and the barter of votes might become as
habitual in Congress, as they are in those legislatures which have
the appointment of officers, and which, with us, is called "logging,"
the term of the farmers for their exchanges of aid in rolling
together the logs of their newly-cleared grounds. Three of
our papers have presented us the copy of an act of the legislature
of New York, which, if it has really passed, will carry us back
to the times of the darkest bigotry and barbarism, to find a parallel.
Its purport is, that all those who shall hereafter join in
communion with the religious sect of Shaking Quakers, shall be
deemed civilly dead, their marriages dissolved, and all their children
and property taken out of their hands. This act being published
nakedly in the papers, without the usual signatures, or any
history of the circumstances of its passage, I am not without a
hope it may have been a mere abortive attempt. It contrasts
singularly with a cotemporary vote of the Pennsylvania legislature,
who, on a proposition to make the belief in God a necessary
qualification for office, rejected it by a great majority, although
assuredly there was not a single atheist in their body.
And you remember to have heard, that when the act for religious
freedom was before the Virginia Assembly, a motion to insert the
name of Jesus Christ before the phrase, "the author of our holy
religion," which stood in the bill, was rejected, although that
was the creed of a great majority of them.
I have been charmed to see that a Presidential election now
produces scarcely any agitation. On Mr. Madison's election there
was little, on Monroe's all but none. In Mr. Adams' time and
mine, parties were so nearly balanced as to make the struggle
fearful for our peace. But since the decided ascendency of the
republican body, federalism has looked on with silent but unresisting
anguish. In the middle, southern and western States, it
is as low as it ever can be; for nature has made some men monarchists
and tories by their constitution, and some, of course,
there always will be.
* * * * * * * *
We have had a remarkably cold winter. At Hallowell, in
Maine, the mercury was at thirty-four degrees below zero, of
Fahrenheit, which is sixteen degrees lower than it was in Paris in
1788-9. Here it was at six degrees above zero, which is our
greatest degree of cold.
Present me respectfully to Mrs. Gallatin, and be assured of my
constant and affectionate friendship.
Poplar Forest, September 8, 1817.
Dear Sir,—A month's absence from Monticello has added to
the delay of acknowledging your last letters, and indeed for a
month before I left it, our projected college gave me constant
employment; for, being the only visitor in its immediate neighborhood,
all its administrative business falls on me, and that,
where building is going on, is not a little. In yours of July
15th, you express a wish to see our plan, but the present visitors
have sanctioned no plan as yet. Our predecessors, the first trustees,
had desired me to propose one to them, and it was on that
occasion I asked and received the benefit of your ideas on the
subject. Digesting these with such other schemes as I had been
able to collect, I made out a prospectus, the looser and less satisfactory
from the uncertain amount of the funds to which it was
to be adapted. This I addressed, in the form of a letter, to their
President, Peter Carr, which, going before the legislature when
a change in the constitution of the college was asked, got into
the public papers, and, among others, I think you will find it in
Niles' Register, in the early part of 1815. This, however, is to
be considered but as a premiere ebauche, for the consideration
and amendment of the present visitors, and to be accommodated
to one of two conditions of things. If the institution is to depend
on private donations alone, we shall be forced to accumulate
on the shoulders of four professors a mass of sciences which,
if the legislature adopts it, should be distributed among ten. We
shall be ready for a professor of languages in April next, for two
others the following year, and a fourth a year after. How happy
should we be if we could have a Ticknor for our first. A critical
classic is scarcely to be found in the United States. To this
professor, a fixed salary of five hundred dollars, with liberal tuition
fees from the pupils, will probably give two thousand dollars
a year. We are now on the look-out for a professor, meaning to
accept of none but of the very first order.
You ask if I have seen Buchanan's, McAfee's, or Wilkinson's
books? I have seen none of them, but have lately read, with
great pleasure, Reid & Eaton's life of Jackson, if life may be
called what is merely a history of his campaign of 1814. Reid's
part is well written. Eaton's continuation is better for its matter
than style. The whole, however, is valuable.
I have lately received a pamphlet of extreme interest from
France. It is De Pradt's Historical Recital of the first return of
Louis XVIII. to Paris. It is precious for the minutiæ of the proceedings
which it details, and for their authenticity, as from an
eye-witness. Being but a pamphlet I enclose it for your perusal,
assured, if you have not seen it, that it will give you pleasure.
I will ask its return, because I value it as a morsel of genuine
history, a thing so rare as to be always valuable. I have received
some information from an eye-witness also of what passed on the
occasion of the second return of Louis XVIII. The Emperor
Alexander, it seems, was solidly opposed to this. In the consultation
of the allied sovereigns and their representatives with the
executive council at Paris, he insisted that the Bourbons were
too incapable and unworthy of being placed at the head of the
nation; declared he would support any other choice they should
freely make, and continued to urge most strenuously that some
other choice should be made. The debates ran high and warm,
and broke off after midnight, every one retaining his own opinion.
He lodged, as you know, at Talleyrand's. When they returned
into council the next day, his host had overcome his firmness.
Louis XVIII. was accepted, and through the management
of Talleyrand, accepted without any capitulation, although the
sovereigns would have consented that he should be first required
to subscribe and swear to the constitution prepared, before permission
to enter the kingdom. It would seem as if Talleyrand
had been afraid to admit the smallest interval of time, lest a
change of mind would bring back Bonaparte on them. But I
observe that the friends of a limited monarchy there consider the
popular representation as much improved by the late alteration,
and confident it will in the end produce a fixed government in
which an elective body, fairly representative of the people, will
be an efficient element.
I congratulate Mrs. Adams and yourself on the return of your
excellent and distinguished son, and our country still more on
such a minister of their foreign affairs; and I renew to both the
assurance of my high and friendly respect and esteem.
Poplar Forest, September 12, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of August 12th was yesterday received
at this place, and I learn from it with pleasure that you
have found a tract of country which will suit you for settlement.
To us your first purchase would have been more gratifying, by
adding yourself and your friends to our society; but the overruling
consideration, with us as with you, is your own advantage,
and as it would doubtless be a great comfort to you to have your
ancient neighbors and friends settled around you. I sincerely wish
that your proposition to "purchase a tract of land in the Illinois
on favorable terms, for introducing a colony of English farmers,"
may encounter no difficulties from the established rules of
our land department. The general law prescribes an open sale,
where all citizens may compete on an equal footing for any lot
of land which attracts their choice. To dispense with this in
any particular case, requires a special law of Congress, and to
special legislation we are generally averse, lest a principle of favoritism
should creep in and pervert that of equal rights. It
has, however, been done on some occasions where a special national
advantage has been expected to overweigh that of adherence
to the general rule. The promised introduction of the culture
of the vine procured a special law in favor of the Swiss settlement
on the Ohio. That of the culture of oil, wine and other
southern productions, did the same lately for the French settlement
on the Tombigbee. It remains to be tried whether that
of an improved system of farming, interesting to so great a proportion
of our citizens, may not also be thought worth a dispensation
with the general rule. This I suppose is the principal
ground on which your proposition will be questioned. For although
as to other foreigners it is thought better to discourage
their settling together in large masses, wherein, as in our German
settlements, they preserve for a long time their own languages,
habits, and principles of government, and that they should distribute
themselves sparsely among the natives for quicker amalgamation.
Yet English emigrants are without this inconvenience.
They differ from us little but in their principles of government,
and most of those (merchants excepted) who come here, are sufficiently
disposed to adopt ours. What the issue, however, of
your proposition may probably be, I am less able to advise you
than many others; for during the last eight or ten years I have
no knowledge of the administration of the land office or the principles
of its government. Even the persons on whom it will depend
are all changed within that interval, so as to leave me small
means of being useful to you. Whatever they may be, however,
they shall be freely exercised for your advantage, and that,
not on the selfish principle of increasing our own population at
the expense of other nations, for the additions to that from emigration
are but as a drop in a bucket to those by natural procreation,
but to consecrate a sanctuary for those whom the misrule
of Europe may compel to seek happiness in other climes. This
refuge once known will produce reaction on the happiness even
of those who remain there, by warning their task-masters that
when the evils of Egyptian oppression become heavier than those
of the abandonment of country, another Canaan is open where
their subjects will be received as brothers, and secured against
like oppressions by a participation in the right of self-government.
If additional motives could be wanting with us to the
maintenance of this right, they would be found in the animating
consideration that a single good government becomes thus a
blessing to the whole earth, its welcome to the oppressed restraining
within certain limits the measure of their oppressions. But
should even this be counteracted by violence on the right of expatriation,
the other branch of our example then presents itself
for imitation, to rise on their rulers and do as we have done.
You have set to your own country a good example, by showing
them a peaceable mode of reducing their rulers to the necessity
of becoming more wise, more moderate, and more honest, and I
sincerely pray that the example may work for the benefit of those
who cannot follow it, as it will for your own.
With Mr. Burckbeck, the associate of your late explanatory
journeying, I have not the happiness of personal acquaintance;
but I know him through his narrative of your journeyings together
through France. The impressions received from that,
give me confidence that a participation with yourself in assurances
of the esteem and respect of a stranger will not be unacceptable
to him, and the less when given through you and associated
with those to yourself.
Quincy, October 10, 1817.
Dear Sir,—I thank you for your kind congratulations on the
return of my little family from Europe. To receive them all in
fine health and good spirits, after so long an absence, was a greater
blessing than at my time of life when they went away, I had
any right to hope, or reason to expect.
If the Secretary of State can give satisfaction to his fellow-citizens
in his new office, it will be a source of consolation to me
while I live; although it is not probable that I shall long be a
witness of his good success, or ill success. I shall soon be obliged
to say to him, and to you, and to your country and mine, God
bless you all! Fare-thee-well! Indeed, I need not wait a moment.
I can say all that now, with as good a will, and as clear
a conscience, as at any time past, or future.
I thank you, also, for the loan of De Pradt's narration of the
intrigues, at the second restoration of the Bourbons. In this, as
in many other instances, is seen the influence of a single subtle
mind, and a trifling accident, in deciding the fate of mankind for
ages. De Pradt and Talleyrand were well associated.
I have ventured to send the pamphlet to Washington with a
charge to return it to you. The French have a King, a chamber
of Peers, and a chamber of Deputies. Voila! les ossimens
of a constitution of a limited monarchy; and of a good one, provided
the bones are united by good joints, and knitted together
by strong tendons. But where does the sovereignty reside?
Are the three branches sufficiently defined? A fair representation
of the body of the people by elections, sufficiently frequent,
is essential to a free government; but if the Commons cannot
make themselves respected by the Peers, and the King, they can
do no good, nor prevent any evil.
Can any organization of government secure public and private
liberty without a general or universal freedom, without license,
or licentiousness of thinking, speaking, and writing. Have the
French such freedom? Will their religion, or policy, allow it?
When I think of liberty, and a free government, in an ancient,
opulent, populous, and commercial empire, I fear I shall always
recollect a fable of Plato.
Love is a son of the god of riches, and the goddess of poverty.
He inherits from his father the intrepidity of his courage, the
enthusiasm of his thoughts, his generosity, his prodigality, his
confidence in himself, the opinion of his own merit, the impatience
to have always the preference; but he derives from his
mother that indigence which makes him always a beggar; that
importunity with which he demands everything; that timidity
which sometimes hinders him from daring to ask anything; that
disposition which he has to servitude, and that dread of being
despised, which he can never overcome.
Such is Love according to Plato. Who calls him a demon?
And such is liberty in France, and England, and all other great,
rich, old, corrupted commercial nations. The opposite qualities
of the father and mother are perpetually tearing to pieces himself
and his friends as well as his enemies.
Mr. Monroe has got the universal character among all our common
people of "A very smart man." And verily I am of the
same mind. I know not another who could have executed so
great a plan so cleverly.
I wish him the same happy success through his whole administration.
I am, Sir, with respect and friendship, yours,
J. A.
Monticello, November 1, 1817.
Dear Sir,—Yours of the 4th of October was not received here
until the 20th, having been sixteen days on its passage; since
which unavoidable avocations have made this the first moment it
has been in my power to acknowledge its receipt. Of the character
of M. de Pradt his political writings furnish a tolerable estimate,
but not so full as you have favored me with. He is eloquent,
and his pamphlet on colonies shows him ingenious. I
was gratified by his Recit Historique, because, pretending, as all
men do, to some character, and he to one of some distinction, I
supposed he would not place before the world facts of glaring
falsehood, on which so many living and distinguished witnesses
could convict him. We, too, who are retired from the business
of the world, are glad to catch a glimpse of truth, here and there
as we can, to guide our path through the boundless field of fable
in which we are bewildered by public prints, and even by those
calling themselves histories. A word of truth to us is like the
drop of water supplicated from the tip of Lazarus' finger. It is
as an observation of latitude and longitude to the mariner long
enveloped in clouds, for correcting the ship's way.
On the subject of weights and measures, you will have, at its
threshold, to encounter the question on which Solon and Lycurgus
acted differently. Shall we mould our citizens to the
law, or the law to our citizens? And in solving this question
their peculiar character is an element not to be neglected. Of
the two only things in nature which can furnish an invariable
standard, to wit, the dimensions of the globe itself, and the time
of its diurnal revolution on its axis, it is not perhaps of much
importance which we adopt. That of the dimensions of the
globe, preferred ultimately by the French, after first adopting the
other, has been objected to from the difficulty, not to say impracticability,
of the verification of their admeasurement by other nations.
Except the portion of a meridian which they adopted for
their operation, there is not another on the globe which fulfils the
requisite conditions, to wit, of so considerable length, that length
too divided, not very unequally, by the 45th degree of latitude,
and terminating at each end in the ocean. Now, this singular
line lies wholly in France and Spain. Besides the immensity
of expense and time which a verification would always require,
it cannot be undertaken by any nation without the joint consent
of these two powers. France having once performed the work,
and refusing, as she may, to let any other nation re-examine it,
she makes herself the sole depository of the original standard for
all nations; and all must send to her to obtain, and from time to
time to prove their standards. To this, indeed, it may be answered,
that there can be no reason to doubt that the mensuration
has been as accurately performed as the intervention of numerous
waters, and of high ridges of craggy mountains, would admit;
that all the calculations have been free of error, their coincidences
faithfully reported, and that, whether in peace or war, to foes as
well as friends, free access to the original will at all times be admitted.
In favor of the standard to be taken from the time employed
in a revolution of the earth on its axis, it may be urged
that this revolution is a matter of fact present to all the world,
that its division into seconds of time is known and received by
all the world, that the length of a pendulum vibrating seconds
in the different circles of latitude is already known to all, and
can at any time and in any place be ascertained by any nation
or individual, and inferred by known laws from their own to the
medium latitude of 45°, whenever any doubt may make this desirable;
and that this is the particular standard which has at different
times been contemplated and desired[1] by the philosophers
of every nation, and even by those of France, except at the particular
moment when this change was suddenly proposed and
adopted, and under circumstances peculiar to the history of the
moment. But the cogent reason which will decide the fate of
whatever you report is, that England has lately adopted the reference
of its measures to the pendulum. It is the mercantile
part of our community which will have most to do in this innovation;
it is that which having command of all the presses can
make the loudest outcry, and you know their identification with
English regulations, practices, and prejudices. It is from this
identification alone you can hope to be permitted to adopt even
the English reference to a pendulum. But the English proposition
goes only to say what proportion their measures bear to
the second pendulum of their own latitude, and not at all to
change their unit, or to reduce into any simple order the chaos
of their weights and measures. That would be innovation, and
innovation there is heresy and treason. Whether the Senate
meant more than this I do not know; and much doubt if more
can be effected. However, in endeavors to improve our situation,
we should never despair; and I sincerely wish you may be
able to rally us to either standard, and to give us an unit, the
aliquot part of something invariable which may be applied simply
and conveniently to our measures, weights, and coins, and most
especially that the decimal divisions may pervade the whole.
The convenience of this in our monied system has been approved
by all, and France has followed the example. The volume of
tracts which you have noted in the library of Congress, contains
everything which I had then been able to collect on this subject.
You will find some details which may be of use in two thin
4to vols., Nos. 399, 400, of chapter xxiv.; the latter being a collection
of sheets selected from the "Encyclopedie Methodique,"
on the weights, measures and coins of all nations, bound up together
and alone; and the former a supplement by Beyerlé.
Cooper's Emporium too, for May 1812, and August 1813, may
offer something. The reports of the Committees of Parliament
of 1758-9, I think you will find in Postlethwaite's Dictionary,
which is also in the library, chapter 20, No. 10. That of Mechain
and Delambre I have not, nor do I know who has it.
I have lately seen a book which your office ought to possess,
if it has it not already, entitled "Memoire sur la Louisiane,
par M. le Comte de Vergennes, 8vo, Paris, chez Lepetit, Jeune,
1802." It contains more in detail the proofs of the extent of
Louisiana as far as the Rio Grande than I have ever before seen,
and its author gives it authenticity. It has been executed with
great industry and research into the French records. This reminds
me of a MS. which Governor Claiborne found in a private
family in Louisiana, being a journal kept (I forget by whom,
but) by a confidential officer of the government, proving exactly
by what connivance between the agents of the compagnie d'occident
and the Spaniards these last smuggled settlements into
Louisiana as far as Assinais, Adais, &c., for the purpose of covering
the contraband trade of the company. Claiborne being
afraid to trust the original by mail without keeping a copy, sent
it on. It arrived safe, and was deposited in the office of State.
He then sent me the copy on the destruction of the office at
Washington by the British, apprehending the original might be
involved in that destruction. I sent the copy to Colonel Monroe,
then Secretary of State, with a request to return it if the original
was safe, and to keep it if not. I have heard no more of it; but
will now request of you to have search made for the original, and
if safe, to return me the copy. I propose to deposit it with the
historical committee of the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia,
for safe keeping. I have no use nor wish for such a thing myself,
but think it will be safer in two deposits than one. My recommendation
to Colonel Monroe, was to have it printed. I
have barely left myself room to express my satisfaction at your
call to the important office you hold, and to tender you the assurance
of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, November 7, 1817.
Dear Sir,—A part of the information of which the expedition
of Lewis and Clarke was the object, has been communicated
to the world by the publication of their journal; but much
and valuable matter yet remains uncommunicated. The correction
of the longitudes of their map is essential to its value;
to which purpose their observations of the lunar distances are
to be calculated and applied. The new subjects they discovered
in the vegetable, animal, and mineral departments, are to
be digested and made known. The numerous vocabularies they
obtained of the Indian languages are to be collated and published.
Although the whole expense of the expedition was furnished by
the public, and the information to be derived from it was theirs
also, yet on the return of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, the government
thought it just to leave to them any pecuniary benefit
which might result from a publication of the papers, and supposed,
indeed, that this would secure the best form of publication.
But the property in these papers still remained in the government
for the benefit of their constituents. With the measures
taken by Governor Lewis for their publication, I was never acquainted.
After his death, Governor Clarke put them, in the first
instance, into the hands of the late Doctor Barton, from whom some
of them passed to Mr. Biddle, and some again, I believe, from him
to Mr. Allen. While the MS. books of journals were in the hands
of Dr. Barton, I wrote to him, on behalf of Governor Lewis'
family, requesting earnestly, that, as soon as these should be published,
the originals might be returned, as the family wished to have
them preserved. He promised in his answer that it should be
faithfully done. After his death, I obtained, through the kind
agency of Mr. Correa, from Mrs. Barton, three of these books, of
which I knew there had been ten or twelve, having myself read
them. These were all she could find. The rest, therefore, I
presume, are in the hands of the other gentlemen. After the
agency I had had in effecting this expedition, I thought myself
authorized, and, indeed, that it would be expected of me, that I
should follow up the subject, and endeavor to obtain its fruits for
the public. I wrote to General Clarke, therefore, for authority
to receive the original papers. He gave it in the letters to Mr.
Biddle and to myself, which I now enclose. As the custody of
these papers belonged properly to the War-Office, and that was
vacant at the time, I have waited several months for its being
filled. But the office still remaining vacant, and my distance
rendering any effectual measures, by myself, impracticable, I ask
the agency of your committee, within whose province I propose
to place the matter, by making it the depository of the papers generally.
I therefore now forward the three volumes of MS. journals
in my possession, and authorize them, under General
Clarke's letters, to inquire for and to receive the rest. So also
the astronomical and geographical papers, those relating to zoological,
botanical, and mineral subjects, with the Indian vocabularies,
and statistical tables relative to the Indians. Of the astronomical
and geographical papers, if the committee will be so
good as to give me a statement, I will, as soon as a Secretary at
War is appointed, propose to him to have made, at the public
expense, the requisite calculations, to have the map corrected in
its longitudes and latitudes, engraved and published on a proper
scale; and I will ask from General Clarke the one he offers, with
his corrections. With respect to the zoological and mineralogical
papers and subjects, it would perhaps be agreeable to the Philosophical
Society, to have a digest of them made, and published
in their transactions or otherwise. And if it should be within
the views of the historical committee to have the Indian vocabularies
digested and published, I would add to them the remains
of my collection. I had through the course of my life availed
myself of every opportunity of procuring vocabularies of the
languages of every tribe which either myself or my friends
could have access to. They amounted to about forty, more or
less perfect. But in their passage from Washington to this place,
the trunk in which they were was stolen and plundered, and
some fragments only of the vocabularies were recovered. Still,
however, they were such as would be worth incorporation with
a larger work, and shall be at the service of the historical committee,
if they can make any use of them. Permit me to request
the return of General Clarke's letter, and to add assurances of
my respect and esteem.
P. S. With the volumes of MS. journal, Mrs. Barton delivered
one by mistake I suppose, which seems to have been the journal
of some botanist. I presume it was the property of Dr. Barton,
and therefore forward it to you to be returned to Mrs. Barton.
Poplar Forest, November 25, 1817.
Dear Sir,—I am highly gratified by the interest you take in
our Central College, and the more so as it may possibly become
an inducement to pass more of your time with us. It is
even said you had thought of engaging a house in its neighborhood.
But why another house? Is not one enough? and especially
one whose inhabitants are made so happy by your becoming
their inmate? When you shall have a wife and family
wishing to be to themselves, then the question of another house
may be taken ad referendum. I wish Dr. Cooper could have
the same partialities. He seems to have misunderstood my last
letter; in the former I had spoken of opening our Physical School
in the spring of '19, but learning that that delay might render
his engagement uncertain, the visitors determined to force their
preparations so as to receive him by midsummer next, and so my
letter stated. In one I now write, I recall his attention to that
circumstance. But his decision will no doubt be governed by
the result of the proposition, to permit the medical students of
Philadelphia to attend him. I can never regret any circumstance
which may add to his well-being, for I most sincerely wish him
well. That himself and Mrs. Cooper will be happier in the society
of Philadelphia, cannot be doubted. It would be flattering
enough to us to be his second choice. I find from his information
that we are not to expect to obtain in this country either a
classical or mathematical professor of the first order: and as our
institution cannot be raised above the common herd of academies,
colleges, &c., already scattered over our country, but by super-eminent
professors, we have determined to accept of no mediocrity,
and to seek in Europe for what is eminent. We shall go
to Edinburgh in preference, because of the advantage to students
of receiving communications in their native tongue, and because
peculiar and personal circumstances will enable us to interest
Dugald Stewart and Professor Leslie, of that College, in procuring
us subjects of real worth and eminence. I put off writing to
them for a classical and mathematical professor only until I see
what our legislature, which meets on Monday next, is disposed
to do, either on the question singly of adopting our college for
their university, or on that of entering at once on a general system
of instruction, for which they have, for some time been preparing.
For this last purpose I have sketched, and put into the
hands of a member a bill, delineating a practicable plan, entirely
within the means they already have on hand, destined to this object.
My bill proposes, 1. Elementary schools in every county, which
shall place every householder within three miles of a school. 2.
District colleges, which shall place every father within a day's
ride of a college where he may dispose of his son. 3. An university
in a healthy and central situation, with the offer of the
lands, buildings, and funds of the Central College, if they will
accept that place for their establishment. In the 1st will be
taught reading, writing, common arithmetic, and general notions
of geography. In the 2d, ancient and modern languages,
geography fully, a higher degree of numerical arithmetic, mensuration,
and the elementary principles of navigation. In the
3d, all the useful sciences in their highest degree. To all of
which is added a selection from the elementary schools of subjects
of the most promising genius, whose parents are too poor
to give them further education, to be carried at the public expense
through the colleges and university. The object is to
bring into action that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty
in every country, for want of the means of development, and
thus give activity to a mass of mind, which, in proportion to our
population, shall be the double or treble of what it is in most
countries. The expense of the elementary schools for every
county, is proposed to be levied on the wealth of the county, and
all children rich and poor to be educated at these three years
gratis. The expense of the colleges and university, admitting
two professors to each of the former, and ten to the latter, can be
completely and permanently established with a sum of five hundred
thousand dollars, in addition to the present funds of our
Central College. Our literary fund has already on hand, and appropriated
to these purposes, a sum of seven hundred thousand
dollars, and that increasing yearly. This is in fact and substance
the plan I proposed in a bill forty years ago, but accommodated
to the circumstances of this, instead of that day. I derive my
present hopes that it may now be adopted, from the fact that the
House of Representatives, at their last session, passed a bill, less
practicable and boundlessly expensive, and therefore alone rejected
by the Senate, and printed for public consideration and
amendment. Mine, after all, may be an Utopian dream, but
being innocent, I have thought I might indulge in it till I go to
the land of dreams, and sleep there with the dreamers of all past
and future times.
I have taken measures to obtain the crested turkey, and will
endeavor to perpetuate that beautiful and singular characteristic,
and shall be not less earnest in endeavors to raise the Moronnier.
God bless you, and preserve you long in life and health, until
wearied with delighting your kindred spirits here, you may wish
to encounter the great problem, untried by the living, unreported
by the dead.
Monticello, December 30, 1817.
Dear Sir,—An absence of six weeks has occasioned your
letters of the 5th and 11th inst., to lie thus long unacknowledged.
After I had sent off the two other Westover MSS. I received
a third of the same journal. On perusing it I am not sensible
by memory, of anything not contained in the former, except
eight pages of a preliminary account of the abridgment of
our limits by successive charters to other colonies. I suppose
this to be a copy of the largest of the other two, entered fair in
a folio volume, with other documents relating to the government
of Virginia. It is bound in vellum, and, by the arms pasted in
it, seems to have been intended for the shelves of the author's
library. As this journal is complete it might enable us to supply
the hiatuses of the other copies.
I now send you the remains of my Indian vocabularies, some
of which are perfect. I send with them the fragments of my
digest of them, which were gathered up on the banks of the
river where they had been strewed by the plunderers of the
trunk in which they were. Those will merely show the arrangement
I had given the vocabularies, according to their affinities
and degrees of resemblance or dissimilitude.
If you can recover Capt. Lewis' collection, they will make
an important addition, for there was no part of his instructions
which he executed more fully or carefully, never meeting with
a single Indian of a new tribe, without making his vocabulary
the first object. What Professor Adelung mentions of the Empress
Catharine's having procured many vocabularies of our Indians,
is correct. She applied to M. de La Fayette, who, through
the aid of General Washington, obtained several; but I never
learnt of what particular tribes. The great works of Pallas being
rare, I will mention that there are two editions of it, the one in
two volumes, the other in four volumes 4to, in the library I
ceded to Congress, which maybe consulted. But the Professor's
account of the supposed Mexican MS. is quite erroneous, nor can
I conceive through whom he can have received his information.
It has probably been founded on an imperfect knowledge of the
following fact: Soon after the acquisition of Louisiana, Governor
Claiborne found, in a private family there, a MS. journal
kept, (I forget by whom,) but by a confidential officer of the
French government, proving exactly by what connivance between
the agents of the compagnie d'occident, and the Spaniards,
these last smuggled settlements into Louisiana, as far as
Assinais, Adais, &c., for the purpose of covering the contraband
trade of the company. Claiborne, being afraid to trust the original
by mail, without keeping a copy, sent it on after being copied.
It arrived safe, and was deposited by me in the office of State.
He then sent me the copy, on the destruction of the office at
Washington by the British; apprehending the original might be
involved in that destruction, I sent the copy to Colonel Monroe,
then Secretary of State, with a request to return it, if the original
was safe, and to keep it, if not. I have heard no more of
it. My intention was, and is, if it is returned to me, to deposit
it with your committee for safe keeping or publication. While
on the subject of Louisiana, I have thought I had better commit
to you also an historical memoir of my own respecting the important
question of its limits. When we first made the purchase
we knew little of its extent, having never before been interested
to inquire into it. Possessing, then, in my library, everything
respecting America which I had been able to collect by unremitting
researches, during my residence in Europe, particularly
and generally through my life, I availed myself of the leisure of
my succeeding autumnal recess from Washington, to bring together
everything which my collection furnished on the subject of
its boundary. The result was the memoir I now send you,
copies of which were furnished to our ministers at Paris and Madrid,
for their information as to the extent of territory claimed under
our purchase. The New Orleans MS. afterwards discovered,
furnished some valuable supplementary proofs of title.
I defer writing to the Secretary at War respecting the observations
of longitude and latitude by Capt. Lewis, until I learn from
you whether they are recovered, and whether they are so complete
as to be susceptible of satisfactory calculation. I salute
you with great respect and esteem.
Monticello, January 5, 1818.
I have first to thank you, dear Sir, for the copy of your late
work which you have been so kind as to send me, and then to
render you double congratulations, first, on the general applause
it has so justly received, and next on the public testimony of
esteem for its author, manifested by your late call to the executive
councils of the nation. All this I do heartily, and then proceed
to a case of business on which you will have to advise the
government on the threshold of your office. You have seen the
death of General Kosciusko announced in the papers in such a
way as not to be doubted. He had in the funds of the United
States a very considerable sum of money, on the interest of
which he depended for subsistence. On his leaving the United
States, in 1798, he placed it under my direction by a power of
attorney, which I executed entirely through Mr. Barnes, who
regularly remitted his interest. But he left also in my hands an
autograph will, disposing of his funds in a particular course of
charity, and making me his executor. The question the government
will ask of you, and which I therefore ask, is in what court
must this will be proved, and my qualification as executor be received,
to justify the United States in placing these funds under
the trust? This is to be executed wholly in this State, and will
occupy so long a course of time beyond what I can expect to
live, that I think to propose to place it under the Court of Chancery.
The place of probate generally follows the residence of
the testator. That was in a foreign country in the present case.
Sometimes the bona notabilia. The evidences or representations
of these (the certificates) are in my hands. The things represented
(the money) in those of the United States. But where
are the United States? Everywhere, I suppose, where they have
government or property liable to the demand on payment. That
is to say, in every State of the Union, in this, for example, as
well as any other, strengthened by the circumstances of the deposit
of the will, the residence of the executor, and the place
where the trust is to be executed. In no instance, I believe,
does the mere habitation of the debtor draw to it the place of
probate, and if it did, the United States are omnipresent by their
functionaries, as well as property in every State of the Union. I
am led by these considerations to suppose our district or general
court competent to the object; but you know best, and by your
advice, sanctioned by the Secretary of the Treasury, I shall act.
I write to the Secretary on this subject. If our district court will
do, I can attend it personally; if the general court only be competent,
I am in hopes it will find means of dispensing with my
personal attendance. I salute you with affectionate esteem and
respect.
Monticello, March 3, 1818.
Dear Sir,—I have just received your favor of February 20th,
in which you observe that Mr. Wirt, on page 47 of his Life of
Patrick Henry, quotes me as saying that "Mr. Henry certainly
gave the first impulse to the ball of revolution." I well recollect
to have used some such expression in a letter to him, and am tolerably
certain that our own State being the subject under contemplation,
I must have used it with respect to that only. Whether
he has given it a more general aspect I cannot say, as the passage
is not in the page you quote, nor, after thumbing over much
of the book, have I been able to find it.[2] In page 417 there is
something like it, but not the exact expression, and even there it
may be doubted whether Mr. Wirt had his eye on Virginia alone,
or on all the colonies. But the question, who commenced the
revolution? is as difficult as that of the first inventors of a thousand
good things. For example, who first discovered the principle
of gravity? Not Newton; for Galileo, who died the year
that Newton was born, had measured its force in the descent of
gravid bodies. Who invented the Lavoiserian chemistry? The
English say Dr. Black, by the preparatory discovery of latent
heat. Who invented the steamboat? Was it Gerbert, the Marquis
of Worcester, Newcomen, Savary, Papin, Fitch, Fulton?
The fact is, that one new idea leads to another, that to a third,
and so on through a course of time until some one, with whom
no one of these ideas was original, combines all together, and
produces what is justly called a new invention. I suppose it
would be as difficult to trace our revolution to its first embryo.
We do not know how long it was hatching in the British cabinet
before they ventured to make the first of the experiments which
were to develop it in the end and to produce complete parliamentary
supremacy. Those you mention in Massachusetts as preceding
the stamp act, might be the first visible symptoms of that design.
The proposition of that act in 1764, was the first here.
Your opposition, therefore, preceded ours, as occasion was sooner
given there than here, and the truth, I suppose, is, that the opposition
in every colony began whenever the encroachment was
presented to it. This question of priority is as the inquiry would
be who first, of the three hundred Spartans, offered his name to
Leonidas? I shall be happy to see justice done to the merits of
all, by the unexceptionable umpirage of date and facts, and especially
from the pen which is proposed to be employed in it.
I rejoice, indeed, to learn from you that Mr. Adams retains the
strength of his memory, his faculties, his cheerfulness, and even
his epistolary industry. This last is gone from me. The aversion
has been growing on me for a considerable time, and now,
near the close of seventy-five, is become almost insuperable. I
am much debilitated in body, and my memory sensibly on the
wane. Still, however, I enjoy good health and spirits, and am
as industrious a reader as when a student at college. Not of
newspapers. These I have discarded. I relinquish, as I ought
to do, all intermeddling with public affairs, committing myself
cheerfully to the watch and care of those for whom, in my turn,
I have watched and cared. When I contemplate the immense
advances in science and discoveries in the arts which have been
made within the period of my life, I look forward with confidence
to equal advances by the present generation, and have no
doubt they will consequently be as much wiser than we have
been as we than our fathers were, and they than the burners of
witches. Even the metaphysical contest, which you so pleasantly
described to me in a former letter, will probably end in improvement,
by clearing the mind of Platonic mysticism and unintelligible
jargon. Although age is taking from me the power
of communicating by letter with my friends as industriously as
heretofore, I shall still claim with them the same place they will
ever hold in my affections, and on this ground I, with sincerity
and pleasure, assure you of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, March 14, 1818.
Dear Sir,—Your letter of February 17th found me suffering
under an attack of rheumatism, which has but now left me at
sufficient ease to attend to the letters I have received. A plan
of female education has never been a subject of systematic contemplation
with me. It has occupied my attention so far only as
the education of my own daughters occasionally required. Considering
that they would be placed in a country situation, where
little aid could be obtained from abroad, I thought it essential to
give them a solid education, which might enable them, when become
mothers, to educate their own daughters, and even to direct
the course for sons, should their fathers be lost, or incapable,
or inattentive. My surviving daughter accordingly, the mother
of many daughters as well as sons, has made their education the
object of her life, and being a better judge of the practical part
than myself, it is with her aid and that of one of her elevès, that
I shall subjoin a catalogue of the books for such a course of reading
as we have practiced.
A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion
prevalent for novels, and the time lost in that reading which
should be instructively employed. When this poison infects the
mind, it destroys its tone and revolts it against wholesome reading.
Reason and fact, plain and unadorned, are rejected. Nothing
can engage attention unless dressed in all the figments of
fancy, and nothing so bedecked comes amiss. The result is a
bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all
the real businesses of life. This mass of trash, however, is not
without some distinction; some few modelling their narratives,
although fictitious, on the incidents of real life, have been able
to make them interesting and useful vehicles of a sound morality.
Such, I think, are Marmontel's new moral tales, but not his old
ones, which are really immoral. Such are the writings of Miss
Edgeworth, and some of those of Madame Genlis. For a like
reason, too, much poetry should not be indulged. Some is useful
for forming style and taste. Pope, Dryden, Thompson, Shakspeare,
and of the French, Molière, Racine, the Corneilles, may
be read with pleasure and improvement.
The French language, become that of the general intercourse
of nations, and from their extraordinary advances, now the depository
of all science, is an indispensable part of education for
both sexes. In the subjoined catalogue, therefore, I have placed
the books of both languages indifferently, according as the one
or the other offers what is best.
The ornaments too, and the amusements of life, are entitled
to their portion of attention. These, for a female, are dancing,
drawing, and music. The first is a healthy exercise, elegant and
very attractive for young people. Every affectionate parent
would be pleased to see his daughter qualified to participate with
her companions, and without awkwardness at least, in the circles
of festivity, of which she occasionally becomes a part. It is a
necessary accomplishment, therefore, although of short use; for
the French rule is wise, that no lady dances after marriage. This
is founded in solid physical reasons, gestation and nursing leaving
little time to a married lady when this exercise can be either
safe or innocent. Drawing is thought less of in this country
than in Europe. It is an innocent and engaging amusement,
often useful, and a qualification not to be neglected in one who
is to become a mother and an instructor. Music is invaluable
where a person has an ear. Where they have not, it should not
be attempted. It furnishes a delightful recreation for the hours
of respite from the cares of the day, and lasts us through life.
The taste of this country, too, calls for this accomplishment more
strongly than for either of the others.
I need say nothing of household economy, in which the
mothers of our country are generally skilled, and generally careful
to instruct their daughters. We all know its value, and that
diligence and dexterity in all its processes are inestimable treasures.
The order and economy of a house are as honorable to the
mistress as those of the farm to the master, and if either be neglected,
ruin follows, and children destitute of the means of living.
This, Sir, is offered as a summary sketch on a subject on which
I have not thought much. It probably contains nothing but
what has already occurred to yourself, and claims your acceptance
on no other ground than as a testimony of my respect for
your wishes, and of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, May 17, 1818.
Dear Sir,—I was so unfortunate as not to receive from Mr.
Holly's own hand your favor of January the 28th, being then at
my other home. He dined only with my family, and left them
with an impression which has filled me with regret that I did not
partake of the pleasure his visit gave them. I am glad he is gone
to Kentucky. Rational Christianity will thrive more rapidly
there than here. They are freer from prejudices than we are,
and bolder in grasping at truth. The time is not distant, though
neither you nor I shall see it, when we shall be but a secondary
people to them. Our greediness for wealth, and fantastical expense,
have degraded, and will degrade, the minds of our maritime
citizens. These are the peculiar vices of commerce.
I had been long without hearing from you, but I had heard of
you through a letter from Doctor Waterhouse. He wrote to reclaim
against an expression of Mr. Wirt's, as to the commencement
of motion in the revolutionary ball. The lawyers say that
words are always to be expounded secundum subjectam materiem,
which, in Mr. Wirt's case, was Virginia. It would, moreover, be
as difficult to say at what moment the Revolution began, and
what incident set it in motion, as to fix the moment that the embryo
becomes an animal, or the act which gives him a beginning.
But the most agreeable part of his letter was that which informed
me of your health, your activity, and strength of memory; and
the most wonderful, that which assured me that you retained
your industry and promptness in epistolary correspondence.
Here you have entire advantage over me. My repugnance to
the writing table becomes daily and hourly more deadly and insurmountable.
In place of this has come on a canine appetite
for reading. And I indulge it, because I see in it a relief against
the tædium senectutis; a lamp to lighten my path through the
dreary wilderness of time before me, whose bourne I see not.
Losing daily all interest in the things around us, something else
is necessary to fill the void. With me it is reading, which occupies
the mind without the labor of producing ideas from my own
stock.
I enter into all your doubts as to the event of the revolution of
South America. They will succeed against Spain. But the
dangerous enemy is within their own breasts. Ignorance and superstition
will chain their minds and bodies under religious and
military despotism. I do believe it would be better for them to
obtain freedom by degrees only; because that would by degrees
bring on light and information, and qualify them to take charge
of themselves understandingly; with more certainty, if in the
meantime, under so much control as may keep them at peace
with one another. Surely, it is our duty to wish them independence
and self-government, because they wish it themselves,
and they have the right, and we none, to choose for themselves;
and I wish, moreover, that our ideas may be erroneous, and theirs
prove well founded. But these are speculations, my friend, which
we may as well deliver over to those who are to see their development.
We shall only be lookers on, from the clouds
above, as now we look down on the labors, the hurry and bustle
of the ants and bees. Perhaps in that super-mundane region, we
may be amused with seeing the fallacy of our own guesses, and
even the nothingness of those labors which have filled and agitated
our own time here.
En attendant, with sincere affections to Mrs. Adams and yourself,
I salute you both cordially.
Monticello, July 23, 1818.
Sir,—Your favor of March 30th, 1817, came to my hands on
the 1st of March, 1818. While the statement it contained of the
many instances of your attention in sending to me your different
writings was truly flattering, it was equally mortifying to perceive
that two only of the eight it enumerates, had ever come
to my hands; and that both of my acknowledgments of these
had miscarried also. Your first favor of November 5th, 1809,
was received by me on the 6th of May, 1810, and was answered
on the 15th of July of the same year, with an acknowledgment
of the receipt of your "Essai general d'education physique
morale, et intellectuelle," and of the high sense I entertained
of its utility. I do not recollect through what channel I sent
this answer, but have little doubt that it was through the office
of our Secretary of State, and our minister then at the court of
France.
In a letter from Mr. E. I. Dupont of August 11, 1817, I received
the favor of your
"Esquisse d'un ouvrage sur l'education
comparée," which he said had been received by his father
a few days before his death; and on the 9th of September, 1817,
I answered his letter, in which was the following paragraph:
"I duly received the pamphlet of M. Jullien on Education, to
whom I had been indebted some years before for a valuable work
on the same subject. Of this I expressed to him my high estimation
in a letter of thanks, which I trust he received. The
present pamphlet is an additional proof of his useful assiduities
on this interesting subject, which, if the condition of man is to
be progressively ameliorated, as we fondly hope and believe, is
to be the chief instrument in effecting it." I hoped that Mr. E.
I. Dupont, in acknowledging to you the receipt of your letter to
his father, would be the channel of conveying to you my thanks,
as he was to me of the work for which they were rendered.
Be assured, Sir, that not another scrip, either written or printed,
ever came to me from you; and that I was incapable of omitting
the acknowledgments they called for, and of the neglect which
you have had so much reason to impute to me. I know well
the uncertainty of transmissions across the Atlantic, but never
before experienced such a train of them as has taken place in
your favors and my acknowledgments of them. You will perceive
that the letter I am now answering was eleven months on
its passage to me.
The distance between the scenes of action of General Kosciusko
and myself, during our revolutionary war,—his in the
military, mine in the civil department,—was such, that I could
give no particulars of the part he acted in that war. But immediately
on the receipt of your letter, I wrote to General Armstrong,
who had been his companion in arms, and an aid to General
Gates, with whom General Kosciusko mostly served, and
requested him to give me all the details within his knowledge;
informing him for whom, and for what purpose they were asked.
I received, two days ago only, the paper of which the enclosed
is a copy, and copied by myself, because the original is in such a
handwriting as I am confident no foreigner could ever decypher.
However heavily pressed by the hand of age, and unequal to the
duties of punctual correspondence, of which my friends generally
would have a right to complain, if the cause depended on myself,
I am happy to find that in that with yourself there has been no
ground of reproach. Least of all things could I have omitted
any researches within my power which might do justice to the
memory of General Kosciusko, the brave auxiliary of my country
in its struggle for liberty, and, from the year 1797, when our
particular acquaintance began, my most intimate and much beloved
friend. On his last departure from the United States in
1798, he left in my hands an instrument appropriating after his
death all the property he had in our public funds, the price of
his military services here, to the education and emancipation of
as many of the children of bondage in this country as it should
be adequate to. I am now too old to undertake a business de si
longue haleine; but I am taking measures to place it in such
hands as will ensure a faithful discharge of the philanthropic intentions
of the donor. I learn with pleasure your continued efforts
for the instruction of the future generations of men, and, believing
it the only means of effectuating their rights, I wish them
all possible success, and to yourself the eternal gratitude of those
who will feel their benefits, and beg leave to add the assurance
of my high esteem and respect.
Monticello, November 13, 1818.
The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event
of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous
foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss
of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I
know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered,
are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have
taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the
only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences,
open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely
my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words
are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both, that the term
is not very distant, at which we are to deposit in the same cerement,
our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence
to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost,
and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless
you and support you under your heavy affliction.
Monticello, December 4, 1818.
Dear Sir,—Yours of November the 8th has been some time
received; but it is in my power to give little satisfaction as to its
inquiries. Dr. Franklin had many political enemies, as every
character must, which, with decision enough to have opinions,
has energy and talent to give them effect on the feelings of the
adversary opinion. These enmities were chiefly in Pennsylvania
and Massachusetts. In the former, they were merely of the proprietary
party. In the latter, they did not commence till the
Revolution, and then sprung chiefly from personal animosities,
which spreading by little and little, became at length of some
extent. Dr. Lee was his principal calumniator, a man of much
malignity, who, besides enlisting his whole family in the same
hostility, was enabled, as the agent of Massachusetts with the
British government, to infuse it into that State with considerable
effect. Mr. Izard, the Doctor's enemy also, but from a pecuniary
transaction, never countenanced these charges against
him. Mr. Jay, Silas Deane, Mr. Laurens, his colleagues also, ever
maintained towards him unlimited confidence and respect. That
he would have waived the formal recognition of our independence,
I never heard on any authority worthy notice. As to the
fisheries, England was urgent to retain them exclusively, France
neutral, and I believe, that had they been ultimately made a
sine quâ non, our commissioners (Mr. Adams excepted) would
have relinquished them, rather than have broken off the treaty.
To Mr. Adams' perseverance alone, on that point, I have always
understood we were indebted for their reservation. As to the
charge of subservience to France, besides the evidence of his
friendly colleagues before named, two years of my own service
with him at Paris, daily visits, and the most friendly and confidential
conversation, convince me it had not a shadow of foundation.
He possessed the confidence of that government in the
highest degree, insomuch, that it may truly be said, that they
were more under his influence, than he under theirs. The fact
is, that his temper was so amiable and conciliatory, his conduct
so rational, never urging impossibilities, or even things unreasonably
inconvenient to them, in short, so moderate and attentive to
their difficulties, as well as our own, that what his enemies called
subserviency, I saw was only that reasonable disposition, which,
sensible that advantages are not all to be on one side, yielding
what is just and liberal, is the more certain of obtaining liberality
and justice. Mutual confidence produces, of course, mutual influence,
and this was all which subsisted between Dr. Franklin
and the government of France.
I state a few anecdotes of Dr. Franklin, within my own
knowledge, too much in detail for the scale of Delaplaine's work,
but which may find a cadre in some of the more particular views
you contemplate. My health is in a great measure restored, and
our family join with me in affectionate recollections and assurances
of respect.
Monticello, December 13, 1818.
I thank your Excellency for the notice with which your letters
favor me, of the liberation of France from the occupation
of the allied powers. To no one, not a native, will it give more
pleasure. In the desolation of Europe, to gratify the atrocious
caprices of Bonaparte, France sinned much; but she has suffered
more than retaliation. Once relieved from the incubus of her
late oppression, she will rise like a giant from her slumbers. Her
soil and climate, her arts and eminent sciences, her central position
and free constitution, will soon make her greater than she
ever was. And I am a false prophet, if she does not at some future
day, remind of her sufferings those who have inflicted them
the most eagerly. I hope, however, she will be quiet for the
present, and risk no new troubles. Her constitution, as now
amended, gives as much of self-government as perhaps she can
yet bear, and will give more, when the habits of order shall have
prepared her to receive more. Besides the gratitude which every
American owes her, as our sole ally during the war of independence,
I am additionally affectioned by the friendships I contracted
there, by the good dispositions I witnessed, and by the courtesies
I received.
I rejoice, as a moralist, at the prospect of a reduction of the
duties on wine, by our national legislature. It is an error to view
a tax on that liquor as merely a tax on the rich. It is a prohibition
of its use to the middling class of our citizens, and a condemnation
of them to the poison of whiskey, which is desolating
their houses. No nation is drunken where wine is cheap; and
none sober, where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits
as the common beverage. It is, in truth, the only antidote to the
bane of whiskey. Fix but the duty at the rate of other merchandise,
and we can drink wine here as cheap as we do grog;
and who will not prefer it? Its extended use will carry health
and comfort to a much enlarged circle. Every one in easy circumstances
(as the bulk of our citizens are) will prefer it to the
poison to which they are now driven by their government. And
the treasury itself will find that a penny a piece from a dozen, is
more than a groat from a single one. This reformation, however,
will require time. Our merchants know nothing of the infinite
variety of cheap and good wines to be had in Europe;
and particularly in France, in Italy, and the Græcian islands; as
they know little also, of the variety of excellent manufactures
and comforts to be had anywhere out of England. Nor will
these things be known, nor of course called for here, until the
native merchants of those countries, to whom they are known,
shall bring them forward, exhibit and vend them at the moderate
profits they can afford. This alone will procure them familiarity
with us, and the preference they merit in competition with corresponding
articles now in use.
Our family renew with pleasure their recollections of your
kind visit to Monticello, and join me in tendering sincere assurances
of the gratification it afforded us, and of our great esteem
and respectful consideration.
Monticello, January 12, 1819.
Dear Sir,—The problem you had wished to propose to me
was one which I could not have solved; for I knew nothing of
the facts. I read no newspaper now but Ritchie's, and in that
chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be
relied on in a newspaper. I feel a much greater interest in knowing
what has passed two or three thousand years ago, than in
what is now passing. I read nothing, therefore, but of the heroes
of Troy, of the wars of Lacedæmon and Athens, of Pompey and
Cæsar, and of Augustus too, the Bonaparte and parricide scoundrel
of that day. I have had, and still have, such entire confidence
in the late and present Presidents, that I willingly put both
soul and body into their pockets. While such men as yourself
and your worthy colleagues of the legislature, and such characters
as compose the executive administration, are watching for us all,
I slumber without fear, and review in my dreams the visions of
antiquity. There is, indeed, one evil which awakens me at
times, because it jostles me at every turn. It is that we have
now no measure of value. I am asked eighteen dollars for a
yard of broadcloth, which, when we had dollars, I used to get
for eighteen shillings; from this I can only understand that a dollar
is now worth but two inches of broadcloth, but broadcloth
is no standard of measure or value. I do not know, therefore,
whereabouts I stand in the scale of property, nor what to ask, or
what to give for it. I saw, indeed, the like machinery in action
in the years '80 and '81, and without dissatisfaction; because in
wearing out, it was working out our salvation. But I see nothing
in this renewal of the game of "Robin's alive" but a general
demoralization of the nation, a filching from industry its honest
earnings, wherewith to build up palaces, and raise gambling
stock for swindlers and shavers, who are too close to their career
of piracies by fraudulent bankruptcies. My dependence for a
remedy, however, is with the wisdom which grows with time and
suffering. Whether the succeeding generation is to be more virtuous
than their predecessors, I cannot say; but I am sure they
will have more worldly wisdom, and enough, I hope, to know
that honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. I have
made a great exertion to write you thus much; my antipathy to
taking up a pen being so intense that I have never given you a
stronger proof, than in the effort of writing a letter, how much I
value you, and of the superlative respect and friendship with
which I salute you.
Monticello, March 21, 1819.
Dear Sir,—I am indebted to you for Mr. Bowditch's very
learned mathematical papers, the calculations of which are not
for every reader, although their results are readily enough understood.
One of these impairs the confidence I had reposed in La
Place's demonstration, that the eccentricities of the planets of our
system could oscillate only within narrow limits, and therefore
could authorize no inference that the system must, by its own
laws, come one day to an end. This would have left the question
one of infinitude, at both ends of the line of time, clear of
physical authority.
Mr. Pickering's pamphlet on the pronunciation of the Greek,
for which I am indebted to you also, I have read with great
pleasure. Early in life, the idea occurred to me that the people
now inhabiting the ancient seats of the Greeks and Romans,
although their languages in the intermediate ages had suffered
great changes, and especially in the declension of their nouns,
and in the terminations of their words generally, yet having preserved
the body of the word radically the same, so they would
preserve more of its pronunciation. That at least it was probable
that a pronunciation, handed down by tradition, would retain,
as the words themselves do, more of the original than that
of any other people whose language has no affinity to that original.
For this reason I learnt, and have used the Italian pronunciation
of the Latin. But that of the modern Greeks I had no
opportunity of learning until I went to Paris. There I became
acquainted with two learned Greeks, Count Carberri and Mr.
Paradise, and with a lady, a native Greek, the daughter of Baron
de Tott, who did not understand the ancient language. Carberri
and Paradise spoke it. From these instructors I learnt the modern
pronunciation, and in general trusted to its orthodoxy. I say,
in general, because sound being more fugitive than the written
letter, we must, after such a lapse of time, presume in it some degeneracies,
as we see there are in the written words. We may
not, indeed, be able to put our finger on them confidently, yet
neither are they entirely beyond the reach of all indication. For
example, in a language so remarkable for the euphony of its
sounds, if that euphony is preserved in particular combinations
of its letters, by an adherence to the powers ordinarily ascribed
to them, and is destroyed by a change of these powers, and the
sound of the word thereby rendered harsh, inharmonious, and
inidiomatical, here we may presume some degeneracy has taken
place. While, therefore, I gave in to the modern pronunciation
generally, I have presumed, as an instance of degeneracy, their
ascribing the same sound to the six letters, or combinations of
letters, ε, ι, υ, ει, οι, υι,
to all of which they give the sound of
our double e in the word meet. This useless equivalence of
three vowels and three diphthongs, did not probably exist among
the ancient Greeks; and the less probably as, while this single
sound, ee, is overcharged by so many different representative
characters, the sounds we usually give to these characters and
combinations would be left without any representative signs.
This would imply either that they had not these sounds in their
language, or no signs for their expression. Probability appears
to me, therefore, against the practice of the modern Greeks of
giving the same sound to all these different representatives, and
to be in favor of that of foreign nations, who, adopting the
Roman characters, have assimilated to them, in a considerable
degree, the powers of the corresponding Greek letters. I have,
accordingly, excepted this in my adoption of the modern pronunciation.
I have been more doubtful in the use of the αυ, ευ, ηυ, ωυ,
sounding the υ, upsilon, as our f or v, because I find traces of
that power of υ, or of v, in some modern languages. To go no
further than our own, we have it in laugh, cough, trough, enough.
The county of Louisa, adjacent to that in which I live, was,
when I was a boy, universally pronounced Lovisa. That it is
not the gh which gives the sound of f or v, in these words, is
proved by the orthography of plough, trough, thought, fraught,
caught. The modern Greeks themselves, too, giving up υ, upsilon,
in ordinary, the sound of our ee, strengthens the presumption
that its anomalous sound of f or v, is a corruption. The
same may be inferred from the cacophony of ελαφνε (elavne) for
ελαυνε, (elawne,) Αχιλλεφς (Achillefs) for Αχιλλευς, (Achilleise,)
εφς (eves) for εϋς, (eeuse,) οφκ (ovk) for ouk, (ouk,) ωφτος (ovetos)
for ωϋτος, (o-u-tos,) Ζεφς (zevs) for Ζευς (zese,) of which all nations
have made their Jupiter; and the uselessness of the υ in ευφωνια
which would otherwise have been spelt εφωνια. I therefore except
this also from what I consider as approvable pronunciation.
Against reading Greek by accent, instead of quantity, as Mr.
Ciceitira proposes, I raise both my hands. What becomes of the
sublime measure of Homer, the full sounding rhythm of Demosthenes,
if, abandoning quantity, you chop it up by accent? What
ear can hesitate in its choice between the two following rhythms?
"Τὸν, δ' απαμειβὸμενος προσεφὴ πόδας ωκὺς Αχιλλευς,
and,
Τον, δ' απαμειβομενός προσεφὴ ποδας ώκυς Αχίλλευς,"
the latter noted according to prosody, the former by accent, and
dislocating our teeth in its utterance; every syllable of it, except
the first and last, being pronounced against quantity. And what
becomes of the art of prosody? Is that perfect coincidence of
its rules with the structure of their verse, merely accidental? or
was it of design, and yet for no use.
On the whole, I rejoice that this subject is taken up among
us, and that it is in so able hands as those of Mr. Pickering.
Should he ultimately establish the modern pronunciation of the
letters without any exception, I shall think it a great step gained,
and giving up my exceptions, shall willingly rally to him; and
as he has promised us another paper on the question whether we
shall read by quantity or by accent, I can confidently trust it to the
correctness of his learning and judgment. Of the origin of accentuation,
I have never seen satisfactory proofs. But I have
generally supposed the accents were intended to direct the inflections
and modulations of the voice; but not to affect the
quantity of the syllables. You did not expect, I am sure, to
draw on yourself so long a disquisition on letters and sounds, nor
did I intend it, but the subject run before me, and yet I have
dropped much of it by the way.
I am delighted with your high approbation of Mr. Tracy's
book. The evils of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed,
until our citizens are generally and radically instructed
in their cause and consequences, and silence by their authority
the interested clamors and sophistry of speculating, shaving, and
banking institutions. Till then we must be content to return,
quod hoc, to the savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange
of our property, for want of a stable, common measure of value,
that now in use being less fixed than the beads and wampum of
the Indian, and to deliver up our citizens, their property and their
labor, passive victims to the swindling tricks of bankers and
mountebankers. If I had your permission to put your letter into
the hands of the editor, (Milligan,) with or without any verbal alterations
you might choose, it would ensure the general circulation,
which my prospectus and prefatory letter will less effectually recommend.
There is nothing in the book of mine but these two
articles, and the note on taxation in page 202. I never knew
who the translator was; but I thought him some one who understood
neither French nor English; and probably a Caledonian,
from the number of Scotticisms I found in his MS. The innumerable
corrections in that, cost me more labor than would
have done a translation of the whole de novo; and made at last
but an inelegant although faithful version of the sense of the
author. Dios guarde á V. S. muchos años.
Monticello, March 21, 1819.
Sir,—Your letter of February the 18th came to hand on the
1st instant; and the request of the history of my physical habits
would have puzzled me not a little, had it not been for the model
with which you accompanied it, of Doctor Rush's answer to a
similar inquiry. I live so much like other people, that I might
refer to ordinary life as the history of my own. Like my friend
the Doctor, I have lived temperately, eating little animal food,
and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables,
which constitute my principal diet. I double, however,
the Doctor's glass and a half of wine, and even treble it with a
friend; but halve its effects by drinking the weak wines only.
The ardent wines I cannot drink, nor do I use ardent spirits in
any form. Malt liquors and cider are my table drinks, and my
breakfast, like that also of my friend, is of tea and coffee. I
have been blest with organs of digestion which accept and concoct,
without ever murmuring, whatever the palate chooses to
consign to them, and I have not yet lost a tooth by age. I was
a hard student until I entered on the business of life, the duties
of which leave no idle time to those disposed to fulfil them; and
now, retired, and at the age of seventy-six, I am again a hard
student. Indeed, my fondness for reading and study revolts me
from the drudgery of letter writing. And a stiff wrist, the consequence
of an early dislocation, makes writing both slow and
painful. I am not so regular in my sleep as the Doctor says he
was, devoting to it from five to eight hours, according as my
company or the book I am reading interests me; and I never go
to bed without an hour, or half hour's previous reading of something
moral, whereon to ruminate in the intervals of sleep. But
whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun. I use
spectacles at night, but not necessarily in the day, unless in reading
small print. My hearing is distinct in particular conversation,
but confused when several voices cross each other, which
unfits me for the society of the table. I have been more fortunate
than my friend in the article of health. So free from
catarrhs that I have not had one, (in the breast, I mean) on an
average of eight or ten years through life. I ascribe this exemption
partly to the habit of bathing my feet in cold water
every morning, for sixty years past. A fever of more than twenty-four
hours I have not had above two or three times in my life.
A periodical headache has afflicted me occasionally, once, perhaps,
in six or eight years, for two or three weeks at a time,
which seems now to have left me; and except on a late occasion
of indisposition, I enjoy good health; too feeble, indeed, to
walk much, but riding without fatigue six or eight miles a day,
and sometimes thirty or forty. I may end these egotisms, therefore,
as I began, by saying that my life has been so much like
that of other people, that I might say with Horace, to every one
"nomine mutato, narratur fabula de te." I must not end, however,
without due thanks for the kind sentiments of regard you
are so good as to express towards myself; and with my acknowledgments
for these, be pleased to accept the assurances of my
respect and esteem.
Monticello, May 11, 1819.
Dear Sir,—The interest on the late derangement of my health
which was so kindly expressed by many, could not but be gratifying
to me, as much as it manifested a sentiment that I had not
been merely an useless cypher of society. Yet a decline of health
at the age of 76, was naturally to be expected, and is a warning
of an event which cannot be distant, and whose approach I contemplate
with little concern; for indeed, in no circumstance has
nature been kinder to us, than in the soft gradations by which
she prepares us to part willingly with what we are not destined
always to retain. First one faculty is withdrawn and then another,
sight, hearing, memory, affections, and friends, filched one
by one, till we are left among strangers, the mere monuments of
times, facts, and specimens of antiquity for the observation of the
curious.
To your request of materials for writing my life, I know not
what to say, although I have been obliged to say something to
several preceding applications of the same kind. One answer indeed
is obvious, that I am by decay of memory, aversion to labor,
and cares more suited to my situation, unequal to such a
task. Of the public transactions in which I have borne a part, I
have kept no narrative with a view of history. A life of constant
action leaves no time for recording. Always thinking of
what is next to be done, what has been done is dismissed, and
soon obliterated from the memory. I cannot be insensible to the
partiality which has induced several persons to think my life
worthy of remembrance. And towards none more than yourself,
who give me so much credit more than I am entitled to, as to
what has been effected for the safeguard of our republican constitution.
Numerous and able coadjutors have participated in
these efforts, and merit equal notice. My life, in fact, has been
so much like that of others, that their history is my history, with
a mere difference of feature. The only valuable materials for
history which I possessed, were the pamphlets of the day, carefully
collected and preserved; but these past on to Congress with
my library, and are to be found in their depository. Except the
Notes on Virginia, I never wrote anything but acts of office, of
which I rarely kept a copy. These will all be found in the
journals and gazettes of the times. There was a book published
in England about 1801, or soon after, entitled "Public Characters,"
in which was given a sketch of my history to that period.
I never knew, nor could conjecture by whom this was written;
but certainly by some one pretty intimately acquainted with myself
and my connections. There were a few inconsiderable
errors in it, but in general it was correct. Delaplaine, in his Repository,
has also given some outlines on the same subject; he
sets out indeed with an error as to the county of my birth.
Chesterfield, which he states as such, was the residence of my
grandfather and remoter ancestors, but Albemarle was that of
my father, and of my own birth and residence. Excepting this
error, I remark no other but in his ascriptions of more merit than
I have deserved. Girardin's History of Virginia, too, gives many
particulars on the same subject, which are correct. These publications
furnish all the details of facts and dates which can interest
anybody, and more than I could now furnish myself from
a decayed memory, or any notes I retain. While, therefore, I
feel just acknowledgments for the partial selection of a subject
for your employment, I am persuaded you will perceive there is
too little new and worthy of public notice to devote to it a time
which may be so much more usefully employed; and with a due
sense of the partiality of your friendship, I salute you with assurances
of the greatest esteem and respect.
Monticello, May 12, 1819.
Sir,—An absence of some time at an occasional and distant
residence must apologize for the delay in acknowledging the receipt
of your favor of April 12th. And candor obliges me to add
that it has been somewhat extended by an aversion to writing,
as well as to calls on my memory for facts so much obliterated
from it by time as to lessen my confidence in the traces which
seem to remain. One of the inquiries in your letter, however,
may be answered without an appeal to the memory. It is that
respecting the question whether committees of correspondence
originated in Virginia or Massachusetts? On which you suppose
me to have claimed it for Virginia. But certainly I have never
made such a claim. The idea, I suppose, has been taken up
from what is said in Wirt's history of Mr. Henry, p. 87, and from
an inexact attention to its precise terms. It is there said "this
house [of burgesses of Virginia] had the merit of originating that
powerful engine of resistance, corresponding committees between
the legislatures of the different colonies." That the fact as here
expressed is true, your letter bears witness when it says that
the resolutions of Virginia for this purpose were transmitted
to the speakers of the different Assemblies, and by that of Massachusetts
was laid at the next session before that body, who appointed
a committee for the specified object: adding, "thus in
Massachusetts there were two committees of correspondence, one
chosen by the people, the other appointed by the House of Assembly;
in the former, Massachusetts preceded Virginia; in the
latter, Virginia preceded Massachusetts." To the origination of
committees for the interior correspondence between the counties
and towns of a State, I know of no claim on the part of Virginia;
but certainly none was ever made by myself. I perceive, however,
one error into which memory had led me. Our committee
for national correspondence was appointed in March, '73, and I
well remember that going to Williamsburg in the month of June
following, Peyton Randolph, our chairman, told me that messengers,
bearing despatches between the two States, had crossed
each other by the way; that of Virginia carrying our propositions
for a committee of national correspondence, and that of Massachusetts
bringing, as my memory suggested, a similar proposition.
But here I must have misremembered; and the resolutions
brought us from Massachusetts were probably those you mention
of the town meeting of Boston, on the motion of Mr. Samuel
Adams, appointing a committee "to state the rights of the colonists,
and of that province in particular, and the infringements
of them, to communicate them to the several towns, as the sense
of the town of Boston, and to request of each town a free communication
of its sentiments on this subject"? I suppose, therefore,
that these resolutions were not received, as you think, while
the House of Burgesses was in session in March, 1773; but a few
days after we rose, and were probably what was sent by the
messenger who crossed ours by the way. They may, however,
have been still different. I must therefore have been mistaken in
supposing and stating to Mr. Wirt, that the proposition of a committee
for national correspondence was nearly simultaneous in
Virginia and Massachusetts.
A similar misapprehension of another passage in Mr. Wirt's
book, for which I am also quoted, has produced a similar reclamation
of the part of Massachusetts by some of her most distinguished
and estimable citizens. I had been applied to by Mr.
Wirt for such facts respecting Mr. Henry, as my intimacy with
him, and participation in the transactions of the day, might have
placed within my knowledge. I accordingly committed them
to paper, and Virginia being the theatre of his action, was the
only subject within my contemplation, while speaking of him.
Of the resolutions and measures here, in which he had the acknowledged
lead, I used the expression that "Mr. Henry certainly
gave the first impulse to the ball of revolution." [Wirt, p. 41.]
The expression is indeed general, and in all its extension would
comprehend all the sister States. But indulgent construction
would restrain it, as was really meant, to the subject matter under
contemplation, which was Virginia alone; according to the
rule of the lawyers, and a fair canon of general criticism, that
every expression should be construed secundum subjectam materiem.
Where the first attack was made, there must have been
of course, the first act of resistance, and that was of Massachusetts.
Our first overt act of war was Mr. Henry's embodying a
force of militia from several counties, regularly armed and organized,
marching them in military array, and making reprisal on
the King's treasury at the seat of government for the public
powder taken away by his Governor. This was on the last days
of April, 1775. Your formal battle of Lexington was ten or
twelve days before that, which greatly overshadowed in importance,
as it preceded in time our little affray, which merely amounted
to a levying of arms against the King, and very possibly you
had had military affrays before the regular battle of Lexington.
These explanations will, I hope, assure you, Sir, that so far as
either facts or opinions have been truly quoted from me, they
have never been meant to intercept the just fame of Massachusetts,
for the promptitude and perseverance of her early resistance.
We willingly cede to her the laud of having been (although
not exclusively) "the cradle of sound principles," and
if some of us believe she has deflected from them in her course,
we retain full confidence in her ultimate return to them.
I will now proceed to your quotation from Mr. Galloway's
statements of what passed in Congress on their declaration of
independence, in which statement there is not one word of truth,
and where, bearing some resemblance to truth, it is an entire perversion
of it. I do not charge this on Mr. Galloway himself;
his desertion having taken place long before these measures, he
doubtless received his information from some of the loyal friends
whom he left behind him. But as yourself, as well as others,
appear embarrassed by inconsistent accounts of the proceedings
on that memorable occasion, and as those who have endeavored
to restore the truth have themselves committed some errors, I
will give you some extracts from a written document on that
subject, for the truth of which I pledge myself to heaven and
earth; having, while the question of independence was under
consideration before Congress, taken written notes, in my seat,
of what was passing, and reduced them to form on the final conclusion.
I have now before me that paper, from which the following
are extracts:
"On Friday the 7th of June, 1776, the delegates from Virginia
moved, in obedience to instructions from their constituents,
that the Congress should declare that these united colonies are,
and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are
absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political
connection between them and the State of Great Britain
is, and ought to be totally dissolved; that measures should be
immediately taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers,
and a confederation be formed to bind the colonies more closely
together. The house being obliged to attend at that time to
some other business, the proposition was referred to the next day,
when the members were ordered to attend punctually at ten
o'clock. Saturday, June 8th, they proceeded to take it into consideration,
and referred it to a committee of the whole, into
which they immediately resolved themselves, and passed that
day and Monday the 10th in debating on the subject.
"It appearing in the course of these debates, that the colonies
of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland,
and South Carolina were not yet matured for falling from the
parent stem, but that they were fast advancing to that state, it
was thought most prudent to wait awhile for them, and to postpone
the final decision to July 1st. But that this might occasion
as little delay as possible, a committee was appointed to prepare
a Declaration of Independence. The committee were J. Adams,
Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston and myself.
This was reported to the House on Friday the 28th of June,
when it was read and ordered to lie on the table. On Monday
the 1st of July the House resolved itself into a committee of the
whole, and resumed the consideration of the original motion
made by the delegates of Virginia, which being again debated
through the day, was carried in the affirmative by the votes of
New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New
Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia. South
Carolina and Pennsylvania] voted against it. Delaware having but
two members present, they were divided. The delegates for
New York declared they were for it themselves, and were assured
their constituents were for it; but that their instructions
having been drawn near a twelvemonth before, when reconciliation
was still the general object, they were enjoined by them to
do nothing which should impede that object. They therefore
thought themselves not justifiable in voting on either side, and
asked leave to withdraw from the question, which was given
them. The Committee rose and reported their resolution to the
House. Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, then requested the
determination might be put off to the next day, as he believed
his colleagues, though they disapproved of the resolution, would
then join in it for the sake of unanimity. The ultimate question
whether the House would agree to the resolution of the
committee was accordingly postponed to the next day, when it
was again moved, and South Carolina concurred in voting for it;
in the meantime a third member had come post from the Delaware
counties, and turned the vote of that colony in favor of the
resolution. Members of a different sentiment attending that
morning from Pennsylvania also, their vote was changed; so
that the whole twelve colonies, who were authorized to vote at
all, gave their votes for it; and within a few days, [July 9th,]
the convention of New York approved of it, and thus supplied
the void occasioned by the withdrawing of their delegates from
the vote." [Be careful to observe that this vacillation and vote
was on the original motion of the 7th of June by the Virginia
delegates, that Congress should declare the colonies independent.]
"Congress proceeded the same day to consider the Declaration
of Independence, which has been reported and laid on the table
the Friday preceding, and on Monday referred to a committee
of the whole. The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in
England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of
many. For this reason those passages which conveyed censures
on the people of England were struck out, lest they give them
offence. The debates having taken up the greater parts of the
2d, 3d and 4th days of July, were, in the evening of the last,
closed. The declaration was reported by the committee, agreed
to by the House, and signed by every member present except
Mr. Dickinson." So far my notes.
Governor McKean, in his letter to McCorkle of July 16th, 1817,
has thrown some lights on the transactions of that day, but trusting
to his memory chiefly at an age when our memories are not
to be trusted, he has confounded two questions, and ascribed proceedings
to one which belonged to the other. These two questions
were, 1. The Virginia motion of June 7th to declare independence,
and 2. The actual declaration, its matter and form.
Thus he states the question on the declaration itself as decided
on the 1st of July. But it was the Virginia motion which was
voted on that day in committee of the whole; South Carolina,
as well as Pennsylvania, then voting against it. But the ultimate
decision in the House on the report of the committee being
by request postponed to the next morning, all the States voted
for it, except New York, whose vote was delayed for the reason
before stated. It was not till the 2d of July that the declaration
itself was taken up, nor till the 4th that it was decided; and it
was signed by every member present, except Mr. Dickinson.
The subsequent signatures of members who were not then
present, and some of them not yet in office, is easily explained,
if we observe who they were; to wit, that they were of New
York and Pennsylvania. New York did not sign till the 15th,
because it was not till the 9th, (five days after the general signature,)
that their convention authorized them to do so. The convention
of Pennsylvania, learning that it had been signed by a
minority only of their delegates, named a new delegation on
the 20th, leaving out Mr. Dickinson, who had refused to sign.
Willing and Humphreys who had withdrawn, reappointing the
three members who had signed, Morris who had not been present,
and five new ones, to wit, Rush, Clymer, Smith, Taylor
and Ross; and Morris and the five new members were permitted
to sign, because it manifested the assent of their full delegation,
and the express will of their convention, which might have been
doubted on the former signature of a minority only. Why the
signature of Thornton of New Hampshire was permitted so late
as the 4th of November, I cannot now say; but undoubtedly for
some particular reason which we should find to have been good,
had it been expressed. These were the only post-signers, and
you see, Sir, that there were solid reasons for receiving those of
New York and Pennsylvania, and that this circumstance in no
wise affects the faith of this declaratory charter of our rights,
and of the rights of man.
With a view to correct errors of fact before they become inveterate
by repetition, I have stated what I find essentially material
in my papers; but with that brevity which the labor of
writing constrains me to use.
On the fourth particular articles of inquiry in your letter, respecting
your grandfather, the venerable Samuel Adams, neither
memory nor memorandums enable me to give any information.
I can say that he was truly a great man, wise in council, fertile
in resources, immovable in his purposes, and had, I think, a
greater share than any other member, in advising and directing
our measures, in the northern war especially. As a speaker he
could not be compared with his living colleague and namesake,
whose deep conceptions, nervous style, and undaunted firmness,
made him truly our bulwark in debate. But Mr. Samuel Adams,
although not of fluent elocution, was so rigorously logical, so
clear in his views, abundant in good sense, and master always of
his subject, that he commanded the most profound attention
whenever he rose in an assembly by which the froth of declamation
was heard with the most sovereign contempt. I sincerely
rejoice that the record of his worth is to be undertaken by one
so much disposed as you will be to hand him down fairly to that
posterity for whose liberty and happiness he was so zealous a
laborer.
With sentiments of sincere veneration for his memory, accept
yourself this tribute to it with the assurances of my great respect.
P. S. August 6th, 1822, since the date of this letter, to wit,
this day, August 6th, '22, I received the new publication of the
secret Journals of Congress, wherein is stated a resolution, July
19th, 1776, that the declaration passed on the 4th be fairly engrossed
on parchment, and when engrossed, be signed by every
member; and another of August 2d, that being engrossed and
compared at the table, was signed by the members. That is to
say the copy engrossed on parchment (for durability) was signed
by the members after being compared at the table with the original
one, signed on paper as before stated. I add this P. S. to the
copy of my letter to Mr. Wells, to prevent confounding the signature
of the original with that of the copy engrossed on parchment.
Monticello, June 25, 1819.
Your favor, Sir, of the 14th, has been duly received, and with
it the book you were so kind as to forward to me. For this
mark of attention, be pleased to accept my thanks. The science
of the human mind is curious, but is one on which I have not
indulged myself in much speculation. The times in which I
have lived, and the scenes in which I have been engaged, have
required me to keep the mind too much in action to have leisure
to study minutely its laws of action. I am therefore little qualified
to give an opinion on the comparative worth of books on
that subject, and little disposed to do it on any book. Yours has
brought the science within a small compass, and that is the merit
of the first order; and especially with one to whom the drudgery
of letter writing often denies the leisure of reading a single page
in a week. On looking over the summary of the contents of
your book, it does not seem likely to bring into collision any of
those sectarian differences which you suppose may exist between
us. In that branch of religion which regards the moralities of
life, and the duties of a social being, which teaches us to love
our neighbors as ourselves, and to do good to all men, I am sure
that you and I do not differ. We probably differ in the dogmas
of theology, the foundation of all sectarianism, and on which no
two sects dream alike; for if they did they would then be
of the same. You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I
am of a sect by myself, as far as I know. I am not a Jew, and
therefore do not adopt their theology, which supposes the God of
infinite justice to punish the sins of the fathers upon their children,
unto the third and fourth generation; and the benevolent
and sublime reformer of that religion has told us only that God
is good and perfect, but has not defined him. I am, therefore,
of his theology, believing that we have neither words nor ideas
adequate to that definition. And if we could all, after this example,
leave the subject as undefinable, we should all be of one
sect, doers of good, and eschewers of evil. No doctrines of his
lead to schism. It is the speculations of crazy theologists which
have made a Babel of a religion the most moral and sublime ever
preached to man, and calculated to heal, and not to create differences.
These religious animosities I impute to those who call
themselves his ministers, and who engraft their casuistries on the
stock of his simple precepts. I am sometimes more angry with
them than is authorized by the blessed charities which he
preaches. To yourself I pray the acceptance of my great respect.
Monticello, July 9, 1819.
Dear Sir,—I am in debt to you for your letters of May the
21st, 27th, and June the 22d. The first, delivered me by Mr.
Greenwood, gave me the gratification of his acquaintance; and a
gratification it always is, to be made acquainted with gentlemen
of candor, worth, and information, as I found Mr. Greenwood to
be. That, on the subject of Mr. Samuel Adams Wells, shall not
be forgotten in time and place, when it can be used to his advantage.
But what has attracted my peculiar notice, is the paper from
Mecklenburg county, of North Carolina, published in the Essex
Register, which you were so kind as to enclose in your last, of
June the 22d. And you seem to think it genuine. I believe it
spurious. I deem it to be a very unjustifiable quiz, like that of
the volcano, so minutely related to us as having broken out in
North Carolina, some half a dozen years ago, in that part of the
country, and perhaps in that very county of Mecklenburg, for I
do not remember its precise locality. If this paper be really taken
from the Raleigh Register, as quoted, I wonder it should have
escaped Ritchie, who culls what is good from every paper, as
the bee from every flower; and the National Intelligencer, too,
which is edited by a North Carolinian; and that the fire should
blaze out all at once in Essex, one thousand miles from where
the spark is said to have fallen. But if really taken from the
Raleigh Register, who is the narrator, and is the name subscribed
real, or is it as fictitious as the paper itself? It appeals, too, to
an original book, which is burnt, to Mr. Alexander, who is dead,
to a joint letter from Caswell, Hughes, and Hooper, all dead, to
a copy sent to the dead Caswell, and another sent to Doctor
Williamson, now probably dead, whose memory did not recollect,
in the history he has written of North Carolina, this gigantic
step of its county of Mecklenberg. Horry, too, is silent in his
history of Marion, whose scene of action was the country bordering
on Mecklenburg. Ramsay, Marshall, Jones, Girardin, Wirt,
historians of the adjacent States, all silent. When Mr. Henry's
resolutions, far short of independence, flew like lightning through
every paper, and kindled both sides of the Atlantic, this flaming
declaration of the same date, of the independence of Mecklenburg
county, of North Carolina, absolving it from the British allegiance,
and abjuring all political connection with that nation,
although sent to Congress too, is never heard of. It is not known
even a twelvemonth after, when a similar proposition is first
made in that body. Armed with this bold example, would not
you have addressed our timid brethren in peals of thunder on
their tardy fears? Would not every advocate of independence
have rung the glories of Mecklenberg county in North Carolina,
in the ears of the doubting Dickinson and others, who hung so
heavily on us? Yet the example of independent Mecklenberg
county, in North Carolina, was never once quoted. The paper
speaks, too, of the continued exertions of their delegation (Caswell,
Hooper, Hughes) "in the cause of liberty and independence."
Now you remember as well as I do, that we had not a
greater tory in Congress than Hooper; that Hughes was very
wavering, sometimes firm, sometimes feeble, according as the day
was clear or cloudy; that Caswell, indeed, was a good whig, and
kept these gentlemen to the notch, while he was present; but
that he left us soon, and their line of conduct became then uncertain
until Penn came, who fixed Hughes and the vote of the
State. I must not be understood as suggesting any doubtfulness
in the State of North Carolina. No State was more fixed or forward.
Nor do I affirm, positively, that this paper is a fabrication;
because the proof of a negative can only be presumptive.
But I shall believe it such until positive and solemn proof of its
authenticity be produced. And if the name of McKnitt be real,
and not a part of the fabrication, it needs a vindication by the
production of such proof. For the present, I must be an unbeliever
in the apocryphal gospel.
I am glad to learn that Mr. Ticknor has safely returned to his
friends; but should have been much more pleased had he accepted
the Professorship in our University, which we should have
offered him in form. Mr. Bowditch, too, refuses us; so fascinating
is the vinculum of the dulce natale solum. Our wish is to
procure natives, where they can be found, like these gentlemen,
of the first order of requirement in their respective lines; but
preferring foreigners of the first order to natives of the second,
we shall certainly have to go for several of our Professors, to
countries more advanced in science than we are.
I set out within three or four days for my other home, the distance
of which, and its cross mails, are great impediments to epistolary
communications. I shall remain there about two months;
and there, here, and everywhere, I am and shall always be, affectionately
and respectfully yours.
Poplar Forest, August 24, 1819.
Sir,—The acknowledgment of your favor of July 15th, and
thanks for the Review which it covered of Mr. Pickering's
Memoir on the Modern Greek, have been delayed by a visit to
an occasional but distant residence from Monticello, and to an
attack here of rheumatism which is just now moderating. I had
been much pleased with the memoir, and was much also with
your review of it. I have little hope indeed of the recovery of
the ancient pronunciation of that finest of human languages, but
still I rejoice at the attention the subject seems to excite with
you, because it is an evidence that our country begins to have
a taste for something more than merely as much Greek as will
pass a candidate for clerical ordination.
You ask my opinion on the extent to which classical learning
should be carried in our country. A sickly condition permits me
to think, and a rheumatic hand to write too briefly on this litigated
question. The utilities we derive from the remains of the
Greek and Latin languages are, first, as models of pure taste in
writing. To these we are certainly indebted for the national
and chaste style of modern composition which so much distinguishes
the nations to whom these languages are familiar.
Without these models we should probably have continued the
inflated style of our northern ancestors, or the hyperbolical and
vague one of the east. Second. Among the values of classical
learning, I estimate the luxury of reading the Greek and Roman
authors in all the beauties of their originals. And why should
not this innocent and elegant luxury take its preëminent stand
ahead of all those addressed merely to the senses? I think myself
more indebted to my father for this than for all the other luxuries
his cares and affections have placed within my reach; and
more now than when younger, and more susceptible of delights
from other sources. When the decays of age have enfeebled the
useful energies of the mind, the classic pages fill up the vacuum
of ennui, and become sweet composers to that rest of the grave
into which we are all sooner or later to descend. Third. A third
value is in the stores of real science deposited and transmitted us
in these languages, to-wit: in history, ethics, arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, natural history, &c.
But to whom are these things useful? Certainly not to all
men. There are conditions of life to which they must be forever
estranged, and there are epochs of life too, after which the
endeavor to attain them would be a great misemployment of
time. Their acquisition should be the occupation of our early
years only, when the memory is susceptible of deep and lasting
impressions, and reason and judgment not yet strong enough for
abstract speculations. To the moralist they are valuable, because
they furnish ethical writings highly and justly esteemed:
although in my own opinion, the moderns are far advanced beyond
them in this line of science, the divine finds in the Greek
language a translation of his primary code, of more importance
to him than the original because better understood; and, in the
same language, the newer code, with the doctrines of the earliest
fathers, who lived and wrote before the simple precepts of the
founder of this most benign and pure of all systems of morality
became frittered into subtleties and mysteries, and hidden under
jargons incomprehensible to the human mind. To these original
sources he must now, therefore, return, to recover the virgin purity
of his religion. The lawyer finds in the Latin language the
system of civil law most conformable with the principles of justice
of any which has ever yet been established among men, and
from which much has been incorporated into our own. The
physician as good a code of his art as has been given us to this
day. Theories and systems of medicine, indeed, have been in
perpetual change from the days of the good Hippocrates to the
days of the good Rush, but which of them is the true one? the
present, to be sure, as long as it is the present, but to yield its
place in turn to the next novelty, which is then to become the
true system, and is to mark the vast advance of medicine since
the days of Hippocrates. Our situation is certainly benefited
by the discovery of some new and very valuable medicines; and
substituting those for some of his with the treasure of facts, and
of sound observations recorded by him (mixed to be sure with
anilities of his day) and we shall have nearly the present sum
of the healing art. The statesman will find in these languages
history, politics, mathematics, ethics, eloquence, love of country,
to which he must add the sciences of his own day, for which of
them should be unknown to him? And all the sciences must
recur to the classical languages for the etymon, and sound understanding
of their fundamental terms. For the merchant I should
not say that the languages are a necessary. Ethics, mathematics,
geography, political economy, history, seem to constitute the
immediate foundations of his calling. The agriculturist needs
ethics, mathematics, chemistry and natural philosophy. The
mechanic the same. To them the languages are but ornament
and comfort. I know it is often said there have been shining
examples of men of great abilities in all the businesses of life,
without any other science than what they had gathered from conversations
and intercourse with the world. But who can say
what these men would not have been had they started in the
science on the shoulders of a Demosthenes or Cicero, of a Locke
or Bacon, or a Newton? To sum the whole, therefore, it may
truly be said that the classical languages are a solid basis for
most, and an ornament to all the sciences.
I am warned by my aching fingers to close this hasty sketch,
and to place here my last and fondest wishes for the advancement
of our country in the useful sciences and arts, and my
assurances of respect and esteem for the Reviewer of the Memoir
on modern Greek.
Poplar Forest, September 6, 1819.
Dear Sir,—I had read in the Enquirer, and with great approbation,
the pieces signed Hampden, and have read them again
with redoubled approbation, in the copies you have been so kind
as to send me. I subscribe to every title of them. They contain
the true principles of the revolution of 1800, for that was as
real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of
1776 was in its form; not effected indeed by the sword, as that,
but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage
of the people. The nation declared its will by dismissing
functionaries of one principle, and electing those of another, in
the two branches, executive and legislative, submitted to their
election. Over the judiciary department, the constitution had
deprived them of their control. That, therefore, has continued
the reprobated system, and although new matter has been occasionally
incorporated into the old, yet the leaven of the old mass
seems to assimilate to itself the new, and after twenty years' confirmation
of the federated system by the voice of the nation, declared
through the medium of elections, we find the judiciary on
every occasion, still driving us into consolidation.
In denying the right they usurp of exclusively explaining the
constitution, I go further than you do, if I understand rightly
your quotation from the Federalist, of an opinion that "the judiciary
is the last resort in relation to the other departments of
the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to
the compact under which the judiciary is derived." If this
opinion be sound, then indeed is our constitution a complete felo
de se. For intending to establish three departments, co-ordinate
and independent, that they might check and balance one another,
it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone, the
right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to
that one too, which is unelected by, and independent of the nation.
For experience has already shown that the impeachment
it has provided is not even a scare-crow; that such opinions as
the one you combat, sent cautiously out, as you observe also, by
detachment, not belonging to the case often, but sought for out
of it, as if to rally the public opinion beforehand to their views,
and to indicate the line they are to walk in, have been so quietly
passed over as never to have excited animadversion, even in a
speech of any one of the body entrusted with impeachment.
The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in
the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into
any form they please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of
eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government
is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the
spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes.
Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in
mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law.
My construction of the constitution is very different from that
you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of
the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the
meaning of the constitution in the cases submitted to its action;
and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal.
I will explain myself by examples, which, having occurred while
I was in office, are better known to me, and the principles which
governed them.
A legislature had passed the sedition law. The federal courts
had subjected certain individuals to its penalties of fine and imprisonment.
On coming into office, I released these individuals
by the power of pardon committed to executive discretion, which
could never be more properly exercised than where citizens were
suffering without the authority of law, or, which was equivalent,
under a law unauthorized by the constitution, and therefore null.
In the case of Marbury and Madison, the federal judges declared
that commissions, signed and sealed by the President, were valid,
although not delivered. I deemed delivery essential to complete
a deed, which, as long as it remains in the hands of the party, is
as yet no need, it is in posse only, but not in esse, and I withheld
delivery of the commissions. They cannot issue a mandamus
to the President or legislature, or to any of their officers.[3]
When the British treaty of —— arrived, without any provision
against the impressment of our seamen, I determined not to ratify
it. The Senate thought I should ask their advice. I thought
that would be a mockery of them, when I was predetermined
against following it, should they advise its ratification. The
constitution had made their advice necessary to confirm a treaty,
but not to reject it. This has been blamed by some; but I have
never doubted its soundness. In the cases of two persons, antenati,
under exactly similar circumstances, the federal court had
determined that one of them (Duane) was not a citizen; the
House of Representatives nevertheless determined that the other
(Smith, of South Carolina) was a citizen, and admitted him to
his seat in their body. Duane was a republican, and Smith a
federalist, and these decisions were made during the federal ascendancy.
These are examples of my position, that each of the three departments
has equally the right to decide for itself what is its
duty under the constitution, without any regard to what the
others may have decided for themselves under a similar question.
But you intimate a wish that my opinion should be known on
this subject. No, dear Sir, I withdraw from all contests of
opinion, and resign everything cheerfully to the generation now
in place. They are wiser than we were, and their successors
will be wiser than they, from the progressive advance of science.
Tranquillity is the summum bonum of age. I wish, therefore, to
offend no man's opinion, nor to draw disquieting animadversions
on my own. While duty required it, I met opposition with a
firm and fearless step. But loving mankind in my individual
relations with them, I pray to be permitted to depart in their
peace; and like the superannuated soldier, "quadragenis stipendiis
emeritis," to hang my arms on the post. I have unwisely,
I fear, embarked in an enterprise of great public concern, but
not to be accomplished within my term, without their liberal and
prompt support. A severe illness the last year, and another from
which I am just emerged, admonish me that repetitions may be
expected, against which a declining frame cannot long bear up.
I am anxious, therefore, to get our University so far advanced as
may encourage the public to persevere to its final accomplishment.
That secured, I shall sing my nunc demittas. I hope
your labors will be long continued in the spirit in which they
have always been exercised, in maintenance of those principles
on which I verily believe the future happiness of our country
essentially depends. I salute you with affectionate and great
respect.
Monticello, September 22, 1819.
I thank you, Sir, for the remarks on the pronunciation of the
Greek language which you have been so kind as to send me. I
have read them with pleasure, as I had the pamphlet of Mr.
Pickering on the same subject. This question has occupied long
and learned inquiry, and cannot, as I apprehend, be ever positively
decided. Very early in my classical days, I took up the idea
that the ancient Greek language having been changed by degrees
into the modern, and the present race of that people having received
it by tradition, they had of course better pretensions to
the ancient pronunciation also, than any foreign nation could
have. When at Paris, I became acquainted with some learned
Greeks, from whom I took pains to learn the modern pronunciation.
But I could not receive it as genuine in toto. I could
not believe that the ancient Greeks had provided six different
notations for the simple sound of ι, iota, and left the five other
sounds which we give to η, υ, ει, οι, υι, without any characters
of notation at all. I could not acknowledge the υ, upsillon, as
an equivalent to our v, as in Αχιλλευς, which they pronounce
Achillevs, nor the γ gamma, to our y, as in αλγε', which they pronounce
alye. I concluded, therefore, that as experience proves
to us that the pronunciation of all languages changes, in their
descent through time, that of the Greek must have done so also
in some degree; and the more probably, as the body of the words
themselves had substantially changed, and I presumed that the
instances above mentioned might be classed with the degeneracies
of time; a presumption strengthened by their remarkable
cacophony. As to all the other letters, I have supposed we
might yield to their traditionary claim of a more orthodox pronunciation.
Indeed, they sound most of them as we do, and,
where they differ, as in the β, δ, χ, their sounds do not revolt us,
nor impair the beauty of the language.
If we adhere to the Erasmian pronunciation, we must go to
Italy for it, as we must do for the most probably correct pronunciation
of the language of the Romans, because rejecting the
modern, we must argue that the ancient pronunciation was probably
brought from Greece, with the language itself; and, as Italy
was the country to which it was brought, and from which it emanated
to other nations, we must presume it better preserved there
than with the nations copying from them, who would be apt to affect
its pronunciation with some of their own national peculiarities.
And in fact, we find that no two nations pronounce it alike,
although all pretend to the Erasmian pronunciation. But the
whole subject is conjectural, and allows therefore full and lawful
scope to the vagaries of the human mind. I am glad, however,
to see the question stirred here; because it may excite among
our young countrymen a spirit of inquiry and criticism, and lead
them to more attention to this most beautiful of all languages.
And wishing that the salutary example you have set may have
this good effect, I salute you with great respect and consideration.
Monticello, October 31, 1819.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 21st is received. My late illness,
in which you are so kind as to feel an interest, was produced
by a spasmodic stricture of the ilium, which came upon me on
the 7th inst. The crisis was short, passed over favorably on the
fourth day, and I should soon have been well but that a dose of
calomel and jalap, in which were only eight or nine grains of
the former, brought on a salivation. Of this, however, nothing
now remains but a little soreness of the mouth. I have been
able to get on horseback for three or four days past.
As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the
genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing
everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome
have left us. Epictetus indeed, has given us what was good of
the stoics; all beyond, of their dogmas, being hypocrisy and
grimace. Their great crime was in their calumnies of Epicurus
and misrepresentations of his doctrines; in which we lament to
see the candid character of Cicero engaging as an accomplice.
Diffuse, vapid, rhetorical, but enchanting. His prototype Plato,
eloquent as himself, dealing out mysticisms incomprehensible to
the human mind, has been deified by certain sects usurping the
name of Christians; because, in his foggy conceptions, they found
a basis of impenetrable darkness whereon to rear fabrications as
delirious, of their own invention. These they fathered blasphemously
on him whom they claimed as their founder, but who
would disclaim them with the indignation which their caricatures
of his religion so justly excite. Of Socrates we have nothing
genuine but in the Memorabilia of Xenophon; for Plato
makes him one of his Collocutors merely to cover his own
whimsies under the mantle of his name; a liberty of which we
are told Socrates himself complained. Seneca is indeed a fine
moralist, disfiguring his work at times with some Stoicisms, and
affecting too much of antithesis and point, yet giving us on the
whole a great deal of sound and practical morality. But the
greatest of all the reformers of the depraved religion of his own
country, was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his
from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by
its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separable from
that as the diamond from the dunghill, we have the outlines of
a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen
from the lips of man; outlines which it is lamentable he did not
live to fill up. Epictetus and Epicurus give laws for governing
ourselves, Jesus a supplement of the duties and charities we owe
to others. The establishment of the innocent and genuine character
of this benevolent moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation
of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems,[4]
invented by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word
ever uttered by him, is a most desirable object, and one to which
Priestley has successfully devoted his labors and learning. It
would in time, it is to be hoped, effect a quiet euthanasia of the
heresies of bigotry and fanaticism which have so long triumphed
over human reason, and so generally and deeply afflicted mankind;
but this work is to be begun by winnowing the grain from
the chaff of the historians of his life. I have sometimes thought
of translating Epictetus (for he has never been tolerably translated
into English) by adding the genuine doctrines of Epicurus
from the Syntagma of Gassendi, and an abstract from the Evangelists
of whatever has the stamp of the eloquence and fine imagination
of Jesus. The last I attempted too hastily some twelve
or fifteen years ago. It was the work of two or three nights
only, at Washington, after getting through the evening task of
reading the letters and papers of the day. But with one foot in
the grave, these are now idle projects for me. My business is to
beguile the wearisomeness of declining life, as I endeavor to do,
by the delights of classical reading and of mathematical truths,
and by the consolations of a sound philosophy, equally indifferent
to hope and fear.
I take the liberty of observing that you are not a true disciple
of our master Epicurus, in indulging the indolence to which you
say you are yielding. One of his canons, you know, was that
"that indulgence which presents a greater pleasure, or produces
a greater pain, is to be avoided." Your love of repose will lead,
in its progress, to a suspension of healthy exercise, a relaxation
of mind, an indifference to everything around you, and finally to
a debility of body, and hebetude of mind, the farthest of all
things from the happiness which the well-regulated indulgences
of Epicurus ensure; fortitude, you know, is one of his four cardinal
virtues. That teaches us to meet and surmount difficulties;
not to fly from them, like cowards; and to fly, too, in vain,
for they will meet and arrest us at every turn of our road. Weigh
this matter well; brace yourself up; take a seat with Correa, and
come and see the finest portion of your country, which, if you
have not forgotten, you still do not know, because it is no longer
the same as when you knew it. It will add much to the happiness
of my recovery to be able to receive Correa and yourself,
and prove the estimation in which I hold you both. Come, too,
and see our incipient University, which has advanced with great
activity this year. By the end of the next, we shall have elegant
accommodations for seven professors, and the year following the
professors themselves. No secondary character will be received
among them. Either the ablest which America or Europe can
furnish, or none at all. They will give us the selected society
of a great city separated from the dissipations and levities of its
ephemeral insects.
I am glad the bust of Condorcet has been saved and so well
placed. His genius should be before us; while the lamentable,
but singular act of ingratitude which tarnished his latter days,
may be thrown behind us.
I will place under this a syllabus of the doctrines of Epicurus,
somewhat in the lapidary style, which I wrote some twenty years
ago, a like one of the philosophy of Jesus, of nearly the same
age, is too long to be copied. Vale, et tibi persuade carissimum
te esse mihi.
Physical.—The Universe eternal.
Its parts, great and small, interchangeable.
Matter and Void alone.
Motion inherent in matter which is weighty and declining.
Eternal circulation of the elements of bodies.
Gods, an order of beings next superior to man, enjoying in
their sphere, their own felicities; but not meddling with the concerns
of the scale of beings below them.
Moral.—Happiness the aim of life.
Virtue the foundation of happiness.
Utility the test of virtue.
Pleasure active and In-do-lent.
In-do-lence is the absence of pain, the true felicity.
Active, consists in agreeable motion; it is not happiness, but
the means to produce it.
Thus the absence of hunger is an article of felicity; eating
the means to obtain it.
The summum bonum is to be not pained in body, nor troubled
in mind.
i. e. In-do-lence of body, tranquillity of mind.
To procure tranquillity of mind we must avoid desire and fear,
the two principal diseases of the mind.
Man is a free agent.
Virtue consists in 1. Prudence. 2. Temperance. 3. Fortitude.
4. Justice.
To which are opposed, 1. Folly. 2. Desire. 3. Fear. 4. Deceit.
Monticello, November 7, 1819.
Dear Sir,—Three long and dangerous illnesses within the last
twelve months, must apologize for my long silence towards you.
The paper bubble is then burst. This is what you and I, and
every reasoning man, seduced by no obliquity of mind or interest,
have long foreseen; yet its disastrous effects are not the less
for having been foreseen. We were laboring under a dropsical
fulness of circulating medium. Nearly all of it is now called in
by the banks, who have the regulation of the safety-valves of
our fortunes, and who condense and explode them at their will.
Lands in this State cannot now be sold for a year's rent; and
unless our Legislature have wisdom enough to effect a remedy
by a gradual diminution only of the medium, there will be a general
revolution of property in this State. Over our own paper
and that of other States coming among us, they have competent
powers; over that of the bank of the United States there is doubt,
not here, but elsewhere. That bank will probably conform voluntarily
to such regulations as the Legislature may prescribe for
the others. If they do not, we must shut their doors, and join
the other States which deny the right of Congress to establish
banks, and solicit them to agree to some mode of settling this
constitutional question. They have themselves twice decided
against their right, and twice for it. Many of the States have
been uniform in denying it, and between such parties the Constitution
has provided no umpire. I do not know particularly
the extent of this distress in the other States; but southwardly
and westwardly I believe all are involved in it. God bless you,
and preserve you many years.
Monticello, November 10, 1819.
Sir,—Your letter, and the draught of a memorial proposed to
be presented to the Legislature, are duly received. With respect
to impressions from any differences of political opinion, whether
major or minor, alluded to in your letter, I have none. I left
them all behind me on quitting Washington, where alone the
state of things had, till then, required some attention to them.
Nor was that the lightest part of the load I was there disburthened
of; and could I permit myself to believe that with the change
of circumstances a corresponding change had taken place in the
minds of those who differed from me, and that I now stand in
the peace and good will of my fellow-citizens generally, it would
indeed be a sweetening ingredient in the last dregs of my life.
It is not then from that source that my testimony may be scanty,
but from a decaying memory, illy retaining things of recent transaction,
and scarcely with any distinctness those of forty years
back, the period to which your memorial refers: general impressions
of them remain, but details are mostly obliterated.
Of the transfer of your corps from the general to the State
line, and the other facts in the memorial preceding my entrance
on the administration of the State government, June 2, 1779, I,
of course, have no knowledge; but public documents, as well as
living witnesses, will probably supply this. In 1780, I remember
your appointment to a command in the militia sent under
General Stevens to the aid of the Carolinas, of which fact the
commission signed by myself is sufficient proof. But I have no
particular recollections which respect yourself personally in that
service. Of what took place during Arnold's invasion in the subsequent
winter I have more knowledge, because so much passed
under my own eye, and I have the benefit of some notes to aid
my memory. In the short interval of fifty-seven hours between
our knowing they had entered James river and their actual debarkation
at Westover, we could get together but a small body of
militia, (my notes say of three hundred men only,) chiefly from the
city and its immediate vicinities. You were placed in the command
of these, and ordered to proceed to the neighborhood of
the enemy, not with any view to face them directly with so
small a force, but to hang on their skirts, and to check their
march as much as could be done, to give time for the more distant
militia to assemble. The enemy were not to be delayed,
however, and were in Richmond in twenty-four hours from their
being formed on shore at Westover. The day before their arrival
at Richmond, I had sent my family to Tuckahoe, as the
memorial states, at which place I joined them about 1 o'clock of
that night, having attended late at Westham, to have the public
stores and papers thrown across the river. You came up to us
at Tuckahoe the next morning, and accompanied me, I think, to
Britton's opposite Westham, to see about the further safety of the
arms and other property. Whether you stayed there to look
after them, or went with me to the heights of Manchester, and
returned thence to Britton's, I do not recollect. The enemy
evacuated Richmond at noon of the 5th of January, having remained
there but twenty-three hours. I returned to it in the
morning of the 8th, they being still encamped at Westover and
Berkley, and yourself and corps at the Forest. They re-embarked
at 1 o'clock of the 10th. The particulars of your movements
down the river, to oppose their re-landing at different
points, I do not specifically recollect, but, as stated in the memorial,
they are so much in agreement with my general impressions,
that I have no doubt of their correctness, and know that
your conduct from the first advance of the enemy to his departure,
was approved by myself and by others generally. The
rendezvous of the militia at the Tuckahoe bridge, and your having
the command of them, I think I also remember, but nothing
of their subsequent movements. The legislature had adjourned
to meet at Charlottesville, where, at the expiration of my second
year, I declined a re-election in the belief that a military man
would be more likely to render services adequate to the exigencies
of the times. Of the subsequent facts, therefore, stated in the
memorial, I have no knowledge.
This, Sir, is the sum of the information I am able to give on
the subjects of your memorial, and if it may contribute to the
purposes of justice in your case, I shall be happy that in bearing
testimony to the truth, I shall have rendered you a just service.
I return the memorial and commission, as requested, and pray
you to accept my respectful salutations.
Monticello, November 28, 1819.
Dear Sir,—The distresses of our country, produced first by
the flood, then by the ebb of bank paper, are such as cannot fail
to engage the interposition of the legislature. Many propositions
will, of course, be offered, from all of which something may
probably be culled to make a good whole. I explained to you
my project, when I had the pleasure of possessing you here; and
I now send its outline in writing, as I believe I promised you.
Although preferable things will I hope be offered, yet some twig
of this may perhaps be thought worthy of being engrafted on a
better stock. But I send it with no particular object or request,
but to use it as you please. Suppress it, suggest it, sound opinions,
or anything else, at will, only keeping my name unmentioned,
for which purpose it is copied in another hand, being
ever solicitous to avoid all offence which is heavily felt, when
retired from the bustle and contentions of the world. If we suffer
the moral of the present lesson to pass away without improvement
by the eternal suppression of bank paper, then indeed is the condition
of our country desperate, until the slow advance of public
instruction shall give to our functionaries the wisdom of their
station. Vale, et tibi persuade carissimum te mihi esse.
Plan for reducing the circulating medium.
The plethory of circulating medium which raised the prices
of everything to several times their ordinary and standard value,
in which state of things many and heavy debts were contracted;
and the sudden withdrawing too great a proportion of that medium,
and reduction of prices far below that standard, constitute
the disease under which we are now laboring, and which must
end in a general revolution of property, if some remedy is not applied.
That remedy is clearly a gradual reduction of the medium
to its standard level, that is to say, to the level which a metallic
medium will always find for itself, so as to be in equilibrio with
that of the nations with which we have commerce.
To effect this,
Let the whole of the present paper medium be suspended in
its circulation after a certain and not distant day.
Ascertain by proper inquiry the greatest sum of it which has
at any one time been in actual circulation.
Take a certain term of years for its gradual reduction, suppose
it to be five years; then let the solvent banks issue ⅚ of that
amount in new notes, to be attested by a public officer, as a security
that neither more or less is issued, and to be given out in
exchange for the suspended notes, and the surplus in discount.
Let ⅕th of these notes bear on their face that the bank will
discharge them with specie at the end of one year; another 5th
at the end of two years; a third 5th at the end of three years;
and so of the 4th and 5th. They will be sure to be brought in
at their respective periods of redemption.
Make it a high offence to receive or pass within this State a
note of any other.
There is little doubt that our banks will agree readily to this
operation; if they refuse, declare their charters forfeited by their
former irregularities, and give summary process against them for
the suspended notes.
The Bank of the United States will probably concur also; if
not, shut their doors and join the other States in respectful, but
firm applications to Congress, to concur in constituting a tribunal
(a special convention, e. g.) for settling amicably the question
of their right to institute a bank, and that also of the States
to do the same.
A stay-law for the suspension of executions, and their discharge
at five annual instalments, should be accommodated to these
measures.
Interdict forever, to both the State and national governments,
the power of establishing any paper bank; for without this interdiction,
we shall have the same ebbs and flows of medium,
and the same revolutions of property to go through every twenty
or thirty years.
In this way the value of property, keeping pace nearly with
the sum of circulating medium, will descend gradually to its
proper level, at the rate of about ⅕ every year, the sacrifices of
what shall be sold for payment of the first instalments of debts
will be moderate, and time will be given for economy and industry
to come in aid of those subsequent. Certainly no nation
ever before abandoned to the avarice and jugglings of private
individuals to regulate, according to their own interests, the
quantum of circulating medium for the nation, to inflate, by
deluges of paper, the nominal prices of property, and then to buy
up that property at 1s. in the pound, having first withdrawn the
floating medium which might endanger a competition in purchase.
Yet this is what has been done, and will be done, unless
stayed by the protecting hand of the legislature. The evil has
been produced by the error of their sanction of this ruinous machinery
of banks; and justice, wisdom, duty, all require that
they should interpose and arrest it before the schemes of plunder
and spoliation desolate the country. It is believed that Harpies
are already hoarding their money to commence these scenes on
the separation of the legislature; and we know that lands have
been already sold under the hammer for less than a year's rent.
Monticello, December 10, 1819.
Dear Sir,—I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor
of November the 23d. The banks, bankrupt law, manufactures,
Spanish treaty, are nothing. These are occurrences which, like
waves in a storm, will pass under the ship. But the Missouri
question is a breaker on which we lose the Missouri country by
revolt, and what more, God only knows. From the battle of
Bunker's Hill to the treaty of Paris, we never had so ominous a
question. It even damps the joy with which I hear of your
high health, and welcomes to me the consequences of my want
of it. I thank God that I shall not live to witness its issue. Sed
hæc hactenus.
I have been amusing myself latterly with reading the voluminous
letters of Cicero. They certainly breathe the purest effusions
of an exalted patriot, while the parricide Cæsar is lost in
odious contrast. When the enthusiasm, however, kindled by
Cicero's pen and principles, subsides into cool reflection, I ask
myself, what was that government which the virtues of Cicero
were so zealous to restore, and the ambition of Cæsar to subvert?
And if Cæsar had been as virtuous as he was daring and sagacious,
what could he, even in the plenitude of his usurped power,
have done to lead his fellow citizens into good government?
I do not say to restore it, because they never had it, from the
rape of the Sabines to the ravages of the Cæsars. If their people
indeed had been, like ourselves, enlightened, peaceable, and
really free, the answer would be obvious. "Restore independence
to all your foreign conquests, relieve Italy from the government
of the rabble of Rome, consult it as a nation entitled to
self-government, and do its will." But steeped in corruption,
vice and venality, as the whole nation was, (and nobody had
done more than Cæsar to corrupt it,) what could even Cicero,
Cato, Brutus have done, had it been referred to them to establish
a good government for their country? They had no ideas of
government themselves, but of their degenerate Senate, nor the
people of liberty, but of the factious opposition of their Tribunes.
They had afterwards their Tituses, their Trajans and Antoninuses,
who had the will to make them happy, and the power to
mould their government into a good and permanent form. But
it would seem as if they could not see their way clearly to do it.
No government can continue good, but under the control of the
people; and their people were so demoralized and depraved, as to
be incapable of exercising a wholesome control. Their reformation
then was to be taken up ab incunabulis. Their minds
were to be informed by education what is right and what wrong;
to be encouraged in habits of virtue, and deterred from those of
vice by the dread of punishments, proportioned indeed, but irremissible;
in all cases, to follow truth as the only safe guide, and
to eschew error, which bewilders us in one false consequence
after another, in endless succession. These are the inculcations
necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure of
order and good government. But this would have been an operation
of a generation or two, at least, within which period would
have succeeded many Neros and Commoduses, who would have
quashed the whole process. I confess then, I can neither see
what Cicero, Cato, and Brutus, united and uncontrolled, could
have devised to lead their people into good government, nor how
this enigma can be solved, nor how further shown why it has
been the fate of that delightful country never to have known, to
this day, and through a course of five and twenty hundred years,
the history of which we possess, one single day of free and rational
government. Your intimacy with their history, ancient,
middle and modern, your familiarity with the improvements in
the science of government at this time, will enable you, if any
body, to go back with our principles and opinions to the times
of Cicero, Cato and Brutus, and tell us by what process these
great and virtuous men could have led so unenlightened and vitiated
a people into freedom and good government, et eris mihi
magnus Apollo. Cura ut valeas, et tibi persuadeas carissimum
te mihi esse.
Montezillo, December 21, 1819.
Dear Sir,—I must answer your great question of the 10th
in the words of Dalembert to his correspondent, who asked him
what is matter—"Je vous avoue je ne sçais rien." In some
part of my life I record a great work of a Scotchman on the
court of Augustus, in which, with much learning, hard study,
and fatiguing labor, he undertook to prove that had Brutus and
Cassius been conqueror, they would have restored virtue and
liberty to Rome.
Mais je n'en crois rien. Have you ever found in history one
single example of a nation, thoroughly corrupted, that was afterwards
restored to virtue, and without virtue there can be no political
liberty.
If I were a Calvinist, I might pray that God by a miracle of
divine grace would instantaneously convert a whole contaminated
nation from turpitude to purity; but even in this I should be inconsistent,
for the fatalism of Mahometanism, Materialists, Atheists,
Pantheists, and Calvinists, and church of England articles,
appear to me to render all prayer futile and absurd. The French
and the Dutch, in our day, have attempted reforms and revolutions.
We know the results, and I fear the English reformers
will have no better success.
Will you tell me how to prevent riches from becoming the effects
of temperance and industry. Will you tell me how to prevent
riches from producing luxury. Will you tell me how to
prevent luxury from producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance,
vice and folly? When you will answer me these questions,
I hope I may venture to answer yours; yet all these ought
not to discourage us from exertion, for with my friend Jeb, I believe
no effort in favor of virtue is lost, and all good men ought
to struggle both by their council and example.
The Missouri question, I hope, will follow the other waves
under the ship, and do no harm. I know it is high treason to
express a doubt of the perpetual duration of our vast American
empire, and our free institution; and I say as devoutly as father
Paul, estor perpetua, but I am sometimes Cassandra enough to
dream that another Hamilton, and another Burr, might rend this
mighty fabric in twain, or perhaps into a leash; and a few more
choice spirits of the same stamp, might produce as many nations
in North America as there are in Europe.
To return to the Romans. I never could discover that they
possessed much virtue, or real liberty. Their Patricians were in
general griping usurers, and tyrannical creditors in all ages.
Pride, strength, and courage, were all the virtues that composed
their national characters; a few of their nobles effecting simplicity,
frugality, and piety, perhaps really possessing them, acquired
popularity amongst the plebeians, and extended the power
and dominions of the republic, and advanced in glory till riches
and luxury come in, sat like an incubus on the Republic, victam
que ulcissitur orbem.
Our winter sets in a fortnight earlier than usual, and is pretty
severe. I hope you have fairer skies, and milder air. Wishing
your health may last as long as your life, and your life as long
as you desire it, I am, dear Sir, respectfully and affectionately,
Monticello, March 12, 1820.
I thank you, dear Sir, for the information in your favor of the
4th instant, of the settlement, for the present, of the Missouri
question. I am so completely withdrawn from all attention to
public matters, that nothing less could arouse me than the definition
of a geographical line, which on an abstract principle is to
become the line of separation of these States, and to render desperate
the hope that man can ever enjoy the two blessings of
peace and self-government. The question sleeps for the present,
but is not dead. This State is in a condition of unparalleled distress.
The sudden reduction of the circulating medium from
a plethory to all but annihilation is producing an entire revolution
of fortune. In other places I have known lands sold by the
sheriff for one year's rent; beyond the mountain we hear of
good slaves selling for one hundred dollars, good horses for five
dollars, and the sheriffs generally the purchasers. Our produce
is now selling at market for one-third of its price, before this
commercial catastrophe, say flour at three and a quarter and three
and a half dollars the barrel. We should have less right to expect
relief from our legislators if they had been the establishers
of the unwise system of banks. A remedy to a certain degree
was practicable, that of reducing the quantum of circulation
gradually to a level with that of the countries with which we
have commerce, and an eternal abjuration of paper. But they
have adjourned without doing anything. I fear local insurrections
against these horrible sacrifices of property. In every condition
of trouble or tranquillity be assured of my constant esteem
and respect.
Monticello, March 14, 1820.
Dear Sir,—A continuation of poor health makes me an irregular
correspondent. I am, therefore, your debtor for the two
letters of January 20th and February 21st. It was after you
left Europe that Dugald Stuart, concerning whom you inquire,
and Lord Dare, second son of the Marquis of Lansdown, came
to Paris. They brought me a letter from Lord Wycombe, whom
you knew. I became immediately intimate with Stuart, calling
mutually on each other and almost daily, during their stay at
Paris, which was of some months. Lord Dare was a young man
of imagination, with occasional flashes indicating deep penetration,
but of much caprice, and little judgment. He has been
long dead, and the family title is now, I believe, in the third son,
who has shown in Parliament talents of a superior order. Stuart
is a great man, and among the most honest living. I have heard
nothing of his dying at top, as you suppose. Mr. Tickner, however,
can give you the best information on that subject, as he
must have heard particularly of him when in Edinburgh, although
I believe he did not see him. I have understood he was
then in London superintending the publication of a new work.
I consider him and Tracy as the ablest metaphysicians living;
by which I mean investigators of the thinking faculty of man.
Stuart seems to have given its natural history from facts and observations;
Tracy its modes of action and deduction, which he
calls Logic, and Ideology; and Cabanis, in his Physique et
Morale de l'Homme, has investigated anatomically, and most ingeniously,
the particular organs in the human structure which
may most probably exercise that faculty. And they ask why
may not the mode of action called thought, have been given to
a material organ of peculiar structure, as that of magnetism is to
the needle, or of elasticity to the spring by a particular manipulation
of the steel. They observe that on ignition of the needle
or spring, their magnetism and elasticity cease. So on dissolution
of the material organ by death, its action of thought may
cease also, and that nobody supposes that the magnetism or elasticity
retire to hold a substantive and distinct existence. These
were qualities only of particular conformations of matter; change
the conformation, and its qualities change also. Mr. Locke, you
know, and other materialists, have charged with blasphemy the
spiritualists who have denied the Creator the power of endowing
certain forms of matter with the faculty of thought. These,
however, are speculations and subtleties in which, for my own
part, I have little indulged myself. When I meet with a proposition
beyond finite comprehension, I abandon it as I do a weight
which human strength cannot lift, and I think ignorance, in these
cases, is truly the softest pillow on which I can lay my head.
Were it necessary, however, to form an opinion, I confess I
should, with Mr. Locke, prefer swallowing one incomprehensibility
rather than two. It requires one effort only to admit the
single incomprehensibility of matter endowed with thought, and
two to believe, first that of an existence called spirit, of which
we have neither evidence nor idea, and then secondly how that
spirit, which has neither extension nor solidity, can put material
organs into motion. Those are things which you and I may
perhaps know ere long. We have so lived as to fear neither
horn of the dilemma. We have, willingly, done injury to no
man; and have done for our country the good which has fallen
in our way, so far as commensurate with the faculties given us.
That we have not done more than we could, cannot be imputed
to us as a crime before any tribunal. I look, therefore, to the
crisis, as I am sure you also do, as one "qui summum nec metuit
diem nec optat." In the meantime be our last as cordial as were
our first affections.
Monticello, April 5, 1820.
Sir,—A near relation of my late friend Governor Langdon,
needs no apology for addressing a letter to me, that relationship
giving sufficient title to all my respect. We were fellow laborers
from the beginning of the first to the accomplishment of the
second revolution in our government, of the same zeal and the
same sentiments, and I shall honor his memory while memory
remains to me. The letter you mention is proof of my friendship
and unreserved confidence in him; it was written in warm
times, and is therefore too warmly expressed for the more reconciled
temper of the present day. I must pray you, therefore,
not to let it get before the public, lest it rekindle a flame which
burnt too long and too fiercely against me. It was my lot to be
placed at the head of the column which made the first breach in
the ramparts of federalism, and to be charged, on that event, with
the duty of changing the course of the government from what
we deemed a monarchical, to its republican tack. This made
me the mark for every shaft which calumny and falsehood could
point against me. I bore them with resignation, as one of the
duties imposed on me by my post. But I assure you it was
among the most painful duties from which I hoped to find relief
in retirement. Tranquillity is the summum bonum of old age
and ill health, and nothing could so much disturb this with me
as to awaken angry feelings from the slumber in which I wish
them ever to remain. I beseech you then, good Sir, in the name
of my departed friend, not to bring on me a contention which
neither duty nor public good require me to encounter.
I regret the circumstances which have deprived us of the pleasure
of your visit, but console myself with the French proverb
that "all is not lost which is deferred," and the hope that more
favorable circumstances will some day give us that gratification.
I congratulate you on the sleep of the Missouri question. I wish
I could say on its death, but of this I despair. The idea of a
geographical line once suggested will brood in the minds of all
those who prefer the gratification of their ungovernable passions
to the peace and union of their country. If I do not contemplate
this subject with pleasure, I do sincerely that of the independence
of Maine, and the wise choice they have made of
General King in the agency of their affairs, and I tender to yourself
the assurance of my esteem and respect.
Monticello, April 13, 1820.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of March the 27th is received, and as
you request, a copy of the syllabus is now enclosed. It was
originally written to Dr. Rush. On his death, fearing that the
inquisition of the public might get hold of it, I asked the return
of it from the family, which they kindly complied with. At
the request of another friend, I had given him a copy. He lent
it to his friend to read, who copied it, and in a few months it
appeared in the Theological Magazine of London. Happily that
repository is scarcely known in this country, and the syllabus,
therefore, is still a secret, and in your hands I am sure it will continue
so.
But while this syllabus is meant to place the character of Jesus
in its true and high light, as no impostor himself, but a great reformer
of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood
that I am with him in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he
takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance
towards forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of
good works to redeem it, &c., &c. It is the innocence of his
character, the purity and sublimity of his moral precepts, the
eloquence of his inculcations, the beauty of the apologues in
which he conveys them, that I so much admire; sometimes, indeed,
needing indulgence to eastern hyperbolism. My eulogies,
too, may be founded on a postulate which all may not be ready
to grant. Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by
his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct
morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again,
of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth,
charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that
such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.
I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore to him the
former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery
of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors,
Paul was the great Coryphæus, and first corruptor of the doctrines
of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications
of his doctrines, led me to try to sift them apart. I found the
work obvious and easy, and that his part composed the most beautiful
morsel of morality which has been given to us by man.
The syllabus is therefore of his doctrines, not all of mine. I read
them as I do those of other ancient and modern moralists, with
a mixture of approbation and dissent.
I rejoice, with you, to see an encouraging spirit of internal improvement
prevailing in the States. The opinion I have ever
expressed of the advantages of a western communication through
the James river, I still entertain; and that the Cayuga is the
most promising of the links of communication.
The history of our University you know so far. Seven of the
ten pavilions destined for the professors, and about thirty dormitories,
will be completed this year, and three other, with six
hotels for boarding, and seventy other dormitories, will be completed
the next year, and the whole be in readiness then to receive
those who are to occupy them. But means to bring these
into place, and to set the machine into motion, must come from
the legislature. An opposition, in the meantime, has been got
up. That of our alma mater, William and Mary, is not of much
weight. She must descend into the secondary rank of academies
of preparation for the University. The serious enemies are the
priests of the different religious sects, to whose spells on the human
mind its improvement is ominous. Their pulpits are now
resounding with denunciations against the appointment of Doctor
Cooper, whom they charge as a monotheist in opposition to their
tritheism. Hostile as these sects are, in every other point, to one
another, they unite in maintaining their mystical theogony against
those who believe there is one God only. The Presbyterian
clergy are loudest; the most intolerant of all sects, the most tyrannical
and ambitious; ready at the word of the lawgiver, if
such a word could be now obtained, to put the torch to the pile,
and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere, the flames in which
their oracle Calvin consumed the poor Servetus, because he could
not find in his Euclid the proposition which has demonstrated
that three are one and one is three, nor subscribe to that of Calvin,
that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to
Calvinistic Creed. They pant to re-establish, by law, that holy
inquisition, which they can now only infuse into public opinion.
We have most unwisely committed to the hierophants of our particular
superstition, the direction of public opinion, that lord of
the universe. We have given them stated and privileged days
to collect and catechise us, opportunities of delivering their oracles
to the people in mass, and of moulding their minds as wax
in the hollow of their hands. But in despite of their fulminations
against endeavors to enlighten the general mind, to improve
the reason of the people, and encourage them in the use of it, the
liberality of this State will support this institution, and give fair
play to the cultivation of reason. Can you ever find a more
eligible occasion of visiting once more your native country, than
that of accompanying Mr. Correa, and of seeing with him this
beautiful and hopeful institution in ovo?
Although I had laid down as a law to myself, never to write
talk, or even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs,
and therefore had ceased to read newspapers, yet the Missouri
question aroused and filled me with alarm. The old schism of
federal and republican threatened nothing, because it existed in
every State, and united them together by the fraternism of
party. But the coincidence of a marked principle, moral and
political, with a geographical line, once conceived, I feared would
never more be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring
on every occasion and renewing irritations, until it would
kindle such mutual and mortal hatred, as to render separation
preferable to eternal discord. I have been among the most sanguine
in believing that our Union would be of long duration. I
now doubt it much, and see the event at no great distance,
and the direct consequence of this question; not by the line
which has been so confidently counted on; the laws of nature
control this; but by the Potomac, Ohio and Missouri, or more
probably, the Mississippi upwards to our northern boundary. My
only comfort and confidence is, that I shall not live to see this;
and I envy not the present generation the glory of throwing
away the fruits of their fathers' sacrifices of life and fortune, and
of rendering desperate the experiment which was to decide ultimately
whether man is capable of self-government? This treason
against human hope, will signalize their epoch in future history,
as the counterpart of the medal of their predecessors.
You kindly inquire after my health. There is nothing in it
immediately threatening, but swelled legs, which are kept down
mechanically, by bandages from the toe to the knee. These I
have worn for six months. But the tendency to turgidity may
proceed from debility alone. I can walk the round of my garden;
not more. But I ride six or eight miles a day without
fatigue. I shall set out for Poplar Forest within three or four
days; a journey from which my physician augurs much good.
I salute you with constant and affectionate friendship and respect.
Monticello, April 22, 1820.
I thank you, dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as
to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri
question. It is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long
time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to public
affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a
passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant.
But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night,
awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as
the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment.
But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical
line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political,
once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will
never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper
and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not
a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve
us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession
of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle
which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a
general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and
gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as
it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold
him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation
in the other. Of one thing I am certain, that as the
passage of slaves from one State to another, would not make a
slave of a single human being who would not be so without it,
so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually
happier, and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment
of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on a greater
number of coadjutors. An abstinence too, from this act of power,
would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of
Congress to regulate the condition of the different descriptions
of men composing a State. This certainly is the exclusive
right of every State, which nothing in the constitution has taken
from them and given to the General Government. Could Congress,
for example, say, that the non-freemen of Connecticut
shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other
State?
I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless
sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government
and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away
by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my
only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they
would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw
away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by
union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate
this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against
the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of
the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.
Monticello, May 14, 1820.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 3d is received, and always with
welcome. These texts of truth relieve me from the floating
falsehoods of the public papers. I confess to you I am not sorry
for the non-ratification of the Spanish treaty. Our assent to it
has proved our desire to be on friendly terms with Spain; their
dissent, the imbecility and malignity of their government towards
us, have placed them in the wrong in the eyes of the world, and
that is well; but to us the province of Techas will be the richest
State of our Union, without any exception. Its southern part
will make more sugar than we can consume, and the Red river,
on its north, is the most luxuriant country on earth. Florida,
moreover, is ours. Every nation in Europe considers it such a
right. We need not care for its occupation in time of peace, and,
in war, the first cannon makes it ours without offence to anybody.
The friendly advisements, too, of Russia and France, as well as
the change of government in Spain, now ensured, require a further
and respectful forbearance. While their request will rebut
the plea of proscriptive possession, it will give us a right to their
approbation when taken in the maturity of circumstances. I
really think, too, that neither the state of our finances, the condition
of our country, nor the public opinion, urges us to precipitation
into war. The treaty has had the valuable effect of
strengthening our title to the Techas, because the cession of the
Floridas in exchange for Techas imports an acknowledgment
of our right to it. This province moreover, the Floridas and
possibly Cuba, will join us on the acknowledgment of their independence,
a measure to which their new government will probably
accede voluntarily. But why should I be saying all this to
you, whose mind all the circumstances of this affair have had
possession for years? I shall rejoice to see you here; and were
I to live to see you here finally, it would be a day of jubilee.
But our days are all numbered, and mine are not many. God
bless you and preserve you muchos años
Monticello, May 16, 1820.
Dear Sir,—We regretted much your absence at the late meeting
of the Board of Visitors, but did not doubt it was occasioned
by uncontrollable circumstances. As the matters which came before
us were of great importance to the institution, I think it a
duty to inform you of them.
You know the sanction of the legislature to our borrowing
$60,000 on the pledge of our annuity of $15,000. The Literary
Board offered us $40,000 on that pledge, to be repaid at five
instalments, commencing at the end of the third year from the
date of the loan, and interest to be regularly paid in the meantime.
We endeavored to obtain permission to draw for only
$15,000 at first, and for $2,000 monthly afterwards, to avoid the
payment of dead interest. This they declined, as bound themselves
to keep the whole of their capital always in a course of
fructification. We then requested a postponement of the instalments
to the fourth instead of the third year, with an additional
loan of the further sum of $20,000, authorized by the law. To the
postponement they acceded, and we are assured they will to the
further loan. To explain to them the urgency of this additional
year's postponement, a paper was laid before them of which I
enclose you a copy, and on which you are now acting. Should
the legislature not help us to the $93,600 there noted, the result
will be that at the end of the next year all the buildings will be
completed, (the library excepted,) and will then remain unoccupied
five years longer, until our funds shall be free for the engagements
of professors. Should they, on the other hand, give
this aid, our funds will be free, at the beginning of the next year,
and will enable us to take measures for procuring professors in
the course of that summer, and to open the University. We
were all of opinion that we ought to complete the buildings for
the ten professors contemplated, as well as accommodations for
the students, before opening the institution; for were we to stop
at any point short of the full establishment, and open partially,
as our funds would thenceforward be absorbed by the professors'
salaries, we should never be able to advance a step further, nor
to cover the whole field of science contemplated by the law, and
made the object of our care and duty. We thought it better,
therefore, to risk a delay of eight years for a perfect establishment,
than to begin earlier and go on forever with a defective
one; and we suppose it impossible that either the legislature, or
their constituents, should not consider an immediate commencement
as worth the sum necessary to procure it. You will observe
that in the estimate enclosed, no account is taken of our
subscription monies. They are, in fact, too uncertain in their
collection to found any necessary contracts; and we thought it
better therefore to reserve them as a contingent fund, and a resource
to cover miscalculations and accidents.
Another subject on this, as on former occasions, gave us embarrassment.
You may have heard of the hue and cry raised
from the different pulpits on our appointment of Dr. Cooper,
whom they charge with Unitarianism as boldly as if they knew
the fact, and as presumptuously as if it were a crime, and one
for which, like Servetus, he should be burned; and perhaps you
may have seen the particular attack made on him in the Evangelical
magazine. For myself I was not disposed to regard the
denunciations of these satellites of religious inquisition; but our
colleagues, better judges of popular feeling, thought that they
were not to be altogether neglected; and that it might be better
to relieve Dr. Cooper, ourselves and the institution from this
crusade. I had received a letter from him expressing his uneasiness,
not only for himself, but lest this persecution should become
embarrassing to the visitors, and injurious to the institution; with
an offer to resign, if we had the same apprehensions. The Visitors,
therefore, desired the committee of Superintendence to
place him at freedom on this subject, and to arrange with him
a suitable indemnification. I wrote accordingly in answer to
his, and a meeting of trustees of the college at Columbia happening
to take place soon after his receipt of my letter, they
resolved unanimously that it should be proposed to, and urged on
their legislature, to establish a professorship of Geology and Mineralogy,
or a professorship of law, with a salary of $1,000 a year
to be given him, in addition to that of chemistry, which is
$2,000 a year, and to purchase his collection of minerals; and
they have no doubt of the legislature's compliance. On the subject
of indemnification, he is contented with the balance of the
$1,500 we had before agreed to give him, and which he says
will not more than cover his actual losses of time and expense;
he adds, "it is right I should acknowledge the liberality of your
board with thanks. I regret the storm that has been raised on
my account; for it has separated me from many fond hopes and
wishes. Whatever my religious creed may be, and perhaps I do
not exactly know it myself, it is pleasure to reflect that my conduct
has not brought, and is not likely to bring, discredit to my
friends. Wherever I have been, it has been my good fortune to
meet with, or to make ardent and affectionate friends. I feel
persuaded I should have met with the same lot in Virginia had it
been my chance to have settled there, as I had hoped and expected,
for I think my course of conduct is sufficiently habitual
to count on its effects."
I do sincerely lament that untoward circumstances have brought
on us the irreparable loss of this professor, whom I have looked
to as the corner-stone of our edifice. I know no one who could
have aided us so much in forming the future regulations for our
infant institution; and although we may perhaps obtain from
Europe equivalents in science, they can never replace the advantages
of his experience, his knowledge of the character, habits
and manners of our country, his identification with its sentiments
and principles, and high reputation he has obtained in it
generally.
In the hope of meeting you at our fall visitation, and that you
will do me the favor of making this your head quarters, and of
coming the day before, at least, that we may prepare our business
at ease, I tender you the assurance of my great esteem and
respect.
Monticello, August 4, 1820.
Dear Sir,—I owe you a letter for your favor of June the
29th, which was received in due time; and there being no subject
of the day, of particular interest, I will make this a supplement
to mine of April the 13th. My aim in that was, to justify
the character of Jesus against the fictions of his pseudo-followers,
which have exposed him to the inference of being an impostor.
For if we could believe that he really countenanced the follies,
the falsehoods, and the charlatanisms which his biographers father
on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and
theorizations of the fathers of the early, and fanatics of the latter
ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind,
that he was an impostor. I give no credit to their falsifications
of his actions and doctrines, and to rescue his character, the postulate
in my letter asked only what is granted in reading every
other historian. When Livy and Siculus, for example, tell us
things which coincide with our experience of the order of nature,
we credit them on their word, and place their narrations
among the records of credible history. But when they tell us
of calves speaking, of statues sweating blood, and other things
against the course of nature, we reject these as fables not belonging
to history. In like manner, when an historian, speaking of
a character well known and established on satisfactory testimony,
imputes to it things incompatible with that character, we reject
them without hesitation, and assent to that only of which we
have better evidence. Had Plutarch informed us that Cæsar and
Cicero passed their whole lives in religious exercises, and abstinence
from the affairs of the world, we should reject what was
so inconsistent with their established characters, still crediting
what he relates in conformity with our ideas of them. So again,
the superlative wisdom of Socrates is testified by all antiquity,
and placed on ground not to be questioned. When, therefore,
Plato puts into his mouth such paralogisms, such quibbles on
words, and sophisms as a school boy would be ashamed of, we
conclude they were the whimsies of Plato's own foggy brain, and
acquit Socrates of puerilities so unlike his character. (Speaking
of Plato, I will add, that no writer, ancient or modern, has bewildered
the world with more ignus fatui, than this renowned
philosopher, in Ethics, in Politics, and Physics. In the latter, to
specify a single example, compare his views of the animal economy,
in his Timæus, with those of Mrs. Bryan in her Conversations
on Chemistry, and weigh the science of the canonized philosopher
against the good sense of the unassuming lady. But
Plato's visions have furnished a basis for endless systems of mystical
theology, and he is therefore all but adopted as a Christian
saint. It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to
throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified. But
to return from this parenthesis.) I say, that this free exercise of
reason is all I ask for the vindication of the character of Jesus.
We find in the writings of his biographers matter of two distinct
descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things
impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications. Intermixed
with these, again, are sublime ideas of the Supreme Being,
aphorisms, and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence,
sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence and simplicity of
manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and
honors, with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not
been surpassed. These could not be inventions of the grovelling
authors who relate them. They are far beyond the powers of
their feeble minds. They show that there was a character, the
subject of their history, whose splendid conceptions were above
all suspicion of being interpolations from their hands. Can we
be at a loss in separating such materials, and ascribing each to
its genuine author? The difference is obvious to the eye and to
the understanding, and we may read as we run to each his part;
and I will venture to affirm, that he who, as I have done, will
undertake to winnow this grain from the chaff, will find it
not to require a moment's consideration. The parts fall asunder
of themselves, as would those of an image of metal and clay.
There are, I acknowledge, passages not free from objection,
which we may, with probability, ascribe to Jesus himself; but
claiming indulgence from the circumstances under which he
acted. His object was the reformation of some articles in the
religion of the Jews, as taught by Moses. That sect had presented
for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character,
cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust. Jesus, taking for
his type the best qualities of the human head and heart, wisdom,
justice, goodness, and adding to them power, ascribed all of
these, but in infinite perfection, to the Supreme Being, and
formed him really worthy of their adoration. Moses had either
not believed in a future state of existence, or had not thought it
essential to be explicitly taught to his people. Jesus inculcated
that doctrine with emphasis and precision. Moses had bound
the Jews to many idle ceremonies, mummeries, and observances,
of no effect towards producing the social utilities which constitute
the essence of virtue; Jesus exposed their futility and insignificance.
The one instilled into his people the most anti-social
spirit toward other nations; the other preached philanthropy and
universal charity and benevolence. The office of reformer of
the superstitions of a nation, is ever dangerous. Jesus had to
walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion; and a step
to right or left might place him within the grasp of the priests
of the superstition, a blood-thirsty race, as cruel and remorseless
as the being whom they represented as the family God of
Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel.
They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the
web of the law. He was justifiable, therefore, in avoiding
these by evasions, by sophisms, by misconstructions and misapplications
of scraps of the prophets, and in defending himself
with these their own weapons, as sufficient, ad homines, at least.
That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the
son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the
writings of men more learned than myself in that lore. But that
he might conscientiously believe himself inspired from above,
is very possible. The whole religion of the Jew, inculcated on
him from his infancy, was founded in the belief of divine inspiration.
The fumes of the most disordered imaginations were recorded
in their religious code, as special communications of the
Deity; and as it could not but happen that, in the course of ages,
events would now and then turn up to which some of these
vague rhapsodies might be accommodated by the aid of allegories,
figures, types, and other tricks upon words, they have not
only preserved their credit with the Jews of all subsequent times,
but are the foundation of much of the religions of those who
have schismatised from them. Elevated by the enthusiasm of
a warm and pure heart, conscious of the high strains of an eloquence
which had not been taught him, he might readily mistake
the coruscations of his own fine genius for inspirations of
an higher order. This belief carried, therefore, no more personal
imputation, than the belief of Socrates, that himself was under
the care and admonitions of a guardian Dæmon. And how
many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations,
while perfectly sane on all other subjects. Excusing,
therefore, on these considerations, those passages in the gospels
which seem to bear marks of weakness in Jesus, ascribing
to him what alone is consistent with the great and pure character
of which the same writings furnish proofs, and to their proper
authors their own trivialities and imbecilities. I think myself
authorized to conclude the purity and distinction of his character,
in opposition to the impostures which those authors would
fix upon him; and that the postulate of my former letter is no
more than is granted in all other historical works.
Mr. Correa is here, on his farewell visit to us. He has been
much pleased with the plan and progress of our University, and
has given some valuable hints to its botanical branch. He goes
to do, I hope, much good in his new country; the public instruction
there, as I understand, being within the department
destined for him. He is not without dissatisfaction, and reasonable
dissatisfaction too, with the piracies of Baltimore; but his
justice and friendly dispositions will, I am sure, distinguish between
the iniquities of a few plunderers, and the sound principles
of our country at large, and of our government especially. From
many conversations with him, I hope he sees, and will promote in
his new situation, the advantages of a cordial fraternization among
all the American nations, and the importance of their coalescing
in an American system of policy, totally independent of
and unconnected with that of Europe. The day is not distant,
when we may formally require a meridian of partition through
the ocean which separates the two hemispheres, on the hither
side of which no European gun shall ever be heard, nor an
American on the other; and when, during the rage of the eternal
wars of Europe, the lion and the lamb, within our regions,
shall lie down together in peace. The excess of population in
Europe, and want of room, render war, in their opinion, necessary
to keep down that excess of numbers. Here, room is abundant,
population scanty, and peace the necessary means for producing
men, to whom the redundant soil is offering the means
of life and happiness. The principles of society there and here,
then, are radically different, and I hope no American patriot will
ever lose sight of the essential policy of interdicting in the seas
and territories of both Americas, the ferocious and sanguinary
contests of Europe. I wish to see this coalition begun. I am
earnest for an agreement with the maritime powers of Europe,
assigning them the task of keeping down the piracies of their
seas and the cannibalisms of the African coasts, and to us, the
suppression of the same enormities within our seas; and for this
purpose, I should rejoice to see the fleets of Brazil and the United
States riding together as brethren of the same family, and pursuing
the same object. And indeed it would be of happy augury
to begin at once this concert of action here, on the invitation of
either to the other government, while the way might be preparing
for withdrawing our cruisers from Europe, and preventing
naval collisions there which daily endanger our peace.
* * * * * * * *
Accept assurances of the sincerity of my friendship and respect
for you.
Monticello, August 14, 1820.
Dear Sir,—Yours of the 24th ult. was received in due time,
and I shall rejoice indeed if Mr. Elliot and Mr. Nulty are joined
to you in the institution at Columbia, which now becomes of
immediate interest to me. Mr. Stack has given notice to his
first class that he shall dismiss them on the 10th of the next
month, and his mathematical assistant also at the same time,
being determined to take only small boys in future. My grandson,
Eppes, is of the first class; and I have proposed to his father
to send him to Columbia, rather than anywhere northwardly.
I am obliged, therefore, to ask of you by what day he ought to
be there, so as to be at the commencement of what they call a
session, and to be so good as to do this by the first mail, as I
shall set out to Bedford within about a fortnight. He is so far advanced
in Greek and Latin that he will be able to pursue them by
himself hereafter; and being between eighteen and nineteen
years of age he has no time to lose. I propose that he shall commence
immediately with the mathematics and natural philosophy,
to be followed by astronomy, chemistry, mineralogy, botany,
natural history. It would be time lost for him to attend professors
of ethics, metaphysics, logic, &c. The first of these may
be as well acquired in the closet as from living lectures; and
supposing the two last to mean the science of mind, the simple
reading of Locke, Tracy, and Stewart, will give him as much
in that branch as is real science. A relation of his (Mr. Baker)
and classmate will go with him.
I hope and believe you are mistaken in supposing the reign of
fanaticism to be on the advance. I think it certainly declining.
It was first excited artificially by the sovereigns of Europe as an
engine of opposition to Bonaparte and to France. It rose to a
great height there, and became indeed a powerful engine of
loyalism, and of support to their governments. But that loyalism
is giving way to very different dispositions, and its prompter
fanaticism, is vanishing with it. In the meantime it had been
wafted across the Atlantic, and chiefly from England, with their
other fashions, but it is here also on the wane. The ambitious sect
of Presbyterians indeed, the Loyalists of our country, spare
no pains to keep it up. But their views of ascendency over
all other sects in the United States seem to excite alarm in all,
and to unite them as against a common and threatening enemy.
And although the Unitarianism they impute to you is heterodoxy
with all of them, I suspect the other sects will admit it to their
alliance in order to strengthen the phalanx of opposition against
the enterprises of their more aspiring antagonists. Although
spiritualism is most prevalent with all these sects, yet with none
of them, I presume, is materialism declared heretical. Mr. Locke,
on whose authority they often plume themselves, openly maintained
the materialism of the soul; and charged with blasphemy
those who denied that it was in the power of an Almighty Creator
to endow with the faculty of thought any composition of
matter he might think fit. The fathers of the church of the
three first centuries generally, if not universally, were materialists,
extending it even to the Creator himself; nor indeed do I
know exactly[5] in what age of the christian church the heresy
of spiritualism was introduced. Huet, in his commentaries on
Origen,[6] says, "Deus igitur, cui anima similis est, juxta Origenem,
reapse corporalis est, sed graviorum tantum ratione corporum incorporeus."[7]
St. Macari,[8] as speaking of angels says, "quam
vis enim subtilia sint, tamen in substantia, forma, et figura, secundum
tenuitatem naturæ eorum corpora sunt tenuia, quemadmodum
et hoc corpus in substantia sua crassum et solidum est."[9] St. Justin
martyr says expressly "το θειον φαμεν ειναι ασωματον, ουκ δε εστιν ασωματον."
Tertullian's words are, "quid enim Deus nisi corpus?" and
again, "quis autem negabit Deum esse corpus? et si deus spiritus,
spiritus etiam corpus est sui generis, in suâ effigie," and that the
soul is matter he adduces the following tangible proof: "in ipso
ultimo voluptatis aestu, quo genitale virus expellitur, nonne aliquid
de animâ sentimus exire?"[10] The holy father thus asserting,
and, as it would seem, from his own feelings, that the sperm
infused into the female matrix deposits there the matter and
germ of both soul and body, conjunctim, of the new fœtus. Although
I do not pretend to be familiar with these fathers, and
give the preceding quotations at second hand, yet I learn from
authors whom I respect, that not only those I have named, but
St. Augustin,[11] St. Basil, Lactantius, Tatian, Athenagoras, and
others, concurred in the materiality of the soul. Our modern
doctors would hardly venture or wish to condemn their fathers as
heretics, the main pillars of their fabric resting on their shoulders.
In the consultations of the visitors of the university on the subject
of releasing you from your engagement with us, although
one or two members seemed alarmed at this cry of "fire" from
the Presbyterian pulpits, yet the real ground of our decision was
that our funds were in fact hypotheticated for five or six years
to redeem the loan we had reluctantly made; and although we
hoped and trusted that the ensuing legislature would remit the
debt and liberate our funds, yet it was not just, on this possibility,
to stand in the way of your looking out for a more certain
provision. The completing all our buildings for professors and
students by the autumn of the ensuing year, is now secured by
sufficient contracts, and our confidence is most strong that neither
the State nor their legislature will bear to see those buildings
shut up for five or six years, when they have the money in hand,
and actually appropriated to the object of education, which would
open their doors at once for the reception of their sons, now
waiting and calling aloud for that institution. The legislature
meets on the 1st Monday of December, and before Christmas we
shall know what are their intentions. If such as we expect, we
shall then immediately take measures to engage our professors
and bring them into place the ensuing autumn or early winter.
My hope is that you will be able and willing to keep yourself
uncommitted, to take your place among them about that time;
and I can assure you there is not a voice among us which will
not be cordially given for it. I think, too, I may add, that if the
Presbyterian opposition should not die by that time, it will be
directed at once against the whole institution, and not amuse itself
with nibbling at a single object. It did that only because
there was no other, and they might think it politic to mask their
designs on the body of the fortress, under the —— of a battery
against a single bastion. I will not despair then of the
avail of your services in an establishment which I contemplate
as the future bulwark of the human mind in this hemisphere.
God bless you and preserve you multos annos.
Monticello, August 15, 1820.
I am a great defaulter, my dear Sir, in our correspondence,
but prostrate health rarely permits me to write; and when it
does, matters of business imperiously press their claims. I am
getting better however, slowly, swelled legs being now the only
serious symptom, and these, I believe, proceed from extreme debility.
I can walk but little; but I ride six or eight miles a day
without fatigue; and within a few days, I shall endeavor to visit
my other home, after a twelvemonth's absence from it. Our
University, four miles distant, gives me frequent exercise, and
the oftener, as I direct its architecture. Its plan is unique, and
it is becoming an object of curiosity for the traveller. I have
lately had an opportunity of reading a critique on this institution
in your North American Review of January last, having been
not without anxiety to see what that able work would say of
us; and I was relieved on finding in it much coincidence of
opinion, and even where criticisms were indulged, I found they
would have been obviated had the developments of our plan
been fuller. But these were restrained by the character of the
paper reviewed, being merely a report of outlines, not a detailed
treatise, and addressed to a legislative body, not to a learned
academy. For example, as an inducement to introduce the
Anglo-Saxon into our plan, it was said that it would reward
amply the few weeks of attention which alone would be requisite
for its attainment; leaving both term and degree under an indefinite
expression, because I know that not much time is necessary
to attain it to an useful degree, sufficient to give such instruction
in the etymologies of our language as may satisfy ordinary
students, while more time would be requisite for those
who should propose to attain a critical knowledge of it. In a
letter which I had occasion to write to Mr. Crofts, who sent you,
I believe, as well as myself, a copy of his treatise on the English
and German languages, as preliminary to an etymological dictionary
he meditated, I went into explanations with him of an
easy process for simplifying the study of the Anglo-Saxon, and
lessening the terrors and difficulties presented by its rude alphabet,
and unformed orthography. But this is a subject beyond
the bounds of a letter, as it was beyond the bounds of a report
to the legislature. Mr. Crofts died, I believe, before any progress
was made in the work he had projected.
The reviewer expresses doubt, rather than decision, on our
placing military and naval architecture in the department of pure
mathematics. Military architecture embraces fortification and
fieldworks, which, with their bastions, curtains, hornworks, redoubts,
&c., are based on a technical combination of lines and
angles. These are adapted to offence and defence, with and
against the effects of bombs, balls, escalades, &c. But lines and
angles make the sum of elementary geometry, a branch of pure
mathematics; and the direction of the bombs, balls, and other
projectiles, the necessary appendages of military works, although
no part of their architecture, belong to the conic sections, a
branch of transcendental geometry. Diderot and D'Alembert,
therefore, in their Arbor scientiæ, have placed military architecture
in the department of elementary geometry. Naval architecture
teaches the best form and construction of vessels; for
which best form it has recourse to the question of the solid of
least resistance; a problem of transcendental geometry. And its
appurtenant projectiles belong to the same branch, as in the preceding
case. It is true, that so far as respects the action of the
water on the rudder and oars, and of the wind on the sails, it
may be placed in the department of mechanics, as Diderot and
D'Alembert have done; but belonging quite as much to geometry,
and allied in its military character to military architecture,
it simplified our plan to place both under the same head. These
views are so obvious, that I am sure they would have required
but a second thought, to reconcile the reviewer to their location
under the head of pure mathematics. For this word location,
see Bailey, Johnson, Sheridan, Walker, &c. But if dictionaries
are to be the arbiters of language, in which of them shall we find
neologism. No matter. It is a good word, well sounding, obvious,
and expresses an idea, which would otherwise require circumlocution.
The reviewer was justifiable, therefore, in using
it; although he noted at the same time, as unauthoritative, centrality,
grade, sparse; all which have been long used in common
speech and writing. I am a friend to neology. It is the only
way to give to a language copiousness and euphony. Without
it we should still be held to the vocabulary of Alfred or of Ulphilas;
and held to their state of science also: for I am sure they
had no words which could have conveyed the ideas of oxygen,
cotyledons, zoophytes, magnetism, electricity, hyaline, and thousands
of others expressing ideas not then existing, nor of possible
communication in the state of their language. What a language
has the French become since the date of their revolution, by the
free introduction of new words! The most copious and eloquent
in the living world; and equal to the Greek, had not that been
regularly modifiable almost ad infinitum. Their rule was, that
whenever their language furnished or adopted a root, all its
branches, in every part of speech, were legitimated by giving
them their appropriate terminations. Αδελφος, αδελφη, αδελφιδιον,
αδελφοτης, αδελφιξις, αδελφιδους, αδελφικος, αδελφιζω, αδελφικως. And
this should be the law of every language. Thus, having adopted
the adjective fraternal, it is a root which should legitimate fraternity,
fraternation, fraternisation, fraternism, to fraternate,
fraternise, fraternally. And give the word neologism to our
language, as a root, and it should give us its fellow substantives,
neology, neologist, neologisation; its adjectives, neologous, neological,
neologistical; its verb, neologise; and adverb, neologically.
Dictionaries are but the depositories of words already legitimated
by usage. Society is the workshop in which new ones are
elaborated. When an individual uses a new word, if ill formed,
it is rejected in society; if well formed, adopted, and after due
time, laid up in the depository of dictionaries. And if, in this
process of sound neologisation, our trans-Atlantic brethren shall
not choose to accompany us, we may furnish, after the Ionians, a
second example of a colonial dialect improving on its primitive.
But enough of criticism: let me turn to your puzzling letter of
May the 12th, on matter, spirit, motion, &c. Its crowd of scepticisms
kept me from sleep. I read it, and laid it down; read it,
and laid it down, again and again; and to give rest to my mind,
I was obliged to recur ultimately to my habitual anodyne, "I feel,
therefore I exist." I feel bodies which are not myself: there are
other existences then. I call them matter. I feel them changing
place. This gives me motion. Where there is an absence
of matter, I call it void, or nothing, or immaterial space. On the
basis of sensation, of matter and motion, we may erect the fabric
of all the certainties we can have or need. I can conceive thought
to be an action of a particular organization of matter, formed for
that purpose by its creator, as well as that attraction is an action
of matter, or magnetism of loadstone. When he who denies to
the Creator the power of endowing matter with the mode of action
called thinking, shall show how he could endow the sun
with the mode of action called attraction, which reins the planets
in the track of their orbits, or how an absence of matter can have
a will, and by that will put matter into motion, then the Materialist
may be lawfully required to explain the process by which
matter exercises the faculty of thinking. When once we quit
the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of immaterial
existences, is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul,
angels, God, are immaterial, is to say, they are nothings, or that
there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise:
but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by the
Lockes, the Tracys, and the Stewarts. At what age[12] of the
Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, or masked atheism,
crept in, I do not exactly know. But a heresy it certainly
is. Jesus taught nothing of it. He told us, indeed, that "God
is a spirit," but he has not defined what a spirit is, nor said that
it is not matter. And the ancient fathers generally, of the three
first centuries, held it to be matter, light and thin indeed, an
etherial gas; but still matter. Origen says, "Deus se ipse corporalis
est; sed graviorum tantum corporum ratione, incorporeus."
Tertullian, "quid enim deus nisi corpus?" And again, "quis
negabit deum esse corpus? Etsi deus spiritus, spiritus etiam
corpus est, sui generis in sua effigie." St. Justin Martyr, "το
θειον φαμεν ειναι ασωματον· ουχ 'οτι ασωματον'—επειδη δε το μη κρατεισθαι
ὑπο τινος του κρατεισθαι τιμιωτερον εστι δια τουτο καλουμεν αυτον ασωματον."
And St. Macarius, speaking of angels, says, "quamvis enim subtilia
sint, tamen in substantia, forma et figurâ, secundum tenuitatem
naturæ eorum, corpora sunt tenuia."
And St. Austin,
St. Basil, Lactantius, Tatian, Athenagoras and others, with whose
writings I pretend not a familiarity, are said by those who are
better acquainted with them, to deliver the same doctrine. (Enfield
x. 3, 1.) Turn to your Ocellus d'Argens, 97, 105, and to
his Timæus 17, for these quotations. In England, these Immaterialists
might have been burnt until the 29 Car. 2, when the
writ de hæretico comburendo was abolished; and here until the
Revolution, that statute not having extended to us. All heresies
being now done away with us, these schismatists are merely
atheists, differing from the material atheist only in their belief,
that "nothing made something," and from the material deist,
who believes that matter alone can operate on matter.
Rejecting all organs of information, therefore, but my senses,
I rid myself of the pyrrhonisms with which an indulgence in speculations
hyperphysical and antiphysical, so uselessly occupy and
disquiet the mind. A single sense may indeed be sometimes
deceived, but rarely; and never all our senses together, with their
faculty of reasoning. They evidence realities, and there are
enough of these for all the purposes of life, without plunging into
the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am satisfied,
and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting
or troubling myself about those which may indeed be,
but of which I have no evidence. I am sure that I really know
many, many things, and none more surely than that I love you
with all my heart, and pray for the continuance of your life until
you shall be tired of it yourself.
Monticello, September 28, 1820.
I thank you, Sir, for the copy of your Republican which you
have been so kind as to send me, and I should have acknowledged
it sooner but that I am just returned home after a long
absence. I have not yet had time to read it seriously, but in
looking over it cursorily I see much in it to approve, and shall be
glad if it shall lead our youth to the practice of thinking on such
subjects and for themselves. That it will have this tendency
may be expected, and for that reason I feel an urgency to note
what I deem an error in it, the more requiring notice as your
opinion is strengthened by that of many others. You seem, in
pages 84 and 148, to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters
of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed,
and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.
Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so.
They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power,
and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is "boni judicis
est ampliare jurisdictionem," and their power the more dangerous
as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other
functionaries are, to the elective control. The constitution has
erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands
confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members
would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments
co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves. If the legislature
fails to pass laws for a census, for paying the judges and
other officers of government, for establishing a militia, for naturalization
as prescribed by the constitution, or if they fail to
meet in congress, the judges cannot issue their mandamus to
them; if the President fails to supply the place of a judge, to
appoint other civil or military officers, to issue requisite commissions,
the judges cannot force him. They can issue their mandamus
or distringas to no executive or legislative officer to enforce
the fulfilment of their official duties, any more than the
president or legislature may issue orders to the judges or their
officers. Betrayed by English example, and unaware, as it should
seem, of the control of our constitution in this particular, they
have at times overstepped their limit by undertaking to command
executive officers in the discharge of their executive duties; but
the constitution, in keeping three departments distinct and independent,
restrains the authority of the judges to judiciary organs,
as it does the executive and legislative to executive and legislative
organs. The judges certainly have more frequent occasion
to act on constitutional questions, because the laws of meum and
tuum and of criminal action, forming the great mass of the system
of law, constitute their particular department. When the
legislative or executive functionaries act unconstitutionally, they
are responsible to the people in their elective capacity. The exemption
of the judges from that is quite dangerous enough. I
know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society
but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened
enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion,
the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion
by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of
constitutional power. Pardon me, Sir, for this difference of
opinion. My personal interest in such questions is entirely extinct,
but not my wishes for the longest possible continuance of
our government on its pure principles; if the three powers maintain
their mutual independence on each other it may last long,
but not so if either can assume the authorities of the other. I ask
your candid re-consideration of this subject, and am sufficiently
sure you will form a candid conclusion. Accept the assurance
of my great respect.
Monticello, September 30, 1820.
Dear Sir,—An absence of some time from home has occasioned
me to be thus late in acknowledging the receipt of your favor
of the 6th, and I see in it with pleasure evidences of your continued
health and application to business. It is now, I believe,
about twenty years since I had the pleasure of seeing you, and
we are apt, in such cases, to lose sight of time, and to conceive
that our friends remain stationary at the same point of health and
vigor as when we last saw them. So I perceive by your letter
you think with respect to myself, but twenty years added to
fifty-seven make quite a different man. To threescore and seventeen
add two years of prostrate health, and you have the old,
infirm, and nerveless body I now am, unable to write but with
pain, and unwilling to think without necessity. In this state I
leave the world and its affairs to the young and energetic, and
resign myself to their care, of whom I have endeavored to take
care when young. I read but one newspaper and that of my
own State, and more for its advertisements than its news. I
have not read a speech in Congress for some years. I have
heard, indeed, of the questions of the tariff and Missouri, and
formed primâ facie opinions on them, but without investigation.
As to the tariff, I should say put down all banks, admit none but
a metallic circulation, that will take its proper level with the like
circulation in other countries, and then our manufacturers may
work in fair competition with those of other countries, and the
import duties which the government may lay for the purposes of
revenue will so far place them above equal competition. The
Missouri question is a mere party trick. The leaders of federalism,
defeated in their schemes of obtaining power by rallying
partisans to the principle of monarchism, a principle of personal
not of local division, have changed their tack, and thrown out
another barrel to the whale. They are taking advantage of the
virtuous feelings of the people to effect a division of parties by a
geographical line; they expect that this will ensure them, on
local principles, the majority they could never obtain on principles
of federalism; but they are still putting their shoulder to the
wrong wheel; they are wasting Jeremiads on the miseries of
slavery, as if we were advocates for it. Sincerity in their declamations
should direct their efforts to the true point of difficulty, and
unite their counsels with ours in devising some reasonable and
practicable plan of getting rid of it. Some of these leaders, if
they could attain the power, their ambition would rather use it
to keep the Union together, but others have ever had in view its
separation. If they push it to that, they will find the line of
separation very different from their 36° of latitude, and as manufacturing
and navigating States, they will have quarrelled with
their bread and butter, and I fear not that after a little trial they
will think better of it, and return to the embraces of their natural
and best friends. But this scheme of party I leave to those
who are to live under its consequences. We who have gone before
have performed an honest duty, by putting in the power of
our successors a state of happiness which no nation ever before
had within their choice. If that choice is to throw it away, the
dead will have neither the power nor the right to control them.
I must hope, nevertheless, that the mass of our honest and well-meaning
brethren of the other States, will discover the use which
designing leaders are making of their best feelings, and will see
the precipice to which they are lead, before they take the fatal
leap. God grant it, and to you health and happiness.
Monticello, October 20, 1820.
Dear Sir,—In your favor of May 3d, which I have now to
acknowledge, you so kindly proffered your attentions to any little
matters I might have on that side of the water, that I take the
liberty of availing myself of this proof of your goodness so far as
to request you to put the enclosed catalogue in the hands of some
honest bookseller of London, who will procure and forward the
books to me, with care and good faith. They should be packed
in a cheap trunk, and not put on ship-board until April, as they
would be liable to damage on a winter passage. I ask an honest
correspondent in that line, because, when we begin to import for
the library of our Universary, we shall need one worthy of entire
confidence.
I send this letter open to my correspondent in Richmond,
Captain Bernard Peyton, with a request that he will put into it a
bill of exchange on London of £40 sterling, which of course,
therefore, I cannot describe to you by naming drawer and drawee.
He will also forward, by other conveyance, the duplicate and
triplicate as usual. This sum would more than cover the cost
of the books written for, according to their prices stated in printed
catalogues; but as books have risen with other things in price,
I have enlarged the printed amount by about 15 per cent. to
cover any rise. Still, should it be insufficient, the bookseller is
requested to dock the catalogue to the amount of the remittance.
I have no news to give you; for I have none but from the
newspapers, and believing little of that myself, it would be an
unworthy present to my friends. But the important news
lies now on your side of the Atlantic. England, in throes
from a trifle, as it would seem, but that trifle the symptom of
an irremediable disease proceeding from a long course of exhaustion
by efforts and burthens beyond her natural strength;
France agonizing between royalists and constitutionalists; the
other States of Europe pressing on to revolution and the rights
of man, and the colossal powers of Russia and Austria marshalled
against them. These are more than specks of hurricane
in the horizon of the world. You, who are young, may
live to see its issue; the beginning only is for my time. Nor is
our side of the water entirely untroubled, the boisterous sea of
liberty is never without a wave. A hideous evil, the magnitude
of which is seen, and at a distance only, by the one party, and
more sorely felt and sincerely deplored by the other, from the
difficulty of the cure, divides us at this moment too angrily.
The attempt by one party to prohibit willing States from sharing
the evil, is thought by the other to render desperate, by accumulation,
the hope of its final eradication. If a little time, however,
is given to both parties to cool, and to dispel their visionary
fears, they will see that concurring in sentiment as to the evil,
moral and political, the duty and interest of both is to concur also
in divining a practicable process of cure. Should time not be
given, and the schism be pushed to separation, it will be for a
short term only; two or three years trial will bring them back,
like quarrelling lovers to renewed embraces, and increased affections.
The experiment of separation would soon prove to both
that they had mutually miscalculated their best interests. And
even were the parties in Congress to secede in a passion, the soberer
people would call a convention and cement again the severance
attempted by the insanity of their functionaries. With
this consoling view, my greatest grief would be for the fatal effect
of such an event on the hopes and happiness of the world.
We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government,
so modelled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society,
is a practicable government. Were we to break to pieces,
it would damp the hopes and the efforts of the good, and give
triumph to those of the bad through the whole enslaved world.
As members, therefore, of the universal society of mankind, and
standing in high and responsible relation with them, it is our
sacred duty to suppress passion among ourselves, and not to blast
the confidence we have inspired of proof that a government of
reason is better than one of force. This letter is not of facts but
of opinions, as you will observe; and although the converse is
generally the most acceptable, I do not know that, in your situation,
the opinions of your countrymen may not be as desirable to
be known to you as facts. They constitute, indeed, moral facts,
as important as physical ones to the attention of the public functionary.
Wishing you a long career to the services you may
render your country, and that it may be a career of happiness
and prosperity to yourself, I salute you with affectionate attachment
and respect.
Monticello, October 24, 1820.
Your kind letter, dear Sir, of October 12th, was handed to me
by Dr. Cooper, and was the first correction of an erroneous belief
that you had long since left our shores. Such had been Colonel
Randolph's opinion, and his had governed mine. I received
your adieu with feelings of sincere regret at the loss we were to
sustain, and particularly of those friendly visits by which you
had made me so happy. I shall feel, too, the want of your
counsel and approbation in what we are doing and have yet to
do in our University, the last of my mortal cares, and the last
service I can render my country. But turning from myself,
throwing egotism behind me, and looking to your happiness, it
is a duty and consolation of friendship to consider that that may
be promoted by your return to your own country. There I hope
you will receive the honors and rewards you merit, and which
may make the rest of your life easy and happy; there too you
will render precious services by promoting the science of your
country, and blessing its future generations with the advantages
that bestows. Nor even there shall we lose all the benefits of your
friendship; for this motive, as well as the love of your own
country, will be an incitement to promote that intimate harmony
between our two nations which is so much the interest of both.
Nothing is so important as that America shall separate herself
from the systems of Europe, and establish one of her own. Our
circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct, the principles
of our policy should be so also. All entanglements with
that quarter of the globe should be avoided if we mean that
peace and justice shall be the polar stars of the American societies.
I had written a letter to a friend while you were here, in
a part of which these sentiments were expressed, and I had
made an extract from it to put into your hands, as containing my
creed on that subject. You had left us, however, in the morning
earlier than I had been aware; still I enclose it to you, because
it would be a leading principle with me, had I longer to
live. During six and thirty years that I have been in situations
to attend to the conduct and characters of foreign nations, I have
found the government of Portugal the most just, inoffensive and
unambitious of any one with which we had concern, without a
single exception. I am sure that this is the character of ours
also. Two such nations can never wish to quarrel with each other.
Subordinate officers may be negligent, may have their passions
and partialities, and be criminally remiss in preventing the
enterprises of the lawless banditti who are to be found in every
seaport of every country. The late piratical depredations which
your commerce has suffered as well as ours, and that of other
nations, seem to have been committed by renegado rovers of several
nations, French, English, American, which they as well as
we have not been careful enough to suppress. I hope our Congress
now about to meet will strengthen the measures of suppression.
Of their disposition to do it there can be no doubt; for all
men of moral principle must be shocked at these atrocities. I
had repeated conversations on this subject with the President
while at his seat in this neighborhood. No man can abhor these
enormities more deeply. I trust it will not have been in the
power of abandoned rovers, nor yet of negligent functionaries, to
disturb the harmony of two nations so much disposed to mutual
friendship, and interested in it. To this, my dear friend, you
can be mainly instrumental, and I know your patriotism and
philanthropy too well to doubt your best efforts to cement us.
In these I pray for your success, and that heaven may long preserve
you in health and prosperity to do all the good to mankind
to which your enlightened and benevolent mind disposes you.
Of the continuance of my affectionate friendship, with that of
my life, and of its fervent wishes for your happiness, accept my
sincere assurance.
Monticello, November 4, 1820.
Sir,—Your favor of September 18th is just received, with the
book accompanying it. Its delay was owing to that of the box
of books from Mr. Guegan, in which it was packed. Being
just setting out on a journey I have time only to look over the
summary of contents. In this I see nothing in which I am likely
to differ materially from you. I hold the precepts of Jesus,
as delivered by himself, to be the most pure, benevolent, and
sublime which have ever been preached to man. I adhere to
the principles of the first age; and consider all subsequent innovations
as corruptions of his religion, having no foundation in
what came from him. The metaphysical insanities of Athanasius,
of Loyola, and of Calvin, are, to my understanding, mere
relapses into polytheism, differing from paganism only by being
more unintelligible. The religion of Jesus is founded in the
Unity of God, and this principle chiefly, gave it triumph over
the rabble of heathen gods then acknowledged. Thinking men
of all nations rallied readily to the doctrine of one only God,
and embraced it with the pure morals which Jesus inculcated.
If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory,
can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of
public opinion, truth will prevail over fanaticism, and the genuine
doctrines of Jesus, so long perverted by his pseudo-priests, will
again be restored to their original purity. This reformation will
advance with the other improvements of the human mind, but
too late for me to witness it. Accept my thanks for your book,
in which I shall read with pleasure your developments of the
subject, and with them the assurance of my high respect.
Poplar Forest, November 28, 1820.
Dear Sir,—I sent in due time the Report of the Visitors to
the Governor, with a request that he would endeavor to convene
the Literary Board in time to lay it before the legislature
on the second day of their session. It was enclosed in a letter
which will explain itself to you. If delivered before the crowd
of other business presses on them, they may act on it immediately,
and before there will have been time for unfriendly combinations
and manœuvres by the enemies of the institution. I
enclose you now a paper presenting some views which may be
useful to you in conversations, to rebut exaggerated estimates of
what our institution is to cost, and reproaches of deceptive estimates.
One hundred and sixty-two thousand three hundred and
sixty-four dollars will be about the cost of the whole establishment,
when completed. Not an office at Washington has cost
less. The single building of the court house of Henrico has
cost nearly that; and the massive walls of the millions of bricks
of William and Mary could not now be built for a less sum.
Surely Governor Clinton's display of the gigantic efforts of
New York towards the education of her citizens, will stimulate
the pride as well as the patriotism of our legislature, to look to
the reputation and safety of their own country, to rescue it from
the degradation of becoming the Barbary of the Union, and of
falling into the ranks of our own negroes. To that condition it
is fast sinking. We shall be in the hands of the other States,
what our indigenous predecessors were when invaded by the
science and arts of Europe. The mass of education in Virginia,
before the Revolution, placed her with the foremost of her sister
colonies. What is her education now? Where is it? The
little we have we import, like beggars, from other States; or
import their beggars to bestow on us their miserable crumbs.
And what is wanting to restore us to our station among our confederates?
Not more money from the people. Enough has
been raised by them, and appropriated to this very object.
It is that it should be employed understandingly, and for their
greatest good. That good requires, that while they are instructed
in general, competently to the common business of life, others
should employ their genius with necessary information to the
useful arts, to inventions for saving labor and increasing our
comforts, to nourishing our health, to civil government, military
science, &c.
Would it not have a good effect for the friends of this University
to take the lead in proposing and effecting a practical
scheme of elementary schools? To assume the character of the
friends, rather than the opponents of that object. The present
plan has appropriated to the primary schools forty-five thousand
dollars for three years, making one hundred and thirty-five thousand
dollars. I should be glad to know if this sum has educated
one hundred and thirty-five poor children? I doubt it much.
And if it has, they have cost us one thousand dollars a piece for
what might have been done with thirty dollars. Supposing the
literary revenue to be sixty thousand dollars, I think it demonstrable,
that this sum, equally divided between the two objects,
would amply suffice for both. One hundred counties, divided
into about twelve wards each, on an average, and a school in
each ward of perhaps ten children, would be one thousand and
two hundred schools, distributed proportionably over the surface
of the State. The inhabitants of each ward, meeting together
(as when they work on the roads), building good log houses for
their school and teacher, and contributing for his provisions, rations
of pork, beef, and corn, in the proportion each of his other
taxes, would thus lodge and feed him without feeling it; and
those of them who are able, paying for the tuition of their own
children, would leave no call on the public fund but for the
tuition fee of, here and there, an accidental pauper, who would
still be fed and lodged with his parents. Suppose this fee ten
dollars, and three hundred dollars apportioned to a county on an
average, (more or less proportioned,) would there be thirty such
paupers for every county? I think not. The truth is, that the
want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but
from want of an orderly system. More money is now paid for
the education of a part, than would be paid for that of the whole,
if systematically arranged. Six thousand common schools in
New York, fifty pupils in each, three hundred thousand in all;
one hundred and sixty thousand dollars annually paid to the
masters; forty established academies, with two thousand two
hundred and eighteen pupils; and five colleges, with seven hundred
and eighteen students; to which last classes of institutions
seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars have been given;
and the whole appropriations for education estimated at two and
a half millions of dollars! What a pigmy to this is Virginia become,
with a population almost equal to that of New York!
And whence this difference? From the difference their rulers
set on the value of knowledge, and the prosperity it produces.
But still, if a pigmy, let her do what a pigmy may do. If among
fifty children in each of the six thousand schools of New York,
there are only paupers enough to employ twenty-five dollars of
public money to each school, surely among the ten children of
each of our one thousand and two hundred schools, the same
sum of twenty-five dollars to each school will teach its paupers,
(five times as much as to the same number in New York,) and
will amount for the whole to thirty thousand dollars a year, the
one-half only of our literary revenue.
Do then, dear Sir, think of this, and engage our friends to take
in hand the whole subject. It will reconcile the friends of the
elementary schools, and none are more warmly so than myself,
lighten the difficulties of the University, and promote in every
order of men the degree of instruction proportioned to their condition,
and to their views in life. It will combine with the mass
of our force, a wise direction of it, which will insure to our
country its future prosperity and safety. I had formerly thought
that visitors of the school might be chosen by the county, and
charged to provide teachers for every ward, and to superintend
them. I now think it would be better for every ward to choose
its own resident visitor, whose business it would be to keep a
teacher in the ward, to superintend the school, and to call meetings
of the ward for all purposes relating to it; their accounts to
be settled, and wards laid off by the courts. I think ward elections
better for many reasons, one of which is sufficient, that it
will keep elementary education out of the hands of fanaticising
preachers, who, in county elections, would be universally chosen,
and the predominant sect of the county would possess itself of
all its schools.
A wrist stiffened by an ancient accident, now more so by the
effect of age, renders writing a slow and irksome operation with
me. I cannot, therefore, present these views, by separate letters
to each of our colleagues in the legislature, but must pray you to
communicate them to Mr. Johnson and General Breckenridge,
and to request them to consider this as equally meant for them.
Mr. Gordon being the local representative of the University,
and among its most zealous friends, would be a more useful
second to General Breckenridge in the House of Delegates, by
a free communication of what concerns the University, with which
he has had little opportunity of becoming acquainted. So, also,
would it be to Mr. Rives, who would be a friendly advocate.
Accept the assurances of my constant and affectionate esteem
and respect.
Poplar Forest, November 29, 1820.
Dear Sir,—The enclosed letter from our ancient friend
Tenche Coxe, came unfortunately to Monticello after I had left
it, and has had a dilatory passage to this place, where I received
it yesterday, and obey its injunction of immediate transmission
to you. We should have recognized the style even without a
signature, and although so written as to be much of it indecipherable.
This is a sample of the effects we may expect
from the late mischievous law vacating every four years nearly
all the executive officers of the government. It saps the constitutional
and salutary functions of the President, and introduces
a principle of intrigue and corruption, which will soon leaven
the mass, not only of Senators, but of citizens. It is more baneful
than the attempt which failed in the beginning of the government,
to make all officers irremovable but with the consent
of the Senate. This places, every four years, all appointments
under their power, and even obliges them to act on every one
nomination. It will keep in constant excitement all the hungry
cormorants for office, render them, as well as those in place,
sycophants to their Senators, engage these in eternal intrigue to
turn out one and put in another, in cabals to swap work; and
make of them what all executive directories become, mere sinks
of corruption and faction. This must have been one of the midnight
signatures of the President, when he had not time to consider,
or even to read the law; and the more fatal as being irrepealable
but with the consent of the Senate, which will never
be obtained.
F. Gilmer has communicated to me Mr. Correa's letter to him
of adieux to his friends here, among whom he names most affectionately
Mrs. Madison and yourself. No foreigner, I believe,
has ever carried with him more friendly regrets. He was to sail
the next day (November 10) in the British packet for England, and
thence take his passage in January for Brazil. His present views
are of course liable to be affected by the events of Portugal, and
the possible effects of their example on Brazil. I expect to return
to Monticello about the middle of the ensuing month, and
salute you with constant affection and respect.
Monticello, December 25, 1820.
Dear Sir,—On my return home after a long absence, I find
here your favor of November the 23d, with Colonel Taylor's
"Construction Construed," which you have been so kind as to send
me, in the name of the author as well as yourself. Permit me,
if you please, to use the same channel for conveying to him the
thanks I render you also for this mark of attention. I shall read
it, I know, with edification, as I did his Inquiry, to which I acknowledge
myself indebted for many valuable ideas, and for the
correction of some errors of early opinion, never seen in a correct
light until presented to me in that work. That the present
volume is equally orthodox, I know before reading it, because I
know that Colonel Taylor and myself have rarely, if ever, differed
in any political principle of importance. Every act of his
life, and every word he ever wrote, satisfies me of this. So, also,
as to the two Presidents, late and now in office, I know them
both to be of principles as truly republican as any men living.
If there be anything amiss, therefore, in the present state of our
affairs, as the formidable deficit lately unfolded to us indicates,
I ascribe it to the inattention of Congress to their duties, to their
unwise dissipation and waste of the public contributions. They
seemed, some little while ago, to be at a loss for objects whereon
to throw away the supposed fathomless funds of the treasury. I
had feared the result, because I saw among them some of my old
fellow laborers, of tried and known principles, yet often in their
minorities. I am aware that in one of their most ruinous vagaries,
the people were themselves betrayed into the same phrenzy
with their Representatives. The deficit produced, and a heavy
tax to supply it, will, I trust, bring both to their sober senses.
But it is not from this branch of government we have most to
fear. Taxes and short elections will keep them right. The judiciary
of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and
miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations
of our confederated fabric. They are construing our
constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government
to a general and supreme one alone. This will lay all
things at their feet, and they are too well versed in English law to
forget the maxim, "boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem."
We shall see if they are bold enough to take the daring stride
their five lawyers have lately taken. If they do, then, with the
editor of our book, in his address to the public, I will say, that
"against this every man should raise his voice," and more,
should uplift his arm. Who wrote this admirable address?
Sound, luminous, strong, not a word too much, nor one which
can be changed but for the worse. That pen should go on, lay
bare these wounds of our constitution, expose the decisions seriatim,
and arouse, as it is able, the attention of the nation to these
bold speculators on its patience. Having found, from experience,
that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scare-crow,
they consider themselves secure for life; they sculk from responsibility
to public opinion, the only remaining hold on them, under a
practice first introduced into England by Lord Mansfield. An
opinion is huddled up in conclave, perhaps by a majority of one,
delivered as if unanimous, and with the silent acquiescence of
lazy or timid associates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates
the law to his mind, by the turn of his own reasoning. A
judiciary law was once reported by the Attorney General to
Congress, requiring each judge to deliver his opinion seriatim
and openly, and then to give it in writing to the clerk to be entered
in the record. A judiciary independent of a king or executive
alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of
the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government.
But to return to your letter; you ask for my opinion of the
work you send me, and to let it go out to the public. This I
have ever made a point of declining, (one or two instances only
excepted.) Complimentary thanks to writers who have sent me
their works, have betrayed me sometimes before the public, without
my consent having been asked. But I am far from presuming
to direct the reading of my fellow citizens, who are good
enough judges themselves of what is worthy their reading. I
am, also, too desirous of quiet to place myself in the way of contention.
Against this I am admonished by bodily decay, which
cannot be unaccompanied by corresponding wane of the mind.
Of this I am as yet sensible, sufficiently to be unwilling to trust
myself before the public, and when I cease to be so, I hope that
my friends will be too careful of me to draw me forth and present
me, like a Priam in armor, as a spectacle for public compassion.
I hope our political bark will ride through all its dangers;
but I can in future be but an inert passenger.
I salute you with sentiments of great friendship and respect.
Monticello, December 26, 1820.
It is long, indeed, my very dear friend, since I have been able
to address a letter to you. For more than two years my health
has been so entirely prostrate, that I have, of necessity, intermitted
all correspondence. The dislocated wrist, too, which
perhaps you may recollect, has now become so stiff from the
effects of age, that writing is become a slow and painful operation,
and scarcely ever undertaken but under the goad of imperious
business. In the meantime your country has been going on
less well than I had hoped. But it will go on. The light which
has been shed on the mind of man through the civilized world,
has given it a new direction, from which no human power can
divert it. The sovereigns of Europe who are wise, or have wise
counsellors, see this, and bend to the breeze which blows; the
unwise alone stiffen and meet its inevitable crush. The volcanic
rumblings in the bowels of Europe, from north to south, seem to
threaten a general explosion, and the march of armies into Italy
cannot end in a simple march. The disease of liberty is catching;
those armies will take it in the south, carry it thence to their
own country, spread there the infection of revolution and representative
government, and raise its people from the prone condition
of brutes to the erect altitude of man. Some fear our envelopment
in the wars engendering from the unsettled state of
our affairs with Spain, and therefore are anxious for a ratification
of our treaty with her. I fear no such thing, and hope that
if ratified by Spain it will be rejected here. We may justly say
to Spain, "when this negotiation commenced, twenty years ago,
your authority was acknowledged by those you are selling to us.
That authority is now renounced, and their right of self-disposal
asserted. In buying them from you, then, we buy but a war-title,
a right to subdue them, which you can neither convey nor
we acquire. This is a family quarrel in which we have no right
to meddle. Settle it between yourselves, and we will then treat
with the party whose right is acknowledged." With whom that
will be, no doubt can be entertained. And why should we revolt
them by purchasing them as cattle, rather than receiving
them as fellow-men? Spain has held off until she sees they are
lost to her, and now thinks it better to get something than nothing
for them. When she shall see South America equally desperate,
she will be wise to sell that also.
With us things are going on well. The boisterous sea of liberty
indeed is never without a wave, and that from Missouri is
now rolling towards us, but we shall ride over it as we have over
all others. It is not a moral question, but one merely of power.
Its object is to raise a geographical principle for the choice of a
president, and the noise will be kept up till that is effected. All
know that permitting the slaves of the south to spread into the
west will not add one being to that unfortunate condition, that
it will increase the happiness of those existing, and by spreading
them over a larger surface, will dilute the evil everywhere, and
facilitate the means of getting finally rid of it, an event more
anxiously wished by those on whom it presses than by the noisy
pretenders to exclusive humanity. In the meantime, it is a ladder
for rivals climbing to power.
In a letter to Mr. Porrey, of March 18th, 1819, I informed
him of the success of our application to Congress on his behalf.
I enclosed this letter to you, but hearing nothing from him, and
as you say nothing of it in yours of July 20th, I am not without
fear it may have miscarried. In the present I enclose for him
the Auditor's certificate, and the letters of General Washington
and myself, which he had forwarded to me with a request of
their return. Your kindness in delivering this will render unnecessary
another letter from me, an effort which necessarily
obliges me to spare myself.
If you shall hear from me more seldom than heretofore, ascribe
it, my ever dear friend, to the heavy load of seventy-seven years
and to waning health, but not to weakened affections; these will
continue what they have ever been, and will ever be sincere and
warm to the latest breath of yours devotedly.
Monticello, December 27, 1820.
Dear Sir,—Your letter received more than a twelvemonth
ago, with the two tracts on penal jurisprudence, and the literary
institution of Liverpool, ought long since to have called for the
thanks I now return, had it been in my power sooner to have
tendered them. But a long continuance of ill health has suspended
all power of answering the kind attentions with which
I have been honored during it; and it is only now that a state
of slow and uncertain convalescence enables me to make acknowledgments
which have been so long and painfully delayed.
The treatise on penal jurisprudence I read with great pleasure.
Beccaria had demonstrated general principles, but practical applications
were difficult. Our States are trying them with more or
less success; and the great light you have thrown on the subject
will, I am sure, be useful to our experiment. For the thing, as
yet, is but in experiment. Your Liverpool institution will also
aid us in the organization of our new University, an establishment
now in progress in this State, and to which my remaining
days and faculties will be devoted. When ready for its Professors,
we shall apply for them chiefly to your island. Were we
content to remain stationary in science, we should take them from
among ourselves; but, desirous of advancing, we must seek
them in countries already in advance; and identity of language
points to our best resource. To furnish inducements, we provide
for the Professors separate buildings, in which themselves
and their families may be handsomely and comfortably lodged,
and to liberal salaries will be added lucrative perquisites. This
institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human
mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it
may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free
to combat it.
We are looking with wonder at what is passing among you.
It
"Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."
There must be something in these agitations more than meets
the eye of a distant spectator. Your queen must be used in this
as a rallying point merely, around which are gathering the discontents
of every quarter and character. If these flowed from
theories of government only, and if merely from the heads of
speculative men, they would admit of parley, of negotiation, of
management. But I fear they are the workings of hungry bellies,
which nothing but food will fill and quiet. I sincerely wish
you safely out of them. Circumstances have nourished between
our kindred countries angry dispositions which both ought long
since to have banished from their bosoms. I have ever considered
a cordial affection as the first interest of both. No nation
on earth can hurt us so much as yours, none be more useful to
you than ours. The obstacle, we have believed, was in the
obstinate and unforgiving temper of your late king, and a continuance
of his prejudices kept up from habit, after he was with
drawn from power. I hope I now see symptoms of sounder
views in your government; in which I know it will be cordially
met by ours, as it would have been by every administration
which has existed under our present constitution. None desired
it more cordially than myself, whatever different opinions were
impressed on your government by a party who wishes to have
its weight in their scale as its exclusive friends.
My ancient friend and classmate, James Maury, informs me by
letter that he has sent me a bust which I shall receive with great
pleasure and thankfulness, and shall arrange in honorable file with
those of some cherished characters. Will you permit me to
place here my affectionate souvenirs of him, and accept for yourself
the assurance of the highest consideration and esteem.
Monticello, January 19, 1821.
Dear Francis,—Your letter of the 1st came safely to hand.
I am sorry you have lost Mr. Elliot, however the kindness of
Dr. Cooper will be able to keep you in the track of what is
worthy of your time.
You ask my opinion of Lord Bolingbroke and Thomas Paine.
They were alike in making bitter enemies of the priests and
pharisees of their day. Both were honest men; both advocates
for human liberty. Paine wrote for a country which permitted
him to push his reasoning to whatever length it would go. Lord
Bolingbroke in one restrained by a constitution, and by public
opinion. He was called indeed a tory; but his writings prove
him a stronger advocate for liberty than any of his countrymen,
the whigs of the present day. Irritated by his exile, he committed
one act unworthy of him, in connecting himself momentarily
with a prince rejected by his country. But he redeemed
that single act by his establishment of the principles which proved
it to be wrong. These two persons differed remarkably in the
style of their writing, each leaving a model of what is most perfect
in both extremes of the simple and the sublime. No writer
has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity
of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and
unassuming language. In this he may be compared with Dr.
Franklin; and indeed his Common Sense was, for awhile, believed
to have been written by Dr. Franklin, and published under
the borrowed name of Paine, who had come over with him
from England. Lord Bolingbroke's, on the other hand, is a
style of the highest order. The lofty, rhythmical, full-flowing
eloquence of Cicero. Periods of just measure, their members
proportioned, their close full and round. His conceptions, too,
are bold and strong, his diction copious, polished and commanding
as his subject. His writings are certainly the finest samples
in the English language, of the eloquence proper for the Senate.
His political tracts are safe reading for the most timid religionist,
his philosophical, for those who are not afraid to trust their
reason with discussions of right and wrong.
You have asked my opinion of these persons, and, to you, I
have given it freely. But, remember, that I am old, that I wish
not to make new enemies, nor to give offence to those who
would consider a difference of opinion as sufficient ground for
unfriendly dispositions. God bless you, and make you what I
wish you to be.
Monticello, January 19, 1821.
Dear Sir,—I duly received your favor of the 11th, covering
Judge Roane's letter, which I now return. Of the kindness
of his sentiments expressed towards myself I am highly sensible;
and could I believe that my public services had merited the
approbation he so indulgently bestows, the satisfaction I should
derive from it would be reward enough to his wish that I would
take a part in the transactions of the present day. I am sensible
of my incompetence. For first, I know little about them,
having long withdrawn my attention from public affairs, and resigned
myself with folded arms to the care of those who are to
care for us all. And, next, the hand of time pressing heavily on
me, in mind as well as body, leaves to neither sufficient energy
to engage in public contentions. I am sensible of the inroads
daily making by the federal, into the jurisdiction of its co-ordinate
associates, the State governments. The legislative and executive
branches may sometimes err, but elections and dependence
will bring them to rights. The judiciary branch is the
instrument which, working like gravity, without intermission, is
to press us at last into one consolidated mass. Against this I
know no one who, equally with Judge Roane himself, possesses
the power and the courage to make resistance; and to him I
look, and have long looked, as our strongest bulwark. If Congress
fails to shield the States from dangers so palpable and so
imminent, the States must shield themselves, and meet the invader
foot to foot. This is already half done by Colonel Taylor's
book; because a conviction that we are right accomplishes
half the difficulty of correcting wrong. This book is the most
effectual retraction of our government to its original principles
which has ever yet been sent by heaven to our aid. Every
State in the Union should give a copy to every member they
elect, as a standing instruction, and ours should set the example.
Accept with Mrs. Thweat the assurance of my affectionate and
respectful attachment.
Monticello, January 22, 1821.
I was quite rejoiced, dear Sir, to see that you had health and
spirits enough to take part in the late convention of your State,
for revising its constitution, and to bear your share in its debates
and labors. The amendments of which we have as yet heard,
prove the advance of liberalism in the intervening period; and
encourage a hope that the human mind will some day get back
to the freedom it enjoyed two thousand years ago. This country,
which has given to the world the example of physical liberty,
owes to it that of moral emancipation also, for as yet it is but
nominal with us. The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms
in practice, the freedom asserted by the laws in theory.
Our anxieties in this quarter are all concentrated in the question,
what does the Holy Alliance in and out of Congress mean
to do with us on the Missouri question? And this, by-the-bye,
is but the name of the case, it is only the John Doe or Richard
Roe of the ejectment. The real question, as seen in the States
afflicted with this unfortunate population, is, are our slaves to be
presented with freedom and a dagger? For if Congress has the
power to regulate the conditions of the inhabitants of the States,
within the States, it will be but another exercise of that power,
to declare that all shall be free. Are we then to see again Athenian
and Lacedemonian confederacies? To wage another Peloponnesian
war to settle the ascendency between them? Or is
this the tocsin of merely a servile war? That remains to be
seen; but not, I hope, by you or me. Surely, they will parley
awhile, and give us time to get out of the way. What a Bedlamite
is man? But let us turn from our own uneasiness to the
miseries of our southern friends. Bolivar and Morillo, it seems,
have come to the parley, with dispositions at length to stop the
useless effusion of human blood in that quarter. I feared from
the beginning, that these people were not yet sufficiently enlightened
for self-government; and that after wading through blood
and slaughter, they would end in military tyrannies, more or less
numerous. Yet as they wished to try the experiment, I wished
them success in it; they have now tried it, and will possibly find
that their safest road will be an accommodation with the mother
country, which shall hold them together by the single link of
the same chief magistrate, leaving to him power enough to keep
them in peace with one another, and to themselves the essential
power of self-government and self-improvement, until they shall
be sufficiently trained by education and habits of freedom, to
walk safely by themselves. Representative government, native
functionaries, a qualified negative on their laws, with a previous
security by compact for freedom of commerce, freedom of the
press, habeas corpus and trial by jury, would make a good beginning.
This last would be the school in which their people
might begin to learn the exercise of civic duties as well as rights.
For freedom of religion they are not yet prepared. The scales
of bigotry have not sufficiently fallen from their eyes, to accept
it for themselves individually, much less to trust others with it.
But that will come in time, as well as a general ripeness to break
entirely from the parent stem. You see, my dear Sir, how
easily we prescribe for others a cure for their difficulties, while
we cannot cure our own. We must leave both, I believe, to
heaven, and wrap ourselves up in the mantle of resignation, and
of that friendship of which I tender to you the most sincere assurances.
Monticello, January 31, 1821.
Dear Sir,—Your favors of the 18th and 25th came together,
three days ago. They fill me with gloom as to the dispositions
of our legislature towards the University. I perceive that I am
not to live to see it opened. As to what had better be done
within the limits of their will, I trust with entire confidence to
what yourself, Gen. Breckenridge and Mr. Johnson shall think
best. You will see what is practicable, and give it such shape
as you think best. If a loan is to be resorted to, I think sixty
thousand dollars will be necessary, including the library. Its instalments
cannot begin until those of the former loan are accomplished;
and they should not begin later, nor be less than thirteen
thousand dollars a year. (I think it safe to retain two thousand
dollars a year for care of the buildings, improvement of
the grounds, and unavoidable contingencies.) To extinguish
this second loan, will require between five and six instalments,
which will carry us to the end of 1833, or thirteen years from
this time. My individual opinion is, that we had better not open
the institution until the buildings, library, and all, are finished,
and our funds cleared of incumbrance. Those buildings once
erected, will secure the full object infallibly at the end of thirteen
years, and as much earlier as the legislature shall choose. And
if we were to begin sooner, with half funds only, it would satisfy
the common mind, prevent their aid beyond that point, and our
institution remaining at that forever, would be no more than the
paltry academies we now have. Even with the whole funds we
shall be reduced to six professors. While Harvard will still prime
it over us with her twenty professors. How many of our youths
she now has, learning the lessons of anti-Missourianism, I know
not; but a gentleman lately from Princeton, told me he saw there
the list of the students at that place, and that more than half
were Virginians. These will return home, no doubt, deeply impressed
with the sacred principles of our Holy Alliance of restrictionists.
But the gloomiest of all prospects, is in the desertion of the
best friends of the institution, for desertion I must call it. I
know not the necessities which may force this on you. General
Cocke, you say, will explain them to me; but I cannot conceive
them, nor persuade myself they are uncontrollable. I have ever
hoped, that yourself, Gen. Breckenridge and Mr. Johnson would
stand at your posts in the legislature, until everything was effected,
and the institution opened. If it is so difficult to get along
with all the energy and influence of our present colleagues in the
legislature, how can we expect to proceed at all, reducing our
moving power? I know well your devotion to your country,
and your foresight of the awful scenes coming on her, sooner or
later. With this foresight, what service can we ever render her
equal to this? What object of our lives can we propose so important?
What interest of our own which ought not to be postponed
to this? Health, time, labor, on what in the single life
which nature has given us, can these be better bestowed than on
this immortal boon to our country? The exertions and the mortifications
are temporary; the benefit eternal. If any member of
our college of visitors could justifiably withdraw from this sacred
duty, it would be myself, who, quadragenis stipendiis jamdudum
peractis, have neither vigor of body nor mind left to keep
the field; but I will die in the last ditch, and so I hope you will,
my friend, as well as our firm-breasted brothers and colleagues,
Mr. Johnson and Gen. Breckenridge. Nature will not give you
a second life wherein to atone for the omissions of this. Pray
then, dear and very dear Sir, do not think of deserting us, but
view the sacrifices which seem to stand in your way, as the lesser
duties, and such as ought to be postponed to this, the greatest of
all. Continue with us in these holy labors, until having seen
their accomplishment, we may say with old Simeon, "nunc dimittas,
Domine." Under all circumstances, however, of praise
or blame, I shall be affectionately yours.
Monticello, February 13, 1821.
I am favored, Sir, with your letter of January 26th, and am
duly sensible of the honor proposed of giving to my portrait a
place among the benefactors of our nation, and of the establishment
of West Point in particular. I have ever considered that
establishment as of major importance to our country, and in
whatever I could do for it, I viewed myself as performing a duty
only. This is certainly more than requited by the kind sentiments
expressed in your letter. The real debt of the institution
is to its able and zealous professors. Mr. Sully, I fear, however,
will consider the trouble of his journey, and the employment of
his fine pencil, as illy bestowed on an ottamy of 78. Voltaire,
when requested by a female friend to sit for his bust by the
sculptor Pigalle, answered, "J'ai soixante seize ans; et M. Pigalle
doit, dit-on venir modeler mon visage. Mais, Madame, il faudrait
que j'eusse un visage. On n'en devinerait à peine la place
mes yeux sont enfonces de trois pouces; mes joues sont de vieux
parchemin mal collés sur des os qui ne tiennent à rien. Le peu
de dents que j'avais est parti." I will conclude, however, with
him, that what remains is at your service, and that of the pencil
of Mr. Sully. I shall be at home till the middle of April, when
I shall go for some time to an occasional and distant residence.
Within this term Mr. Sully will be pleased to consult his own
convenience, in which the state of the roads will of course have
great weight. Every day of it will be equal with me.
I pray you, Sir, to convey to the brethren of your institution,
and to accept for yourself also, the assurance of my high consideration
and regard.
Monticello, February 15, 1821.
Dear Sir,—I learn, with deep affliction, that nothing is likely
to be done for our University this year. So near as it is to the
shore that one shove more would land it there, I had hoped that
would be given; and that we should open with the next year an
institution on which the fortunes of our country may depend more
than may meet the general eye. The reflections that the boys
of this age are to be the men of the next; that they should be
prepared to receive the holy charge which we are cherishing to
deliver over to them; that in establishing an institution of wisdom
for them, we secure it to all our future generations; that in
fulfilling this duty, we bring home to our own bosoms the sweet
consolation of seeing our sons rising under a luminous tuition,
to destinies of high promise; these are considerations which will
occur to all; but all, I fear, do not see the speck in our horizon
which is to burst on us as a tornado, sooner or later. The line
of division lately marked out between different portions of our
confederacy, is such as will never, I fear, be obliterated, and we
are now trusting to those who are against us in position and principle,
to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of
our youth. If, as has been estimated, we send three hundred
thousand dollars a year to the northern seminaries, for the instruction
of our own sons, then we must have there five hundred
of our sons, imbibing opinions and principles in discord with
those of their own country. This canker is eating on the vitals
of our existence, and if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy.
We are now certainly furnishing recruits to their school.
If it be asked what are we to do, or said we cannot give the last
lift to the University without stopping our primary schools, and
these we think most important; I answer, I know their importance.
Nobody can doubt my zeal for the general instruction
of the people. Who first started that idea? I may surely say,
myself. Turn to the bill in the revised code, which I drew more
than forty years ago, and before which the idea of a plan for the
education of the people, generally, had never been suggested in
this State. There you will see developed the first rudiments of
the whole system of general education we are now urging and
acting on; and it is well known to those with whom I have acted
on this subject, that I never have proposed a sacrifice of the primary
to the ultimate grade of instruction. Let us keep our eye
steadily on the whole system. If we cannot do everything at
once, let us do one at a time. The primary schools need no preliminary
expense; the ultimate grade requires a considerable expenditure
in advance. A suspension of proceeding for a year or
two on the primary schools, and an application of the whole income,
during that time, to the completion of the buildings necessary
for the University, would enable us then to start both institutions
at the same time. The intermediate branch, of colleges,
academies and private classical schools, for the middle grade, may
hereafter receive any necessary aids when the funds shall become
competent. In the meantime, they are going on sufficiently, as
they have ever yet gone on, at the private expense of those who
use them, and who in numbers and means are competent to their
own exigencies. The experience of three years has, I presume,
left no doubt that the present plan of primary schools, of putting
money into the hands of twelve hundred persons acting for nothing,
and under no responsibility, is entirely inefficient. Some
other must be thought of; and during this pause, if it be only for
a year, the whole revenue of that year, with that of the last three
years which has not been already thrown away, would place our
University in readiness to start with a better organization of primary
schools, and both may then go on, hand in hand, forever.
No diminution of the capital will in this way have been incurred;
a principle which ought to be deemed sacred. A relinquishment
of interest on the late loan of sixty thousand dollars, would so far,
also, forward the University without lessening the capital.
But what may be best done I leave with entire confidence to
yourself and your colleagues in legislation, who know better
than I do the conditions of the literary fund and its wisest application;
and I shall acquiesce with perfect resignation to their
will. I have brooded, perhaps with fondness, over this establishment,
as it held up to me the hope of continuing to be useful
while I continued to live. I had believed that the course and circumstances
of my life had placed within my power some services
favorable to the outset of the institution. But this may be egotism;
pardonable, perhaps, when I express a consciousness that
my colleagues and successors will do as well, whatever the legislature
shall enable them to do.
I have thus, my dear Sir, opened my bosom, with all its anxieties,
freely to you. I blame nobody for seeing things in a different
light. I am sure that all act conscientiously, and that all will
be done honestly and wisely which can be done. I yield the
concerns of the world with cheerfulness to those who are appointed
in the order of nature to succeed to them; and for yourself,
for our colleagues, and for all in charge of our country's future
fame and fortune, I offer up sincere prayers.
Monticello, February 26, 1821.
Dear Sir,—While you were in this neighborhood, you mentioned
to me your intention of studying the law, and asked my
opinion as to the sufficient course of reading. I gave it to you,
ore tenus,
and with so little consideration that I do not remember
what it was; but I have since recollected that I once wrote
a letter to Dr. Cooper,[13] on good consideration of the subject. He
was then law-lecturer, I believe, at Carlisle. My stiffening wrist
makes writing now a slow and painful operation, but my granddaughter
Ellen undertakes to copy the letter, which I shall enclose
herein.
I notice in that letter four distinct epochs at which the English
laws have been reviewed, and their whole body, as existing at
each epoch, well digested into a code. These digests were by
Bracton, Coke, Matthew Bacon and Blackstone. Bracton having
written about the commencement of the extant statutes, may be
considered as having given a digest of the laws then in being,
written and unwritten, and forming, therefore, the textual code of
what is called the common law, just at the period too when it
begins to be altered by statutes to which we can appeal. But so
much of his matter is become obsolete by change of circumstances
or altered by statute, that the student may omit him for
the present, and
1st. Begin with [14]Coke's four Institutes. These give a complete
body of the law as it stood in the reign of the first James,
an epoch the more interesting to us, as we separated at that point
from English legislation, and acknowledge no subsequent statutory
alterations.
2. Then passing over (for occasional reading as hereafter proposed)
all the reports and treatises to the time of Matthew Bacon,
read his abridgment, compiled about one hundred years after
Coke's, in which they are all embodied. This gives numerous
applications of the old principles to new cases, and gives the general
state of the English law at that period.
Here, too, the student should take up the chancery branch of
the law, by reading the first and second abridgments of the cases
in Equity. The second is by the same Matthew Bacon, the first
having been published some time before. The alphabetical order
adopted by Bacon, is certainly not as satisfactory as the systematic.
But the arrangement is under very general and leading
heads, and these, indeed, with very little difficulty, might be systematically
instead of alphabetically arranged and read.
3. Passing now in like manner over all intervening reports
and tracts, the student may take up Blackstone's Commentaries,
published about twenty-five years later than Bacon's abridgment,
and giving the substance of these new reports and tracts. This
review is not so full as that of Bacon, by any means, but better
digested. Here, too, Wooddeson should be read as supplementary
to Blackstone, under heads too shortly treated by him. Fonblanque's
edition of Francis' Maxims of Equity, and Bridgman's
digested Index, into which the latter cases are incorporated, are
also supplementary in the chancery branch, in which Blackstone
is very short.
This course comprehends about twenty-six 8vo volumes, and
reading four or five hours a day would employ about two years.
After these, the best of the reporters since Blackstone should
be read for the new cases which have occurred since his time.
Which they are I know not, as all of them are since my time.
By way of change and relief for another hour or two in the
day, should be read the law-tracts of merit which are many, and
among them all those of Baron Gilbert are of the first order. In
these hours, too, may be read Bracton, (now translated,) and Justinian's
Institute. The method of these two last works is very
much the same, and their language often quite so. Justinian is
very illustrative of the doctrines of equity, and is often appealed
to, and Cooper's edition is the best on account of the analogies and
contrasts he has given of the Roman and English law. After
Bracton, Reeves' History of the English Law may be read to advantage.
During this same hour or two of lighter law reading,
select and leading cases of the reporters may be successively
read, which the several digests will have pointed out and referred
to.
* * * * * * * *
I have here sketched the reading in common law and chancery
which I suppose necessary for a reputable practitioner in
those courts. But there are other branches of law in which, although
it is not expected he should be an adept, yet when it
occurs to speak of them, it should be understandingly to a decent
degree. There are the Admiralty law, Ecclesiastical law, and the
Law of Nations. I would name as elementary books in these
branches, Molloy de Jure Maritimo. Brown's Compend. of the
Civil and Admiralty Law, 2 vols. 8vo. The Jura Ecclesiastica,
2 vols. 8vo. And Les Institutions du droit de la Nature et des
Gens de Reyneval, 1 vol. 8vo.
Besides these six hours of law reading, light and heavy, and
those necessary for the repasts of the day, for exercise and sleep,
which suppose to be ten or twelve, there will still be six or eight
hours for reading history, politics, ethics, physics, oratory, poetry,
criticism, &c., as necessary as law to form an accomplished
lawyer.
The letter to Dr. Cooper, with this as a supplement, will give
you those ideas on a sufficient course of law reading which I
ought to have done with more consideration at the moment of
your first request. Accept them now as a testimony of my esteem,
and of sincere wishes for your success; and the family, unâ
voce, desires me to convey theirs with my own affectionate salutations.
Monticello, February 27, 1821.
I have received, Sir, your favor of the 12th, and I assure you
I received it with pleasure. It is true, as you say, that we have
differed in political opinions; but I can say with equal truth, that
I never suffered a political to become a personal difference. I
have been left on this ground by some friends whom I dearly
loved, but I was never the first to separate. With some others,
of politics different from mine, I have continued in the warmest
friendship to this day, and to all, and to yourself particularly, I
have ever done moral justice.
I thank you for Mr. Channing's discourse, which you have
been so kind as to forward me. It is not yet at hand, but is
doubtless on its way. I had received it through another channel,
and read it with high satisfaction. No one sees with greater
pleasure than myself the progress of reason in its advances towards
rational Christianity. When we shall have done away the
incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three
are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down
the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the simple
structure of Jesus; when, in short, we shall have unlearned everything
which has been taught since his day, and got back to the
pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly
and worthily his disciples; and my opinion is that if nothing had
ever been added to what flowed purely from his lips, the whole
world would at this day have been Christian. I know that the
case you cite, of Dr. Drake, has been a common one. The religion-builders
have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of
Jesus, so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods,
have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable,
as to shock reasonable thinkers, to revolt them against the whole,
and drive them rashly to pronounce its founder an impostor.
Had there never been a commentator, there never would have
been an infidel. In the present advance of truth, which we both
approve, I do not know that you and I may think alike on all
points. As the Creator has made no two faces alike, so no two
minds, and probably no two creeds. We well know that among
Unitarians themselves there are strong shades of difference, as between
Doctors Price and Priestley, for example. So there may
be peculiarities in your creed and in mine. They are honestly
formed without doubt. I do not wish to trouble the world with
mine, nor to be troubled for them. These accounts are to be settled
only with him who made us; and to him we leave it, with
charity for all others, of whom, also, he is the only rightful and
competent judge. I have little doubt that the whole of our country
will soon be rallied to the unity of the Creator, and, I hope,
to the pure doctrines of Jesus also.
In saying to you so much, and without reserve, on a subject
on which I never permit myself to go before the public, I know
that I am safe against the infidelities which have so often betrayed
my letters to the strictures of those for whom they were
not written, and to whom I never meant to commit my peace.
To yourself I wish every happiness, and will conclude, as you
have done, in the same simple style of antiquity, da operam ut
valeas; hoc mihi gratius facere nihil potes.
Monticello, March 9, 1821.
Dear Sir,—I am indebted for your favor of February 25th,
and especially for your friendly indulgence to my excuses for retiring
from the polemical world. I should not shrink from the
post of duty, had not the decays of nature withdrawn me from
the list of combatants. Great decline in the energies of the body
import naturally a corresponding wane of the mind, and a longing
after tranquillity as the last and sweetest asylum of age. It
is a law of nature that the generations of men should give way,
one to another, and I hope that the one now on the stage will
preserve for their sons the political blessings delivered into their
hands by their fathers. Time indeed changes manners and notions,
and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them.
But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this
it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch, and if the
gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long as
possible. We see already germs of this, as might be expected.
But we are not the less bound to press against them. The multiplication
of public offices, increase of expense beyond income,
growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting
the employment of the pruning-knife; and I doubt not it will be
employed; good principles being as yet prevalent enough for
that.
The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That
body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming
advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it
gains, is ingulphing insidiously the special governments into the
jaws of that which feeds them. The recent recall to first principles,
however, by Colonel Taylor, by yourself, and now by
Alexander Smith, will, I hope, be heard and obeyed, and that a
temporary check will be effected. Yet be not weary of well
doing. Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.
Last and most portentous of all is the Missouri question. It is
smeared over for the present; but its geographical demarcation is
indelible. What it is to become, I see not; and leave to those
who will live to see it. The University will give employment
to my remaining years, and quite enough for my senile faculties.
It is the last act of usefulness I can render, and could I see it
open I would not ask an hour more of life. To you I hope
many will still be given; and, certain they will all be employed
for the good of our beloved country, I salute you with sentiments
of especial friendship and respect.
Monticello, June 27, 1821.
Dear Sir,—I have received through the hands of the Governor,
Colonel Taylor's letter to you. It is with extreme reluctance
that I permit myself to usurp the office of an adviser of the public,
what books they should read, and what not. I yield, however,
on this occasion to your wish and that of Colonel Taylor,
and do what (with a single exception only) I never did before,
on the many similar applications made to me. On reviewing
my letters to Colonel Taylor and to Mr. Thweat, neither appeared
exactly proper. Each contained matter which might give
offence to the judges, without adding strength to the opinion. I
have, therefore, out of the two, cooked up what may be called
"an extract of a letter from Th: J. to ——;" but without saying
it is published with my consent. That would forever deprive
me of the ground of declining the office of a Reviewer of books
in future cases. I sincerely wish the attention of the public may
be drawn to the doctrines of the book; and if this self-styled
extract may contribute to it, I shall be gratified. I salute you
with constant friendship and respect.
I have read Colonel Taylor's book of "Constructions Construed,"
with great satisfaction, and, I will say, with edification;
for I acknowledge it corrected some errors of opinion into which
I had slidden without sufficient examination. It is the most
logical retraction of our governments to the original and true
principles of the constitution creating them, which has appeared
since the adoption of that instrument. I may not perhaps concur
in all its opinions, great and small; for no two men ever thought
alike on so many points. But on all its important questions, it
contains the true political faith, to which every catholic republican
should steadfastly hold. It should be put into the hands
of all our functionaries, authoritatively, as a standing instruction,
and true exposition of our Constitution, as understood at the time
we agreed to it. It is a fatal heresy to suppose that either our
State governments are superior to the federal, or the federal to
the States. The people, to whom all authority belongs, have
divided the powers of government into two distinct departments,
the leading characters of which are foreign and domestic; and
they have appointed for each a distinct set of functionaries.
These they have made co-ordinate, checking and balancing each
other, like the three cardinal departments in the individual
States: each equally supreme as to the powers delegated to itself,
and neither authorized ultimately to decide what belongs to
itself, or to its coparcenor in government. As independent, in
fact, as different nations, a spirit of forbearance and compromise,
therefore, and not of encroachment and usurpation, is the healing
balm of such a constitution; and each party should prudently
shrink from all approach to the line of demarcation, instead of
rashly overleaping it, or throwing grapples ahead to haul to hereafter.
But, finally, the peculiar happiness of our blessed system
is, that in differences of opinion between these different sets of
servants, the appeal is to neither, but to their employers peaceably
assembled by their representatives in Convention. This is
more rational than the jus fortioris, or the cannon's mouth, the
ultima et sola ratio regum.
Monticello, August 17, 1821.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 8th came to hand yesterday
evening. I hope you will never suppose your letters to be among
those which are troublesome to me. They are always welcome,
and it is among my great comforts to hear from my ancient colleagues,
and to know that they are well. The affectionate recollection
of Mrs. Dearborne, cherished by our family, will ever
render her health and happiness interesting to them. You are
so far astern of Mr. Adams and myself, that you must not yet talk
of old age. I am happy to hear of his good health. I think he
will outlive us all, I mean the Declaration-men, although our
senior since the death of Colonel Floyd. It is a race in which I
have no ambition to win. Man, like the fruit he eats, has his
period of ripeness. Like that, too, if he continues longer hanging
to the stem, it is but an useless and unsightly appendage. I
rejoice, with you that the State of Missouri is at length a member
of our Union. Whether the question it excited is dead, or only
sleepeth, I do not know. I see only that it has given resurrection
to the Hartford convention men. They have had the address,
by playing on the honest feelings of our former friends, to
seduce them from their kindred spirits, and to borrow their weight
into the federal scale. Desperate of regaining power under political
distinctions, they have adroitly wriggled into its seat under
the auspices of morality, and are again in the ascendency from
which their sins had hurled them. It is indeed of little consequence
who governs us, if they sincerely and zealously cherish
the principles of union and republicanism.
I still believe that the Western extension of our confederacy
will ensure its duration, by overruling local factions, which might
shake a smaller association. But whatever may be the merit or
demerit of that acquisition, I divide it with my colleagues, to
whose councils I was indebted for a course of administration
which, notwithstanding this late coalition of clay and brass, will,
I hope, continue to receive the approbation of our country.
The portrait by Stewart was received in due time and good
order, and claims, for this difficult acquisition, the thanks of the
family, who join me in affectionate souvenirs of Mrs. Dearborne
and yourself. My particular salutations to both flow, as ever,
from the heart, continual and warm.
Monticello, August 18, 1821.
Sir,—Your favor of the 7th is just now received. The letter
to which it refers was written by me with the sole view of recommending
to the study of my fellow citizens a book which I
considered as containing more genuine doctrines on the subject
of our government, and carrying us back more truly to its fundamental
principles, than any one which had been written since the
adoption of our constitution. As confined to this object, I thought,
and still think, its language as plain and intelligible as I can make
it. But when we see inspired writings made to speak whatever
opposite controversialists wish them to say, we cannot ourselves
expect to find language incapable of similar distortion. My expressions
were general; their perversion is in their misapplication
to a particular case. To test them truly, they should turn to the
book with whose opinion they profess to coincide. If the book
establishes that a State has no right to tax the monied property
within its limits, or that it can be called, as a party, to the bar
of the federal judiciary, then they may infer that these are my
opinions. If no such doctrines are there, my letter does not authorize
their imputation to me.
It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never
shrunk from its expression, (although I do not choose to put it
into a newspaper, nor, like a Priam in armor, offer myself its
champion,) that the germ of dissolution of our federal government
is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible
body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow,) working
like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little to-day and a
little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief,
over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the
States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. To
this I am opposed; because, when all government, domestic and
foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington
as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks
provided of one government on another, and will become as
venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.
It will be as in Europe, where every man must be either
pike or gudgeon, hammer or anvil. Our functionaries and theirs
are wares from the same work-shop; made of the same materials,
and by the same hand. If the States look with apathy on this
silent descent of their government into the gulf which is to
swallow all, we have only to weep over the human character
formed uncontrollable but by a rod of iron, and the blasphemers
of man, as incapable of self-government, become his true historians.
But let me beseech you, Sir, not to let this letter get into a
newspaper. Tranquillity, at my age, is the supreme good of life.
I think it a duty, and it is my earnest wish, to take no further
part in public affairs; to leave them to the existing generation to
whose turn they have fallen, and to resign the remains of a decaying
body and mind to their protection. The abuse of confidence
by publishing my letters has cost me more than all other
pains, and make me afraid to put pen to paper in a letter of sentiment.
If I have done it frankly in answer to your letter, it is
in full trust that I shall not be thrown by you into the arena of
a newspaper. I salute you with great respect.
Monticello, September 12, 1821.
Dear Sir,—I am just returned from my other home, and shall
within a week go back to it for the rest of the autumn. I find
here your favor of August 20th, and was before in arrear for that
of May 19th. I cannot answer, but join in, your question of May
19th. Are we to surrender the pleasing hopes of seeing improvement
in the moral and intellectual condition of man? The
events of Naples and Piedmont cast a gloomy cloud over that
hope, and Spain and Portugal are not beyond jeopardy. And
what are we to think of this northern triumvirate, arming their
nations to dictate despotisms to the rest of the world? And the
evident connivance of England, as the price of secret stipulations
for continental armies, if her own should take side with her malcontent
and pulverized people? And what of the poor Greeks,
and their small chance of amelioration even if the hypocritical
Autocrat should take them under the iron cover of his Ukazes.
Would this be lighter or safer than that of the Turk? These,
my dear friend, are speculations for the new generation, as,
before they will be resolved, you and I must join our deceased
brother Floyd. Yet I will not believe our labors are lost. I
shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady
advance. We have seen, indeed, once within the records of history,
a complete eclipse of the human mind continuing for centuries.
And this, too, by swarms of the same northern barbarians,
conquering and taking possession of the countries and governments
of the civilized world. Should this be again attempted,
should the same northern hordes, allured again by the corn, wine,
and oil of the south, be able again to settle their swarms in the
countries of their growth, the art of printing alone, and the vast
dissemination of books, will maintain the mind where it is, and
raise the conquering ruffians to the level of the conquered, instead
of degrading these to that of their conquerors. And even
should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the
science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve
and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled
on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe
to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary,
they will consume these engines and all who work them.
I think with you that there should be a school of instruction
for our navy as well as artillery; and I do not see why the same
establishment might not suffice for both. Both require the same
basis of general mathematics, adding projectiles and fortifications
for the artillery exclusively, and astronomy and theory of navigation
exclusively for the naval students. Berout conducted both
schools in France, and has left us the best book extant for their
joint and separate instruction. It ought not to require a separate
professor.
A 4th of July oration delivered in the town of Milford, in your
State, gives to Samuel Chase the credit of having "first started
the cry of independence in the ears of his countrymen." Do you
remember anything of this? I do not. I have no doubt it was
uttered in Massachusetts even before it was by Thomas Paine.
But certainly I never considered Samuel Chase as foremost, or
even forward in that hallowed cry. I know that Maryland hung
heavily on our backs, and that Chase, although first named, was
not most in unison with us of that delegation, either in politics
or morals, et c'est ainsi que l'on ecrit l'histoire!
Your doubt of the legitimacy of the word gloriola, is resolved
by Cicero, who, in his letter to Lucceius expresses a wish "ut
nos metipsi vivi gloriola nostra perfruamur." Affectionately
adieu.
Montezillo, September 24, 1821.
Dear Sir,—I thank you for your favor of the 12th instant.
Hope springs eternal. Eight millions of Jews hope for a Messiah
more powerful and glorious than Moses, David, or Solomon;
who is to make them as powerful as he pleases. Some hundreds
of millions of Musslemen expect another prophet more powerful
than Mahomet, who is to spread Islamism over the whole earth.
Hundreds of millions of Christians expect and hope for a millennium
in which Jesus is to reign for a thousand years over the
whole world before it is burnt up. The Hindoos expect another
and final incarnation of Vishnu, who is to do great and wonderful
things, I know not what. All these hopes are founded on
real or pretended revelation. The modern Greeks, too, it seems,
hope for a deliverer who is to produce them—the Themistocleses
and Demostheneses—the Platos and Aristotles—the Solons
and Lycurguses. On what prophecies they found their belief,
I know not. You and I hope for splendid improvements in
human society, and vast amelioration in the condition of mankind.
Our faith may be supposed by more rational arguments
than any of the former, I own that I am very sanguine in the
belief of them, as I hope and believe you are, and your reasoning
in your letter confirmed me in them.
As Brother Floyd has gone, I am now the oldest of the little
Congressional group that remain. I may therefore rationally
hope to be the first to depart; and as you are the youngest and
most energetic in mind and body, you may therefore rationally
hope to be the last to take your flight, and to rake up the fire as
father Sherman, who always staid to the last, and commonly
two days afterwards, used to say, "that it was his office to sit up
and rake the ashes over the coals." And much satisfaction may
you have in your office.
The cholera morbus has done wonders in St. Helena and in
London. We shall soon hear of a negotiation for a second wife.
Whether in the body, or out of the body, I shall always be your
friend.
The anecdote of Mr. Chase, contained in the oration delivered
at Milford, must be an idle rumor, for neither the State of Maryland,
nor of their delegates, were very early in their conviction
of the necessity of independence, nor very forward in promoting
it. The old speaker Tilghman, Johnson, Chase, and Paca, were
steady in promoting resistance, but after some of them, Maryland
sent one, at least, of the most turbulent Tories that ever came to
Congress.
Monticello, September 28, 1821.
Sir,—The government of the United States, at a very early
period, when establishing its tariff on foreign importations, were
very much guided in their selection of objects by a desire to encourage
manufactures within ourselves. Among other articles
then selected were books, on the importation of which a duty of
fifteen per cent, was imposed, which, by ordinary custom house
charges, amount to about eighteen per cent., and adding the importing
booksellers profit on this, becomes about twenty-seven
per cent. This was useful at first, perhaps, towards exciting our
printers to make a beginning in that business here. But it is
found in experience that the home demand is not sufficient to
justify the re-printing any but the most popular English works,
and cheap editions of a few of the classics for schools. For the
editions of value, enriched by notes, commentaries, &c., and for
books in foreign living languages, the demand here is too small
and sparse to reimburse the expense of re-printing them. None
of these, therefore, are printed here, and the duty on them becomes
consequently not a protecting, but really a prohibitory one.
It makes a very serious addition to the price of the book, and
falls chiefly on a description of persons little able to meet it.
Students who are destined for professional callings, as most of
our scholars are, are barely able for the most part to meet the expenses
of tuition. The addition of eighteen or twenty-seven per
cent. on the books necessary for their instruction, amounts often
to a prohibition as to them. For want of these aids, which are
open to the students of all other nations but our own, they enter
on their course on a very unequal footing with those of the same
professions in foreign countries, and our citizens at large, too,
who employ them, do not derive from that employment all the
benefit which higher qualifications would give them. It is true
that no duty is required on books imported for seminaries of
learning, but these, locked up in libraries, can be of no avail to
the practical man when he wishes a recurrence to them for the
uses of life. Of many important books of reference there is not
perhaps a single copy in the United States; of others but a few,
and these too distant often to be accessible to scholars generally.
It is believed, therefore, that if the attention of Congress could
be drawn to this article, they would, in their wisdom, see its impolicy.
Science is more important in a republican than in any
other government. And in an infant country like ours, we must
much depend for improvement on the science of other countries,
longer established, possessing better means, and more advanced
than we are. To prohibit us from the benefit of foreign light,
is to consign us to long darkness.
The northern seminaries following with parental solicitude the
interests of their elevès in the course for which they have prepared
them, propose to petition Congress on this subject, and
wish for the coöperation of those of the south and west, and I
have been requested, as more convenient in position than they
are, to solicit that coöperation. Having no personal acquaintance
with those who are charged with the direction of the college of
—— ——, I do not know how more effectually to communicate
these views to them, than by availing myself of the knowledge
I have of your zeal for the happiness and improvement of
our country. I take the liberty, therefore, of requesting you to
place the subject before the proper authorities of that institution,
and if they approve the measure, to solicit a concurrent proceeding
on their part to carry it into effect. Besides petitioning Congress,
I would propose that they address in their corporate capacity,
a letter to their delegates and senators in Congress, soliciting
their best endeavors to obtain the repeal of the duty on imported
books. I cannot but suppose that such an application will be respected
by them, and will engage their votes and endeavors to
effect an object so reasonable. A conviction that science is important
to the preservation of our republican government, and
that it is also essential to its protection against foreign power, induces
me, on this occasion, to step beyond the limits of that retirement
to which age and inclination equally dispose me, and I
am without a doubt that the same considerations will induce you
to excuse the trouble I propose to you, and that you will kindly
accept the assurance of my high respect and esteem.
Monticello, November 23, 1821.
Dear Sir,—Absence at an occasional but distant residence,
prevented my receiving your friendly letter of October 20th till
three days ago. A line from my good old friends is like balm to
my soul. You ask me what you are to do with my letter of
September 19th? I wrote it, my dear Sir, with no other view
than to pour my thoughts into your bosom. I knew they would
be safe there, and I believed they would be welcome. But if
you think, as you say, that "good may be done by showing it to
a few well-tried friends," I have no objection to that, but ultimately
you cannot do better than to throw it into the fire.
My confidence, as you kindly observed, has been often abused
by the publication of my letters for the purposes of interest or
vanity, and it has been to me the source of much pain to be exhibited
before the public in forms not meant for them. I receive
letters expressed in the most friendly and even affectionate terms,
sometimes, perhaps, asking my opinion on some subject. I cannot
refuse to answer such letters, nor can I do it dryly and suspiciously.
Among a score or two of such correspondents, one
perhaps betrays me. I feel it mortifyingly, but conclude I had
better incur one treachery than offend a score or two of good
people. I sometimes expressly desire that my letter may not be
published; but this is so like requesting a man not to steal or
cheat, that I am ashamed of it after I have done it.
Our government is now taking so steady a course as to show
by what road it will pass to destruction, to-wit: by consolidation
first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence. The
engine of consolidation will be the federal judiciary; the two
other branches, the corrupting and corrupted instruments. I fear
an explosion in our State Legislature. I wish they may restrain
themselves to a strong but temperate protestation. Virginia is
not at present in favor with her co-States. An opposition headed
by her would determine all the anti-Missouri States to take the
contrary side. She had better lie by, therefore, till the shoe shall
pinch an eastern State. Let the cry be first raised from that
quarter, and we may fall into it with effect. But I fear our eastern
associates wish for consolidation, in which they would be
joined by the smaller States generally. But, with one foot in
the grave, I have no right to meddle with these things. Ever
and affectionately yours.
Monticello, November 29, 1821.
Dear Sir,—You have often gratified me by your astronomical
communications, and I am now about to amuse you with one
of mine. But I must first explain the circumstances which have
drawn me into a speculation so foreign to the path of life which
the times in which I have lived, more than my own inclinations
have led me to pursue.
I had long deemed it incumbent on the authorities of our
country, to have the great western wilderness beyond the Mississippi,
explored, to make known its geography, its natural productions,
its general character and inhabitants. Two attempts
which I had myself made formerly, before the country was ours,
the one from west to east, the other from east to west, had both
proved abortive. When called to the administration of the general
government, I made this an object of early attention, and proposed
it to Congress. They voted a sum of five thousand dollars
for its execution, and I placed Captain Lewis at the head of the
enterprise. No man within the range of my acquaintance, united
so many of the qualifications necessary for its successful direction.
But he had not received such an astronomical education as might
enable him to give us the geography of the country with the
precision desired. The Missouri and Columbia, which were to
constitute the tract of his journey, were rivers which varied little
in their progressive latitudes, but changed their longitudes rapidly
and at every step. To qualify him for making these observations,
so important to the value of the enterprise, I encouraged
him to apply himself to this particular object, and gave him
letters to Doctor Patterson and Mr. Ellicott, requesting them to instruct
him in the necessary processes. Those for the longitude
would of course be founded on the lunar distances. But as these
require essentially the aid of a time-keeper, it occurred to me that
during a journey of two, three, or four years, exposed to so many
accidents as himself and the instrument would be, we might expect
with certainty that it would become deranged, and in a
desert country where it could not be repaired. I thought it then
highly important that some means of observation should be furnished
him, if any could be, which should be practicable and
competent to ascertain his longitudes in that event. The equatorial
occurred to myself as the most promising substitute. I observed
only that Ramsden, in his explanation of its uses, and
particularly that of finding the longitude at land, still required
his observer to have the aid of a time-keeper. But this cannot
be necessary, for the margin of the equatorial circle of this instrument
being divided into time by hours, minutes, and seconds,
supplies the main functions of the time-keeper, and for measuring
merely the interval of the observations, is such as not to be
neglected. A portable pendulum, for counting, by an assistant,
would fully answer that purpose. I suggested my fears to several
of our best astronomical friends, and my wishes that other
processes should be furnished him, if any could be, which might
guard us ultimately from disappointment. Several other methods
were proposed, but all requiring the use of a time-keeper. That
of the equatorial being recommended by none, and other duties
refusing me time for protracted consultations, I relinquished the
idea for that occasion. But, if a sound one, it should not be
abandoned. Those deserts are yet to be explored, and their geography
given to the world and ourselves with a correctness
worthy of the science of the age. The acquisition of the country
before Captain Lewis' departure facilitated our enterprise, but
his time-keeper failed early in his journey. His dependence,
then, was on the compass and log-line, with the correction of latitudes
only; and the true longitudes of the different points of the
Missouri, of the Stony Mountains, the Columbia and Pacific, at
its mouth, remain yet to be obtained by future enterprise.
The circumstance which occasions a recurrence of the subject
to my mind at this time particularly is this: our legislature, some
time ago, came to a determination that an accurate map should
be made of our State. The late John Wood was employed on
it. Its first elements are prepared by maps of the several counties.
But these have been made by chain and compass only,
which suppose the surface of the earth to be a plane. To fit
them together, they must be accommodated to its real spherical
surface; and this can be done only by observations of latitude
and longitude, taken at different points of the area to which
they are to be reduced. It is true that in the lower and more
populous parts of the State, the method of lunar distances by the
circle or sextant, and time-keeper, may be used; because those
parts furnish means of repairing or replacing a deranged time-keeper.
But the deserts beyond the Alleghany are as destitute
of resource in that case, as those of the Missouri. The question
then recurs whether the equatorial, without the auxiliary of a
time-keeper, is not competent to the ascertainment of longitudes
at land, where a fixed meridian can always be obtained? and
whether indeed it may not everywhere at land, be a readier and
preferable instrument for that purpose? To these questions I
ask your attentions; and to show the grounds on which I entertain
the opinion myself, I will briefly explain the principles of
the process, and the peculiarities of the instrument which give it
the competence I ascribe to it. And should you concur in the
opinion, I will further ask you to notice any particular circumstances
claiming attention in the process, and the corrections
which the observations may necessarily require. As to myself,
I am an astronomer of theory only, little versed in practical observations,
and the minute attentions and corrections they require.
I proceed now to the explanation.
A method of finding the longitude of a place at land, without
a time-keeper.
If two persons, at different points of the same hemisphere, (as
Greenwich and Washington, for example,) observe the same celestial
phenomenon, at the same instant of time, the difference of
the times marked by their respective clocks is the difference of
their longitudes, or the distance between their meridians. To
catch with precision the same instant of time for these simultaneous
observations, the moon's motion in her orbit is the best
element; her change of place (about a half second of space in
a second of time) is rapid enough to be ascertained by a good
instrument with sufficient precision for the object. But suppose
the observer at Washington, or in a desert, to be without a time-keeper;
the equatorial is the instrument to be used in that case.
Again, we have supposed a contemporaneous observer at Greenwich.
But his functions may be supplied by the nautical almanac,
adapted to that place, and enabling us to calculate for
any instant of time the meridian distances there of the heavenly
bodies necessary to be observed for this purpose.
The observer at Washington, choosing the time when their
position is suitable, is to adjust his equatorial to his meridian, to
his latitude, and to the plane of his horizon; or if he is in a
desert where neither meridian nor latitude is yet ascertained, the
advantages of this noble instrument are, that it enables him to
find both in the course of a few hours. Thus prepared, let him
ascertain by observation the right ascension of the moon from
that of a known star, or their horary distance; and, at the same
instant, her horary distance from his meridian. Her right ascension
at the instant thus ascertained, enter with that of the nautical
almanac, and calculate, by its tables, what was her horary distance
from the meridian of Greenwich at the instant she had attained
that point of right ascension, or that horary distance from
the same star. The addition of these meridian distances, if the
moon was between the two meridians, or the subtraction of the
lesser from the greater, if she was on the same side of both, is
the differences of their longitudes.
This general theory admits different cases, of which the observer
may avail himself, according to the particular position of
the heavenly bodies at the moment of observation.
Case 1st. When the moon is on his meridian, or on that of
Greenwich.
Second. When the star is on either meridian.
Third. When the moon and star are on the same side of his
meridian.
Fourth. When they are on different sides.
For instantaneousness of observation, the equatorial has great
advantage over the circle or sextant; for being truly placed in
the meridian beforehand, the telescope may be directed sufficiently
in advance of the moon's motion, for time to note its
place on the equatorial circle, before she attains that point. Then
observe, until her limb touches the cross-hairs; and in that instant
direct the telescope to the star; that completes the observation,
and the place of the star may be read at leisure. The apparatus
for correcting the effects of refraction and parallax, which
is fixed on the eye-tube of the telescope, saves time by rendering
the notation of altitudes unnecessary, and dispenses with the
use of either a time-keeper or portable pendulum.
I have observed that, if placed in a desert where neither meridian
nor latitude is yet ascertained, the equatorial enables the
observer to find both in a few hours. For the latitude, adjust
by the cross-levels the azimuth plane of the instrument to the
horizon of the place. Bring down the equatorial plane to an exact
parallelism with it, its pole then becoming vertical. By the
nut and pinion commanding it, and by that of the semi-circle of
declination, direct the telescope to the sun. Follow its path
with the telescope by the combined use of these two pinions,
and when it has attained its greatest altitude, calculate the latitude
as when taken by a sextant.
For finding the meridian, set the azimuth circle to the horizon,
elevate the equatorial circle to the complement of the latitude,
and fix it by the clamp and tightening screw of the two
brass segments of arches below. By the declination semicircle
set the telescope to the sun's declination of the moment. Turn
the instrument towards the meridian by guess, and by the combined
movement of the equatorial and azimuth circles direct the
telescope to the sun, then by the pinion of the equatorial alone,
follow the path of the sun with the telescope. If it swerves from
that path, turn the azimuth circle until it shall follow the sun accurately.
A distant stake or tree should mark the meridian, to
guard against its loss by any accidental jostle of the instrument.
The 12 o'clock line will then be in the true meridian, and the
axis of the equatorial circle will be parallel with that of the earth.
The instrument is then in its true position for the observations
of the night. To the competence and the advantages of this
method, I will only add that these instruments are high-priced.
Mine cost thirty-five guineas in Ramsden's shop, a little before
the Revolution. I will lengthen my letter, already too long, only
by assurances of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, December 11, 1821.
Dear Sir,—Your letter of December the 19th places me under
a dilemma, which I cannot solve but by an exposition of the
naked truth. I would have wished this rather to have remained
as hitherto, without inquiry; but your inquiries have a right to
be answered. I will do it as exactly as the great lapse of time
and a waning memory will enable me. I may misremember indifferent
circumstances, but can be right in substance.
At the time when the republicans of our country were so much
alarmed at the proceedings of the federal ascendency in Congress,
in the executive and the judiciary departments, it became a matter
of serious consideration how head could be made against
their enterprises on the constitution. The leading republicans in
Congress found themselves of no use there, brow-beaten, as they
were, by a bold and overwhelming majority. They concluded
to retire from that field, take a stand in the State legislatures,
and endeavor there to arrest their progress. The alien and sedition
laws furnished the particular occasion. The sympathy between
Virginia and Kentucky was more cordial, and more intimately
confidential, than between any other two States of republican
policy. Mr. Madison came into the Virginia legislature. I
was then in the Vice-Presidency, and could not leave my station.
But your father, Colonel W. C. Nicholas, and myself happening
to be together, the engaging the co-operation of Kentucky in an
energetic protestation against the constitutionality of those laws,
became a subject of consultation. Those gentlemen pressed me
strongly to sketch resolutions for that purpose, your father undertaking
to introduce them to that legislature, with a solemn assurance,
which I strictly required, that it should not be known
from what quarter they came. I drew and delivered them to
him, and in keeping their origin secret, he fulfilled his pledge of
honor. Some years after this, Colonel Nicholas asked me if I
would have any objection to its being known that I had drawn
them. I pointedly enjoined that it should not. Whether he had
unguardedly intimated it before to any one, I know not; but I
afterwards observed in the papers repeated imputations of them
to me; on which, as has been my practice on all occasions of
imputation, I have observed entire silence. The question, indeed,
has never before been put to me, nor should I answer it to
any other than yourself; seeing no good end to be proposed by
it, and the desire of tranquillity inducing with me a wish to be
withdrawn from public notice. Your father's zeal and talents
were too well known, to derive any additional distinction from
the penning these resolutions. That circumstance, surely, was
of far less merit than the proposing and carrying them through
the legislature of his State. The only fact in this statement, on
which my memory is not distinct, is the time and occasion of
the consultation with your father and Colonel Nicholas. It took
place here I know; but whether any other person was present,
or communicated with, is my doubt. I think Mr. Madison was
either with us, or consulted, but my memory is uncertain as to
minute details.
I fear, dear Sir, we are now in such another crisis, with this
difference only, that the judiciary branch is alone and single
handed in the present assaults on the constitution. But its assaults
are more sure and deadly, as from an agent seemingly passive
and unassuming. May you and your cotemporaries meet
them with the same determination and effect, as your father and
his did the alien and sedition laws, and preserve inviolate a constitution,
which, cherished in all its chastity and purity, will prove
in the end a blessing to all the nations of the earth. With these
prayers, accept those for your own happiness and prosperity.
Monticello, February 27, 1822.
Gentlemen,—I have received your favor of the 18th, and am
duly sensible of the honor done my name by its association with
the institution formed in your college for improvement in the art
of speaking. The efforts of the members will, I trust, give a
just reputation to the society and reflect on its name the honor
which it cannot derive from it. In a country and government
like ours, eloquence is a powerful instrument, well worthy of the
special pursuit of our youth. Models, indeed, of chaste and classical
oratory are truly too rare with us; nor do I recollect any remarkable
in England. Among the ancients the most perfect
specimens are perhaps to be found in Livy, Sallust and Tacitus.
Their pith and brevity constitute perfection itself for an audience
of sages, on whom froth and fancy would be lost in air. But in
ordinary cases, and with us particularly, more development is
necessary. For senatorial eloquence, Demosthenes is the finest
model; for the bar, Cicero. The former had more logic, the
latter more imagination.
Of the eloquence of the pen we have fine samples in English.
Robertson, Sterne, Addison, are of the first merit in the different
characters of composition. Hume, in the circumstance of style
is equal to any; but his tory principles spread a cloud over his
many and great excellencies. The charms of his style and matter
have made tories of all England, and doubtful republicans
here.
You say that any advice which I could give you would be acceptable.
But, for this, you cannot be in better hands than of
the worthy professors of your own college. Their counsels
would, I am sure, embrace everything I could offer. It will not,
however, be a work of mere supereorgation if it will gratify you,
and will furnish a stronger proof of my desire to encourage you
in your laudable dispositions. Some thirty-six or thirty-seven
years ago, I had a nephew, the late Peter Carr, whose education
I directed, and had much at heart his future fortunes. Residing
abroad at the time in public service, my counsels to him were
necessarily communicated by letters. Searching among my papers
I find a letter written to him, and conveying such advice as I
thought suitable to the particular period of his age and education.
He was then about fifteen, and had made some progress
in classical reading. As your present situation may be somewhat
similar, you may find in that letter some things worth remembering.
I enclose you a copy therefore. It was written in haste, under
the pressure of official labors, and with no view of being
ever seen but by himself. It might otherwise have been made
more correct in style and matter. But such as it is, I place it at
your service, and pray you to receive it merely as a compliance
with your own request, and as a proof of my good will and of
my best wishes for your success in the career of life for which
you are so worthily and laudably preparing yourselves.
Monticello, March 2, 1822.
I am thankful to you, Sir, for the very edifying view of Europe
which you have been so kind as to send me. Tossed at
random by the newspapers on an ocean of uncertainties and falsehoods,
it is joyful at times to catch the glimmering of a beacon
which shows us truly where we are. De Pradt's Europe had
some effect in this way; but the less as the author was less known
in character. The views presented by your brother unite our
confidence with the soundness of his observation and information.
I have read the work with great avidity and profit, and
have found my ideas of Europe in general, rallied by it to points
of good satisfaction. In the single chapter on England only,
where his theories are new, if we cannot suddenly give up all
our old notions, he furnishes us abundant matter for reflection
and a revisal of them. I have long considered the present crisis
of England, and the origin of the evils which are lowering over
her, as produced by enormous excess of her expenditures beyond
her income. To pay even the interest of the debt contracted,
she is obliged to take from the industrious so much of their earnings,
as not to leave enough for their backs and bellies. They
are daily, therefore, passing over to the pauper-list, to subsist on
the declining means of those still holding up, and when these
also shall be exhausted, what next? Reformation cannot remedy
this. It could only prevent its recurrence when once relieved
from the debt. To effect that relief I see but one possible and
just course. Considering the funded and real property as equal,
and the debt as much of the one as the other, for the holder
of property to give up one-half to those of the funds, and the
latter to the nation the whole of what it owes them. But this
the nature of man forbids us to expect without blows, and blows
will decide it by a promiscuous sacrifice of life and property.
The debt thus, or otherwise, extinguished, a real representation
introduced into the government of either property or people, or
of both, renouncing eternal war, restraining future expenses to
future income, and breaking up forever the consuming circle of
extravagance, debt, insolvency, and revolution, the island would
then again be in the degree of force which nature has measured
out to it, of respectable station in the scale of nations, but not at
their head. I sincerely wish she could peaceably get into this
state of being, as the present prospects of southern Europe seem
to need the acquisition of new weights in their balance, rather
than the loss of old ones. I set additional value on this volume,
inasmuch as it has procured me the occasion of expressing to you
my high estimation of your character, the interest with which I
look to it as an American, and the great esteem and respect with
which I beg leave to salute you.
Monticello, March 6, 1822.
Sir,—I have duly received your letter of February the 16th,
and have now to express my sense of the honorable station proposed
to my ex-brethren and myself, in the constitution of the
society for the civilization and improvement of the Indian tribes.
The object too expressed, as that of the association, is one which
I have ever had much at heart, and never omitted an occasion
of promoting while I have been in situations to do it with effect,
and nothing, even now, in the calm of age and retirement, would
excite in me a more lively interest than an approvable plan of
raising that respectable and unfortunate people from the state of
physical and moral abjection, to which they have been reduced
by circumstances foreign to them. That the plan now proposed
is entitled to unmixed approbation, I am not prepared to say, after
mature consideration, and with all the partialities which its professed
object would rightfully claim from me.
I shall not undertake to draw the line of demarcation between
private associations of laudable views and unimposing
numbers, and those whose magnitude may rivalize and jeopardize
the march of regular government. Yet such a line does exist.
I have seen the days, they were those which preceded the revolution,
when even this last and perilous engine became necessary;
but they were days which no man would wish to see a second
time. That was the case where the regular authorities of
the government had combined against the rights of the people,
and no means of correction remained to them but to organize a
collateral power, which, with their support, might rescue and secure
their violated rights. But such is not the case with our
government. We need hazard no collateral power, which, by a
change of its original views, and assumption of others we know
not how virtuous or how mischievous, would be ready organized
and in force sufficient to shake the established foundations of society,
and endanger its peace and the principles on which it is
based. Is not the machine now proposed of this gigantic stature?
It is to consist of the ex-Presidents of the United States, the Vice
President, the Heads of all the executive departments, the members
of the supreme judiciary, the Governors of the several States
and territories, all the members of both Houses of Congress, all
the general officers of the army, the commissioners of the navy,
all Presidents and Professors of colleges and theological seminaries,
all the clergy of the United States, the Presidents and Secretaries
of all associations having relation to Indians, all commanding
officers within or near Indian territories, all Indian superintendents
and agents; all these ex officio; and as many private
individuals as will pay a certain price for membership. Observe,
too, that the clergy will constitute[15] nineteen twentieths of
this association, and, by the law of the majority, may command
the twentieth part, which, composed of all the high authorities
of the United States, civil and military, may be outvoted and
wielded by the nineteen parts with uncontrollable power, both
as to purpose and process. Can this formidable array be reviewed
without dismay? It will be said, that in this association will be
all the confidential officers of the government; the choice of the
people themselves. No man on earth has more implicit confidence
than myself in the integrity and discretion of this chosen
band of servants. But is confidence or discretion, or is strict
limit, the principle of our constitution? It will comprehend, indeed,
all the functionaries of the government; but seceded from
their constitutional stations as guardians of the nation, and acting
not by the laws of their station, but by those of a voluntary society,
having no limit to their purposes but the same will which
constitutes their existence. It will be the authorities of the people
and all influential characters from among them, arrayed on
one side, and on the other, the people themselves deserted by
their leaders. It is a fearful array. It will be said that these are
imaginary fears. I know they are so at present. I know it is as
impossible for these agents of our choice and unbounded confidence,
to harbor machinations against the adored principles of
our constitution, as for gravity to change its direction, and gravid
bodies to mount upwards. The fears are indeed imaginary, but
the example is real. Under its authority, as a precedent, future
associations will arise with objects at which we should shudder
at this time. The society of Jacobins, in another country, was
instituted on principles and views as virtuous as ever kindled the
hearts of patriots. It was the pure patriotism of their purposes
which extended their association to the limits of the nation, and
rendered their power within it boundless; and it was this power
which degenerated their principles and practices to such enormities
as never before could have been imagined. Yet these
were men, and we and our descendants will be no more. The
present is a case where, if ever, we are to guard against ourselves;
not against ourselves as we are, but as we may be; for who can
now imagine what we may become under circumstances not now
imaginable? The object of this institution, seems to require so
hazardous an example as little as any which could be proposed.
The government is, at this time, going on with the process of
civilizing the Indians, on a plan probably as promising as any
one of us is able to devise, and with resources more competent
than we could expect to command by voluntary taxation. Is it
that the new characters called into association with those of the
government, are wiser than these? Is it that a plan originated
by a meeting of private individuals is better than that prepared by
the concentrated wisdom of the nation, of men not self-chosen,
but clothed with the full confidence of the people? Is it that
there is no danger that a new authority, marching, independently,
along side of the government, in the same line and to the same
object, may not produce collision, may not thwart and obstruct
the operations of the government, or wrest the object entirely
from their hands? Might we not as well appoint a committee
for each department of the government, to counsel and direct its
head separately, as volunteer ourselves to counsel and direct the
whole, in mass? And might we not do it as well for their foreign,
their fiscal, and their military, as for their Indian affairs?
And how many societies, auxiliary to the government, may we
expect to see spring up, in imitation of this, offering to associate
themselves in this and that of its functions? In a word, why
not take the government out of its constitutional hands, associate
them indeed with us, to preserve a semblance that the acts are
theirs, but insuring them to be our own by allowing them a
minor vote only.
These considerations have impressed my mind with a force so
irresistible, that (in duty bound to answer your polite letter,
without which I should not have obtruded an opinion) I have
not been able to withhold the expression of them. Not knowing
the individuals who have proposed this plan, I cannot be conceived
as entertaining personal disrespect for them. On the contrary,
I see in the printed list persons for whom I cherish sentiments
of sincere friendship, and others, for whose opinions and
purity of purpose I have the highest respect. Yet thinking as I
do, that this association is unnecessary; that the government is
proceeding to the same object under control of the law; that
they are competent to it in wisdom, in means, and inclination;
that this association, this wheel within a wheel, is more likely to
produce collision than aid; and that it is, in its magnitude, of
dangerous example; I am bound to say, that, as a dutiful citizen,
I cannot in conscience become a member of this society, possessing
as it does my entire confidence in the integrity of its views.
I feel with awe the weight of opinion to which I may be opposed,
and that, for myself, I have need to ask the indulgence of
a belief that the opinion I have given is the best result I can deduce
from my own reason and experience, and that it is sincerely
conscientious. Repeating, therefore, my just acknowledgments
for the honor proposed to me, I beg leave to add the assurances
to the society and yourself of my highest confidence and consideration.
Monticello, April 9, 1822.
Dear General,—Your favor of March 28th was received on
the 7th instant. We failed in having a quorum on the 1st. Mr.
Johnson and General Taylor were laboring for Lithgow in Richmond,
and Mr. Madison was unwell. On the score of business
it was immaterial, as there was not a single measure to be proposed.
The loss was of the gratification of meeting in society
with those whom we esteem. This is the valuable effect of our
semi-annual meetings, jubilees, in fact, for feasting the mind and
fostering the best affections of the heart towards those who merit
them.
The four rows of buildings of accommodation are so nearly
completed, that they are certain of being entirely so in the course
of the summer; and our funds, as you have seen stated in our
last Report, are sufficient to meet the expense, except that the
delays in collecting the arrears of subscriptions oblige us to borrow
temporarily from this year's annuity, which, according to
that Report, had another destination. These buildings done,
we are to rest on our oars, and passively await the will of the
legislature. Our future course is a plain one. We have proceeded
from the beginning on the sound determination to finish
the buildings before opening the institution; because, once
opened, all its funds will be absorbed by professors' salaries, &c.,
and nothing remain ever to finish the buildings. And we have
thought it better to begin two or three years later, in the full extent
proposed, than to open, and go on forever, with a half-way
establishment. Of the wisdom of this proceeding, and of its greater
good to the public finally, I cannot a moment doubt. Our part
then is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither
to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day,
assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us.
The councils of the legislature, at their late session, were poisoned
unfortunately by the question of the seat of government, and the
consequent jealousies of our views in erecting the large building
still wanting. This lost us some friends who feel a sincere interest
in favor of the University, but a stronger one in the question
respecting the seat of government. They seem not to have
considered that the seat of the government, and that of the University,
are incompatible with one another; that if the former
were to come here, the latter must be removed. Even Oxford
and Cambridge placed in the middle of London, they would be
deserted as seats of learning, and as proper places for training
youth. These groundless jealousies, it is to be hoped, will be
dissipated by sober reflection, during the separation of the members;
and they will perceive, before their next meeting, that the
large building, without which the institution cannot proceed,
has nothing to do with the question of the seat of government.
If, however, the ensuing session should still refuse their patronage,
a second or a third will think better, and result finally in
fulfilling the object of our aim, the securing to our country a full
and perpetual institution for all the useful sciences; one which
will restore us to our former station in the confederacy. It may
be a year or two later indeed; but it will replace us in full grade,
and not leave us among the mere subalterns of the league. Patience
and steady perseverance on our part will secure the blessed
end. If we shrink, it is gone forever. Our autumnal meeting
will be interesting. The question will be whether we shall relinquish
the scale of a real University, the rallying centre of the
South and the West, or let it sink to that of a common academy.
I hope you will be with us, and give us the benefit of your firm
and enlarged views. I am not at all disheartened with what
has passed, nor disposed to give up the ship. We have only to
lie still, to do and say nothing, and firmly avoid opening. The
public opinion is advancing. It is coming to our aid, and
will force the institution on to consummation. The numbers
are great, and many from great distances, who visit it daily as
an object of curiosity. They become strengthened if friends,
converted if enemies, and all loud and zealous advocates, and
will shortly give full tone to the public voice. Our motto should
be "be not wearied with well-doing." Accept the assurance
of my affectionate friendship and respect.
Monticello, May 13, 1822.
Messrs. Ritchie and Gooch,—I am thankful to you for the
paper you have been so kind as to send me, containing the arraignment
of the Presidents of the United States generally, as
peculators or accessories to peculation, by an informer who
masks himself under the signature of "a Native Virginian."
What relates to myself in this paper, (being his No. VI., and the
only No. I have seen) I had before read in the "Federal Republican"
of Baltimore, of August 28th, which was sent to me by a
friend, with the real name of the author. It was published there
during the ferment of a warmly-contested election. I considered
it, therefore, as an electioneering manœuvre merely, and did not
even think it required the trouble of recollecting, after a lapse
of thirty-three years, the circumstances of the case in which he
charges me with having purloined from the treasury of the United
States the sum of $1,148. But as he has thought it worth
repeating in his Roll of informations against your Presidents
nominally, I shall give the truths of the case, which he has omitted,
perhaps because he did not know them, and ventured too
inconsiderately to supply them from his own conjectures.
On the return from my mission to France, and joining the
government here, in the spring of 1790, I had a long and heavy
account to settle with the United States, of the administration of
their pecuniary affairs in Europe, of which the superintendence
had been confided to me while there. I gave in my account
early, but the pressure of other business did not permit the accounting
officers to attend to it till October 10th, 1792, when we
settled, and a balance of $888 67 appearing to be due from me,
(but erroneously as will be shown,) I paid the money the same
day, delivered up my vouchers, and received a certificate of it.
But still the articles of my draughts on the bankers could be
only provisionally past; until their accounts also should be received
to be confronted with mine. And it was not till the 24th
of June, 1804, that I received a letter from Mr. Richard Harrison
the auditor, informing me "that my accounts, as Minister
to France, had been adjusted and closed," adding, "the bill
drawn and credited by you under date of the 21st of October,
1789, for banco florins 2,800, having never yet appeared in any
account of the Dutch bankers, stand at your debit only as a provisional
charge. If it should hereafter turn out, as I incline to
think it will, that this bill has never been negotiated or used by
Mr. Grand, you will have a just claim on the public for its
value." This was the first intimation to me that I had too
hastily charged myself with that draught. I determined, however,
as I had allowed it in my account, and paid up the balance
it had produced against me, to let it remain awhile, as there
was a possibility that the draught might still be presented by the
holder to the bankers; and so it remained till I was near leaving
Washington, on my final retirement from the administration in
1809. I then received from the auditor, Mr. Harrison, the following
note: "Mr. Jefferson, in his accounts as late Minister to
France, credited among other sums, a bill drawn by him on the
21st October, 1789, to the order of Grand & Co., on the bankers
of the United States at Amsterdam, f. Banco f. 2,800, equal with
agio to current florins 2,870, and which was charged to him provisionally
in the official statement made at the Treasury, in the
month of October, 1804. But as this bill has not yet been noticed
in any account rendered by the bankers, the presumption
is strong that it was never negotiated or presented for payment,
and Mr. Jefferson, therefore, appears justly entitled to receive the
value of it, which, at forty cents the gilder, (the rate at which it
was estimated in the above-mentioned statement,) amounts to
$1,148. Auditor's office, January 24th, 1809."
Desirous of leaving nothing unsettled behind me, I drew the
money from the treasury, but without any interest, although I
had let it lie there twenty years, and had actually on that error
paid $888 67, an apparent balance against me, when the true
balance was in my favor $259 33. The question then is, how
has this happened? I have examined minutely and can state it
clearly.
Turning to my pocket diary I find that on the 21st day of
October, 1789, the date of this bill, I was at Cowes in England,
on my return to the United States. The entry in my diary is in
these words: "1789, October 21st. Sent to Grand & Co., letter
of credit on Willinks, Van Staphorsts and Hubbard, for 2,800
florins Banco." And I immediately credited it in my account
with the United States in the following words: "1789, October
21. By my bill on Willinks, Van Staphorsts and Hubbard, in
favor of Grand & Co., for 2,800 florins, equal to 6,250 livres 18
sous." My account having been kept in livres and sous of France,
the auditor settled this sum at the current exchange, making it
$1,148. This bill, drawn at Cowes in England, had to pass
through London to Paris by the English and French mails, in
which passage it was lost, by some unknown accident, to which
it was the more exposed in the French mail, by the confusion
then prevailing; for it was exactly at the time that martial law
was proclaimed at Paris, the country all up in arms, and executions
by the mobs were daily perpetrating through town and
country. However this may have been, the bill never got to the
hands of Grand & Co., was never, of course, forwarded by them
to the bankers of Amsterdam, nor anything more ever heard of
it. The auditor's first conjecture then was the true one, that it
never was negotiated, nor therefore charged to the United States
in any of the bankers' accounts. I have now under my eye a
duplicate furnished me by Grand of his account of that date
against the United States, and his private account against myself,
and I affirm that he has not noticed this bill in either of
these accounts, and the auditor assures us the Dutch bankers had
never charged it. The sum of the whole then is, that I drew a
bill on the United States bankers, charged myself with it on the
presumption it would be paid, that it never was paid however,
either by the bankers of the United States, or anybody else. It
was surely just then to return me the money I had paid for it.
Yet "the Native Virginian" thinks that this act of receiving
back the money I had thus through error overpaid, "was a palpable
and manifest art of moral turpitude, about which no two
honest, impartial men can possibly differ." I ascribe these hard
expressions to the ardor of his zeal for the public good, and as
they contain neither argument nor proof, I pass them over without
observation. Indeed, I have not been in the habit of noticing
these morbid ejections of spleen either with or without the
names of those venting them. But I have thought it a duty on
the present occasion to relieve my fellow citizens and my country
from the degradation in the eyes of the world to which this
informer is endeavoring to reduce it by representing it as governed
hitherto by a succession of swindlers and peculators. Nor
shall I notice any further endeavors to prove or to palliate this
palpable misinformation. I am too old and inert to undertake
minute investigations of intricate transactions of the last century;
and I am not afraid to trust to the justice and good sense of my
fellow-citizens on future, as on former attempts to lessen me in
their esteem.
I ask of you, gentlemen, the insertion of this letter in your paper;
and I trust that the printers who have hazarded the publication
of the libel, on anonymous authority, will think that of the
answer a moderate retribution of the wrong to which they have
been accessory.
Monticello, June 1, 1822.
It is very long, my dear Sir, since I have written to you. My
dislocated wrist is now become so stiff that I write slow and
with pain, and therefore write as little as I can. Yet it is due
to mutual friendship to ask once in awhile how we do? The
papers tell us that General Starke is off at the age of 93. Charles
Thomson still lives at about the same age, cheerful, slender as a
grasshopper, and so much without memory that he scarcely recognizes
the members of his household. An intimate friend of
his called on him not long since; it was difficult to make him
recollect who he was, and, sitting one hour, he told him the
same story four times over. Is this life?
"With lab'ring step
To tread our former footsteps? pace the round
Eternal?—to beat and beat
The beaten track? to see what we have seen,
To taste the tasted? o'er our palates to decant
Another vintage?"
It is at most but the life of a cabbage; surely not worth a wish.
When all our faculties have left, or are leaving us, one by one,
sight, hearing, memory, every avenue of pleasing sensation is
closed, and athumy, debility and malaise left in their places, when
friends of our youth are all gone, and a generation is risen around
us whom we know not, is death an evil?
When one by one our ties are torn,
And friend from friend is snatched forlorn,
When man is left alone to mourn,
Oh! then how sweet it is to die!
When trembling limbs refuse their weight,
And films slow gathering dim the sight,
When clouds obscure the mental light
'Tis nature's kindest boon to die!
I really think so. I have ever dreaded a doting old age; and
my health has been generally so good, and is now so good, that
I dread it still. The rapid decline of my strength during the last
winter has made me hope sometimes that I see land. During
summer I enjoy its temperature, but I shudder at the approach
of winter, and wish I could sleep through it with the Dormouse,
and only wake with him in spring, if ever. They say that
Starke could walk about his room. I am told you walk well
and firmly. I can only reach my garden, and that with sensible
fatigue. I ride, however, daily. But reading is my delight. I
should wish never to put pen to paper; and the more because of
the treacherous practice some people have of publishing one's letters
without leave. Lord Mansfield declared it a breach of trust,
and punishable at law. I think it should be a penitentiary felony;
yet you will have seen that they have drawn me out into the
arena of the newspapers; although I know it is too late for me to
buckle on the armor of youth, yet my indignation would not permit
me passively to receive the kick of an ass.
To turn to the news of the day, it seems that the Cannibals
of Europe are going to eating one another again. A war between
Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and
snake. Whichever destroys the other, leaves a destroyer the
less for the world. This pugnacious humor of mankind seems
to be the law of his nature, one of the obstacles to too great multiplication
provided in the mechanism of the Universe. The
cocks of the henyard kill one another up. Bears, bulls, rams, do
the same. And the horse, in his wild state, kills all the young
males, until worn down with age and war, some vigorous youth
kills him, and takes to himself the Harem of females. I hope
we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is,
and that the life of the feeder, is better than that of the fighter;
and it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs
of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other
parts. Let the latter be our office, and let us milk the cow,
while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the
tail. God bless you, and give you health, strength, and good
spirits, and as much of life as you think worth having.
Monticello, June 5, 1822.
I thank you, Sir, for the pamphlets you have been so kind as
to send me, and am happy to learn that the doctrine of Jesus
that there is but one God, is advancing prosperously among our
fellow citizens. Had his doctrines, pure as they came from himself,
been never sophisticated for unworthy purposes, the whole
civilized world would at this day have formed but a single sect.
You ask my opinion on the items of doctrine in your catechism.
I have never permitted myself to meditate a specified creed.
These formulas have been the bane and ruin of the Christian
church, its own fatal invention, which, through so many ages,
made of Christendom a slaughter-house, and at this day divides
it into casts of inextinguishable hatred to one another. Witness
the present internecine rage of all other sects against the Unitarian.
The religions of antiquity had no particular formulas of
creed. Those of the modern world none, except those of the religionists
calling themselves Christians, and even among these
the Quakers have none. And hence, alone, the harmony, the
quiet, the brotherly affections, the exemplary and unschismatising
society of the Friends, and I hope the Unitarians, will follow their
happy example. With these sentiments of the mischiefs of
creeds and confessions of faith, I am sure you will excuse my
not giving opinions on the items of any particular one; and that
you will accept, at the same time, the assurance of the high respect
and consideration which I bear to its author.
Monticello, June 10, 1822.
Messrs. Ritchie and Gooch,—In my letter to you of May
13th, in answer to a charge by a person signing himself "A Native
Virginian," that on a bill drawn by me for a sum equivalent
to $1,148, the treasury of the United States had made double
payment, I supposed I had done as much as would be required
when I showed they had only returned to me money which I
had previously paid into the treasury on the presumption that
such a bill had been paid for me, but that this bill being lost or
destroyed on the way, had never been presented, consequently
never paid by the United States, and that the money was therefore
returned to me. This being too plain for controversy, the
pseudo Native of Virginia, in his reply, No. 32, in the Federal
Republican of May 24th, reduces himself ultimately to the ground
of a double receipt of the money by me, first on sale or negotiation
of the bill in Europe, and a second time from the treasury.
But the bill was never sold or negotiated anywhere. It was not
drawn to raise money in the market. I sold it to nobody, received
no money on it, but enclosed it to Grand & Co. for some purpose
of account, for what particular purpose neither my memory,
after a lapse of thirty-three years, nor my papers enable me to
say. Had I preserved a copy of my letter to Grand enclosing the
bill, that would doubtless have explained the purpose. But it
was drawn on the eve of my embarkation with my family from
Cowes for America, and probably the hurry of preparation for
that did not allow me time to take a copy. I presume this because
I find no such letter among my papers. Nor does any subsequent
correspondence with Grand explain it, because I had no
private account with him; my account as minister being kept
with the treasury directly, so that he, receiving no intimation of
this bill, could never give me notice of its miscarriage. But,
however satisfactory might have been an explanation of the purpose
of the bill, it is unnecessary at least; the material fact being
established that it never got to hand, nor was ever paid by the
United States.
And how does the Native Virginian maintain his charge that
I received the cash when I drew the bill? by unceremoniously
inserting into the entry of that article in my account, words of
his own, making me say in direct terms that I did receive the
cash for the bill. In my account rendered to the treasury, it is
entered in these words: "1789, Oct. 1. By my bill on Willincks,
Van Staphorsts & Hubbard in favor of Grand & Co. for 2,800
florins, equal to 6,230 livres 18 sous," but he quotes it as stated
in my account rendered to and settled at the treasury, and yet
remaining, as it is to be presumed, among the archives of that
department, "By cash received of Grand for bill on Willincks,
&c." Now the words "cash received of Grand" constitute
"the very point, the pivot, on which the matter turns," as himself
says, and not finding, he has furnished them. Although the
interpolation of them is sufficiently refuted by the fact that Grand
was, at the time, in France, and myself in England, yet wishing
that conviction of the interpolation should be founded on official
document, I wrote to the auditor, Mr. Harrison, requesting an
official certificate of the very words in which that article stood
in my autograph account deposited in the office. I received yesterday
his answer of the 3d, in which he says, "I am unable to
furnish the extract you require, as the original account rendered
by you of your pecuniary transactions of a public nature in Europe,
together with the vouchers and documents connected with
it, were all destroyed in the Register's office in the memorable
conflagration of 1814. With respect, therefore, to the sum of
$1,148 in question, I can only say that, after full and repeated
examinations, I considered you as most righteously and justly
entitled to receive it. Otherwise, it will, I trust, be believed that
I could not have consented to the re-payment." Considering the
intimacy which the Native Virginian shows with the treasury
affairs, we might be justified in suspecting that he knew this
fact of the destruction of the original by fire when he ventured
to misquote. But certainly we may call on him to say, and to
show, from what original he copied these words: "cash received
from Grand"? I say, most assuredly, from none, for none such
ever existed. Although the original be lost, which would have
convicted him officially, it happens that when I made from my
rough draft a fair copy of my account for the treasury, I took
also, with a copying-machine, a press-copy of every page, which
I kept for my own use. It is known that copies by this well-known
machine are taken by impression on damp paper laid on
the face of the written page while fresh, and passed between
rollers as copper plates are. They must therefore be true fac
similies. This press-copy now lies before me, has been shown
to several persons, and will be shown to as many as wish or are
willing to examine it; and this article of my account is entered in
it in these words: "1789, Oct. 1. By my bill on Willincks, Van
Staphorsts & Hubbard for 2,800 florins, equal to 6,230 livres 18
sous." An inspection of the account, too, shows that whenever
I received cash for a bill, it is uniformly entered "by cash received
of such an one, &c;" but where a bill was drawn to constitute
an item of account only, the entry is "by my bill on,
&c." Now to these very words "cash received of Grand," not
in my original but interpolated by himself, he constantly appeals
as proofs of an acknowledgment under my own hand that I received
the cash. In proof of this, I must request patience to read
the following quotations from his denunciations as standing in
the Federal Republican of May 24:
Page 2, column 2, 1. 48 to 29 from the bottom, "he [Mr. J.]
admits in his account rendered in 1790 and settled in 1792, that
he had received the 'cash,' [placing the word cash between inverted
commas to have it marked particularly as a quotation]
that he had received the 'cash' for the bill in question, and he
does not directly deny it now. Will he, can he, in the face of
his own declaration in writing
to the contrary, publicly say that
he did not receive the money for this bill in Europe? This is
the point on which the whole matter rests, the pivot on which
the arguments turn. If he did receive the money in Europe,
(no matter whether at Cowes or at Paris,) he certainly had no
right to receive it a second time from the public treasury of the
United States. This is admitted I believe on all sides. Now,
that he did receive the money in Europe on this bill, is proved
by the acknowledgment of the receiver himself, who credits the
amount in his account as settled at the treasury thus: "cash received
of Grand for bill on Willincks, Van Staphorsts, 2,876
gilders, 1,148 dollars."
Col. 3, 1. 28 to 21 from bottom. There is a plain difference
in the phraseology of the account, from which an extract is
given by Mr. J. as above, and that which he rendered to the Treasury.
In the former he gives the credit thus, "By my bills on
Willincks," &c. In the latter he states, "By cash received of
Grand for bill on Willincks, &c." There is a difference, indeed,
as he states it, but it is made solely by his own interpolation.
Col. 3, 1. 8, from bottom. "That Mr. Jefferson should, in the
very teeth of the facts of the evidence before us, and in his own
breast, gravely say that he had paid the money for this bill, and
that therefore it was but just to return him the amount of it,
when he had, by his own acknowledgment, sent it to Grand &
Co., and received the money for it, is, I confess, not only matter
of utter astonishment but regret." I spare myself the qualifications
which these paragraphs may merit, leaving them to be applied
by every reader according to the feelings they may excite
in his own breast.
He proceeds: "And now to place this case beyond the reach
of cavil or doubt, and to show most conclusively that he had
negotiated this bill in Europe, and received the cash for it there,
and that such was the understanding of the matter at the treasury
in 1809, when he received the money." These are his own
words. Col. 4, he brings forward the overwhelming fact "not
hitherto made public but stated from the most creditable and authentic
source, that one of the accounting officers of the treasury
suggested in writing the propriety of taking bond and security
from Mr. J., for indemnification of the United States against any
future claim on this bill. But it seems the bond was not taken,
and the government is now liable in law, and in good faith for
the payment of this bill to the rightful owner." How this suggestion
of taking bond at the treasury, so solemnly paraded, is
more conclusive proof than his own interpolation, that the cash
was received, I am so dull as not to perceive; but I say, that had
the suggestion been made to me, it would have been instantly
complied with. But I deny his law. Were the bill now to be
presented to the treasury, the answer would and should be the
same as a merchant would give: "You have held up this bill
three and thirty years without notice; we have settled in the
meantime with the drawer, and have no effects of his left in our
hands. Apply to him for payment." On his application to me,
I should first inquire into the history of the bill; where it had
been lurking for three and thirty years? how came he by it? by
interception? by trover? by assignment from Grand? by purchase?
from whom, when and where? And according to his
answers I should either institute criminal process against him, or
if he showed that all was fair and honest, I should pay him the
money, and look for reimbursement to the quarter appearing
liable. The law deems seven years' absence of a man, without
being heard of, such presumptive evidence of his death, as to
distribute his estate, and to allow his wife to marry again. The
Auditor thought that twenty years non-appearance of a bill
which had been risked through the post-offices of two nations,
was sufficient presumption of its loss. But this self-styled native
of Virginia thinks that the thirty-three years now elapsed are
not sufficient. Be it so. If the accounting officers of the treasury
have any uneasiness on that subject, I am ready to give a
bond of indemnification to the United States in any sum the
officers will name, and with the security which themselves
shall approve. Will this satisfy the native Virginian? or will
he now try to pick some other hole in this transaction, to shield
himself from a candid acknowledgment, that in making up his
case, he supplied by gratuitous conjectures, the facts which were
not within his knowledge, and that thus he has sinned against
truth in his declarations before the public? Be this as it may,
I have so much confidence in the discernment and candor of my
fellow-citizens, as to leave to their judgment, and dismiss from
my own notice any future torture of words or circumstances
which this writer may devise for their deception. Indeed, could
such a denunciation, and on such proof, bereave me of that confidence
and consolation, I should, through the remainder of life,
brood over the afflicting belief that I had lived and labored in
vain.
Monticello, June 13, 1822.
Sir,—I thank you for the volume of American Jurisprudence,
which you have been so kind as to send me. I am now too old
to read books solidly, unless they promise present amusement or
future benefit. To me books of law offer neither. But I read
your 6th chapter with interest and satisfaction, on the question
whether the common law (of England) makes a part of the laws
of our general government? That it makes more or less a part
of the laws of the States is, I suppose, an unquestionable fact.
Not by birthright, a conceit as inexplicable as the trinity, but by
adoption. But, as to the general government, the Virginia Report
on the alien and sedition laws, has so completely pulverized
this pretension that nothing new can be said on it. Still, seeing
that judges of the Supreme Court, (I recollect, for example, Elsworth
and Story) had been found capable of such paralogism, I
was glad to see that the Supreme Court had given it up. In the
case of Libel in the United States district Court of Connecticut,
the rejection of it was certainly sound; because no law of the
general government had made it an offence. But such a case
might, I suppose, be sustained in the State Courts which have
state laws against libels. Because as to the portions of power
within each State assigned to the general government, the President
is as much the Executive of the State, as their particular
governor is in relation to State powers. These, however, are
speculations with which I no longer trouble myself; and therefore,
to my thanks, I will only add assurances of my great respect.
Monticello, June 26, 1822.
Dear Sir,—I have received and read with thankfulness and
pleasure your denunciation of the abuses of tobacco and wine.
Yet, however sound in its principles, I expect it will be but a
sermon to the wind. You will find it is as difficult to inculcate
these sanative precepts on the sensualities of the present day, as
to convince an Athanasian that there is but one God. I wish
success to both attempts, and am happy to learn from you that
the latter, at least, is making progress, and the more rapidly in
proportion as our Platonizing Christians make more stir and noise
about it. The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the
happiness of man.
1. That there is one only God, and he all perfect.
2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments.
3. That to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as
thyself, is the sum of religion. These are the great points on
which he endeavored to reform the religion of the Jews. But
compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin.
1. That there are three Gods.
2. That good works, or the love of our neighbour, are nothing.
3. That faith is every thing, and the more incomprehensible
the proposition, the more merit in its faith.
4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use.
5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals
to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes
of the former can damn them; no virtues of the latter save.
Now, which of these is the true and charitable Christian? He
who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus? Or the
impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin? Verily I say
these are the false shepherds foretold as to enter not by the door
into the sheepfold, but to climb up some other way. They are
mere usurpers of the Christian name, teaching a counter-religion
made up of the deliria of crazy imaginations, as foreign from
Christianity as is that of Mahomet. Their blasphemies have
driven thinking men into infidelity, who have too hastily rejected
the supposed author himself, with the horrors so falsely imputed
to him. Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always
as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world
would now have been Christian. I rejoice that in this blessed
country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its
creed and conscience to neither Kings nor priests, the genuine
doctrine of one only God is reviving, and I trust that there is not
a young man now living in the United States who will not die
an Unitarian.
But much I fear, that when this great truth shall be re-established,
its votaries will fall into the fatal error of fabricating formulas
of creed and confessions of faith, the engines which so
soon destroyed the religion of Jesus, and made of Christendom a
mere Aceldama; that they will give up morals for mysteries, and
Jesus for Plato. How much wiser are the Quakers, who, agreeing
in the fundamental doctrines of the gospel, schismatize about
no mysteries, and, keeping within the pale of common sense,
suffer no speculative differences of opinion, any more than of
feature, to impair the love of their brethren. Be this the wisdom
of Unitarians, this the holy mantle which shall cover within its
charitable circumference all who believe in one God, and who
love their neighbor! I conclude my sermon with sincere assurances
of my friendly esteem and respect.
Monticello, June 27, 1822.
Dear Sir,—Your kind letter of the 11th has given me great
satisfaction. For although I could not doubt but that the hand
of age was pressing heavily on you, as on myself, yet we like to
know the particulars and the degree of that pressure. Much reflection
too, has been produced by your suggestion of lending
my letter of the 1st, to a printer. I have generally great aversion
to the insertion of my letters in the public papers; because
of my passion for quiet retirement, and never to be exhibited in
scenes on the public stage. Nor am I unmindful of the precept
of Horace, "solvere senescentem, mature sanus equum, ne
peccet ad extremum ridendus." In the present case, however, I
see a possibility that this might aid in producing the very quiet
after which I pant. I do not know how far you may suffer, as
I do, under the persecution of letters, of which every mail brings
a fresh load. They are letters of inquiry, for the most part, always
of good will, sometimes from friends whom I esteem, but
much oftener from persons whose names are unknown to me,
but written kindly and civilly, and to which, therefore, civility
requires answers. Perhaps, the better known failure of your
hand in its function of writing, may shield you in greater degree
from this distress, and so far qualify the misfortune of its disability.
I happened to turn to my letter-list some time ago, and a
curiosity was excited to count those received in a single year.
It was the year before the last. I found the number to be one
thousand two hundred and sixty-seven, many of them requiring
answers of elaborate research, and all to be answered with due
attention and consideration. Take an average of this number
for a week or a day, and I will repeat the question suggested by
other considerations in mine of the 1st. Is this life? At best it
is but the life of a mill-horse, who sees no end to his circle but
in death. To such a life, that of a cabbage is paradise. It occurs
then, that my condition of existence, truly stated in that
letter, if better known, might check the kind indiscretions which
are so heavily oppressing the departing hours of life. Such a relief
would, to me, be an ineffable blessing. But yours of the
11th, equally interesting and affecting, should accompany that to
which it is an answer. The two, taken together, would excite
a joint interest, and place before our fellow-citizens the present
condition of two ancient servants, who having faithfully performed
their forty or fifty campaigns, stipendiis omnibus expletis,
have a reasonable claim to repose from all disturbance in the
sanctuary of invalids and superannuates. But some device should
be thought of for their getting before the public otherwise than
by our own publication. Your printer, perhaps, could frame
something plausible. * * * * *'s name should be left blank, as
his picture, should it meet his eye, might give him pain. I consign,
however, the whole subject to your consideration, to do in
it whatever your own judgment shall approve, and repeat always,
with truth, the assurance of my constant and affectionate friendship
and respect.
Monticello, July 2, 1822.
Sir,—Your favor of the 15th of June is received, and I am
very thankful for the kindness of its expressions respecting myself.
But it ascribes to me merits which I do not claim. I was
only of a band devoted to the cause of independence, all of whom
exerted equally their best endeavors for its success, and have a
common right to the merits of its acquisition. So also is the
civil revolution of 1801. Very many and very meritorious were
the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government
to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require
unremitting vigilance. Whether the surrender of our opponents,
their reception into our camp, their assumption of our name, and
apparent accession to our objects, may strengthen or weaken the
genuine principles of republicanism, may be a good or an evil, is
yet to be seen. I consider the party division of whig and tory
the most wholesome which can exist in any government, and
well worthy of being nourished, to keep out those of a more dangerous
character. We already see the power, installed for life,
responsible to no authority, (for impeachment is not even a scare-crow,)
advancing with a noiseless and steady pace to the great
object of consolidation. The foundations are already deeply laid
by their decisions, for the annihilation of constitutional State
rights, and the removal of every check, every counterpoise to the
ingulphing power of which themselves are to make a sovereign
part. If ever this vast country is brought under a single government,
it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent
and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface.
This will not be borne, and you will have to choose between
reformation and revolution. If I know the spirit of this
country, the one or the other is inevitable. Before the canker is
become inveterate, before its venom has reached so much of the
body politic as to get beyond control, remedy should be applied.
Let the future appointments of judges be for four or six years,
and renewable by the President and Senate. This will bring
their conduct, at regular periods, under revision and probation,
and may keep them in equipoise between the general and special
governments. We have erred in this point, by copying England,
where certainly it is a good thing to have the judges independent
of the King. But we have omitted to copy their caution also,
which makes a judge removable on the address of both legislative
Houses. That there should be public functionaries independent
of the nation, whatever may be their demerit, is a solecism in a
republic, of the first order of absurdity and inconsistency.
To the printed inquiries respecting our schools, it is not in my
power to give an answer. Age, debility, an ancient dislocated,
and now stiffened wrist, render writing so slow and painful, that
I am obliged to decline everything possible requiring writing.
An act of our legislature will inform you of our plan of primary
schools, and the annual reports show that it is becoming completely
abortive, and must be abandoned very shortly, after costing
us to this day one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, and
yet to cost us forty-five thousand dollars a year more until it
shall be discontinued; and if a single boy has received the elements
of common education, it must be in some part of the country
not known to me. Experience has but too fully confirmed
the early predictions of its fate. But on this subject I must refer
you to others more able than I am to go into the necessary
details; and I conclude with the assurances of my great esteem
and respect.
Monticello, July 19, 1822.
Dear Sir,—An anciently dislocated, and now stiffening wrist,
makes writing an operation so slow and painful to me, that I
should not so soon have troubled you with an acknowledgment
of your favor of the 8th, but for the request it contained of my
consent to the publication of my letter of June the 26th. No,
my dear Sir, not for the world. Into what a nest of hornets
would it thrust my head! the genus irritable vatum, on whom
argument is lost, and reason is, by themselves, disclaimed in
matters of religion. Don Quixote undertook to redress the
bodily wrongs of the world, but the redressment of mental vagaries
would be an enterprise more than Quixotic. I should as
soon undertake to bring the crazy skulls of Bedlam to sound understanding,
as inculcate reason into that of an Athanasian. I
am old, and tranquility is now my summum bonum. Keep me,
therefore, from the fire and faggots of Calvin and his victim Servetus.
Happy in the prospect of a restoration of primitive Christianity,
I must leave to younger athletes to encounter and lop
off the false branches which have been engrafted into it by the
mythologists of the middle and modern ages. I am not aware
of the peculiar resistance to Unitarianism, which you ascribe to
Pennsylvania. When I lived in Philadelphia, there was a respectable
congregation of that sect, with a meeting-house and
regular service which I attended, and in which Doctor Priestley
officiated to numerous audiences. Baltimore has one or two
churches, and their pastor, author of an inestimable book on this
subject, was elected chaplain to the late Congress. That doctrine
has not yet been preached to us: but the breeze begins to
be felt which precedes the storm; and fanaticism is all in a
bustle, shutting its doors and windows to keep it out. But it
will come, and drive before it the foggy mists of Platonism which
have so long obscured our atmosphere. I am in hopes that some
of the disciples of your institution will become missionaries to us,
of these doctrines truly evangelical, and open our eyes to what
has been so long hidden from them. A bold and eloquent
preacher would be nowhere listened to with more freedom than
in this State, nor with more firmness of mind. They might need
a preparatory discourse on the text of "prove all things, hold
fast that which is good," in order to unlearn the lesson that reason
is an unlawful guide in religion. They might startle on being
first awaked from the dreams of the night, but they would rub
their eyes at once, and look the spectres boldly in the face. The
preacher might be excluded by our hierophants from their churches
and meeting-houses, but would be attended in the fields by whole
acres of hearers and thinkers. Missionaries from Cambridge
would soon be greeted with more welcome, than from the tritheistical
school of Andover. Such are my wishes, such would be
my welcomes, warm and cordial as the assurances of my esteem
and respect for you.
Monticello, August 29, 1822.
You must be so good, Sir, as to excuse me from entering into
the optical investigation which your letter of the 18th proposes.
The hand of age presses heavily on me. I have long withdrawn
my mind from speculations of that kind; my memory is on the
wane. I am averse even to close thinking, and writing is become
slow, laborious and painful. I will make then but a single
suggestion on the subject of your proposition, to show my respect
to your request.
To distinct vision it is necessary not only that the visual angle
should be sufficient for the powers of the human eye, but that
there should be sufficient light also on the object of observation.
In microscopic observations, the enlargement of the angle of
vision may be more indulged, because auxiliary light may be
concentrated on the object by concave mirrors. But in the case
of the heavenly bodies, we can have no such aid. The moon,
for example, receives from the sun but a fixed quantity of light.
In proportion as you magnify her surface, you spread that fixed
quantity over a greater space, dilute it more, and render the object
more dim. If you increase her magnitude infinitely, you
dim her face infinitely also, and she becomes invisible. When
under total eclipse, all the direct rays of the sun being intercepted,
she is seen but faintly, and would not be seen at all but for the
refraction of the solar rays in their passage through our atmosphere.
In a night of extreme darkness, a house or a mountain
is not seen, as not having light enough to impress the limited
sensibility of our eye. I do suppose in fact that Herschel has
availed himself of the properties of the parabolic mirror to the
point beyond which its effect would be countervailed by the
diminution of light on the object. I barely suggest this element,
not presented to view in your letter, as one which must enter
into the estimate of the improved telescope you propose. You
will receive from the professional mathematicians whom you
have consulted, remarks more elaborate and profound, and must
be so good as to accept mine merely as testimonies of my respect.
Monticello, September 5, 1822.
Sir,—Your letter of August —, was received a few days ago.
Of all the departments of science no one seems to have been less
advanced for the last hundred years than that of meteorology.
The new chemistry indeed has given us a new principle of the
generation of rain, by proving water to be a composition of different
gases, and has aided our theory of meteoric lights. Electricity
stands where Dr. Franklin's early discoveries placed it,
except with its new modification of galvanism. But the phenomena
of snow, hail, halo, aurora borealis, haze, looming, &c.,
are as yet very imperfectly understood. I am myself an empiric
in natural philosophy, suffering my faith to go no further than
my facts. I am pleased, however, to see the efforts of hypothetical
speculation, because by the collisions of different hypotheses,
truth may be elicited and science advanced in the end.
This sceptical disposition does not permit me to say whether
your hypothesis for looming and the floating volumes of warm
air occasionally perceived, may or may not be confirmed by future
observations. More facts are yet wanting to furnish a solution
on which we may rest with confidence. I even doubt as
yet whether the looming at sea and at land are governed by the
same laws. In this state of uncertainty, I cannot presume either
to advise or discourage the publication of your essay. This
must depend on circumstances of which you must be abler to
judge yourself, and therefore I return the paper as requested,
with assurances of my great respect.
Monticello, September 25, 1822.
Sir,—I received on the 20th, your letter of the 13th, on the
question what is an east and west line? which, you say, has
been a subject of discussion in the newspapers. I presume, however,
it must have been a mere question of definition, and that
the parties have differed only in applying the same appellation to
different things. The one defines an east and west line to be on
a great circle of the earth, passing through the point of departure,
its nadir point, and the centre of the earth, its plane rectangular,
to that of the meridian of departure. The other considers an
east and west line to be a line on the surface of the earth, bounding
a plane at right-angles with its axis, or a circle of latitude
passing through the point of departure, or in other words, a line
which, from the point of departure, passes every meridian at a
right-angle. Each party, therefore, defining the line he means,
may be permitted to call it an east and west one, or at least it
becomes no longer a mathematical but a philological question
of the meaning of the words east and west. The last is what
was meant probably by the east and west line in the treaty of
Ghent. The same has been the understanding in running the
numerous east and west lines which divide our different States.
They have been run by observations of latitude at very short intervals,
uniting the points of observation by short direct lines, and
thus constituting in fact part of a polygon of very short sides.
But, Sir, I do not pretend to be an arbiter of these learned
questions; age has weaned me from such speculations, and rendered
me as incompetent as unwilling to puzzle myself with
them. Your claim on me as a quondam neighbor has induced
me to hazard thus much, not indeed for the newspapers, a vehicle
to which I am never willingly committed, but to prove my attention
to your wishes, and to convey to you the assurances of my
respect.
Montezillo, October 15, 1822.
Dear Sir,—I have long entertained scruples about writing this
letter, upon a subject of some delicacy. But old age has overcome
them at last.
You remember the four ships ordered by Congress to be built,
and the four captains appointed by Washington, Talbot, and
Truxton, and Barry, &c., to carry an ambassador to Algiers, and
protect our commerce in the Mediterranean. I have always imputed
this measure to you, for several reasons. First, because
you frequently proposed it to me while we were at Paris, negotiating
together for peace with the Barbary powers. Secondly,
because I knew that Washington and Hamilton were not only
indifferent about a navy, but averse to it. There was no Secretary
of the Navy; only four Heads of department. You were
Secretary of State; Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; Knox,
Secretary of War; and I believe Bradford was Attorney General.
I have always suspected that you and Knox were in favor
of a navy. If Bradford was so, the majority was clear. But
Washington, I am confident, was against it in his judgment.
But his attachment to Knox, and his deference to your opinion,
for I know he had a great regard for you, might induce him to
decide in favor of you and Knox, even though Bradford united
with Hamilton in opposition to you. That Hamilton was averse
to the measure, I have personal evidence; for while it was pending,
he came in a hurry and a fit of impatience, to make a visit
to me. He said he was likely to be called upon for a large sum
of money to build ships of war, to fight the Algerines, and he
asked my opinion of the measure. I answered him that I was
clearly in favor of it. For I had always been of opinion, from
the commencement of the revolution, that a navy was the most
powerful, the safest and the cheapest national defence for this
country. My advice, therefore, was, that as much of the revenue
as could possibly be spared, should be applied to the building and
equipping of ships. The conversation was of some length, but it
was manifest in his looks and in his air, that he was disgusted
at the measure, as well as at the opinion that I had expressed.
Mrs. Knox not long since wrote a letter to Doctor Waterhouse,
requesting him to procure a commission for her son, in the navy;
that navy, says her ladyship, of which his father was the parent.
"For," says she, "I have frequently heard General Washington
say to my husband, the navy was your child." I have always
believed it to be Jefferson's child, though Knox may have assisted
in ushering it into the world. Hamilton's hobby was the
army. That Washington was averse to a navy, I had full proof
from his own lips, in many different conversations, some of them
of length, in which he always insisted that it was only building
and arming ships for the English. "Si quid novisti rectius istis
candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum."
If I am in error in any particular, pray correct your humble
servant.
Monticello, October 21, 1822.
Sir,—I return thanks for the pamphlet you have been so kind
as to send me on the subject of commonwealths. Its moral principles
merit entire approbation, its philanthropy especially, and
its views of the equal rights of man. That, on the principle of a
communion of property, small societies may exist in habits of
virtue, order, industry, and peace, and consequently in a state of
as much happiness as heaven has been pleased to deal out to imperfect
humanity, I can readily conceive, and indeed, have seen
its proofs in various small societies which have been constituted
on that principle. But I do not feel authorized to conclude from
these that an extended society, like that of the United States, or
of an individual State, could be governed happily on the same
principle. I look to the diffusion of light and education as the
resource most to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting
the virtue, and advancing the happiness of man. That
every man shall be made virtuous, by any process whatever, is,
indeed, no more to be expected, than that every tree shall be
made to bear fruit, and every plant nourishment. The brier and
bramble can never become the vine and olive; but their asperities
may be softened by culture, and their properties improved to
usefulness in the order and economy of the world. And I do
hope that, in the present spirit of extending to the great mass of
mankind the blessings of instruction, I see a prospect of great
advancement in the happiness of the human race; and that this
may proceed to an indefinite, although not to an infinite degree.
Wishing every success to the views of your society which their
hopes can promise, and thanking you most particularly for the
kind expressions of your letter towards myself, I salute you with
assurances of great esteem and respect.
Monticello, November 1, 1822.
Dear Sir,—I have racked my memory and ransacked my papers,
to enable myself to answer the inquiries of your favor of
October the 15th; but to little purpose. My papers furnish
me nothing, my memory, generalities only. I know that while
I was in Europe, and anxious about the fate of our seafaring
men, for some of whom, then in captivity in Algiers, we were
treating, and all were in like danger, I formed, undoubtingly, the
opinion that our government, as soon as practicable, should provide
a naval force sufficient to keep the Barbary States in order;
and on this subject we communicated together, as you observe.
When I returned to the United States and took part in the administration
under General Washington, I constantly maintained
that opinion; and in December, 1790, took advantage of a reference
to me from the first Congress which met after I was in office,
to report in favor of a force sufficient for the protection of
our Mediterranean commerce; and I laid before them an accurate
statement of the whole Barbary force, public and private. I
think General Washington approved of building vessels of war to
that extent. General Knox, I know, did. But what was Colonel
Hamilton's opinion, I do not in the least remember. Your
recollections on that subject are certainly corroborated by his
known anxieties for a close connection with Great Britain, to
which he might apprehend danger from collisions between their
vessels and ours. Randolph was then Attorney General; but his
opinion on the question I also entirely forget. Some vessels of
war were accordingly built and sent into the Mediterranean.
The additions to these in your time, I need not note to you, who
are well known to have ever been an advocate for the wooden
walls of Themistocles. Some of those you added, were sold under
an act of Congress passed while you were in office. I thought,
afterwards, that the public safety might require some additional
vessels of strength, to be prepared and in readiness for the first
moment of a war, provided they could be preserved against the
decay which is unavoidable if kept in the water, and clear of the
expense of officers and men. With this view I proposed that
they should be built in dry docks, above the level of the tide
waters, and covered with roofs. I further advised, that places
for these docks should be selected where there was a command
of water on a high level, as that of the Tyber at Washington, by
which the vessels might be floated out, on the principle of a lock.
But the majority of the legislature was against any addition to
the navy, and the minority, although for it in judgment, voted
against it on a principle of opposition. We are now, I understand,
building vessels to remain on the stocks, under shelter,
until wanted, when they will be launched and finished. On my
plan they could be in service at an hour's notice. On this, the
finishing, after launching, will be a work of time.
This is all I recollect about the origin and progress of our
navy. That of the late war, certainly raised our rank and character
among nations. Yet a navy is a very expensive engine.
It is admitted, that in ten or twelve years a vessel goes to entire
decay; or, if kept in repair, costs as much as would build a new
one; and that a nation who could count on twelve or fifteen
years of peace, would gain by burning its navy and building a
new one in time. Its extent, therefore, must be governed by circumstances.
Since my proposition for a force adequate to the
piracies of the Mediterranean, a similar necessity has arisen in
our own seas for considerable addition to that force. Indeed, I
wish we could have a convention with the naval powers of Europe,
for them to keep down the pirates of the Mediterranean,
and the slave ships on the coast of Africa, and for us to perform
the same duties for the society of nations in our seas. In this
way, those collisions would be avoided between the vessels of
war of different nations, which beget wars and constitute the
weightiest objection to navies. I salute you with constant affection
and respect.
Monticello, November 2, 1822.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of October the 18th came to hand
yesterday. The atmosphere of our country is unquestionably
charged with a threatening cloud of fanaticism, lighter in some
parts, denser in others, but too heavy in all. I had no idea, however,
that in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration and freedom
of religion, it could have arisen to the height you describe. This
must be owing to the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy
and absurdity of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility
of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning,
irritable, and prone to denunciation. In Boston, however,
and its neighborhood, Unitarianism has advanced to so
great strength, as now to humble this haughtiest of all religious
sects; insomuch, that they condescend to interchange with them
and the other sects, the civilities of preaching freely and frequently
in each others' meeting houses. In Rhode Island, on the other
hand, no sectarian preacher will permit an Unitarian to pollute
his desk. In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly
among the women. They have their night meetings and
praying parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes
by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their
love to Jesus, in terms as amatory and carnal, as their modesty
would permit them to use to a mere earthly lover. In our village
of Charlottesville, there is a good degree of religion, with a small
spice only of fanaticism. We have four sects, but without either
church or meeting-house. The court-house is the common temple,
one Sunday in the month to each. Here, Episcopalian and
Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist, meet together, join in hymning
their Maker, listen with attention and devotion to each others'
preachers, and all mix in society with perfect harmony. It is
not so in the districts where Presbyterianism prevails undividedly.
Their ambition and tyranny would tolerate no rival if they
had power. Systematical in grasping at an ascendency over all
other sects, they aim, like the Jesuits, at engrossing the education
of the country, are hostile to every institution which they
do not direct, and jealous at seeing others begin to attend at all
to that object. The diffusion of instruction, to which there is
now so growing an attention, will be the remote remedy to this
fever of fanaticism; while the more proximate one will be the
progress of Unitarianism. That this will, ere long, be the religion
of the majority from north to south, I have no doubt.
In our university you know there is no Professorship of Divinity.
A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea
that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against
all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors,
to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny,
which weighed in the minds of some honest friends to the institution.
In our annual report to the legislature, after stating
the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any
religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging
the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship
of their own tenets, on the confines of the university, so near
as that their students may attend the lectures there, and have the
free use of our library, and every other accommodation we can
give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of
each other. This fills the chasm objected to ours, as a defect in
an institution professing to give instruction in all useful sciences.
I think the invitation will be accepted, by some sects from candid
intentions, and by others from jealousy and rivalship. And by
bringing the sects together, and mixing them with the mass of
other students, we shall soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize
their prejudices, and make the general religion a religion
of peace, reason, and morality.
The time of opening our university is still as uncertain as
ever. All the pavilions, boarding houses, and dormitories are
done. Nothing is now wanting but the central building for a
library and other general purposes. For this we have no funds,
and the last legislature refused all aid. We have better hopes of
the next. But all is uncertain. I have heard with regret of
disturbances on the part of the students in your seminary. The
article of discipline is the most difficult in American education.
Premature ideas of independence, too little repressed by parents
beget a spirit of insubordination, which is the great obstacle to
science with us, and a principal cause of its decay since the revolution.
I look to it with dismay in our institution, as a breaker
ahead, which I am far from being confident we shall be able to
weather. The advance of age, and tardy pace of the public patronage,
may probably spare me the pain of witnessing consequences.
I salute you with constant friendship and respect.
Monticello, November 10, 1822.
Sir,—I have to acknowledge your favor of the 4th instant,
which gives me the first information I had ever received that the
laurels which Colonel Campbell so honorably won in the battle
of King's Mountain, had ever been brought into question by any
one. To him has been ever ascribed so much of the success of
that brilliant action as the valor and conduct of an able commander
might justly claim. This lessens nothing the merits of
his companions in arms, officers and soldiers, who, all and every
one, acted well their parts in their respective stations. I have no
papers on this subject in my possession, all such received at that
day having belonged to the records of the council, but I remember
well the deep and grateful impression made on the mind of
every one by that memorable victory. It was the joyful annunciation
of that turn of the tide of success which terminated the
revolutionary war with the seal of our independence. The
slighting expression complained of, as hazarded by the venerable
Shelby, might seem inexcusable in a younger man, but he was
then old, and I can assure you, dear Sir, from mortifying experience,
that the lapses of memory of an old man are innocent subjects
of compassion more than of blame. The descendants of
Colonel Campbell may rest their heads quietly on the pillow of
his renown. History has consecrated, and will forever preserve
it in the faithful annals of a grateful country. With the expressions
of the high sense I entertain of his character, accept the assurance
to yourself of my great esteem and respect.
P. S. I received at the same time with your letter, one from
Mr. William C. Preston, on the same subject. Writing is so slow
and painful to me, that I must pray you to make for me my acknowledgments
to him, and my request that he will consider this
as an answer to his as well as your favor.
Monticello, December 8, 1822.
Sir,—I have to thank you for your pamphlets on the subject
of Unitarianism, and to express my gratification with your efforts
for the revival of primitive Christianity in your quarter. No historical
fact is better established, than that the doctrine of one
God, pure and uncompounded, was that of the early ages of
Christianity; and was among the efficacious doctrines which
gave it triumph over the polytheism of the ancients, sickened
with the absurdities of their own theology. Nor was the unity
of the Supreme Being ousted from the Christian creed by the
force of reason, but by the sword of civil government, wielded
at the will of the fanatic Athanasius. The hocus-pocus phantasm
of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three
heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and
thousands of martyrs. And a strong proof of the solidity of the
primitive faith, is its restoration, as soon as a nation arises which
vindicates to itself the freedom of religious opinion, and its external
divorce from the civil authority. The pure and simple
unity of the Creator of the universe, is now all but ascendant in
the eastern States; it is dawning in the west, and advancing towards
the south; and I confidently expect that the present generation
will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the
United States. The eastern presses are giving us many excellent
pieces on the subject, and Priestley's learned writings on it
are, or should be, in every hand. In fact, the Athanasian paradox
that one is three, and three but one, is so incomprehensible
to the human mind, that no candid man can say he has any idea
of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea? He who
thinks he does, only deceives himself. He proves, also, that
man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against
absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder,
is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullability,
which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason,
and the mind becomes a wreck.
I write with freedom, because, while I claim a right to believe
in one God, if so my reason tells me, I yield as freely to others
that of believing in three. Both religions, I find, make honest
men, and that is the only point society has any right to look to.
Although this mutual freedom should produce mutual indulgence,
yet I wish not to be brought in question before the public on this
or any other subject, and I pray you to consider me as writing
under that trust. I take no part in controversies, religious or political.
At the age of eighty, tranquillity is the greatest good of
life, and the strongest of our desires that of dying in the good
will of all mankind. And with the assurance of all my good
will to Unitarian and Trinitarian, to Whig and Tory, accept for
yourself that of my entire respect.
Monticello, February 24, 1823.
Dear Sir,—I have read with much satisfaction the reply of
Mr. Everett, your brother, to the criticisms on his work on the
state of Europe, and concur with him generally in the doctrines
of the reply. Certainly provisions are not allowed, by the consent
of nations, to be contraband but where everything is so, as
in the ease of a blockaded town, with which all intercourse is
forbidden. On the question whether the principle of "free bottoms
making free goods, and enemy bottoms enemy goods," is
now to be considered as established in the law of nations, I will
state to you a fact within my own knowledge, which may lessen
the weight of our authority as having acted in the war of France
and England on the ancient principle "that the goods of an
enemy in the bottom of a friend are lawful prize; while those
of a friend in an enemy bottom are not so." England became a
party in the general war against France on the 1st of February,
1793. We took immediately the stand of neutrality. We were
aware that our great intercourse with these two maritime nations
would subject us to harassment by multiplied questions on the
duties of neutrality, and that an important and early one would
be which of the two principles above stated should be the law
of action with us? We wished to act on the new one of "free
bottoms free goods;" and we had established it in our treaties
with other nations, but not with England. We determined
therefore to avoid, if possible, committing ourselves on this question
until we could negotiate with England her acquiescence in
the new principle. Although the cases occurring were numerous,
and the ministers, Genet and Hammond, eagerly on the
watch, we were able to avoid any declaration until the massacre
of St. Domingo. The whites, on that occasion, took refuge on
board our ships, then in their harbor, with all the property they
could find room for; and on their passage to the United States,
many of them were taken by British cruisers, and their cargoes
seized as lawful prize. The inflammable temper of Genet kindled
at once, and he wrote, with his usual passion, a letter reclaiming
an observance of the principle of "free bottoms free
goods," as if already an acknowledged law of neutrality. I
pressed him in conversation not to urge this point; that although
it had been acted on by convention, by the armed neutrality,
it was not yet become a principle of universal admission; that
we wished indeed to strengthen it by our adoption, and were negotiating
an acquiescence on the part of Great Britain: but if
forced to decide prematurely, we must justify ourselves by a
declaration of the ancient principle, and that no general consent
of nations had as yet changed it. He was immoveable, and on
the 25th of July wrote a letter, so insulting, that nothing but a
determined system of justice and moderation would have prevented
his being shipped home in the first vessel. I had the
day before answered his of the 9th, in which I had been obliged
in our own justification, to declare that the ancient was the established
principle, still existing and authoritative. Our denial,
therefore, of the new principle, and action on the old one, were
forced upon us by the precipitation and intemperance of Genet,
against our wishes, and against our aim; and our involuntary
practice, therefore, is of less authority against the new rule.
I owe you particular thanks for the copy of your translation
of Buttman's Greek Grammar, which you have been so kind as
to send me. A cursory view of it promises me a rich mine of
valuable criticism. I observe he goes with the herd of grammarians
in denying an Ablative case to the Greek language. I
cannot concur with him in that, but think with the Messrs.
of Port Royal who admit an Ablative. And why exclude it?
Is it because the Dative and Ablative in Greek are always of the
same form? Then there is no Ablative to the Latin plurals, because
in them as in Greek, these cases are always in the same
form. The Greeks recognized the Ablative under the appellation
of the πτωσις αφαιρετικη, which I have met with and noted from
some of the scholiasts, without recollecting where. Stephens,
Scapula, Hederic acknowledge it as one of the significations of
the word αφαιρεματικος. That the Greeks used it cannot be denied.
For one of multiplied examples which maybe produced take the
following from the Hippolytus of Euripides: "ειπε τῳ τροπῳ, δικης
Επαισεν αυτον ροπτρον," "dic quo modo justitiæ clava percussit
eum," "quo modo" are Ablatives, then why not τω τροπῳ? And
translating it into English, should we use the [16]Dative or Ablative
preposition? It is not perhaps easy to define very critically
what constitutes a case in the declension of nouns. All agree
as to the Nominative that it is simply the name of the thing. If
we admit that a distinct case is constituted by any accident or
modification which changes the relation which that bears to the
actors or action of the sentence, we must agree to the six cases
at least; because, for example, to a thing, and from a thing are
very different accidents to the thing. It may be said that if
every distinct accident or change of relation constitutes a different
case, then there are in every language as many cases as there
are prepositions; for this is the peculiar office of the preposition.
But because we do not designate by special names all the cases
to which a noun is liable, is that a reason why we should throw
away half of those we have, as is done by those grammarians
who reject all cases, but the Nominative, Genitive, and Accusative,
and in a less degree by those also who reject the Ablative
alone? as pushing the discrimination of all the possible cases to
extremities leads us to nothing useful or practicable, I am contented
with the old six cases, familiar to every cultivated language,
ancient and modern, and well understood by all. I acknowledge
myself at the same time not an adept in the metaphysical
speculations of Grammar. By analyzing too minutely
we often reduce our subject to atoms, of which the mind loses
its hold. Nor am I a friend to a scrupulous purism of style. I
readily sacrifice the niceties of syntax to euphony and strength.
It is by boldly neglecting the rigorisms of grammar, that Tacitus
has made himself the strongest writer in the world. The Hyperesitics
call him barbarous; but I should be sorry to exchange
his barbarisms for their wise-drawn purisms. Some of his sentences
are as strong as language can make them. Had he scrupulously
filled up the whole of their syntax, they would have
been merely common. To explain my meaning by an English
example, I will quote the motto of one, I believe, of the regicides
of Charles I., "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
Correct its syntax, "Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to
God," it has lost all the strength and beauty of the antithesis.
However, dear Sir, I profess again my want of familiarity with
these speculations; I hazard them without confidence, and offer
them submissively to your consideration and more practised
judgment.
Although writing, with both hands crippled, is slow and painful,
and therefore nearly laid aside from necessity, I have been
decoyed by my subjects into a very long letter. What would
therefore have been a good excuse for ending with the first page,
cannot be a bad one for concluding in the fourth, with the assurance
of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, February 25, 1823.
Dear Sir,—I received, in due time, your two favors of December
the 2d and February the 10th, and have to acknowledge
for the ladies of my native State their obligations to you for the
encomiums which you are so kind as to bestow on them. They
certainly claim no advantages over those of their sister States,
and are sensible of more favorable circumstances existing with
many of them, and happily availed, which our situation does not
offer. But the paper respecting Monticello, to which you allude,
was not written by a Virginian, but a visitant from another
State; and written by memory at least a dozen years after the
visit. This has occasioned some lapses of recollection, and a
confusion of some things in the mind of our friend, and particularly
as to the volume of slanders supposed to have been cut out
of newspapers and preserved. It would not, indeed, have been
a single volume, but an encyclopedia in bulk. But I never had
such a volume; indeed, I rarely thought those libels worth reading,
much less preserving and remembering. At the end of
every year, I generally sorted all my pamphlets, and had them
bound according to their subjects. One of these volumes consisted
of personal altercations between individuals, and calumnies
on each other. This was lettered on the back, "Personalities,"
and is now in the library of Congress. I was in the habit,
also, while living apart from my family, of cutting out of the
newspapers such morsels of poetry, or tales, as I thought would
please, and of sending them to my grandchildren, who pasted
them on leaves of blank paper and formed them into a book.
These two volumes have been confounded into one in the recollection
of our friend. Her poetical imagination, too, has heightened
the scenes she visited, as well as the merits of the inhabitants,
to whom her society was a delightful gratification.
I have just finished reading O'Meara's Bonaparte. It places
him in a higher scale of understanding than I had allotted him.
I had thought him the greatest of all military captains, but an
indifferent statesman, and misled by unworthy passions. The
flashes, however, which escaped from him in these conversations
with O'Meara, prove a mind of great expansion, although
not of distinct development and reasoning. He seizes results
with rapidity and penetration, but never explains logically the
process of reasoning by which he arrives at them. This book,
too, makes us forget his atrocities for a moment, in commiseration
of his sufferings. I will not say that the authorities of the
world, charged with the care of their country and people, had
not a right to confine him for life, as a lion or tiger, on the principle
of self-preservation. There was no safety to nations while
he was permitted to roam at large. But the putting him to death
in cold blood, by lingering tortures of mind, by vexations, insults
and deprivations, was a degree of inhumanity to which the poisonings
and assassinations of the school of Borgia and the den of
Marat never attained. The book proves, also, that nature had
denied him the moral sense, the first excellence of well-organized
man. If he could seriously and repeatedly affirm that he had
raised himself to power without ever having committed a crime,
it proves that he wanted totally the sense of right and wrong.
If he could consider the millions of human lives which he had
destroyed or caused to be destroyed, the desolations of countries
by plunderings, burnings, and famine, the destitutions of lawful
rulers of the world without the consent of their constituents, to
place his brothers and sisters on their thrones, the cutting up of
established societies of men and jumbling them discordantly together
again at his caprice, the demolition of the fairest hopes of
mankind for the recovery of their rights and amelioration of their
condition, and all the numberless train of his other enormities;
the man, I say, who could consider all these as no crimes, must
have been a moral monster, against whom every hand should
have been lifted to slay him.
You are so kind as to inquire after my health. The bone of
my arm is well knitted, but my hand and fingers are in a discouraging
condition, kept entirely useless by an œdematous swelling
of slow amendment.
God bless you and continue your good health of body and mind.
Monticello, March 4, 1823.
Dear Sir,—I delayed some time the acknowledgment of your
welcome letter of December 10th, on the common lazy principle
of never doing to-day what we can put off to to-morrow, until
it became doubtful whether a letter would find you at Charleston.
Learning now that you are at Washington, I will reply to
some particulars which seem to require it.
The North American Review is a work I do not take, and
which is little known in this State, consequently I have never
seen its observations on your inestimable history, but a reviewer
can never let a work pass uncensured. He must always make
himself wiser than his author. He would otherwise think it an
abdication of his office of censor. On this occasion, he seems to
have had more sensibility for Virginia than she has for herself;
for, on reading the work, I saw nothing to touch our pride or jealousy,
but every expression of respect and good will which truth
could justify. The family of enemies, whose buzz you apprehend,
are now nothing. You may learn this at Washington;
and their military relation has long ago had the full-voiced condemnation
of his own State. Do not fear, therefore, these insects.
What you write will be far above their grovelling sphere.
Let me, then, implore you, dear Sir, to finish your history of parties,
leaving the time of publication to the state of things you
may deem proper, but taking especial care that we do not lose it
altogether. We have been too careless of our future reputation,
while our tories will omit nothing to place us in the wrong. Besides
the five-volumed libel which represents us as struggling for
office, and not at all to prevent our government from being administered
into a monarchy, the life of Hamilton is in the hands
of a man who, to the bitterness of the priest, adds the rancor of
the fiercest federalism. Mr. Adams' papers, too, and his biography,
will descend of course to his son, whose pen, you know, is
pointed, and his prejudices not in our favor. And doubtless other
things are in preparation, unknown to us. On our part we are
depending on truth to make itself known, while history is taking
a contrary set which may become too inveterate for correction.
Mr. Madison will probably leave something, but I believe, only
particular passages of our history, and these chiefly confined to
the period between the dissolution of the old and commencement
of the new government, which is peculiarly within his knowledge.
After he joined me in the administration, he had no leisure
to write. This, too, was my case. But although I had not
time to prepare anything express, my letters, (all preserved) will
furnish the daily occurrences and views from my return from
Europe in 1790, till I retired finally from office. These will
command more conviction than anything I could have written
after my retirement; no day having ever passed during that period
without a letter to somebody, written too in the moment,
and in the warmth and freshness of fact and feeling, they will
carry internal evidence that what they breathe is genuine. Selections
from these, after my death, may come out successively
as the maturity of circumstances may render their appearance
seasonable. But multiplied testimony, multiplied views will be
necessary to give solid establishment to truth. Much is known
to one which is not known to another, and no one knows everything.
It is the sum of individual knowledge which is to make
up the whole truth, and to give its correct current through future
time. Then do not, dear Sir, withhold your stock of information;
and I would moreover recommend that you trust it not to
a single copy, nor to a single depository. Leave it not in the
power of any one person, under the distempered view of an unlucky
moment, to deprive us of the weight of your testimony,
and to purchase, by its destruction, the favor of any party or person,
as happened with a paper of Dr. Franklin's.
I cannot lay down my pen without recurring to one of the
subjects of my former letter, for in truth there is no danger I apprehend
so much as the consolidation of our government by the
noiseless, and therefore unalarming, instrumentality of the supreme
court. This is the form in which federalism now arrays
itself, and consolidation is the present principle of distinction
between republicans and the pseudo-republicans but real federalists.
I must comfort myself with the hope that the judges will
see the importance and the duty of giving their country the only
evidence they can give of fidelity to its constitution and integrity
in the administration of its laws; that is to say, by every one's
giving his opinion seriatim and publicly on the cases he decides.
Let him prove by his reasoning that he has read the papers, that
he has considered the case, that in the application of the law to
it, he uses his own judgment independently and unbiased by
party views and personal favor or disfavor. Throw himself in
every case on God and his country; both will excuse him for
error and value him for his honesty. The very idea of cooking
up opinions in conclave, begets suspicions that something passes
which fears the public ear, and this, spreading by degrees, must
produce at some time abridgment of tenure, facility of removal,
or some other modification which may promise a remedy. For
in truth there is at this time more hostility to the federal judiciary,
than to any other organ of the government.
I should greatly prefer, as you do, four judges to any greater
number. Great lawyers are not over abundant, and the multiplication
of judges only enable the weak to out-vote the wise, and
three concurrent opinions out of four gives a strong presumption
of right.
I cannot better prove my entire confidence in your candor,
than by the frankness with which I commit myself to you, and
to this I add with truth, assurances of the sincerity of my great
esteem and respect.
Quincy, March 10, 1823.
Dear Sir,—The sight of your well known hand writing in
your favor of 25th February last, gave me great pleasure, as it
proved your arm to be restored, and your pen still manageable.
May it continue till you shall become as perfect a Calvinist as I
am in one particular. Poor Calvin's infirmities, his rheumatism,
his gouts and sciatics, made him frequently cry out, Mon dieu,
jusqu'à quand. Lord, how long! Prat, once chief justice
of New York, always tormented with infirmities, dreamt that he
was situated on a single rock in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean.
He heard a voice:
"Why mourns the bard, Apollo bids thee rise,
Renounce the dust, and claim thy native skies."
The ladies' visit to Monticello has put my readers in requisition
to read to me Simons' travels in Switzerland. I thought I
had some knowledge of that country before, but I find I had no
idea of it. How degenerated are the Swiss. They might defend
their country against France, Austria, and Russia; neither
of whom ought to be suffered to march armies over their mountains.
Those powers have practiced as much tyranny, and immorality,
as even the emperor Napoleon did over them, or over
the royalists of Germany or Italy.
Neither France, Austria, or Spain, ought to have a foot of land
in Italy. All conquerors are alike. Every one of them. Jura
negat sibi lati, nihil non arrogat armis. We have nothing but
fables concerning Theseus, Bacchus, and Hercules, and even
Sesostris; but I dare say that every one of them was as tyrannical
and immoral as Napoleon. Nebuchadnezzar is the first great
conqueror of whom we have anything like history, and he was
as great as any of them. Alexander and Cæsar were more immoral
than Napoleon. Zingis Khan was as great a conqueror as
any of them, and destroyed as many millions of lives, and thought
he had a right to the whole globe, if he could subdue it.
What are we to think of the crusades in which three millions
of lives at least were probably sacrificed. And what right had
St. Louis and Richard Cœur de Lion to Palestine and Syria
more than Alexander to India, or Napoleon to Egypt and Italy?
Right and justice have hard fare in this world, but there is a
power above who is capable and willing to put all things right
in the end; et pour mettre chacun à sa place dans l'universe, and
I doubt not he will.
Mr. English, a Bostonian, has published a volume of his expedition
with Ishmael Pashaw, up the river Nile. He advanced
above the third cataract, and opens a prospect of a resurrection
from the dead of those vast and ancient countries of Abyssinia
and Ethiopia; a free communication with India, and the river
Niger, and the city of Tombuctoo. This, however, is conjecture
and speculation rather than certainty; but a free communication
by land between Europe and India will ere long be opened.
A few American steamboats, and our Quincy stone-cutters would
soon make the Nile as navigable as our Hudson, Potomac, or
Mississippi. You see as my reason and intellect fails, my imagination
grows more wild and ungovernable, but my friendship
remains the same. Adieu.
Monticello, April 11, 1823.
Dear Sir,—The wishes expressed in your last favor, that I
may continue in life and health until I become a Calvinist, at
least in his exclamation of, "Mon Dieu! jusqu'à quand!" would
make me immortal. I can never join Calvin in addressing his
God. He was indeed an atheist, which I can never be; or rather
his religion was dæmonism. If ever man worshipped a false
God, he did. The being described in his five points, is not the
God whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the creator and
benevolent governor of the world; but a dæmon of malignant
spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all,
than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin. Indeed,
I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to
atheism by their general dogma, that, without a revelation, there
would not be sufficient proof of the being of a God. Now one-sixth
of mankind only are supposed to be Christians; the other
five-sixths then, who do not believe in the Jewish and Christian
revelation, are without a knowledge of the existence of a God!
This gives completely a gain de cause to the disciples of Ocellus,
Timæus, Spinosa, Diderot and D'Holbach. The argument
which they rest on as triumphant and unanswerable is, that in
every hypothesis of cosmogony, you must admit an eternal pre-existence
of something; and according to the rule of sound philosophy,
you are never to employ two principles to solve a difficulty
when one will suffice. They say then, that it is more
simple to believe at once in the eternal pre-existence of the world,
as it is now going on, and may forever go on by the principle of
reproduction which we see and witness, than to believe in the
eternal pre-existence of an ulterior cause, or creator of the world,
a being whom we see not and know not, of whose form, substance
and mode, or place of existence, or of action, no sense informs
us, no power of the mind enables us to delineate or comprehend.
On the contrary, I hold, (without appeal to revelation)
that when we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or
particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive
and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite
power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the
heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance
of centrifugal and centripetal forces; the structure of our earth itself,
with its distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere; animal
and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles;
insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as
man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and
uses; it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe,
that there is in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate
cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their
preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present
forms, and their regeneration into new and other forms. We see,
too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power, to
maintain the universe in its course and order. Stars, well known,
have disappeared, new ones have come into view; comets, in
their incalculable courses, may run foul of suns and planets, and
require renovation under other laws; certain races of animals are
become extinct; and were there no restoring power, all existences
might extinguish successively, one by one, until all should be reduced
to a shapeless chaos. So irresistible are these evidences
of an intelligent and powerful agent, that, of the infinite numbers
of men who have existed through all time, they have believed,
in the proportion of a million at least to unit, in the hypothesis
of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a
self-existent universe. Surely this unanimous sentiment renders
this more probable, than that of the few in the other hypothesis.
Some early Christians, indeed, have believed in the co-eternal pre-existence
of both the creator and the world, without changing
their relation of cause and effect. That this was the opinion of
St. Thomas, we are informed by Cardinal Toleta, in these words:
"Deus ab æterno fuit jam omnipotens, sicut cum produxit mundum.
Ab æterno potuit producere mundum. Si sol ab æterno
esset, lumen ab æterno esset; et si pes, similiter vestigium. At
lumen et vestigium effectus sunt efficientis solis et pedis; potuit
ergo cum causa æterna effectus co-æterna esse. Cujus sententia
est S. Thomas theologorum primus."—Cardinal Toleta.
Of the nature of this being we know nothing. Jesus tells us,
that "God is a spirit." 4. John 24. But without defining what
a spirit is: πνευμα ὁ θεος Down to the third century, we
know it was still deemed material; but of a lighter, subtler matter
than our gross bodies. So says Origen, "Deus igitur, cui
anima similis est, juxta originem, reapte corporalis est; sed
graviorum tantum ratione corporum incorporeus." These are
the words of Huet in his commentary on Origen. Origen himself
says, "appellatio ασωματου apud nostros scriptores est inusitata
et incognita." So also Tertullian; "quis autem negabit
deum esse corpus etsi deus spiritus? Spiritus etiam corporis
sui generis, in sua effigie."—Tertullian. These two fathers were
of the third century. Calvin's character of this Supreme Being
seems chiefly copied from that of the Jews. But the reformation
of these blasphemous attributes, and substitution of those more
worthy, pure, and sublime, seems to have been the chief object
of Jesus in his discourses to the Jews; and his doctrine of the cosmogony
of the world is very clearly laid down in the three first
verses of the first chapter of John, in these words: "Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ
λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. Οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς
τὸν Θεόν. Πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο· καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἓν, ὃ γέγονεν."
Which truly translated means, "In the beginning God existed, and
reason [or mind] was with God, and that mind was God. This was
in the beginning with God. All things were created by it, and
without it was made not one thing which was made." Yet this
text, so plainly declaring the doctrine of Jesus, that the world
was created by the supreme, intelligent being, has been perverted
by modern Christians to build up a second person of their
tritheism, by a mistranslation of the word λογος. One of its legitimate
meanings, indeed, is "a word." But in that sense it makes
an unmeaning jargon; while the other meaning, "reason," equally
legitimate, explains rationally the eternal pre-existence of God,
and his creation of the world. Knowing how incomprehensible
it was that "a word," the mere action or articulation of the organs
of speech could create a world, they undertook to make of
this articulation a second pre-existing being, and ascribe to him,
and not to God, the creation of the universe. The atheist here
plumes himself on the uselessness of such a God, and the simpler
hypothesis of a self-existent universe. The truth is, that the
greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those, calling themselves
the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the
structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and
without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will
come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme
Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with
the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
But we may hope that the dawn of reason, and freedom of
thought in these United States, will do away all this artificial
scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines
of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.
So much for your quotation of Calvin's "mon Dieu! jusqu'à
quand!" in which, when addressed to the God of Jesus, and our
God, I join you cordially, and await his time and will with more
readiness than reluctance. May we meet there again, in Congress,
with our ancient colleagues, and receive with them the
seal of approbation, "well done, good and faithful servants."
Monticello, May 3, 1823.
Dear General,—I duly received your favor of the 24th ult.
But I am rendered a slow correspondent by the loss of the use,
totally of the one, and almost totally of the other wrist, which
renders writing scarcely and painfully practicable. I learn with
great satisfaction that wholesome economies have been found,
sufficient to relieve us from the ruinous necessity of adding annually
to our debt by new loans. The deviser of so salutary a
relief deserves truly well of his country. I shall be glad, too, if
an additional tax of one-fourth of a dollar a gallon on whiskey
shall enable us to meet all our engagements with punctuality.
Viewing that tax as an article in a system of excise, I was
once glad to see it fall with the rest of the system, which I considered
as prematurely and unnecessarily introduced. It was evident
that our existing taxes were then equal to our existing debts.
It was clearly foreseen also that the surplus from excise would
only become aliment for useless offices, and would be swallowed
in idleness by those whom it would withdraw from useful industry.
Considering it only as a fiscal measure, this was right. But
the prostration of body and mind which the cheapness of this
liquor is spreading through the mass of our citizens, now calls
the attention of the legislator on a very different principle. One
of his important duties is as guardian of those who from causes
susceptible of precise definition, cannot take care of themselves.
Such are infants, maniacs, gamblers, drunkards. The last, as
much as the maniac, requires restrictive measures to save him
from the fatal infatuation under which he is destroying his health,
his morals, his family, and his usefulness to society. One powerful
obstacle to his ruinous self-indulgence would be a price beyond
his competence. As a sanatory measure, therefore, it becomes
one of duty in the public guardians. Yet I do not think
it follows necessarily that imported spirits should be subjected to
similar enhancement, until they become as cheap as those made
at home. A tax on whiskey is to discourage its consumption; a
tax on foreign spirits encourages whiskey by removing its rival
from competition. The price and present duty throw foreign
spirits already out of competition with whiskey, and accordingly
they are used but to a salutary extent. You see no persons besotting
themselves with imported spirits, wines, liquors, cordials,
&c. Whiskey claims to itself alone the exclusive office of sot-making.
Foreign spirits, wines, teas, coffee, segars, salt, are articles
of as innocent consumption as broadcloths and silks and
ought, like them, to pay but the average ad valorem duty of
other imported comforts. All of them are ingredients in our happiness,
and the government which steps out of the ranks of the
ordinary articles of consumption to select and lay under disproportionate
burthens a particular one, because it is a comfort,
pleasing to the taste, or necessary to health, and will therefore
be bought, is, in that particular, a tyranny. Taxes on consumption
like those on capital or income, to be just, must be uniform.
I do not mean to say that it may not be for the general interest
to foster for awhile certain infant manufactures, until they are
strong enough to stand against foreign rivals; but when evident
that they will never be so, it is against right, to make the other
branches of industry support them. When it was found that
France could not make sugar under 6 h. a lb., was it not tyranny
to restrain her citizens from importing at 1 h.? or would it
not have been so to have laid a duty of 5 h. on the imported?
The permitting an exchange of industries with other nations is a
direct encouragement of your own, which without that, would
bring you nothing for your comfort, and would of course cease
to be produced.
On the question of the next Presidential election, I am a mere
looker on. I never permit myself to express an opinion, or to feel
a wish on the subject. I indulge a single hope only, that the
choice may fall on one who will be a friend of peace, of economy,
of the republican principles of our constitution, and of the
salutary distribution of powers made by that between the general
and the local governments, to this, I ever add sincere prayers
for your happiness and prosperity.
Monticello, May 29, 1823.
I thank you, Sir, for the copy of the letters of Paul and Amicus,
which you have been so kind as to send me, and shall learn
from them with satisfaction the peculiar tenets of the Friends,
and particularly their opinions on the incomprehensibilities
(otherwise called the mysteries) of the trinity. I think with
them on many points, and especially on missionary and Bible
societies. While we have so many around us, within the same
social pale, who need instruction and assistance, why carry to a
distance, and to strangers what our own neighbors need? It is
a duty certainly to give our sparings to those who want; but to
see also that they are faithfully distributed, and duly apportioned
to the respective wants of those receivers. And why give through
agents whom we know not, to persons whom we know not, and
in countries from which we get no account, when we can do it
at short hand, to objects under our eye, through agents we know,
and to supply wants we see? I do not know that it is a duty
to disturb by missionaries the religion and peace of other countries,
who may think themselves bound to extinguish by fire
and fagot the heresies to which we give the name of conversions,
and quote our own example for it. Were the Pope, or his
holy allies, to send in mission to us some thousands of Jesuit
priests to convert us to their orthodoxy, I suspect that we should
deem and treat it as a national aggression on our peace and faith.
I salute you in the spirit of peace and good will.
Monticello, June 11, 1823.
Dear Sir,—Considering that I had not been to Bedford for a
twelvemonth before, I thought myself singularly unfortunate in
so timing my journey, as to have been absent exactly at the moment
of your late visit to our neighborhood. The loss, indeed,
was all my own; for in these short interviews with you, I generally
get my political compass rectified, learn from you whereabouts
we are, and correct my course again. In exchange for
this, I can give you but newspaper ideas, and little indeed of
these, for I read but a single paper, and that hastily. I find
Horace and Tacitus so much better writers than the champions
of the gazettes, that I lay those down to take up these with
great reluctance. And on the question you propose, whether
we can, in any form, take a bolder attitude than formerly in
favor of liberty, I can give you but commonplace ideas. They
will be but the widow's mite, and offered only because requested.
The matter which now embroils Europe, the presumption of
dictating to an independent nation the form of its government,
is so arrogant, so atrocious, that indignation, as well as moral
sentiment, enlists all our partialities and prayers in favor of one,
and our equal execrations against the other. I do not know,
indeed, whether all nations do not owe to one another a bold
and open declaration of their sympathies with the one party,
and their detestation of the conduct of the other. But farther
than this we are not bound to go; and indeed, for the sake of
the world, we ought not to increase the jealousies, or draw on
ourselves the power of this formidable confederacy. I have
ever deemed it fundamental for the United States, never to take
active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests
are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their
balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and
principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations
of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction
of the labor, property and lives of their people. On our
part, never had a people so favorable a chance of trying the opposite
system, of peace and fraternity with mankind, and the
direction of all our means and faculties to the purposes of improvement
instead of destruction. With Europe we have few
occasions of collision, and these, with a little prudence and forbearance,
may be generally accommodated. Of the brethren
of our own hemisphere, none are yet, or for an age to come will
be, in a shape, condition, or disposition to war against us. And
the foothold which the nations of Europe had in either America,
is slipping from under them, so that we shall soon be rid of their
neighborhood. Cuba alone seems at present to hold up a speck
of war to us. Its possession by Great Britain would indeed be
a great calamity to us. Could we induce her to join us in guaranteeing
its independence against all the world, except Spain, it
would be nearly as valuable to us as if it were our own. But
should she take it, I would not immediately go to war for it;
because the first war on other accounts will give it to us; or the
island will give itself to us, when able to do so. While no duty,
therefore, calls on us to take part in the present war of Europe,
and a golden harvest offers itself in reward for doing nothing,
peace and neutrality seem to be our duty and interest. We may
gratify ourselves, indeed, with a neutrality as partial to Spain as
would be justifiable without giving cause of war to her adversary;
we might and ought to avail ourselves of the happy occasion
of procuring and cementing a cordial reconciliation with
her, by giving assurance of every friendly office which neutrality
admits, and especially, against all apprehension of our
intermeddling in the quarrel with her colonies. And I expect
daily and confidently to hear of a spark kindled in France,
which will employ her at home, and relieve Spain from all further
apprehensions of danger.
That England is playing false with Spain cannot be doubted.
Her government is looking one way and rowing another. It is
curious to look back a little on past events. During the ascendancy
of Bonaparte, the word among the herd of kings, was
"sauve qui peut." Each shifted for himself, and left his brethren
to squander and do the same as they could. After the battle of
Waterloo, and the military possession of France, they rallied and
combined in common cause, to maintain each other against any
similar and future danger. And in this alliance, Louis, now
avowedly, and George, secretly but solidly, were of the contracting
parties; and there can be no doubt that the allies are
bound by treaty to aid England with their armies, should insurrection
take place among her people. The coquetry she is now
playing off between her people and her allies is perfectly understood
by the latter, and accordingly gives no apprehensions to
France, to whom it is all explained. The diplomatic correspondence
she is now displaying, these double papers fabricated
merely for exhibition, in which she makes herself talk of morals
and principle, as if her qualms of conscience would not permit
her to go all lengths with her Holy Allies, are all to gull her own
people. It is a theatrical farce, in which the five powers are the
actors, England the Tartuffe, and her people the dupes. Playing
thus so dextrously into each others' hands, and their own persons
seeming secured, they are now looking to their privileged orders.
These faithful auxiliaries, or accomplices, must be saved. This
war is evidently that of the general body of the aristocracy, in
which England is also acting her part. "Save but the Nobles
and there shall be no war," says she, masking her measures at
the same time under the form of friendship and mediation, and
hypocritically, while a party, offering herself as a judge, to betray
those whom she is not permitted openly to oppose. A fraudulent
neutrality, if neutrality at all, is all Spain will get from her.
And Spain, probably, perceives this, and willingly winks at it
rather than have her weight thrown openly into the other scale.
But I am going beyond my text, and sinning against the adage
of carrying coals to Newcastle. In hazarding to you my crude
and uninformed notions of things beyond my cognizance, only
be so good as to remember that it is at your request, and with as
little confidence on my part as profit on yours. You will do
what is right, leaving the people of Europe to act their follies
and crimes among themselves, while we pursue in good faith
the paths of peace and prosperity. To your judgment we are
willingly resigned, with sincere assurances of affectionate esteem
and respect.
Monticello, June 12, 1823.
Dear Sir,—Our correspondence is of that accommodating
character, which admits of suspension at the convenience of
either party, without inconvenience to the other. Hence this
tardy acknowledgment of your favor of April the 11th. I learn
from that with great pleasure, that you have resolved on continuing
your history of parties. Our opponents are far ahead of
us in preparations for placing their cause favorably before posterity.
Yet I hope even from some of them the escape of precious
truths, in angry explosions or effusions of vanity, which will
betray the genuine monarchism of their principles. They do
not themselves believe what they endeavor to inculcate, that we
were an opposition party, not on principle, but merely seeking
for office. The fact is, that at the formation of our government,
many had formed their political opinions on European writings
and practices, believing the experience of old countries, and especially
of England, abusive as it was, to be a safer guide than
mere theory. The doctrines of Europe were, that men in numerous
associations cannot be restrained within the limits of
order and justice, but by forces physical and moral, wielded over
them by authorities independent of their will. Hence their organization
of kings, hereditary nobles, and priests. Still further
to constrain the brute force of the people, they deem it necessary
to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and
to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as
that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient
surplus barely to sustain a scanty and miserable life. And these
earnings they apply to maintain their privileged orders in splendor
and idleness, to fascinate the eyes of the people, and excite
in them an humble adoration and submission, as to an order of
superior beings. Although few among us had gone all these
lengths of opinion, yet many had advanced, some more, some
less, on the way. And in the convention which formed our
government, they endeavored to draw the cords of power as tight
as they could obtain them, to lessen the dependence of the general
functionaries on their constituents, to subject to them those
of the States, and to weaken their means of maintaining the
steady equilibrium which the majority of the convention had
deemed salutary for both branches, general and local. To recover,
therefore, in practice the powers which the nation had
refused, and to warp to their own wishes those actually given,
was the steady object of the federal party. Ours, on the contrary,
was to maintain the will of the majority of the convention,
and of the people themselves. We believed, with them,
that man was a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights,
and with an innate sense of justice; and that he could be restrained
from wrong and protected in right, by moderate powers,
confided to persons of his own choice, and held to their duties
by dependence on his own will. We believed that the complicated
organization of kings, nobles, and priests, was not the
wisest nor best to effect the happiness of associated man; that
wisdom and virtue were not hereditary; that the trappings of
such a machinery, consumed by their expense, those earnings of
industry, they were meant to protect, and, by the inequalities
they produced, exposed liberty to sufferance. We believed that
men, enjoying in ease and security the full fruits of their own
industry, enlisted by all their interests on the side of law and
order, habituated to think for themselves, and to follow their
reason as their guide, would be more easily and safely governed,
than with minds nourished in error, and vitiated and debased,
as in Europe, by ignorance, indigence and oppression. The
cherishment of the people then was our principle, the fear and
distrust of them, that of the other party. Composed, as we were,
of the landed and laboring interests of the country, we could not
be less anxious for a government of law and order than were the
inhabitants of the cities, the strongholds of federalism. And
whether our efforts to save the principles and form of our constitution
have not been salutary, let the present republican freedom,
order and prosperity of our country determine. History may
distort truth, and will distort it for a time, by the superior efforts
at justification of those who are conscious of needing it most.
Nor will the opening scenes of our present government be seen
in their true aspect, until the letters of the day, now held in private
hoards, shall be broken up and laid open to public view.
What a treasure will be found in General Washington's cabinet,
when it shall pass into the hands of as candid a friend to truth as
he was himself! When no longer, like Cæsar's notes and memorandums
in the hands of Anthony, it shall be open to the high
priests of federalism only, and garbled to say so much, and no
more, as suits their views!
With respect to his farewell address, to the authorship of
which, it seems, there are conflicting claims, I can state to you
some facts. He had determined to decline a re-election at the
end of his first term, and so far determined, that he had requested
Mr. Madison to prepare for him something valedictory, to be addressed
to his constituents on his retirement. This was done,
but he was finally persuaded to acquiesce in a second election,
to which no one more strenuously pressed him than myself, from
a conviction of the importance of strengthening, by longer habit,
the respect necessary for that office, which the weight of his character
only could effect. When, at the end of this second term,
his Valedictory came out, Mr. Madison recognized in it several
passages of his draught, several others, we were both satisfied,
were from the pen of Hamilton, and others from that of the President
himself. These he probably put into the hands of Hamilton
to form into a whole, and hence it may all appear in Hamilton's
hand-writing, as if it were all of his composition.
I have stated above, that the original objects of the federalists
were, 1st, to warp our government more to the form and principles
of monarchy, and, 2d, to weaken the barriers of the State
governments as coördinate powers. In the first they have been
so completely foiled by the universal spirit of the nation, that
they have abandoned the enterprise, shrunk from the odium of
their old appellation, taken to themselves a participation of ours,
and under the pseudo-republican mask, are now aiming at their
second object, and strengthened by unsuspecting or apostate recruits
from our ranks, are advancing fast towards an ascendancy.
I have been blamed for saying, that a prevalence of the doctrines
of consolidation would one day call for reformation or revolution.
I answer by asking if a single State of the Union
would have agreed to the constitution, had it given all powers
to the General Government? If the whole opposition to it did
not proceed from the jealousy and fear of every State, of being
subjected to the other States in matters merely its own? And
if there is any reason to believe the States more disposed now
than then, to acquiesce in this general surrender of all their
rights and powers to a consolidated government, one and undivided?
You request me confidentially, to examine the question, whether
the Supreme Court has advanced beyond its constitutional
limits, and trespassed on those of the State authorities? I do
not undertake it, my dear Sir, because I am unable. Age and
the wane of mind consequent on it, have disqualified me from
investigations so severe, and researches so laborious. And it is
the less necessary in this case, as having been already done by
others with a logic and learning to which I could add nothing.
On the decision of the case of Cohens vs. The State of Virginia,
in the Supreme Court of the United States, in March, 1821,
Judge Roane, under the signature of Algernon Sidney, wrote for
the Enquirer a series of papers on the law of that case. I considered
these papers maturely as they came out, and confess that
they appeared to me to pulverize every word which had been
delivered by Judge Marshall, of the extra-judicial part of his
opinion; and all was extra-judicial, except the decision that the
act of Congress had not purported to give to the corporation of
Washington the authority claimed by their lottery law, of controlling
the laws of the States within the States themselves. But
unable to claim that case, he could not let it go entirely, but
went on gratuitously to prove, that notwithstanding the eleventh
amendment of the constitution, a State could be brought as a defendant,
to the bar of his court; and again, that Congress might
authorize a corporation of its territory to exercise legislation
within a State, and paramount to the laws of that State. I cite
the sum and result only of his doctrines, according to the impression
made on my mind at the time, and still remaining. If not
strictly accurate in circumstance, it is so in substance. This doctrine
was so completely refuted by Roane, that if he can be answered,
I surrender human reason as a vain and useless faculty,
given to bewilder, and not to guide us. And I mention this particular
case as one only of several, because it gave occasion to
that thorough examination of the constitutional limits between
the General and State jurisdictions, which you have asked for.
There were two other writers in the same paper, under the signatures
of Fletcher of Saltoun, and Somers, who, in a few essays,
presented some very luminous and striking views of the
question. And there was a particular paper which recapitulated
all the cases in which it was thought the federal court had
usurped on the State jurisdictions. These essays will be found
in the Enquirers of 1821, from May the 10th to July the 13th.
It is not in my present power to send them to you, but if Ritchie
can furnish them, I will procure and forward them. If they
had been read in the other States, as they were here, I think
they would have left, there as here, no dissentients from their
doctrine. The subject was taken up by our legislature of
1821-'22, and two draughts of remonstrances were prepared
and discussed. As well as I remember, there was no difference
of opinion as to the matter of right; but there was as to the
expediency of a remonstrance at that time, the general mind of
the States being then under extraordinary excitement by the
Missouri question; and it was dropped on that consideration.
But this case is not dead, it only sleepeth. The Indian Chief
said he did not go to war for every petty injury by itself, but put
it into his pouch, and when that was full, he then made war.
Thank Heaven, we have provided a more peaceable and rational
mode of redress.
This practice of Judge Marshall, of travelling out of his case
to prescribe what the law would be in a moot case not before
the court, is very irregular and very censurable. I recollect another
instance, and the more particularly, perhaps, because it in
some measure bore on myself. Among the midnight appointments
of Mr. Adams, were commissions to some federal justices
of the peace for Alexandria. These were signed and sealed by
him, but not delivered. I found them on the table of the department
of State, on my entrance into office, and I forbade their
delivery. Marbury, named in one of them, applied to the Supreme
Court for a mandamus to the Secretary of State, (Mr.
Madison) to deliver the commission intended for him. The
Court determined at once, that being an original process, they had
no cognizance of it; and therefore the question before them was
ended. But the Chief Justice went on to lay down what the
law would be, had they jurisdiction of the case, to-wit: that they
should command the delivery. The object was clearly to instruct
any other court having the jurisdiction, what they should
do if Marbury should apply to them. Besides the impropriety
of this gratuitous interference, could anything exceed the perversion
of law? For if there is any principle of law never yet contradicted,
it is that delivery is one of the essentials to the validity
of a deed. Although signed and sealed, yet as long as it remains
in the hands of the party himself, it is in fieri only, it is not a
deed, and can be made so only by its delivery. In the hands of
a third person it may be made an escrow. But whatever is in
the executive offices is certainly deemed to be in the hands of
the President; and in this case, was actually in my hands, because,
when I countermanded them, there was as yet no Secretary
of State. Yet this case of Marbury and Madison is continually
cited by bench and bar, as if it were settled law, without
any animadversion on its being merely an obiter dissertation
of the Chief Justice.
It may be impracticable to lay down any general formula of
words which shall decide at once, and with precision, in every
case, this limit of jurisdiction. But there are two canons which
will guide us safely in most of the cases. 1st. The capital and
leading object of the constitution was to leave with the States
all authorities which respected their own citizens only, and to
transfer to the United States those which respected citizens of
foreign or other States: to make us several as to ourselves, but
one as to all others. In the latter case, then, constructions should
lean to the general jurisdiction, if the words will bear it; and in
favor of the States in the former, if possible to be so construed.
And indeed, between citizens and citizens of the same State, and
under their own laws, I know but a single case in which a jurisdiction
is given to the General Government. That is, where
anything but gold or silver is made a lawful tender, or the obligation
of contracts is any otherwise impaired. The separate legislatures
had so often abused that power, that the citizens themselves
chose to trust it to the general, rather than to their own
special authorities. 2d. On every question of construction, carry
ourselves back to the time when the constitution was adopted,
recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying
what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented
against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
Let us try Cohen's case by these canons only, referring always,
however, for full argument, to the essays before cited.
1. It was between a citizen and his own State, and under a
law of his State. It was a domestic case, therefore, and not a
foreign one.
2. Can it be believed, that under the jealousies prevailing
against the General Government, at the adoption of the constitution,
the States meant to surrender the authority of preserving
order, of enforcing moral duties and restraining vice, within their
own territory? And this is the present case, that of Cohen being
under the ancient and general law of gaming. Can any good
be effected by taking from the States the moral rule of their
citizens, and subordinating it to the general authority, or to one
of their corporations, which may justify forcing the meaning of
words, hunting after possible constructions, and hanging inference
on inference, from heaven to earth, like Jacob's ladder?
Such an intention was impossible, and such a licentiousness of
construction and inference, if exercised by both governments, as
may be done with equal right, would equally authorize both to
claim all power, general and particular, and break up the foundations
of the Union. Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding,
and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules
of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in
metaphysical subtleties, which may make anything mean everything
or nothing, at pleasure. It should be left to the sophisms
of advocates, whose trade it is, to prove that a defendant is a
plaintiff, though dragged into court, torto collo, like Bonaparte's
volunteers, into the field in chains, or that a power has been
given, because it ought to have been given, et alia talia. The
States supposed that by their tenth amendment, they had secured
themselves against constructive powers. They were not lessoned
yet by Cohen's case, nor aware of the slipperiness of the eels of
the law. I ask for no straining of words against the General
Government, nor yet against the States. I believe the States can
best govern our home concerns, and the General Government our
foreign ones. I wish, therefore, to see maintained that wholesome
distribution of powers established by the constitution for
the limitation of both; and never to see all offices transferred to
Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people,
they may more secretly he bought and sold as at market.
But the Chief Justice says, "there must be an ultimate arbiter
somewhere." True, there must; but does that prove it is either
party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled
by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress,
or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they
mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And
it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our constitution,
to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations
is at once to force.
I rejoice in the example you set of seriatim opinions. I have
heard it often noticed, and always with high approbation. Some
of your brethren will be encouraged to follow it occasionally,
and in time, it may be felt by all as a duty, and the sound practice
of the primitive court be again restored. Why should not
every judge be asked his opinion, and give it from the bench, if
only by yea or nay? Besides ascertaining the fact of his opinion,
which the public have a right to know, in order to judge
whether it is impeachable or not, it would show whether the
opinions were unanimous or not, and thus settle more exactly
the weight of their authority.
The close of my second sheet warns me that it is time now
to relieve you from this letter of unmerciful length. Indeed, I
wonder how I have accomplished it, with two crippled wrists,
the one scarcely able to move my pen, the other to hold my paper.
But I am hurried sometimes beyond the sense of pain,
when unbosoming myself to friends who harmonize with me
in principle. You and I may differ occasionally in details of
minor consequence, as no two minds, more than two faces, are
the same in every feature. But our general objects are the same,
to preserve the republican form and principles of our constitution
and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that has
established. These are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If
driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering. To my
prayers for its safety and perpetuity, I add those for the continuation
of your health, happiness, and usefulness to your country.
Monticello, June 23, 1823.
Dear Sir,—I have been lately visited by a Mr. Miralla, a native
of Buenos Ayres, but resident in Cuba for the last seven or
eight years; a person of intelligence, of much information, and
frankly communicative. I believe, indeed, he is known to you.
I availed myself of the opportunity of learning what was the
state of public sentiment in Cuba as to their future course. He
says they would be satisfied to remain as they are; but all are
sensible that that cannot be; that whenever circumstances shall
render a separation from Spain necessary, a perfect independence
would be their choice, provided they could see a certainty of
protection; but that, without that prospect, they would be divided
in opinion between an incorporation with Mexico, and with
the United States.—Columbia being too remote for prompt support.
The considerations in favor of Mexico are that the Havana
would be the emporium for all the produce of that immense
and wealthy country, and of course, the medium of all its commerce;
that having no ports on its eastern coast, Cuba would
become the depôt of its naval stores and strength, and, in effect,
would, in a great measure, have the sinews of the government in
its hands. That in favor of the United States is the fact that
three-fourths of the exportations from Havana come to the United
States, that they are a settled government, the power which can
most promptly succor them, rising to an eminence promising
future security; and of which they would make a member of the
sovereignty, while as to England, they would be only a colony,
subordinated to her interest, and that there is not a man in the
island who would not resist her to the bitterest extremity. Of
this last sentiment I had not the least idea at the date of my late
letters to you. I had supposed an English interest there quite as
strong as that of the United States, and therefore, that, to avoid
war, and keep the island open to our own commerce, it would
be best to join that power in mutually guaranteeing its independence.
But if there is no danger of its falling into the possession
of England, I must retract an opinion founded on an error of
fact. We are surely under no obligation to give her, gratis, an
interest which she has not; and the whole inhabitants being
averse to her, and the climate mortal to strangers, its continued
military occupation by her would be impracticable. It is better
then to lie still in readiness to receive that interesting incorporation
when solicited by herself. For, certainly, her addition to
our confederacy is exactly what is wanting to round our power
as a nation to the point of its utmost interest.
I have thought it my duty to acknowledge my error on this
occasion, and to repeat a truth before acknowledged, that, retired
as I am, I know too little of the affairs of the world to form
opinions of them worthy of any attention; and I resign myself
with reason, and perfect confidence to the care and guidance of
those to whom the helm is committed. With this assurance, accept
that of my constant and affectionate friendship and respect.
Monticello, July 16, 1823.
Dear Sir,—I received in due time your favor of June 16th,
and with it your Syllabus of lectures on Spanish literature. I
have considered this with great interest and satisfaction, as it
gives me a model of course I wish to see pursued in the different
branches of instruction in our University, i. e. a methodical,
critical, and profound explanation by way of protection of every
science we propose to teach. I am not fully informed of the
practices at Harvard, but there is one from which we shall certainly
vary, although it has been copied, I believe, by nearly
every college and academy in the United States. That is, the
holding the students all to one prescribed course of reading, and
disallowing exclusive application to those branches only which
are to qualify them for the particular vocations to which they
are destined. We shall, on the contrary, allow them uncontrolled
choice in the lectures they shall choose to attend, and require
elementary qualification only, and sufficient age. Our institution
will proceed on the principle of doing all the good it can
without consulting its own pride or ambition; of letting every
one come and listen to whatever he thinks may improve the condition
of his mind. The rock which I most dread is the discipline
of the institution, and it is that on which most of our public
schools labor. The insubordination of our youth is now the
greatest obstacle to their education. We may lessen the difficulty,
perhaps, by avoiding too much government, by requiring no
useless observances, none which shall merely multiply occasions
for dissatisfaction, disobedience and revolt by referring to the
more discreet of themselves the minor discipline, the graver to
the civil magistrates, as in Edinburg. On this head I am anxious
for information of the practices of other places, having myself
had little experience of the government of youth. I presume
there are printed codes of the rules of Harvard, and if so, you
would oblige me by sending me a copy, and of those of any
other academy which you think can furnish anything useful.
You flatter me with a visit "as soon as you learn that the University
is fairly opened." A visit from you at any time will be
the most welcome possible to all our family, who remember with
peculiar satisfaction the pleasure they received from your former
one. But were I allowed to name the time, it should not be deferred
beyond the autumn of the ensuing year. Our last building,
and that which will be the principal ornament and keystone,
giving unity to the whole, will then be nearly finished, and afford
you a gratification compensating the trouble of the journey.
We shall then, also, be engaged in our code of regulations preparatory
to our opening, which may, perhaps, take place in the
beginning of 1825. There is no person from whose information
of the European institutions, and especially their discipline, I
should expect so much aid in that difficult work. Come, then,
dear Sir, at that, or any earlier epoch, and give to our institution
the benefit of your counsel. I know that you scout, as I do,
the idea of any rivalship. Our views are Catholic for the improvement
of our country by science, and indeed, it is better
even for your own University to have its yoke natè at this distance,
rather than to force a nearer one from the increasing necessity
for it. And how long before we may expect others in
the southern, western, and middle regions of this vast country?
I send you by mail a print of the ground-plan of our institution;
it may give you some idea of its distribution and conveniences,
but not of its architecture, which being chastely classical,
constitutes one of its distinguishing characters. I am much indebted
for your kind attentions to Mr. Harrison; he is a youth
of promise. I could not deny myself the gratification of communicating
to his father the part of your letter respecting him.
Our family all join me in assurances of our friendly esteem
and great respect.
Quincy, August 15, 1823.
Watchman, what of the night? Is darkness that may be felt,
to prevail over the whole world? or can you perceive any rays
of a returning dawn? Is the devil to be the "Lord's anointed"
over the whole globe? or do you foresee the fulfilment of the
prophecies according to Dr. Priestley's interpretation of them? I
know not, but I have in some of my familiar, and frivolous letters
to you, told the story four times over; but if I have, I never
applied it so well as now.
Not long after the denouement of the tragedy of Louis XVI,
when I was Vice-President, my friend the Doctor came to breakfast
with me alone; he was very sociable, very learned and eloquent,
on the subject of the French revolution. It was opening
a new era in the world, and presenting a near view of the millennium.
I listened; I heard with great attention and perfect
sang froid. At last I asked the Doctor. Do you really
believe the French will establish a free democratical government
in France? He answered: I do firmly believe it. Will you
give me leave to ask you upon what grounds you entertain this
opinion? Is it from anything you ever read in history? Is
there any instance of a Roman Catholic monarchy of five and
twenty millions at once converted into a free and national people?
No. I know of no instance like it. Is there anything in your
knowledge of human nature, derived from books, or experience,
that any nation, ancient or modern, consisting of such multitudes
of ignorant people, ever were, or ever can be converted suddenly
into materials capable of conducting a free government, especially
a democratical republic? No—I know nothing of the kind.
Well then, Sir, what is the ground of your opinion? The answer
was, my opinion is founded altogether upon revelation, and
the prophecies. I take it that the ten horns of the great beast in
revelations, mean the ten crowned heads of Europe; and that the
execution of the King of France, is the falling off of the first of
those horns; and the nine monarchies of Europe will fall one after
another in the same way. Such was the enthusiasm of that
great man, that reasoning machine. After all, however, he did
recollect himself so far as to say: There is, however, a possibility
of doubt; for I read yesterday a book put into my hands, by
a gentleman, a volume of travels written by a French gentleman
in 1659; in which he says he had been travelling a whole year
in England; into every part of it, and conversed freely with all
ranks of people; he found the whole nation earnestly engaged in
discussing and contriving a form of government for their future
regulations; there was but one point in which they all agreed,
and in that they were unanimous: that monarchy, nobility,
and prelacy never would exist in England again. The Doctor
paused; and said: Yet, in the very next year, the whole nation
called in the King and run mad with nobility, monarchy, and
prelacy. I am no King killer; merely because they are Kings.
Poor creatures; they know no better; they believe sincerely and
conscientiously that God made them to rule the world. I would
not, therefore, behead them, or send them to St. Helena, to be
treated as Bonaparte was; but I would shut them up like the
man in the iron mask; feed them well, give them as much finery
as they pleased, until they could be converted to right reason and
common sense. I have nothing to communicate from this part
of the country, except that you must not be surprised if you hear
something wonderful in Boston before long. With my profound
respects for your family, and half a century's affection for yourself,
I am your humble servant.
Monticello, August 30, 1823.
Dear Sir,—I received the enclosed letters from the President
with a request, that after perusal I would forward them to you
for perusal by yourself also, and to be returned then to him.
You have doubtless seen Timothy Pickerings' fourth of July
observations on the Declaration of Independence. If his principles
and prejudices, personal and political, gave us no reason to
doubt whether he had truly quoted the information he alleges to
have received from Mr. Adams, I should then say, that in some
of the particulars, Mr. Adams' memory has led him into unquestionable
error. At the age of eighty-eight, and forty-seven years
after the transactions of Independence, this is not wonderful.
Nor should I, at the age of eighty, on the small advantage of
that difference only, venture to oppose my memory to his, were
it not supported by written notes, taken by myself at the moment
and on the spot. He says, "the committee of five, to wit,
Dr. Franklin, Sherman, Livingston, and ourselves, met, discussed
the subject, and then appointed him and myself to make the
draught; that we, as a sub-committee, met, and after the urgencies
of each on the other, I consented to undertake the task; that
the draught being made, we, the sub-committee, met, and conned
the paper over, and he does not remember that he made or suggested
a single alteration." Now these details are quite incorrect.
The committee of five met; no such thing as a sub-committee
was proposed, but they unanimously pressed on myself
alone to undertake the draught. I consented; I drew it; but before
I reported it to the committee, I communicated it separately
to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, requesting their corrections, because
they were the two members of whose judgments and
amendments I wished most to have the benefit, before presenting
it to the committee; and you have seen the original paper now
in my hands, with the corrections of Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams
interlined in their own hand writings. Their alterations were
two or three only, and merely verbal. I then wrote a fair copy,
reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered, to Congress.
This personal communication and consultation with Mr.
Adams, he has misremembered into the actings of a sub-committee.
Pickering's observations, and Mr. Adams' in addition, "that
it contained no new ideas, that it is a common-place compilation,
its sentiments hackneyed in Congress for two years before, and its
essence contained in Otis' pamphlet," may all be true. Of that
I am not to be the judge. Richard Henry Lee charged it as
copied from Locke's treatise on government. Otis' pamphlet I
never saw, and whether I had gathered my ideas from reading
or reflection I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither
book nor pamphlet while writing it. I did not consider it as
any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether, and to offer
no sentiment which had ever been expressed before. Had
Mr. Adams been so restrained, Congress would have lost the
benefit of his bold and impressive advocations of the rights of
Revolution. For no man's confident and fervid addresses, more
than Mr. Adams', encouraged and supported us through the difficulties
surrounding us, which, like the ceaseless action of gravity
weighed on us by night and by day. Yet, on the same ground,
we may ask what of these elevated thoughts was new, or can be
affirmed never before to have entered the conceptions of man?
Whether, also, the sentiments of Independence, and the reasons
for declaring it, which make so great a portion of the instrument,
had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before the 4th of
July, '76, or this dictum also of Mr. Adams be another slip of memory,
let history say. This, however, I will say for Mr. Adams,
that he supported the Declaration with zeal and ability, fighting
fearlessly for every word of it. As to myself, I thought it a duty
to be, on that occasion, a passive auditor of the opinions of others,
more impartial judges than I could be, of its merits or demerits.
During the debate I was sitting by Doctor Franklin, and he observed
that I was writhing a little under the acrimonious criticisms
on some of its parts; and it was on that occasion, that by
way of comfort, he told me the story of John Thompson, the
hatter, and his new sign.
Timothy thinks the instrument the better for having a fourth
of it expunged. He would have thought it still better, had the
other three-fourths gone out also, all but the single sentiment
(the only one he approves), which recommends friendship to his
dear England, whenever she is willing to be at peace with us.
His insinuations are, that although "the high tone of the instrument
was in unison with the warm feelings of the times, this
sentiment of habitual friendship to England should never be forgotten,
and that the duties it enjoins should especially be borne
in mind on every celebration of this anniversary." In other
words, that the Declaration, as being a libel on the government
of England, composed in times of passion, should now be buried
in utter oblivion, to spare the feelings of our English friends and
Angloman fellow-citizens. But it is not to wound them that we
wish to keep it in mind; but to cherish the principles of the instrument
in the bosoms of our own citizens: and it is a heavenly
comfort to see that these principles are yet so strongly felt, as to
render a circumstance so trifling as this little lapse of memory
of Mr. Adams', worthy of being solemnly announced and supported
at an anniversary assemblage of the nation on its birthday.
In opposition, however, to Mr. Pickering, I pray God that
these principles may be eternal, and close the prayer with my
affectionate wishes for yourself of long life, health and happiness.
Monticello, September 4, 1823.
Dear Sir,—Your letter of August the 15th was received in
due time, and with the welcome of everything which comes
from you. With its opinions on the difficulties of revolutions
from despotism to freedom, I very much concur. The generation
which commences a revolution rarely completes it. Habituated
from their infancy to passive submission of body and mind
to their kings and priests, they are not qualified when called on
to think and provide for themselves; and their inexperience,
their ignorance and bigotry make them instruments often, in the
hands of the Bonapartes and Iturbides, to defeat their own rights
and purposes. This is the present situation of Europe and Spanish
America. But it is not desperate. The light which has
been shed on mankind by the art of printing, has eminently
changed the condition of the world. As yet, that light has
dawned on the middling classes only of the men in Europe.
The kings and the rabble, of equal ignorance, have not yet received
its rays; but it continues to spread, and while printing is
preserved, it can no more recede than the sun return on his course.
A first attempt to recover the right of self-government may fail,
so may a second, a third, &c. But as a younger and more instructed
race comes on, the sentiment becomes more and more
intuitive, and a fourth, a fifth, or some subsequent one of the
ever renewed attempts will ultimately succeed. In France, the
first effort was defeated by Robespierre, the second by Bonaparte,
the third by Louis XVIII. and his holy allies: another is
yet to come, and all Europe, Russia excepted, has caught the
spirit; and all will attain representative government, more or
less perfect. This is now well understood to be a necessary
check on kings, whom they will probably think it more prudent
to chain and tame, than to exterminate. To attain all this,
however, rivers of blood must yet flow, and years of desolation
pass over; yet the object is worth rivers of blood, and years of
desolation. For what inheritance so valuable, can man leave to
his posterity? The spirit of the Spaniard, and his deadly and
eternal hatred to a Frenchman, give me much confidence that
he will never submit, but finally defeat this atrocious violation
of the laws of God and man, under which he is suffering; and
the wisdom and firmness of the Cortes, afford reasonable hope,
that that nation will settle down in a temperate representative
government, with an executive properly subordinated to that.
Portugal, Italy, Prussia, Germany, Greece, will follow suit.
You and I shall look down from another world on these glorious
achievements to man, which will add to the joys even
of heaven.
I observe your toast of Mr. Jay on the 4th of July, wherein
you say that the omission of his signature to the Declaration of
Independence was by accident. Our impressions as to this fact
being different, I shall be glad to have mine corrected, if wrong.
Jay, you know, had been in constant opposition to our laboring
majority. Our estimate at the time was, that he, Dickinson and
Johnson of Maryland, by their ingenuity, perseverance and partiality
to our English connection, had constantly kept us a year
behind where we ought to have been in our preparations and proceedings.
From about the date of the Virginia instructions of
May the 15th, 1776, to declare Independence, Mr. Jay absented
himself from Congress, and never came there again until December,
1778. Of course, he had no part in the discussions or decision
of that question. The instructions to their Delegates by
the Convention of New York, then sitting, to sign the Declaration,
were presented to Congress on the 15th of July only, and
on that day the journals show the absence of Mr. Jay, by a letter
received from him, as they had done as early as the 29th of
May by another letter. And I think he had been omitted by
the convention on a new election of Delegates, when they
changed their instructions. Of this last fact, however, having
no evidence but an ancient impression, I shall not affirm it. But
whether so or not, no agency of accident appears in the case.
This error of fact, however, whether yours or mine, is of little
consequence to the public. But truth being as cheap as error, it
is as well to rectify it for our own satisfaction.
I have had a fever of about three weeks, during the last and
preceding month, from which I am entirely recovered except as
to strength.
Monticello, September 8, 1823.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of July 28th, from Avon, came to
hand on the 10th of August, and I have delayed answering it
on the presumption of your continued absence, but the approach
of the season of frost in that region has probably before this
time turned you about to the south. I readily conceive that by
the time of your return to Philadelphia, you will have had travelling
enough for the present, and therefore acquiesce in your
proposition to give us the next season. Your own convenience
is a sufficient reason, and an auxiliary one is that we shall then
have more for you to see and approve. By that time, our rotunda,
(the walls of which will be finished this month) will have
received its roof, and will show itself externally to some advantage.
Its columns only will be wanting, as they must await
their capitals from Italy. We have just received from thence,
and are now putting up, the marble capitals of the buildings we
have already erected, which completes our whole system, except
the rotunda and its adjacent gymnasia. All are now ready to
receive their occupants, and should the legislature, at their next
session, liberate our funds as is hoped, we shall ask but one year
more to procure our professors, for most of whom we must go to
Europe. In your substitution of Monticello instead of your annual
visit to Black Rock, I will engage you equal health, and a
more genial and pleasant climate; but instead of the flitting,
flirting, and gay assemblage of that place, you must be contented
with the plain and sober family and neighborly society, with the
assurance that you shall hear no wrangling about the next president,
although the excitement on that subject will then be at its
acme. Numerous have been the attempts to entangle me in that
imbroglio. But at the age of eighty, I seek quiet and abjure
contention. I read but a single newspaper, Ritchie's Enquirer,
the best that is published or ever has been published in America.
Yon should read it also, to keep yourself au fait of your own
State, for we still claim you as belonging to us. A city life offers
you indeed more means of dissipating time, but more frequent,
also, and more painful objects of vice and wretchedness. New
York, for example, like London, seems to be a Cloacina of all
the depravities of human nature. Philadelphia doubtless has its
share. Here, on the contrary, crime is scarcely heard of, breaches
of order rare, and our societies, if not refined, are rational, moral,
and affectionate at least. Our only blot is becoming less offensive
by the great improvement in the condition and civilization
of that race, who can now more advantageously compare their
situation with that of the laborers of Europe. Still it is a hideous
blot, as well from the heteromorph peculiarities of the race,
as that, with them, physical compulsion to action must be substituted
for the moral necessity which constrains the free laborers
to work equally hard. We feel and deplore it morally and politically,
and we look without entire despair to some redeeming
means not yet specifically foreseen. I am happy in believing
that the conviction of the necessity of removing this evil gains
ground with time. Their emigration to the westward lightens
the difficulty by dividing it, and renders it more practicable on
the whole. And the neighborhood of a government of their
color promises a more accessible asylum than that from whence
they came. Ever and affectionately yours.
Monticello, September 24, 1823.
Sir,—Your letter of August 28th, with the pamphlet accompanying
it, was not received until the 18th instant.
That our Creator made the earth for the use of the living and
not of the dead; that those who exist not can have no use nor
right in it, no authority or power over it; that one generation
of men cannot foreclose or burthen its use to another, which
comes to it in its own right and by the same divine beneficence;
that a preceding generation cannot bind a succeeding one by its
laws or contracts; these deriving their obligation from the will
of the existing majority, and that majority being removed by
death, another comes in its place with a will equally free to make
its own laws and contracts; these are axioms so self-evident that
no explanation can make them plainer; for he is not to be reasoned
with who says that non-existence can control existence, or
that nothing can move something. They are axioms also pregnant
with salutary consequences. The laws of civil society indeed
for the encouragement of industry, give the property of the
parent to his family on his death, and in most civilized countries
permit him even to give it, by testament, to whom he pleases.
And it is also found more convenient to suffer the laws of our
predecessors to stand on our implied assent, as if positively re-enacted,
until the existing majority positively repeals them. But
this does not lessen the right of that majority to repeal whenever
a change of circumstances or of will calls for it. Habit alone
confounds what is civil practice with natural right.
On the merits of the pamphlet I say nothing of course; having
found it necessary to decline giving opinions on books even
when desired. For the functions of a reviewer, I have neither
time, talent, nor inclination, and I trust that on reflection your
indulgence will not think unreasonable my unwillingness to embark
in an office of so little enticement. With my thanks for the
pamphlet, be pleased to accept the assurance of my great respect.
Monticello, October 4, 1823.
Sir,—You must, I think, have somewhat misunderstood what
I may have said to you as to manuscripts in my possession relating
to the antiquities, and particularly the Indian antiquities
of our country. The only manuscripts I now possess are some
folio volumes, two of these are the proceedings of the Virginia
Company in England; the remaining four are of the Records of
the Council of Virginia from 1622 to 1700. The account of
the two first volumes you will see in the preface to Stith's History
of Virginia. They contain the records of the Virginia company,
copied from the originals, under the eye, if I recollect
rightly, of the Earl of Southampton, a member of the company,
bought at the sale of his library by Doctor Byrd, of Westover,
and sold with that library to Isaac Zane. These volumes happened
at the time of the sale, to have been borrowed by Colonel
R. Bland, whose library I bought, and with this, they were sent
to me. I gave notice of it to Mr. Zane, but he never reclaimed
them. I shall deposit them in the library of the university,
where they will be most likely to be preserved with care. The
other four volumes, I am confident, are the original office records
of the council. My conjectures are that when Sr. John Randolph
was about to begin the History of Virginia which he meant
to write, he borrowed these volumes from the council office, to
collect from them materials for his work. He died before he
had made any progress in that work, and they remained in his
library, probably unobserved, during the whole life of the late
Peyton Randolph, his son; from his executors I purchased his
library in a lump, and these volumes were sent to me as a part
of it. I found the leaves so rotten as often to crumble into dust
on being handled; I bound them, therefore, together, that they
might not be unnecessarily opened, and have thus preserved them
forty-seven years. If my conjectures are right, they must have
been out of the public office about eighty years. I shall deposit
them also with the others in the same library of the university,
where they will be safer from injury than in a public office. I
have promised, however, to trust them to Mr. Hening, if he will
copy and publish them when he shall have finished his collection
of the laws. For this he is peculiarly qualified, as well by
his diligence as by his familiarity with our ancient manuscript
characters, a familiarity very necessary for decyphering these
volumes.
I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to
use all the opportunities which occur to him, for preserving documents
relating to the history of our country. That I have not
been remiss in this while I had youth, health, and opportunity,
is proved otherwise, as well as by the materials I furnished towards
Mr. Hening's invaluable collection of the laws of our country;
but there is a time, and that time is come with me, when
these duties are no more, when age and the wane of mind and
memory, and the feebleness of the powers of life pass them over
as a legacy to younger hands. I write now slowly, laboriously,
painfully. I am obliged, therefore, to decline all correspondence
which some moral duty does not urgently call on me to answer.
I always trust that those who write them will read their answer
in my age and silence, and see in these a manifestation that I am
done with writing letters. I am sorry, therefore, that I am not
able to give any aid to the work you contemplate, other than my
best wishes for its success, and to these I add the assurance of
my great respect.
Monticello, October 12, 1823.
Dear Sir,—I do not write with the ease which your letter of
September the 18th supposes. Crippled wrists and fingers make
writing slow and laborious. But while writing to you, I lose
the sense of these things in the recollection of ancient times,
when youth and health made happiness out of everything. I
forget for a while the hoary winter of age, when we can think
of nothing but how to keep ourselves warm, and how to get rid
of our heavy hours until the friendly hand of death shall rid us
of all at once. Against this tedium vitæ, however, I am fortunately
mounted on a hobby, which, indeed, I should have better
managed some thirty or forty years ago; but whose easy amble
is still sufficient to give exercise and amusement to an octogenary
rider. This is the establishment of a University, on a scale more
comprehensive, and in a country more healthy and central than
our old William and Mary, which these obstacles have long kept
in a state of languor and inefficiency. But the tardiness with
which such works proceed, may render it doubtful whether I shall
live to see it go into action.
Putting aside these things, however, for the present, I write
this letter as due to a friendship coeval with our government,
and now attempted to be poisoned, when too late in life to be
replaced by new affections. I had for sometime observed in the
public papers, dark hints and mysterious innuendos of a correspondence
of yours with a friend, to whom you had opened your
bosom without reserve, and which was to be made public by
that friend or his representative. And now it is said to be actually
published. It has not yet reached us, but extracts have
been given, and such as seemed most likely to draw a curtain of
separation between you and myself. Were there no other motive
than that of indignation against the author of this outrage on
private confidence, whose shaft seems to have been aimed at
yourself more particularly, this would make it the duty of every
honorable mind to disappoint that aim, by opposing to its impression
a seven-fold shield of apathy and insensibility. With
me, however, no such armor is needed. The circumstances of
the times in which we have happened to live, and the partiality
of our friends at a particular period, placed us in a state of apparent
opposition, which some might suppose to be personal
also; and there might not be wanting those who wished to make
it so, by filling our ears with malignant falsehoods, by dressing
up hideous phantoms of their own creation, presenting them to
you under my name, to me under yours, and endeavoring to instil
into our minds things concerning each other the most destitute
of truth. And if there had been, at any time, a moment
when we were off our guard, and in a temper to let the whispers
of these people make us forget what we had known of each
other for so many years, and years of so much trial, yet all men
who have attended to the workings of the human mind, who
have seen the false colors under which passion sometimes dresses
the actions and motives of others, have seen also those passions
subsiding with time and reflection, dissipating like mists before
the rising sun, and restoring to us the sight of all things in their
true shape and colors. It would be strange indeed, if, at our
years, we were to go back an age to hunt up imaginary or forgotten
facts, to disturb the repose of affections so sweetening to
the evening of our lives. Be assured, my dear Sir, that I am
incapable of receiving the slightest impression from the effort
now made to plant thorns on the pillow of age, worth and wisdom,
and to sow tares between friends who have been such for
near half a century. Beseeching you then, not to suffer your
mind to be disquieted by this wicked attempt to poison its peace,
and praying you to throw it by among the things which have
never happened, I add sincere assurances of my unabated and
constant attachment, friendship and respect.
Monticello, October 24, 1823.
Dear Sir,—The question presented by the letters you have
sent me, is the most momentous which has ever been offered to
my contemplation since that of Independence. That made us a
nation, this sets our compass and points the course which we are
to steer through the ocean of time opening on us. And never
could we embark on it under circumstances more auspicious.
Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to entangle
ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second, never to suffer
Europe to intermeddle with Cis-Atlantic affairs. America, North
and South, has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe,
and peculiarly her own. She should therefore have a system of
her own, separate and apart from that of Europe. While the last
is laboring to become the domicil of despotism, our endeavor
should surely be, to make our hemisphere that of freedom. One
nation, most of all, could disturb us in this pursuit; she now
offers to lead, aid, and accompany us in it. By acceding to her
proposition, we detach her from the bands, bring her mighty
weight into the scale of free government, and emancipate a continent
at one stroke, which might otherwise linger long in doubt
and difficulty. Great Britain is the nation which can do us the
most harm of any one, or all on earth; and with her on our side
we need not fear the whole world. With her then, we should
most sedulously cherish a cordial friendship; and nothing would
tend more to knit our affections than to be fighting once more,
side by side, in the same cause. Not that I would purchase even
her amity at the price of taking part in her wars. But the war
in which the present proposition might engage us, should that
be its consequence, is not her war, but ours. Its object is to introduce
and establish the American system, of keeping out of
our land all foreign powers, of never permitting those of Europe
to intermeddle with the affairs of our nations. It is to maintain
our own principle, not to depart from it. And if, to facilitate
this, we can effect a division in the body of the European powers,
and draw over to our side its most powerful member, surely we
should do it. But I am clearly of Mr. Canning's opinion, that
it will prevent instead of provoking war. With Great Britain
withdrawn from their scale and shifted into that of our two continents,
all Europe combined would not undertake such a war.
For how would they propose to get at either enemy without superior
fleets? Nor is the occasion to be slighted which this
proposition offers, of declaring our protest against the atrocious
violations of the rights of nations, by the interference of any one
in the internal affairs of another, so flagitiously begun by Bonaparte,
and now continued by the equally lawless Alliance, calling
itself Holy.
But we have first to ask ourselves a question. Do we wish to
acquire to our own confederacy any one or more of the Spanish
provinces? I candidly confess, that I have ever looked on Cuba
as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our
system of States. The control which, with Florida Point, this
island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries
and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters
flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being.
Yet, as I am sensible that this can never be obtained, even with
her own consent, but by war; and its independence, which is our
second interest, (and especially its independence of England,) can
be secured without it, I have no hesitation in abandoning my first
wish to future chances, and accepting its independence, with
peace and the friendship of England, rather than its association,
at the expense of war and her enmity.
I could honestly, therefore, join in the declaration proposed,
that we aim not at the acquisition of any of those possessions,
that we will not stand in the way of any amicable arrangement
between them and the mother country; but that we will oppose,
with all our means, the forcible interposition of any other power,
as auxiliary, stipendiary, or under any other form or pretext, and
most especially, their transfer to any power by conquest, cession,
or acquisition in any other way. I should think it, therefore,
advisable, that the Executive should encourage the British government
to a continuance in the dispositions expressed in these
letters, by an assurance of his concurrence with them as far as his
authority goes; and that as it may lead to war, the declaration of
which requires an act of Congress, the case shall be laid before
them for consideration at their first meeting, and under the reasonable
aspect in which it is seen by himself.
I have been so long weaned from political subjects, and have
so long ceased to take any interest in them, that I am sensible I
am not qualified to offer opinions on them worthy of any attention.
But the question now proposed involves consequences so
lasting, and effects so decisive of our future destinies, as to rekindle
all the interest I have heretofore felt on such occasions,
and to induce me to the hazard of opinions, which will prove
only my wish to contribute still my mite towards anything which
may be useful to our country. And praying you to accept it at
only what it is worth, I add the assurance of my constant and
affectionate friendship and respect.
Monticello, October 31, 1823.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of July 10th is lately received. I recollect
with pleasure the short opportunity of acquaintance with
you afforded me in Paris, by the kindness of Mr. Paradise, and
the fine editions of the classical writers of Greece which have
been announced by you from time to time, have never permitted
me to lose the recollection. Until those of Aristotle's Ethics, and
the Strategicos of Onesander, with which you have now favored
me, and for which I pray you to accept my thanks, I had seen
only your Lives of Plutarch. These I had read, and profited
much by your valuable Scholia, and the aid of a few words from
a modern Greek dictionary would, I believe, have enabled me to
read your patriotic addresses to your countrymen.
You have certainly begun at the right end towards preparing
them for the great object they are now contending for, by improving
their minds and qualifying them for self-government.
For this they will owe you lasting honors. Nothing is more
likely to forward this object than a study of the fine models of
science left by their ancestors, to whom we also are all indebted
for the lights which originally led ourselves out of Gothic darkness.
No people sympathize more feelingly than ours with the sufferings
of your countrymen, none offer more sincere and ardent
prayers to heaven for their success. And nothing indeed but the
fundamental principle of our government, never to entangle us
with the broils of Europe, could restrain our generous youth from
taking some part in this holy cause. Possessing ourselves the
combined blessing of liberty and order, we wish the same to
other countries, and to none more than yours, which, the first of
civilized nations, presented examples of what man should be.
Not, indeed, that the forms of government adapted to their age
and country are practicable or to be imitated in our day, although
prejudices in their favor would be natural enough to your people.
The circumstances of the world are too much changed for that.
The government of Athens, for example, was that of the people
of one city making laws for the whole country subjected to
them. That of Lacedæmon was the rule of military monks
over the laboring class of the people, reduced to abject slavery.
These are not the doctrines of the present age. The equal rights
of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged
to be the only legitimate objects of government. Modern
times have the signal advantage, too, of having discovered the
only device by which these rights can be secured, to-wit: government
by the people, acting not in person, but by representatives
chosen by themselves, that is to say, by every man of ripe
years and sane mind, who either contributes by his purse or person
to the support of his country. The small and imperfect mixture
of representative government in England, impeded as it is by
other branches, aristocratical and hereditary, shows yet the power
of the representative principle towards improving the condition
of man. With us, all the branches of the government are elective
by the people themselves, except the Judiciary, of whose science
and qualifications they are not competent judges. Yet, even in
that department, we call in a jury of the people to decide all controverted
matters of fact, because to that investigation they are
entirely competent, leaving thus as little as possible, merely the
law of the case, to the decision of the judges. And true it is
that the people, especially when moderately instructed, are the
only safe, because the only honest, depositories of the public
rights, and should therefore be introduced into the administration
of them in every function to which they are sufficient; they
will err sometimes and accidentally, but never designedly, and
with a systematic and persevering purpose of overthrowing the
free principles of the government. Hereditary bodies, on the
contrary, always existing, always on the watch for their own
aggrandizement, profit of every opportunity of advancing the
privileges of their order, and encroaching on the rights of the
people.
The public papers tell us that your nation has established a
government of some kind without informing us what it is. This
is certainly necessary for the direction of the war, but I presume
it is intended to be temporary only, as a permanent constitution
must be the work of quiet, leisure, much inquiry, and great deliberation.
The extent of our country was so great, and its
former division into distinct States so established, that we thought
it better to confederate as to foreign affairs only. Every State
retained its self-government in domestic matters, as better qualified
to direct them to the good and satisfaction of their citizens,
than a general government so distant from its remoter citizens,
and so little familiar with the local peculiarities of the different
parts. But I presume that the extent of country with you, which
may liberate itself from the Turks, is not too large to be associated
under a single government, and that the particular constitutions
of our several States, therefore, and not that of our federal
government, will furnish the basis best adapted to your situation.
There are now twenty-four of these distinct States, none smaller
perhaps than your Morea, several larger than all Greece. Each
of these has a constitution framed by itself and for itself, but militating
in nothing with the powers of the general government in
its appropriate department of war and foreign affairs. These
constitutions being in print and in every hand, I shall only make
brief observations on them, and on those provisions particularly
which have not fulfilled expectations, or which, being varied in
different States, leave a choice to be made of that which is best.
You will find much good in all of them, and no one which
would be approved in all its parts. Such indeed are the different
circumstances, prejudices, and habits of different nations, that
the constitution of no one would be reconcilable to any other in
every point. A judicious selection of the parts of each suitable
to any other, is all which prudence should attempt; this will appear
from a review of some parts of our constitutions.
Our executives are elected by the people for terms of one, two,
three, or four years, under the names of governors or presidents,
and are reëligible a second time, or after a certain term, if approved
by the people. May your Ethnarch be elective also? or
does your position among the warring powers of Europe need an
office more permanent, and a leader more stable? Surely you
will make him single. For if experience has ever taught a truth,
it is that a plurality in the supreme executive will forever split
into discordant factions, distract the nation, annihilate its energies,
and force the nation to rally under a single head, generally
an usurper. We have, I think, fallen on the happiest of all
modes of constituting the executive, that of easing and aiding
our President, by permitting him to choose Secretaries of State,
of finance, of war, and of the navy, with whom he may advise,
either separately or all together, and remedy their divisions by
adopting or controlling their opinions at his discretion; this saves
the nation from the evils of a divided will, and secures to it a
steady march in the systematic course which the president may
have adopted for that of his administration.
Our legislatures are composed of two houses, the senate and
representatives, elected in different modes, and for different periods,
and in some States, with a qualified veto in the executive
chief. But to avoid all temptation to superior pretensions of the
one over the other house, and the possibility of either erecting
itself into a privileged order, might it not be better to choose at
the same time and in the same mode, a body sufficiently numerous
to be divided by lot into two separate houses, acting as independently
as the two houses in England, or in our governments,
and to shuffle their names together and re-distribute them by lot,
once a week for a fortnight? This would equally give the
benefit of time and separate deliberation, guard against an absolute
passage by acclamation, derange cabals, intrigues, and the
count of noses, disarm the ascendency which a popular demagogue
might at anytime obtain over either house, and render
impossible all disputes between the two houses, which often form
such obstacles to business.
Our different States have differently modified their several judiciaries
as to the tenure of office. Some appoint their judges
for a given term of time; some continue them during good behavior,
and that to be determined on by the concurring vote of
two-thirds of each legislative house. In England they are removable
by a majority only of each house. The last is a practicable
remedy; the second is not. The combination of the
friends and associates of the accused, the action of personal and
party passions, and the sympathies of the human heart, will forever
find means of influencing one-third of either the one or the
other house, will thus secure their impunity, and establish them
in fact for life. The first remedy is the best, that of appointing
for a term of years only, with a capacity of re-appointment if
their conduct has been approved. At the establishment of our
constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most
helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience,
however, soon showed in what way they were to become the
most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for
their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office;
that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only,
pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions,
nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little
and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its
change by construction, before any one has perceived that that
invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming
its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted
for life, if secured against all liability to account.
The constitutions of some of our States have made it a duty
of their government to provide with due care for the public education.
This we divide into three grades. 1. Primary schools,
in which are taught reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to
every infant of the State, male and female. 2. Intermediate
schools, in which an education is given proper for artificers and
the middle vocations of life; in grammar, for example, general
history, logarithms, arithmetic, plain trigonometry, mensuration,
the use of the globes, navigation, the mechanical principles, the
elements of natural philosophy, and, as a preparation for the University,
the Greek and Latin languages. 3. An University, in
which these and all other useful sciences shall be taught in their
highest degree; the expenses of these institutions are defrayed
partly by the public, and partly by the individuals profiting of them.
But, whatever be the constitution, great care must be taken to
provide a mode of amendment, when experience or change of
circumstances shall have manifested that any part of it is unadapted
to the good of the nation. In some of our States it requires
a new authority from the whole people, acting by their
representatives, chosen for this express purpose, and assembled
in convention. This is found too difficult for remedying the imperfections
which experience develops from time to time in an
organization of the first impression. A greater facility of amendment
is certainly requisite to maintain it in a course of action accommodated
to the times and changes through which we are
ever passing. In England the constitution may be altered by a
single act of the legislature, which amounts to the having no
constitution at all. In some of our States, an act passed by two
different legislatures, chosen by the people, at different and successive
elections, is sufficient to make a change in the constitution.
As this mode may be rendered more or less easy, by requiring
the approbation of fewer or more successive legislatures,
according to the degree of difficulty thought sufficient, and yet
safe, it is evidently the best principle which can be adopted for
constitutional amendments.
I have stated that the constitutions of our several States vary
more or less in some particulars. But there are certain principles
in which all agree, and which all cherish as vitally essential to
the protection of the life, liberty, property, and safety of the
citizen.
1. Freedom of religion, restricted only from acts of trespass on
that of others.
2. Freedom of person, securing every one from imprisonment,
or other bodily restraint, but by the laws of the land. This is
effected by the well-known law of habeas corpus.
3. Trial by jury, the best of all safe-guards for the person, the
property, and the fame of every individual.
4. The exclusive right of legislation and taxation in the representatives
of the people.
5. Freedom of the press, subject only to liability for personal
injuries. This formidable censor of the public functionaries, by
arraigning them at the tribunal of public opinion, produces reform
peaceably, which must otherwise be done by revolution. It is
also the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and
improving him as a rational, moral, and social being.
I have thus, dear Sir, according to your request, given you
some thoughts on the subject of national government. They are
the result of the observations and reflections of an octogenary,
who has passed fifty years of trial and trouble in the various
grades of his country's service. They are yet but outlines which
you will better fill up, and accommodate to the habits and circumstances
of your countrymen. Should they furnish a single
idea which may be useful to them, I shall fancy it a tribute rendered
to the manes of your Homer, your Demosthenes, and the
splendid constellation of sages and heroes, whose blood is still
flowing in your veins, and whose merits are still resting, as a
heavy debt, on the shoulders of the living, and the future races
of men. While we offer to heaven the warmest supplications
for the restoration of your countrymen to the freedom and science
of their ancestors, permit me to assure yourself of the cordial esteem
and high respect which I bear and cherish towards yourself
personally.
Monticello, November 4, 1823.
My Dear Friend,—Two dislocated wrists and crippled fingers
have rendered writing so slow and laborious, as to oblige me to
withdraw from nearly all correspondence; not however, from
yours, while I can make a stroke with a pen. We have gone
through too many trying scenes together, to forget the sympathies
and affections they nourished.
Your trials have indeed been long and severe. When they
will end, is yet unknown, but where they will end, cannot be
doubted. Alliances, Holy or Hellish, may be formed, and retard
the epoch of deliverance, may swell the rivers of blood which
are yet to flow, but their own will close the scene, and leave to
mankind the right of self-government. I trust that Spain will
prove, that a nation cannot be conquered which determines not
to be so, and that her success will be the turning of the tide of
liberty, no more to be arrested by human efforts. Whether the
state of society in Europe can bear a republican government, I
doubted, you know, when with you, and I do now. A hereditary
chief, strictly limited, the right of war vested in the legislative
body, a rigid economy of the public contributions, and absolute
interdiction of all useless expenses, will go far towards keeping
the government honest and unoppressive. But the only security
of all, is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot
be resisted, when permitted freely to be expressed. The
agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to
keep the waters pure.
We are all, for example, in agitation even in our peaceful
country. For in peace as well as in war, the mind must be kept
in motion. Who is to be the next President, is the topic here
of every conversation. My opinion on that subject is what I expressed
to you in my last letter. The question will be ultimately
reduced to the northernmost and southernmost candidate.
The former will get every federal vote in the Union, and many
republicans; the latter, all of those denominated of the old school;
for you are not to believe that these two parties are amalgamated,
that the lion and the lamb are lying down together. The
Hartford Convention, the victory of Orleans, the peace of Ghent,
prostrated the name of federalism. Its votaries abandoned it
through shame and mortification; and now call themselves republicans.
But the name alone is changed, the principles are
the same. For in truth, the parties of Whig and Tory, are those
of nature. They exist in all countries, whether called by these
names, or by those of Aristocrats and Democrats, Coté Droite and
Coté Gauche, Ultras and Radicals, Serviles, and Liberals. The
sickly, weakly, timid man, fears the people, and is a tory by nature.
The healthy, strong and bold, cherishes them, and is
formed a whig by nature. On the eclipse of federalism with us,
although not its extinction, its leaders got up the Missouri question,
under the false front of lessening the measure of slavery,
but with the real view of producing a geographical division of
parties, which might insure them the next President. The people
of the north went blindfold into the snare, followed their
leaders for awhile with a zeal truly moral and laudable, until
they became sensible that they were injuring instead of aiding
the real interests of the slaves, that they had been used merely
as tools for electioneering purposes; and that trick of hypocrisy
then fell as quickly as it had been got up. To that is now succeeding
a distinction, which, like that of republican and federal,
or whig and tory, being equally intermixed through every State,
threatens none of those geographical schisms which go immediately
to a separation. The line of division now, is the preservation
of State rights as reserved in the constitution, or by strained
constructions of that instrument, to merge all into a consolidated
government. The tories are for strengthening the executive and
general Government; the whigs cherish the representative branch,
and the rights reserved by the States, as the bulwark against
consolidation, which must immediately generate monarchy. And
although this division excites, as yet, no warmth, yet it exists, is
well understood, and will be a principle of voting at the ensuing
election, with the reflecting men of both parties.
I thank you much for the two books you were so kind as to
send me by Mr. Gallatin. Miss Wright had before favored me
with the first edition of her American work; but her "Few days
in Athens," was entirely new, and has been a treat to me of the
highest order. The matter and manner of the dialogue is strictly
ancient; and the principles of the sects are beautifully and
candidly explained and contrasted; and the scenery and portraiture
of the interlocutors are of higher finish than anything in that
line left us by the ancients; and like Ossian, if not ancient, it is
equal to the best morsels of antiquity. I augur, from this instance,
that Herculaneum is likely to furnish better specimens
of modern than of ancient genius; and may we not hope more
from the same pen?
After much sickness, and the accident of a broken and disabled
arm, I am again in tolerable health, but extremely debilitated,
so as to be scarcely able to walk into my garden. The hebetude
of age, too, and extinguishment of interest in the things
around me, are weaning me from them, and dispose me with
cheerfulness to resign them to the existing generation, satisfied
that the daily advance of science will enable them to administer
the commonwealth with increased wisdom. You have still many
valuable years to give to your country, and with my prayers that
they may be years of health and happiness, and especially that
they may see the establishment of the principles of government
which you have cherished through life, accept the assurance of
my affectionate and constant friendship and respect.
Monticello, January 29, 1824.
Sir,—I have duly received your favor of the 14th, with a copy
of your mathematical principles of natural philosophy, which I
have looked into with all the attention which the rust of age and
long continued avocations of a very different character permit me
to exercise. I think them entirely worthy of approbation, both
as to matter and method, and for their brevity as a text book;
and I remark particularly the clearness and precision with which
the propositions are enounced, and, in the demonstrations, the
easy form in which ideas are presented to the mind, so as to be
almost intuitive and self-evident. Of Cavallo's book, which you
say you are enjoined to teach, I have no knowledge, having
never seen it; but its character is, I think, that of mere mediocrity;
and, from my personal acquaintance with the man, I should
expect no more. He was heavy, capable enough of understanding
what he read, and with memory to retain it, but without the
talent of digestion or improvement. But, indeed, the English
generally have been very stationary in latter times, and the
French, on the contrary, so active and successful, particularly in
preparing elementary books, in the mathematical and natural
sciences, that those who wish for instruction, without caring from
what nation they get it, resort universally to the latter language.
Besides the earlier and invaluable works of Euler and Bezont,
we have latterly that of Lacroix in mathematics, of Legendre in
geometry, Lavoisier in chemistry, the elementary works of Haüy
in physics, Biot in experimental physics and physical astronomy,
Dumeril in natural history, to say nothing of many detached essays
of Monge and others, and the transcendent labors of Laplace, and
I am informed, by a highly instructed person recently from Cambridge,
that the mathematicians of that institution, sensible of being
in the rear of those of the continent, and ascribing the cause
much to their too long-continued preference of the geometrical
over the analytical methods, which the French have so much cultivated
and improved, have now adopted the latter; and that
they have also given up the fluxionary, for the differential calculus.
To confine a school, therefore, to the obsolete work of
Cavallo, is to shut out all advances in the physical sciences
which have been so great in latter times. I am glad, however,
to learn from your work, and to expect from those it promised in
succession, which will doubtless be of equal grade, that so good
a course of instruction is pursued in William and Mary. It is
very long since I have had any information of the state of education
in that seminary, to which, as my alma mater, my attachment
has been ever sincere, although not exclusive. When
that college was located at the middle plantation in 1693, Charles
city was a frontier county, and there were no inhabitants above
the falls of the rivers, sixty miles only higher up. It was, therefore,
a position, nearly central to the population, as it then was;
but when the frontier became extended to the Sandy river, three
hundred miles west of Williamsburg, the public convenience
called, first for a removal of the seat of government, and latterly,
not for a removal of the college, but, for the establishment of a
new one, in a more central and healthy situation; not disturbing
the old one in its possessions or functions, but leaving them unimpaired
for the benefit of those to whom it is convenient. And
indeed, I do not foresee that the number of its students is likely
to be much affected; because I presume that, at present, its distance
and autumnal climate prevent its receiving many students
from above the tide-waters, and especially from above the mountains.
This is, therefore, one of the cases where the lawyers say
there is damnum absque injuriâ; and they instance, as in point,
the settlement of a new schoolmaster in the neighborhood of an
old one. At any rate it is one of those cases wherein the public
interest rightfully prevails, and the justice of which will be yielded
to by none, I am sure, with more dutiful and candid acquiescence
than the enlightened friends of our ancient and venerable
institution. The only rivalship, I hope, between the old and the
new, will be in doing the most good possible in their respective
sections of country.
As the diagrams of your book have not been engraved, I return
you the MS. of them, which must be of value to yourself.
They furnish favorable specimens of the graphical talent of your
former pupil. Permit me to add, that I shall always be ready
and happy to receive with particular welcome the visit of which
you flatter me with the hope, and to avail myself of the occasion
of assuring you personally of my great respect and esteem.
Monticello, February 3, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I am favored with your two letters of January the
26th and 29th, and I am glad that yourself and the friends of
the University are so well satisfied, that the provisos amendatory
of the University Act are mere nullities. I had not been able to
put out of my head the Algebraical equation, which was among
the first of my college lessons, that a-a=0. Yet I cheerfully
arrange myself to your opinions. I did not suppose, nor do I
now suppose it possible, that both houses of the legislature should
ever consent, for an additional fifteen thousand dollars of revenue,
to set all the Professors and students of the University adrift;
and if foreigners will have the same confidence which we have
in our legislature, no harm will have been done by the provisos.
You recollect that we had agreed that the Visitors who are of
the legislature should fix on a certain day of meeting, after the
rising of the Assembly, to put into immediate motion the measures
which this act was expected to call for. You will of course
remind the Governor that a re-appointment of Visitors is to be
made on the day following Sunday, the 29th of this month; and
as he is to appoint the day of their first meeting, it would be well
to recommend to him that which our brethren there shall fix on.
It may be designated by the Governor as the third, fourth, &c.,
day after the rising of the legislature, which will give it certainty
enough.
You ask what sum would be desirable for the purchase of books
and apparatus? Certainly the largest you can obtain. Forty or
fifty thousand dollars would enable us to purchase the most essential
books of texts and reference for the schools, and such an
apparatus for mathematics, astronomy and chemistry, as may enable
us to set out with tolerable competence, if we can, through
the banks and otherwise, anticipate the whole sum at once.
I remark what you say on the subject of committing ourselves
to any one for the law appointment. Your caution is perfectly
just. I hope, and am certain, that this will be the standing law
of discretion and duty with every member of our board, in this
and all cases. You know we have all, from the beginning, considered
the high qualifications of our professors, as the only
means by which we could give to our institution splendor and
pre-eminence over all its sister seminaries. The only question,
therefore, we can ever ask ourselves, as to any candidate, will
be, is he the most highly qualified? The college of Philadelphia
has lost its character of primacy by indulging motives of
favoritism and nepotism, and by conferring the appointments as
if the professorships were entrusted to them as provisions for
their friends. And even that of Edinburgh, you know, is also
much lowered from the same cause. We are next to observe,
that a man is not qualified for a professor, knowing nothing but
merely his own profession. He should be otherwise well educated
as to the sciences generally; able to converse understandingly
with the scientific men with whom he is associated, and to assist
in the councils of the faculty on any subject of science on
which they may have occasion to deliberate. Without this, he
will incur their contempt, and bring disreputation on the institution.
With respect to the professorship you mention, I scarcely
know any of our judges personally; but I will name, for example,
the late Judge Roane, who, I believe, was generally admitted
to be among the ablest of them. His knowledge was confined
to the common law chiefly, which does not constitute one-half
of the qualification of a really learned lawyer, much less that
of a professor of law for an University. And as to any other
branches of science, he must have stood mute in the presence of
his literary associates, or of any learned strangers or others visiting
the University. Would this constitute the splendid stand we
propose to take?
In the course of the trusts I have exercised through life with
powers of appointment, I can say with truth, and with unspeakable
comfort, that I never did appoint a relation to office, and
that merely because I never saw the case in which some one did
not offer, or occur, better qualified; and I have the most unlimited
confidence, that in the appointment of Professors to our nursling
institution, every individual of my associates will look with a single
eye to the sublimation of its character, and adopt, as our sacred
motto, "detur digniori." In this way it will honor us, and bless
our country.
I perceive that I have permitted my reflections to run into
generalities beyond the scope of the particular intimation in your
letter. I will let them go, however, as a general confession of
faith, not belonging merely to the present case.
Name me affectionately to our brethren with you, and be assured
yourself of my constant friendship and respect.
Monticello, February 4, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I duly received your favor of the 13th, and with
it, the last number of the North American Review. This has
anticipated the one I should receive in course, but have not yet
received, under my subscription to the new series. The article
on the African colonization of the people of color, to which you
invite my attention, I have read with great consideration. It is,
indeed, a fine one, and will do much good. I learn from it more,
too, than I had before known, of the degree of success and promise
of that colony.
In the disposition of these unfortunate people, there are two
rational objects to be distinctly kept in view. First. The establishment
of a colony on the coast of Africa, which may introduce
among the aborigines the arts of cultivated life, and the
blessings of civilization and science. By doing this, we may
make to them some retribution for the long course of injuries we
have been committing on their population. And considering
that these blessings will descend to the "nati natorum, et qui
nascentur ab illis," we shall in the long run have rendered them
perhaps more good than evil. To fulfil this object, the colony
of Sierra Leone promises well, and that of Mesurado adds to our
prospect of success. Under this view, the colonization society
is to be considered as a missionary society, having in view, however,
objects more humane, more justifiable, and less aggressive
on the peace of other nations, than the others of that appellation.
The second object, and the most interesting to us, as coming
home to our physical and moral characters, to our happiness and
safety, is to provide an asylum to which we can, by degrees, send
the whole of that population from among us, and establish them
under our patronage and protection, as a separate, free and independent
people, in some country and climate friendly to human
life and happiness. That any place on the coast of Africa should
answer the latter purpose, I have ever deemed entirely impossible.
And without repeating the other arguments which have been urged
by others, I will appeal to figures only, which admit no controversy.
I shall speak in round numbers, not absolutely accurate,
yet not so wide from truth as to vary the result materially.
There are in the United States a million and a half of people of
color in slavery. To send off the whole of these at once, nobody
conceives to be practicable for us, or expedient for them.
Let us take twenty-five years for its accomplishment, within
which time they will be doubled. Their estimated value as property,
in the first place, (for actual property has been lawfully
vested in that form, and who can lawfully take it from the possessors?)
at an average of two hundred dollars each, young and
old, would amount to six hundred millions of dollars, which must
be paid or lost by somebody. To this, add the cost of their
transportation by land and sea to Mesurado, a year's provision of
food and clothing, implements of husbandry and of their trades,
which will amount to three hundred millions more, making
thirty-six millions of dollars a year for twenty-five years, with
insurance of peace all that time, and it is impossible to look at
the question a second time. I am aware that at the end of about
sixteen years, a gradual detraction from this sum will commence,
from the gradual diminution of breeders, and go on during the
remaining nine years. Calculate this deduction, and it is still
impossible to look at the enterprise a second time. I do not say
this to induce an inference that the getting rid of them is forever
impossible. For that is neither my opinion nor my hope. But
only that it cannot be done in this way. There is, I think, a
way in which it can be done; that is, by emancipating the after-born,
leaving them, on due compensation, with their mothers,
until their services are worth their maintenance, and then putting
them to industrious occupations, until a proper age for deportation.
This was the result of my reflections on the subject
five and forty years ago, and I have never yet been able to conceive
any other practicable plan. It was sketched in the Notes
on Virginia, under the fourteenth query. The estimated value
of the new-born infant is so low, (say twelve dollars and fifty
cents,) that it would probably be yielded by the owner gratis,
and would thus reduce the six hundred millions of dollars, the
first head of expense, to thirty-seven millions and a half; leaving
only the expenses of nourishment while with the mother, and
of transportation. And from what fund are these expenses to
be furnished? Why not from that of the lands which have
been ceded by the very States now needing this relief? And
ceded on no consideration, for the most part, but that of the general
good of the whole. These cessions already constitute one
fourth of the States of the Union. It may be said that these
lands have been sold; are now the property of the citizens composing
those States; and the money long ago received and expended.
But an equivalent of lands in the territories since acquired,
may be appropriated to that object, or so much, at least,
as may be sufficient; and the object, although more important
to the slave States, is highly so to the others also, if they were
serious in their arguments on the Missouri question. The slave
States, too, if more interested, would also contribute more by
their gratuitous liberation, thus taking on themselves alone the
first and heaviest item of expense.
In the plan sketched in the Notes on Virginia, no particular
place of asylum was specified; because it was thought possible,
that in the revolutionary state of America, then commenced,
events might open to us some one within practicable distance.
This has now happened. St. Domingo has become independent,
and with a population of that color only; and if the public papers
are to be credited, their Chief offers to pay their passage, to receive
them as free citizens, and to provide them employment.
This leaves, then, for the general confederacy, no expense but of
nurture with the mother a few years, and would call, of course,
for a very moderate appropriation of the vacant lands. Suppose
the whole annual increase to be of sixty thousand effective births,
fifty vessels, of four hundred tons burthen each, constantly employed
in that short run, would carry off the increase of every
year, and the old stock would die off in the ordinary course of
nature, lessening from the commencement until its final disappearance.
In this way no violation of private right is proposed
Voluntary surrenders would probably come in as fast as the means
to be provided for their care would be competent to it. Looking
at my own State only, and I presume not to speak for the others,
I verily believe that this surrender of property would not amount
to more, annually, than half our present direct taxes, to be continued
fully about twenty or twenty-five years, and then gradually
diminishing for as many more until their final extinction; and
even this half tax would not be paid in cash, but by the delivery
of an object which they have never yet known or counted as part
of their property; and those not possessing the object will be called
on for nothing. I do not go into all the details of the burthens
and benefits of this operation. And who could estimate its blessed
effects? I leave this to those who will live to see their accomplishment,
and to enjoy a beatitude forbidden to my age. But I
leave it with this admonition, to rise and be doing. A million
and a half are within their control; but six millions, (which a
majority of those now living will see them attain,) and one million
of these fighting men, will say, "we will not go."
I am aware that this subject involves some constitutional scruples.
But a liberal construction, justified by the object, may go
far, and an amendment of the constitution, the whole length necessary.
The separation of infants from their mothers, too, would
produce some scruples of humanity. But this would be straining
at a gnat, and swallowing a camel.
I am much pleased to see that you have taken up the subject
of the duty on imported books. I hope a crusade will be kept
up against it, until those in power shall become sensible of this
stain on our legislation, and shall wipe it from their code, and from
the remembrance of man, if possible.
I salute you with assurances of high respect and esteem.
Monticello, February 14, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I have to thank you for the copy of Colonel Taylor's
New Views of the Constitution, and shall read them with
the satisfaction and edification which I have ever derived from
whatever he has written. But I fear it is the voice of one crying
in the wilderness. Those who formerly usurped the name of
federalists, which, in fact, they never were, have now openly
abandoned it, and are as openly marching by the road of construction,
in a direct line to that consolidation which was always
their real object. They, almost to a man, are in possession of
one branch of the government, and appear to be very strong in
yours. The three great questions of amendment now before
you, will give the measure of their strength. I mean, 1st, the
limitation of the term of the presidential service; 2d, the placing
the choice of president effectually in the hands of the people;
3d, the giving to Congress the power of internal improvement,
on condition that each State's federal proportion of the monies
so expended, shall be employed within the State. The friends
of consolidation would rather take these powers by construction
than accept them by direct investiture from the States. Yet, as
to internal improvement particularly, there is probably not a
State in the Union which would not grant the power on the condition
proposed, or which would grant it without that.
The best general key for the solution of questions of power
between our governments, is the fact that "every foreign and
federal power is given to the federal government, and to the
States every power purely domestic." I recollect but one instance
of control vested in the federal, over the State authorities
in a matter purely domestic, which is that of metallic tenders.
The federal is, in truth, our foreign government, which department
alone is taken from the sovereignty of the separate States.
The real friends of the constitution in its federal form, if they
wish it to be immortal, should be attentive, by amendments, to
make it keep pace with the advance of the age in science and
experience. Instead of this, the European governments have resisted
reformation, until the people, seeing no other resource, undertake
it themselves by force, their only weapon, and work it
out through blood, desolation and long-continued anarchy. Here
it will be by large fragments breaking off, and refusing re-union
but on condition of amendment, or perhaps permanently. If I
can see these three great amendments prevail, I shall consider it
as a renewed extension of the term of our lease, shall live in
more confidence, and die in more hope. And I do trust that the
republican mass, which Colonel Taylor justly says is the real
federal one, is still strong enough to carry these truly federo-republican
amendments. With my prayers for the issue, accept
my friendly and respectful salutations.
Monticello, February 25, 1824.
Sir,—The kindness of the motive which led to the request of
your letter of the 14th instant, and which would give some value
to an article from me, renders compliance a duty of gratitude;
knowing nothing more moral, more sublime, more worthy of
your preservation than David's description of the good man, in
his 15th Psalm, I will here transcribe it from Brady & Tate's
version:
Lord, who's the happy man that may to thy blest courts repair,
Not stranger-like, to visit them, but to inhabit there?
'Tis he whose every thought and deed by rules of virtue moves,
Whose generous tongue disdains to speak the thing his heart disproves.
Who never did a slander forge, his neighbor's fame to wound,
Nor hearken to a false report by malice whispered round.
Who, vice, in all its pomp and power, can treat with just neglect;
And piety, though clothed in rags, religiously respect.
Who, to his plighted vows and trust, has ever firmly stood,
And though he promise to his loss he makes his promise good.
Whose soul in usury disdains his treasure to employ,
Whom no rewards can ever bribe the guiltless to destroy.
The man who by this steady course has happiness ensured,
When earth's foundation shakes, shall stand by providence secured.
Accept this as a testimony of my respect for your request, an
acknowledgment of a due sense of the favor of your opinion,
and an assurance of my good will and best wishes.
Monticello, March 24, 1824.
I have to thank you, dear Sir, for the copy I have received
of your System of Universal Science, for which, I presume, I
am indebted to yourself. It will be a monument of the learning
of the author and of the analyzing powers of his mind. Whether
it may be adopted in general use is yet to be seen. These analytical
views indeed must always be ramified according to their
object. Yours is on the great scale of a methodical encyclopedia
of all human sciences, taking for the basis of their distribution,
matter, mind, and the union of both. Lord Bacon founded
his first great division on the faculties of the mind which have
cognizance of these sciences. It does not seem to have been observed
by any one that the origination of this division was not
with him. It had been proposed by Charron more than twenty
years before, in his book de la Sagesse, B. 1, c. 14, and an imperfect
ascription of the sciences to these respective faculties was
there attempted. This excellent moral work was published in
1600. Lord Bacon is said not to have entered on his great work
until his retirement from public office in 1621. Where sciences
are to be arranged in accommodation to the schools of an university,
they will be grouped to coincide with the kindred qualifications
of Professors in ordinary. For a library, which was my
object, their divisions and subdivisions will be made such as to
throw convenient masses of books under each separate head.
Thus, in the library of a physician, the books of that science, of
which he has many, will be subdivided under many heads;
and these of law, of which he has few, will be placed under a
single one. The lawyer, again, will distribute his law books
under many subdivisions, his medical under a single one. Your
idea of making the subject matter of the sciences the basis of
their distribution, is certainly more reasonable than that of the
faculties to which they are addressed. The materialists will perhaps
criticize a basis, one-half of which they will say is a non-existence;
adhering to the axiom of Aristotle, "nihil est in intellectu
quod prius non fuerit in sensu," and affirming that we
can have no evidence of any existence which impresses no sense.
Of this opinion were most of the ancient philosophers, and several
of the early and orthodox fathers of the christian church. Indeed,
Jesus himself, the founder of our religion, was unquestionably a
materialist as to man. In all his doctrines of the resurrection, he
teaches expressly that the body is to rise in substance. In the
Apostles' Creed, we all declare that we believe in the "resurrection
of the body." Jesus said that God is spirit [πνευμα] without
defining it. Tertullian supplies the definition, "quis negabit
Deum esse corpus, etsi Deus Spiritus? spiritus etiam corporis
sui generis in suâ effigie." And Origen, "ασωματον accipi, docet,
pro eo quod non est simile huic nostro crassiori et visibli corpori,
sed quod est naturaliter subtile et velut aura tenue." The modern
philosophers mostly consider thought as a function of our material
organization; and Locke particularly among them, charges
with blasphemy those who deny that Omnipotence could give
the faculty of thinking to certain combinations of matter.
Were I to re-compose my tabular view of the sciences, I
should certainly transpose a particular branch. The naturalists,
you know, distribute the history of nature into three kingdoms
or departments: zoology, botany, mineralogy. Ideology or mind,
however, occupies so much space in the field of science, that we
might perhaps erect it into a fourth kingdom or department.
But, inasmuch as it makes a part of the animal construction only,
it would be more proper to subdivide zoology into physical and
moral. The latter including ideology, ethics, and mental science
generally, in my catalogue, considering ethics, as well as religion,
as supplements to law in the government of man, I had
placed them in that sequence. But certainly the faculty of
thought belongs to animal history, is an important portion of it
and should there find its place. But these are speculations in
which I do not now permit myself to labor. My mind unwillingly
engages in severe investigations. Its energies, indeed, are
no longer equal to them. Being to thank you for your hook, its
subject has run away with me into a labyrinth of ideas no longer
familiar, and writing also has become a slow and irksome operation
with me. I have been obliged to avail myself of the pen
of a granddaughter for this communication. I will here, therefore,
close my task of thinking, hers of writing, and yours of reading,
with assurances of my constant and high respect and esteem.
Monticello, March 27, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I have to thank you for your Greek reader, which,
for the use of schools, is evidently preferable to the Collectanea
Græca. These have not arranged their selections so well in gradation
from the easier to the more difficult styles.
On the subject of the Greek ablative, I dare say that your historical
explanation is the true one. In the early stages of languages,
the distinctions of cases may well be supposed so few as
to be readily effected by changes of termination. The Greeks,
in this way, seem to have formed five, the Latins six, and to
have supplied their deficiencies as they occurred in the progress
of development, by prepositive words. In later times, the Italians,
Spaniards, and French, have depended on prepositions altogether,
without any inflection of the primitive word to denote
the change of case. What is singular as to the English is, that
in its early form of Anglo-Saxon, having distinguished several
cases by changes of termination, at later periods it has dropped
these, retains but that of the genitive, and supplies all the others
by prepositions. These subjects, with me, are neither favorites
nor familiar; and your letter has occasioned me to look more
into the particular one in question than I had ever done before.
Turning, for satisfaction, to the work of Tracy, the most profound
of our ideological writers, and to the volume particularly
which treats of grammar, I find what I suppose to be the correct
doctrine of the case. Omitting unnecessary words to abridge
writing, I copy what he says: "Il y a des langues qui par certains
changemens de desinence, appellés cas, indiquent quelquesuns
des rapports des noms avec d'autres noms; mais beaucoup
de langues n'ont point de cas; et celles qui en ont, n'en ont qu'un
petit nombre, tandis que les divers rapports qu'une idée peut avoir
avec une autre sont extrêmement multipliés: ainsi, les cas ne
peuvent exprimer qu'en general, les principaux de ces rapports.
Aussi dans toutes les langues, meme dans celles qui out des cas,
on a senti le besoin de mots distincts, separés des autres, et expressement
destinés à cet usage; ils ce qu'on appelle des prepositions."
2 Tracy Elemens d'Ideologie, c. 3, § 5, p. 114, and he
names the Basque and Peruvian languages, whose nouns have
such various changes of termination as to express all the relations
which other languages express by prepositions, and therefore
having no prepositions. On this ground, I suppose, then, we
may rest the question of the Greek ablative. It leaves with me
a single difficulty only, to-wit: the instances where they have
given the ablative signification to the dative termination, some
of which I quoted in my former letter to you.
I have just received a letter from Coray, at Paris, of the 28th
December, in which he confirms the late naval success of the
Greeks, but expresses a melancholy fear for his nation, "qui a
montré jusqu'á ce moment des prodiges de valeur, mais qui,
delivrée d'un joug de Cannibass, ne peut encore posseder ni les
leçons d'instruction, ni celles de l'expérience." I confess I have
the same fears for our South American brethren; the qualifications
for self-government in society are not innate. They are
the result of habit and long training, and for these they will require
time and probably much suffering.
I salute you with assurances of great esteem and respect.
Monticello, April 4, 1824.
Dear Sir,—It was with great pleasure I learned that the good
people of New Orleans had restored you again to the councils of
our country. I did not doubt the aid it would bring to the remains
of our old school in Congress, in which your early labors
had been so useful. You will find, I suppose, on revisiting our
maritime States, the names of things more changed than the
things themselves; that though our old opponents have given up
their appellation, they have not, in assuming ours, abandoned
their views, and that they are as strong nearly as they ever were.
These cares, however, are no longer mine. I resign myself cheerfully
to the managers of the ship, and the more contentedly, as I
am near the end of my voyage. I have learned to be less confident
in the conclusions of human reason, and give more credit to
the honesty of contrary opinions. The radical idea of the character
of the constitution of our government, which I have adopted
as a key in cases of doubtful construction, is, that the whole field
of government is divided into two departments, domestic and
foreign, (the States in their mutual relations being of the latter;)
that the former department is reserved exclusively to the respective
States within their own limits, and the latter assigned to a
separate set of functionaries, constituting what may be called the
foreign branch, which, instead of a federal basis, is established as
a distinct government quoad hoc, acting as the domestic branch
does on the citizens directly and coercively; that these departments
have distinct directories, co-ordinate, and equally independent
and supreme, each within its own sphere of action.
Whenever a doubt arises to which of these branches a power belongs,
I try it by this test. I recollect no case where a question
simply between citizens of the same State, has been transferred
to the foreign department, except that of inhibiting tenders but
of metallic money, and ex post facto legislation. The causes of
these singularities are well remembered.
I thank you for the copy of your speech on the question of
national improvement, which I have read with great pleasure,
and recognize in it those powers of reasoning and persuasion of
which I had formerly seen from you so many proofs. Yet, in
candor, I must say it has not removed, in my mind, all the difficulties
of the question. And I should really be alarmed at a difference
of opinion with you, and suspicious of my own, were it
not that I have, as companions in sentiments, the Madisons, the
Monroes, the Randolphs, the Macons, all good men and true, of
primitive principles. In one sentiment of the speech I particularly
concur. "If we have a doubt relative to any power, we
ought not to exercise it." When we consider the extensive and
deep-seated opposition to this assumption, the conviction entertained
by so many, that this deduction of powers by elaborate
construction prostrates the rights reserved to the States, the difficulties
with which it will rub along in the course of its exercise;
that changes of majorities will be changing the system backwards
and forwards, so that no undertaking under it will be safe;
that there is not a State in the Union which would not give the
power willingly, by way of amendment, with some little guard,
perhaps, against abuse; I cannot but think it would be the wisest
course to ask an express grant of the power. A government held
together by the bands of reason only, requires much compromise
of opinion; that things even salutary should not be crammed
down the throats of dissenting brethren, especially when they
may be put into a form to be willingly swallowed, and that a
great deal of indulgence is necessary to strengthen habits of harmony
and fraternity. In such a case, it seems to me it would be
safer and wiser to ask an express grant of the power. This
would render its exercise smooth and acceptable to all, and insure
to it all the facilities which the States could contribute, to
prevent that kind of abuse which all will fear, because all know
it is so much practised in public bodies, I mean the bartering of
votes. It would reconcile every one, if limited by the proviso,
that the federal proportion of each State should be expended
within the State. With this single security against partiality
and corrupt bargaining, I suppose there is not a State, perhaps
not a man in the Union, who would not consent to add this to
the powers of the general government. But age has weaned me
from questions of this kind. My delight is now in the passive
occupation of reading; and it is with great reluctance I permit
my mind ever to encounter subjects of difficult investigation.
You have many years yet to come of vigorous activity, and I
confidently trust they will be employed in cherishing every
measure which may foster our brotherly union, and perpetuate a
constitution of government destined to be the primitive and precious
model of what is to change the condition of man over the
globe. With this confidence, equally strong in your powers and
purposes, I pray you to accept the assurance of my cordial esteem
and respect.
Monticello, April 19, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I received in due time your favor of the 12th, requesting
my opinion on the proposition to call a convention for
amending the constitution of the State. That this should not be
perfect cannot be a subject of wonder, when it is considered that
ours was not only the first of the American States, but the first
nation in the world, at least within the records of history, which
peaceably by its wise men, formed on free deliberation, a constitution
of government for itself, and deposited it in writing, among
their archives, always ready and open to the appeal of every citizen.
The other States, who successively formed constitutions
for themselves also, had the benefit of our outline, and have made
on it, doubtless, successive improvements. One in the very outset,
and which has been adopted in every subsequent constitution,
was to lay its foundation in the authority of the nation. To
our convention no special authority had been delegated by the
people to form a permanent constitution, over which their successors
in legislation should have no powers of alteration. They
had been elected for the ordinary purposes of legislation only,
and at a time when the establishment of a new government had
not been proposed or contemplated. Although, therefore, they
gave to this act the title of a constitution, yet it could be no more
than an act of legislation subject, as their other acts were, to alteration
by their successors. It has been said, indeed, that the
acquiescence of the people supplied the want of original power.
But it is a dangerous lesson to say to them "whenever your
functionaries exercise unlawful authority over you, if you do
not go into actual resistance, it will be deemed acquiescence and
confirmation." How long had we acquiesced under usurpations
of the British parliament? Had that confirmed them in right,
and made our revolution a wrong? Besides, no authority has
yet decided whether this resistance must be instantaneous; when
the right to resist ceases, or whether it has yet ceased? Of the
twenty-four States now organized, twenty-three have disapproved
our doctrine and example, and have deemed the authority of their
people a necessary foundation for a constitution.
Another defect which has been corrected by most of the States
is, that the basis of our constitution is in opposition to the principle
of equal political rights, refusing to all but freeholders any
participation in the natural right of self-government. It is believed,
for example, that a very great majority of the militia, on
whom the burthen of military duty was imposed in the late war,
were men unrepresented in the legislation which imposed this
burthen on them. However nature may by mental or physical
disqualifications have marked infants and the weaker sex for the
protection, rather than the direction of government, yet among
the men who either pay or fight for their country, no line of
right can be drawn. The exclusion of a majority of our freemen
from the right of representation is merely arbitrary, and an
usurpation of the minority over the majority; for it is believed
that the non-freeholders compose the majority of our free and
adult male citizens.
And even among our citizens who participate in the representative
privilege, the equality of political rights is entirely prostrated
by our constitution. Upon which principle of right or reason
can any one justify the giving to every citizen of Warwick
as much weight in the government as to twenty-two equal citizens
in Loudon, and similar inequalities among the other counties?
If these fundamental principles are of no importance in
actual government, then no principles are important, and it is as
well to rely on the dispositions of an administration; good or
evil, as on the provisions of a constitution.
I shall not enter into the details of smaller defects, although
others there doubtless are, the reformation of some of which
might very much lessen the expenses of government, improve its
organization, and add to the wisdom and purity of its administration
in all its parts; but these things I leave to others, not permitting
myself to take sides in the political questions of the day.
I willingly acquiesce in the institutions of my country, perfect or
imperfect; and think it a duty to leave their modifications to
those who are to live under them, and are to participate of the
good or evil they may produce. The present generation has the
same right of self-government which the past one has exercised
for itself. And those in the full vigor of body and mind are
more able to judge for themselves than those who are sinking
under the wane of both. If the sense of our citizens on the
question of a convention can be fairly and fully taken, its result
will, I am sure, be wise and salutary; and far from arrogating
the office of advice, no one will more passively acquiesce in it
than myself. Retiring, therefore, to the tranquillity called for by
increasing years and debility, I wish not to be understood as intermeddling
in this question; and to my prayers for the general
good, I have only to add assurances to yourself of my great esteem.
Monticello, April 20, 1824.
Sir.—I have duly received your favor of the 6th instant, informing
me of the institution of a debating society in Hingham,
composed of adherents to the republican principles of the revolution;
and I am justly sensible of the honor done my name by
associating it with the title of the society. The object of the
society is laudable, and in a republican nation, whose citizens
are to be led by reason and persuasion, and not by force, the art
of reasoning becomes of first importance. In this line, antiquity
has left us the finest models for imitation; and he who studies
and imitates them most nearly, will nearest approach the perfection
of the art. Among these I should consider the speeches of
Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as pre-eminent specimens of logic,
taste, and that sententious brevity which, using not a word to
spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer. Amplification
is the vice of modern oratory. It is an insult to an
assembly of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting instead of
persuading. Speeches measured by the hour, die with the hour.
I will not, however, further indulge the disposition of the age to
sermonize, and especially to those surrounded by so much better
advice. With my apologies, therefore, for hazarding even these
observations, and my prayers for the success of your institution,
be pleased to accept for the society and yourself the assurances
of my high consideration.
Monticello, April 26, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I have heretofore informed you that our legislature
had undertaken the establishment of an University in Virginia;
that it was placed in my neighborhood, and under the direction
of a board of seven visitors, of whom I am one, Mr.
Madison another, and others equally worthy of confidence. We
have been four or five years engaged in erecting our buildings,
all of which are now ready to receive their tenants, one excepted,
which the present season will put into a state for use. The last
session of our legislature had by new donations liberated the
revenue of fifteen M. D. a year, with which they had before endowed
the institution, and we propose to open it the beginning
of the next year. We require the intervening time for seeking
out and engaging Professors. As to these we have determined
to receive no one who is not of the first order of science in his
line; and as such in every branch cannot be obtained with us,
we propose to seek some of them at least in the countries ahead
of us in science, and preferably in Great Britain, the land of our
own language, habits and manners. But how to find out those
who are of the first grade of science, of sober correct habits and
morals, harmonizing tempers, talents for communication, is the
difficulty. Our first step is to send a special agent to the Universities
of Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh, to make the selection
for us; and the person appointed for this office is the gentleman
who will hand you this letter,—Mr. Francis Walker
Gilmer,—the best-educated subject we have raised since the
revolution, highly qualified in all the important branches of
science, professing particularly that of the law, which he has
practised some years at our Supreme Court with good success
and flattering prospects. His morals, his amiable temper and
discretion, will do justice to any confidence you may be willing
to place in him, for I commit him to you as his mentor and guide
in the business he goes on. We do not certainly expect to obtain
such known characters as were the Cullens, the Robertsons
and Porsons of Great Britain, men of the first eminence established
there in reputation and office, and with emoluments not
to be bettered anywhere. But we know that there is another
race treading on their heels, preparing to take their places, and
as well and sometimes better qualified to fill them. These
while unsettled, surrounded by a crowd of competitors, of equal
claims and perhaps superior credit and interest, may prefer a
comfortable certainty here for an uncertain hope there, and a lingering
delay even of that. From this description we expect we
may draw professors equal to those of the highest name. The
difficulty is to distinguish them; for we are told that so overcharged
are all branches of business in that country, and such the
difficulty of getting the means of living, that it is deemed allowable
in ethics for even the most honorable minds to give
highly exaggerated recommendations and certificates to enable a
friend or protegé to get into a livelihood; and that the moment
our agent should be known to be on such a mission, he would
be overwhelmed by applications from numerous pretenders, all
of whom, worthy or unworthy, would be supported by such recommendations
and such names as would confound all discrimination.
On this head our trust and hope is in you. Your
knowledge of the state of things, your means of finding out a
character or two at each place, truly trustworthy, and into whose
hands you can commit our agent with entire safety, for information,
caution and co-operation, induces me to request your patronage
and aid in our endeavors to obtain such men, and such only
as will fulfil our views. An unlucky selection in the outset
would forever blast our prospects. From our information of the
character of the different Universities, we expect we should go
to Oxford for our classical professor, to Cambridge for those of
Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Natural History, and to
Edinburgh for a professor of Anatomy, and the elements or outlines
only of Medicine. We have still our eye on Mr. Blaetterman
for the professorship of modern languages, and Mr. Gilmer
is instructed to engage him, if no very material objection to him
may have arisen unknown to us. We can place in Mr. Gilmer's
hands but a moderate sum at present for merely text books to
begin with, and for indispensable articles of apparatus, Mathematical,
Astronomical, Physical, Chemical and Anatomical. We
are in the hope of a sum of $50,000, as soon as we can get a
settlement passed through the public offices. My experience in
dealing with the bookseller Lackington, on your recommendation,
has induced me to recommend him to Mr. Gilmer, and if we can
engage his fidelity, we may put into his hands the larger supply
of books when we are ready to call for it, and particularly what
we shall propose to seek in England.
Although I have troubled you with many particulars, I yet
leave abundance for verbal explanation with Mr. Gilmer, who
possesses a full knowledge of everything, and our full confidence
in everything. He takes with him plans of our establishment,
which we think it may be encouraging to show to the persons
to whom he will make propositions, as well to let them see the
comforts provided for themselves, as to show by the extensiveness
and expense of the scale, that it is no ephemeral thing to
which they are invited.
With my earnest solicitations that you will give us all your
aid in an undertaking on which we rest the hopes and happiness
of our country, accept the assurances of my sincere friendship,
attachment and respect.
Monticello, May 16, 1824.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 5th, from Williamsburg, has
been duly received, and presents to us a case of pregnant character,
admitting important issues, and requiring serious consideration
and conduct; yet I am more inclined to view it with hope
than dismay. It involves two questions. First. Shall the college
of William and Mary be removed? Second. To what
place? As to the first, I never doubted the lawful authority of
the legislature over the college, as being a public institution and
endowed from the public property, by public agents for that function,
and for public purposes. Some have doubted this authority
without a relinquishment of what they call a vested right by
the body corporate. But as their voluntary relinquishment is a
circumstance of the case, it is relieved from that doubt. I certainly
never wished that my venerable alma mater should be disturbed.
I considered it as an actual possession of that ancient
and earliest settlement of our forefathers, and was disposed to see
it yielded as a courtesy, rather than taken as a right. They,
however, are free to renounce a benefit, and we to receive it.
Had we dissolved it on the principle of right, to give a direction
to its funds more useful to the public, the professors, although
their chartered tenure is during pleasure only, might have reasonably
expected a vale of a year or two's salary, as an intermediate
support, until they could find other employment for their talents.
And notwithstanding that their abandonment is voluntary, this
should still be given them. On this first question I think we
should be absolutely silent and passive, taking no part in it until
the old institution is loosened from its foundation and fairly
placed on its wheels.
2. On the second question, to what place shall it be moved?
we may take the field boldly. Richmond, it seems, claims it,
but on what ground of advantage to the public? When the professors,
their charter and funds shall be translated to Richmond,
will they become more enlightened there than at the old place?
Will they possess more science? be more capable of communicating
it? or more competent to raise it from the dead, in a new
sect, than to keep it alive in the ancient one? Or has Richmond
any peculiarities more favorable for the communication of the
sciences generally than the place which the legislature has preferred
and fixed on for that purpose? This will not be pretended.
But it seems they possess advantages for a medical school.
Let us scan them. Anatomy may be as competently taught at
the University as at Richmond, the only subjects of discretion
which either place can count on are equally acquirable at both.
And as to medicine, whatever can be learned from lectures or
books, may be taught at the University of Virginia as well as at
Richmond, or even at Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, or
Boston, with the inestimable additional advantage of acquiring,
at the same time, the kindred sciences by attending the other
schools. But Richmond thinks it can have a hospital which will
furnish subjects for the clinical branch of medicine. The classes
of people which furnish subjects for the hospitals of Baltimore,
Philadelphia, New York and Boston, do not exist at Richmond.
The shipping constantly present at those places, furnish many
patients. Is there a ship at Richmond? The class of white
servants in those cities which is numerous and penniless, and
whose regular resource in sickness is always the hospital, constitutes
the great body of their patients; this class does not exist at
Richmond. The servants there are slaves, whose masters are by
law obliged to take care of them in sickness as in health, and
who could not be admitted into a hospital. These resources,
then, being null, the free inhabitants alone remain for a hospital
at Richmond. And I will ask how many families in Richmond
would send their husbands, wives, or children to a hospital, in
sickness, to be attended by nurses hardened by habit against the
feelings of pity, to lie in public rooms harassed by the cries and
sufferings of disease under every form, alarmed by the groans of
the dying, exposed as a corpse to be lectured over by a clinical
professor, to be crowded and handled by his students to hear
their case learnedly explained to them, its threatening symptoms
developed, and its probable termination foreboded? In vindication
of Richmond, I may surely answer that there is not in the
place a family so heartless, as, relinquishing their own tender
cares of a child or parent, to abandon them in sickness to this
last resource of poverty; for it is poverty alone which peoples
hospitals, and those alone who are on the charities of their parish
would go to their hospital. Have they paupers enough to fill a
hospital? and sickness enough among these? One reason alleged
for the removal of the college to Richmond is that Williamsburg
is sickly, is happily little apt for the situation of a hospital. No
Sir; Richmond is no place to furnish subjects for clinical lectures.
I have always had Norfolk in view for this purpose. The
climate and pontine country around Norfolk render it truly sickly
in itself. It is, moreover, the rendezvous not only of the shipping
of commerce, but of the vessels of the public navy. The
United States have there a hospital already established, and supplied
with subjects from these local circumstances. I had thought
and have mentioned to yourself and our colleagues, that when
our medical school has got well under way, we should propose
to the federal government the association with that establishment,
and at our own expense, of the clinical branch of our medical
school, so that our students, after qualifying themselves with the
other branches of the science here, might complete their course
of preparation by attending clinical lectures for six or twelve
months at Norfolk.
But Richmond has another claim, as being the seat of government.
The indisposition of Richmond towards our University
has not been unfelt. But would it not be wiser in them to rest
satisfied with the government and their local academy? Can they
afford, on the question of a change of the seat of government, by
hostilizing the middle counties, to transfer them from the eastern
to the western interest? To make it their interest to withdraw
from the former that ground of claim, if used for adversary purposes?
With things as they are, let both parties remain content
and united.
If, then, William and Mary is to be removed, and not to Richmond,
can there be two opinions how its funds are to be directed
to the best advantage for the public? When it was found that
that seminary was entirely ineffectual towards the object of public
education, and that one on a better plan, and in a better situation,
must be provided, what was so obvious as to employ for
that purpose the funds of the one abandoned, with what more
would be necessary, to raise the new establishment? And what
so obvious as to do now what might reasonably have been done
then, by consolidating together the institutions and their funds?
The plan sanctioned by the legislature required for our University
ten professors, but the funds appropriated will maintain but eight,
and some of these are consequently over-burthened with duties;
the hundred thousand dollars of principal which you say still remains
to William and Mary, by its interest of six thousand dollars,
would give us the two deficient professors, with an annual
surplus for the purchase of books; and certainly the legislature
will see no public interest, after the expense incurred on the new
establishment, in setting up a rival in the city of Richmond;
they cannot think it better to have two institutions crippling one
another, than one of healthy powers, competent to that highest
grade of instruction which neither, with a divided support, could
expect to attain.
Another argument may eventually arise in favor of consolidation.
The contingent gift at the late session, of fifty thousand
dollars, for books and apparatus, shows a sense in the legislature
that those objects are still to be provided. If we fail in obtaining
that sum, they will feel an incumbency to provide it otherwise.
What so ready as the derelict capital of William and Mary, and
the large library they uselessly possess? Should that college
then be removed, I cannot doubt that the legislature, keeping in
view its original object, will consolidate it with the University.
But it will not be removed. Richmond is doubtless in earnest,
but that the visitors should concur is impossible. The professors
are the prime-movers, and do not mean exactly what they propose.
They hold up this raw-head and bloody-bones in terrorem
to us, to force us to receive them into our institution. Men who
have degraded and foundered the vessel whose helm was entrusted
to them, want now to force their incompetence on us. I
know none of them personally, but judge of them from the fact
and the opinion I hear from every one acquainted with the case,
that it has been destroyed by their incompetence and mis-management.
Until the death of Bishop Madison, it kept at its usual
stand of about eighty students. It is now dwindled to about
twenty, and the professors acknowledge that on opening our
doors, theirs may be shut. Their funds in that case, would certainly
be acceptable and salutary to us. But not with the incubus
of their faculty. When they find that their feint gives us no
alarm, they will retract, will recall their grammar school, make
their college useful as a sectional school of preparation for the
University, and teach the languages, surveying, navigation, plane
trigonometry, and such other elements of science as will be
useful to many whose views do not call for a university education.
I will only add to this long letter an opinion that we had better
say as little as we can on this whole subject; give them no
alarm; let them petition for the removal; let them get the old
structure completely on wheels, and not till then put in our claim
to its reception. I shall communicate your letter, as you request,
to Mr. Madison, and with it this answer. Why can you
not call on us on your way to Warminster, and make this a subject
of conversation? With my devoted respects to Mrs. Cabell,
assure her that she can be nowhere more cordially received than
by the family of Monticello. And the deviation from your direct
road is too small to merit consideration. Ever and affectionately
your friend and servant.
Monticello, June 5, 1824.
Dear and Venerable Sir,—I am much indebted for your kind
letter of February the 29th, and for your valuable volume on the
English constitution. I have read this with pleasure and much
approbation, and think it has deduced the constitution of the
English nation from its rightful root, the Anglo-Saxon. It is
really wonderful, that so many able and learned men should have
failed in their attempts to define it with correctness. No wonder
then, that Paine, who thought more than he read, should have
credited the great authorities who have declared, that the will of
parliament is the constitution of England. So Marbois, before
the French revolution, observed to me, that the Almanac Royal
was the constitution of France. Your derivation of it from the
Anglo-Saxons, seems to be made on legitimate principles. Having
driven out the former inhabitants of that part of the island
called England, they became aborigines as to you, and your
lineal ancestors. They doubtless had a constitution; and although
they have not left it in a written formula, to the precise
text of which you may always appeal, yet they have left fragments
of their history and laws, from which it may be inferred
with considerable certainty. Whatever their history and laws
show to have been practised with approbation, we may presume
was permitted by their constitution; whatever was not so practiced,
was not permitted. And although this constitution was
violated and set at naught by Norman force, yet force cannot
change right. A perpetual claim was kept up by the nation, by
their perpetual demand of a restoration of their Saxon laws,
which shows they were never relinquished by the will of the
nation. In the pullings and haulings for these ancient rights,
between the nation, and its kings of the races of Plantagenets,
Tudors and Stuarts, there was sometimes gain, and sometimes
loss, until the final re-conquest of their rights from the Stuarts.
The destitution and expulsion of this race broke the thread of
pretended inheritance, extinguished all regal usurpations, and the
nation re-entered into all its rights; and although in their bill of
rights they specifically reclaimed some only, yet the omission of
the others was no renunciation of the right to assume their exercise
also, whenever occasion should occur. The new King received
no rights or powers, but those expressly granted to
him. It has ever appeared to me, that the difference between
the whig and the tory of England is, that the whig deduces his
rights from the Anglo-Saxon source, and the tory from the Norman.
And Hume, the great apostle of toryism, says, in so many
words, note AA to chapter 42, that, in the reign of the Stuarts,
"it was the people who encroached upon the sovereign, not the
sovereign who attempted, as is pretended, to usurp upon the people."
This supposes the Norman usurpations to be rights in his
successors. And again, C, 159, "the commons established a principle,
which is noble in itself, and seems specious, but is belied
by all history and experience, that the people are the origin of all
just power." And where else will this degenerate son of science,
this traitor to his fellow men, find the origin of just powers, if
not in the majority of the society? Will it be in the minority?
Or in an individual of that minority?
Our Revolution commenced on more favorable ground. It
presented us an album on which we were free to write what we
pleased. We had no occasion to search into musty records, to
hunt up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions
of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature,
and found them engraved on our hearts. Yet we did not
avail ourselves of all the advantages of our position. We had
never been permitted to exercise self-government. When forced
to assume it, we were novices in its science. Its principles and
forms had entered little into our former education. We established
however some, although not all its important principles.
The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is
inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves,
in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in
electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding
by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact
is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally
chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed;
that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion,
freedom of property, and freedom of the press. In the structure
of our legislatures, we think experience has proved the benefit
of subjecting questions to two separate bodies of deliberants; but
in constituting these, natural right has been mistaken, some making
one of these bodies, and some both, the representatives of
property instead of persons; whereas the double deliberation
might be as well obtained without any violation of true principle,
either by requiring a greater age in one of the bodies, or
by electing a proper number of representatives of persons, dividing
them by lots into two chambers, and renewing the division
at frequent intervals, in order to break up all cabals. Virginia,
of which I am myself a native and resident, was not only the
first of the States, but, I believe I may say, the first of the nations
of the earth, which assembled its wise men peaceably together
to form a fundamental constitution, to commit it to writing,
and place it among their archives, where every one should
be free to appeal to its text. But this act was very imperfect.
The other States, as they proceeded successively to the same
work, made successive improvements; and several of them, still
further corrected by experience, have, by conventions, still further
amended their first forms. My own State has gone on so
far with its premiere ebauche; but it is now proposing to call a
convention for amendment. Among other improvements, I hope
they will adopt the subdivision of our counties into wards. The
former may be estimated at an average of twenty-four miles
square; the latter should be about six miles square each, and
would answer to the hundreds of your Saxon Alfred. In each
of these might be, 1st. An elementary school; 2d. A company
of militia, with its officers; 3d. A justice of the peace and constable;
4th. Each ward should take care of their own poor;
5th. Their own roads; 6th. Their own police; 7th. Elect within
themselves one or more jurors to attend the courts of justice;
and 8th. Give in at their Folk-house, their votes for all functionaries
reserved to their election. Each ward would thus be a
small republic within itself, and every man in the State would
thus become an acting member of the common government, transacting
in person a great portion of its rights and duties, subordinate
indeed, yet important, and entirely within his competence.
The wit of man cannot devise a more solid basis for a free, durable
and well-administered republic.
With respect to our State and federal governments, I do not
think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They
generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But this
is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple
and integral whole. To the State governments are reserved all
legislation and administration, in affairs which concern their own
citizens only, and to the federal government is given whatever
concerns foreigners, or the citizens of other States; these functions
alone being made federal. The one is the domestic, the
other the foreign branch of the same government; neither having
control over the other, but within its own department. There
are one or two exceptions only to this partition of power. But,
you may ask, if the two departments should claim each the
same subject of power, where is the common umpire to decide
ultimately between them? In cases of little importance or urgency,
the prudence of both parties will keep them aloof from
the questionable ground; but if it can neither be avoided nor
compromised, a convention of the States must be called, to ascribe
the doubtful power to that department which they may think
best. You will perceive by these details, that we have not yet
so far perfected our constitutions as to venture to make them unchangeable.
But still, in their present state, we consider them
not otherwise changeable than by the authority of the people,
on a special election of representatives for that purpose expressly:
they are until then the lex legum.
But can they be made unchangeable? Can one generation
bind another, and all others, in succession forever? I think not.
The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead.
Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not
to mere matter, unendowed with will. The dead are not even
things. The particles of matter which composed their bodies,
make part now of the bodies of other animals, vegetables, or minerals,
of a thousand forms. To what then are attached the rights
and powers they held while in the form of men? A generation
may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when
that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the
rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change
their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is
unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
I was glad to find in your book a formal contradiction, at
length, of the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such
the judges have usurped in their repeated decisions, that Christianity
is a part of the common law. The proof of the contrary,
which you have adduced, is incontrovertible; to wit, that the
common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans,
at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ
pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever existed.
But it may amuse you, to show when, and by what means, they
stole this law in upon us. In a case of quare impedit in the
Year-book 34, II, 6, folio 38, (anno 1458,) a question was made,
how far the ecclesiastical law was to be respected in a common
law court? And Prisot, Chief Justice, gives his opinion in these
words: "A tiel leis qu'ils de seint eglise ont en ancien scripture,
covient à nous à donner credence; car ceo common ley sur
quels touts manners leis sont fondés. Et auxy, Sir, nous sumus
oblègés de conustre lour ley de saint eglise; et semblablement ils
sont obligés de consustre nostre ley. Et, Sir, si poit apperer or à
nous que l'evesque ad fait come un ordinary fera en tiel cas, adong
nous devons cee adjuger bon, ou auterment nemy," &c. See S.
C. Fitzh. Abr. Qu. imp. 89, Bro. Abr. Qu. imp. 12. Finch in
his first book, c. 3, is the first afterwards who quotes this case
and mistakes it thus: "To such laws of the church as have
warrant in holy scripture, our law giveth credence." And cites
Prisot; mistranslating "ancien scripture," into "holy scripture."
Whereas Prisot palpably says, "to such laws as those of holy
church have in ancient writing, it is proper for us to give credence,"
to wit, to their ancient written laws. This was in 1613,
a century and a half after the dictum of Prisot. Wingate, in
1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of the common
law, copying the words of Finch, but citing Prisot, Wing. Max.
3. And Sheppard, title, "Religion," in 1675, copies the same
mistranslation, quoting the Y. B. Finch and Wingate. Hale expresses
it in these words: "Christianity is parcel of the laws of
England." 1 Ventr. 293, 3 Keb. 607. But he quotes no authority.
By these echoings and re-echoings from one to another,
it had become so established in 1728, that in the case of the
King vs. Woolston, 2 Stra. 834, the court would not suffer it to
be debated, whether to write against Christianity was punishable
in the temporal court at common law? Wood, therefore, 409,
ventures still to vary the phrase, and say, that all blasphemy and
profaneness are offences by the common law; and cites 2 Stra.
Then Blackstone, in 1763, IV. 59, repeats the words of Hale,
that "Christianity is part of the laws of England," citing Ventris
and Strange. And finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification,
in Evans' case, in 1767, says, that "the essential principles
of revealed religion are part of the common law." Thus
ingulphing Bible, Testament and all into the common law, without
citing any authority. And thus we find this chain of authorities
hanging link by link, one upon another, and all ultimately
on one and the same hook, and that a mistranslation of the words
"ancien scripture," used by Prisot. Finch quotes Prisot; Wingate
does the same. Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch and Wingate.
Hale cites nobody. The court in Woolston's case, cites
Hale. Wood cites Woolston's case. Blackstone quotes Woolston's
case and Hale. And Lord Mansfield, like Hale, ventures
it on his own authority. Here I might defy the best-read lawyer
to produce another scrip of authority for this judiciary forgery;
and I might go on further to show, how some of the Anglo-Saxon
priests interpolated into the text of Alfred's laws, the 20th,
21st, 22d, and 23d chapters of Exodus, and the 15th of the Acts
of the Apostles, from the 23d to the 29th verses. But this would
lead my pen and your patience too far. What a conspiracy this,
between Church and State! Sing Tantarara, rogues all, rogues
all, Sing Tantarara, rogues all!
I must still add to this long and rambling letter, my acknowledgments
for your good wishes to the University we are now establishing
in this State. There are some novelties in it. Of
that of a professorship of the principles of government, you express
your approbation. They will be founded in the rights of
man. That of agriculture, I am sure, you will approve; and
that also of Anglo-Saxon. As the histories and laws left us in
that type and dialect, must be the text books of the reading of the
learners, they will imbibe with the language their free principles
of government. The volumes you have been so kind as to send,
shall be placed in the library of the University. Having at this
time in England a person sent for the purpose of selecting some
Professors, a Mr. Gilmer of my neighborhood, I cannot but recommend
him to your patronage, counsel and guardianship, against
imposition, misinformation, and the deceptions of partial and false
recommendations, in the selection of characters. He is a gentleman
of great worth and correctness, my particular friend, well
educated in various branches of science, and worthy of entire
confidence.
Your age of eighty-four and mine of eighty-one years, insure
us a speedy meeting. We may then commune at leisure, and
more fully, on the good and evil which, in the course of our
long lives, we have both witnessed; and in the meantime, I pray
you to accept assurances of my high veneration and esteem for
your person and character.
Monticello, June 29, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I have to thank you for Mr. Pickering's elaborate
philippic against Mr. Adams, Gerry, Smith, and myself; and I
have delayed the acknowledgment until I could read it and make
some observations on it.
I could not have believed, that for so many years, and to such
a period of advanced age, he could have nourished passions so
vehement and viperous. It appears, that for thirty-years past,
he has been industriously collecting materials for vituperating the
characters he had marked for his hatred; some of whom, certainly,
if enmities towards him had ever existed, had forgotten them
all, or buried them in the grave with themselves. As to myself,
there never had been anything personal between us, nothing but
the general opposition of party sentiment; and our personal intercourse
had been that of urbanity, as himself says. But it
seems he has been all this time brooding over an enmity which
I had never felt, and that with respect to myself, as well as others,
he has been writing far and near, and in every direction, to
get hold of original letters, where he could, copies, where he
could not, certificates and journals, catching at every gossiping
story he could hear of in any quarter, supplying by suspicions
what he could find nowhere else, and then arguing on this motley
farrago, as if established on gospel evidence. And while expressing
his wonder, that "at the age of eighty-eight, the strong
passions of Mr. Adams should not have cooled;" that on the contrary,
"they had acquired the mastery of his soul," (p. 100;)
that "where these were enlisted, no reliance could be placed on
his statements," (p. 104;) the facility and little truth with which
he could represent facts and occurrences, concerning persons who
were the objects of his hatred, (p. 3;) that "he is capable of
making the grossest misrepresentations, and, from detached facts,
and often from bare suspicions, of drawing unwarrantable inferences,
if suited to his purpose at the instant," (p. 171;) while
making such charges, I say, on Mr. Adams, instead of his "ecce
homo" (p. 100;) how justly might we say to him, "mutato nomine,
de te fabula narratur." For the assiduity and industry he
has employed in his benevolent researches after matter of crimination
against us, I refer to his pages 13, 14, 34, 36, 46, 71, 79,
90, bis. 92, 93, bis. 101, ter. 104, 116, 118, 141, 143, 146, 150,
151, 153, 168, 171, 172. That Mr. Adams' strictures on him,
written and printed, should have excited some notice on his part,
was not perhaps to be wondered at. But the sufficiency of his
motive for the large attack on me may be more questionable.
He says, (p. 4) "of Mr. Jefferson I should have said nothing, but
for his letter to Mr. Adams, of October the 12th, 1823." Now
the object of that letter was to soothe the feelings of a friend,
wounded by a publication which I thought an "outrage on private
confidence." Not a word or allusion in it respecting Mr.
Pickering, nor was it suspected that it would draw forth his pen
in justification of this infidelity, which he has, however, undertaken
in the course of his pamphlet, but more particularly in its
conclusion.
He arraigns me on two grounds, my actions and my motives.
The very actions, however, which he arraigns, have been such
as the great majority of my fellow citizens have approved. The
approbation of Mr. Pickering, and of those who thought with
him, I had no right to expect. My motives he chooses to ascribe
to hypocrisy, to ambition, and a passion for popularity. Of these
the world must judge between us. It is no office of his or mine.
To that tribunal I have ever submitted my actions and motives,
without ransacking the Union for certificates, letters, journals,
and gossiping tales, to justify myself and weary them. Nor shall
I do this on the present occasion, but leave still to them these
antiquated party diatribes, now newly revamped and paraded, as
if they had not been already a thousand times repeated, refuted,
and adjudged against him, by the nation itself. If no action is
to be deemed virtuous for which malice can imagine a sinister
motive, then there never was a virtuous action; no, not even in
the life of our Saviour himself. But he has taught us to judge
the tree by its fruit, and to leave motives to him who can alone
see into them.
But whilst I leave to its fate the libel of Mr. Pickering, with
the thousands of others like it, to which I have given no other
answer than a steady course of similar action, there are two facts
or fancies of his which I must set to rights. The one respects
Mr. Adams, the other myself. He observes that my letter of
October the 12th, 1823, acknowledges the receipt of one from
Mr. Adams, of September the 18th, which, having been written
a few days after Cunningham's publication, he says was no doubt
written to apologize to me for the pointed reproaches he had uttered
against me in his confidential letters to Cunningham. And
thus having "no doubt" of his conjecture, he considers it as
proven, goes on to suppose the contents of the letter, (19, 22,)
makes it place Mr. Adams at my feet suing for pardon, and continues
to rant upon it, as an undoubted fact. Now, I do most
solemnly declare, that so far from being a letter of apology, as
Mr. Pickering so undoubtedly assumes, there was not a word or
allusion in it respecting Cunningham's publication.
The other allegation respecting myself, is equally false. In
page 34, he quotes Doctor Stuart as having, twenty years ago,
informed him that General Washington, "when he became a
private citizen," called me to account for expressions in a letter
to Mazzei, requiring, in a tone of unusual severity, an explanation
of that letter. He adds of himself, "in what manner the
latter humbled himself and appeased the just resentment of
Washington, will never be made known, as some time after his
death the correspondence was not to be found, and a diary for an
important period of his presidency was also missing." The diary
being of transactions during his presidency, the letter to Mazzei
not known here until some time after he became a private citizen,
and the pretended correspondence of course after that, I
know not why this lost diary and supposed correspondence are
brought together here, unless for insinuations worthy of the letter
itself. The correspondence could not be found, indeed, because
it had never existed. I do affirm that there never passed a word,
written or verbal, directly or indirectly, between General Washington
and myself on the subject of that letter. He would
never have degraded himself so far as to take to himself the imputation
in that letter on the "Samsons in combat." The
whole story is a fabrication, and I defy the framers of it, and all
mankind, to produce a scrip of a pen between General Washington
and myself on the subject, or any other evidence more worthy
of credit than the suspicions, suppositions and presumptions
of the two persons here quoting and quoted for it. With Doctor
Stuart I had not much acquaintance. I supposed him to be an
honest man, knew him to be a very weak one, and, like Mr.
Pickering, very prone to antipathies, boiling with party passions,
and under the dominion of these readily welcoming fancies for
facts. But come the story from whomsoever it might, it is an
unqualified falsehood.
This letter to Mazzei has been a precious theme of crimination
for federal malice. It was a long letter of business, in which
was inserted a single paragraph only of political information as
to the state of our country. In this information there was not
one word which would not then have been, or would not now
be approved by every republican in the United States, looking
back to those times, as you will see by a faithful copy now enclosed
of the whole of what that letter said on the subject of the
United States, or of its government. This paragraph, extracted
and translated, got into a Paris paper at a time when the persons
in power there were laboring under very general disfavor and
their friends were eager to catch even at straws to buoy them
up. To them, therefore, I have always imputed the interpolation
of an entire paragraph additional to mine, which makes me
charge my own country with ingratitude and injustice to France.
There was not a word in my letter respecting France, or any of
the proceedings or relations between this country and that. Yet
this interpolated paragraph has been the burthen of federal calumny,
has been constantly quoted by them, made the subject of
unceasing and virulent abuse, and is still quoted, as you see, by Mr.
Pickering, page 33, as if it were genuine, and really written by
me. And even Judge Marshall makes history descend from its
dignity, and the ermine from its sanctity, to exaggerate, to record,
and to sanction this forgery. In the very last note of his
book, he says, "a letter from Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Mazzei, an
Italian, was published in Florence, and re-published in the Moniteur,
with very severe strictures on the conduct of the United
States." And instead of the letter itself, he copies what he says
are the remarks of the editor, which are an exaggerated commentary
on the fabricated paragraph itself, and silently leaves to
his reader to make the ready inference that these were the sentiments
of the letter. Proof is the duty of the affirmative side.
A negative cannot be positively proved. But, in defect of impossible
proof of what was not in the original letter, I have its
press-copy still in my possession. It has been shown to several,
and is open to any one who wishes to see it. I have presumed
only, that the interpolation was done in Paris. But I never saw
the letter in either its Italian or French dress, and it may have
been done here, with the commentary handed down to posterity
by the Judge. The genuine paragraph, re-translated through
Italian and French into English, as it appeared here in a federal
paper, besides the mutilated hue which these translations and re-translations
of it produced generally, gave a mistranslation of a
single word, which entirely perverted its meaning, and made it
a pliant and fertile text of misrepresentation of my political principles.
The original, speaking of an Anglican, monarchical and
aristocratical party, which had sprung up since he had left us,
states their object to be "to draw over us the substance, as they
had already done the forms of the British Government." Now the
"forms" here meant, were the levees, birthdays, the pompous
cavalcade to the state house on the meeting of Congress, the
formal speech from the throne, the procession of Congress in a
body to re-echo the speech in an answer, &c., &c. But the
translator here, by substituting form in the singular number, for
forms in the plural, made it mean the frame or organization of
our government, or its form of legislative, executive and judiciary
authorities, coördinate and independent; to which form it was
to be inferred that I was an enemy. In this sense they always
quoted it, and in this sense Mr. Pickering still quotes it, pages 34,
35, 38, and countenances the inference. Now General Washington
perfectly understood what I meant by these forms, as they
were frequent subjects of conversation between us. When, on
my return from Europe, I joined the government in March, 1790,
at New York, I was much astonished, indeed, at the mimicry I
found established of royal forms and ceremonies, and more alarmed
at the unexpected phenomenon, by the monarchical sentiments I
heard expressed and openly maintained in every company, and
among others by the high members of the government, executive
and judiciary, (General Washington alone excepted,) and by a
great part of the legislature, save only some members who had
been of the old Congress, and a very few of recent introduction.
I took occasion, at various times, of expressing to General Washington
my disappointment at these symptoms of a change of
principle, and that I thought them encouraged by the forms and
ceremonies which I found prevailing, not at all in character with
the simplicity of republican government, and looking as if wishfully
to those of European courts. His general explanations to
me were, that when he arrived at New York to enter on the executive
administration of the new government, he observed to
those who were to assist him that placed as he was in an office
entirely new to him, unacquainted with the forms and ceremonies
of other governments, still less apprized of those which
might be properly established here, and himself perfectly indifferent
to all forms, he wished them to consider and prescribe what
they should be; and the task was assigned particularly to General
Knox, a man of parade, and to Colonel Humphreys, who
had resided some time at a foreign court. They, he said, were
the authors of the present regulations, and that others were proposed
so highly strained that he absolutely rejected them. Attentive
to the difference of opinion prevailing on this subject,
when the term of his second election arrived, he called the Heads
of departments together, observed to them the situation in which
he had been at the commencement of the government, the advice
he had taken and the course he had observed in compliance
with it; that a proper occasion had now arrived of revising that
course, of correcting it in any particulars not approved in experience;
and he desired us to consult together, agree on any
changes we should think for the better, and that he should willingly
conform to what we should advise. We met at my office.
Hamilton and myself agreed at once that there was too much
ceremony for the character of our government, and particularly,
that the parade of the installation at New York ought not to be
copied on the present occasion, that the President should desire
the Chief Justice to attend him at his chambers, that he should
administer the oath of office to him in the presence of the higher
officers of the government, and that the certificate of the fact
should be delivered to the Secretary of State to be recorded.
Randolph and Knox differed from us, the latter vehemently;
they thought it not advisable to change any of the established
forms, and we authorized Randolph to report our opinions to the
President. As these opinions were divided, and no positive advice
given as to any change, no change was made. Thus the
forms which I had censured in my letter to Mazzei were perfectly
understood by General Washington, and were those which
he himself but barely tolerated. He had furnished me a proper
occasion for proposing their reformation, and my opinion not prevailing,
he knew I could not have meant any part of the censure
for him.
Mr. Pickering quotes, too, (page 34) the expression in the
letter, of "the men who were Samsons in the field, and Solomons
in the council, but who had had their heads shorn by the
harlot England;" or, as expressed in their re-translation, "the
men who were Solomons in council, and Samsons in combat, but
whose hair had been cut off by the whore England." Now this
expression also was perfectly understood by General Washington.
He knew that I meant it for the Cincinnati generally, and
that from what had passed between us at the commencement of
that institution, I could not mean to include him. When the
first meeting was called for its establishment, I was a member of
the Congress then sitting at Annapolis. General Washington
wrote to me, asking my opinion on that proposition, and the
course, if any, which I thought Congress would observe respecting
it. I wrote him frankly my own disapprobation of it; that
I found the members of Congress generally in the same sentiment;
that I thought they would take no express notice of it,
but that in all appointments of trust, honor, or profit, they would
silently pass by all candidates of that order, and give an uniform
preference to others. On his way to the first meeting in Philadelphia,
which I think was in the spring of 1784, he called on
me at Annapolis. It was a little after candle-light, and he sat
with me till after midnight, conversing, almost exclusively, on
that subject. While he was feelingly indulgent to the motives
which might induce the officers to promote it, he concurred with
me entirely in condemning it; and when I expressed an idea
that if the hereditary quality were suppressed, the institution
might perhaps be indulged during the lives of the officers now
living, and who had actually served; "no," he said, "not a fibre
of it ought to be left, to be an eye-sore to the public, a ground
of dissatisfaction, and a line of separation between them and their
country;" and he left me with a determination to use all his influence
for its entire suppression. On his return from the meeting
he called on me again, and related to me the course the thing
had taken. He said that from the beginning, he had used every
endeavor to prevail on the officers to renounce the project altogether,
urging the many considerations which would render it
odious to their fellow citizens, and disreputable and injurious to
themselves; that he had at length prevailed on most of the old
officers to reject it, although with great and warm opposition
from others, and especially the younger ones, among whom he
named Colonel W. S. Smith as particularly intemperate. But
that in this state of things, when he thought the question safe,
and the meeting drawing to a close, Major L'Enfant arrived from
France, with a bundle of eagles, for which he had been sent
there, with letters from the French officers who had served in
America, praying for admission into the order, and a solemn act
of their king permitting them to wear its ensign. This, he said,
changed the face of matters at once, produced an entire revolution
of sentiment, and turned the torrent so strongly in an opposite
direction that it could be no longer withstood; all he could
then obtain was a suppression of the hereditary quality. He
added, that it was the French applications, and respect for the
approbation of the king, which saved the establishment in its
modified and temporary form. Disapproving thus of the institution
as much as I did, and conscious that I knew him to do so,
he could never suppose that I meant to include him among the
Samsons in the field, whose object was to draw over us the form,
as they made the letter say, of the British government, and especially
its aristocratic member, an hereditary house of lords. Add
to this, that the letter saying "that two out of the three branches
of legislature were against us," was an obvious exception of him;
it being well known that the majorities in the two branches of
Senate and Representatives, were the very instruments which
carried, in opposition to the old and real republicans, the measures
which were the subjects of condemnation in this letter.
General Washington then, understanding perfectly what and
whom I meant to designate, in both phrases, and that they could
not have any application or view to himself, could find in neither
any cause of offence to himself; and therefore neither needed,
nor ever asked any explanation of them from me. Had it even
been otherwise, they must know very little of General Washington,
who should believe to be within the laws of his character
what Doctor Stuart is said to have imputed to him. Be this,
however, as it may, the story is infamously false in every article
of it. My last parting with General Washington was at the inauguration
of Mr. Adams, in March, 1797, and was warmly affectionate;
and I never had any reason to believe any change on
his part, as there certainly was none on mine. But one session
of Congress intervened between that and his death, the year
following, in my passage to and from which, as it happened to
be not convenient to call on him, I never had another opportunity;
and as to the cessation of correspondence observed during
that short interval, no particular circumstance occurred for
epistolary communication, and both of us were too much oppressed
with letter-writing, to trouble, either the other, with a
letter about nothing.
The truth is, that the federalists, pretending to be the exclusive
friends of General Washington, have ever done what they
could to sink his character, by hanging theirs on it, and by representing
as the enemy of republicans him, who, of all men, is
best entitled to the appellation of the father of that republic which
they were endeavoring to subvert, and the republicans to maintain.
They cannot deny, because the elections proclaimed the
truth, that the great body of the nation approved the republican
measures. General Washington was himself sincerely a friend
to the republican principles of our constitution. His faith, perhaps,
in its duration, might not have been as confident as mine;
but he repeatedly declared to me, that he was determined it
should have a fair chance for success, and that he would lose
the last drop of his blood in its support, against any attempt
which might be made to change it from its republican form. He
made these declarations the oftener, because he knew my suspicions
that Hamilton had other views, and he wished to quiet
my jealousies on this subject. For Hamilton frankly avowed,
that he considered the British constitution, with all the corruptions
of its administration, as the most perfect model of government
which had ever been devised by the wit of man; professing
however, at the same time, that the spirit of this country
was so fundamentally republican, that it would be visionary to
think of introducing monarchy here, and that, therefore, it was
the duty of its administrators to conduct it on the principles their
constituents had elected.
General Washington, after the retirement of his first cabinet,
and the composition of his second, entirely federal, and at the
head of which was Mr. Pickering himself, had no opportunity of
hearing both sides of any question. His measures, consequently,
took more the hue of the party in whose hands he was. These
measures were certainly not approved by the republicans; yet
were they not imputed to him, but to the counsellors around him;
and his prudence so far restrained their impassioned course and
bias, that no act of strong mark, during the remainder of his administration,
excited much dissatisfaction. He lived too short a
time after, and too much withdrawn from information, to correct
the views into which he had been deluded; and the continued assiduities
of the party drew him into the vortex of their intemperate
career; separated him still farther from his real friends, and
excited him to actions and expressions of dissatisfaction, which
grieved them, but could not loosen their affections from him.
They would not suffer the temporary aberration to weigh against
the immeasurable merits of his life; and although they tumbled
his seducers from their places, they preserved his memory embalmed
in their hearts, with undiminished love and devotion; and
there it forever will remain embalmed, in entire oblivion of every
temporary thing which might cloud the glories of his splendid life.
It is vain, then, for Mr. Pickering and his friends to endeavor to
falsify his character, by representing him as an enemy to republicans
and republican principles, and as exclusively the friend of
those who were so; and had he lived longer, he would have returned
to his ancient and unbiased opinions, would have replaced
his confidence in those whom the people approved and
supported, and would have seen that they were only restoring
and acting on the principles of his own first administration.
I find, my dear Sir, that I have written you a very long letter,
or rather a history. The civility of having sent me a copy of
Mr. Pickering's diatribe, would scarcely justify its address to you.
I do not publish these things, because my rule of life has been
never to harass the public with fendings and provings of personal
slanders; and least of all would I descend into the arena of slander
with such a champion as Mr. Pickering. I have ever trusted
to the justice and consideration of my fellow citizens, and have
no reason to repent it, or to change my course. At this time of
life too, tranquillity is the summum bonum. But although I decline
all newspaper controversy, yet when falsehoods have been
advanced, within the knowledge of no one so much as myself, I
have sometimes deposited a contradiction in the hands of a friend,
which, if worth preservation, may, when I am no more, nor
those whom I might offend, throw light on history, and recall
that into the path of truth. And if of no other value, the present
communication may amuse you with anecdotes not known to
every one.
I had meant to have added some views on the amalgamation of
parties, to which your favor of the 8th has some allusion; an amalgamation
of name, but not of principle. Tories are tories still, by
whatever name they may be called. But my letter is already
too unmercifully long, and I close it here with assurances of my
great esteem and respectful consideration.
Monticello, July 14, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I have attentively read your letter to Mr. Wheaton
on the question whether, at the date of the message to Congress
recommending the embargo of 1807, we had knowledge of the
order of council of November 11th; and according to your request
I have resorted to my papers, as well as my memory, for
the testimony these might afford additional to yours. There is
no fact in the course of my life which I recollect more strongly,
than that of my being at the date of the message in possession
of an English newspaper containing a copy of the proclamation.
I am almost certain, too, that it was under the ordinary authentication
of the government; and between November 11th and December
17th, there was time enough (thirty-five days) to admit
the receipt of such a paper, which I think came to me through a
private channel, probably put on board some vessel about sailing,
the moment it appeared.
Turning to my papers, I find that I had prepared a first draught
of a message in which was this paragraph: "The British regulations
had before reduced us to a direct voyage, to a single port
of their enemies, and it is now believed they will interdict all
commerce whatever with them. A proclamation, too, of that government
of——(not officially indeed communicated to us, yet so
given out to the public as to become a rule of action with them,)
seems to have shut the door on all negotiation with us except as
to the single aggression on the Chesapeake." You, however,
suggested a substitute (which I have now before me, written
with a pencil and) which, with some unimportant amendments,
I preferred to my own, and was the one I sent to Congress. It
was in these words, "the communications now made, showing
the great and increasing dangers with which seamen, &c.,——ports
of the United States." This shows that we communicated
to them papers of information on the subject; and as it was our
interest, and our duty, to give them the strongest information we
possessed to justify our opinion and their action on it, there can
be no doubt we sent them this identical paper. For what stronger
could we send them? I am the more strengthened in the belief
that we did send it, from the fact, which the newspapers of the
day will prove, that in the reprobations of the measure published
in them by its enemies, they indulged themselves in severe criticisms
on our having considered a newspaper as a proper document
to lay before Congress, and a sufficient foundation for so
serious a measure; and considering this as no sufficient information
of the fact, they continued perseveringly to deny that we had
knowledge of the order of council when we recommended the
embargo; admitting, because they could not deny, the existence
of the order, they insisted only on our supposed ignorance of it
as furnishing them a ground of crimination. But I had no idea
that this gratuitous charge was believed by any one at this day.
In addition to our testimony, I am sure Mr. Gallatin, General
Dearborne and Mr. Smith, will recollect that we possessed the
newspaper, and acted on a view of the proclamation it contained.
If you think this statement can add anything in corroboration of
yours, make what use you please of it, and accept assurances of
my constant affection and respect.
I thank you, Sir, for your pamphlet on the climate of the west,
and have read it with great satisfaction. Although it does not
yet establish a satisfactory theory, it is an additional step towards
it. Mine was perhaps the first attempt, not to form a theory, but
to bring together the few facts then known, and suggest them to
public attention. They were written between forty and fifty
years ago, before the close of the revolutionary war, when the
western country was a wilderness, untrodden but by the foot of
the savage or the hunter. It is now flourishing in population
and science, and after a few years more of observation and collection
of facts, they will doubtless furnish a theory of solid
foundation. Years are requisite for this, steady attention to the
thermometer, to the plants growing there, the times of their leafing
and flowering, its animal inhabitants, beasts, birds, reptiles
and insects; its prevalent winds, quantities of rain and snow,
temperature of fountains, and other indexes of climate. We
want this indeed for all the States, and the work should be repeated
once or twice in a century, to show the effect of clearing
and culture towards changes of climate. My Notes give a very
imperfect idea of what our climate was, half a century ago, at
this place, which being nearly central to the State may be taken
for its medium. Latterly, after seven years of close and exact
observation, I have prepared an estimate of what it is now, which
may some day be added to the former work; and I hope something
like this is doing in the other States, which, when all
shall be brought together, may produce theories meriting confidence.
I trust that yourself will not be inattentive to this service,
and that to that of the present epoch you may be able to
add a second at the distance of another half century. With this
wish accept the assurance of my respectful consideration.
Monticello, August 10, 1824.
Sir,—I have duly received your favor of the 14th, and with
it the prospectus of a newspaper which it covered. If the style
and spirit of that should be maintained in the paper itself, it will
be truly worthy of the public patronage. As to myself, it is many
years since I have ceased to read but a single paper. I am no
longer, therefore, a general subscriber for any other. Yet, to encourage
the hopeful in the outset, I have sometimes subscribed
for the first year on condition of being discontinued at the end
of it, without further warning. I do the same now with pleasure
for yours; and unwilling to have outstanding accounts, which I
am liable to forget, I now enclose the price of the tri-weekly paper.
I am no believer in the amalgamation of parties, nor do I
consider it as either desirable or useful for the public; but only
that, like religious differences, a difference in politics should never
be permitted to enter into social intercourse, or to disturb its
friendships, its charities, or justice. In that form, they are censors
of the conduct of each other, and useful watchmen for the
public. Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into
two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and
wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher
classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people,
have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most
honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the
public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and
in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they
will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, liberals and serviles,
Jacobins and ultras, whigs and tories, republicans and federalists,
aristocrats and democrats, or by whatever name you
please, they are the same parties still, and pursue the same object.
The last appellation of aristocrats and democrats is the
true one expressing the essence of all. A paper which shall be
governed by the spirit of Mr. Madison's celebrated report, of
which you express in your prospectus so just and high an approbation,
cannot be false to the rights of all classes. The grandfathers
of the present generation of your family I knew well.
They were friends and fellow laborers with me in the same cause
and principle. Their descendants cannot follow better guides.
Accept the assurance of my best wishes and respectful consideration.
Monticello, September 6, 1824.
Sir,—The idea which you present in your letter of July 30th,
of the progress of society from its rudest state to that it has now
attained, seems conformable to what may be probably conjectured.
Indeed, we have under our eyes tolerable proofs of it.
Let a philosophic observer commence a journey from the savages
of the Rocky Mountains, eastwardly towards our sea-coast.
These he would observe in the earliest stage of association living
under no law but that of nature, subscribing and covering themselves
with the flesh and skins of wild beasts. He would next
find those on our frontiers in the pastoral state, raising domestic
animals to supply the defects of hunting. Then succeed our
own semi-barbarous citizens, the pioneers of the advance of civilization,
and so in his progress he would meet the gradual shades
of improving man until he would reach his, as yet, most improved
state in our seaport towns. This, in fact, is equivalent to a
survey, in time, of the progress of man from the infancy of creation
to the present day. I am eighty-one years of age, born
where I now live, in the first range of mountains in the interior
of our country. And I have observed this march of civilization
advancing from the sea coast, passing over us like a cloud of
light, increasing our knowledge and improving our condition, insomuch
as that we are at this time more advanced in civilization
here than the seaports were when I was a boy. And where this
progress will stop no one can say. Barbarism has, in the meantime,
been receding before the steady step of amelioration; and
will in time, I trust, disappear from the earth. You seem to
think that this advance has brought on too complicated a state
of society, and that we should gain in happiness by treading
back our steps a little way. I think, myself, that we have more
machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites
living on the labor of the industrious. I believe it might be
much simplified to the relief of those who maintain it. Your
experiment seems to have this in view. A society of seventy
families, the number you name, may very possibly be governed
as a single family, subsisting on their common industry, and
holding all things in common. Some regulators of the family
you still must have, and it remains to be seen at what period of
your increasing population your simple regulations will cease to
be sufficient to preserve order, peace, and justice. The experiment
is interesting; I shall not live to see its issue, but I wish it
success equal to your hopes, and to yourself and society prosperity
and happiness.
Monticello, October 9, 1824.
I have duly received, my dear friend and General, your letter
of the 1st from Philadelphia, giving us the welcome assurance
that you will visit the neighborhood which, during the march of
our enemy near it, was covered by your shield from his robberies
and ravages. In passing the line of your former march you will
experience pleasing recollections of the good you have done. My
neighbors, too, of our academical village, who well remember
their obligations to you, have expressed to you, in a letter from a
committee appointed for that purpose, their hope that you will
accept manifestations of their feelings, simple indeed, but as cordial
as any you will have received. It will be an additional
honor to the University of the State that you will have been its
first guest. Gratify them, then, by this assurance to their committee,
if it has not been done. But what recollections, dear
friend, will this call up to you and me! What a history have
we to run over from the evening that yourself, Mousnier, Bernau,
and other patriots settled, in my house in Paris, the outlines
of the constitution you wished! And to trace it through all the
disastrous chapters of Robespierre, Barras, Bonaparte, and the
Bourbons! These things, however, are for our meeting. You
mention the return of Miss Wright to America, accompanied by
her sister; but do not say what her stay is to be, nor what her
course. Should it lead her to a visit of our University, which,
in its architecture only, is as yet an object, herself and her companion
will nowhere find a welcome more hearty than with Mrs.
Randolph, and all the inhabitants of Monticello. This Athenæum
of our country, in embryo, is as yet but promise; and not in a
state to recall the recollections of Athens. But everything has
its beginning, its growth, and end; and who knows with what
future delicious morsels of philosophy, and by what future Miss
Wright raked from its ruins, the world may, some day, be gratified
and instructed? Your son George we shall be very happy
indeed to see, and to renew in him the recollections of your
very dear family; and the revolutionary merit of M. le Vasseur
has that passport to the esteem of every American, and, to me,
the additional one of having been your friend and co-operator,
and he will, I hope, join you in making head-quarters with us at
Monticello. But all these things à revoir, in the meantime we
are impatient that your ceremonies at York should be over, and
give you to the embraces of friendship.
P. S. Will you come by Mr. Madison's, or let him or me know
on what day he may meet you here, and join us in our greetings?
Monticello, October 13, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I must again beg the protection of your cover for
a letter to Mr. Gilmer; although a little doubtful whether he may
not have left you.
You will have seen by our papers the delirium into which our
citizens are thrown by a visit from General La Fayette. He is
making a triumphant progress through the States, from town to
town, with acclamations of welcome, such as no crowned head
ever received. It will have a good effect in favor of the General
with the people in Europe, but probably a different one with
their sovereigns. Its effect here, too, will be salutary as to ourselves,
by rallying us together and strengthening the habit of
considering our country as one and indivisible, and I hope we
shall close it with something more solid for him than dinners
and balls. The eclat of this visit has almost merged the Presidential
question, on which nothing scarcely is said in our papers.
That question will lie ultimately between Crawford and
Adams; but, at the same time, the vote of the people will be so
distracted by subordinate candidates, that possibly they may
make no election, and let it go to the House of Representatives.
There, it is thought, Crawford's chance is best. We have nothing
else interesting before the public. Of the two questions of the
tariff and public improvements, the former, perhaps, is not yet at
rest, and the latter will excite boisterous discussions. It happens
that both these measures fall in with the western interests, and
it is their secession from the agricultural States which gives such
strength to the manufacturing and consolidating parties, on these
two questions. The latter is the most dreaded, because thought
to amount to a determination in the federal government to assume
all powers non-enumerated as well as enumerated in the
constitution, and by giving a loose to construction, make the text
say whatever will relieve them from the bridle of the States.
These are difficulties for your day; I shall give them the slip.
Accept the assurance of my friendly attachment and great respect.
Monticello, October 15, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I have yet to thank for your Φ. Β. Κ. oration, delivered
in presence of General La Fayette. It is all excellent,
much of it sublimely so, well worthy of its author and his subject,
of whom we may truly say, as was said of Germanicus,
"fruitur famâ sui."
Your letter of September the 10th gave me the first information
that mine to Major Cartwright had got into the newspapers; and
the first notice, indeed, that he had received it. I was a stranger
to his person, but not to his respectable and patriotic character.
I received from him a long and interesting letter, and answered it
with frankness, going without reserve into several subjects, to
which his letter had led, but on which I did not suppose I was
writing for the newspapers. The publication of a letter in such
a case, without the consent of the writer, is not a fair practice.
The part which you quote, may draw on me the host of judges
and divines. They may cavil but cannot refute it. Those who
read Prisot's opinion with a candid view to understand, and not
to chicane it, cannot mistake its meaning. The reports in the
Year-books were taken very short. The opinions of the judges
were written down sententiously, as notes or memoranda, and not
with all the development which they probably used in delivering
them. Prisot's opinion, to be fully expressed, should be thus paraphrased:
"To such laws as those of holy church have recorded,
and preserved in their ancient books and writings, it is proper for
us to give credence; for so is, or so says the common law, or law
of the land, on which all manner of other laws rest for their authority,
or are founded; that is to say, the common law, or the
law of the land common to us all, and established by the authority
of us all, is that from which is derived the authority of all other
special and subordinate branches of law, such as the canon law,
law merchant, law maritime, law of Gavelkind, Borough English,
corporation laws, local customs and usages, to all of which the
common law requires its judges to permit authority in the special
or local cases belonging to them. The evidence of these laws is
preserved in their ancient treatises, books and writings, in like
manner as our own common law itself is known, the text of its
original enactments having been long lost, and its substance only
preserved in ancient and traditionary writings. And if it appears,
from their ancient books, writings and records, that the bishop, in
this case, according to the rules prescribed by these authorities,
has done what an ordinary would have done in such case, then
we should adjudge it good, otherwise not." To decide this question,
they would have to turn to the ancient writings and records
of the canon law, in which they would find evidence of the laws
of advowsons, quare impedit, the duties of bishops and ordinaries,
for which terms Prisot could never have meant to refer them to
the Old or New Testament, les saincts scriptures, where surely
they would not be found. A license which should permit "ancien
scripture" to be translated "holy scripture," annihilates at once
all the evidence of language. With such a license, we might reverse
the sixth commandment into "thou shall not omit murder."
It would be the more extraordinary in this case, where the mistranslation
was to effect the adoption of the whole code of the
Jewish and Christian laws into the text of our statutes, to convert
religious offences into temporal crimes, to make the breach
of every religious precept a subject of indictment, submit the
question of idolatry, for example, to the trial of a jury, and to a
court, its punishment, to the third and fourth generation of the
offender. Do we allow to our judges this lumping legislation?
The term "common law," although it has more than one meaning,
is perfectly definite, secundum subjectam materiem. Its most
probable origin was on the conquest of the Heptarchy by Alfred,
and the amalgamation of their several codes of law into one, which
became common to them all. The authentic text of these enactments
has not been preserved; but their substance has been committed
to many ancient books and writings, so faithfully as to have
been deemed genuine from generation to generation, and obeyed
as such by all. We have some fragments of them collected by
Lambard, Wilkins and others, but abounding with proofs of their
spurious authenticity. Magna Charta is the earliest statute, the
text of which has come down to us in an authentic form, and
thence downward we have them entire. We do not know exactly
when the common law and statute law, the lex scripta et non
scripta, began to be contra-distinguished, so as to give a second
acceptation to the former term; whether before, or after Prisot's
day, at which time we know that nearly two centuries and a half
of statutes were in preservation. In later times, on the introduction
of the chancery branch of law, the term common law began
to be used in a third sense, as the correlative of chancery law.
This, however, having been long after Prisot's time, could not
have been the sense in which he used the term. He must have
meant the ancient lex non scripta, because, had he used it as inclusive
of the lex scripta, he would have put his finger on the
statute which had enjoined on the judges a deference to the laws
of holy church. But no such statute existing, he must have referred
to the common law in the sense of a lex non scripta.
Whenever, then, the term common law is used in either of these
senses, and it is never employed in any other, it is readily known
in which of them, by the context and subject matter under consideration;
which, in the present case, leave no room for doubt.
I do not remember the occasion which led me to take up this
subject, while a practitioner of the law. But I know I went into
it with all the research which a very copious law library enabled
me to indulge; and I fear not for the accuracy of any of my quotations.
The doctrine might be disproved by many other and
different topics of reasoning; but having satisfied myself of the
origin of the forgery, and found how, like a rolling snow-ball, it
had gathered volume, I leave its further pursuit to those who
need further proof, and perhaps I have already gone further than
the feeble doubt you expressed might require.
I salute you with great esteem and respect.
Monticello, December 22, 1824.
Dear Sir,—The proposition to remove William and Mary College
to Richmond with all its present funds, and to add to it a
musical school, is nothing more nor less than to remove the University
also to that place. Because, if both remain, there will
not be students enough to make either worthy the acceptance of
men of the first order of science. They must each fall down to
the level of our present academies, under the direction of common
teachers, and our state of education must stand exactly where
it now is. Few of the States have been able to maintain one
university, none two. Surely the legislature, after such an expense
incurred for a real university, and just as it is prepared to
go into action under hopeful auspices, will not consent to destroy
it by this side-wind. As to the best course to be taken with
William and Mary, I am not so good a judge as our colleagues
on the spot. They have under their eyes the workings of the
enemies of the University, masked and unmasked, and the intrigues
of Richmond, which, after failing to obtain it in the first
instance, endeavors to steal its location at this late hour. And
they can best see what measures are most likely to counteract
these insidious designs. On the question of the removal, I think
our particular friends had better take no active part, but vote silently
for or against it, according to their own judgment as to
the public utility; and if they divide on the question, so much
the better perhaps. I am glad the visitors and professors have
invoked the interference of the legislature, because it is an acknowledgment
of its authority on behalf of the State to superintend
and control it, of which I never had a doubt. It is an institution
established for the public good, and not for the personal
emolument of the professors, endowed from the public lands and
organized by the executive functionary whose legal office it was.
The acquiescence of both corporations under the authority of
the legislature, removes what might otherwise have been a difficulty
with some. If the question of removal be decided affirmatively,
the next is, how shall their funds be disposed of most
advantageously for the State in general? These are about one
hundred thousand dollars too much for a secondary or local institution.
The giving a part of them to a school at Winchester,
and part to Hampden Sidney, is well, as far as it goes; but
does not go far enough. Why should not every part of the State
participate equally of the benefit of this reversion of right which
accrues to the whole equally? This would be no more a violation
of law than the giving it to a few. Yon know that the Rockfish
report proposed an intermediate grade of schools between the
primary and the university. In that report the objects of the
middle schools are stated. See page 10 of the copy I now enclose
you. In these schools should be taught Latin and Greek,
to a good degree, French also, numerical arithmetic, the elements
of geometry, surveying, navigation, geography, the use of the
globes, the outlines of the solar system, and elements of natural
philosophy. Two professors would suffice for these, to wit: one
for languages, the other for so much of mathematics and natural
philosophy as is here proposed. This degree of education would
be adapted to the circumstances of a very great number of our citizens,
who, being intended for lives of business, would not aim
at an university education. It would give us a body of yeomanry,
too, of substantial information, well prepared to become
a firm and steady support to the government; as schools of ancient
languages, too, they would be preparatories for the University.
You have now an happy opportunity of carrying this intermediate
establishment into execution without laying a cent of tax
on the people, or taking one from the treasury. Divide the State
into college districts of about eighty miles square each. There
would be about eight such districts below the Alleghany, and
two beyond it, which would be necessarily of larger extent because
of the sparseness of their population. The only advance
these colleges would call for, would be for a dwelling house for
the teacher, of about one thousand two hundred dollars cost, and
a boarding house with four or five bed rooms, and a school room
for probably about twenty or thirty boys. The whole should
not cost more than five thousand dollars, but the funds of William
and Mary would enable you to give them ten thousand dollars
each. The districts might be so laid off that the principal
towns and the academies now existing might form convenient
sites for their colleges; as, for example, Williamsburgh, Richmond,
Fredericksburg, Hampden Sidney, Lynchburg or Lexington,
Staunton, Winchester, &c. Thus, of William and Mary,
you will make ten colleges, each as useful as she over was, leaving
one in Williamsburg by itself, placing as good a one within
a day's ride of every man in the State, and get our whole scheme
of education completely established.
I have said that no advance is necessary but for the erection
of the buildings for these schools. Because the boys sent to
them would be exclusively of a class of parents in competent
circumstances to pay teachers for the education of their own children.
The ten thousand dollars given to each, would afford a
surplus to maintain by its interest one or two persons duly selected
for their genius, from the primary schools, of those too poor
to proceed farther of their own means. You will remember that
of the three bills I originally gave you, one was for these district
colleges, and going into the necessary details. Will you not
have every member in favor of this proposition, except those
who are for gobbling up the whole funds themselves? The present
professors might all be employed in the college of Richmond
or Williamsburg, or any other they would prefer, with reasonable
salaries in the meantime, until the system should get under way.
This occasion of completing our system of education is a God-send
which ought not to pass away neglected. Many may be
startled at the first idea. But reflection on the justice and advantage
of the measure will produce converts daily and hourly
to it. I certainly would not propose that the University should
claim a cent of these funds in competition with the district colleges.
Would it not be better to say nothing about the last donation
of fifty thousand dollars, and endeavor to get the money from
Congress, and to press for it immediately. I cannot doubt their
allowing it, and it would be much better to get it from them than
to revive the displeasure of our own legislature.
You are aware that we have yet two professors to appoint, to
wit: of natural history and moral philosophy, and that we have
no time to lose. I propose that such of our colleagues as are of
the legislature, should name a day of meeting, convenient to
themselves, and give notice of it by mail to Mr. Madison, General
Cocke, and myself. But it should not be till the arrival of
the three professors expected at Norfolk. On their arrival only
can we publish the day of opening. Our Richmond mail-stage
arrives here on Sunday and departs on Wednesday, and arrives
again on Thursday and departs on Sunday. Each affording two
spare intervening days, and requiring from here an absence of
six days.
Mr. Long, professor of ancient languages, is located in his
apartments at the University. He drew, by lot, pavilion No. 5.
He appears to be a most amiable man, of fine understanding,
well qualified for his department, and acquiring esteem as fast as
he becomes known. Indeed, I have great hope that the whole
selection will fulfil our wishes. Ever and affectionately yours.
Monticello, January 8, 1825.
Dear Sir,—It is long since I have written to you. This proceeds
from the difficulty of writing with my crippled wrist, and
from an unwillingness to add to your inconveniences of either
reading by the eyes, or writing by the hands of others. The
account I receive of your physical situation afflicts me sincerely;
but if body or mind was one of them to give way, it is a great
comfort that it is the mind which remains whole, and that its
vigor, and that of memory continues firm. Your hearing, too, is
good, as I am told. In this you have the advantage of me. The
dulness of mine makes me lose much of the conversation of the
world, and much a stranger to what is passing in it. Acquiescence
is the only pillow, although not always a soft one. I have
had one advantage of you. This Presidential election has given
me few anxieties. With you this must have been impossible,
independently of the question, whether we are at last to end our
days under a civil or a military government. I am comforted
and protected from other solicitudes by the cares of our University.
In some departments of science we believe Europe to be in
advance before us, and that it would advance ourselves were we
to draw from thence instructors in these branches, and thus to
improve our science, as we have done our manufactures, by borrowed
skill. I have been much squibbed for this, perhaps by
disappointed applicants for professorships, to which they were
deemed incompetent. We wait only the arrival of three of the
professors engaged in England, to open our University.
I have lately been reading the most extraordinary of all books,
and at the same time the most demonstrative by numerous and
unequivocal facts. It is Flourens's experiments on the functions
of the nervous system, in vertebrated animals. He takes out the
cerebrum completely, leaving the cerebellum and other parts of
the system uninjured. The animal loses all its senses of hearing,
seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting, is totally deprived of will,
intelligence, memory, perception, &c. Yet lives for months in
perfect health, with all its powers of motion, but without moving
but on external excitement, starving even on a pile of grain, unless
crammed down its throat; in short, in a state of the most absolute
stupidity. He takes the cerebellum out of others, leaving
the cerebrum untouched. The animal retains all its senses, faculties,
and understanding, but loses the power of regulated motion,
and exhibits all the symptoms of drunkenness. While he
makes incisions in the cerebrum and cerebellum, lengthwise and
crosswise, which heal and get well, a puncture in the medulla
elongata is instant death; and many other most interesting things
too long for a letter. Cabanis had proved by the anatomical
structure of certain portions of the human frame, that they might
be capable of receiving from the hand of the Creator the faculty
of thinking; Flourens proves that they have received it; that the
cerebrum is the thinking organ; and that life and health may
continue, and the animal be entirely without thought, if deprived
of that organ. I wish to see what the spiritualists will say to
this. Whether in this state the soul remains in the body, deprived
of its essence of thought? or whether it leaves it, as in
death, and where it goes? His memoirs and experiments have
been reported on with approbation by a committee of the institute,
composed of Cuvier, Bertholet, Dumaril, Portal and Pinel.
But all this, you and I shall know better when we meet again,
in another place, and at no distant period. In the meantime,
that the revived powers of your frame, and the anodyne of philosophy
may preserve you from all suffering, is my sincere and
affectionate prayer.
Monticello, January 8, 1825.
Dear Sir,—I returned the first volume of Hall by a mail of a
week ago, and by this, shall return the second. We have kept
them long, but every member of the family wished to read his
book, in which case, you know, it had a long gauntlet to run.
It is impossible to read thoroughly such writings as those of
Harper and Otis, who take a page to say what requires but a
sentence, or rather, who give you whole pages of what is nothing
to the purpose. A cursory race over the ground is as much
as they can claim. It is easy for them, at this day, to endeavor
to whitewash their party, when the greater part are dead of those
who witnessed what passed, others old and become indifferent
to the subject, and others indisposed to take the trouble of answering
them. As to Otis, his attempt is to prove that the sun
does not shine at mid-day; that that is not a fact which every
one saw. He merits no notice. It is well known that Harper
had little scruple about facts where detection was not obvious.
By placing in false lights whatever admits it, and passing over in
silence what does not, a plausible aspect may be presented of anything.
He takes great pains to prove, for instance, that Hamilton
was no monarchist, by exaggerating his own intimacy with
him, and the impossibility, if he was so, that he should not, at
some time, have betrayed it to him. This may pass with uninformed
readers, but not with those who have had it from Hamilton's
own mouth. I am one of those, and but one of many. At
my own table, in presence of Mr. Adams, Knox, Randolph, and
myself, in a dispute between Mr. Adams and himself, he avowed
his preference of monarchy over every other government, and his
opinion that the English was the most perfect model of government
ever devised by the wit of man, Mr. Adams agreeing "if
its corruptions were done away." While Hamilton insisted that
"with these corruptions it was perfect, and without them it
would be an impracticable government." Can any one read Mr.
Adams' defence of the American constitutions without seeing
that he was a monarchist? And J. Q. Adams, the son, was more
explicit than the father, in his answer to Paine's rights of man.
So much for leaders. Their followers were divided. Some went
the same lengths, others, and I believe the greater part, only
wished a stronger Executive. When I arrived at New York in
1790, to take a part in the administration, being fresh from the
French revolution, while in its first and pure stage, and consequently
somewhat whetted up in my own republican principles,
I found a state of things, in the general society of the place,
which I could not have supposed possible. Being a stranger
there, I was feasted from table to table, at large set dinners, the
parties generally from twenty to thirty. The revolution I had
left, and that we had just gone through in the recent change of
our own government, being the common topics of conversation,
I was astonished to find the general prevalence of monarchical
sentiments, insomuch that in maintaining those of republicanism,
I had always the whole company on my hands, never scarcely
finding among them a single co-advocate in that argument, unless
some old member of Congress happened to be present. The
furthest that any one would go, in support of the republican features
of our new government, would be to say, "the present constitution
is well as a beginning, and may be allowed a fair trial; but
it is, in fact, only a stepping stone to something better." Among
their writers, Denny, the editor of the Portfolio, who was a kind
of oracle with them, and styled the Addison of America, openly
avowed his preference of monarchy over all other forms of government,
prided himself on the avowal, and maintained it by argument
freely and without reserve, in his publications. I do not,
myself, know that the Essex junto of Boston were monarchists,
but I have always heard it so said, and never doubted.
These, my dear Sir, are but detached items from a great mass
of proofs then fully before the public. They are unknown to
you, because you were absent in Europe, and they are now disavowed
by the party. But, had it not been for the firm and determined
stand then made by a counter-party, no man can say
what our government would have been at this day. Monarchy,
to be sure, is now defeated, and they wish it should be forgotten
that it was ever advocated. They see that it is desperate, and
treat its imputation to them as a calumny; and I verily believe
that none of them have it now in direct aim. Yet the spirit is
not done away. The same party takes now what they deem
the next best ground, the consolidation of the government; the
giving to the federal member of the government, by unlimited
constructions of the constitution, a control over all the functions
of the States, and the concentration of all power ultimately at
Washington.
The true history of that conflict of parties will never be in
possession of the public, until, by the death of the actors in it,
the hoards of their letters shall be broken up and given to the
world. I should not fear to appeal to those of Harper himself,
if he has kept copies of them, for abundant proof that he was
himself a monarchist. I shall not live to see these unrevealed
proofs, nor probably you; for time will be requisite. But time
will, in the end, produce the truth. And, after all, it is but a
truth which exists in every country, where not suppressed by the
rod of despotism. Men, according to their constitutions, and the
circumstances in which they are placed, differ honestly in opinion.
Some are whigs, liberals, democrats, call them what you
please. Others are tories, serviles, aristocrats, &c. The latter
fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher
classes of society; the former consider the people as the safest depository
of power in the last resort; they cherish them therefore,
and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which
they are competent. This is the division of sentiment now existing
in the United States. It is the common division of whig
and tory, or according to our denominations of republican and
federal; and is the most salutary of all divisions, and ought,
therefore, to be fostered, instead of being amalgamated. For,
take away this, and some more dangerous principle of division
will take its place. But there is really no amalgamation. The
parties exist now as heretofore. The one, indeed, has thrown
off its old name, and has not yet assumed a new one, although
obviously consolidationists. And among those in the offices of
every denomination I believe it to be a bare minority.
I have gone into these facts to show how one-sided a view of
this case Harper has presented. I do not recall these recollections
with pleasure, but rather wish to forget them, nor did I ever
permit them to affect social intercourse. And now, least of all,
am disposed to do so. Peace and good will with all mankind is
my sincere wish. I willingly leave to the present generation to
conduct their affairs as they please. And in my general affection
to the whole human family, and my particular devotion to my
friends, be assured of the high and special estimation in which
yourself is cordially held.
Monticello, January 11, 1825.
Dear Sir,—We are dreadfully nonplussed here by the non-arrival
of our three Professors. We apprehend that the idea of
our opening on the 1st of February prevails so much abroad,
(although we have always mentioned it doubtfully,) as that the
students will assemble on that day without awaiting the further
notice which was promised. To send them away will be discouraging,
and to open an University without Mathematics or
Natural Philosophy would bring on us ridicule and disgrace. We
therefore publish an advertisement, stating that on the arrival
of these Professors, notice will be given of the day of opening
the institution.
Governor Barbour writes me hopefully of getting our fifty
thousand dollars from Congress. The proposition has been
originated in the House of Representatives, referred to the committee
of claims, the chairman of which has prepared a very favorable
report, and a bill conformable, assuming the repayment
of all interest which the State has actually paid. The legislature
will certainly owe to us the recovery of this money; for had they
not given it in some measure the reverenced character of a donation
for the promotion of learning, it would never have been paid.
It is to be hoped, therefore, that the displeasure incurred by
wringing it from them at the last session, will now give way to
a contrary feeling, and even place us on a ground of some merit.
Should this sentiment take place, and the arrival of our Professors,
and filling our dormitories with students on the 1st of
February, encourage them to look more favorably towards us,
perhaps it might dispose them to enlarge somewhat their order
on the same fund. You observe the Proctor has stated in a
letter accompanying our Report, that it will take about twenty-five
thousand dollars more than we have to finish the Rotunda.
Besides this, an Anatomical theatre (costing about as much as
one of our hotels, say about five thousand dollars,) is indispensable
to the school of Anatomy. There cannot be a single dissection
until a proper theatre is prepared, giving an advantageous
view of the operation to those within, and effectually excluding
observation from without. Either the additional sums, therefore,
of twenty-five thousand and five thousand dollars will be
wanting, or we must be permitted to appropriate a part of the
fifty thousand to a theatre, leaving the Rotunda unfinished for the
present. Yet I should think neither of these objects an equivalent
for renewing the displeasure of the legislature. Unless we can
carry their hearty patronage with us, the institution can never
flourish. I would not, therefore, hint at this additional aid, unless
it were agreeable to our friends generally, and tolerably sure of
being carried without irritation.
In your letter of December the 31st, you say my "hand-writing
and my letters have great effect there," i. e. at Richmond.
I am sensible, my dear Sir, of the kindness with which this encouragement
is held up to me. But my views of their effect are
very different. When I retired from the administration of public
affairs, I thought I saw some evidence that I retired with a good
degree of public favor, and that my conduct in office had been
considered, by the one party at least, with approbation, and with
acquiescence by the other. But the attempt in which I have embarked
so earnestly, to procure an improvement in the moral
condition of my native State, although, perhaps, in other States
it may have strengthened good dispositions, it has assuredly weakened
them within our own. The attempt ran foul of so many
local interests, of so many personal views, and so much ignorance,
and I have been considered as so particularly its promoter, that I
see evidently a great change of sentiment towards myself. I cannot
doubt its having dissatisfied with myself a respectable minority,
if not a majority of the House of Delegates. I feel it deeply, and
very discouragingly. Yet I shall not give way. I have ever
found in my progress through life, that, acting for the public, if
we do always what is right, the approbation denied in the beginning
will surely follow us in the end. It is from posterity we are
to expect remuneration for the sacrifices we are making for their
service, of time, quiet and good will. And I fear not the appeal.
The multitude of fine young men whom we shall redeem from
ignorance, who will feel that they owe to us the elevation of
mind, of character and station they will be able to attain from
the result of our efforts, will insure their remembering us with
gratitude. We will not, then, be "weary in well-doing."
Usque ad aras amicus tuus.
Monticello, January 17, 1825.
Dear Sir,—I have duly received four proof sheets of your explanation
of the Apocalypse, with your letters of December 29th
and January 8th; in the last of which you request that, so soon
as I shall be of opinion that the explanation you have given is
correct, I would express it in a letter to you. From this you
must be so good as to excuse me, because I make it an invariable
rule to decline ever giving opinions on new publications in any
case whatever. No man on earth has less taste or talent for
criticism than myself, and least and last of all should I undertake
to criticize works on the Apocalypse. It is between fifty and
sixty years since I read it, and I then considered it as merely the
ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation
than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams. I was, therefore,
well pleased to see, in your first proof sheet, that it was said
to be not the production of St. John, but of Cerinthus, a century
after the death of that apostle. Yet the change of the author's
name does not lessen the extravagances of the composition; and
come they from whomsoever they may, I cannot so far respect
them as to consider them as an allegorical narrative of events,
past or subsequent. There is not coherence enough in them to
countenance any suite of rational ideas. You will judge, therefore,
from this how impossible I think it that either your explanation,
or that of any man in "the heavens above, or on the earth
beneath," can be a correct one. What has no meaning admits
no explanation; and pardon me if I say, with the candor of
friendship, that I think your time too valuable, and your understanding
of too high an order, to be wasted on these paralogisms.
You will perceive, I hope, also, that I do not consider them as
revelations of the Supreme Being, whom I would not so far blaspheme
as to impute to him a pretension of revelation, couched
at the same time in terms which, he would know, were never to
be understood by those to whom they were addressed. In the
candor of these observations, I hope you will see proofs of the
confidence, esteem and respect which I truly entertain for you.
Quincy, January 23, 1825.
My Dear Sir,—We think ourselves possessed, or at least we
boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects and
of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases,
and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact.
There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a
law which makes it blasphemy to deny, or to doubt the divine
inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from
Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished
by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England
itself, it is punished by boring through the tongue with a
red-hot poker. In America it is not much better; even in our
Massachusetts, which, I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate
and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was
made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel
punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment
upon all those blasphemies upon any book of the Old
Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer
must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing
any arguments for investigation into the divine authority
of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Volney's
Recherches Nouvelles? Who would run the risk of translating
Dapin's? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have
it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great
obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books
that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established
as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons
appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also
true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart
from them; but as long as they continue in force as laws,
the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in
its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance
and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable,
and will bear examination forever; but it has been
mixed with extraneous ingredients, which, I think, will not bear
examination, and they ought to be separated. Adieu.
Monticello, February 3, 1825.
Dear Sir,—Although our Professors were, on the 5th of December,
still in an English port, that they were safe raises me
from the dead, for I was almost ready to give up the ship. That
was eight weeks ago; they may therefore be daily expected.
In most public seminaries text-books are prescribed to each of
the several schools, as the norma docendi in that school; and this
is generally done by authority of the trustees. I should not propose
this generally in our University, because I believe none of
us are so much at the heights of science in the several branches,
as to undertake this, and therefore that it will be better left to the
Professors until occasion of interference shall be given. But
there is one branch in which we are the best judges, in which
heresies may be taught, of so interesting a character to our own
State and to the United States, as to make it a duty in us to lay
down the principles which are to be taught. It is that of government.
Mr. Gilmer being withdrawn, we know not who his
successor may be. He may be a Richmond lawyer, or one of
that school of quondam federalism, now consolidation. It is our
duty to guard against such principles being disseminated among
our youth, and the diffusion of that poison, by a previous prescription
of the texts to be followed in their discourses. I therefore
enclose you a resolution which I think of proposing at our next
meeting, strictly confiding it to your own knowledge alone, and
to that of Mr. Loyall, to whom you may communicate it, as I
am sure it will harmonize with his principles. I wish it kept to
ourselves, because I have always found that the less such things
are spoken of beforehand, the less obstruction is contrived to be
thrown in their way. I have communicated it to Mr. Madison.
Should the bill for district colleges pass in the end, our scheme
of education will be complete. But the branch of primary
schools may need attention, and should be brought, like the rest,
to the forum of the legislature. The Governor, in his annual
message, gives a favorable account of them in the lump. But
this is not sufficient. We should know the operation of the law
establishing these schools more in detail. We should know how
much money is furnished to each county every year, and how
much education it distributes every year, and such a statement
should be laid before the legislature every year. The sum of education
rendered in each county in each year should be estimated
by adding together the number of months which each scholar attended,
and stating the sum total of the months which all of them
together attended, e. g., in any county one scholar attended
two months, three others four months each, eight others six
months each, then the sum of these added together will make
sixty-two months of schooling afforded in the county that year;
and the number of sixty-two months entered in a table opposite
to the name of the county, gives a satisfactory idea of the sum
or quantum of education it rendered in that year. This will enable
us to take many interesting and important views of the
sufficiency of the plan established, and of the amendments necessary
to produce the greatest effect. I enclose a form of the
table which would be required, in which you will of course be
sensible that the numbers entered are at hap-hazard, and exempli
gratia, as I know nothing of the sums furnished or quantum of
education rendered in each or any county. I send also the form
of such a resolution as should be passed by the one or the other
house, perhaps better in the lower one, and moved by some member
nowise connected with us, for the less we appear before the
house, the less we shall excite dissatisfaction.
I mentioned to you formerly our want of an anatomical hall
for dissection. But if we get the fifty thousand dollars from
Congress, we can charge to that, as the library fund, the six thousand
dollars of the building fund which we have advanced for it
in books and apparatus, and repaying from the former the six
thousand dollars due to the latter, apply so much of it as is necessary
for the anatomical building. No application on the subject
need therefore be made to our legislature. But I hear nothing
of our prospects before Congress. Yours affectionately.
Resolved, That the Governor be requested to have prepared
and laid before the legislature, at their next session, a statement
in detail of the sum of education which, under the law establishing
primary schools, has been rendered in the schools of each
county respectively; that it be stated in a tabular form, in the
first column of which table shall be the names of the counties
alphabetically arranged, and then, for every year, two other columns,
in the first of which shall be entered, opposite to the name
of each county, the sum of money furnished it in that year, and
in the second shall be stated the sum of education rendered in
the same county and year; which sum is to be estimated by adding
together the number of months of schooling which the several
individuals attending received. And that henceforward a
similar statement be prepared and laid before the legislature every
year for that year.
| Accomac |
$400 |
216 months schooling. |
| Albemarle |
500 |
234 months schooling. |
| Amelia |
250 |
183 months schooling. |
| Amherst |
400 |
210 months schooling. |
| Augusta |
800 |
461 months schooling. |
| &c. |
Monticello, February 20, 1825.
Dear Sir,—I thank you for the copy of your Cherokee grammar,
which I have gone over with attention and satisfaction. We
generally learn languages for the benefit of reading the books
written in them. But here our reward must be the addition
made to the philosophy of language. In this point of view your
analysis of the Cherokee adds valuable matter for reflection, and
strengthens our desire to see more of these languages as scientifically
elucidated. Their grammatical devices for the modification
of their words by a syllable prefixed to, or inserted in the
middle, or added to its end, and by other combinations so different
from ours, prove that if man came from one stock, his languages
did not. A late grammarian has said that all words were
originally monosyllables. The Indian languages disprove this. I
should conjecture that the Cherokees, for example, have formed
their language not by single words, but by phrases. I have
known some children learn to speak, not by a word at a time, but
by whole phrases. Thus the Cherokee has no name for father
in the abstract, but only as combined with some one of his relations.
A complex idea being a fasciculus of simple ideas bundled
together, it is rare that different languages make up their bundles
alike, and hence the difficulty of translating from one language
to another. European nations have so long had intercourse with
one another, as to have approximated their complex expressions
much towards one another. But I believe we shall find it impossible
to translate our language into any of the Indian, or any
of theirs into ours. I hope you will pursue your undertaking,
and that others will follow your example with other of their
languages. It will open a wide field for reflection on the grammatical
organization of languages, their structure and character.
I am persuaded that among the tribes on our two continents a
great number of languages, radically different, will be found. It
will be curious to consider how so many so radically different
will be found. It will be curious to consider how so many so
radically different have been preserved by such small tribes in
coterminous settlements of moderate extent. I had once collected
about thirty vocabularies formed of the same English words, expressive
of such simple objects only as must be present and familiar
to every one under these circumstances. They wore unfortunately
lost. But I remember that on a trial to arrange them
into families or dialects, I found in one instance that about half a
dozen might be so classed, in another perhaps three or four.
Bot I am sure that a third at least, if not more, were perfectly insulation
from each other. Yet this is the only index by which
we can trace their filiation.
I had received your observations on the changes proposed in
Harvard College, without knowing from whom they came to me,
and had been so much pleased with them as to have put them
by for preservation. These observations, with the report and
documents to which they relate, are a treasure of information to
us; they give to our infant institution the experience of your ancient
and eminent establishment. I hope that we shall be like
cordial colleagues in office, acting in harmony and affection for
the same object. Our European professors, five in number, are
at length arrived, and excite strong presumptions that they have
been judiciously selected. We have announced our opening on
the 7th of the ensuing month of March. With sincere wishes for
the prosperity of yours, as well as ours, I pray you to accept assurances
of my high esteem and respect.
Monticello, February 21, 1825.
This letter will, to you, be as one from the dead. The writer
will be in the grave before you can weigh its counsels. Your
affectionate and excellent father has requested that I would address
to you something which might possibly have a favorable
influence on the course of life you have to run, and I too, as a
namesake, feel an interest in that course. Few words will be
necessary, with good dispositions on your part. Adore God.
Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as
yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true.
Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life into
which you have entered, be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable
bliss. And if to the dead it is permitted to care for the
things of this world, every action of your life will be under my
regard. Farewell.
Lord, who's the happy man that may to thy blest courts repair;
Not stranger-like to visit them, but to inhabit there?
'Tis he whose every thought and deed by rules of virtue moves;
Whose generous tongue disdains to speak the thing his heart disproves.
Who never did a slander forge, his neighbor's fame to wound;
Nor hearken to a false report, by malice whispered round.
Who vice in all its pomp and power, can treat with just neglect;
And piety, though clothed in rage, religiously respect.
Who to his plighted vows and trust has ever firmly stood;
And though he promise to his loss, he makes his promise good.
Whose soul in usury disdains his treasure to employ;
Whom no rewards can ever bribe the guiltless to destroy.
The man, who, by this steady course, has happiness insur'd,
When earth's foundations shake, shall stand, by Providence secur'd.
1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have it.
4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it
will be dear to you.
5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
6. We never repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never
happened.
9. Take things always by their smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry,
an hundred.
Monticello, March 25, 1825.
Dear Sir,—I know how apt we are to consider those whom
we knew long ago, and have not since seen, to be exactly still
what they were when we knew them; and to have been stationary
in body and mind as they have been in our recollections.
Have you not been under that illusion with respect to myself?
When I had the pleasure of being a fellow-laborer with you in
the public service, age had ripened, but not yet impaired whatever
of mind I had at any time possessed. But five-and-twenty
chilling winters have since rolled over my head, and whitened
every hair of it. Worn down by time in bodily strength, unable to
walk even into my garden without too much fatigue, I cannot
doubt that the mind has also suffered its portion of decay. If
reason and experience had not taught me this law of nature,
my own consciousness is a sufficient monitor, and warns me to
keep in mind the golden precept of Horace,
"Solve senescentem, maturé sanus, equum, ne
Peccet ad extremum ridendus."
I am not equal, dear Sir, to the task you have proposed to me.
To examine a code of laws newly reduced to system and text, to
weigh their bearings on each other in all their parts, their harmony
with reason and nature, and their adaptation to the habits and
sentiments of those for whom they are prepared, and whom, in
this case, I do not know, is a task far above what I am now, or
perhaps ever was. I have attended to so much of your work as
has been heretofore laid before the public, and have looked, with
some attention also, into what you have now sent me. It will
certainly arrange your name with the sages of antiquity. Time
and changes in the condition and constitution of society may require
occasional and corresponding modifications. One single
object, if your provision attains it, will entitle you to the endless
gratitude of society; that of restraining judges from usurping legislation.
And with no body of men is this restraint more wanting
than with the judges of what is commonly called our general
government, but what I call our foreign department. They
are practising on the constitution by inferences, analogies, and
sophisms, as they would on an ordinary law. They do not seem
aware that it is not even a constitution, formed by a single authority,
and subject to a single superintendence and control; but
that it is a compact of many independent powers, every single
one of which claims an equal right to understand it, and to require
its observance. However strong the cord of compact may
be, there is a point of tension at which it will break. A few
such doctrinal decisions, as barefaced as that of the Cohens, happening
to bear immediately on two or three of the large States,
may induce them to join in arresting the march of government,
and in arousing the co-States to pay some attention to what is
passing, to bring back the compact to its original principles, or to
modify it legitimately by the express consent of the parties themselves,
and not by the usurpation of their created agents. They
imagine they can lead us into a consolidate government, while
their road leads directly to its dissolution. This member of the
government was at first considered as the most harmless and
helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring
what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining, slily,
and without alarm, the foundations of the constitution, can do
what open force would not dare to attempt. I have not observed
whether, in your code, you have provided against caucussing judicial
decisions, and for requiring judges to give their opinions
seriatim, every man for himself, with his reasons and authorities
at large, to be entered of record in his own words. A regard for
reputation, and the judgment of the world, may sometimes be felt
where conscience is dormant, or indolence inexcitable. Experience
has proved that impeachment in our forms is completely
inefficient.
I am pleased with the style and diction of your laws. Plain
and intelligible as the ordinary writings of common sense, I hope
it will produce imitation. Of all the countries on earth of which
I have any knowledge, the style of the Acts of the British parliament
is the most barbarous, uncouth, and unintelligible. It
can be understood by those alone who are in the daily habit of
studying such tautologous, involved and parenthetical jargon.
Where they found their model, I know not. Neither ancient
nor modern codes, nor even their own early statutes, furnish any
such example. And, like faithful apes, we copy it faithfully.
In declining the undertaking you so flatteringly propose to me,
I trust you will see but an approvable caution for the age of four
score and two, to avoid exposing itself before the public. The
misfortune of a weakened mind is an insensibility of its weakness.
Seven years ago, indeed, I embarked in an enterprise, the
establishment of an University, which placed and keeps me still
under the public eye. The call was imperious, the necessity
most urgent, and the hazard of titubation less, by those seven
years, than it now is. The institution is at length happily advanced
to completion, and has commenced under auspices as
favorable as I could expect. I hope it will prove a blessing to
my own State, and not unuseful perhaps to some others. At all
hazards, and secured by the aid of my able coadjutors, I shall
continue, while I am in being, to contribute to it whatever my
weakened and weakening powers can. But assuredly it is the
last object for which I shall obtrude myself on the public observation.
Wishing anxiously that your great work may obtain complete
success, and become an example for the imitation and improvement
of other States, I pray you to be assured of my unabated
friendship and respect.
Monticello, April 3, 1825.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of March 25th has been duly received.
The fact is unquestionable, that the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution
of Virginia, were drawn originally by George Mason,
one of our really great men, and of the first order of greatness.
The history of the Preamble to the latter is this: I was then at
Philadelphia with Congress; and knowing that the Convention
of Virginia was engaged in forming a plan of government, I
turned my mind to the same subject, and drew a sketch or outline
of a Constitution, with a preamble, which I sent to Mr. Pendleton,
president of the convention, on the mere possibility that
it might suggest something worth incorporation into that before
the convention. He informed me afterwards by letter, that he
received it on the day on which the Committee of the Whole had
reported to the House the plan they had agreed to; that that
had been so long in hand, so disputed inch by inch, and the
subject of so much altercation and debate; that they were worried
with the contentions it had produced, and could not from mere
lassitude, have been induced to open the instrument again; but
that, being pleased with the Preamble to mine, they adopted it
in the House, by way of amendment to the Report of the Committee;
and thus my Preamble became tacked to the work of
George Mason. The Constitution, with the Preamble, was
passed on the 29th of June, and the Committee of Congress had
only the day before that reported to that body the draught of the
Declaration of Independence. The fact is, that that Preamble
was prior in composition to the Declaration; and both having the
same object, of justifying our separation from Great Britain, they
used necessarily the same materials of justification, and hence
their similitude.
Withdrawn by age from all other public services and attentions
to public things, I am closing the last scenes of life by fashioning
and fostering an establishment for the instruction of those
who are to come after us. I hope its influence on their virtue,
freedom, fame and happiness, will be salutary and permanent.
The form and distributions of its structure are original and
unique, the architecture chaste and classical, and the whole well
worthy of attracting the curiosity of a visit. Should it so prove
to yourself at any time, it will be a great gratification to me to
see you once more at Monticello; and I pray you to be assured
of my continued and high respect and esteem.
Monticello, May 8, 1825.
Dear Sir,— * * * * *
That George Mason was author of the bill of rights, and of the
constitution founded on it, the evidence of the day established
fully in my mind. Of the paper you mention, purporting to be
instructions to the Virginia delegation in Congress, I have no
recollection. If it were anything more than a project of some
private hand, that is to say, had any such instructions been ever
given by the convention, they would appear in the journals,
which we possess entire. But with respect to our rights, and the
acts of the British government contravening those rights, there
was but one opinion on this side of the water. All American
whigs thought alike on these subjects. When forced, therefore,
to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the
world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the
object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new
principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely
to say things which had never been said before: but to place before
mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain
and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in
the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming
at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from
any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression
of the American mind, and to give to that expression the
proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority
rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether
expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary
books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney,
&c. The historical documents which you mention as in
your possession, ought all to be found, and I am persuaded you
will find, to be corroborative of the facts and principles advanced
in that Declaration. Be pleased to accept assurances of my great
esteem and respect.
Monticello, August 7, 1825.
I have duly received; dear Madam, your letter of July 26th,
and learn from it with much regret, that Miss Wright, your
sister, is so much indisposed as to be obliged to visit our medicinal
springs. I wish she may be fortunate in finding those which
may be adapted to her case. We have taken too little pains to
ascertain the properties of our different mineral waters, the cases
in which they are respectively remedial, the proper process in
their use, and other circumstances necessary to give us their full
value. My own health is very low, not having been able to
leave the house for three months, and suffering much at times.
In this state of body and mind, your letter could not have found
a more inefficient counsellor, one scarcely able to think or to
write. At the age of eighty-two, with one foot in the grave,
and the other uplifted to follow it, I do not permit myself to take
part in any new enterprises, even for bettering the condition of
man, not even in the great one which is the subject of your
letter, and which has been through life that of my greatest anxieties.
The march of events has not been such as to render its
completion practicable within the limits of time allotted to me;
and I leave its accomplishment as the work of another generation.
And I am cheered when I see that on which it is devolved,
taking it up with so much good will, and such minds
engaged in its encouragement. The abolition of the evil is not
impossible; it ought never therefore to be despaired of. Every
plan should be adopted, every experiment tried, which may do
something towards the ultimate object. That which you propose
is well worthy of trial. It has succeeded with certain portions
of our white brethren, under the care of a Rapp and an
Owen; and why may it not succeed with the man of color? An
opinion is hazarded by some, but proved by none, that moral urgencies
are not sufficient to induce him to labor; that nothing
can do this but physical coercion. But this is a problem which
the present age alone is prepared to solve by experiment. It
would be a solecism to suppose a race of animals created, without
sufficient foresight and energy to preserve their own existence.
It is disproved, too, by the fact that they exist, and have
existed through all the ages of history. We are not sufficiently
acquainted with all the nations of Africa, to say that there may
not be some in which habits of industry are established, and the
arts practised which are necessary to render life comfortable.
The experiment now in progress in St. Domingo, those of Sierra
Leone and Cape Mesurado, are but beginning. Your proposition
has its aspects of promise also; and should it not answer fully to
calculations in figures, it may yet, in its developments, lead to
happy results. These, however, I must leave to another generation.
The enterprise of a different, but yet important character,
in which I have embarked too late in life, I find more than sufficient
to occupy the enfeebled energies remaining to me, and
that to divert them to other objects, would be a desertion of
these. You are young, dear Madam, and have powers of mind
which may do much in exciting others in this arduous task. I
am confident they will be so exerted, and I pray to heaven for
their success, and that you may be rewarded with the blessings
which such efforts merit.
Monticello, September 16, 1825.
Dear Sir,—I am not able to give you any particular account
of the paper handed you by Mr. Lee, as being either the original
or a copy of the Declaration of Independence, sent by myself to
his grandfather. The draught, when completed by myself,
with a few verbal amendments by Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams,
two members of the committee, in their own hand-writing, is
now in my own possession, and a fair copy of this was reported to
the committee, passed by them without amendment, and then reported
to Congress. This letter should be among the records
of the old Congress; and whether this or the one from which it
was copied and now in my hands, is to be called the original, is
a question of definition. To that in my hands, if worth preserving,
my relations with our University gives irresistible claims.
Whenever, in the course of the composition, a copy became overcharged,
and difficult to be read with amendments, I copied it
fair, and when that also was crowded with other amendments,
another fair copy was made, &c. These rough draughts I sent
to distant friends who were anxious to know what was passing.
But how many, and to whom, I do not recollect. One sent to
Mazzei was given by him to the Countess de Tessie (aunt of
Madame de Lafayette) as the original, and is probably now in
the hands of her family. Whether the paper sent to R. H. Lee
was one of these, or whether, after the passage of the instrument,
I made a copy for him, with the amendments of Congress, may,
I think, be known from the face of the paper. The documents
Mr. Lee has given you must be of great value, and until all these
private hoards are made public, the real history of the revolution
will not be known.
Monticello, September 26, 1825.
Dear Sir,—It is not for me to estimate the importance of
the circumstances concerning which your letter of the 8th makes
inquiry. They prove, even in their minuteness, the sacred attachments
of our fellow citizens to the event of which the paper
of July 4th, 1776, was but the declaration, the genuine effusion
of the soul of our country at that time. Small things
may, perhaps, like the relics of saints, help to nourish our devotion
to this holy bond of our Union, and keep it longer alive
and warm in our affections. This effect may give importance to
circumstances, however small. At the time of writing that instrument,
I lodged in the house of a Mr. Graaf, a new brick
house, three stories high, of which I rented the second floor consisting
of a parlor and bed-room, ready furnished. In that parlor
I wrote habitually, and in it wrote this paper, particularly. So
far I state from written proofs in my possession. The proprietor,
Graaf, was a young man, son of a German, and then newly married.
I think he was a bricklayer, and that his house was on
the south side of Market street, probably between Seventh and
Eighth streets, and if not the only house on that part of the street,
I am sure there were few others near it. I have some idea that
it was a corner house, but no other recollections throwing light
on the question, or worth communication. I am ill, therefore
only add assurance of my great respect and esteem.
Monticello, October 25, 1825.
Dear Sir,—I know not whether the professors to whom ancient
and modern history are assigned in the University, have yet
decided on the course of historical reading which they will recommend
to their schools. If they have, I wish this letter to be
considered as not written, as their course, the result of mature
consideration, will be preferable to anything I could recommend.
Under this uncertainty, and the rather as you are of neither of
these schools, I may hazard some general ideas, to be corrected
by what they may recommend hereafter.
In all cases I prefer original authors to compilers. For a course
of ancient history, therefore, of Greece and Rome especially, I
should advise the usual suite of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon,
Diodorus, Livy, Cæsar, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Dion,
in their originals if understood, and in translations if not. For its
continuation to the final destruction of the empire we must then
be content with Gibbons, a compiler, and with Segur, for a judicious
recapitulation of the whole. After this general course,
there are a number of particular histories filling up the chasms,
which may be read at leisure in the progress of life. Such is
Arrian, 2 Curtius, Polybius, Sallust, Plutarch, Dionysius, Halicarnassus,
Micasi, &c. The ancient universal history should be
on our shelves as a book of general reference, the most learned
and most faithful perhaps that ever was written. Its style is very
plain but perspicuous.
In modern history, there are but two nations with whose course
it is interesting to us to be intimately acquainted, to wit: France
and England. For the former, Millot's General History of
France may be sufficient to the period when 1 Davila commences.
He should be followed by Perefixe, Sully, Voltaire's
Louis XIV. and XV., la Cretelles XVIII.me siècle, Marmontel's
Regence, Foulongion's French Revolution, and Madame de
Stael's, making up by a succession of particular history, the general
one which they want.
Of England there is as yet no general history so faithful as
Rapin's. He maybe followed by Ludlow, Fox, Belsham, Hume
and Brodie. Hume's, were it faithful, would be the finest piece
of history which has ever been written by man. Its unfortunate
bias may be partly ascribed to the accident of his having written
backwards. His maiden work was the History of the Stuarts.
It was a first essay to try his strength before the public. And
whether as a Scotchman he had really a partiality for that
family, or thought that the lower their degradation, the more
fame he should acquire by raising them up to some favor, the
object of his work was an apology for them. He spared nothing,
therefore, to wash them white, and to palliate their misgovernment.
For this purpose he suppressed truths, advanced
falsehoods, forged authorities, and falsified records. All this is
proved on him unanswerably by Brodie. But so bewitching was
his style and manner, that his readers were unwilling to doubt
anything, swallowed everything, and all England became tories
by the magic of his art. His pen revolutionized the public sentiment
of that country more completely than the standing armies
could ever have done, which were so much dreaded and deprecated
by the patriots of that day.
Having succeeded so eminently in the acquisition of fortune
and fame by this work, he undertook the history of the two preceding
dynasties, the Plantagenets and Tudors. It was all-important
in this second work, to maintain the thesis of the first,
that "it was the people who encroached on the sovereign, not
the sovereign who usurped on the rights of the people." And,
again, chapter 53d, "the grievances under which the English
labored [to wit: whipping, pillorying, cropping, imprisoning,
fining, &c.,] when considered in themselves, without regard to
the constitution, scarcely deserve the name, nor were they either
burthensome on the people's properties, or anywise shocking to
the natural humanity of mankind." During the constant wars,
civil and foreign, which prevailed while these two families occupied
the throne, it was not difficult to find abundant instances
of practices the most despotic, as are wont to occur in times
of violence. To make this second epoch support the third,
therefore, required but a little garbling of authorities. And it
then remained, by a third work, to make of the whole a complete
history of England, on the principles on which he had advocated
that of the Stuarts. This would comprehend the Saxon
and Norman conquests, the former exhibiting the genuine form
and political principles of the people constituting the nation, and
founded in the rights of man; the latter built on conquest and
physical force, not at all affecting moral rights, nor even assented
to by the free will of the vanquished. The battle of Hastings,
indeed, was lost, but the natural rights of the nation were not
staked on the event of a single battle. Their will to recover the
Saxon constitution continued unabated, and was at the bottom
of all the unsuccessful insurrections which succeeded in subsequent
times. The victors and vanquished continued in a state
of living hostility, and the nation may still say, after losing the
battle of Hastings,
"What though the field is lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will
And study of revenge, immortal hate
And courage never to submit or yield."
The government of a nation may be usurped by the forcible
intrusion of an individual into the throne. But to conquer its will,
so as to rest the right on that, the only legitimate basis, requires
long acquiescence and cessation of all opposition. The whig
historians of England, therefore, have always gone back to the
Saxon period for the true principles of their constitution, while
the tories and Hume, their Coryphæus, date it from the Norman
conquest, and hence conclude that the continual claim by the nation
of the good old Saxon laws, and the struggles to recover
them, were "encroachments of the people on the crown, and not
usurpations of the crown on the people." Hume, with Brodie,
should be the last histories of England to be read. If first read,
Hume makes an English tory, from whence it is an easy step to
American toryism. But there is a history, by Baxter, in which,
abridging somewhat by leaving out some entire incidents as less
interesting now than when Hume wrote, he has given the rest
in the identical words of Hume, except that when he comes to
a fact falsified, he states it truly, and when to a suppression of
truth, he supplies it, never otherwise changing a word. It is, in
fact, an editic expurgation of Hume. Those who shrink from
the volume of Rapin, may read this first, and from this lay a first
foundation in a basis of truth.
For modern continental history, a very general idea may be first
aimed at, leaving for future and occasional reading the particular
histories of such countries as may excite curiosity at the time.
This may be obtained from Mollet's Northern Antiquities, Vol.
Esprit et Mœurs des Nations, Millot's Modern History, Russel's
Modern Europe, Hallam's Middle Ages, and Robertson's
Charles V.
You ask what book I would recommend to be first read in
law. I am very glad to find from a conversation with Mr. Gilmer,
that he considers Coke Littleton, as methodized by Thomas,
as unquestionably the best elementary work, and the one which
will be the text book of his school. It is now as agreeable reading
as Blackstone, and much more profound. I pray you to consider
this hasty and imperfect sketch as intended merely to prove
my wish to be useful to you, and that with it you will accept
the assurance of my esteem and respect.
Monticello, November 9, 1825.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of July 30th was duly received, and
we have now at hand the books you have been so kind as to
send to our University. They are truly acceptable in themselves,
for we might have been years not knowing of their existence;
but give the greater pleasure as evidence of the interest
you have taken in our infant institution. It is going on as successfully
as we could have expected; and I have no reason to
regret the measure taken of procuring Professors from abroad
where science is so much ahead of us. You witnessed some of
the puny squibs of which I was the butt on that account. They
were probably from disappointed candidates, whose unworthiness
had occasioned their applications to be passed over. The measure
has been generally approved in the South and West; and by
all liberal minds in the North. It has been peculiarly fortunate,
too, that the Professors brought from abroad were as happy selections
as could have been hoped, as well for their qualifications
in science as correctness and amiableness of character. I think
the example will be followed, and that it cannot fail to be one
of the efficacious means of promoting that cordial good will,
which it is so much the interest of both nations to cherish.
These teachers can never utter an unfriendly sentiment towards
their native country; and those into whom their instructions will
be infused, are not of ordinary significance only: they are exactly
the persons who are to succeed to the government of our
country, and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes.
As it is our interest to receive instruction through this
channel, so I think it is yours to furnish it; for these two nations
holding cordially together, have nothing to fear from the
united world. They will be the models for regenerating the
condition of man, the sources from which representative government
is to flow over the whole earth.
I learn from you with great pleasure, that a taste is reviving
in England for the recovery of the Anglo-Saxon dialect of our
language; for a mere dialect it is, as much as those of Piers
Plowman, Gower, Douglas, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton,
for even much of Milton is already antiquated. The Anglo-Saxon
is only the earliest we possess of the many shades of mutation
by which the language has tapered down to its modern
form. Vocabularies we need for each of these stages from Somner
to Bailey, but not grammars for each or any of them. The
grammar has changed so little, in the descent from the earliest,
to the present form, that a little observation suffices to understand
its variations. We are greatly indebted to the worthies
who have preserved the Anglo-Saxon form, from Doctor Hickes
down to Mr. Bosworth. Had they not given to the public what
we possess through the press, that dialect would by this time
have been irrecoverably lost. I think it, however, a misfortune
that they have endeavored to give it too much of a learned form,
to mount it on all the scaffolding of the Greek and Latin, to load
it with their genders, numbers, cases, declensions, conjugations,
&c. Strip it of these embarrassments, vest it in the Roman type
which we have adopted instead of our English black letter, reform
its uncouth orthography, and assimilate its pronunciation,
as much as may be, to the present English, just as we do in
reading Piers Plowman or Chaucer, and with the cotemporary
vocabulary for the few lost words, we understand it as we do
them. For example, the Anglo-Saxon text of the Lord's prayer,
as given us 6th Matthew, ix., is spelt and written thus, in the
equivalent Roman type: "Faeder ure thee the eart in heafenum,
si thin nama ychalgod. To becume thin rice. Gerrurthe thin
willa on eartham, swa swa on heofenum. Ume doeghw amli
can hlaf syle us to dœg. And forgyfus ure gyltas, swa swa we
forgifath urum gyltendum. And ne ge-lœdde thu us on costnunge,
ae alys us of yfele." I should spell and pronounce thus:
"Father our, thou tha art in heavenum, si thine name y-hallowed.
Come thin ric-y-wurth thine will on eartham, so so on
heavenum: ourn daynhamlican loaf sell us to-day, and forgive
us our guilts so so we forgiveth ourum guiltendum. And no
y-lead thou us on costnunge, ac a-lease us of evil." And here it
is to be observed by-the-bye, that there is but the single word
"temptation" in our present version of this prayer that is not
Anglo-Saxon; for the word "trespasses" taken from the French,
(οφειληματα in the original) might as well have been translated by
the Anglo-Saxon "guilts."
The learned apparatus in which Dr. Hickes and his successors
have muffled our Anglo-Saxon, is what has frightened us from
encountering it. The simplification I propose may, on the contrary,
make it a regular part of our common English education.
So little reading and writing was there among our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors of that day, that they had no fixed orthography.
To produce a given sound, every one jumbled the letters together,
according to his unlettered notion of their power, and all
jumbled them differently, just as would be done at this day,
were a dozen peasants, who have learnt the alphabet, but have
never read, desired to write the Lord's prayer. Hence the varied
modes of spelling by which the Anglo-Saxons meant to express
the same sound. The word many, for example, was spelt in
twenty different ways; yet we cannot suppose they were twenty
different words, or that they had twenty different ways of pronouncing
the same word. The Anglo-Saxon orthography, then,
is not an exact representation of the sounds meant to be conveyed.
We must drop in pronunciation the superfluous consonants,
and give to the remaining letters their present English
sound; because, not knowing the true one, the present enunciation
is as likely to be right as any other, and indeed more so,
and facilitates the acquisition of the language.
It is much to be wished that the publication of the present
county dialects of England should go on. It will restore to
us our language in all its shades of variation. It will incorporate
into the present one all the riches of our ancient dialects; and
what a store this will be, may be seen by running the eye over
the county glossaries, and observing the words we have lost by
abandonment and disuse, which in sound and sense are inferior
to nothing we have retained. When these local vocabularies are
published and digested together into a single one, it is probable
we shall find that there is not a word in Shakspeare which is not
now in use in some of the counties in England, from whence we
may obtain its true sense. And what an exchange will their recovery
be for the volumes of idle commentaries and conjectures
with which that divine poet has been masked and metamorphosed.
We shall find in him new sublimities which we had
never tasted before, and find beauties in our ancient poets which
are lost to us now. It is not that I am merely an enthusiast for
Palæology. I set equal value on the beautiful engraftments we
have borrowed from Greece and Rome, and I am equally a friend
to the encouragement of a judicious neology: a language cannot
be too rich. The more copious, the more susceptible of embellishment
it will become. There are several things wanting to
promote this improvement. To reprint the Saxon books in
modern type; reform their orthography; publish in the same way
the treasures still existing in manuscript. And, more than all
things, we want, a dictionary on the plan of Stephens or Scapula,
in which the Saxon root, placed alphabetically, shall be followed
by all its cognate modifications of nouns, verbs, &c., whether
Anglo-Saxon, or found in the dialects of subsequent ages. We
want, too, an elaborate history of the English language. In time
our country may be able to co-operate with you in these labors,
of common advantage, but as yet it is too much a blank, calling
for other and more pressing attentions. We have too much to
do in the improvements of which it is susceptible, and which are
deemed more immediately useful. Literature is not yet a distinct
profession with us. Now and then a strong mind arises,
and at its intervals of leisure from business, emits a flash of light.
But the first object of young societies is bread and covering;
science is but secondary and subsequent.
I owe apology for this long letter. It must be found in the
circumstance of its subject having made an interesting part in
the tenor of your letter, and in my attachment to it. It is a
hobby which too often runs away with me where I meant not to
give up the rein. Our youth seem disposed to mount it with
me, and to begin their course where mine is ending.
Our family recollects with pleasure the visit with which you
favored us; and join me in assuring you of our friendly and respectful
recollections, and of the gratification it will ever be to us
to hear of your health and welfare.
Monticello, November 27, 1825.
Sir,—Disqualified by age and ill health from undertaking
minute investigations, I find it will be easier for me to state to
you my proposition of a lock-dock, for laying up vessels, high
and dry, than to investigate yours. You will then judge for
yourself whether any part of mine has anticipated any part of
yours.
While I was at Washington, in the administration of the government,
Congress was much divided in opinion on the subject
of a navy, a part of them wishing to go extensively into preparation
of a fleet, another part opposed to it, on the objection that
the repairs and preservation of a ship, even idle in harbor, in ten
or twelve years, amount to her original cost. It has been estimated
in England, that if they could be sure of peace a dozen
years it would be cheaper for them to burn their fleet, and build
a new one when wanting, than to keep the old one in repair
during that term. I learnt that, in Venice, there were then ships,
lying on their original stocks, ready for launching at any moment,
which had been so for eighty years, and were still in a
state of perfect preservation; and that this was effected by disposing
of them in docks pumped dry, and kept so by constant
pumping. It occurred to me that this expense of constant pumping
might be saved by combining a lock with the common wet
dock, wherever there was a running stream of water, the bed of
which, within a reasonable distance, was of a sufficient height
above the high-water level of the harbor. This was the case at
the navy-yard, on the eastern branch at Washington, the high-water
line of which was seventy-eight feet lower than the ground
on which the Capitol stands, and to which it was found that the
water of the Tyber creek could be brought for watering the city.
My proposition then was as follows: Let a b be the high-water
level of the harbor, and the vessel to be laid up draw eighteen
feet water. Make a chamber A twenty feet deep below high
water and twenty feet high above it, as c d e f, and at the upper
end make another chamber, B,
the bottom of which should be in the high-water level, and the
tops twenty feet above that. g h is the water of the Tyber.
When the vessel is to be introduced, open the gate at c b a. The
tide water rises in the chamber A to the level b i, and floats the
vessel in with it. Shut the gate c b d and open that of f i. The
water of the Tyber fills both chambers to the level c f g, and the
vessel floats into the chamber B; then opening both gates c b d
and f i, the water flows out, and the vessel settles down on the
stays previously prepared at the bottom i h to receive her. The
gate at g h must of course be closed, and the water of the feeding
stream be diverted elsewhere. The chamber B is to have a
roof over it of the construction of that over the meal market at
Paris, except that that is hemispherical, this semi-cylindrical.
For this construction see Delenne's architecture, whose invention
it was. The diameter of the dome of the meal market is considerably
over one hundred feet.
It will be seen at once, that instead of making the chamber B
of sufficient width and length for a single vessel only, it may be
widened to whatever span the semi-circular framing of the roof
can be trusted, and to whatever length you please, so as to admit
two or more vessels in breadth, and as many in length as the
localities render expedient.
I had a model of this lock-dock made and exhibited in the
President's house, during the session of Congress at which it was
proposed. But the advocates for a navy did not fancy it, and
those opposed to the building of ships altogether, were equally
indisposed to provide protection for them. Ridicule was also resorted
to, the ordinary substitute for reason, when that fails, and
the proposition was past over. I then thought and still think the
measure wise, to have a proper number of vessels always ready
to be launched, with nothing unfinished about them, except the
planting their masts, which must of necessity be omitted, to be
brought under a roof. Having no view in this proposition but
to combine for the public a provision for defence, with economy
in its preservation, I have thought no more of it since. And if
any of my ideas anticipated yours, you are welcome to appropriate
them to yourself, without objection on my part, and, with
this assurance, I pray you to accept that of my best wishes and
respects.
Monticello. December 18, 1825.
Dear Sir,—Your letters are always welcome, the last more
than all others, its subject being one of the dearest to my heart.
To my grand-daughter your commendations cannot fail to be
an object of high ambition, as a certain passport to the good
opinion of the world. If she does not cultivate them with assiduity
and affection, she will illy fulfil my parting injunctions. I
trust she will merit a continuance of your favor, and find in her
new situation the general esteem she so happily possessed in the
society she left. You tell me she repeated to you an expression
of mine, that I should be willing to go again over the scenes of
past life. I should not be unwilling, without, however, wishing
it; and why not? I have enjoyed a greater share of health than
falls to the lot of most men; my spirits have never failed me except
under those paroxysms of grief which you, as well as myself,
have experienced in every form, and with good health and
good spirits, the pleasures surely outweigh the pains of life.
Why not, then, taste them again, fat and lean together? Were
I indeed permitted to cut off from the train the last seven years,
the balance would be much in favor of treading the ground over
again. Being at that period in the neighborhood of our warm
springs, and well in health, I wished to be better, and tried them.
They destroyed, in a great degree, my internal organism, and I
have never since had a moment of perfect health. I have now
been eight months confined almost constantly to the house, with
now and then intervals of a few days on which I could get on
horseback.
I presume you have received a copy of the life of Richard H.
Lee, from his grandson of the same name, author of the work.
You and I know that he merited much during the revolution.
Eloquent, bold, and ever watchful at his post, of which his biographer
omits no proof. I am not certain whether the friends
of George Mason, of Patrick Henry, yourself, and even of General
Washington, may not reclaim some feathers of the plumage
given him, noble as was his proper and original coat. But on
this subject I will anticipate your own judgment.
I learn with sincere pleasure that you have experienced lately
a great renovation of your health. That it may continue to the
ultimate period of your wishes is the sincere prayer of usque ad
eras amicissimi tui.
Monticello, December 24, 1825.
Dear Sir,—I have for some time considered the question of
internal improvement as desperate. The torrent of general opinion
sets so strongly in favor of it as to be irresistible. And I
suppose that even the opposition in Congress will hereafter be
feeble and formal, unless something can be done which may give
a gleam of encouragement to our friends, or alarm their opponents
in their fancied security. I learn from Richmond that
those who think with us there are in a state of perfect dismay,
not knowing what to do or what to propose. Mr. Gordon, our
representative, particularly, has written to me in very desponding
terms, not disposed to yield indeed, but pressing for opinions and
advice on the subject. I have no doubt you are pressed in the
same way, and I hope you have devised and recommended something
to them. If you have, stop here and read no more, but
consider all that follows as non-avenue. I shall be better satisfied
to adopt implicitly anything which you may have advised,
than anything occurring to myself. For I have long ceased to
think on subjects of this kind, and pay little attention to public
proceedings. But if you have done nothing in it, then I risk for
your consideration what has occurred to me, and is expressed in
the enclosed paper.[20] Bailey's propositions, which came to hand
since I wrote the paper, and which I suppose to have come from
the President himself, show a little hesitation in the purposes of
his party; and in that state of mind, a bolt shot critically may decide
the contest by its effect on the less bold. The olive branch
held out to them at this moment may be accepted, and the constitution
thus saved at a moderate sacrifice. I say nothing of the
paper, which will explain itself. The following heads of consideration,
or some of them, may weigh in its favor:
It may intimidate the wavering. It may break the western
coalition, by offering the same thing in a different form. It will
be viewed with favor in contrast with the Georgia opposition and
fear of strengthening that. It will be an example of a temperate
mode of opposition in future and similar cases. It will delay the
measure a year at least. It will give us the chance of better
times and of intervening accidents; and in no way place us in
a worse than our present situation. I do not dwell on these topics;
your mind will develop them.
The first question is, whether you approve of doing anything
of the kind. If not, send it back to me, and it shall be suppressed;
for I would not hazard so important a measure against
your opinion, nor even without its support. If you think it may
be a canvass on which to put something good, make what alterations
you please, and I will forward it to Gordon, under the most
sacred injunctions that it shall be so used as that not a shadow of
suspicion shall fall on you or myself, that it has come from either
of us. But what you do, do as promptly as your convenience
will admit, lest it should be anticipated by something worse.
Ever and affectionately yours.
Monticello, December 25, 1825.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 15th was received four days ago.
It found me engaged in what I could not lay aside till this day.
Far advanced in my eighty-third year, worn down with infirmities
which have confined me almost entirely to the house
for seven or eight months past, it afflicts me much to receive appeals
to my memory for transactions so far back as that which
is the subject of your letter. My memory is indeed become
almost a blank, of which no better proof can probably be given
you than by my solemn protestation, that I have not the least
recollection of your intervention between Mr. John Q. Adams
and myself, in what passed on the subject of the embargo. Not
the slightest trace of it remains in my mind. Yet I have no
doubt of the exactitude of the statement in your letter. And
the less, as I recollect the interview with Mr. Adams, to which
the previous communications which had passed between him
and yourself were probably and naturally the preliminary. That
interview I remember well; not indeed in the very words which
passed between us, but in their substance, which was of a character
too awful, too deeply engraved in my mind, and influencing
too materially the course I had to pursue, ever to be forgotten.
Mr. Adams called on me pending the embargo, and while endeavors
were making to obtain its repeal. He made some apologies
for the call, on the ground of our not being then in the
habit of confidential communications, but that that which he had
then to make, involved too seriously the interest of our country
not to overrule all other considerations with him, and make it
his duty to reveal it to myself particularly. I assured him there
was no occasion for any apology for his visit; that, on the contrary,
his communications would be thankfully received, and
would add a confirmation the more to my entire confidence in
the rectitude and patriotism of his conduct and principles. He
spoke then of the dissatisfaction of the eastern portion of our
confederacy with the restraints of the embargo then existing,
and their restlessness under it. That there was nothing which
might not be attempted, to rid themselves of it. That he had
information of the most unquestionable certainty, that certain
citizens of the eastern States (I think he named Massachusetts
particularly) were in negotiation with agents of the British government,
the object of which was an agreement that the New
England States should take no further part in the war then going
on; that, without formally declaring their separation from the
Union of the States, they should withdraw from all aid and
obedience to them; that their navigation and commerce should
be free from restraint and interruption by the British; that they
should be considered and treated by them as neutrals, and as such
might conduct themselves towards both parties; and, at the close
of the war, be at liberty to rejoin the confederacy. He assured
me that there was eminent danger that the convention would
take place; that the temptations were such as might debauch
many from their fidelity to the Union; and that, to enable its
friends to make head against it, the repeal of the embargo was
absolutely necessary. I expressed a just sense of the merit of
this information, and of the importance of the disclosure to the
safety and even the salvation of our country; and however reluctant
I was to abandon the measure, (a measure which persevered
in a little longer, we had subsequent and satisfactory assurance
would have effected its object completely,) from that moment,
and influenced by that information, I saw the necessity of
abandoning it, and instead of effecting our purpose by this peaceful
weapon, we must fight it out, or break the Union. I then
recommended to yield to the necessity of a repeal of the embargo,
and to endeavor to supply its place by the best substitute,
in which they could procure a general concurrence.
I cannot too often repeat, that this statement is not pretended
to be in the very words which passed; that it only gives faithfully
the impression remaining on my mind. The very words
of a conversation are too transient and fugitive to be so long retained
in remembrance. But the substance was too important to
be forgotten, not only from the revolution of measures it obliged
me to adopt, but also from the renewals of it in my memory on the
frequent occasions I have had of doing justice to Mr. Adams, by
repeating this proof of his fidelity to his country, and of his superiority
over all ordinary considerations when the safety of that
was brought into question.
With this best exertion of a waning memory which I can
command, accept assurances of my constant and affectionate
friendship and respect.
Monticello, December 26, 1825.
Dear Sir,—I wrote you a letter yesterday, of which you will
be free to make what use you please. This will contain matters
not intended for the public eye. I see, as you do, and with the
deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch
of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the
rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of
all powers, foreign and domestic; and that too, by constructions
which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power. Take together
the decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the
President, and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact
acted on by the legislature of the federal branch, and it is but too
evident, that the three ruling branches of that department are in
combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the
powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions
foreign and domestic. Under the power to regulate commerce,
they assume indefinitely that also over agriculture and
manufactures, and call it regulation to take the earnings of one
of these branches of industry, and that too the most depressed,
and put them into the pockets of the other, the most flourishing
of all. Under the authority to establish post roads, they claim
that of cutting down mountains for the construction of roads, of
digging canals, and aided by a little sophistry on the words
"general welfare," a right to do, not only the acts to effect that,
which are specifically enumerated and permitted, but whatsoever
they shall think, or pretend will be for the general welfare.
And what is our resource for the preservation of the constitution?
Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue
with the marble columns encircling them. The representatives
chosen by ourselves? They are joined in the combination,
some from incorrect views of government, some from corrupt
ones, sufficient voting together to out-number the sound parts;
and with majorities only of one, two, or three, bold enough to go
forward in defiance. Are we then to stand to our arms, with
the hot-headed Georgian? No. That must be the last resource,
not to be thought of until much longer and greater sufferings.
If every infraction of a compact of so many parties is to be resisted
at once, as a dissolution of it, none can ever be formed
which would last one year. We must have patience and longer
endurance then with our brethren while under delusion; give
them time for reflection and experience of consequences; keep
ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and
separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives
left, are the dissolution of our Union with them, or submission
to a government without limitation of powers. Between these
two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation.
But in the meanwhile, the States should be watchful to
note every material usurpation on their rights; to denounce them
as they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against
them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered,
not as acknowledgments or precedents of right, but as a
temporary yielding to the lesser evil, until their accumulation
shall overweigh that of separation. I would go still further, and
give to the federal member, by a regular amendment of the constitution,
a right to make roads and canals of intercommunication
between the States, providing sufficiently against corrupt practices
in Congress, (log-rolling, &c.,) by declaring that the federal
proportion of each State of the moneys so employed, shall be in
works within the State, or elsewhere with its consent, and with
a due salvo of jurisdiction. This is the course which I think
safest and best as yet.
You ask my opinion of the propriety of giving publicity to what
is stated in your letter, as having passed between Mr. John Q.
Adams and yourself. Of this no one can judge but yourself. It
is one of those questions which belong to the forum of feeling.
This alone can decide on the degree of confidence implied in
the disclosure; whether under no circumstances it was to be
communicated to others? It does not seem to be of that character,
or at all to wear that aspect. They are historical facts
which belong to the present, as well as future times. I doubt
whether a single fact, known to the world, will carry as clear
conviction to it, of the correctness of our knowledge of the treasonable
views of the federal party of that day, as that disclosed
by this, the most nefarious and daring attempt to dissever the
Union, of which the Hartford convention was a subsequent chapter;
and both of these having failed, consolidation becomes the
fourth chapter of the next book of their history. But this opens
with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits,
who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76,
now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy,
founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations
under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures,
commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the
plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry. This will be to
them a next best blessing to the monarchy of their first aim, and
perhaps the surest stepping-stone to it.
I learn with great satisfaction that your school is thriving well,
and that you have at its head a truly classical scholar. He is
one of three or four whom I can hear of in the State. We
were obliged the last year to receive shameful Latinists into the
classical school of the University, such as we will certainly refuse
as soon as we can get from better schools a sufficiency of those
properly instructed to form a class. We must get rid of this
Connecticut Latin, of this barbarous confusion of long and short
syllables, which renders doubtful whether we are listening to a
reader of Cherokee, Shawnee, Iroquois, or what. Our University
has been most fortunate in the five professors procured from
England. A finer selection could not have been made. Besides
their being of a grade of science which has left little superior behind,
the correctness of their moral character, their accommodating
dispositions, and zeal for the prosperity of the institution,
leave us nothing more to wish. I verily believe that as high a
degree of education can now be obtained here, as in the country
they left. And a finer set of youths I never saw assembled for
instruction. They committed some irregularities at first, until
they learned the lawful length of their tether; since which it has
never been transgressed in the smallest degree. A great proportion
of them are severely devoted to study, and I fear not to say
that within twelve or fifteen years from this time, a majority of
the rulers of our State will have been educated here. They
shall carry hence the correct principles of our day, and you may
count assuredly that they will exhibit their country in a degree
of sound respectability it has never known, either in our days,
or those of our forefathers. I cannot live to see it. My joy
must only be that of anticipation. But that you may see it in
full fruition, is the probable consequence of the twenty years I
am ahead of you in time, and is the sincere prayer of your affectionate
and constant friend.
Monticello, January 9, 1826.
Dear Sir,—I have duly received your favor of December the
31st, and fear, with you, all the evils which the present lowering
aspect of our political horizon so ominously portends. That at
some future day, which I hoped to be very distant, the free principles
of our government might change with the change of
circumstances was to be expected. But I certainly did not expect
that they would not over-live the generation which established
them. And what I still less expected was, that my favorite
western country was to be made the instrument of change. I
had ever and fondly cherished the interests of that country, relying
on it as a barrier against the degeneracy of public opinion
from our original and free principles. But the bait of local interests,
artfully prepared for their palate, has decoyed them from
their kindred attachments, to alliances alien to them. Yet although
I have little hope that the torrent of consolidation can be
withstood, I should not be for giving up the ship without efforts
to save her. She lived well through the first squall, and may
weather the present one. But, dear Sir, I am not the champion
called for by our present dangers. "Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus
istis, tempus eget." A waning body, a waning mind, and
waning memory, with habitual ill health, warn me to withdraw
and relinquish the arena to younger and abler athletes. I am
sensible myself, if others are not, that this is my duty. If my
distant friends know it not, those around me can inform them
that they should not, in friendship, wish to call me into conflicts,
exposing only the decays which nature has inscribed among her
unalterable laws, and injuring the common cause by a senile and
puny defence.
I will, however, say one word on the subject. The South
Carolina resolutions, Van Buren's motion, and above all Bayley's
propositions, show that other States are coming forward on the
subject, and better for any one to take the lead than Virginia,
where opposition is considered as common-place, and a mere
matter of form and habit. We shall see what our co-States propose,
and before the close of the session we may shape our own
course more understandingly.
Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, January 21, 1826.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of January 15th is received, and I am
entirely sensible of the kindness of the motives which suggested
the caution it recommended. But I believe what I have done
is the only thing I could have done with honor or conscience.
Mr. Giles requested me to state a fact which he knew himself,
and of which he knew me to be possessed. What use he intended
to make of it I knew not, nor had I a right to inquire, or to
indicate any suspicion that he would make an unfair one. That
was his concern, not mine, and his character was sufficient to
sustain the responsibility for it. I knew, too, that if an uncandid
use should be made of it, there would be found those who would
so prove it. Independent of the terms of intimate friendship in
which Mr. Giles and myself have ever lived together, the world's
respect entitled him to the justice of my testimony to any truth
he might call for; and how that testimony should connect me with
whatever he may do or write hereafter, and with his whole career,
as you apprehend, is not understood by me. With his personal
controversies I have nothing to do. I never took any part in
them, or in those of any other person. Add to this, that the statement
I have given him on the subject of Mr. Adams, is entirely
honorable to him in every sentiment and fact it contains. There
is not a word in it which I would wish to recall. It is one which
Mr. Adams himself might willingly quote, did he need to quote
anything. It was simply that during the continuance of the embargo,
Mr. Adams informed me of a combination (without naming
any one concerned in it,) which had for its object a severance
of the Union, for a time at least. That Mr. Adams and
myself not being then in the habit of mutual consultation and
confidence, I considered it as the stronger proof of the purity of
his patriotism, which was able to lift him above all party passions
when the safety of his country was endangered. Nor have
I kept this honorable fact to myself. During the late canvas,
particularly, I had more than one occasion to quote it to persons
who were expressing opinions respecting him, of which this was
a direct corrective. I have never entertained for Mr. Adams any
but sentiments of esteem and respect; and if we have not thought
alike on political subjects, I yet never doubted the honesty of
his opinions, of which the letter in question, if published, will
be an additional proof. Still, I recognize your friendship in suggesting
a review of it, and am glad of this, as of every other occasion
of repeating to you the assurance of my constant attachment
and respect.
Monticello, February 17, 1826.
Dear Sir,— * * * * *
Immediately on seeing the overwhelming vote of the House
of Representatives against giving us another dollar, I rode to the
University and desired Mr. Brockenbrough to engage in nothing
new, to stop everything on hand which could be done without,
and to employ all his force and funds in finishing the circular
room for the hooks, and the anatomical theatre. These cannot
be done without: and for these and all our debts we have
funds enough. But I think it prudent then to clear the decks
thoroughly, to see how we shall stand, and what we may accomplish
further. In the meantime, there have arrived for us in
different ports of the United States, ten boxes of books from
Paris, seven from London, and from Germany I know not how
many; in all, perhaps, about twenty-five boxes. Not one of
these can be opened until the book-room is completely finished,
and all the shelves ready to receive their charge directly from
the boxes as they shall be opened. This cannot be till May. I
hear nothing definitive of the three thousand dollars duty of
which we are asking the remission from Congress. In the selection
of our Law Professor, we must be rigorously attentive to
his political principles. You will recollect that before the revolution,
Coke Littleton was the universal elementary book of law
students, and a sounder whig never wrote, nor of profounder
learning in the orthodox doctrines of the British constitution, or
in what were called English liberties. You remember also that
our lawyers were then all whigs. But when his black-letter text,
and uncouth but cunning learning got out of fashion, and the
honied Mansfieldism of Blackstone became the students' hornbook,
from that moment, that profession (the nursery of our Congress)
began to slide into toryism, and nearly all the young brood
of lawyers now are of that hue. They suppose themselves, indeed,
to be whigs, because they no longer know what whigism
or republicanism means. It is in our seminary that that vestal
flame is to be kept alive; it is thence it is to spread anew over
our own and the sister States. If we are true and vigilant in our
trust, within a dozen or twenty years a majority of our own legislature
will be from one school, and many disciples will have carried
its doctrines home with them to their several States, and will
have leavened thus the whole mass. New York has taken strong
ground in vindication of the constitution; South Carolina had
already done the same. Although I was against our leading, I
am equally against omitting to follow in the same line, and
backing them firmly; and I hope that yourself or some other
will mark out the track to be pursued by us.
You will have seen in the newspapers some proceedings in the
legislature, which have cost me much mortification. My own
debts had become considerable, but not beyond the effect of
some lopping of property, which would have been little felt,
when our friend * * * * * gave me the coup de grace. Ever since
that I have been paying twelve hundred dollars a year interest
on his debt, which, with my own, was absorbing so much of
my annual income, as that the maintenance of my family was
making deep and rapid inroads on my capital, and had already
done it. Still, sales at a fair price would leave me competently
provided. Had crops and prices for several years been such as
to maintain a steady competition of substantial bidders at market,
all would have been safe. But the long succession of years of
stunted crops, of reduced prices, the general prostration of the
farming business, under levies for the support of manufacturers,
&c., with the calamitous fluctuations of value in our paper medium,
have kept agriculture in a state of abject depression, which
has peopled the western States by silently breaking up those on
the Atlantic, and glutted the land market, while it drew off its
bidders. In such a state of things, property has lost its character
of being a resource for debts. Highland in Bedford, which,
in the days of our plethory, sold readily for from fifty to one
hundred dollars the acre, (and such sales were many then,) would
not now sell for more than from ten to twenty dollars, or one-quarter
or one-fifth of its former price. Reflecting on these
things, the practice occurred to me, of selling, on fair valuation,
and by way of lottery, often resorted to before the Revolution to
effect large sales, and still in constant usage in every State for individual
as well as corporation purposes. If it is permitted in
my case, my lands here alone, with the mills, &c., will pay every
thing, and leave me Monticello and a farm free. If refused, I
must sell everything here, perhaps considerably in Bedford, move
thither with my family, where I have not even a log hut to put
my head into, and whether ground for burial, will depend on the
depredations which, under the form of sales, shall have been committed
on my property. The question then with me was ultrum
horum? But why afflict you with these details? Indeed, I cannot
tell, unless pains are lessened by communication with a
friend. The friendship which has subsisted between us, now
half a century, and the harmony of our political principles and
pursuits, have been sources of constant happiness to me through
that long period. And if I remove beyond the reach of attentions
to the University, or beyond the bourne of life itself, as I soon
must, it is a comfort to leave that institution under your care,
and an assurance that it will not be wanting. It has also been a
great solace to me, to believe that you are engaged in vindicating
to posterity the course we have pursued for preserving to them,
in all their purity, the blessings of self-government, which we
had assisted too in acquiring for them. If ever the earth has
beheld a system of administration conducted with a single and
steadfast eye to the general interest and happiness of those committed
to it, one which, protected by truth, can never know reproach,
it is that to which our lives have been devoted. To
myself you have been a pillar of support through life. Take
care of me when dead, and be assured that I shall leave with
you my last affections.
Monticello, March 25, 1826.
Dear Sir,—My grandson, Thomas J. Randolph, the bearer
of this letter, being on a visit to Boston, would think he had seen
nothing were he to leave without seeing you. Although I truly
sympathize with you in the trouble these interruptions give, yet
I must ask for him permission to pay to you his personal respects.
Like other young people, he wishes to be able in the
winter nights of old age, to recount to those around him, what he
has heard and learnt of the heroic age preceding his birth, and
which of the Argonauts individually he was in time to have
seen.
It was the lot of our early years to witness nothing but the
dull monotony of a colonial subservience; and of our riper years,
to breast the labors and perils of working out of it. Theirs are
the Halcyon calms succeeding the storm which our Argosy had
so stoutly weathered. Gratify his ambition then, by receiving
his best bow; and my solicitude for your health, by enabling
him to bring me a favorable account of it. Mine is but indifferent,
but not so my friendship and respect for you.
Monticello, March 30, 1826.
Dear Sir,—I am thankful for the very interesting message
and documents of which you have been so kind as to send me a
copy, and will state my recollections as to the particular passage
of the message to which you ask my attention. On the conclusion
of peace, Congress, sensible of their right to assume independence,
would not condescend to ask its acknowledgment
from other nations, yet were willing, by some of the ordinary international
transactions, to receive what would imply that acknowledgment.
They appointed commissioners, therefore, to propose
treaties of commerce to the principal nations of Europe. I
was then a member of Congress, was of the committee appointed
to prepare instructions for the commissioners, was, as you suppose,
the draughtsman of those actually agreed to, and was joined
with your father and Dr. Franklin, to carry them into execution.
But the stipulations making part of these instructions, which respected
privateering, blockades, contraband, and freedom of the
fisheries, were not original conceptions of mine. They had before
been suggested by Dr. Franklin, in some of his papers in
possession of the public, and had, I think, been recommended in
some letter of his to Congress. I happen only to have been the
inserter of them in the first public act which gave the formal
sanction of a public authority. We accordingly proposed our
treaties, containing these stipulations, to the principal governments
of Europe. But we were then just emerged from a subordinate
condition; the nations had as yet known nothing of us,
and had not yet reflected on the relations which it might be their
interest to establish with us. Most of them, therefore, listened
to our propositions with coyness and reserve; old Frederic alone
closing with us without hesitation. The negotiator of Portugal,
indeed, signed a treaty with us, which his government did not
ratify, and Tuscany was near a final agreement. Becoming
sensible, however, ourselves, that we should do nothing with the
greater powers, we thought it better not to hamper our country
with engagements to those of less significance, and suffered our
powers to expire without closing any other negotiations. Austria
soon after became desirous of a treaty with us, and her ambassador
pressed it often on me; but our commerce with her being
no object, I evaded her repeated invitations. Had these governments
been then apprized of the station we should so soon occupy
among nations, all, I believe, would have met us promptly
and with frankness. These principles would then have been established
with all, and from being the conventional law with us
alone, would have slid into their engagements with one another,
and become general. These are the facts within my recollection.
They have not yet got into written history; but their
adoption by our southern brethren will bring them into observance,
and make them, what they should be, a part of the law of
the world, and of the reformation of principles for which they
will be indebted to us. I pray you to accept the homage of my
friendly and high consideration.
Monticello, April 8, 1826.
Dear Sir,—I thank you for the very able and eloquent speech
you have been so kind as to send me on the amendment of the
constitution, proposed by Mr. McDuffie. I have read it with
pleasure and satisfaction, and concur with much of its contents.
On the question of the lawfulness of slavery, that is of the right
of one man to appropriate to himself the faculties of another
without his consent, I certainly retain my early opinions. On
that, however, of third persons to interfere between the parties,
and the effect of conventional modifications of that pretension,
we are probably nearer together. I think with you, also, that
the constitution of the United States is a compact of independent
nations subject to the rules acknowledged in similar cases, as
well that of amendment provided within itself, as, in case of
abuse, the justly dreaded hut unavoidable ultimo ratio gentium.
The report on the Panama question mentioned in your letter has
as I suppose, got separated by the way. It will probably come
by another mail. In some of the letters you have been kind
enough to write me, I have been made to hope the favor of a
visit from Washington. It would be received with sincere welcome,
and unwillingly relinquished if no circumstance should
render it inconvenient to yourself. I repeat always with pleasure
the assurances of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, April 27, 1826.
Dear Sir,—It is time to think of the introduction of the school
of Botany into our institution. Not that I suppose the lectures
can be begun in the present year, but that we may this year
make the preparations necessary for commencing them the next.
For that branch, I presume, can be taught advantageously only
during the short season while nature is in general bloom, say
during a certain portion of the months of April and May, when,
suspending the other branches of your department, that of Botany
may claim your exclusive attention. Of this, however, you
are to be the judge, as well as of what I may now propose on
the subject of preparation. I will do this in writing, while sitting
at my table, and at ease, because I can rally there, for your
consideration, with more composure than in extempore conversation,
my thoughts on what we have to do in the present
season.
I suppose you were well acquainted, by character, if not personally,
with the late Abbé Correa, who past some time among
us, first as a distinguished savant of Europe, and afterwards as
ambassador of Portugal, resident with our government. Profoundly
learned in several other branches of science, he was so,
above all others, in that of Botany; in which he preferred an
amalgamation of the methods of Linnæus and of Jussieu, to either
of them exclusively. Our institution being then on hand, in
which that was of course to be one of the subjects of instruction,
I availed myself of his presence and friendship to obtain from
him a general idea of the extent of ground we should employ,
and the number and character of the plants we should introduce
into it. He accordingly sketched for me a mere outline of the
scale he would recommend, restrained altogether to objects of
use, and indulging not at all in things of mere curiosity, and especially
not yet thinking of a hot-house, or even of a green-house.
I enclose you a copy of his paper, which was the more
satisfactory to me, as it coincided with the moderate views to
which our endowments as yet confine us. I am still the more
satisfied, as it seemed to be confirmed by your own way of
thinking, as I understood it in our conversation of the other day.
To your judgment altogether his ideas will be submitted, as well
as my own, now to be suggested as to the operations of the present
year, preparatory to the commencement of the school in the
next.
1. Our first operation must be the selection of a piece of ground
of proper soil and site, suppose of about six acres, as M. Correa
proposes. In choosing this we are to regard the circumstances
of soil, water, and distance. I have diligently examined all our
grounds with this view, and think that that on the public road,
at the upper corner of our possessions, where the stream issues
from them, has more of the requisite qualities than any other
spot we possess.[22] 170 yards square, taken at that angle, would
make the six acres we want. But the angle at the road is acute,
and the form of the ground will be trapezoid, not square. I
would take, therefore, for its breadth, all the ground between the
road and the dam of the brick ponds, extending eastwardly up
the hill, as far and as wide as our quantity would require. The
bottom ground would suit for the garden plants; the hill sides
for the trees.
2. Operation. Enclose the ground with a serpentine brick
wall seven feet high. This would take about 80,000 bricks,
and cost $800, and it must depend on our finances whether they
will afford that immediately, or allow us, for awhile, but enclosure
of posts and rails.
3. Operation. Form all the hill sides into level terrasses of
convenient breadth, curving with the hill, and the level ground
into beds and alleys.
4. Operation. Make out a list of the plants thought necessary
and sufficient for botanical purposes, and of the trees we propose
to introduce, and take measures in time for procuring them.
As to the seeds of plants, much may be obtained from the gardeners
of our own country. I have, moreover, a special resource.
For three-and-twenty years of the last twenty-five, my good old
friend Thonin, superintendent of the garden of plants at Paris,
has regularly sent me a box of seeds, of such exotics, as to us,
as would suit our climate, and containing nothing indigenous to
our country. These I regularly sent to the public and private
gardens of the other States, having as yet no employment for
them here. But during the last two years this envoi has been
intermitted. I know not why. I will immediately write and request
a re-commencement of that kind office, on the ground
that we can now employ them ourselves. They can be here in
early spring.
The trees I should propose would be exotics of distinguished
usefulness, and accommodated to our climate; such as the Larch,
Cedar of Libanus, Cork, Oak, the Maronnier, Mahogany? the
Catachu or Indian rubber tree of Napul, (30°) Teak tree, or Indian
oak of Burman, (23°) the various woods of Brazil, &c.
The seed of the Larch can be obtained from a tree at Monticello.
Cones of the Cedar of Libanus are in most of our seed
shops, but may be had fresh from the trees in the English gardens.
The Maronnier and Cork-oak, I can obtain from France.
There is a Maronnier at Mount Vernon, but it is a seedling, and
not therefore select. The others maybe got through the means
of our ministers and consuls in the countries where they grow,
or from the seed shops of England, where they may very possibly
be found. Lastly, a gardener of sufficient skill must be obtained.
This, dear Sir, is the sum of what occurs to me at present;
think of it, and let us at once enter on the operations.
Accept my friendly and respectful salutations.
Monticello, May 2, 1826.
Dear Sir,—The difficulties suggested in your favor of the
28th ult., are those which must occur at the commencement of
every undertaking. A full view of the subject however will, I
think, solve them. In every meditated enterprise, the means we
can employ are to be estimated, and to these must be proportioned
our expectations of effect. If, for example, to the cultivation of
a given field we can devote but one hundred dollars, we are not
to expect the product which $1,000 would extract from it. Applying
this principle to the present subject of education, from a
revenue of $15,000, and with eight Professors, we cannot expect
to obtain that grade of instruction to our youth, which 15,000
guineas and thirty or forty instructors would give. Reviewing,
then, the branches of science in which we wish our youth to obtain
some instruction, we must distribute them into so many
groups as we can employ Professors, and as equally too as practicable.
We must take into account also the time which our
youths can generally afford to the whole circle of education, and
proportion the extent of instruction in each branch to the quota
of that time, and of the Professor's attention which may fall to
its share. In the smallest of our academies, two Professors alone
can be afforded,—one of languages, another of sciences, or of
Philosophy, as he is generally styled. The degree of instruction
which can be given in each branch, at these schools, must be
very moderate. Yet there are youths whose means can afford
no more, and who nevertheless are glad even of that. The most
highly endowed of our Seminaries has a revenue of perhaps $25,000
or $30,000. They consequently may subdivide the sciences
into twelve or fifteen schools, and give a proportionably more
minute degree of instruction in each. It has enabled them, for
example, to have five or six Professors of Theology. In Europe,
some of their literary institutions can afford to employ twenty,
thirty, or forty Professors. Our legislature, contemplating their
means, took their stand at a revenue of $15,000, meant for an
establishment of ten Professors, but equal in fact to eight only.
Accommodating ourselves, therefore, to their views, we had to
distribute into eight groups those sciences in which we wished
our youth should receive instruction, and to content ourselves
with the portion which that number could give. On the Professors
it would of course devolve to form their lectures on such
a scale of extension only, as to give to each of the sciences allotted
them its due share of their time.
But another material question is, what is the whole term of
time which the students can give to the whole course of instruction?
I should say that three years should be allowed to general
education, and two, or rather three, to the particular profession
for which they are destined. We receive our students
at the age of sixteen, expected to be previously so far qualified
in the languages, ancient and modern, as that one year in our
schools shall suffice for their last polish. A student then with
us may give his first year here to languages and Mathematics;
his second to Mathematics and Physics; his third to Physics and
Chemistry, with the other objects of that school. I particularize
this distribution merely for illustration, and not as that which
either is, or perhaps ought to be established. This would ascribe
one year to Languages, two to Mathematics, two to Physics, and
one to Chemistry and its associates. Let us see next how the
items of your school may be accommodated to this scale; but
by way of illustration only, as before. The allotments to your
school are Botany, Zoology, Mineralogy, Chemistry, Geology
and Rural Economy. This last, however, need not be considered
as a distinct branch, but as one which may be sufficiently treated
by seasonable alliances with the kindred subjects of Chemistry,
Botany and Zoology. Suppose then you give twelve dozen
lectures a year; say two dozen to Botany and Zoology, two
dozen to Mineralogy and Geology, and eight dozen to Chemistry.
Or I should think that Mineralogy, Geology and Chemistry might
be advantageously blended in the same course. Then your year
would be formed into two grand divisions; one-third to Botany
and Zoology, and two-thirds to Chemistry and its associates,
Mineralogy and Geology. To the last, indeed, I would give the
least possible time. To learn, as far as observation has informed
us, the ordinary arrangement of the different strata of minerals in
the earth, to know from their habitual collocations and proximities,
where we find one mineral, whether another, for which
we are seeking, may be expected to be in its neighborhood, is
useful. But the dreams about the modes of creation, inquiries
whether our globe has been formed by the agency of fire or
water, how many millions of years it has cost Vulcan or Neptune
to produce what the fiat of the Creator would effect by a single
act of will, is too idle to be worth a single hour of any man's
life. You will say that two-thirds of a year, or any better estimated
partition of it, can give but an inadequate knowledge of
the whole science of Chemistry. But consider that we do not
expect our schools to turn out their alumni already enthroned on
the pinnacles of their respective sciences; but only so far advanced
in each as to be able to pursue them by themselves, and
to become Newtons and La Places by energies and perseverances
to be continued through life. I have said that our original plan
comprehended ten Professors, and we hope to be able ere long
to supply the other two. One should relieve the Medical Professor
from Anatomy and Surgery, and a school for the other
would be made up of the surcharges of yours, and that of
Physics.
From these views of the subject, dear Sir, your only difficulty
appears to be so to proportion the time you can give to the different
branches committed to you, as to bring, within the compass
of a year, for example, that degree of instruction in each which
the year will afford. This may require some experience, and
continued efforts at condensation. But, once effected, it will
place your mind at ease, and give to our country a result proportioned
to the means it furnishes, and which ought to satisfy, and
will satisfy, all reasonable men. I am certain it will those to
whom the charge and direction of this institution have been particularly
confided, and to none assuredly more than to him from
whom your doubts have drawn this unauthoritative exposition
of the public expectations. And, with this assurance, be pleased
to accept that of my sincerely friendly esteem and respect.
Dear Sir,—After sealing the enclosed letter, it occurred to
me that being on a general subject, and one equally applicable
to the cases of your colleagues, the other Professors, I should
wish it to be read by them also. It may produce an union of
views, and harmony of action, which may be useful to the Institution.
Yours affectionately.
Monticello, May 15, 1826.
Dear Sir,—The sentiments of justice which have dictated
your letters of the 3d and 9th inst., are worthy of all praise, and
merit and meet my thankful acknowledgments. Were your
father now living and proposing, as you are, to publish a second
edition of his memoirs, I am satisfied he would give a very different
aspect to the pages of that work which respect Arnold's
invasion and surprise of Richmond, in the winter of 1780-81.
He was then, I believe, in South Carolina, too distant from the
scene of those transactions to relate them on his own knowledge,
or even to sift them from the chaff of the rumors then afloat,
rumors which vanished soon before the real truth, as vapors before
the sun, obliterated by their notoriety, from every candid
mind, and by the voice of the many who, as actors or spectators
knew what had truly past. The facts shall speak for themselves.
General Washington had just given notice to all the Governors
on the sea-board, north and south, that an embarcation was taking
place at New York, destined for the southward, as was
given out there; and on Sunday the 31st of December, 1780,
we received information that a fleet had entered our capes. It
happened fortunately that our legislature was at that moment in
session, and within two days of their rising, so that, during
these two days, we had the benefit of their presence, and of the
counsel and information of the members individually. On Monday
the 1st of January, we were in suspense as to the destination
of this fleet, whether up the bay, or up our river. On
Tuesday at 10 o'clock, however, we received information that
they had entered James river; and, on general advice, we instantly
prepared orders for calling in the militia, one-half from
the nearer counties, and a fourth from the more remote, which
would constitute a force of between four and five thousand men,
of which orders the members of the legislature, which adjourned
that day, took charge, each to his respective county; and we began
the removal of everything from Richmond. The wind being
fair and strong, the enemy ascended the river as rapidly almost
as the expresses could ride, who were dispatched to us from
time to time, to notify their progress. At 5 P. M. on Thursday,
we learnt that they had then been three hours landed at Westover.
The whole militia of the adjacent counties were now called for,
and to come on individually, without waiting any regular array.
At 1 P. M. the next day, (Friday,) they entered Richmond, and
on Saturday, after twenty-four hours possession, burning some
houses, destroying property, &c., they retreated, encamped that
evening ten miles below, and reached their shipping at Westover
the next day, (Sunday.)
By this time had assembled three hundred militia under Colonel
Nicholas, six miles above Westover, and two hundred under
General Nelson, at Charles city Court House, eight miles below.
Two or three hundred at Petersburg had put themselves under
General Smallwood, of Maryland, accidentally there on his passage
through the State; and Baron Steuben with eight hundred,
and Colonel Gibson with one thousand, were also on the south
side of James river, aiming to reach Hood's before the enemy
should have passed it, where they hoped they could arrest them.
But the wind, having shifted, carried them down as prosperously
as it had brought them up the river. Within the first five days,
therefore, about twenty-five hundred men had collected at three
or four different points, ready for junction. I was absent myself
from Richmond (but always within observing distance of the
enemy) three days only, during which I was never off my horse
but to take food or rest, and was everywhere where my presence
could be of any service; and I may with confidence challenge
any one to put his finger on the point of time when I was in a state
of remissness from any duty of my station. But I was not with
the army! true; for first, where was it? second, I was engaged
in the more important function of taking measures to collect an
army; and, without military education myself, instead of jeopardizing
the public safety by pretending to take its command, of
which I knew nothing, I had committed it to persons of the art,
men who knew how to make the best use of it, to Steuben for
instance, to Nelson and others, possessing that military skill and
experience, of which I had none.
Let our condition, too, at that time be duly considered. Without
arms, without money of effect, without a regular soldier in
the State, or a regular officer, except Steuben, a militia scattered
over the country, and called at a moment's warning to leave their
families and firesides, in the dead of winter, to meet an enemy
ready marshalled, and prepared at all points to receive them.
Yet had time been given them by the hasty retreat of that enemy,
I have no doubt but the rush to arms, and to the protection
of their country, would have been as rapid and universal as in
the invasion during our late war, when, at the first moment of
notice, our citizens rose in mass, from every part of the State,
and without waiting to be marshalled by their officers, armed
themselves, and marched off by ones and by twos, as quickly as
they could equip themselves. Of the individuals of the same
house one would start in the morning, a second at noon, a third
in the evening, no one waiting an hour for the company of
another. This I saw myself on the late occasion, and should
have seen on the former had wind, and tide, and a Howe, instead
of an Arnold, slackened their pace ever so little.
And is the surprise of an open and unarmed place, although
called a city, and even a capital, so unprecedented as to be a
matter of indelible reproach? Which of our own capitals during
the same war, was not in possession of the same enemy, not
merely by surprise and for a day only, but permanently? That
of Georgia? of South Carolina? North Carolina? Pennsylvania?
New York? Connecticut? Rhode Island? Massachusetts? And
if others were not, it was because the enemy saw no object in
taking possession of them. Add to the list in the late war,
Washington, the metropolis of the Union, covered by a fort,
with troops and a dense population. And what capital on the
continent of Europe, (St. Petersburg and its regions of ice excepted,)
did not Bonaparte take and hold at his pleasure? Is it
then just that Richmond and its authorities alone should be
placed under the reproach of history, because, in a moment of
peculiar denudation of resources, by the coup de main of an
enemy, led on by the hand of fortune directing the winds and
weather to their wishes, it was surprised and held for twenty-four
hours? Or strange that that enemy with such advantages,
should be enabled then to get off, without risking the honors he
had achieved by burnings and destructions of property peculiar
to his principles of warfare? We, at least, may leave these
glories to their own trumpet.
During this crisis of trial I was left alone, unassisted by the
co-operation of a single public functionary. For, with the
legislature, every member of the council had departed to take
care of his own family. Unaided even in my bodily labors, but
by my horse, and he, exhausted at length by fatigue, sunk under
me in the public road, where I had to leave him, and with
my saddle and bridle on my shoulders, to walk afoot to the nearest
farm, where I borrowed an unbroken colt, and proceeded
to Manchester, opposite to Richmond, which the enemy had
evacuated a few hours before.
Without further pursuing these minute details, I will here ask
the favor of you to turn to Girardin's History of Virginia, where
such of them as are worthy the notice of history, are related in
that scale of extension which its objects admit. That work
was written at Milton, within two or three miles of Monticello;
and at the request of the author, I communicated to him every
paper I possessed on the subject, of which he made the use he
thought proper for his work. [See his pages 453, 460, and the
appendix xi.-xv.] I can assure you of the truth of every fact
he has drawn from these papers, and of the genuineness of such
as he has taken the trouble of copying. It happened that during
those eight days of incessant labor, for the benefit of my
own memory, I carefully noted every circumstance worth it.
These memorandums were often written on horseback, and on
scraps of paper taken out of my pocket at the moment, fortunately
preserved to this day, and now lying before me. I wish
you could see them. But my papers of that period are stitched
together in large masses, and so tattered and tender as not to admit
removal further than from their shelves to a reading table.
They bear an internal evidence of fidelity which must carry
conviction to every one who sees them. We have nothing in
our neighborhood which could compensate the trouble of a visit
to it, unless perhaps our University, which I believe you have
not seen, and I can assure you is worth seeing. Should you
think so, I would ask as much of your time at Monticello as
would enable you to examine these papers at your ease. Many
others too are interspersed among them, which have relation to
your object, many letters from Generals Gates, Greene, Stephens
and others engaged in the Southern war, and in the North also.
All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is
not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the
whole world. During the invasions of Arnold, Phillips and
Cornwallis, until my time of office had expired, I made it a
point, once a week, by letters to the President of Congress, and
to General Washington, to give them an exact narrative of the
transactions of the week. These letters should still be in the
office of state in Washington, and in the presses at Mount Vernon.
Or, if the former were destroyed by the conflagrations
of the British, the latter are surely safe, and may be appealed to
in corroboration of what I have now written.
There is another transaction, very erroneously stated in the
same work, which although not concerning myself, is within my
own knowledge, and I think it a duty to communicate it to you.
I am sorry that not being in possession of a copy of the memoirs,
I am not able to quote the page, and still less the facts
themselves, verbatim from the text. But of the substance, as
recollected, I am certain. It is said there that, about the time
of Tarleton's expedition up the north branch of James river to
Charlottesville and Monticello, Simcoe was detached up the
southern branch, and penetrated as far as New London, in Bedford,
where he destroyed a depôt of arms, &c., &c. I was with
my family, at the time, at a possession I have within three miles
of New London, and I can assure you of my own knowledge
that he did not advance to within fifty miles of New London.
Having reached the lower end of Buckingham, as I have understood,
he heard of a deposit of arms, and a party of new recruits
under Baron Steuben, somewhere in Prince Edward; he left the
Buckingham road immediately, at or near Francisco's, pushed directly
south at this new object, was disappointed, and returned
to and down James river to head quarters. I had then returned
to Monticello myself, and from thence saw the smokes of his
conflagration of houses and property on that river, as they successively
arose in the horizon at a distance of twenty-five or
thirty miles. I must repeat that his excursion from Francisco's
is not from my own knowledge, but as I have heard it from the
inhabitants on the Buckingham road, which for many years I
travelled six or eight times a year. The particulars of that,
therefore, may need inquiry and correction.
These are all the recollections within the scope of your request,
which I can state with precision and certainty; and of
these you are free to make what use you think proper in the new
edition of your father's work; and with which I pray you to
accept the assurances of my great esteem and respect.
Monticello, June 24, 1826.
Respected Sir,—The kind invitation I receive from you, on
the part of the citizens of the city of Washington, to be present
with them at their celebration on the fiftieth anniversary of
American Independence, as one of the surviving signers of an
instrument pregnant with our own, and the fate of the world, is
most flattering to myself, and heightened by the honorable accompaniment
proposed for the comfort of such a journey. It
adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it
of a personal participation in the rejoicings of that day. But acquiescence
is a duty, under circumstances not placed among
those we are permitted to control. I should, indeed, with peculiar
delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations
personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of
worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful
election we were to make for our country, between submission
or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory
fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience
and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made.
May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts
sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing
men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and
superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume
the blessings and security of self-government. That form
which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded
exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes
are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general
spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view
the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born
with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and
spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.
These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the
annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of
these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.
I will ask permission here to express the pleasure with which I
should have met my ancient neighbors of the city of Washington
and its vicinities, with whom I passed so many years of a pleasing
social intercourse; an intercourse which so much relieved the
anxieties of the public cares, and left impressions so deeply engraved
in my affections, as never to be forgotten. With my regret
that ill health forbids me the gratification of an acceptance, be
pleased to receive for yourself, and those for whom you write, the
assurance of my highest respect and friendly attachments.
