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Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4

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Title: Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4

Author: Thomas Jefferson

Editor: Thomas Jefferson Randolph


        
Release date: September 30, 2005 [eBook #16784]
                Most recently updated: December 12, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16784

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIR, CORRESPONDENCE, AND MISCELLANIES, FROM THE PAPERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, VOLUME 4 ***




Produced by David Widger





[Illustration: Book Spines, 1829 set of Jefferson Papers]

MEMOIR, CORRESPONDENCE, AND MISCELLANIES, FROM THE PAPERS OF THOMAS
JEFFERSON.

Edited by Thomas Jefferson Randolph.


[Illustration: Steel engraving by Longacre from painting of G. Stuart]

[Illustration: Titlepage of Volume Three (of four)]


VOLUME IV.




LETTER I.--TO LEVI LINCOLN, August 30, 1803


TO LEVI LINCOLN.

Monticello, August 30, 1803.

Deak. Sir,

The enclosed letter came to hand by yesterday’s post. You will be
sensible of the circumstances which make it improper that I should
hazard a formal answer, as well as of the desire its friendly aspect
naturally excites, that those concerned in it should understand that
the spirit they express is friendly viewed. You can judge also from your
knowledge of the ground, whether it may be usefully encouraged. I take
the liberty, therefore, of availing myself of your neighborhood to
Boston, and of your friendship to me, to request you to say to the
Captain and others verbally whatever you think would be proper, as
expressive of my sentiments on the subject. With respect to the day
on which they wish to fix their anniversary, they may be told, that
disapproving myself of transferring the honors and veneration for the
great birthday of our republic to any individual, or of dividing them
with individuals, I have declined letting my own birthday be known, and
have engaged my family not to communicate it. This has been the uniform
answer to every application of the kind.

On further consideration as to the amendment to our constitution
respecting Louisiana, I have thought it better, instead of enumerating
the powers which Congress may exercise, to give them the same powers
they have as to other portions of the Union generally, and to enumerate
the special exceptions, in some such form as the following.

‘Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States, is made a part of
the United States, its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand,
as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other
citizens of the United States, in analogous situations. Save only that
as to the portion thereof lying north of an east and west line drawn
through the mouth of Arkansas river, no new State shall be established,
nor any grants of land made, other than to Indians, in exchange for
equivalent portions of land occupied by them, until an amendment of the
constitution shall be made for these purposes.

‘Florida also, whensoever it may be rightfully obtained, shall become
a part of the United States, its white inhabitants shall thereupon be
citizens, and shall stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the
same footing with other citizens of the United States, in analogous
situations.’

I quote this for your consideration, observing that the less that is
said about any constitutional difficulty, the better: and that it will
be desirable for Congress to do what is necessary, in silence. I find
but one opinion as to the necessity of shutting up the country for
some time. We meet in Washington the 25th of September to prepare for
Congress. Accept my affectionate salutations, and great esteem and
respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER II.--TO WILSON C NICHOLAS, September 7, 1803


TO WILSON C NICHOLAS.

Monticello, September 7, 1803.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of the 3rd was delivered me at court; but we were much
disappointed at not seeing you here, Mr. Madison and the Governor being
here at the time. 1 enclose you a letter from Monroe on the subject of
the late treaty. You will observe a hint in it, to do without delay what
we are bound to do. There is reason, in the opinion of our ministers,
to believe, that if the thing were to do over again, it could not be
obtained, and that if we give the least opening, they will declare the
treaty void. A warning amounting to that has been given to them, and
an unusual kind of letter written by their minister to our Secretary of
State, direct. Whatever Congress shall think it necessary to do, should
be done with as little debate as possible, and particularly so far as
respects the constitutional difficulty. I am aware of the force of
the observations you make on the power given by the constitution to
Congress, to admit new States into the Union, without restraining the
subject to the territory then constituting the United States. But when I
consider that the limits of the United States are precisely fixed by the
treaty of 1783, that the constitution expressly declares itself to be
made for the United States, I cannot help believing the intention was
not to permit Congress to admit into the Union new States, which should
be formed out of the territory for which, and under whose authority
alone, they were then acting. I do not believe it was meant that they
might receive England, Ireland, Holland, &tc. into it, which would
be the case on your construction. When an instrument admits two
constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the
other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe and precise. I had
rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found
necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our
powers boundless. Our peculiar security is in the possession of a
written constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.
I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of
the treaty-making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no
constitution. If it has bounds, they can be no others than the
definitions of the powers which that instrument gives. It specifies and
delineates the operations permitted to the federal government, and gives
all the powers necessary to carry these into execution. Whatever of
these enumerated objects is proper for a law, Congress may make the law;
whatever is proper to be executed by way of a treaty, the President and
Senate may enter into the treaty; whatever is to be done by a judicial
sentence, the judges may pass the sentence. Nothing is more likely than
that their enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case
of all human works. Let us go on then perfecting it, by adding, by way
of amendment to the constitution, those powers which time and trial show
are still wanting. But it has been taken too much for granted, that by
this rigorous construction the treaty power would be reduced to nothing.
I had occasion once to examine its effect on the French treaty, made by
the old Congress, and found that out of thirty odd articles which that
contained, there were one, two, or three only, which could not now be
stipulated under our present constitution. I confess, then, I think
it important, in the present case, to set an example against broad
construction, by appealing for new power to the people. If, however,
our friends shall think differently, certainly I shall acquiesce with
satisfaction; confiding, that the good sense of our country will correct
the evil of construction when it shall produce ill effects.

No apologies for writing or speaking to me freely are necessary. On the
contrary, nothing my friends can do is so dear to me, and proves to me
their friendship so clearly, as the information they give me of their
sentiments and those of others on interesting points where I am to act,
and where information and warning is so essential to excite in me that
due reflection which ought to precede action. I leave this about the
21st, and shall hope the District Court will give me an opportunity
of seeing you. Accept my affectionate salutations, and assurances of
cordial esteem and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER III.--TO DOCTOR BENJAMIN RUSH, October 4, 1803


TO DOCTOR BENJAMIN RUSH.

Washington, October 4, 1803.

Dear Sir,

No one would more willingly than myself pay the just tribute due to
the services of Captain Barry, by writing a letter of condolence to his
widow, as you suggest. But when one undertakes to administer justice,
it must be with an even hand, and by rule; what is done for one, must be
done for every one in equal degree. To what a train of attentions
would this draw a President? How difficult would it be to draw the line
between that degree of merit entitled to such a testimonial of it, and
that not so entitled? If drawn in a particular case differently from
what the friends of the deceased would judge right, what offence would
it give, and of the most tender kind? How much offence would be given
by accidental inattentions, or want of information? The first step
into such an undertaking ought to be well weighed. On the death of Dr.
Franklin, the King and Convention of France went into mourning. So did
the House of Representatives of the United States: the Senate refused.
I proposed to General Washington that the executive departments should
wear mourning; he declined it, because he said he should not know where
to draw the line, if he once began that ceremony. Mr. Adams was then
Vice-President, and I thought General Washington had his eye on him,
whom he certainly did not love. I told him the world had drawn so
broad a line between himself and Dr. Franklin, on the one side, and the
residue of mankind, on the other, that we might wear mourning for them,
and the question still remain new and undecided as to all others. He
thought it best, however, to avoid it. On these considerations alone,
however well affected to the merit of Commodore Barry, I think
it prudent not to engage myself in a practice which may become
embarrassing.

Tremendous times in Europe! How mighty this battle of lions and tigers?
With what sensations should the common herd of cattle look on it? With
no partialities certainly. If they can so far worry one another as to
destroy their power of tyrannizing the one over the earth, the other the
waters, the world may perhaps enjoy peace, till they recruit again.

Affectionate and respectful salutations.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER IV.--TO M. DUPONT DE NEMOURS, November 1, 1803


TO M. DUPONT DE NEMOURS.

Washington, November 1, 1803.

My Dear Sir,

Your favors of April the 6th and June the 27th were duly received, and
with the welcome which every thing brings from you. The treaty which has
so happily sealed the friendship of our two countries, has been received
here with general acclamation. Some inflexible federalists have still
ventured to brave the public opinion. It will fix their character with
the world and with posterity, who, not descending to the other points of
difference between us, will judge them by this fact, so palpable as to
speak for itself, in all times and places. For myself and my country I
thank you for the aids you have given in it; and I congratulate you on
having lived to give those aids in a transaction replete with blessings
to unborn millions of men, and which will mark the face of a portion on
the globe so extensive as that which now composes the United States of
America. It is true that at this moment a little cloud hovers in the
horizon. The government of Spain has protested against the right of
France to transfer; and it is possible she may refuse possession, and
that this may bring on acts of force. But against such neighbors as
France there, and the United States here, what she can expect from so
gross a compound of folly and false faith, is not to be sought in the
book of wisdom. She is afraid of her enemies in Mexico. But not more
than we are. Our policy will be to form New Orleans and the country on
both sides of it on the Gulf of Mexico, into a State; and, as to all
above that, to transplant our Indians into it, constituting them a
Marechaussee to prevent emigrants crossing the river, until we shall
have filled up all the vacant country on this side. This will secure
both Spain and us as to the mines of Mexico, for half a century, and we
may safely trust the provisions for that time to the men who shall live
in it.

I have communicated with Mr. Gallatin on the subject of using your
house in any matters of consequence we may have to do at Paris. He
is impressed with the same desire I feel to give this mark of our
confidence in you, and the sense we entertain of your friendship and
fidelity. Mr. Behring informs him that none of the money which will be
due from us to him, as the assignee of France, will be wanting at Paris.
Be assured that our dispositions are such as to let no occasion pass
unimproved, of serving you, where occurrences will permit it.

Present my respects to Madame Dupont, and accept yourself assurances of
my constant and warm friendship.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER V.--TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON, November 4,1803

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

Washington, November 4,1803.

Dear Sir,

A report reaches us this day from Baltimore (on probable, but not
certain grounds), that Mr. Jerome Bonaparte, brother of the First
Consul, was yesterday* married to Miss Patterson of that city. The
effect of this measure on the mind of the First Consul, is not for me to
suppose; but as it might occur to him _primâ facie_, that the executive
of the United States ought to have prevented it, I have thought it
advisable to mention the subject to you, that if necessary, you may by
explanations set that idea to rights. You know that by our laws, all
persons are free to enter into marriage, if of twenty-one years of age,
no one having a power to restrain it, not even their parents; and that
under that age, no one can prevent it but the parent or guardian. The
lady is under age, and the parents, placed between her affections
which were strongly fixed, and the considerations opposing the measure,
yielded with pain and anxiety to the former.

     * November 8. It is now said that it did not take place on
     the 3rd, but will this day.

Mr. Patterson is the President of the bank of Baltimore, the wealthiest
man in Maryland, perhaps in the United States, except Mr. Carroll; a man
of great virtue and respectability; the mother is the sister of the lady
of General Samuel Smith; and, consequently, the station of the family in
society is with the first of the United States. These circumstances fix
rank in a country where there are no hereditary titles. Your treaty has
obtained nearly a general approbation. The federalists spoke and voted
against it, but they are now so reduced in their numbers as to be
nothing. The question on its ratification in the Senate was decided by
twenty-four against seven, which was ten more than enough. The vote in
the House of Representatives for making provision for its execution,
was carried by eighty-nine against twenty-three, which was a majority
of sixty-six, and the necessary bills are going through the Houses
by greater majorities. Mr. Pichon, according to instructions from his
government, proposed to have added to the ratification a protestation
against any failure in time or other circumstances of execution, on
our part. He was told, that in that case we should annex a counter
protestation, which would leave the thing exactly where it was; that
this transaction had been conducted from the commencement of the
negotiation to this stage of it, with a frankness and sincerity
honorable to both nations, and comfortable to the heart of an honest man
to review; that to annex to this last chapter of the transaction such an
evidence of mutual distrust, was to change its aspect dishonorably
for us both, and contrary to truth as to us; for that we had not the
smallest doubt that France would punctually execute its part; and I
assured Mr. Pichon that I had more confidence in the word of the First
Consul than in all the parchment we could sign. He saw that we had
ratified the treaty; that both branches had passed by great majorities
one of the bills for execution, and would soon pass the other two;
that no circumstances remained that could leave a doubt of our punctual
performance; and like an able and an honest minister (which he is in the
highest degree) he undertook to do, what he knew his employers would do
themselves, were they here spectators of all the existing circumstances,
and exchanged the ratification’s purely and simply; so that this
instrument goes to the world as an evidence of the candor and confidence
of the nations in each other, which will have the best effects. This was
the more justifiable, as Mr. Pichon knew that Spain had entered with us
a protestation against our ratification of the treaty, grounded, first,
on the assertion that the First Consul had not executed the conditions
of the treaties of cession, and secondly, that he had broken a solemn
promise not to alienate the country to any nation. We answered, that
these were private questions between France and Spain, which they must
settle together; that we derived our title from the First Consul, and
did not doubt his guarantee of it: and we, four days ago, sent off
orders to the Governor of the Mississippi territory and General
Wilkinson, to move down with the troops at hand to New Orleans, to
receive the possession from Mr. Laussat. If he is heartily disposed to
carry the order of the Consul into execution, he can probably command a
volunteer force at New Orleans, and will have the aid of ours also, if
he desires it, to take the possession and deliver it to us. If he is
not so disposed, we shall take the possession, and it will rest with the
government of France, by adopting the act as their own and obtaining the
confirmation of Spain, to supply the non-execution of their stipulation
to deliver, and to entitle themselves to the complete execution of our
part of the agreements. In the mean time, the legislature is passing the
bills, and we are preparing every thing to be done on our part towards
execution, and we shall not avail ourselves of the three months’ delay
after possession of the province, allowed by the treaty for the delivery
of the stock, but shall deliver it the moment that possession is known
here, which will be on the eighteenth day after it has taken place.

*****

Accept my affectionate salutations, and assurances of my constant esteem
and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER VI.--TO DAVID WILLIAMS, November 14, 1803

TO DAVID WILLIAMS.

Washington, November 14, 1803.

Sir,

I have duly received the volume on the claims of literature; which
you did me the favor to send me through Mr. Monroe: and have read
with satisfaction the many judicious reflections it contains, on the
condition of the respectable class of literary men. The efforts for
their relief, made by a society of private citizens, are truly laudable:
but they are, as you justly observe, but a palliation of an evil, the
cure of which calls for all the wisdom and the means of the nation. The
greatest evils of populous society have ever appeared to me to spring
from the vicious distribution of its members among the occupations
called for. I have no doubt that those nations are essentially
right, which leave this to individual choice, as a better guide to an
advantageous distribution, than any other which could be devised.
But when, by a blind concourse, particular occupations are ruinously
overcharged, and others left in want of hands, the national authorities
can do much towards restoring the equilibrium. On the revival of
letters, learning became the universal favorite. And with reason,
because there was not enough of it existing to manage the affairs of
a nation to the best advantage, nor to advance its individuals to the
happiness of which they were susceptible, by improvements in their
minds, their morals, their health, and in those conveniences which
contribute to the comfort and embellishment of life. All the efforts of
the society, therefore, were directed to the increase of learning,
and the inducements of respect, ease, and profit were held up for its
encouragement. Even the charities of the nation forgot that misery was
their object, and spent themselves in founding schools to transfer to
science the hardy sons of the plough. To these incitements were added
the powerful fascinations of great cities. These circumstances have long
since produced an overcharge in the class of competitors for learned
occupation, and great distress among the supernumerary candidates; and
the more, as their habits of life have disqualified them for re-entering
into the laborious class. The evil cannot be suddenly, nor perhaps ever
entirely cured: nor should I presume to say by what means it may be
cured. Doubtless there are many engines which the nation might bring to
bear on this object. Public opinion and public encouragement are among
these. The class principally defective is that of agriculture. It is
the first in utility, and ought to be the first in respect. The same
artificial means which have been used to produce a competition in
learning, may be equally successful in restoring agriculture to its
primary dignity in the eyes of men. It is a science of the very first
order. It counts among its handmaids the most respectable sciences,
such as Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Mathematics
generally, Natural History, Botany. In every College and University, a
professorship of agriculture, and the class of its students, might be
honored as the first. Young men closing their academical education with
this, as the crown of all other sciences, fascinated with its solid
charms, and at a time when they are to choose an occupation, instead of
crowding the other classes, would return to the farms of their fathers,
their own, or those of others, and replenish and invigorate a calling,
now languishing under contempt and oppression. The charitable schools,
instead of storing their pupils with a lore which the present state of
society does not call for, converted into schools of agriculture, might
restore them to that branch, qualified to enrich and honor themselves,
and to increase the productions of the nation instead of consuming them.
A gradual abolition of the useless offices, so much accumulated in all
governments, might close this drain also from the labors of the field,
and lessen the burthens imposed on them. By these, and the better means
which will occur to others, the surcharge of the learned, might in
time be drawn off to recruit the laboring class of citizenss the sum of
industry be increased, and that of misery diminished.

Among the ancients, the redundance of population was sometimes checked
by exposing infants. To the moderns, America has offered a more humane
resource. Many, who cannot find employment in Europe, accordingly come
here. Those who can labor do well, for the most part. Of the learned
class of emigrants, a small portion find employments analogous to their
talents. But many fail, and return to complete their course of misery in
the scenes where it began. Even here we find too strong a current from
the country to the towns; and instances beginning to appear of that
species of misery, which you are so humanely endeavoring to relieve with
you. Although we have in the old countries of Europe the lesson of their
experience to warn us, yet I am not satisfied we shall have the firmness
and wisdom to profit by it. The general desire of men to live by their
heads rather than their hands, and the strong allurements of great
cities to those who have any turn for dissipation, threaten to make them
here, as in Europe, the sinks of voluntary misery. I perceive, however,
that I have suffered my pen to run into a disquisition, when I had taken
it up only to thank you for the volume you had been so kind as to send
me, and to express my approbation of it. After apologizing, therefore,
for having touched on a subject so much more familiar to you, and better
understood, I beg leave to assure you of my high consideration and
respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER VII.--TO JOHN RANDOLH, December 1, 1803

TO JOHN RANDOLH.

Washington, December 1, 1803.

Dear Sir,

The explanations in your letter of yesterday were quite unnecessary to
me. I have had too satisfactory proofs of your friendly regard, to be
disposed to suspect any thing of a contrary aspect.

I understood perfectly the expressions stated in the newspaper to
which you allude, to mean, that ‘though the proposition came from the
republican quarter of the House, yet you should not concur with it.’ I
am aware, that in parts of the Union, and even with persons to whom Mr.
Eppes and Mr. Randolph are unknown, and myself little known, it will be
presumed from their connection, that what comes from them comes from me.
No men on earth are more independent in their sentiments than they are,
nor any one less disposed than I am to influence the opinions of others.
We rarely speak of politics, or of the proceedings of the House, but
merely historically; and I carefully avoid expressing an opinion on them
in their presence, that we may all be at our ease. With other members, I
have believed that more unreserved communications would be advantageous
to the public. This has been, perhaps, prevented by mutual delicacy. I
have been afraid to express opinions unasked, lest I should be suspected
of wishing to direct the legislative action of members. They have
avoided asking communications from me, probably, lest they should be
suspected of wishing to fish out executive secrets. I see too many
proofs of the imperfection of human reason, to entertain wonder or
intolerance at any difference of opinion on any subject; and acquiesce
in that difference as easily as on a difference of feature or form:
experience having long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices
of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object,
and the expediency of doing what good we can, when we cannot do all we
would wish.

Accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of great esteem and
respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER VIII.--TO MR. GALLATIN, December 13, 1803


THOMAS JEFFERSON TO MR. GALLATIN.

The Attorney General having considered and decided, that the
prescription in the law for establishing a bank, that the officers in
the subordinate offices of discount and deposit, shall be appointed ‘on
the same terms and in the same manner practised in the principal bank,’
does not extend to them the principle of rotation, established by the
legislature in the body of directors in the principal bank, it follows
that the extension of that principle has been merely a voluntary and
prudential act of the principal bank, from which they are free to
depart. I think the extension was wise and proper on their part, because
the legislature having deemed rotation useful in the principal bank
constituted by them, there would be the same reason for it in the
subordinate banks to be established by the principal. It breaks in upon
the _esprit de corps_, so apt to prevail in permanent bodies; it gives
a chance for the public eye penetrating into the sanctuary of those
proceedings and practices, which the avarice of the directors may
introduce for their personal emolument, and which the resentments of
excluded directors, or the honesty of those duly admitted, might betray
to the public; and it gives an opportunity at the end of the year, or at
other periods, of correcting a choice, which, on trial, proves to have
been unfortunate; an evil of which themselves complain in their distant
institutions. Whether, however, they have a power to alter this or not,
the executive has no right to decide; and their consultation with you
has been merely an act of complaisance, or from a desire to shield so
important an innovation under the cover of executive sanction. But
ought we to volunteer our sanction in such a case? Ought we to disarm
ourselves of any fair right of animadversion, whenever that institution
shall be a legitimate subject of consideration? I own I think the most
proper answer would be, that we do not think ourselves authorized to
give an opinion on the question.

From a passage in the letter of the President, I observe an idea of
establishing a branch bank of the United States in New Orleans. This
institution is one of the most deadly hostility existing, against the
principles and form of our constitution. The nation is, at this time,
so strong and united in its sentiments, that it cannot be shaken at this
moment. But suppose a series of untoward events should occur, sufficient
to bring into doubt the competency of a republican government to meet
a crisis of great danger, or to unhinge the confidence of the people in
the public functionaries; an institution like this, penetrating by its
branches every part of the Union, acting by command and in phalanx, may,
in a critical moment, upset the government. I deem no government safe
which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any
other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries.
What an obstruction could not this bank of the United States, with all
its branch banks, be in time of war? It might dictate to us the peace
we should accept, or withdraw its aids. Ought we then to give further
growth to an institution so powerful, so hostile? That it is so hostile
we know, 1. from a knowledge of the principles of the persons composing
the body of directors in every bank, principal or branch; and those of
most of the stock-holders: 2. from their opposition to the measures and
principles of the government, and to the election of those friendly to
them: and, 3. from the sentiments of the newspapers they support. Now,
while we are strong, it is the greatest duty we owe to the safety of our
constitution, to bring this powerful enemy to a perfect subordination
under its authorities. The first measure would be to reduce them to an
equal footing only with other banks, as to the favors of the government.
But, in order to be able to meet a general combination of the banks
against us, in a critical emergency, could we not make a beginning
towards an independent use of our own money, towards holding our own
bank in all the deposits where it is received, and letting the Treasurer
give his draft or note for payment at any particular place, which, in a
well conducted government, ought to have as much credit as any private
draft, or bank note, or bill, and would give us the same facilities
which we derive from the banks? I pray you to turn this subject in your
mind, and to give it the benefit of your knowledge of details; whereas,
I have only very general views of the subject. Affectionate salutations.

Washington, December 13, 1803.




LETTER IX.--TO DOCTOR PRIESTLEY, January 29, 1804


TO DOCTOR PRIESTLEY.

Washington, January 29, 1804.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of December the 12th came duly to hand, as did the second
letter to Doctor Linn, and the treatise on Phlogiston, for which I pray
you to accept my thanks. The copy for Mr. Livingston has been delivered,
together with your letter to him, to Mr. Harvie, my secretary, who
departs in a day or two for Paris, and will deliver them himself to Mr.
Livingston, whose attention to your matter cannot be doubted. I have
also to add my thanks to Mr. Priestley, your son, for the copy of your
Harmony, which I have gone through with great satisfaction. It is
the first I have been able to meet with, which is clear of those long
repetitions of the same transaction, as if it were a different one
because related with some different circumstances.

I rejoice that you have undertaken the task of comparing the moral
doctrines of Jesus with those of the ancient Philosophers. You are so
much in possession of the whole subject, that you will do it easier and
better than any other person living. I think you cannot avoid giving,
as preliminary to the comparison, a digest of his moral doctrines,
extracted in his own words from the Evangelists, and leaving out every
thing relative to his personal history and character. It would be short
and precious. With a view to do this for my own satisfaction, I had sent
to Philadelphia to get two Testaments (Greek) of the same edition, and
two English, with a design to cut out the morsels of morality, and paste
them on the leaves of a book, in the manner you describe as having been
pursued in forming your Harmony. But I shall now get the thing done by
better hands.

I very early saw that Louisiana was indeed a speck in our horizon, which
was to burst in a tornado; and the public are un-apprized how near this
catastrophe was. Nothing but a frank and friendly developement of causes
and effects on our part, and good sense enough in Bonaparte to see that
the train was unavoidable, and would change the face of the world, saved
us from that storm. I did not expect he would yield till a war took
place between France and England, and my hope was to palliate and
endure, if Messrs. Ross, Morris, &c. did not force a premature rupture
until that event. I believed the event not very distant, but acknowledge
it came on sooner than I had expected. Whether, however, the good sense
of Bonaparte might not see the course predicted to be necessary and
unavoidable, even before a war should be imminent, was a chance which
we thought it our duty to try: but the immediate prospect of rupture
brought the case to immediate decision. The denouement has been happy:
and I confess I look to this duplication of area for the extending a
government so free and economical as ours, as a great achievement to
the mass of happiness which is to ensue. Whether we remain in one
confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I
believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of
the western confederacy will be as much our children and descendants
as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with
that country, in future time, as with this: and did I now foresee a
separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty and the desire
to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all
the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within
my power.

Have you seen the new work of Malthus on Population? It is one of the
ablest I have ever seen. Although his main object is to delineate
the effects of redundancy of population, and to test the poor laws
of England, and other palliations for that evil, several important
questions in political economy, allied to his subject incidentally, are
treated with a masterly hand. It is a single octavo volume, and I have
been only able to read a borrowed copy, the only one I have yet heard
of. Probably our friends in England will think of you, and give you an
opportunity of reading it.

Accept my affectionate salutations, and assurances of great esteem and
respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER X.--TO ELBRIDGE GERRY, March 3, 1804

TO ELBRIDGE GERRY.

Washington, March 3, 1804.

Dear Sir,

Although it is long since I received your favor of October the 27th,
yet I have not had leisure sooner to acknowledge it. In the Middle and
Southern States, as great an union of sentiment has now taken place
as is perhaps desirable. For as there will always be an opposition, I
believe it had better be from avowed monarchists than republicans. New
York seems to be in danger of republican division; Vermont is solidly
with us; Rhode Island with us on anomalous grounds; New Hampshire on
the verge of the republican shore; Connecticut advancing towards it very
slowly, but with steady step; your State only uncertain of making port
at all. I had forgotten Delaware, which will be always uncertain
from the divided character of her citizens. If the amendment of the
constitution passes Rhode Island (and we expect to hear in a day or
two), the election for the ensuing four years seems to present nothing
formidable. I sincerely regret that the unbounded calumnies of the
federal party have obliged me to throw myself on the verdict of my
country for trial, my great desire having been to retire at the end
of the present term, to a life of tranquillity; and it was my decided
purpose when I entered into office. They force my continuance. If we
can keep the vessel of State as steadily in her course for another four
years, my earthly purposes will be accomplished, and I shall be free
to enjoy, as you are doing, my family, my farm, and my books. That your
enjoyments may continue as long as you shall wish them, I sincerely
pray, and tender you my friendly salutations, and assurances of great
respect and esteem.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XI.--TO GIDEON GRANGER, April 16, 1804


TO GIDEON GRANGER.

Monticello, April 16, 1804.

Dear Sir,

*****

In our last conversation you mentioned a federal scheme afloat, of
forming a coalition between the federalists and republicans, of what
they called the seven eastern States. The idea was new to me, and after
time for reflection, I had no opportunity of conversing with you again.
The federalists know that, _eo nomine_, they are gone for ever. Their
object, therefore, is, how to return into power under some other form.
Undoubtedly they have but one means, which is to divide the republicans,
join the minority, and barter with them for the cloak of their name.
I say, join the minority; because the majority of the republicans, not
needing them, will not buy them. The minority, having no other means of
ruling the majority, will give a price for auxiliaries, and that price
must be principle. It is true that the federalists, needing their
numbers also, must also give a price, and principle is the coin they
must pay in. Thus a bastard system of federo-republicanism will rise on
the ruins of the true principles of our revolution. And when this party
is formed, who will constitute the majority of it, which majority is
then to dictate? Certainly the federalists. Thus their proposition of
putting themselves into gear with the republican minority, is exactly
like Roger Sherman’s proposition to add Connecticut to Rhode Island.
The idea of forming seven eastern States is moreover clearly to form the
basis of a separation of the Union. Is it possible that real republicans
can be gulled by such a bait? And for what? What do they wish, that they
have not? Federal measures? That is impossible. Republican measures?
Have they them not? Can any one deny, that in all important questions
of principle, republicanism prevails? But do they want that their
individual will shall govern the majority? They may purchase the
gratification of this unjust wish, for a little time, at a great price;
but the federalists must not have the passions of other men, if, after
getting thus into the seat of power, they suffer themselves to be
governed by their minority. This minority may say, that whenever they
relapse into their own principles, they will quit them, and draw the
seat from under them. They may quit them, indeed, but, in the mean time,
all the venal will have become associated with them, and will give them
a majority sufficient to keep them in place, and to enable them to eject
the heterogeneous friends by whose aid they get again into power. I
cannot believe any portion of real republicans will enter into this
trap; and if they do, I do not believe they can carry with them the mass
of their States, advancing so steadily as we see them, to an union of
principle with their brethren. It will be found in this, as in all
other similar cases, that crooked schemes will end by overwhelming their
authors and coadjutors in disgrace, and that he alone who walks strict
and upright, and who in matters of opinion will be contented that others
should be as free as himself, and acquiesce when his opinion is fairly
overruled, will attain his object in the end. And that this may be
the conduct of us all, I offer my sincere prayers, as well as for your
health and happiness.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XII.--TO MRS. ADAMS, June 13,1804


TO MRS. ADAMS.

Washington, June 13,1804.

Dear Madam,

The affectionate sentiments which you have had the goodness to express
in your letter of May the 20th, towards my dear departed daughter, have
awakened in me sensibilities natural to the occasion, and recalled
your kindnesses to her, which I shall ever remember with gratitude and
friendship. I can assure you with truth, they had made an indelible
impression on her mind, and that to the last, on our meetings after long
separations, whether I had heard lately of you, and how you did, were
among the earliest of her inquiries. In giving you this assurance, I
perform a sacred duty for her, and, at the same time, am thankful for
the occasion furnished me, of expressing my regret that circumstances
should have arisen, which have seemed to draw a line of separation
between us. The friendship with which you honored me has ever been
valued, and fully reciprocated; and although events have been passing
which might be trying to some minds, I never believed yours to be
of that kind, nor felt that my own was. Neither my estimate of your
character, nor the esteem founded in that, has ever been lessened for a
single moment, although doubts whether it would be acceptable may have
forbidden manifestations of it.

Mr. Adams’s friendship and mine began at an earlier date. It accompanied
us through long and important scenes. The different conclusions we had
drawn from our political reading and reflections, were not permitted to
lessen mutual esteem; each party being conscious they were the result of
an honest conviction in the other. Like differences of opinion existing
among our fellow citizens, attached them to the one or the other of us,
and produced a rivalship in their minds which did not exist in ours. We
never stood in one another’s way. For if either had been withdrawn at
any time, his favorers would not have gone over to the other, but would
have sought for some one of homogeneous opinions. This consideration
was sufficient to keep down all jealousy between us, and to guard our
friendship from any disturbance by sentiments of rivalship: and I can
say with truth, that one act of Mr. Adams’s life, and one only, ever
gave me a moment’s personal displeasure. I did consider his last
appointments to office as personally unkind. They were from among my
most ardent political enemies, from whom no faithful co-operation could
ever be expected; and laid me under the embarrassment of acting through
men, whose views were to defeat mine, or to encounter the odium of
putting others in their places. It seems but common justice to leave a
successor free to act by instruments of his own choice. If my respect
for him did not permit me to ascribe the whole blame to the influence of
others, it left something for friendship to forgive, and after brooding
over it for some little time, and not always resisting the expression of
it, I forgave it cordially, and returned to the same state of esteem
and respect for him which had so long subsisted. Having come into life
a little later than Mr. Adams, his career has preceded mine, as mine
is followed by some other; and it will probably be closed at the same
distance after him which time originally placed between us. I maintain
for him, and shall carry into private life, an uniform and high measure
of respect and good will, and for yourself a sincere attachment.

I have thus, my dear Madam, opened myself to you without reserve, which
I have long wished an opportunity of doing; and without knowing how it
will be received, I feal[sp.] relief from being unbosomed. And I have
now only to entreat your forgiveness for this transition from a subject
of domestic affliction, to one which seems of a different aspect. But
though connected with political events, it has been viewed by me most
strongly in its unfortunate bearings on my private friendships. The
injury these have sustained has been a heavy price for what has never
given me equal pleasure. That you may both be favored with health,
tranquillity, and long life, is the prayer of one who tenders you the
assurance of his highest consideration and esteem.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XIII.--TO GOVERNOR PAGE, June 25, 1804


TO GOVERNOR PAGE.

Washington, June 25, 1804.

Your letter, my dear friend, of the 25th ultimo, is a new proof of
the goodness of your heart, and the part you take in my loss marks an
affectionate concern for the greatness of it. It is great indeed. Others
may lose of their abundance, but I, of my want, have lost even the half
of all I had. My evening prospects now hang on the slender thread of
a single life. Perhaps I maybe destined to see even this last cord of
parental affection broken! The hope with which I had looked forward
to the moment, when, resigning public cares to younger hands, I was to
retire to that domestic comfort from which the last great step is to be
taken, is fearfully blighted. When you and I look back on the country
over which we have passed, what a field of slaughter does it exhibit!
Where are all the friends who entered it with us, under all the
inspiring energies of health and hope? As if pursued by the havoc of
war, they are strewed by the way, some earlier, some later, and scarce
a few stragglers remain to count the numbers fallen, and to mark yet,
by their own fall, the last footsteps of their party. Is it a desirable
thing to bear up through the heat of the action to witness the death of
all our companions, and merely be the last victim? I doubt it. We have,
however, the traveller’s consolation. Every step shortens the distance
we have to go; the end of our journey is in sight, the bed wherein we
are to rest, and to rise in the midst of the friends we have lost. ‘We
sorrow not, then, as others who have no hope’; but look forward to the
day which ‘joins us to the great majority.’ But whatever is to be our
destiny, wisdom, as well as duty, dictates that we should acquiesce in
the will of Him whose it is to give and take away, and be contented in
the enjoyment of those who are still permitted to be with us. Of those
connected by blood, the number does not depend on us. But friends we
have, if we have merited them. Those of our earliest years stand nearest
in our affections. But in this too, you and I have been unlucky. Of our
college friends (and they are the dearest) how few have stood with us in
the great political questions which have agitated our country: and these
were of a nature to justify agitation. I did not believe the Lilliputian
fetters of that day strong enough to have bound so many. Will not Mrs.
Page, yourself, and family, think it prudent to seek a healthier region
for the months of August and September? And may we not flatter ourselves
that you will cast your eye on Monticello? We have not many summers
to live. While fortune places us then within striking distance, let us
avail ourselves of it, to meet and talk over the tales of other times.

Present me respectfully to Mrs. Page, and accept yourself my friendly
salutations, and assurances of constant affection.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER, XIV.--TO P. MAZZEI, July 18, 1804


TO P. MAZZEI.

Washington, July 18, 1804.

My Dear Sir,

It is very long, I know, since I wrote you. So constant is the pressure
of business that there is never a moment, scarcely, that something
of public importance is not waiting for me. I have, therefore, on a
principle of conscience, thought it my duty to withdraw almost entirely
from all private correspondence, and chiefly the trans-Atlantic;
I scarcely write a letter a year to any friend beyond sea. Another
consideration has led to this, which is the liability of my letters to
miscarry, be opened, and made ill use of. Although the great body of our
country are perfectly returned to their ancient principles, yet there
remains a phalanx of old tories and monarchists, more envenomed, as all
their hopes become more desperate. Every word of mine which they can get
hold of, however innocent, however orthodox even, is twisted, tormented,
perverted, and, like the words of holy writ, are made to mean every
thing but what they were intended to mean. I trust little, therefore,
unnecessarily in their way, and especially on political subjects. I
shall not, therefore, be free to answer all the several articles of your
letters.

On the subject of treaties, our system is to have none with any nation,
as far as can be avoided. The treaty with England has therefore, not
been renewed, and all overtures for treaty with other nations have been
declined. We believe, that with nations as with individuals, dealings
may be carried on as anvantageously[sp.], perhaps more so, while their
continuance depends on a voluntary good treatment, as if fixed by a
contract, which, when it becomes injurious to either, is made, by forced
constructions, to mean what suits them, and becomes a cause of war
instead of a bond of peace.

We wish to be on the closest terms of friendship with Naples, and we
will prove it by giving to her citizens, vessels, and goods all the
privileges of the most favored nation; and while we do this voluntarily,
we cannot doubt they will voluntarily do the same for us. Our interests
against the Barbaresques being also the same, we have little doubt she
will give us every facility to insure them, which our situation may ask
and hers admit. It is not, then, from a want of friendship that we do
not propose a treaty with Naples, but because it is against our system
to embarrass ourselves with treaties, or to entangle ourselves at
all with the affairs of Europe. The kind offices we receive from that
government are more sensibly felt, as such, than they would be, if
rendered only as due to us by treaty.

Five fine frigates left the Chesapeake the 1st instant for Tripoli,
which, in addition to the force now there, will, I trust, recover the
credit which Commodore Morris’s two years’ sleep lost us, and for which
he has been broke. I think they will make Tripoli sensible, that they
mistake their interest in choosing war with us; and Tunis also, should
she have declared war, as we expect, and almost wish.

Notwithstanding this little diversion, we pay seven or eight millions of
dollars annually of our public debt, and shall completely discharge
it in twelve years more. That done, our annual revenue, now thirteen
millions of dollars, which by that time will be twenty-five, will pay
the expenses of any war we may be forced into, without new taxes or
loans. The spirit of republicanism is now in almost all its ancient
vigor, five sixths of the people being with us. Fourteen of the
seventeen States are completely with us, and two of the other three will
be in one year. We have now got back to the ground on which you left us.
I should have retired at the end of the first four years, but that the
immense load of tory calumnies which have been manufactured respecting
me, and have filled the European market, have obliged me to appeal once
more to my country for a justification. I have no fear but that I shall
receive honorable testimony by their verdict on those calumnies. At the
end of the next four years I shall certainly retire. Age, inclination,
and principle all dictate this. My health, which at one time threatened
an unfavorable turn, is now firm. The acquisition of Louisiana, besides
doubling our extent, and trebling our quantity of fertile country, is
of incalculable value, as relieving us from the danger of war. It has
enabled us to do a handsome thing for Fayette. He had received a grant
of between eleven and twelve thousand acres north of the Ohio, worth,
perhaps, a dollar an acre. We have obtained permission of Congress to
locate it in Louisiana. Locations can be found adjacent to the city of
New Orleans, in the island of New Orleans and in its vicinity, the value
of which cannot be calculated. I hope it will induce him to come over
and settle there with his family. Mr. Livingston having asked leave to
return, General Armstrong, his brother-in-law, goes in his place: he is
of the first order of talents.

Remarkable deaths lately, are, Samuel Adams, Edmund Pendleton, Alexander
Hamilton, Stephens Thompson Mason, Mann Page, Bellini, and Parson
Andrews. To these I have the inexpressible grief of adding the name of
my youngest daughter, who had married a son of Mr. Eppes, and has
left two children. My eldest daughter alone remains to me, and has six
children. This loss has increased my anxiety to retire, while it has
dreadfully lessened the comfort of doing it. Wythe, Dickinson, and
Charles Thomson are all living, and are firm republicans. You informed
me formerly of your marriage, and your having a daughter, but have said
nothing in you late letters on that subject. Yet whatever concerns your
happiness is sincerely interesting to me, and is a subject of anxiety,
retaining, as I do, cordial sentiments of esteem and affection for you.
Accept, I pray you, my sincere assurances of this, with my most friendly
salutations.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XV.--TO MRS. ADAMS, July 22, 1804


TO MRS. ADAMS.

Washington, July 22, 1804.

Dear Madam,

Your favor of the 1st instant was duly received, and I would not again
have intruded on you, but to rectify certain facts which seem not to
have been presented to you under their true aspect. My charities to
Callendar are considered as rewards for his calumnies. As early, I
think, as 1796, I was told in Philadelphia, that Callendar, the author
of the ‘Political Progress of Britain,’ was in that city, a fugitive
from persecution for having written that book, and in distress. I
had read and approved the book; I considered him as a man of genius,
unjustly persecuted. I knew nothing of his private character, and
immediately expressed my readiness to contribute to his relief, and to
serve him. It was a considerable time after, that, on application from
a person who thought of him as I did, I contributed to his relief, and
afterwards repeated the contribution. Himself I did not see till long
after, nor ever more than two or three times. When he first began to
write, he told some useful truths in his coarse way; but nobody sooner
disapproved of his writing than I did, or wished more that he would be
silent. My charities to him were no more meant as encouragements to his
scurrilities, than those I give to the beggar at my door are meant
as rewards for the vices of his life, and to make them chargeable to
myself. In truth, they would have been greater to him, had he never
written a word after the work for which he fled from Britain. With
respect to the calumnies and falsehoods which writers and printers at
large published against Mr. Adams, I was as far from stooping to any
concern or approbation of them, as Mr. Adams was respecting those of
Porcupine, Fenno, or Russell, who published volumes against me for
every sentence vended by their opponents against Mr. Adams. But I never
supposed Mr. Adams had any participation in the atrocities of these
editors, or their writers. I knew myself incapable of that base warfare,
and believed him to be so. On the contrary, whatever I may have thought
of the acts of the administration of that day, I have ever borne
testimony to Mr. Adams’s personal worth; nor was it ever impeached in my
presence, without a just vindication of it on my part. I never supposed
that any person who knew either of us, could believe that either of us
meddled in that dirty work. But another fact is, that I ‘liberated a
wretch who was suffering for a libel against Mr. Adams.’ I do not know
who was the particular wretch alluded to; but I discharged every person
under punishment or prosecution under the sedition law, because I
considered, and now consider, that law to be a nullity, as absolute and
as palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a
golden image; and that it was as much my duty to arrest its execution
in every stage, as it would have been to have rescued from the fiery
furnace those who should have been cast into it for refusing to worship
the image. It was accordingly done in every instance, without asking
what the offenders had done, or against whom they had offended, but
whether the pains they were suffering were inflicted under the pretended
sedition law. It was certainly possible that my motives for contributing
to the relief of Callendar, and liberating sufferers under the sedition
law might have been to protect, encourage, and reward slander; but they
may also have been those which inspire ordinary charities to objects of
distress, meritorious or not, or the obligation of an oath to protect
the constitution, violated by an unauthorized act of Congress. Which of
these were my motives, must be decided by a regard to the general tenor
of my life. On this I am not afraid to appeal to the nation at large,
to posterity, and still less to that Being who sees himself our motives,
who will judge us from his own knowledge of them, and not on the
testimony of Porcupine or Fenno.

You observe, there has been one other act of my administration
personally unkind, and suppose it will readily suggest itself to me. I
declare on my honor, Madam, I have not the least conception what act is
alluded to. I never did a single one with an unkind intention. My sole
object in this letter being to place before your attention, that the
acts imputed to me are either such as are falsely imputed, or as might
flow from good as well as bad motives, I shall make no other addition,
than the assurances of my continued wishes for the health and happiness
of yourself and Mr. Adams.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XVI.--TO JAMES MADISON, August 15, 1804


TO JAMES MADISON.

Monticello, August 15, 1804.

Dear Sir,

Your letter dated the 7th should probably have been of the 14th, as I
received it only by that day’s post. I return you Monroe’s letter, which
is of an awful complexion; and I do not wonder the communications it
contains made some impression on him. To a person placed in Europe,
surrounded by the immense resources of the nations there, and the
greater wickedness of their courts, even the limits which nature imposes
on their enterprises are scarcely sensible. It is impossible that France
and England should combine for any purpose; their mutual distrust and
deadly hatred of each other admit no co-operation. It is impossible that
England should be willing to see France re-possess Louisiana, or get
footing on our continent, and that France should willingly see the
United States re-annexed to the British dominions. That the Bourbons
should be replaced on their throne and agree to any terms of
restitution, is possible: but that they and England joined, could
recover us to British dominion, is impossible. If these things are
not so, then human reason is of no aid in conjecturing the conduct of
nations. Still, however, it is our unquestionable interest and duty to
conduct ourselves with such sincere friendship and impartiality towards
both nations, as that each may see unequivocally, what is unquestionably
true, that we may be very possibly driven into her scale by unjust
conduct in the other. I am so much impressed with the expediency of
putting a termination to the right of France to patronize the rights of
Louisiana, which will cease with their complete adoption as citizens of
the United States, that I hope to see that take place on the meeting
of Congress. I enclose you a paragraph from a newspaper respecting St.
Domingo, which gives me uneasiness. Still I conceive the British insults
in our harbor as more threatening. We cannot be respected by France as a
neutral nation, nor by the world or ourselves as an independent one,
if we do not take effectual measures to support, at every risk, our
authority in our own harbors. I shall write to Mr. Wagner directly
(that a post may not be lost by passing through you) to send us blank
commissions for Orleans and Louisiana, ready sealed, to be filled up,
signed, and forwarded by us. Affectionate salutations and constant
esteem.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XVII.--TO GOVERNOR CLAIBORNE, August 30, 1804


TO GOVERNOR CLAIBORNE.

Monticello, August 30, 1804.

Dear Sir,

Various circumstances of delay have prevented my forwarding till now
the general arrangements of the government of the territory of Orleans.
Enclosed herewith you will receive the commissions. Among these is one
for yourself as Governor. With respect to this I will enter into frank
explanations. This office was originally destined for a person * whose
great services and established fame would have rendered him peculiarly
acceptable to the nation at large. Circumstances, however, exist,
which do not now permit his nomination, and perhaps may not at any time
hereafter. That, therefore, being suspended, and entirely contingent,
your services have been so much approved, as to leave no desire to
look elsewhere to fill the office. Should the doubts you have sometimes
expressed, whether it would be eligible for you to continue, still exist
in your mind, the acceptance of the commission gives you time to satisfy
yourself by further experience, and to make the time and manner of
withdrawing, should you ultimately determine on that, agreeable to
yourself. Be assured, that whether you continue or retire, it will be
with every disposition on my part to be just and friendly to you.

*****

I salute you with friendship and respect.

Th: Jefferson.

     [* In the margin is written by the author, ‘La Fayette.’]




LETTER XVIII.--TO MRS. ADAMS, September 11, 1804


TO MRS. ADAMS.

Monticello, September 11, 1804,

Your letter, Madam, of the 18th of August has been some days received,
but a press of business has prevented the acknowledgment of it: perhaps,
indeed, I may have already trespassed too far on your attention. With
those who wish to think amiss of me, I have learned to be perfectly
indifferent; but where I know a mind to be ingenuous, and to need only
truth to set it to rights, I cannot be as passive. The act of personal
unkindness alluded to in your former letter, is said in your last to
have been the removal of your eldest son from some office to which
the judges had appointed him. I conclude, then, he must have been a
commissioner of bankruptcy. But I declare to you, on my honor, that
this is the first knowledge I have ever had that he was so. It may be
thought, perhaps, that I ought to have inquired who were such, before
I appointed others. But it is to be observed, that the former law
permitted the judges to name commissioners occasionally only, for every
case as it arose, and not to make them permanent officers. Nobody,
therefore, being in office, there could be no removal. The judges, you
well know, have been considered as highly federal; and it was noted
that they confined their nominations exclusively to federalists. The
legislature, dissatisfied with this, transferred the nomination to the
President, and made the offices permanent. The very object in passing
the law was, that he should correct, not confirm, what was deemed the
partiality of the judges. I thought it therefore proper to inquire,
not whom they had employed, but whom I ought to appoint to fulfil
the intentions of the law. In making these appointments, I put in a
proportion of federalists, equal, I believe, to the proportion they bear
in numbers through the Union generally. Had I known that your son had
acted, it would have been a real pleasure to me to have preferred him
to some who were named in Boston, in what was deemed the same line
of politics. To this I should have been led by my knowledge of his
integrity, as well as my sincere dispositions towards yourself and Mr.
Adams.

You seem to think it devolved on the judges to decide on the validity of
the sedition law. But nothing in the constitution has given them a right
to decide for the executive, more than to the executive to decide for
them. Both magistracies are equally independent in the sphere of action
assigned to them. The judges, believing the law constitutional, had a
right to pass a sentence of fine and imprisonment, because the power was
placed in their hands by the constitution. But the executive, believing
the law to be unconstitutional, were bound to remit the execution of it;
because that power has been confided to them by the constitution. That
instrument meant that its co-ordinate branches should be checks on each
other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide
what laws are constitutional, and what not, not only for themselves in
their own sphere of action, but for the legislature and executive also
in their spheres, would make the judiciary a despotic branch. Nor does
the opinion of the unconstitutionality, and consequent nullity of that
law, remove all restraint from the overwhelming torrent of slander,
which is confounding all vice and virtue, all truth and falsehood,
in the United States. The power to do that is fully possessed by the
several State legislatures. It was reserved to them, and was denied
to the General Government, by the constitution, according to our
construction of it. While we deny that Congress have a right to control
the freedom of the press, we have ever asserted the right of the States,
and their exclusive right, to do so. They have, accordingly, all of them
made provisions for punishing slander, which those who have time and
inclination resort to for the vindication of their characters. In
general, the State laws appear to have made the presses responsible for
slander as far as is consistent with its useful freedom. In those States
where they do not admit even the truth of allegations to protect the
printer, they have gone too far.

The candor manifested in your letter, and which I ever believed you to
possess, has alone inspired the desire of calling your attention once
more to those circumstances of fact and motive by which I claim to be
judged. I hope you will see these intrusions on your time to be, what
they really are, proofs of my great, respect for you. I tolerate with
the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion,
without imputing to them criminality. I know too well the weakness and
uncertainty of human reason, to wonder at its different results. Both
of our political parties, at least the honest part of them, agree
conscientiously in the same object, the public good: but they differ
essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side
believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers; the
other, by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people;
the other, the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is
right, time and experience will prove. We think that one side of this
experiment has been long enough tried, and proved not to promote
the good of the many: and that the other has not been fairly and
sufficiently tried. Our opponents think the reverse. With whichever
opinion the body of the nation concurs, that must prevail. My anxieties
on this subject will never carry me beyond the use of fair and honorable
means of truth and reason; nor have they ever lessened my esteem for
moral worth, nor alienated my affections from a single friend, who did
not first withdraw himself. Wherever this has happened, I confess I have
not been insensible to it: yet have ever kept myself open to a return
of their justice. I conclude with sincere prayers for your health and
happiness, that yourself and Mr. Adams may long enjoy the tranquillity
you desire and merit, and see in the prosperity of your family what is
the consummation of the last and warmest of human wishes,

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XIX.--TO MR. NICHOLSON, January 29, 1805


TO MR. NICHOLSON.

Washington, January 29, 1805.

Dear Sir,

Mr. Eppes has this moment put into my hands your letter of yesterday,
asking information on the subject of the gun-boats proposed to be built.
I lose no time in communicating to you fully my whole views respecting
them, premising a few words on the system of fortifications. Considering
the harbors which, from their situation and importance, are entitled to
defence, and the estimates we have seen of the fortifications planned
for some of them, this system cannot be completed on a moderate scale
for less than fifty millions of dollars, nor manned in time of war with
less than fifty thousand men, and in peace, two thousand. And when
done, they avail little; because all military men agree, that wherever a
vessel may pass a fort without tacking under her guns, which is the case
at all our sea-port towns, she may be annoyed more or less, according
to the advantages of the position, but can never be prevented. Our
own experience during the war proved this on different occasions. Our
predecessors have, nevertheless, proposed to go into this system, and
had commenced it. But, no law requiring us to proceed, we have suspended
it.

If we cannot hinder vessels from entering our harbors, we should turn
our attention to the putting it out of their power to lie, or come to,
before a town, to injure it. Two means of doing this may be adopted in
aid of each other. 1. Heavy cannon on travelling carriages, which may be
moved to any point on the bank or beach most convenient for dislodging
the vessel. A sufficient number of these should be lent to each sea-port
town, and their militia trained to them. The executive is authorized to
do this; it has been done in a smaller degree, and will now be done more
competently.

2. Having cannon on floating batteries or boats, which may be so
stationed as to prevent a vessel entering the harbor, or force her
after entering to depart. There are about fifteen harbors in the United
States, which ought to be in a state of substantial defence. The whole
of these would require, according to the best opinions, two hundred
and forty gun-boats. Their cost was estimated by Captain Rogers at two
thousand dollars each; but we had better say four thousand dollars. The
whole would cost one million of dollars. But we should allow ourselves
ten years to complete it, unless circumstances should force it sooner.
There are three situations in which the gun-boat may be. 1. Hauled up
under a shed, in readiness to be launched and manned by the seamen and
militia of the town on short notice. In this situation she costs nothing
but an enclosure, or a centinel to see that no mischief is done to her.
2. Afloat, and with men enough to navigate her in harbor and take care
of her, but depending on receiving her crew from the town on short
warning. In this situation, her annual expense is about two thousand
dollars, as by an official estimate at the end of this letter. 3. Fully
manned for action. Her annual expense in this situation is about eight
thousand dollars, as per estimate subjoined. ‘When there is general
peace, we should probably keep about six or seven afloat in the second
situation; their annual expense twelve to fourteen thousand dollars; the
rest all hauled up. When France and England are at war, we should keep,
at the utmost, twenty-five in the second situation, their annual expense
fifty thousand dollars. When we should be at war ourselves, some of them
would probably be kept in the third situation, at an annual expense of
eight thousand dollars; but how many, must depend on the circumstances
of the war. We now possess ten, built and building. It is the opinion of
those consulted, that fifteen more would enable us to put every harbor
under our view into a respectable condition; and that this should limit
the views of the present year. This would require an appropriation of
sixty thousand dollars, and I suppose that the best way of limiting it,
without declaring the number, as perhaps that sum would build more. I
should think it best not to give a detailed report, which exposes our
policy too much. A bill, with verbal explanations, will suffice for the
information of the House. I do not know whether General Wilkinson would
approve the printing his paper. If he would, it would be useful. Accept
affectionate and respectful salutations.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XX.--TO MR. VOLNEY, February 8, 1805


TO MR. VOLNEY.

Washington, February 8, 1805.

Dear Sir,

Your letter of November the 26th came to hand May the 14th; the books
some time after, which were all distributed according to direction.
The copy for the East Indies went immediately by a safe conveyance. The
letter of April the 28th, and the copy of your work accompanying
that, did not come to hand till August. That copy was deposited in the
Congressional library. It was not till my return here from my autumnal
visit to Monticello, that I had an opportunity of reading your work. I
have read it, and with great satisfaction. Of the first part I am less a
judge than most people, having never travelled westward of Staunton,
so as to know any thing of the face of the country; nor much indulged
myself in geological inquiries, from a belief that the skin-deep
scratches, which we can make or find on the surface of the earth, do not
repay our time with as certain and useful deductions, as our pursuits in
some other branches. The subject of our winds is more familiar to me.
On that, the views you have taken are always great, supported in their
outlines by your facts; and though more extensive observations, and
longer continued, may produce some anomalies, yet they will probably
take their place in this first great canvass which you have sketched. In
no case, perhaps, does habit attach our choice or judgment more than
in climate. The Canadian glows with delight in his sleigh and snow,
the very idea of which gives me the shivers. The comparison of climate
between Europe and North America, taking together its corresponding
parts, hangs chiefly on three great points. 1. The changes between heat
and cold in America are greater and more frequent, and the extremes
comprehend a greater scale on the thermometer in America than in Europe.
Habit, however, prevents these from affecting us more than the smaller
changes of Europe affect the European. But he is greatly affected by
ours. 2. Our sky is always clear; that of Europe always cloudy. Hence a
greater accumulation of heat here than there, in the same parallel. 3.
The changes between wet and dry are much more frequent and sudden in
Europe than in America. Though we have double the rain, it falls in half
the time. Taking all these together, I prefer much the climate of the
United States to that of Europe. I think it a more cheerful one. It
is our cloudless sky which has eradicated from our constitutions all
disposition to hang ourselves, which we might otherwise have inherited
from our English ancestors. During a residence of between six and seven
years in Paris, I never but once saw the sun shine through a whole day,
without being obscured by a cloud in any part of it: and I never saw the
moment, in which, viewing the sky through its whole hemisphere, I could
say there was not the smallest speck of a cloud in it. I arrived at
Monticello, on my return from France, in January, and during only two
months’ stay there, I observed to my daughters, who had been with me to
France, that twenty odd times within that term, there was not a speck of
a cloud in the whole hemisphere. Still I do not wonder that an European
should prefer his grey to our azure sky. Habit decides our taste in
this, as in most other cases.

The account you give of the yellow fever, is entirely agreeable to what
we then knew of it. Further experience has developed more and more
its peculiar character. Facts appear to have established, that it is
originated here by a local atmosphere, which is never generated but
in the lower, closer, and dirtier parts of our large cities, in the
neighborhood of the water; and that, to catch the disease, you must
enter the local atmosphere. Persons having taken the disease in the
infected quarter, and going into the country, are nursed and buried by
their friends, without an example of communicating it. A vessel going
from the infected quarter, and carrying its atmosphere in its hold into
another State, has given the disease to every person who there entered
her. These have died in the arms of their families, without a single
communication of the disease. It is certainly, therefore, an epidemic,
not a contagious disease; and calls on the chemists for some mode
of purifying the vessel by a decomposition of its atmosphere, if
ventilation be found insufficient. In the long scale of bilious fevers,
graduated by many shades, this is probably the last and most mortal
term. It seizes the native of the place equally with strangers. It has
not been long known in any part of the United States. The shade
next above it, called the stranger’s fever, has been coeval with the
settlement of the larger cities in the southern parts, to wit, Norfolk,
Charleston, New Orleans. Strangers going to these places in the months
of July, August, or September, find this fever as mortal as the genuine
yellow fever. But it rarely attacks those who have resided in them
some time. Since we have known that kind of yellow fever which is no
respecter of persons, its name has been extended to the stranger’s
fever, and every species of bilious fever which produces a black vomit,
that is to say, a discharge of very dark bile. Hence we hear of yellow
fever on the Allegany mountains, in Kentucky, &c. This is a matter
of definition only: but it leads into error those who do not know how
loosely and how interestedly some physicians think and speak. So far
as we have yet seen, I think we are correct in saying, that the yellow
fever, which seizes on all indiscriminately, is an ultimate degree of
bilious fever, never known in the United States till lately, nor farther
south, as yet, than Alexandria, and that what they have recently called
the yellow fever in New Orleans, Charleston, and Norfolk, is what has
always been known in those places as confined chiefly to strangers, and
nearly as mortal to them, as the other is to all its subjects. But both
grades are local: the stranger’s fever less so, as it sometimes extends
a little into the neighborhood; but the yellow fever rigorously so,
confined within narrow and well defined limits, and not communicable
out of those limits. Such a constitution of atmosphere being requisite
to originate this disease as is generated only in low, close, and
ill-cleansed parts of a town, I have supposed it practicable to prevent
its generation by building our cities on a more open plan. Take, for
instance, the chequer-board for a plan. Let the black squares only be
building squares, and the white ones be left open, in turf and trees.
Every square of houses will be surrounded by four open squares, and
every house will front an open square. The atmosphere of such a town
would be like that of the country, insusceptible of the miasmata which
produce yellow fever. I have accordingly proposed that the enlargements
of the city of New Orleans, which must immediately take place, shall be
on this plan. But it is only in case of enlargements to be made, or of
cities to be built, that his means of prevention can be employed.

The _genus irritabile vatum_ could not let the author of the Ruins
publish a new work, without seeking in it the means of discrediting that
puzzling composition. Some one of those holy calumniators has selected
from your new work every scrap of a sentence, which, detached from its
context, could displease an American reader. A cento has been made of
these, which has run through a particular description of newspapers, and
excited a disapprobation even in friendly minds, which nothing but the
reading of the book will cure. But time and truth will at length correct
error.

Our countrymen are so much occupied in the busy scenes of life, that
they have little time to write or invent. A good invention here,
therefore, is such a rarity as it is lawful to offer to the acceptance
of a friend. A Mr. Hawkins of Frankford, near Philadelphia, has invented
a machine, which he calls a polygraph, and which carries two, three, or
four pens. That of two pens, with which I am now writing, is best;
and is so perfect that I have laid aside the copying-press, for a
twelvemonth past, and write always with the polygraph. I have directed
one to be made, of which I ask your acceptance. By what conveyance I
shall send it while Havre is blockaded, I do not yet know. I think you
will be pleased with it, and will use it habitually as I do; because it
requires only that degree of mechanical attention which I know you to
possess. I am glad to hear that M. Cabanis is engaged in writing on the
reformation of medicine. It needs the hand of a reformer, and cannot
be in better hands than his. Will you permit my respects to him and the
Abbe de la Roche to find a place here.

A word now on our political state. The two parties which prevailed with
so much violence when you were here, are almost wholly melted into
one. At the late Presidential election I have received one hundred and
sixty-two votes against fourteen only. Connecticut is still federal by a
small majority; and Delaware on a poise, as she has been since 1775, and
will be till Anglomany with her yields to Americanism. Connecticut will
be with us in a short time. Though the people in mass have joined us,
their leaders had committed themselves too far to retract. Pride keeps
them hostile; they brood over their angry passions, and give them vent
in the newspapers which they maintain. They still make as much noise as
if they were the whole nation. Unfortunately, these being the mercantile
papers, published chiefly in the seaports, are the only ones which find
their way to Europe, and make very false impressions there. I am happy
to hear that the late derangement of your health is going off, and that
you are reestablished. I sincerely pray for the continuance of that
blessing, and with my affectionate salutations, tender you assurances of
great respect and attachment.

Th: Jefferson.

P. S. The sheets which you receive are those of the copying-pen of the
polygraph, not of the one with which I have written.




LETTER XXI.--TO JUDGE TYLER, March 29, 1805


TO JUDGE TYLER.

Monticello, March 29, 1805.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of the 17th found me on a short visit to this place, and I
observe in it with great pleasure a continuance of your approbation
of the course we are pursuing, and particularly the satisfaction you
express with the last inaugural address. The first was, from the nature
of the case, all profession and promise. Performance, therefore, seemed
to be the proper office of the second. But the occasion restricted me to
mention only the most prominent heads, and the strongest justification
of these in the fewest words possible. The crusade preached against
philosophy by the modern disciples of steady habits, induced me to dwell
more in showing its effect with the Indians than the subject otherwise
justified.

The war with Tripoli stands on two grounds of fact. 1st. It is made
known to us by our agents with the three other Barbary States, that they
only wait to see the event of this, to shape their conduct accordingly.
If the war is ended by additional tribute, they mean to offer us the
same alternative. 2ndly. If peace was made, we should still, and shall
ever, be obliged to keep a frigate in the Mediterranean to overawe
rupture, or we must abandon that market. Our intention in sending Morris
with a respectable force, was to try whether peace could be forced by
a coercive enterprise on their town. His inexecution of orders baffled
that effort. Having broke him, we try the same experiment under a better
commander. If in the course of the summer they cannot produce peace, we
shall recall our force, except one frigate and two small vessels, which
will keep up a perpetual blockade. Such a blockade will cost us no more
than a state of peace, and will save us from increased tributes, and
the disgrace attached to them. There is reason to believe the example
we have set, begins already to work on the dispositions of the powers
of Europe to emancipate themselves from that degrading yoke. Should we
produce such a revolution there, we shall be amply rewarded for what
we have done. Accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of great
respect and esteem.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXII.--TO DOCTOR LOGAN, May 11, 1805


TO DOCTOR LOGAN.

Washington, May 11, 1805.

Dear Sir,

I see with infinite pain the bloody schism which has taken place among
our friends in Pennsylvania and New York, and will probably take place
in other States. The main body of both sections mean well, but their
good intentions will produce great public evil. The minority,
whichever section shall be the minority, will end in coalition with the
federalists, and some compromise of principle; because these will not
sell their aid for nothing. Republicanism will thus lose, and royalism
gain, some portion of that ground which we thought we had rescued to
good government. I do not express my sense of our misfortunes from any
idea that they are remediable. I know that the passions of men will take
their course, that they are not to be controlled but by despotism, and
that this melancholy truth is the pretext for despotism. The duty of an
upright administration is to pursue its course steadily, to know nothing
of these family dissensions, and to cherish the good principles of
both parties. The war _ad internecionem_ which we have waged against
federalism, has filled our latter times with strife and unhappiness. We
have met it, with pain indeed, but with firmness, because we believed it
the last convulsive effort of that Hydra, which in earlier times we had
conquered in the field. But if any degeneracy of principle should ever
render it necessary to give ascendancy to one of the rising sections
over the other, I thank my God it will fall to some other to perform
that operation. The only cordial I wish to carry into my retirement, is
the undivided good will of all those with whom I have acted.

Present me affectionately to Mrs. Logan, and accept my salutations, and
assurances of constant friendship and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXIII.--TO JUDGE SULLIVAN, May 21, 1805


TO JUDGE SULLIVAN.

Washington, May 21, 1805.

Dear Sir,

An accumulation of business, which I found on my return here from a
short visit to Monticello, has prevented till now my acknowledgment of
your favor of the 14th _ultimo_. This delay has given time to see the
result of the contest in your State, and I cannot but congratulate you
on the advance it manifests, and the certain prospect it offers that
another year restores Massachusetts to the general body of the nation.
You have indeed received the federal unction of lying and slandering.
But who has not? Who will ever again come into eminent office,
unanointed with this chrism? It seems to be fixed that falsehood and
calumny are to be their ordinary engines of opposition; engines which
will not be entirely without effect. The circle of characters equal
to the first stations is not too large, and will be lessened by the
voluntary retreat of those whose sensibilities are stronger than their
confidence in the justice of public opinion. I certainly have known, and
still know, characters eminently qualified for the most exalted trusts,
who could not bear up against the brutal hackings and hewings of these
heroes of Billingsgate. I may say, from intimate knowledge, that we
should have lost the services of the greatest character of our country,
had he been assailed with the degree of abandoned licentiousness now
practised. The torture he felt under rare and slight attacks, proved
that under those of which the federal bands have shown themselves
capable, he would have thrown up the helm in a burst of indignation.
Yet this effect of sensibility must not be yielded to. If we suffer
ourselves to be frightened from our post by mere lying, surely the enemy
will use that weapon; for what one so cheap to those of whose system of
politics morality makes no part? The patriot, like the Christian, must
learn that to bear revilings and persecutions is a part of his duty;
and in proportion as the trial is severe, firmness under it becomes more
requisite and praiseworthy. It requires, indeed, self-command. But
that will be fortified in proportion as the calls for its exercise are
repeated. In this I am persuaded we shall have the benefit of your good
example. To the other falsehoods they have brought forward, should they
add, as you expect, insinuations of want of confidence in you from the
administration generally, or myself particularly, it will, like their
other falsehoods, produce in the public mind a contrary inference.

*********

I tender you my friendly and respectful salutations.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXIV.--TO THOMAS PAINE, June 5, 1805


TO THOMAS PAINE.

Washington, June 5, 1805.

Dear Sir,

Your letters, Nos. 1, 2, 3, the last of them dated April the 20th, were
received April the 26th. I congratulate you on your retirement to
your farm, and still more that it is of a character so worthy of your
attention. I much doubt whether the open room on your second story will
answer your expectations. There will be a few days in the year in which
it will be delightful, but not many. Nothing but trees, or Venetian
blinds, can protect it from the sun. The semi-cylindrical roof you
propose will have advantages. You know it has been practised on the
cloth market at Paris. De Lorme, the inventor, shows many forms of roofs
in his book, to which it is applicable. I have used it at home for a
dome, being one hundred and twenty degrees of an oblong octagon, and in
the capitol we unite two quadrants of a sphere by a semi-cylinder: all
framed in De Lorme’s manner. How has your planing machine answered? Has
it been tried and persevered in by any workman?

France has become so jealous of our conduct as to St. Domingo (which in
truth is only the conduct of our merchants), that the offer to become
a mediator would only confirm her suspicions. Bonaparte, however,
expressed satisfaction at the paragraph in my message to Congress on the
subject of that commerce. With respect to the German redemptioners,
you know I can do nothing, unless authorized by law. It would be made a
question in Congress, whether any of the enumerated objects to which
the constitution authorizes the money of the Union to be applied, would
cover an expenditure for importing settlers to Orleans. The letter of
the revolutionary sergeant was attended to by General Dearborn, who
wrote to him informing him how to proceed to obtain his land.

Doctor Eustis’s observation to you, that ‘certain paragraphs in the
National Intelligencer,’ respecting my letter to you, ‘supposed to be
under Mr. Jefferson’s direction, had embarrassed Mr. Jefferson’s friends
in Massachusetts; that they appeared like a half denial of the letter,
or as if there was something in it not proper to be owned, or that
needed an apology,’ is one of those mysterious half confidences
difficult to be understood. That tory printers should think it
advantageous to identify me with that paper, the Aurora, &c. in order to
obtain ground for abusing me, is perhaps fair warfare. But that any one
who knows me personally should listen one moment to such an insinuation,
is what I did not expect. I neither have, nor ever had, any more
connection with those papers than our antipodes have; nor know what is
to be in them until I see it in them, except proclamations and other
documents sent for publication. The friends in Massachusetts who could
be embarrassed by so weak a weapon as this, must be feeble friends
indeed. With respect to the letter, I never hesitated to avow and to
justify it in conversation. In no other way do I trouble myself to
contradict any thing which is said. At that time, however, there were
certain anomalies in the motions of some of our friends, which events
have at length reduced to regularity.

It seems very difficult to find out what turn things are to take in
Europe. I suppose it depends on Austria, which knowing it is to stand in
the way of receiving the first hard blows, is cautious of entering into
a coalition. As to France and England we can have but one wish, that
they may disable one another from injuring others.

Accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of esteem and respect.

Th: Jefferson.



[The following, in the hand-writing of the Author, is inserted in his
MS. of this period. Whether it was published, or where, is not stated.]

Richmond, 1780, December 31. At 8 A. M. the Governor receives the first
intelligence that twenty-seven sail of ships had entered Chesapeake Bay,
and were in the morning of the 29th just below Willoughby’s point (the
southern cape of James river); their destination unknown.


1781, January 2. At 10 A. M. information received that they had entered
James river, their advance being at Warrasqueak bay. Orders were
immediately given for calling in the militia, one fourth from some,
and one half from other counties. The members of the legislature,
which rises this day, are the bearers of the orders to their respective
counties. The Governor directs the removal of the records into the
country, and the transportation of the military stores from Richmond to
Westham (on the river seven miles above); there to be carried across the
river.


January 3. At 8 P. M. the enemy are said to be a little below Jamestown;
convenient for landing, if Williamsburg is their object.


January 4. At 5 A. M. information is received that they had passed
Kennon’s and Hood’s the evening before, with a strong; easterly wind,
which determines their object to be either Petersburg or Richmond. The
Governor now calls in the whole militia from the adjacent counties.


At 5 P. M. information, that at 2 P. M. they were landed and drawn up
at Westover (on the north side of the river, and twenty-five miles below
Richmond); and consequently Richmond their destination. Orders are
now given to discontinue wagoning the military stores from Richmond to
Westham, and to throw them across the river directly at Richmond.

The Governor having attended to this till an hour and a half in the
night, then rode up to the foundery (one mile below Westham), ordered
Captains Boush and Irish, and Mr. Hylton, to continue all night wagoning
to Westham the arms and stores still at the foundery, to be thrown
across the river at Westham, then proceeded to Westham to urge the
pressing the transportation there across the river, and thence went to
Tuckahoe (eight miles above and on the same side of the river) to see
after his family, which he had sent that far in the course of the day.
He arrived there at 1 o’clock in the night.


January 5. Early in the morning, he carried his family across the river
there, and sending them to Fine Creek (eight miles higher up) went
himself to Britton’s on the south side of the river, (opposite to
Westham). Finding the arms, &c. in a heap near the shore, and exposed
to be destroyed by cannon from the north bank, he had them removed under
cover of a point of land near by. He proceeded to Manchester (opposite
to Richmond). The enemy had arrived at Richmond at 1 P. M. Having found
that nearly the whole arms had been got there from Richmond, he set out
for Chetwood’s to meet with Baron Steuben, who had appointed that
place as a rendezvous and head-quarters; but not finding him there,
and understanding he would be at Colonel Fleming’s (six miles above
Britton’s), he proceeded thither. The enemy had now a detachment
at Westham, and sent a deputation from the city of Richmond to the
Governor, at Colonel Fleming’s, to propose terms for ransoming the
safety of the city, which terms he rejected.


January 6. The Governor returned to Britton’s, had measures taken more
effectually to secure the books and papers there. The enemy, having
burnt some houses and stores, left Richmond after twenty-four hours’
stay there, and encamped at Four Mile Creek (eight or ten miles below);
and the Governor went to look to his family at Fine Creek.


January 7. He returned to Britton’s to see further to the arms there,
exposed on the ground to heavy rains which had fallen the night before,
and thence proceeded to Manchester and lodged there. The enemy encamped
at Westover.


January 8. At half after 7 A. M. he crossed over to Richmond, and
resumed his residence there. The enemy are still retained in their
encampment at Westover by an easterly wind. Colonel John Nicholas has
now three hundred militia at the Forest (six miles off from Westover);
General Nelson, two hundred at Charles City Court-House (eight miles
below Westover); Gibson, one thousand, and Baron Steuben, eight hundred,
on the south side of the river.


January 9. The enemy are still encamped at Westover.


January 10. At 1 P. M. they embark: and the wind having shifted a little
to the north of west, and pretty fresh, they fall down the river. Baron
Steuben marches for Hood’s, where their passage may be checked. He
reaches Bland’s mills in the evening, within nine miles of Hood’s.


January 11. At 8 A. M. the wind due west and strong, they make good
their retreat.


During this period, time and place have been minutely cited, in order
that those who think there was any remissness in the movements of the
Governor, may lay their finger on the point, and say, when and where it
was. Hereafter, less detail will suffice.

Soon after this, General Phillips having joined Arnold with a
reinforcement of two thousand men, they advanced again up to Petersburg,
and about the last of April to Manchester. The Governor had remained
constantly in and about Richmond, exerting all his powers for collecting
militia, and providing such means for the defence of the State as its
exhausted resources admitted. Never assuming a guard, and with only the
river between him and the enemy, his lodgings were frequently within
four, five, or six miles of them.

M. de la Fayette about this time arrived at Richmond with some
continental troops, with which, and the militia collected, he continued
to occupy that place, and the north bank of the river, while Phillips
and Arnold held Manchester and the south bank. But Lord Cornwallis,
about the middle of May, joining them with the main southern army, M.
de la Fayette was obliged to retire. The enemy crossed the river, and
advanced up into the country about fifty miles, and within thirty miles
of Charlottesville, at which place the legislature being to meet in
June, the Governor proceeded to his seat at Monticello, two or three
miles from it. His office was now near expiring, the country under
invasion by a powerful army, no services but military of any avail;
unprepared by his line of life and education for the command of armies,
he believed it right not to stand in the way of talents better fitted
than his own to the circumstances under which the country was placed.
He therefore himself proposed to his friends in the legislature, that
General Nelson, who commanded the militia of the State, should be
appointed Governor, as he was sensible that the union of the civil and
military power in the same hands, at this time, would greatly facilitate
military measures. This appointment accordingly took place on the 12th
of June, 1781.

This was the state of things, when, his office having actually expired,
and no successor yet in place, Colonel Tarleton, with his regiment, of
horse, was detached by Lord Cornwallis to surprise Mr. Jefferson
(whom they thought still in office) and the legislature now sitting in
Charlottesville. The Speakers of the two Houses, and some other members
of the legislature, were lodging with Mr. Jefferson at Monticello.
Tarleton, early in the morning, (June 23, I believe,) when within ten
miles of that place, detached a company of horse to secure him and
his guests, and proceeded himself rapidly with his main body to
Charlottesville, where he hoped to find the legislature unapprized of
his movement. Notice of it, however, had been brought both to Monticello
and Charlottesville about sunrise. The Speakers, with their colleagues,
returned to Charlottesville, and, with the other members of the
legislature, had barely time to get out of his way. Mr. Jefferson sent
off his family, to secure them from danger, and was himself still at
Monticello, making arrangements for his own departure, when Lieutenant
Hudson arrived there at half speed, and informed him the enemy were then
ascending the hill of Monticello. He departed immediately, and knowing
that he would be pursued if he took the high road, he plunged into the
woods of the adjoining mountain, where, being at once safe, he proceeded
to overtake his family. This is the famous adventure of Carter’s
Mountain, which has been so often resounded through the slanderous
chronicles of Federalism. But they have taken care never to detail the
facts, lest these should show that this favorite charge amounted to
nothing more, than that he did not remain in his house, and there singly
fight a whole troop of horse, or suffer himself to be taken prisoner.
Having accompanied his family one day’s journey, he returned to
Monticello. Tarleton had retired after eighteen hours’ stay in
Charlottesville. Mr. Jefferson then rejoined his family, and proceeded
with them to an estate he had in Bedford, about eighty miles southwest,
where, riding in his farm some time after, he was thrown from his horse,
and disabled from riding on horseback for a considerable time. But Mr.
Turner finds it more convenient to give him this fall in his retreat
before Tarleton, which had happened some weeks before, as a proof that
he withdrew from a troop of horse with a precipitancy which Don Quixote
would not have practised.

The facts here stated most particularly, with date of time and place,
are taken from the notes made by the writer hereof, for his own
satisfaction, at the time: the others are from memory, but so well
recollected, that he is satisfied there is no material fact misstated.
Should any person undertake to contradict any particular, on evidence
which may at all merit the public respect, the writer will take the
trouble (though not at all in the best situation for it) to produce the
proofs in support of it. He finds, indeed, that, of the persons whom he
recollects to have been present on these occasions, few have survived
the intermediate lapse of four and twenty years. Yet he trusts that
some, as well as himself, are yet among the living; and he is positively
certain, that no man can falsify any material fact here stated. He well
remembers, indeed, that there were then, as there are at all times,
some who blamed every thing done contrary to their own opinion, although
their opinions were formed on a very partial knowledge of facts. The
censures, which have been hazarded by such men as Mr. Turner, are
nothing but revivals of these half-informed opinions. Mr. George
Nicholas, then a very young man, but always a very honest one, was
prompted by these persons to bring specific charges against Mr.
Jefferson. The heads of these, in writing, were communicated through a
mutual friend to Mr. Jefferson, who committed to writing also the
heads of justification on each of them. I well remember this paper, and
believe the original of it still exists; and though framed when every
real fact was fresh in the knowledge of every one, this fabricated
flight from Richmond was not among the charges stated in this paper, nor
any charge against Mr. Jefferson for not fighting, singly, the troop of
horse. Mr. Nicholas candidly relinquished further proceeding. The House
of Representatives of Virginia pronounced an honorable sentence of
entire approbation of Mr. Jefferson’s conduct, and so much the more
honorable, as themselves had been witnesses to it. And Mr. George
Nicholas took a conspicuous occasion afterwards, of his own free will,
and when the matter was entirely at rest, to retract publicly the
erroneous opinions he had been led into on that occasion, and to make
just reparation by a candid acknowledgment of them.




LETTER XXV.--TO DOCTORS ROGERS AND SLAUGHTER, March 2, 1806


TO DOCTORS ROGERS AND SLAUGHTER.

Washington, March 2, 1806.

Gentlemen,

I have received the favor of your letter of February the 2nd, and read
with thankfulness its obliging expressions respecting myself. I regret
that the object of a letter from persons whom I so much esteem, and
patronized by so many other respectable names, should be beyond the
law which a mature consideration of circumstances has prescribed for my
conduct. I deem it the duty of every man to devote a certain portion of
his income for charitable purposes; and that it is his further duty to
see it so applied as to do the most good of which it is capable. This
I believe to be best insured, by keeping within the circle of his own
inquiry and information, the subjects of distress to whose relief his
contributions shall be applied. If this rule be reasonable in private
life, it becomes so necessary in my situation, that to relinquish it
would leave me without rule or compass. The applications of this kind
from different parts of our own, and from foreign countries, are far
beyond any resources within my command. The mission of Serampore, in the
East Indies, the object of the present application, is but one of many
items. However disposed the mind may feel to unlimited good, our means
having limits, we are necessarily circumscribed by them. They are too
narrow to relieve even the distresses under our own eye: and to desert
these for others which we neither see nor know, is to omit doing a
certain good for one which is uncertain. I know, indeed, there have
been splendid associations for effecting benevolent purposes in remote
regions of the earth. But no experience of their effect has proved that
more good would not have been done by the same means employed nearer
home. In explaining, however, my own motives of action, I must not be
understood as impeaching those of others. Their views are those of
an expanded liberality. Mine may be too much restrained by the law of
usefulness. But it is a law to me, and with minds like yours, will be
felt as a justification. With this apology, I pray you to accept my
salutations, and assurances of high esteem and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXVI.--TO MR. DUANE, March 22, 1806


TO MR. DUANE.

Washington, March 22, 1806.

I thank you, my good Sir, cordially, for your letter of the 12th; which,
however, I did not receive till the 20th. It is a proof of sincerity,
which I value above all things; as, between those who practise it,
falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain. There is an enemy
somewhere endeavoring to sow discord among us. Instead of listening
first, then doubting, and lastly believing anile tales handed round
without an atom of evidence, if my friends will address themselves to
me directly, as you have done, they shall be informed with frankness
and thankfulness. There is not a truth on earth which I fear or would
disguise. But secret slanders cannot be disarmed, because they are
secret. Although you desire no answer, I shall give you one to those
articles admitting a short answer, reserving those which require more
explanation than the compass of a letter admits, to conversation on your
arrival here. And as I write this for your personal satisfaction, I
rely that my letter will, under no circumstances, be communicated to any
mortal, because you well know how every syllable from me is distorted by
the ingenuity of political enemies.

In the first place, then, I have had less communication, directly or
indirectly, with the republicans of the east, this session, than I ever
had before. This has proceeded from accidental circumstances, not from
design. And if there be any coolness between those of the south and
myself, it has not been from me towards them. Certainly there has been
no other reserve, than to avoid taking part in the divisions among
our friends. That Mr. R. has openly attacked the administration is
sufficiently known. We were not disposed to join in league with Britain,
under any belief that she is fighting for the liberties of mankind,
and to enter into war with Spain, and consequently France. The House of
Representatives were in the same sentiment, when they rejected Mr. R.’s
resolutions for raising a body of regular troops for the western
service. We are for a peaceable accommodation with all those nations, if
it can be effected honorably. This, perhaps, is not the only ground
of his alienation; but which side retains its orthodoxy, the vote of
eighty-seven to eleven republicans may satisfy you: but you will better
satisfy yourself on coming here, where alone the true state of things
can be known, and where you will see republicanism as solidly embodied
on all essential points, as you ever saw it on any occasion.

That there is only one minister who is not opposed to me, is
totally unfounded. There never was a more harmonious, a more cordial
administration, nor ever a moment when it has been otherwise. And while
differences of opinion have been always rare among us, I can affirm,
that as to present matters, there was not a single paragraph in my
message to Congress, or those supplementary to it, in which there was
not a unanimity of concurrence in the members of the administration. The
fact is, that in ordinary affairs every head of a department consults me
on those of his department, and where any thing arises too difficult or
important to be decided between us, the consultation becomes general.

That there is an ostensible cabinet and a concealed one, a public
profession and concealed counteraction, is false.

That I have denounced republicans by the epithet of Jacobins, and
declared I would appoint none but those called moderates of both
parties, and that I have avowed or entertain any predilection for those
called the third party, or Quids, is in every tittle of it false.

That the expedition of Miranda was countenanced by me is an absolute
falsehood, let it have gone from whom it might; and I am satisfied it is
equally so as to Mr. Madison. To know as much of it as we could was our
duty, but not to encourage it.

Our situation is difficult; and whatever we do, is liable to the
criticisms of those who wish to represent it awry. If we recommend
measures in a public message, it may be said that members are not sent
here to obey the mandates of the President, or to register the edicts
of a sovereign. If we express opinions in conversation, we have then our
Charles Jenkinsons, and back-door counsellors. If we say nothing, ‘we
have no opinions, no plans, no cabinet.’ In truth, it is the fable of
the old man, his son, and ass, over again.

These are short facts, which may suffice to inspire you with caution,
until you can come here and examine for yourself. No other information
can give you a true insight into the state of things; but you will have
no difficulty in understanding them when on the spot. In the mean time,
accept my friendly salutations and cordial good wishes.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXVII.--TO WILSON C. NICHOLAS, March 24,1806


TO WILSON C. NICHOLAS.--[Confidential.]

Washington, March 24,1806.

Dear Sir,

A last effort at friendly settlement with Spain is proposed to be made
at Paris, and under the auspices of France. For this purpose, General
Armstrong and Mr. Bowdoin (both now at Paris) have been appointed joint
commissioners: but such a cloud of dissatisfaction rests on General
Armstrong in the minds of many persons, on account of a late occurrence
stated in all the public papers, that we have in contemplation to add
a third commissioner, in order to give the necessary measure of public
confidence to the commission. Of these two gentlemen, one being of
Massachusetts and one of new York, it is thought the third should be
a southern man; and the rather, as the interests to be negotiated
are almost entirely southern and western. This addition is not yet
ultimately decided on; but I am inclined to believe it will be adopted.
Under this expectation, and my wish that you may be willing to undertake
it, I give you the earliest possible intimation of it, that you may
be preparing both your mind and your measures for the mission. The
departure would be required to be very prompt; though the absence,
I think, will not be long, Bonaparte not being in the practice of
procrastination. This particular consideration will, I hope, reconcile
the voyage to your affairs and your feelings. The allowance to an extra
mission, is salary from the day of leaving home, and expenses to
the place of destination, or in lieu of the latter, and to avoid
settlements, a competent fixed sum may be given. For the return, a
continuance of the salary for three months after fulfilment of the
commission. Be so good as to make up your mind as quickly as possible,
and to answer me as early as possible. Consider the measure as proposed
provisionally only, and not to be communicated to any mortal until we
see it proper. Affectionate salutations.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXVIII.--TO WILSON C. NICHOLAS, April 13, 1806


TO WILSON C. NICHOLAS.

Washington, April 13, 1806.

Dear Sir,

The situation of your affairs certainly furnishes good cause for your
not acceding to my proposition of a special mission to Europe. My only
hope had been, that they could have gone on one summer without you.
An unjust hostility against General Armstrong will, I am afraid,
show itself whenever any treaty made by him shall be offered for
ratification. I wished, therefore, to provide against this, by joining a
person who would have united the confidence of the whole Senate. General
Smith was so prominent in the opposition to Armstrong, that it would be
impossible for them to act together. We conclude, therefore, to leave
the matter with Armstrong and Bowdoin. Indeed, my dear Sir, I wish
sincerely you were back in the Senate; and that you would take the
necessary measures to get yourself there. Perhaps, as a preliminary, you
should go to our legislature. Giles’s absence has been a most serious
misfortune. A majority of the Senate means well. But Tracy and Bayard
are too dexterous for them, and have very much influenced their
proceedings. Tracy has been of nearly every committee during the
session, and for the most part the chairman, and of course drawer of the
reports. Seven federalists voting always in phalanx, and joined by some
discontented republicans, some oblique ones, some capricious, have so
often made a majority, as to produce very serious embarrassment to the
public operations; and very much do I dread the submitting to them, at
the next session, any treaty which can be made with either England or
Spain, when I consider that five joining the federalists, can defeat a
friendly settlement of our affairs. The House of Representatives is as
well disposed as I ever saw one. The defection of so prominent a leader
threw them into dismay and confusion for a moment; but they soon rallied
to their own principles, and let him go off with five or six followers
only. One half of these are from Virginia. His late declaration of
perpetual opposition to this administration, drew off a few others, who
at first had joined him, supposing his opposition occasional only,
and not systematic. The alarm the House has had from this schism, has
produced a rallying together, and a harmony, which carelessness and
security had begun to endanger. On the whole, this little trial of the
firmness of our representatives in their principles, and that of the
people also, which is declaring itself in support of their public
functionaries, has added much to my confidence in the stability of our
government; and to my conviction, that should things go wrong at any
time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of
their elective rights. To explain to you the character of this schism,
its objects and combinations, can only be done in conversation; and
must be deferred till I see you at Monticello, where I shall probably
be about the 10th or 12th of May, to pass the rest of the month there.
Congress has agreed to rise on Monday the 21st.

Accept my affectionate salutations.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXIX.--TO MR. HARRIS, April 18, 1806

TO MR. HARRIS.

Washington, April 18, 1806.

Sir,

It is now some time since I received from you, through the house of
Smith and Buchanan, at Baltimore, a bust of the Emperor Alexander,
for which I have to return you my thanks. These are the more cordial,
because of the value the bust derives from the great estimation in which
its original is held by the world, and by none more than by myself.
It will constitute one of the most valued ornaments of the retreat I am
preparing for myself at my native home. Accept, at the same time, my
acknowledgments for the elegant work of Atkinson and Walker on the
customs of the Russians. I had laid it down as a law for my conduct
while in office, and hitherto scrupulously observed, to accept of no
present beyond a book, a pamphlet, or other curiosity of minor value;
as well to avoid imputations on my motives of action, as to shut out
a practice susceptible of such abuse. But my particular esteem for the
character of the Emperor places his image in my mind above the scope of
law. I receive it, therefore, and shall cherish it with affection. It
nourishes the contemplation of all the good placed in his power, and of
his disposition to do it.

A little before Dr. Priestley’s death, he informed me that he had
received intimations, through a channel he confided in, that the
Emperor entertained a wish to know something of our constitution. I have
therefore selected the two best works we have on that subject, for which
I pray you to ask a place in his library. They are too much in detail to
occupy his time; but they will furnish materials for an abstract, to
be made by others, on such a scale as may bring the matter within the
compass of the time which his higher callings can yield to such an
object.

At a very early period of my life, contemplating the history of the
aboriginal inhabitants of America, I was led to believe that if there
had ever been a relation between them and the men of color in Asia,
traces of it would be found in their several languages. I have therefore
availed myself of every opportunity which has offered, to obtain
vocabularies of such tribes as have been within my reach, corresponding
to a list then formed of about two hundred and fifty words. In this I
have made such progress, that within a year or two more I think to give
to the public what I then shall have acquired. I have lately seen a
report of Mr. Volney’s to the Celtic Academy, on a work of Mr. Pallas,
entitled _Vocabulaires Comparés des Langues de toute la Terre_; with
a list of one hundred and thirty words, to which the vocabulary is
limited. I find that seventy-three of these words are common to that
and to my vocabulary, and therefore will enable us, by a comparison of
language, to make the inquiry so long desired, as to the probability
of a common origin between the people of color of the two continents. I
have to ask the favor of you to procure me a copy of the above work of
Pallas, to inform me of the cost, and permit me to pay it here to your
use; for I presume you have some mercantile correspondent here, to whom
a payment can be made for you. A want of knowledge what the book may
cost, as well as of the means of making so small a remittance, obliges
me to make this proposition, and to restrain it to the sole condition
that I be permitted to reimburse it here.

I enclose you a letter for the Emperor, which be pleased to deliver or
have delivered: it has some relation to a subject which the Secretary of
State will explain to you.

Accept my salutations, and assurances of esteem and consideration.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXX.--TO THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA


TO THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.

Washington, April 19, 1806.

I owe an acknowledgment to your Imperial Majesty, of the great
satisfaction I have received from your letter of August the 20th, 1805,
and sincere expressions of the respect and veneration I entertain for
your character. It will be among the latest and most soothing comforts
of my life, to have seen advanced to the government of so extensive a
portion of the earth, and at so early a period of his life, a sovereign,
whose ruling passion is the advancement of the happiness and prosperity
of his people; and not of his own people only, but who can extend his
eye and his good will to a distant and infant nation, unoffending in its
course, unambitious in its views.

The events of Europe come to us so late, and so suspiciously, that
observations on them would certainly be stale, and possibly wide of
their actual state. From their general aspect, however, I collect
that your Majesty’s interposition in them has been disinterested and
generous, and having in view only the general good of the great
European family. When you shall proceed to the pacification which is to
re-establish peace and commerce, the same dispositions of mind will lead
you to think of the general intercourse of nations, and to make that
provision for its future maintenance, which, in times past, it has so
much needed. The northern nations of Europe, at the head of which your
Majesty is distinguished, are habitually peaceable. The United States
of America, like them, are attached to peace. We have then with them
a common interest in the neutral rights. Every nation, indeed, on the
continent of Europe, belligerent as well as neutral, is interested in
maintaining these rights, in liberalizing them progressively with the
progress of science and refinement of morality, and in relieving
them from restrictions which the extension of the arts has long since
rendered unreasonable and vexatious.

Two personages in Europe, of which your Majesty is one, have it in their
power, at the approaching pacification, to render eminent service to
nations in general, by incorporating into the act of pacification, a
correct definition of the rights of neutrals on the high seas. Such
a definition, declared by all the powers lately or still belligerent,
would give to those rights a precision and notoriety, and cover them
with an authority, which would protect them in an important degree
against future violation; and should any further sanction be necessary,
that of an exclusion of the violating nation from commercial intercourse
with all the others, would be preferred to war, as more analogous to
the offence, more easy and likely to be executed with good faith. The
essential articles of these rights, too, are so few and simple as easily
to be defined.

Having taken no part in the past or existing troubles of Europe, we have
no part to act in its pacification. But as principles may then be settled
in which we have a deep interest, it is a great happiness for us that
they are placed under the protection of an umpire, who, looking beyond
the narrow bounds of an individual nation, will take under the cover of
his equity the rights of the absent and unrepresented. It is only by a
happy concurrence of good characters and good occasions, that a step
can now and then be taken to advance the well being of nations. If the
present occasion be good, I am sure your Majesty’s character will not be
wanting to avail the world of it. By monuments of such good offices may
your life become an epoch in the history of the condition of man, and
may He who called it into being for the good of the human family, give
it length of days and success, and have it always in his holy keeping.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXXI.--TO COLONEL MONROE, May 4, 1806

TO COLONEL MONROE.

Washington, May 4, 1806.

Dear Sir,

I wrote you on the 16th of March by a common vessel, and then expected
to have had, on the rising of Congress, an opportunity of peculiar
confidence to you. Mr. Beckley then supposed he should take a flying
trip to London, on private business. But I believe he does not find it
convenient. He could have let you into the _arcana rerum_, which you
have interests in knowing. Mr. Pinckney’s pursuits having been confined
to his peculiar line, he has only that general knowledge of what has
passed here, which the public possess. He has a just view of things so
far as known to him. Our old friend, Mercer, broke off from us some time
ago, at first professing to disdain joining the federalists, yet from
the habit of voting together, becoming soon identified with them.
Without carrying over with him one single person, he is now in a state
of as perfect obscurity as if his name had never been known. Mr. J.
Randolph is in the same track, and will end in the same way. His course
has excited considerable alarm. Timid men consider it as a proof of the
weakness of our government, and that it is to be rent into pieces by
demagogues and to end in anarchy. I survey the scene with a different
eye, and draw a different augury from it. In a House of Representatives
of a great mass of good sense, Mr. Randolph’s popular eloquence gave him
such advantages as to place him unrivalled as the leader of the House;
and, although not conciliatory to those whom he led, principles of duty
and patriotism induced many of them to swallow humiliations he subjected
them to, and to vote as was right, as long as he kept the path of right
himself. The sudden defection of such a man could not but produce a
momentary astonishment, and even dismay; but for a moment only. The
good sense of the House rallied around its principles, and, without any
leader, pursued steadily the business of the session, did it well, and
by a strength of vote which has never before been seen. Upon all trying
questions, exclusive of the federalists, the minority of republicans
voting with him, has been from four to six or eight, against from
ninety to one hundred; and although he yet treats the federalists with
ineffable contempt, yet having declared eternal opposition to this
administration, and consequently associated with them in his votes, he
will, like Mercer, end with them. The augury I draw from this is that
there is a steady good sense in the legislature, and in the body of the
nation, joined with good intentions, which will lead them to discern and
to pursue the public good under all circumstances which can arise, and
that no _ignis faiuus_ will be able to lead them long astray. In the
present case, the public sentiment, as far as declarations of it have
yet come in, is, without a single exception, in firm adherence to the
administration. One popular paper is endeavoring to maintain equivocal
ground; approving the administration in all its proceedings, and
Mr. Randolph in all those which have heretofore merited approbation,
carefully avoiding to mention his late aberration. The ultimate view of
this paper is friendly to you, and the editor, with more judgment than
him who assumes to be at the head of your friends, sees that the ground
of opposition to the administration is not that on which it would be
advantageous to you to be planted. The great body of your friends are
among the firmest adherents to the administration, and in their support
of you will suffer Mr. Randolph to have no communications with them. My
former letter told you the line which both duty and inclination would
lead me sacredly to pursue. But it is unfortunate for you, to be
embarrassed with such a _soi-disant_ friend. You must not commit
yourself to him. These views may assist you to understand such details
as Mr. Pinckney will give you. If you are here at any time before the
fall, it will be in time for any object you may have, and by that time
the public sentiment will be more decisively declared. I wish you were
here at present, to take your choice of the two governments of Orleans
and Louisiana, in either of which I could now place you; and I verily
believe it would be to your advantage to be just that much withdrawn
from the focus of the ensuing contest, until its event should be known.
The one has a salary of five thousand dollars, the other of two thousand
dollars; both with excellent hotels for the Governor. The latter at St.
Louis, where there is good society, both French and American, a healthy
climate, and the finest field in the United States for acquiring
property. The former not unhealthy, if you begin a residence there
in the month of November. The Mrs. Trists and their connections are
established there. As I think you can within four months inform me what
you say to this, I will keep things in their present state till the last
day of August, for your answer.

The late change in the ministry I consider as insuring us a just
settlement of our differences, and we ask no more. In Mr. Fox,
personally, I have more confidence than in any man in England, and it
is founded in what, through unquestionable channels, I have had
opportunities of knowing of his honesty and his good sense. While he
shall be in the administration, my reliance on that government will be
solid. We had committed ourselves in a line of proceedings adapted to
meet Mr. Pitt’s policy and hostility, before we heard of his death,
which self-respect did not permit us to abandon afterwards; and the late
unparalleled outrage on us at New York excited such sentiments in the
public at large, as did not permit us to do less than has been done. It
ought not to be viewed by the ministry as looking towards them at all,
but merely as the consequences of the measures of their predecessors,
which their nation has called on them to correct. I hope, therefore,
they will come to just arrangements. No two countries upon earth have so
many points of common interest and friendship; and their rulers must
be great bunglers indeed, if, with such dispositions, they break them
asunder. The only rivalry that can arise, is on the ocean. England
may by petty larceny thwartings check us on that element a little, but
nothing she can do will retard us there one year’s growth. We shall be
supported there by other nations, and thrown into their scale to make a
part of the great counterpoise to her navy. If, on the other hand, she
is just to us, conciliatory, and encourages the sentiment of family
feelings and conduct, it cannot fail to befriend the security of both.
We have the seamen and materials for fifty ships of the line, and half
that number of frigates, and were France to give us the money, and
England the dispositions to equip them, they would give to England
serious proofs of the stock from which they are sprung, and the
school in which they have been taught, and added to the efforts of the
immensity of sea-coast lately united under one power, would leave the
state of the ocean no longer problematical. Were, on the other hand,
England to give the money, and France the dispositions to place us
on the sea in all our force, the whole world, out of the continent
of Europe, might be our joint monopoly. We wish for neither of these
scenes. We ask for peace and justice from all nations, and we will
remain uprightly neutral in fact, though leaning in belief to the
opinion that an English ascendancy on the ocean is safer for us than
that of France. We begin to broach the idea that we consider the whole
Gulf Stream as of our waters, in which hostilities and cruising are to
be frowned on for the present, and prohibited so soon as either consent
or force will permit us. We shall never permit another privateer to
cruise within it, and shall forbid our harbors to national cruisers.
This is essential for our tranquillity and commerce. Be so good as to
have the enclosed letters delivered, to present me to your family, and
be assured yourself of my unalterable friendship.

For fear of accidents I shall not make the unnecessary addition of my
name.




LETTER XXXII.--TO GENERAL SMITH, May 4,1806


TO GENERAL SMITH.

Washington, May 4,1806.

Dear Sir,

I received your favor covering some papers from General Wilkinson. I
have repented but of one appointment there, that of Lucas, whose temper
I see overrules every good quality and every qualification he has. Not a
single fact has appeared, which occasions me to doubt that I could have
made a fitter appointment than General Wilkinson. One qualm of principle
I acknowledge I do feel, I mean the union of the civil and military
authority. You remember that when I came into office, while we were
lodging together at Conrad’s, he was pressed on me to be made Governor
of the Mississippi territory; and that I refused it on that very
principle. When, therefore, the House of Representatives took that
ground, I was not insensible to its having some weight. But in the
appointment to Louisiana, I did not think myself departing from my own
principle, because I consider it not as a civil government, but merely
a military station. The legislature had sanctioned that idea by the
establishment of the office of Commandant, in which were completely
blended the civil and military powers. It seemed, therefore, that the
Governor should be in suit with them. I observed too, that the House of
Representatives, on the very day they passed the stricture on this union
of authorities, passed a bill making the Governor of Michigan, commander
of the regular troops which should at any time be within his government.
However, on the subject of General Wilkinson nothing is in contemplation
at this time. We shall see what turn things take at home and abroad in
the course of the summer. Monroe has had a second conversation with Mr.
Fox, which gives me hopes that we shall have an amicable arrangement
with that government. Accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of
great esteem and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXXIII.--TO MR DIGGES, July 1, 1806


THOMAS JEFFERSON TO MR DIGGES.

Thomas Jefferson salutes Mr. Digges with friendship and respect, and
sends him the newspapers received last night. He is sorry that only the
latter part of the particular publication which Mr. Digges wished to
see, is in them. He will be happy to see Mr. Digges and his friends on
the fourth of July, and to join in congratulations on the return of
the day which divorced us from the follies and crimes of Europe, from a
dollar in the pound at least of six hundred millions sterling, and from
all the ruin of Mr. Pitt’s administration. We, too, shall encounter
follies; but if great, they will be short, if long, they will be light:
and the vigor of our country will get the better of them. Mr. Pitt’s
follies have been great, long, and inflicted on a body emaciated with
age, and exhausted by excesses beyond its power to bear. July 1, 1806.




LETTER XXXIV.--TO MR. BIDWELL, July 5, 1806


TO MR. BIDWELL.

Washington, July 5, 1806.

Sir,

Your favor of June the 21st has been duly received. We have not as yet
heard from General Skinner on the subject of his office. Three persons
are proposed on the most respectable recommendations, and under
circumstances of such equality as renders it difficult to decide between
them. But it shall be done impartially. I sincerely congratulate you on
the triumph of republicanism in Massachusetts. The Hydra of Federalism
has now lost all its heads but two. Connecticut I think will soon follow
Massachusetts. Delaware will probably remain what it ever has been, a
mere county of England, conquered indeed, and held under by force, but
always disposed to counter-revolution. I speak of its majority only.

Our information from London continues to give us hopes of an
accommodation there on both the points of ‘accustomed commerce and
impressment.’ In this there must probably be some mutual concession,
because we cannot expect to obtain every thing and yield nothing. But
I hope it will be such an one as may be accepted. The arrival of the
Hornet in France is so recently known, that it will yet be some time
before we learn our prospects there. Notwithstanding the efforts made
here, and made professedly to assassinate that negotiation in embryo, if
the good sense of Bonaparte should prevail over his temper, the present
state of things in Europe may induce him to require of Spain, that she
should do us justice at least. That he should require her to sell us
East Florida, we have no right to insist: yet there are not wanting
considerations which may induce him to wish a permanent foundation for
peace laid between us. In this treaty, whatever it shall be, our old
enemies the federalists, and their new friends, will find enough to carp
at. This is a thing of course, and I should suspect error where they
found no fault. The buzzard feeds on carrion only. Their rallying point
is ‘war with France and Spain, and alliance with Great Britain’:
and every thing is wrong with them which checks their new ardor to be
fighting for the liberties of mankind; on the sea always excepted. There
one nation is to monopolize all the liberties of the others.

I read, with extreme regret, the expressions of an inclination on your
part to retire from Congress. I will not say that this time, more than
all others, calls for the service of every man; but I will say,
there never was a time when the services of those who possess talents,
integrity, firmness, and sound judgment, were more wanted in Congress.
Some one of that description is particularly wanted to take the lead in
the House of Representatives, to consider the business of the nation as
his own business, to take it up as if he were singly charged with it,
and carry it through. I do not mean that any gentleman, relinquishing
his own judgment, should implicitly support all the measures of the
administration; but that, where he does not disapprove of them, he
should not suffer them to go off in sleep, but bring them to the
attention of the House, and give them a fair chance. Where he
disapproves, he will of course leave them to be brought forward by those
who concur in the sentiment. Shall I explain my idea by an example? The
classification of the militia was communicated to General Varnum and
yourself merely as a proposition, which, if you approved, it was trusted
you would support. I knew, indeed, that General Varnum was opposed to
any thing which might break up the present organization of the militia:
but when so modified as to avoid this, I thought he might, perhaps,
be reconciled to it. As soon as I found it did not coincide with your
sentiments, I could not wish you to support it; but using the same
freedom of opinion, I procured it to be brought forward elsewhere.
It failed there also, and for a time, perhaps, may not prevail: but a
militia can never be used for distant service on any other plan; and
Bonaparte will conquer the world, if they do not learn his secret of
composing armies of young men only, whose enthusiasm and health enable
them to surmount all obstacles. When a gentleman, through zeal for the
public service, undertakes to do the public business, we know that we
shall hear the cant of backstairs counsellors. But we never heard this
while the declaimer was himself a backstairs man, as he calls it, but in
the confidence and views of the administration, as may more properly and
respectfully be said. But if the members are to know nothing but what is
important enough to be put into a public message, and indifferent enough
to be made known to all the world; if the executive is to keep all
other information to himself, and the House to plunge on in the dark, it
becomes a government of chance and not of design. The imputation was one
of those artifices used to despoil an adversary of his most effectual
arms; and men of mind will place themselves above a gabble of this
order. The last session of Congress was indeed an uneasy one for a time:
but as soon as the members penetrated into the views of those who were
taking a new course, they rallied in as solid a phalanx as I have
ever seen act together. Indeed I have never seen a House of better
dispositions.

*****

Perhaps I am not entitled to speak with so much frankness; but it
proceeds from no motive which has not a right to your forgiveness.
Opportunities of candid explanation are so seldom afforded me, that I
must not lose them when they occur. The information I receive from your
quarter agrees with that from the south; that the late schism has made
not the smallest impression on the public, and that the seceders are
obliged to give to it other grounds than those which we know to be the
true ones. All we have to wish is, that, at the ensuing session, every
one may take the part openly which he secretly befriends. I recollect
nothing new and true, worthy communicating to you. As for what is not
true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers. Among other
things, are those perpetual alarms as to the Indians, for no one of
which has there ever been the slightest ground. They are the suggestions
of hostile traders, always wishing to embroil us with the Indians, to
perpetuate their own extortionate commerce. I salute you with esteem and
respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXXV.--TO MR. BOWDOIN, July 10, 1806


TO MR. BOWDOIN.

Washington, July 10, 1806.

Dear Sir,

I believe that when you left America, the invention of the polygraph had
not yet reached Boston. It is for copying with one pen while you write
with the other, and without the least additional embarrassment or
exertion to the writer. I think it the finest invention of the present
age, and so much superior to the copying machine, that the latter will
never be continued a day by any one who tries the polygraph. It was
invented by a Mr. Hawkins of Frankford, near Philadelphia, who is now in
England, turning it to good account. Knowing that you are in the habit
of writing much, I have flattered myself that I could add acceptably to
your daily convenience by presenting you with one of these delightful
machines. I have accordingly had one made, and to be certain of its
perfection I have used it myself some weeks, and have the satisfaction
to find it the best one I have ever tried; and in the course of two
years’ daily use of them, I have had opportunities of trying several.
As a secretary, which copies for us what we write without the power
of revealing it, I find it a most precious possession to a man in
public-business. I enclose directions for unpacking and using the
machine when you receive it; but the machine itself must await a special
and sure conveyance under the care of some person going to Paris. It is
ready packed, and shall go by the first proper conveyance.

As we heard two or three weeks ago of the safe arrival of the Hornet
at L’Orient, we are anxiously waiting to learn from you the first
impressions on her mission. If you can succeed in procuring us Florida,
and a good western boundary, it will fill the American mind with joy.
It will secure to our fellow-citizens one of their most ardent wishes, a
long peace with Spain and France. For be assured, the object of war with
them and alliance with England, which, at the last session of Congress,
drew off from the republican band about half a dozen of its members,
is universally reprobated by our native citizens from north to south. I
have never seen the nation stand more firm to its principles, or rally
so firmly to its constituted authorities, and in reprobation of the
opposition to them. With England, I think we shall cut off the resource
of impressing our seamen to fight her battles, and establish the
inviolability of our flag in its commerce with her enemies.

We shall thus become what we sincerely wish to be, honestly neutral, and
truly useful to both belligerents. To the one, by keeping open a market
for the consumption of her manufactures, while they are excluded
from all the countries under the power of her enemy; to the other, by
securing for her a safe carriage of all her productions, metropolitan
or colonial, while her own means are restrained by her enemy, and may,
therefore, be employed in other useful pursuits. We are certainly more
useful friends to France and Spain as neutrals, than as allies. I hope
they will be sensible of it, and by a wise removal of all grounds of
future misunderstanding to another age, enable you to present us such
an arrangement, as will insure to our fellow-citizens long and permanent
peace and friendship with them. With respect to our western boundary,
your instructions will be your guide. I will only add, as a comment
to them, that we are attached to the retaining the Bay of St. Bernard,
because it was the first establishment of the unfortunate La Sale, was
the cradle of Louisiana, and more incontestibly covered and conveyed to
us by France, under that name, than any other spot in the country. This
will be secured to us by taking for our western boundary the Guadaloupe,
and from its head around the sources of all waters eastward of it,
to the highlands embracing the waters running into the Mississippi.
However, all these things I presume will be settled before you receive
this; and I hope so settled as to give peace and satisfaction to us all.

Our crops of wheat are greater than have ever been known, and are now
nearly secured. A caterpillar gave for a while great alarm, but did
little injury. Of tobacco, not half a crop has been planted for want
of rain; and even this half, with cotton and Indian corn, has yet many
chances to run.

This summer will place our harbors in a situation to maintain peace and
order within them. The next, or certainly the one following that, will
so provide them with gunboats and common batteries, as to be _hors
d’insulte_. Although our prospect is peace, our policy and purpose is
to provide for defence by all those means to which our resources are
competent.

I salute you with friendship, and assure you of my high respect and
consideration.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXXVI.--TO W. A. BURWELL, September 17, 1806


TO W. A. BURWELL.

Monticello, September 17, 1806.

Dear Sir,

Yours of August the 7th, from Liberty, never got to my hands till the
9th instant. About the same time, I received the Enquirer in which
Decius was so judiciously answered. The writer of that paper observed,
that the matter of Decius consisted, first of facts; secondly, of
inferences from these facts: that he was not well enough informed to
affirm or deny his facts, and he therefore examines his inferences,
and in a very masterly manner shows that even were his facts true, the
reasonable inferences from them are very different from those drawn by
Decius. But his facts are far from truth, and should be corrected. It
happened that Mr. Madison and General Dearborn were here when I received
your letter. I therefore, with them, took up Decius and read him
deliberately; and our memories aided one another in correcting his bold
and unauthorized assertions. I shall note the most material of them in
the order of the paper.

1. It is grossly false that our ministers, as is said in a note,
had proposed to surrender our claims to compensation for Spanish
spoliations, or even for French. Their instructions were to make no
treaty in which Spanish spoliations were not provided for; and although
they were permitted to be silent as to French spoliations carried into
Spanish ports, they were not expressly to abandon even them. 2. It is
not true that our ministers, in agreeing to establish the Colorado as
our western boundary, had been obliged to exceed the authority of their
instructions. Although we considered our title good as far as the
Rio Bravo, yet in proportion to what they could obtain east of the
Mississippi, they were to relinquish to the westward, and successive
sacrifices were marked out, of which even the Colorado was not the last.
3. It is not true that the Louisiana treaty was antedated, lest Great
Britain should consider our supplying her enemies with money as a breach
of neutrality. After the very words of the treaty were finally agreed
to, it took some time, perhaps some days, to make out all the copies in
the very splendid manner of Bonaparte’s treaties. Whether the 30th of
April, 1803, the date expressed, was the day of the actual compact, or
that on which it was signed, our memories do not enable us to say. If
the former, then it is strictly conformable to the day of the compact;
if the latter, then it was postdated, instead of being antedated. The
motive assigned, too, is as incorrect as the fact. It was so far from
being thought, by any party, a breach of neutrality, that the British
minister congratulated Mr. King on the acquisition, and declared that
the King had learned it with great pleasure: and when Baring, the
British banker, asked leave of the minister to purchase the debt and
furnish the money to France, the minister declared to him, that so far
from throwing obstacles in the way, if there were any difficulty in the
payment of the money, it was the interest of Great Britain to aid it.
4. He speaks of a double set of opinions and principles; the one
ostensible, to go on the journals and before the public, the other
efficient, and the real motives to action. But where are these double
opinions and principles? The executive informed the legislature of the
wrongs of Spain, and that preparation should be made to repel them, by
force, if necessary. But as it might still be possible to negotiate
a settlement, they asked such means as might enable them to meet the
negotiation, whatever form it might take. The first part of this system
was communicated publicly, the second, privately; but both were equally
official, equally involved the responsibility of the executive, and were
equally to go on the journals. 5. That the purchase of the Floridas was
in direct opposition to the views of the executive, as expressed in the
President’s official communication. It was not in opposition even to the
public part of the communication, which did not recommend war, but only
to be prepared for it. It perfectly harmonized with the private part,
which asked the means of negotiation in such terms as covered the
purchase of Florida as evidently as it was proper to speak it out. He
speaks of secret communications between the executive and members, of
backstairs influence, &tc.. But he never spoke of this while he and
Mr. Nicholson enjoyed it almost solely. But when he differed from the
executive in a leading measure, and the executive, not submitting to
him, expressed their sentiments to others, the very sentiments (to wit,
for the purchase of Florida), which he acknowledges they expressed to
him, then he roars out upon backstairs influence. 6. The committee, he
says, forbore to recommend offensive measures. Is this true? Did not
they recommend the raising ------- regiments? Besides, if it was proper
for the committee to forbear recommending offensive measures, was it
not proper for the executive and legislature to exercise the same
forbearance? 7. He says Monroe’s letter had a most important bearing on
our Spanish relations. Monroe’s letter related, almost entirely, to our
British relations. Of those with Spain he knew nothing particular since
he left that country. Accordingly, in his letter he simply expressed
an opinion on our affairs with Spain, of which he knew we had better
information than he could possess. His opinion was no more than that
of any other sensible man; and his letter was proper to be communicated
with the English papers, and with them only. That the executive did not
hold it up on account of any bearing on Spanish affairs, is evident from
the fact, that it was communicated when the Senate had not yet entered
on the Spanish affairs, and had not yet received the papers relating to
them from the other House. The moment the Representatives were ready to
enter on the British affairs, Monroe’s letter, which peculiarly related
to them, and was official solely as to them, was communicated to both
Houses, the Senate being then about entering on the Spanish affairs.

*****

These, my dear Sir, are the principal facts worth correction. Make any
use of them you think best, without letting your source of information
be known. Can you send me some cones or seeds of the cucumber-tree?
Accept affectionate salutations, and assurances of great esteem and
respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXXVII.--TO ALBERT GALLATIN, October 12, 1806

TO ALBERT GALLATIN.

Washington, October 12, 1806.

Dear Sir,

You witnessed, in the earlier part of the administration, the malignant
and long continued efforts which the federalists exerted in their
newspapers, to produce misunderstanding between Mr. Madison and myself.
These failed completely. A like attempt was afterwards made, through
other channels, to effect a similar purpose between General Dearborn and
myself, but with no more success. The machinations of the last session
to put you at cross questions with us all, were so obvious as to be seen
at the first glance of every eye. In order to destroy one member of the
administration, the whole were to be set to loggerheads to destroy one
another. I observe in the papers lately, new attempts to revive this
stale artifice, and that they squint more directly towards you and
myself. I cannot, therefore, be satisfied, till I declare to you
explicitly, that my affections and confidence in you are nothing
impaired, and that they cannot be impaired by means so unworthy the
notice of candid and honorable minds. I make the declaration, that no
doubts or jealousies, which often beget the facts they fear, may find a
moment’s harbor in either of our minds. I have so much reliance on the
superior good sense and candor of all those associated with me, as to be
satisfied they will not suffer either friend or foe to sow tares among
us. Our administration now drawing towards a close, I have a sublime
pleasure in believing it will be distinguished as much by having placed
itself above all the passions which could disturb its harmony, as by the
great operations by which it will have advanced the well-being of the
nation.

Accept my affectionate salutations, and assurances of my constant and
unalterable respect and attachment.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXXVIII.--TO JOHN DICKINSON, January 13, 1807


TO JOHN DICKINSON.

Washington, January 13, 1807.

My Dear and Ancient Friend,

I have duly received your favor of the 1st instant, and am ever thankful
for communications which may guide me in the duties which I wish to
perform as well as I am able. It is but too true, that great discontents
exist in the territory of Orleans. Those of the French inhabitants have
for their sources, 1. the prohibition of importing slaves. This may be
partly removed by Congress permitting them to receive slaves from the
other States, which, by dividing that evil, would lessen its danger. 2.
The administration of justice in our forms, principles, and language,
with all of which they are unacquainted, and are the more abhorrent,
because of the enormous expense, greatly exaggerated by the corruption
of bankrupt and greedy lawyers, who have gone there from the United
States and engrossed the practice. 3. The call on them by the land
commissioners to produce the titles of their lands. The object of this
is really to record and secure their rights. But as many of them hold on
rights so ancient that the title papers are lost, they expect the
land is to be taken from them wherever they cannot produce a regular
deduction of title in writing. In this they will be undeceived by the
final result, which will evince to them a liberal disposition of the
government towards them. Among the American inhabitants it is the old
division of federalists and republicans. The former, are as hostile
there as they are every where, and are the most numerous and wealthy.
They have been long endeavoring to batter down the Governor, who has
always been a firm republican. There were characters superior to him,
whom I wished to appoint, but they refused the office: I know no better
man who would accept of it, and it would not be right to turn him out
for one not better. But it is the second cause, above mentioned, which
is deep seated and permanent. The French members of the legislature,
being the majority in both Houses, lately passed an act, declaring
that the civil, or French laws, should be the laws of their land, and
enumerated about fifty folio volumes, in Latin, as the depositories of
these laws. The Governor negatived the act. One of the Houses thereupon
passed a vote for self-dissolution of the legislature as a useless body,
which failed in the other House by a single vote only. They separated,
however, and have disseminated all the discontent they could. I propose
to the members of Congress in conversation, the enlisting thirty
thousand volunteers, Americans by birth, to be carried at the public
expense, and settled immediately on a bounty of one hundred and
sixty acres of land each, on the west side of the Mississippi, on the
condition of giving two years of military service, if that country
should be attacked within seven years. The defence of the country would
thus be placed on the spot, and the additional number would entitle the
territory to become a State, would make the majority American, and make
it an American instead of a French State. This would not sweeten the
pill to the French; but in making that acquisition we had some view to
our own good as well as theirs, and I believe the greatest good of both
will be promoted by whatever will amalgamate us together.

I have tired you, my friend, with a long letter. But your tedium will
end in a few lines more. Mine has yet two years to endure. I am tired
of an office where I can do no more good than many others, who would be
glad to be employed in it. To myself, personally, it brings nothing but
unceasing drudgery, and daily loss of friends. Every office becoming
vacant, every appointment made, _me donne un ingrat, et cent ennemis_.
My only consolation is in the belief, that my fellow-citizens at large
give me credit for good intentions. I will certainly endeavor to merit
the continuance of that good will which follows well intended actions,
and their approbation will be the dearest reward I can carry into
retirement.

God bless you, my excellent friend, and give you yet many healthy and
happy years.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XXXIX,--TO WILSON C. NICHOLAS, February 28,1807


TO WILSON C. NICHOLAS.

Washington, February 28,1807.

Dear Sir,

Your letter of January the 20th was received in due time. But such has
been the constant pressure of business, that it has been out of my power
to answer it. Indeed, the subjects of it would be almost beyond the
extent of a letter, and as I hope to see you ere long at Monticello,
it can then be more effectually done verbally. Let me observe, however,
generally, that it is impossible for my friends ever to render me so
acceptable a favor, as by communicating to me, without reserve, facts
and opinions. I have none of that sort of self-love which winces at it;
indeed, both self-love and the desire to do what is best strongly invite
unreserved communication. There is one subject which will not admit a
delay till I see you. Mr. T. M. Randolph is, I believe, determined to
retire from Congress, and it is strongly his wish, and that of all here,
that you should take his place. Never did the calls of patriotism more
loudly assail you than at this moment. After excepting the federalists,
who will be twenty-seven, and the little band of schismatics, who
will be three or four (all tongue), the residue of the House of
Representatives is as well disposed a body of men as I ever saw
collected. But there is no one whose talents and standing, taken
together, have weight enough to give him the lead. The consequence is,
that there is no one who will undertake to do the public business, and
it remains undone. Were you here, the whole would rally round you in an
instant, and willingly co-operate in whatever is for the public good.
Nor would it require you to undertake drudgery in the House. There are
enough, able and willing to do that. A rallying point is all that is
wanting. Let me beseech you then to offer yourself. You never will have
it so much in your power again to render such eminent service.

Accept my affectionate salutations and high esteem.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XL.--TO JAMES MONROE, March 21, 1807


TO JAMES MONROE.

Washington, March 21, 1807.

Dear Sir,

A copy of the treaty with Great Britain came to Mr. Erskine’s hands
on the last day of the session of Congress, which he immediately
communicated to us; and since that, Mr. Purviance has arrived with
an original. On the subject of it you will receive a letter from
the Secretary of State, of about this date, and one more in detail
hereafter. I should not have written, but that I perceive uncommon
efforts, and with uncommon wickedness, are making by the federal papers
to produce mischief between myself, personally, and our negotiators; and
also to irritate the British government, by putting a thousand speeches
into my mouth, not one word of which I ever uttered. I have, therefore,
thought it safe to guard you, by stating the view which we have given
out on the subject of the treaty, in conversation and otherwise; for
ours, as you know, is a government which will not tolerate the being
kept entirely in the dark, and especially on a subject so interesting
as this treaty. We immediately stated in conversation, to the members
of the legislature and others, that having, by a letter received in
January, perceived that our ministers might sign a treaty not providing
satisfactorily against the impressment of our seamen, we had, on the 3rd
of February, informed you, that should such an one have been forwarded,
it could not be ratified, and recommending, therefore, that you should
resume negotiations for inserting an article to that effect; that we
should hold the treaty in suspense until we could learn from you the
result of our instructions, which probably would not be till summer,
and then decide on the question of calling the Senate. We observed, too,
that a written declaration of the British commissioners, given in at
the time of signature, would of itself, unless withdrawn, prevent the
acceptance of any treaty, because its effect was to leave us bound by
the treaty, and themselves totally unbound. This is the statement we
have given out, and nothing more of the contents of the treaty has been
made known. But depend on it, my dear Sir, that it will be considered as
a hard treaty when it is known. The British commissioners appear to
have screwed every article as far as it would bear, to have taken every
thing, and yielded nothing. Take out the eleventh article, and the evil
of all the others so much overweighs the good, that we should be glad to
expunge the whole. And even the eleventh article admits only that we
may enjoy our right to the indirect colonial trade, during the present
hostilities. If peace is made this year, and war resumed the next, the
benefit of this stipulation is gone, and yet we are bound for ten years,
to pass no non-importation or non-intercourse laws, nor take any
other measures to restrain the unjust pretensions and practices of the
British. But on this you will hear from the Secretary of State. If the
treaty cannot be put into an acceptable form, then the next best thing
is to back out of the negotiation as well as we can, letting that die
away insensibly; but, in the mean time, agreeing informally, that both
parties shall act on the principles of the treaty, so as to preserve
that friendly understanding which we so sincerely desire, until the one
or the other may be disposed to yield the points which divide us. This
will leave you to follow your desire of coming home, as soon as you see
that the amendment of the treaty is desperate. The power of
continuing the negotiations will pass oyer to Mr. Pinckney, who, by
procrastinations, can let it die away, and give us time, the most
precious of all things to us. The government of New Orleans is still
without such a head as I wish. The salary of five thousand dollars
is too small; but I am assured the Orleans legislature would make it
adequate, would you accept it. It is the second office in the United
States in importance, and I am still in hopes you will accept it. It is
impossible to let you stay at home while the public has so much need
of talents. I am writing under a severe indisposition of periodical
headache, without scarcely command enough of my mind to know what
I write. As a part of this letter concerns Mr. Pinckney as well as
yourself, be so good as to communicate so much of it to him; and with
my best respects to him, to Mrs. Monroe, and your daughter, be assured
yourself, in all cases, of my constant and affectionate friendship and
attachment.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XLI.--M. LE COMTE DIODATI, March 29, 1807


M. LE COMTE DIODATI.

Washington, March 29, 1807.

My Dear and Antient Friend,

Your letter of August the 29th reached me the 18th of February. It
enclosed a duplicate of that written from Brunswick five years before,
but which I never received, or had notice of, but by this duplicate. Be
assured, my friend, that I was incapable of such negligence towards
you, as a failure to answer it would have implied. It would illy have
accorded with those sentiments of friendship I entertained for you at
Paris, and which neither time nor distance has lessened. I often pass in
review the many happy hours I spent with Madame Diodati and yourself on
the banks of the Seine, as well as at Paris, and I count them among
the most pleasing I enjoyed in France. Those were indeed days of
tranquillity and happiness. They had begun to cloud a little before I
left you; but I had no apprehension that the tempest, of which I saw the
beginning, was to spread over such an extent of space and time. I have
often thought of you with anxiety, and wished to know how you weathered
the storm, and into what port you had retired. The letters now received
give me the first information, and I sincerely felicitate you on your
safe and quiet retreat. Were I in Europe, _pax et panis_ would certainly
be my motto. Wars and contentions, indeed, fill the pages of history
with more matter. But more blest is that nation whose silent course of
happiness furnishes nothing for history to say. This is what I ambition
for my own country, and what it has fortunately enjoyed now upwards of
twenty years, while Europe has been in constant volcanic eruption. I
again, my friend, repeat my joy that you have escaped the overwhelming
torrent of its lava.

At the end of my present term, of which two years are yet to come, I
propose to retire from public life, and to close my days on my patrimony
of Monticello, in the bosom of my family. I have hitherto enjoyed
uniform health; but the weight of public business begins to be too heavy
for me, and I long for the enjoyments of rural life, among my books, my
farms, and my family. Having performed my _quadragena stipendia_, I
am entitled to my discharge, and should be sorry, indeed, that others
should be sooner sensible than myself when I ought to ask it. I have,
therefore, requested my fellow-citizens to think of a successor for
me, to whom I shall deliver the public concerns with greater joy than I
received them. I have the consolation too of having added nothing to my
private fortune, during my public service, and of retiring with hands
as clean as they are empty. Pardon me these egoisms, which, if ever
excusable, are so when writing to a friend to whom our concerns are
not uninteresting. I shall always be glad to hear of your health and
happiness, and having been out of the way of hearing of any of our
cotemporaries of the _corps diplomatique_ at Paris, any details of their
subsequent history, which you will favor me with, will be thankfully
received. I pray you to make my friendly respects acceptable to Madame
la Comtesse Diodati, to assure M. Tronchin of my continued esteem,
and to accept yourself my affectionate salutations, and assurances of
constant attachment and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XLII.--TO MR. BOWDOIN, April 2, 1807

TO MR. BOWDOIN.

Washington, April 2, 1807.

Dear Sir,

I wrote you on the 10th of July last; but neither your letter of October
the 20th nor that of November the 15th mentioning the receipt of it, I
fear it has miscarried. I therefore now enclose a duplicate. As that was
to go under cover of the Secretary of State’s despatches by any vessel
going from our distant ports, I retained the polygraph therein mentioned
for a safer conveyance. None such has occurred till now, that the United
States’ armed brig the Wasp, on her way to the Mediterranean is to touch
at Falmouth, with despatches for our ministers at London, and at Brest,
with others for yourself and General Armstrong.

You heard in due time from London of the signature of a treaty there
between Great Britain and the United States. By a letter we received in
January from our ministers at London, we found they were making up
their minds to sign a treaty, in which no provision was made against the
impressment of our seamen, contenting themselves with a note received
in the course of their correspondence, from the British negotiators,
assuring them of the discretion with which impressments should be
conducted, which could be construed into a covenant only by inferences,
against which its omission in the treaty was a strong inference; and in
its terms totally unsatisfactory. By a letter of February the 3rd, they
were immediately informed that no treaty, not containing a satisfactory
article on that head, would be ratified, and desiring them to resume the
negotiations on that point. The treaty having come to as actually in the
inadmissible shape apprehended, we, of course, hold it up until we know
the result of the instructions of February the 3rd. I have but little
expectation that the British government will retire from their habitual
wrongs in the impressment of our seamen, and am certain, that without
that we will never tie up our hands by treaty, from the right of passing
a non-importation or non-intercourse act, to make it her interest to
become just. This may bring on a war of commercial restrictions. To
show, however, the sincerity of our desire for conciliation, I have
suspended the non-importation act. This state of things should be
understood at Paris, and every effort used on your part to accommodate
our differences with Spain, under the auspices of France, with whom
it is all-important that we should stand in terms of the strictest
cordiality. In fact, we are to depend on her and Russia for the
establishment of neutral rights by the treaty of peace, among which
should be that of taking no persons by a belligerent out of a neutral
ship, unless they be the soldiers of an enemy. Never did a nation
act towards another with more perfidy and injustice than Spain has
constantly practised against us: and if we have kept our hands off of
her till now, it has been purely out of respect to France, and from the
value we set on the friendship of France. We expect, therefore, from
the friendship of the Emperor, that he will either compel Spain to do us
justice, or abandon her to us. We ask but one month to be in possession
of the city of Mexico.

No better proof of the good faith of the United States could have
been given, than the vigor with which we have acted, and the expense
incurred, in suppressing the enterprise meditated lately by Burr against
Mexico. Although at first he proposed a separation of the western
country, and on that ground received encouragement and aid from Yrujo,
according to the usual spirit of his government towards us, yet he very
early saw that the fidelity of the western country was not to be
shaken, and turned himself wholly towards Mexico. And so popular is an
enterprise on that country in this, that we had only to lie still, and
he would have had followers enough to have been in the city of Mexico
in six weeks. You have doubtless seen my several messages to Congress,
which gave a faithful narrative of that conspiracy. Burr himself, after
being disarmed by our endeavors of all his followers, escaped from the
custody of the court of Mississippi, but was taken near Fort Stoddart,
making his way to Mobile, by some country people, who brought him on
as a prisoner to Richmond, where he is now under a course for trial.
Hitherto we have believed our law to be, that suspicion on probable
grounds was sufficient cause to commit a person for trial, allowing time
to collect witnesses till the trial. But the judges here have decided,
that conclusive evidence of guilt must be ready in the moment of arrest,
or they will discharge the malefactor. If this is still insisted on,
Burr will be discharged; because his crimes having been sown from Maine,
through the whole line of the western waters, to New Orleans, we cannot
bring the witnesses here under four months. The fact is, that the
federalists make Burr’s cause their own, and exert their whole influence
to shield him from punishment, as they did the adherents of Miranda. And
it is unfortunate that federalism is still predominent in our judiciary
department, which is consequently in opposition to the legislative and
executive branches, and is able to baffle their measures often.

Accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of great esteem and
respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XLIII.--TO WILLIAM B. GILES, April 20, 1807


TO WILLIAM B. GILES.

Monticello, April 20, 1807.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of the 6th instant, on the subject of Burr’s offences, was
received only four days ago. That there should be anxiety and doubt in
the public mind, in the present defective state of the proof, is not
wonderful; and this has been sedulously encouraged by the tricks of the
judges to force trials before it is possible to collect the evidence,
dispersed through a line of two thousand miles from Maine to Orleans.
The federalists, too, give all their aid, making Burr’s cause their
own, mortified only that he did not separate the union or overturn the
government, and proving, that had he had a little dawn of success, they
would have joined him to introduce his object, their favorite monarchy,
as they would any other enemy, foreign or domestic, who could rid them
of this hateful republic for any other government in exchange.

The first ground of complaint was the supine inattention of the
administration to a treason stalking through the land in open day. The
present one, that they have crushed it before it was ripe for execution,
so that no overt acts can be produced. This last may be true; though I
believe it is not. Our information having been chiefly by way of letter,
we do not know of a certainty yet what will be proved. We have set on
foot an inquiry through the whole of the country which has been the
scene of these transactions, to be able to prove to the courts, if they
will give time, or to the public by way of communication to Congress,
what the real facts have been. For obtaining this, we are obliged to
appeal to the patriotism of particular persons in different places, of
whom we have requested to make the inquiry in their neighborhood, and on
such information as shall be voluntarily offered. Aided by no process
or facilities from the federal courts, but frowned on by their new-born
zeal for the liberty of those whom we would not permit to overthrow
the liberties of their country, we can expect no revealments from the
accomplices of the chief offender. Of treasonable intentions, the
judges have been obliged to confess there is probable appearance. What
loop-hole they will find in the case, when it comes to trial, we cannot
foresee. Eaton, Stoddart, Wilkinson, and two others whom I must not
name, will satisfy the world, if not the judges, of Burr’s guilt. And I
do suppose the following overt acts will be proved. 1. The enlistment
of men, in a regular way. 2. The regular mounting of guard round
Blannerhassett’s island, when they expected Governor Tiffin’s men to be
on them _modo guerrino arraiati_. 3. The rendezvous of Burr with his
men at the mouth of Cumberland. 4. His letter to the acting Governor of
Mississippi, holding up the prospect of civil war. 5. His capitulation,
regularly signed with the aid of the Governor, as between two
independent and hostile commanders.

But a moment’s calculation will show that this evidence cannot be
collected under four months, probably five, from the moment of deciding
when and where the trial shall be. I desired Mr. Rodney expressly to
inform the Chief Justice of this, inofficially. But Mr. Marshall says,
‘More than five weeks have elapsed since the opinion of the Supreme
Court has declared the necessity of proving the overt acts, if they
exist. Why are they not proved.’ In what terms of decency can we
speak of this? As if an express could go to Natchez, or the mouth of
Cumberland, and return in five weeks, to do which has never taken less
than twelve. Again, ‘If, in November or December last, a body of
troops had been assembled on the Ohio, it is impossible to suppose the
affidavits, establishing the fact, could not have been obtained by the
last of March.’ But I ask the Judge, where they should have been lodged?
At Frankfort? at Cincinnati? at Nashville? St. Louis? Natchez? New
Orleans? These were the probable places of apprehension and examination.
It was not known at Washington till the 26th of March, that Burr would
escape from the western tribunals, be retaken and brought to an eastern
one: and in five days after (neither five months nor five weeks, as the
Judge calculated) he says, it is ‘impossible to suppose the affidavits
could not have been obtained.’ Where? At Richmond he certainly meant,
or meant only to throw dust in the eyes of his audience. But all the
principles of law are to be perverted which would bear on the
favorite offenders, who endeavor to overturn this odious republic. ‘I
understand,’ says the Judge, ‘probable cause of guilt to be a case
made out of proof furnishing good reason to believe,’ &c. Speaking as a
lawyer, he must mean legal proof, i.e. proof on oath, at least. But this
is confounding probability and proof. We had always before understood
that where there was reasonable ground to believe guilt, the offender
must be put on his trial. That guilty intentions were probable, the
Judge believed. And as to the overt acts, were not the bundle of letters
of information in Mr. Rodney’s hands, the letters and facts published in
the local newspapers, Burr’s flight, and the universal belief or rumor
of his guilt, probable ground for presuming the facts of enlistment,
military guard, rendezvous, threat of civil war, or capitulation, so as
to put him on trial? Is there a candid man in the United States who
does not believe some one, if not all, of these overt acts to have taken
place?

If there ever had been an instance in this or the preceding
administrations, of federal judges so applying principles of law as to
condemn a federal or acquit a republican offender, I should have judged
them in the present case with more charity. All this, however, will work
well. The nation will judge both the offender and judges for themselves.
If a member of the executive or legislature does wrong, the day is never
far distant when the people will remove him. They will see then, and
amend the error in our constitution, which makes any branch independent
of the nation. They will see that one of the great co-ordinate branches
of the government, setting itself in opposition to the other two, and
to the common sense of the nation, proclaims impunity to that class
of offenders which endeavors to overturn the constitution, and are
themselves protected in it by the constitution itself: for impeachment
is a farce which will not be tried again. If their protection of Burr
produces this amendment, it will do more good than his condemnation
would have done. Against Burr, personally, I never had one hostile
sentiment. I never, indeed, thought him an honest, frank-dealing man,
but considered him as a crooked gun, or other perverted machine, whose
aim or shot you could never be sure of. Still, while he possessed the
confidence of the nation, I thought it my duty to respect in him their
confidence, and to treat him as if he deserved it: and if his punishment
can be commuted now for an useful amendment of the constitution, I shall
rejoice in it. My sheet being full, I perceive it is high time to
offer you my friendly salutations, and assure you of my constant and
affectionate esteem and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XLIV.--TO GEORGE HAY, June 2, 1807


TO GEORGE HAY.

Washington, June 2, 1807.

Dear Sir,

While Burr’s case is depending before the court, I will trouble you from
time to time with what occurs to me. I observe that the case of Marbury
v. Madison has been cited, and I think it material to stop at the
threshold the citing that case as authority, and to have it denied to be
law. 1. Because the judges, in the outset, disclaimed all cognizance of
the case; although they then went on to say what would have been their
opinion, had they had cognizance of it. This then was confessedly an
extra-judicial opinion, and, as such, of no authority. 2. Because, had
it been judicially pronounced, it would have been against law; for to
a commission, a deed, a bond, delivery is essential to give validity.
Until, therefore, the commission is delivered out of the hands of the
executive and his agents, it is not his deed. He may withhold or cancel
it at pleasure, as he might his private deed in the same situation. The
constitution intended that the three great branches of the government
should be co-ordinate, and independent of each other. As to acts,
therefore, which are to be done by either, it has given no control to
another branch. A judge, I presume, cannot sit on a bench without a
commission, or a record of a commission: and the constitution having
given to the judiciary branch no means of compelling the executive
either to deliver a commission, or to make a record of it, shows it did
not intend to give the judiciary that control over the executive, but
that it should remain in the power of the latter to do it or not. Where
different branches have to act in their respective lines, finally
and without appeal, under any law, they may give to it different and
opposite constructions. Thus in the case of William Smith, the House of
Representatives determined he was a citizen, and in the case of William
Duane (precisely the same in every material circumstance) the judges
determined he was no citizen. In the cases of Callender and others, the
judges determined the sedition act was valid under the constitution,
and exercised their regular powers of sentencing them to fine and
imprisonment. But the executive determined that the sedition act was
a nullity under the constitution, and exercised his regular power of
prohibiting the execution of the sentence, or rather of executing
the real law, which protected the acts of the defendants. From these
different constructions of the same act by different branches, less
mischief arises, than from giving to any one of them a control over the
others. The executive and Senate act on the construction, that until
delivery from the executive department, a commission is in their
possession, and within their rightful power; and in cases of commissions
not revocable at will, where, after the Senate’s approbation and the
President’s signing and sealing, new information of the unfitness of
the person has come to hand before the delivery of the commission,
new nominations have been made and approved, and new commissions have
issued.

On this construction I have hitherto acted; on this I shall ever act,
and maintain it with the powers of the government, against any control
which may be attempted by the judges in subversion of the independence
of the executive and Senate within their peculiar department. I presume,
therefore, that in a case where our decision is by the constitution
the supreme one, and that which can be carried into effect, it is the
constitutionally authoritative one, and that that by the judges was
_coram non judice_, and unauthoritative, because it cannot be carried
into effect. I have long wished for a proper occasion to have the
gratuitous opinion in Marbury v. Madison brought before the public, and
denounced as not law: and I think the present a fortunate one, because
it occupies such a place in the public attention. I should be glad,
therefore, if, in noticing that case, you could take occasion to express
the determination of the executive, that the doctrines of that case were
given extra-judicially and against law, and that their reverse will be
the rule of action with the executive. If this opinion should not
be your own, I would wish it to be expressed merely as that of the
executive. If it is your own also, you would of course give to the
arguments such a developement, as a case, incidental only, might render
proper.

I salute you with friendship and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XLV.--TO ALBERT GALLATIN, June 3, 1807


THOMAS JEFFERSON TO ALBERT GALLATIN.

I gave you, some time ago, a project of a more equal tariff on wines,
than that which now exists. But in that I yielded considerably to the
faulty classification of them in our law. I have now formed one with
attention, and according to the best information I possess, classing
them more rigorously. I am persuaded, that were the duty on cheap wines
put on the same ratio with the dear, it would wonderfully enlarge
the field of those who use wine, to the expulsion of whiskey. The
introduction of a very cheap wine (St. George) into my neighborhood,
within two years past, has quadrupled in that time the number of those
who keep wine, and will ere long increase them tenfold. This would be a
great gain to the treasury, and to the sobriety of our country. I will
here add my tariff, wherein you will be able to choose any rate of duty
you please; and to decide whether it will not, on a fit occasion, be
proper for legislative attention. Affectionate salutations.

[Illustration: page77]




LETTER XLVI.--TO GEORGE HAY, June 5, 1807


TO GEORGE HAY.

Washington, June 5, 1807.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of the 31st instant has been received, and I think it will be
fortunate if any circumstance should produce a discharge of the present
scanty grand jury, and a future summons of a fuller: though the same
views of protecting the offender may again reduce the number to sixteen,
in order to lessen the chance of getting twelve to concur. It is
understood, that wherever Burr met with subjects who did not choose to
embark in his projects, unless approved by their government, he asserted
that he had that approbation. Most of them took his word for it, but
it is said that with those who would not, the following stratagem was
practised. A forged letter, purporting to be from General Dearborn,
was made to express his approbation, and to say that I was absent
at Monticello, but that there was no doubt that, on my return, my
approbation of his enterprises would be given. This letter was spread
open on his table, so as to invite the eye of whoever entered his room;
and he contrived occasions of sending up into his room, those whom he
wished to become witnesses of his acting under sanction. By this means,
he avoided committing himself to any liability to prosecution for
forgery, and gave another proof of being a great man in little things,
while he is really small in great ones. I must add General Dearborn’s
declaration, that he never wrote a letter to Burr in his life, except
that when here, once in a winter, he usually wrote him a billet of
invitation to dine. The only object of sending you the enclosed letters
is to possess you of the fact, that you may know how to pursue it,
if any of your witnesses should know any thing of it. My intention in
writing to you several times, has been to convey facts or observations
occurring in the absence of the Attorney General, and not to make to
the dreadful drudgery you are going through the unnecessary addition of
writing me letters in answer, which I beg you to relieve yourself from,
except when some necessity calls for it.

I salute you with friendship and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XLVII.--TO DOCTOR HORATIO TURPIN, June 10, 1807


TO DOCTOR HORATIO TURPIN.

Washington, June 10, 1807.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of June the 1st has been duly received. To a mind like yours,
capable in any question of abstracting it from its relation to yourself,
I may safely hazard explanations, which I have generally avoided to
others, on questions of appointment. Bringing into office no desires of
making it subservient to the advancement of my own private interests, it
has been no sacrifice, by postponing them, to strengthen the confidence
of my fellow-citizens. But I have not felt equal indifference towards
excluding merit from office, merely because it was related to me.
However, I have thought it my duty so to do, that my constituents may
be satisfied, that, in selecting persons for the management of their
affairs, I am influenced by neither personal nor family interests, and
especially, that the field of public office will not be perverted by
me into a family property. On this subject, I had the benefit of useful
lessons from my predecessors, had I needed them, marking what was to be
imitated and what avoided. But, in truth, the nature of our government
is lesson enough. Its energy depending mainly on the confidence of the
people, in their Chief Magistrate, makes it his duty to spare nothing
which can strengthen him with that confidence.

*****

Accept assurances of my constant friendship and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XLVIII.--TO JOHN NORVELL, June 11, 1807

TO JOHN NORVELL.

Washington, June 11, 1807.

Sir,

Your letter of May the 9th has been duly received. The subjects it
proposes would require time and space for even moderate developement. My
occupations limit me to a very short notice of them. I think there does
not exist a good elementary work on the organization of society
into civil government: I mean a work which presents in one full
and comprehensive view the system of principles on which such an
organization should be founded, according to the rights of nature. For
want of a single work of that character, I should recommend Locke
on Government, Sidney, Priestley’s Essay on the First Principles of
Government, Chipman’s Principles of Government, and the Federalist.
Adding, perhaps, Beccaria on Crimes and Punishments, because of the
demonstrative manner in which he has treated that branch of the subject.
If your views of political inquiry go further, to the subjects of money
and commerce, Smith’s Wealth of Nations is the best book to be read,
unless Say’s Political Economy can be had, which treats the same
subjects on the same principles, but in a shorter compass, and more
lucid manner. But I believe this work has not been translated into our
language.

History, in general, only informs us what bad government is. But as we
have employed some of the best materials of the British constitution in
the construction of our own government, a knowledge of British history
becomes useful to the American politician. There is, however, no general
history of that country which can be recommended. The elegant one of
Hume seems intended to disguise and discredit the good principles of the
government, and is so plausible and pleasing in its style and manner,
as to instil its errors and heresies insensibly into the minds of unwary
readers. Baxter has performed a good operation on it. He has taken the
text of Hume as his ground-work, abridging it by the omission of some
details of little interest, and wherever he has found him endeavoring to
mislead, by either the suppression of a truth, or by giving it a false
coloring, he has changed the text to what it should be, so that we
may properly call it Hume’s history republicanized. He has, moreover,
continued the history (but indifferently) from where Hume left it,
to the year 1800. The work is not popular in England, because it is
republican; and but a few copies have ever reached America. It is a
single quarto volume. Adding to this Ludlow’s Memoirs, Mrs. Macaulay’s
and Belknap’s histories, a sufficient view will be presented of the free
principles of the English constitution.

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should
be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, ‘by restraining
it to true, facts and sound principles only.’ Yet I fear such a paper
would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression
of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its
benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.
Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself
becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real
extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in
situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of
the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my
fellow-citizens, who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief,
that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in
their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just
as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present,
except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables.
General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is
now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has
subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c. &c.; but no details
can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a
newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he
who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with
falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great
facts, and the details are all false.

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this.
Divide his paper into four chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2nd,
Probabilities. 3rd, Possibilities. 4th, Lies. The 1st chapter would be
very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers, and
information from such sources, as the editor would be willing to risk
his own reputation for their truth. The 2nd would contain what, from a
mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment should conclude
to be probably true. This, however, should rather contain too little
than too much. The 3rd and 4th should be professedly for those readers
who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they
would occupy.

Such an editor too, would have to set his face against the demoralizing
practice of feeding the public mind habitually on slander, and the
depravity of taste which this nauseous aliment induces. Defamation
is becoming a necessary of life; insomuch, that a dish of tea in the
morning or evening cannot be digested without this stimulant. Even those
who do not believe these abominations, still read them with complaisance
to their auditors, and instead of the abhorrence and indignation which
should fill a virtuous mind, betray a secret pleasure in the possibility
that some may believe them, though they do not themselves. It seems to
escape them, that it is not he who prints, but he who pays for printing
a slander, who is its real author.

These thoughts on the subjects of your letter are hazarded at your
request. Repeated instances of the publication of what has not been
intended for the public eye, and the malignity with which political
enemies torture every sentence from me into meanings imagined by their
own wickedness only, justify my expressing a solicitude, that this hasty
communication may in nowise be permitted to find its way into the public
papers. Not fearing these political bull-dogs, I yet avoided putting
myself in the way of being baited by them, and do not wish to volunteer
away that portion of tranquillity, which a firm execution of my duties
will permit me to enjoy.

I tender you my salutations, and best wishes for your success.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER XLIX.--TO WILLIAM SHORT, June 12, 1807

TO WILLIAM SHORT.

Washington, June 12, 1807.

Dear Sir,

******

The proposition in your letter of May the 16th, of adding an umpire to
our discordant negotiators at Paris, struck me favorably on reading it,
and reflection afterwards strengthened my first impressions. I made it
therefore a subject of consultation with my coadjutors, as is our usage.
For our government, although in theory subject to be directed by the
unadvised will of the President, is, and from its origin has been, a
very different thing in practice. The minor business in each department
is done by the Head of the department, on consultation with the
President alone. But all matters of importance or difficulty are
submitted to all the Heads of departments composing the cabinet;
sometimes by the President’s consulting them separately and
successively, as they happen to call on him; but in the greatest cases,
by calling them together, discussing the subject maturely, and finally
taking the vote, in which the President counts himself but as one. So
that in all important cases the executive is, in fact, a directory,
which certainly the President might control: but of this there was never
an example either in the first or the present administration. I have
heard, indeed, that my predecessor sometimes decided things against his
council.

*****

I adopted in the present case the mode of separate consultation. The
opinion of each member, taken separately, was, that the addition of
a third negotiator was not at this time advisable. For the present,
therefore, the question must rest. Mr. Bowdoin, we know, is anxious to
come home, and is detained only by the delicacy of not deserting his
post. In the existing temper between him and his colleague, it would
certainly be better that one of them should make an opening for
re-composing the commission more harmoniously. I salute you with
affection and respect.

Th: Jefferson.




LETTER L.--TO GEORGE HAY, June 12, 1807


TO GEORGE HAY.

Washington, June 12, 1807.

Dear Sir,

Your letter of the 9th is this moment received. Reserving the necessary
right of the President of the United States to decide, independently of
all other authority, what papers, coming to him as President, the public
interests permit to be communicated, and to whom, I assure you of
my readiness, under that restriction, voluntarily to furnish, on all
occasions, whatever the purposes of justice may require. But the letter
of General Wilkinson, of October the 21st, requested for the defence
of Colonel Burr, with every other paper relating to the charges against
him, which were in my possession when the Attorney General went on to
Richmond in March, I then delivered to him; and I have always taken for
granted he left the whole with you. If he did, and the bundle retains
the order in which I had arranged it, you will r

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