thousandth part of its rent-roll, the payment of it is practicable
enough; and so becomes a question merely of honor or of expediency. But
with respect to future debts, would it not be wise and just for that
nation to declare in the constitution they are forming, that neither the
legislature nor the nation itself, can validly contract more debt than
they may pay within their own age, or within the term of thirty-four
years? And that all future contracts shall be deemed void, as to what
shall remain unpaid at the end of thirty-four years from their date?
This would put the lenders, and the borrowers also, on their guard. By
reducing, too, the faculty of borrowing within its natural limits, it
would bridle the spirit of war, to which too free a course has been
procured by the inattention of money-lenders to this law of nature, that
succeeding generations are not responsible for the preceding.
On similar ground it may be proved, that no society can make a perpetual
constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the
living generation: they may manage it, then, and what proceeds from it,
as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters, too, of their
own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But
persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The
constitution and the laws of their predecessors are extinguished then,
in their natural course, with those whose will gave them being. This
could preserve that being, till it ceased to be itself, and no longer.
Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of
thirty-four years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and
not of right. It may be said that the succeeding generation exercising,
in fact, the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the
constitution or law had been expressly limited to thirty-four years
only. In the first place, this objection admits the right, in proposing
an equivalent. But the power of repeal is not an equivalent. It might
be, indeed, if every form of government were so perfectly contrived,
that the will of the majority could always be obtained, fairly and
without impediment. But this is true of no form. The people cannot
assemble themselves; their representation is unequal and vicious.
Various checks are opposed to every legislative proposition. Factions
get possession of the public councils, bribery corrupts them, personal
interests lead them astray from the general interests of their
constituents; and other impediments arise, so as to prove to every
practical man, that a law of limited duration is much more manageable
than one which needs a repeal.
This principle, that the earth belongs to the living and not to the
dead, is of very extensive application and consequences in every
country, and most especially in France. It enters into the resolution of
the questions, whether the nation may change the descent of lands
holden in tail; whether they may change the appropriation of lands given
anciently to the church, to hospitals, colleges, orders of chivalry,
and otherwise in perpetuity whether they may abolish the charges
and privileges attached on lands, including the whole catalogue,
ecclesiastical and feudal; it goes to hereditary offices, authorities,
and jurisdictions, to hereditary orders, distinctions, and appellations,
to perpetual monopolies in commerce, the arts, or sciences, with a long
train of _et ceteras_; and it renders the question of reimbursement,
a question of generosity and not of right. In all these cases,
the legislature of the day could authorize such appropriations and
establishments for their own time, but no longer; and the present
holders, even where they or their ancestors have purchased, are in
the case of _bonâ fide_ purchasers of what the seller had no right to
convey.
Turn the subject in your mind, my Dear Sir, and particularly as to the
power of contracting debts, and develope it with that cogent logic which
is so peculiarly yours. Your station in the councils of our country
gives you an opportunity of producing it to public consideration, of
forcing it into discussion. At first blush it may be laughed at, as
the dream of a theorist; but examination will prove it to be solid and
salutary. It would furnish matter for a fine preamble to our first
law for appropriating the public revenue: and it will exclude, at the
threshold of our new government, the ruinous and contagious errors of
this quarter of the globe, which have armed despots with means which
nature does not sanction, for binding in chains their fellow-men. We
have already given, in example, one effectual check to the dog of war,
by transferring the power of declaring war from the executive to the
legislative body, from those who are to spend, to those who are to pay.
I should be pleased to see this second obstacle held out by us also,
in the first instance. No nation can make a declaration against the
validity of long contracted debts, so disinterestedly as we, since we
do not owe a shilling which will not be paid, principal and interest, by
the measures you have taken, within the time of our own lives. I write
you no news, because when an occasion occurs, I shall write a separate
letter for that.
I am always, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your affectionate
friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XII.--TO DR. GEM
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO DR. GEM.
The hurry in which I wrote my letter to Mr. Madison, which is in your
hands, occasioned an inattention to the difference between generations
succeeding each other at fixed epochs, and generations renewed daily
and hourly. It is true that in the former case, the generation when
at twenty-one years of age, may contract a debt for thirty-four
yours, because a majority of them will live so long. But a generation
consisting of all ages, and which legislates by all its members above
the age of twenty-one years, cannot contract for so long a time, because
their majority will be dead much sooner. Buffon gives us a table of
twenty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety-four deaths, stating
the ages at which they happened. To draw from these the result I have
occasion for, I suppose a society in which twenty-three thousand nine
hundred and ninety-four persons are born every year, and live to the age
stated in Buffon’s table. Then, the following inferences may be drawn.
Such a society will consist constantly of six hundred and seventeen
thousand seven hundred and three persons, of all ages. Of those living
at any one instant of time, one half will be dead in twenty-four years
and eight months. In such a society, ten thousand six hundred and
seventy-five will arrive every year at the age of twenty-one years
complete. It will constantly have three hundred and forty-eight thousand
four hundred and seventeen persons of all ages above twenty-one years,
and the half of those of twenty-one years and upwards living at any one
instant of time, will be dead in eighteen years and eight months, or say
nineteen years.
Then, the contracts, constitutions, and laws of every such society
become void in nineteen years from their date.
LETTER XIII.--TO GENERAL KNOX, September 12,1789
TO GENERAL KNOX.
Paris, September 12,1789.
Sir,
In a letter which I had the honor of writing to the Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, some three or four years ago, I informed him that a
workman here had undertaken by the help of moulds and other means,
to make all the parts of the musket so exactly alike, as that, mixed
together promiscuously, any one part should serve equally for every
musket. He had then succeeded as to the lock both of the officer’s fusil
and the soldier’s musket. From a promiscuous collection of parts, I put
together myself half a dozen locks, taking the first pieces which came
to hand. He has now completed the barrel, stock, and mounting of the
officer’s fusil, and is proceeding on those of the soldier’s musket.
This method of forming the fire-arm appears to me so advantageous when
repairs become necessary, that I thought it my duty not only to mention
to you the progress of this artist, but to purchase and send you half a
dozen of his officer’s fusils. They are packed in a box marked T. J. No.
36, and are sent to Havre, from whence they shall be forwarded to New
York. The barrels and furniture are to their stocks, to prevent the
warping of the wood. The locks are in pieces. You will find with them
tools for putting them together, also a single specimen of his soldier’s
lock. He formerly told me, and still tells me, that he shall be able,
after a while, to furnish them cheaper than the common musket of the
same quality, but at first, they will not be so cheap in the first cost,
though the economy in repairs will make them so in the end. He cannot
tell me exactly, at what price he can furnish them. Nor will he be able,
immediately, to furnish any great quantity annually; but with the aid of
the government, he expects to enlarge his establishment greatly. If the
situation of the finances of this country should oblige the government
to abandon him, he would prefer removing with all his people and
implements to America, if we should desire to establish such a
manufacture, and he would expect our government to take all his
implements, on their own account, at what they have cost him. He talked
of about three thousand guineas. I trouble you with these details, and
with the samples, 1. That you may give the idea of such an improvement
to our own workmen, if you think it might answer any good end. 2. That
all the arms he shall have for sale, may be engaged for our government,
if he continues here, and you think it important to engage them. 3.
That you may consider, and do me the honor of communicating your
determination, whether in the event of his establishment being abandoned
by this government, it might be thought worth while to transfer it to
the United States, on conditions somewhat like those he has talked of.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and
respect, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XIV.--TO E. RUTLEDGE, September 18, 1789
TO E. RUTLEDGE.
Paris, September 18, 1789.
Dear Sir,
I have duly received your favor by Mr. Cutting, enclosing the paper
from Doctor Trumbull, for which I am very thankful. The conjecture that
inhabitants may have been carried from the coast of Africa to that of
America, by the trade winds, is possible enough; and its probability
would be greatly strengthened by ascertaining a similarity of language,
which I consider as the strongest of all proofs of consanguinity among
nations. Still a question would remain between the red men of the
eastern and western sides of the Atlantic, which is the stock, and which
the shoot. If a fact be true, which I suspect to be true, that there is
a much greater number of radical languages among those of America than
among those of the other hemisphere, it would be a proof of superior
antiquity, which I can conceive no arguments strong enough to overrule.
When I received your letter, the time of my departure was too near to
permit me to obtain information from Constantinople, relative to the
demand and price of rice there. I therefore wrote to a merchant at
Marseilles, concerned in the Levant trade, for the prices current of
rice at Constantinople and at Marseilles for several years past. He has
sent me only the present price at Marseilles, and that of a particular
cargo at Constantinople. I send you a copy of his letter. The Algerines
form an obstacle; but the object of our commerce in the Mediterranean
is so immense, that we ought to surmount that obstacle, and I believe
it could be done by means in our power, and which, instead of fouling us
with the dishonorable and criminal baseness of France and England, will
place us in the road to respect with all the world.
I have obtained, and enclose to you, a state of all the rice imported
into this country in the course of one year, which shows its annual
consumption to be between eighty-one and eighty-two thousand quintals.
I think you may supplant all the other furnishing States, except as to
what is consumed at Marseilles and its neighborhood. In fact, Paris is
the place of main consumption. Havre, therefore, is the port of deposit,
where you ought to have one or two honest, intelligent, and active
consignees. The ill success of a first or second experiment should not
damp the endeavors to open this market fully, but the obstacles should
be forced by perseverance. I have obtained, from different quarters,
seeds of the dry rice; but having had time to try them, I find they
will not vegetate, having been too long kept. I have still several other
expectations from the East Indies. If this rice be as good, the object
of health will render it worth experiment with you. Cotton is a precious
resource, and which cannot fail with you. I wish the cargo of olive
plants sent by the way of Baltimore, and that which you will perceive my
correspondent is preparing now to send, may arrive to you in good order.
This is the object for the patriots of your country; for that tree
once established there, will be the source of the greatest wealth and
happiness. But to insure success, perseverance may be necessary. An
essay or two may fail. I think, therefore, that an annual sum should
be subscribed, and it need not be a great one. A common country laborer
should be engaged to make it his sole occupation, to prepare and pack
plants and berries at Marseilles, and in the autumn to go with them
himself through the canal of Languedoc to Bordeaux, and there to stay
with them till he can put them on board a vessel bound directly to
Charleston; and this repeated annually, till you have a sufficient stock
insured, to propagate from, without further importation. I should guess
that fifty guineas a year would do this, and if you think proper to set
such a subscription afoot, write me down for ten guineas of the money,
yearly, during my stay in France, and offer my superintendence of the
business on this side the water if no better can be had.
Mr. Cutting does full justice to the honorable dispositions of the
legislature of South Carolina towards their foreign creditors. None have
yet come into the propositions sent to me, except the Van Staphorsts.
The clanger of famine here has not ceased with a plentiful harvest.
A new and unskilful administration has not yet got into the way of
bringing regular supplies to the capital. We are in danger of hourly
insurrection for the want of bread; and an insurrection once begun
for that cause, may associate itself with those discontented for other
causes, and produce incalculable events. But if the want of bread
does not produce a commencement of disorder, I am of opinion the
other discontents will be stifled, and a good and free constitution
established without opposition. In fact, the mass of the people, the
clergy, and army, (excepting the higher orders of the three bodies) are
in as compact an union as can be. The National Assembly have decided
that their executive shall be hereditary, and shall have a suspensive
negative on the laws; that the legislature shall be of one House, annual
in its sessions and biennial in its elections. Their declaration
of rights will give you their other general views. I am just on my
departure for Virginia, where the arrangement of my affairs will detain
me the winter; after which (say in February) I shall go on to New York,
to embark from some northern port for France. In the mean while and
always, I am with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your friend and
servant.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XV.--TO JOHN JAY, September 19, 1789
TO JOHN JAY.
Paris, September 19, 1789.
Sir,
I had the honor of addressing you on the 30th of the last month.
Since that, I have taken the liberty of consigning to you a box of
officers’ muskets, containing half a dozen, made by the person and on the
plan which I mentioned to you in a letter which I cannot turn to at this
moment, but I think it was of the year 1785. A more particular account
of them you will find in the enclosed copy of a letter which I have
written to General Knox. The box is marked T. J. No. 36, is gone to
Havre, and will be forwarded to you by the first vessel bound to New
York, by Mr. Nathaniel Cutting, an American gentleman establishing
himself there.
Recalling to your mind the account I gave you of the number and size
of ships fitted out by the English last year, for the northern
whale-fishery, and comparing with it what they have fitted out this
year, for the same fishery, the comparison will stand thus:
Years. Vessels. Tons. Men.
1788. 255 75,436 10,710
1789. 178 51,473 7,476
Difference. 77 23,963 3,234
By which you will perceive, that they have lost a third of that fishery
in one year, which I think almost entirely, if not quite, ascribable to
the shutting the French ports against their oil. I have no account of
their southern fishery of the present year.
As soon as I was informed that our bankers had the money ready for the
redemption of our captives, I went to the General of the order of
the Holy Trinity, who retained all his dispositions to aid us in
that business. Having a very confidential agent at Marseilles, better
acquainted than himself with the details, he wrote to him for his
opinion and information on the subject. I enclose you a copy of his
answer, the original of which was communicated to me. I thereupon have
authorized the General to go as far as three thousand livres a head
for our captives, and for this purpose to adopt the plan proposed, of
sending one of his own religion at our expense (which will be small), or
any other plan he thinks best. The honesty and goodness of his character
places us in safety in his hands. To leave him without any hesitation in
engaging himself for such a sum of money, it was necessary to deposit it
in a banker’s hands here. Mr. Grand’s were agreeable to him, and I have
therefore desired our banker at Amsterdam to remit it here. I do not
apprehend, in the progress of the present revolution, any thing like a
general bankruptcy which should pervade the whole class of bankers. Were
such an event to appear imminent, the excessive caution of the house of
Grand and Company establishes it in the general opinion as the last that
would give way, and consequently would give time to withdraw this money
from their hands. Mr. Short will attend to this, and will withdraw the
money on the first well-founded appearance of danger. He has asked me
what he shall do with it. Because it is evident, that when Grand cannot
be trusted, no other individual at Paris can, and a general bankruptcy
can only be the effect of such disorders, as would render every private
house an insecure deposit, I have not hesitated to say to him, in such
an event, ‘Pay it to the government.’ In this case, it becomes only a
change of destination and no loss at all. But this has passed between us
for greater caution only, and on the worst case supposable: for though a
suspension of payment by government might affect the bankers a little, I
doubt if any of them have embarked so much in the hands of government as
to endanger failure, and especially as they have had such long warning.
You will have known, that the ordinance passed by M. de Chillon in St.
Domingo, for opening ports to our importations in another part of the
island, was protested against by Marbois. He had always led the Count
de la Luzerne by the nose, while Governor of that island.
Marbois’ representations, and Luzerne’s prepossessions against our trade
with their colonies, occasioned him, as minister of that department,
not only to reverse the ordinance, but to recall Chillon and send out
a successor. Chillon has arrived here, and having rendered himself very
popular in the islands, their deputies in the National Assembly have
brought the question before them. The Assembly has done nothing more,
as yet, than to appoint a committee of inquiry. So much of Chillon’s
ordinance as admitted the importation of our provisions, is continued
for a time. M. de Marbois, too, is recalled, I know not why or how. M.
de la Luzerne’s conduct will probably come under view only incidentally
to the general question urged by the colony deputies, whether they shall
not be free in future, to procure provisions where they can procure
them cheapest. But the deputies are disposed to treat M. de la Luzerne
roughly. This, with the disgrace of his brother, the Bishop de Langres,
turned out of the presidentship of the National Assembly, for partiality
in office to the aristocratic principles, and the disfavor of the
Assembly towards M. de la Luzerne himself, as having been formerly of
the plot (as they call it) with Breteuil and Broglio, will probably
occasion him to be out of office soon.
The treasury board have no doubt attended to the necessity of giving
timely orders for the payment of the February interest at Amsterdam.
I am well informed that our credit is now the first at that exchange,
(England not borrowing at present.) Our five per cent, bonds have
risen to ninety-seven and ninety-nine. They have been heretofore at
ninety-three. There are, at this time, several companies and individuals
here, in England, and Holland, negotiating to sell large parcels of our
liquidated debt. A bargain was concluded by one of these the other day,
for six hundred thousand dollars. In the present state of our credit,
every dollar of this debt will probably be transferred to Europe within
a short time.
September the 20th. The combination of bankers and other ministerial
tools had led me into the error (when I wrote my last letter), into
which they had led most people, that the loan lately opened here went on
well. The truth is, that very little has been borrowed, perhaps not more
than six or eight millions. The King and his ministers were yesterday to
carry their plate to the mint. The ladies are giving up their jewels to
the National Assembly. A contribution of plate in the time of Louis XV.
is said to have carried about eight millions to the treasury. Plate is
much more common now, and therefore, if the example prevail now in
the same degree it did then, it will produce more. The contribution of
jewels will hardly be general, and will be unproductive. Mr. Necker
is, on the 25th, to go to the Assembly, to make some proposition. The
hundreth penny is talked of.