acts of boldness of which we have seen so many from the faction of
monocrats. It is wonderful indeed, that the President should have
permitted himself to be the organ of such an attack on the freedom of
discussion, the freedom of writing, printing, and publishing. It must be
a matter of rare curiosity to get at the modifications of these rights
proposed by them, and to see what line their ingenuity would draw
between democratical societies, whose avowed object is the nourishment
of the republican principles of our constitution, and the society of
the Cincinnati, a self-created one, carving out for itself hereditary
distinctions, lowering over our constitution eternally, meeting together
in all parts of the Union, periodically, with closed doors, accumulating
a capital in their separate treasury, corresponding secretly and
regularly, and of which society the very persons denouncing the
democrats are themselves the fathers, founders, and high officers.
Their sight must be perfectly dazzled by the glittering of crowns and
coronets, not to see the extravagance of the proposition to suppress the
friends of general freedom, while those who wish to confine that freedom
to the few are permitted to go on in their principles and practices.
I here put out of sight the persons whose misbehavior has been taken
advantage of to slander the friends of popular rights; and I am happy
to observe, that as far as the circle of my observation and information
extends, every body has lost sight of them, and views the abstract
attempt on their natural and constitutional rights in all its nakedness.
I have never heard, or heard of, a single expression or opinion which
did not condemn it as an inexcusable aggression. And with respect to the
transactions against the excise law, it appears to me that you are all
swept away in the torrent of governmental opinions, or that we do not
know what these transactions have been. We know of none which, according
to the definitions of the law, have been any thing more than riotous.
There was indeed a meeting to consult about a separation. But to consult
on a question does not amount to a determination of that question in the
affirmative, still less to the acting on such a determination: but we
shall see, I suppose, what the court lawyers, and courtly judges, and
would-be ambassadors will make of it. The excise law is an infernal one.
The first error was to admit it by the constitution; the second, to act
on that admission; the third and last will be, to make it the instrument
of dismembering the Union, and setting us all afloat to choose what part
of it we will adhere to. The information of our militia, returned from
the westward, is uniform, that though the people there let them pass
quietly, they were objects of their laughter, not of their fear; that
one thousand men could have cut off their whole force in a thousand
places of the Allegany; that their detestation of the excise law is
universal, and has now associated to it a detestation of the government;
and that separation which perhaps was a very distant and problematical
event, is now near, and certain, and determined in the mind of every
man. I expected to have seen some justification of arming one part of
the society against another; of declaring a civil war the moment before
the meeting of that body which has the sole right of declaring war; of
being so patient of the kicks and scoffs of our enemies, and rising at a
feather against our friends; of adding a million to the public debt and
deriding us with recommendations to pay it if we can, &c. &c. But the
part of the speech which was to be taken as a justification of the
armament, reminded me of Parson Saunders’s demonstration why minus into
minus makes plus. After a parcel of shreds of stuff from Æsop’s fables
and Tom Thumb, he jumps all at once into his ergo, minus multiplied
into minus makes phis. Just so the fifteen thousand men enter after the
fables, in the speech.
However, the time is coming when we shall fetch up the leeway of our
vessel. The changes in your House, I see, are going on for the better,
and even the Augean herd over your heads are slowly purging off their
impurities. Hold on then, my dear friend, that we may not shipwreck
in the mean while. I do not see, in the minds of those with whom I
converse, a greater affliction than the fear of your retirement; but
this must not be, unless to a more splendid and a more efficacious post.
There I should rejoice to see you; I hope I may say, I shall rejoice to
see you. I have long had much in my mind to say to you on that subject.
But double delicacies have kept me silent. I ought perhaps to say, while
I would not give up my own retirement for the empire of the universe,
how I can justify wishing one whose happiness I have so much at heart
as yours, to take the front of the battle which is fighting for my
security. This would be easy enough to be done, but not at the heel of a
lengthy epistle.
Present me respectfully to Mrs. Madison, and pray her to keep you where
you are for her own satisfaction and the public good, and accept the
cordial affections of us all. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXII.--TO M. D’IVERNOIS, February 6,1795
TO M. D’IVERNOIS.
Monticello, February 6,1795.
Dear Sir,
Your several favors on the affairs of Geneva found me here, in the
month of December last. It is now more than a year that I have withdrawn
myself from public affairs, which I never liked in my life, but was
drawn into by emergencies which threatened our country with slavery, but
ended in establishing it free. I have returned, with infinite appetite,
to the enjoyment of my farm, my family, and my books, and had determined
to meddle in nothing beyond their limits. Your proposition, however, for
transplanting the college of Geneva to my own country, was too analogous
to all my attachments to science, and freedom, the first-born daughter
of science, not to excite a lively interest in my mind, and the essays
which were necessary to try its practicability. This depended altogether
on the opinions and dispositions of our State legislature, which was
then in session. I immediately communicated your papers to a member of
the legislature, whose abilities and zeal pointed him out as proper
for it, urging him to sound as many of the leading members of the
legislature as he could, and if he found their opinions favorable, to
bring forward the proposition; but if he should find it desperate, not
to hazard it: because I thought it best not to commit the honor either
of our State or of your college, by an useless act of eclat. It was not
till within these three days that I have had an interview with him, and
an account of his proceedings. He communicated the papers to a great
number of the members, and discussed them maturely, but privately, with
them. They were generally well disposed to the proposition, and some
of them warmly: however, there was no difference of opinion in the
conclusion, that it could not be effected. The reasons which they
thought would with certainty prevail against it, were, 1. that our
youth, not familiarized but with their mother tongue, were not prepared
to receive instructions in any other; 2. that the expense of the
institution would excite uneasiness in their constituents, and endanger
its permanence; and 3. that its extent was disproportioned to the
narrow state of the population with us. Whatever might be urged on these
several subjects, yet as the decision rested with others, there remained
to us only to regret that circumstances were such, or were thought to be
such, as to disappoint your and our wishes.
I should have seen with peculiar satisfaction the establishment of such
a mass of science in my country, and should probably have been tempted
to approach myself to it, by procuring a residence in its neighborhood,
at those seasons of the year at least when the operations of agriculture
are less active and interesting. I sincerely lament the circumstances
which have suggested this emigration. I had hoped that Geneva was
familiarized to such a degree of liberty, that they might without
difficulty or danger fill up the measure to its maximum; a term, which,
though in the insulated man, bounded only by his natural powers, must,
in society, be so far restricted as to protect himself against the
evil passions of his associates, and consequently, them against him.
I suspect that the doctrine, that small States alone are fitted to be
republics, will be exploded by experience, with some other brilliant
fallacies accredited by Montesquieu and other political writers. Perhaps
it will be found, that to obtain a just republic (and it is to secure
our just rights that we resort to government at all) it must be so
extensive as that local egoisms may never reach its greater part; that
on every particular question a majority may be found in its councils
free from particular interests, and giving, therefore, an uniform
prevalence to the principles of justice. The smaller the societies, the
more violent and more convulsive their schisms. We have chanced to
live in an age which will probably be distinguished in history, for its
experiments in government on a larger scale than has yet taken place.
But we shall not live to see the result. The grosser absurdities, such
as hereditary magistracies, we shall see exploded in our day, long
experience having already pronounced condemnation against them. But what
is to be the substitute? This our children or grandchildren will answer.
We may be satisfied with the certain knowledge that none can ever be
tried, so stupid, so unrighteous, so oppressive, so destructive of every
end for which honest men enter into government, as that which their
forefathers had established, and their fathers alone venture to tumble
headlong from the stations they have so long abused. It is unfortunate,
that the efforts of mankind to recover the freedom of which they have
been so long deprived, will be accompanied with violence, with errors,
and even with crimes. But while we weep over the means we must pray for
the end.
But I have been insensibly led, by the general complexion of the times,
from the particular case of Geneva, to those to which it bears no
similitude. Of that we hope good things. Its inhabitants must be too
much enlightened, too well experienced in the blessings of freedom and
undisturbed industry, to tolerate long a contrary state of things. I
shall be happy to hear that their government perfects itself, and leaves
room for the honest, the industrious, and wise; in which case, your own
talents, and those of the persons for whom you have interested yourself,
will, I am sure, find welcome and distinction. My good wishes will
always attend you, as a consequence of the esteem and regard with which
I am, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXIII.--TO JAMES MADISON, April 27, 1795
TO JAMES MADISON.
Monticello, April 27, 1795.
Dear Sir,
Your letter of March the 23rd came to hand the 7th of April, and
notwithstanding the urgent reasons for answering a part of it
immediately, yet as it mentioned that you would leave Philadelphia
within a few days, I feared that the answer might pass you on the road.
A letter from Philadelphia by the last post having announced to me your
leaving that place the day preceding its date, I am in hopes this will
find you in Orange. In mine, to which yours of March the 23rd was an
answer, I expressed my hope of the only change of position I ever wished
to see you make, and I expressed it with entire sincerity, because there
is not another person in the United States, who being placed at the helm
of our affairs, my mind would be so completely at rest for the fortune
of our political bark. The wish too was pure, and unmixed with any thing
respecting myself personally.
For as to myself, the subject had been thoroughly weighed and decided
on, and my retirement from office had been meant from all office, high
or low, without exception. I can say, too, with truth, that the subject
had not been presented to my mind by any vanity of my own. I know myself
and my fellow citizens too well to have ever thought of it. But the idea
was forced upon me by continual insinuations in the public papers, while
I was in office. As all these came from a hostile quarter, I knew that
their object was to poison the public mind as to my motives, when they
were not able to charge me with facts. But the idea being once presented
to me, my own quiet required that I should face it and examine it. I did
so thoroughly, and had no difficulty to see that every reason which
had determined me to retire from the office I then held, operated more
strongly against that which was insinuated to be my object. I decided
then on those general grounds which could alone be present to my mind
at that time, that is to say, reputation, tranquillity, labor; for as
to public duty, it could not be a topic of consideration in my case. If
these general considerations were sufficient to ground a firm resolution
never to permit myself to think of the office, or be thought of for it,
the special ones, which have supervened on my retirement, still more
insuperably bar the door to it. My health is entirely broken down within
the last eight months; my age requires that I should place my affairs
in a clear state; these are sound if taken care of, but capable of
considerable dangers if longer neglected; and above all things, the
delights I feel in the society of my family, and in the agricultural
pursuits in which I am so eagerly engaged. The little spice of ambition
which I had in my younger days has long since evaporated, and I set
still less store by a posthumous than present name. In stating to you
the heads of reasons which have produced my determination, I do not mean
an opening for future discussion, or that I may be reasoned out of it.
The question is for ever closed with me; my sole object is to avail
myself of the first opening ever given me from a friendly quarter (and I
could not with decency do it before) of preventing any division or loss
of votes, which might be fatal to the republican interest. If that has
any chance of prevailing, it must be by avoiding the loss of a single
vote, and by concentrating all its strength on one object. Who this
should be, is a question I can more freely discuss with any body than
yourself. In this I painfully feel the loss of Monroe. Had he been here,
I should have been at no loss for a channel through which to make
myself understood; if I have been misunderstood by any body through the
instrumentality of Mr. Fenno and his abettors. I long to see you. I am
proceeding in my agricultural plans with a slow but sure step. To
get under full way will require four or five years. But patience and
perseverance, will accomplish it. My little essay in red-clover, the
last year, has had the most encouraging success. I sowed then about
forty acres. I have sowed this year about one hundred and twenty, which
the rain now falling comes very opportunely on. From one hundred and
sixty to two hundred acres, will be my yearly sowing. The seed-box
described in the agricultural transactions of New York, reduces the
expense of seeding from six shillings to two shillings and three pence
the acre, and does the business better than is possible to be done by
the human hand. May we hope a visit from you? If we may, let it be after
the middle of May, by which time I hope to be returned from Bedford. I
have had a proposition to meet Mr. Henry there this month, to confer on
the subject of a convention, to the calling of which he is now become
a convert. The session of our district court furnished me a just excuse
for the time; but the impropriety of my entering into consultation on a
measure in which I would take no part, is a permanent one.
Present my most respectful compliments to Mrs. Madison, and be assured
of the warm attachment of, Dear Sir, yours affectionately,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXIV.--TO WILLIAM B. GILES, April 27, 1795
TO WILLIAM B. GILES.
Monticello, April 27, 1795,
Dear Sir,
Your favor of the 16th came to hand by the last post. I sincerely
congratulate you on the great prosperities of our two first allies, the
French and Dutch. If I could but see them now at peace with the rest of
their continent, I should have little doubt of dining with Pichegru
in London, next autumn; for I believe I should be tempted to leave my
clover for a while, to go and hail the dawn of liberty and republicanism
in that island. I shall be rendered very happy by the visit you promise
me. The only thing wanting to make me completely so, is the more
frequent society of my friends. It is the more wanting, as I am become
more firmly fixed to the glebe. If you visit me as a farmer, it must be
as a condisciple: for I am but a learner; an eager one indeed, but yet
desperate, being too old now to learn a new art. However, I am as much
delighted and occupied with it, as if I was the greatest adept. I shall
talk with you about it from morning till night, and put you on
very short allowance as to political aliment. Now and then a pious
ejaculation for the French and Dutch republicans, returning with
due despatch to clover, potatoes, wheat, &c. That I may not lose the
pleasure promised me, let it not be till the middle of May, by which
time I shall be returned from a trip I meditate to Bedford.
Yours affectionately,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXV.--TO MANN PAGE, August 30, 1795
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO MANN PAGE.
Monticello, August 30, 1795.
It was not in my power to attend at Fedricksburg according to the kind
invitation in your letter, and in that of Mr. Ogilvie. The heat of
the weather, the business of the farm, to which I have made myself
necessary, forbade it; and to give one round reason for all, _maturè
sanus_, I have laid up my Rosinante in his stall, before his unfitness
for the road shall expose him faltering to the world. But why did not I
answer you in time? Because, in truth, I am encouraging myself to grow
lazy, and I was sure you would ascribe the delay to any thing sooner
than a want of affection or respect to you, for this was not among the
possible causes. In truth, if any thing could ever induce me to sleep
another night out of my own house, it would have been your friendly
invitation and my solicitude for the subject of it, the education of our
youth. I do most anxiously wish to see the highest degrees of education
given to the higher degrees of genius, and to all degrees of it, so much
as may enable them to read and understand what is going on in the world,
and to keep their part of it going on right: for nothing can keep it
right but their own vigilant and distrustful superintendence. I do not
believe with the Rochefoucaults and Montaignes, that fourteen out of
fifteen men are rogues: I believe a great abatement from that proportion
may be made in favor of general honesty. But I have always found that
rogues would be uppermost, and I do not know that the proportion is,
too strong for the higher orders, and for those who, rising above the
swinish multitude, always contrive to nestle themselves into the places
of power and profit. These rogues set out with stealing the peoples’
good opinion, and then steal from them the right of withdrawing it,
by contriving laws and associations against the power of the people
themselves. Our part of the country is in considerable fermentation on
what they suspect to be a recent roguery of this kind. They say that
while all hands were below deck mending sails, splicing ropes, and every
one at his own business, and the captain in his cabin attending to his
log-book and chart, a rogue of a pilot has run them into an enemy’s
port. But metaphor apart, there is much dissatisfaction with Mr. Jay
and his treaty. For my part, I consider myself now but as a passenger,
leaving the world and its government to those who are likely to live
longer in it. That you may be among the longest of these, is my sincere
prayer. After begging you to be the bearer of my compliments and
apologies to Mr. Ogilvie, I bid you an affectionate farewell, always
wishing to hear from you.
LETTER CLXXXVI.--TO JAMES MADISON
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JAMES MADISON.
Monticello, September 21,1795.
I received, about three weeks ago, a box containing six dozen volumes,
of two hundred and eighty-three pages, 12mo. with a letter from Lambert,
Beckley’s clerk, that they came from Mr. Beckley, and were to be divided
between yourself, J. Walker, and myself. I have sent two dozen to J.
Walker, and shall be glad of a conveyance for yours. In the mean time,
I send you by post, the title-page, table of contents, and one of the
pieces, Curtius, lest it should not have come to you otherwise. It is
evidently written by Hamilton, giving a first and general view of the
subject, that the public mind might be kept a little in check, till he
could resume the subject more at large from the beginning, under his
second signature of Camillas. The piece called ‘The Features of the
Treaty,’ I do not send, because you have seen it in the newspapers. It
is said to be written by Coxe, but I should rather suspect by Beckley.
The antidote is certainly not strong enough for the poison of Curtius.
If I had not been informed the present came from Beckley, I should
have suspected it from Jay or Hamilton. I gave a copy or two, by way of
experiment, to honest, sound-hearted men of common understanding, and
they were not able to parry the sophistry of Curtius. I have ceased,
therefore, to give them. Hamilton is really a colossus to the
anti-republican party. Without numbers, he is an host within himself.
They have got themselves into a defile, where they might be finished;
but too much security on the republican part will give time to his
talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only
middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward,
there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having
begun the attack, he has the advantage of answering them, and remains
unanswered himself. A solid reply might yet completely demolish what was
too feebly attacked, and has gathered strength from the weakness of
the attack. The merchants were certainly (except those of them who are
English) as open-mouthed at first against the treaty, as any. But the
general expression of indignation has alarmed them for the strength of
the government. They have feared the shock would be too great, and have
chosen to tack about and support both treaty and government, rather than
risk the government. Thus it is, that Hamilton, Jay, &c. in the boldest
act they ever ventured on to undermine the government, have the address
to screen themselves, and direct the hue and cry against those who
wished to drag them into light. A bolder party-stroke was never struck.
For it certainly is an attempt of a party, who find they have lost their
majority in one branch of the legislature, to make a law by the aid of
the other branch and of the executive, under color of a treaty, which
shall bind up the hands of the adverse branch from ever restraining the
commerce of their patron-nation. There appears a pause at present in
the public sentiment, which may be followed by a revulsion. This is the
effect of the desertion of the merchants, of the President’s chiding
answer to Boston and Richmond, of the writings of Curtius and Camillus,
and of the quietism into which people naturally fall after first
sensations are over. For God’s sake take up your pen, and give a
fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillus. Adieu affectionately.
LETTER CLXXXVII.--TO EDWARD RUTLEDGE, November 30, 1795
TO EDWARD RUTLEDGE.
Monticello, November 30, 1795,
My Dear Sir,
I received your favor of October the 12th by your son, who has been kind
enough to visit me here, and from whose visit I have received all that
pleasure which I do from whatever comes from you, and especially from
a subject so deservedly dear to you. He found me in a retirement I
doat on, living like an antediluvian patriarch among my children
and grandchildren, and tilling my soil. As he had lately come from
Philadelphia, Boston, &c. he was able to give me a great deal of
information of what is passing in the world, and I pestered him with
questions pretty much as our friends Lynch, Nelson, &c. will us, when we
step across the Styx, for they will wish to know what has been passing
above ground since they left us. You hope I have not abandoned entirely
the service of our country. After five and twenty years’ continual
employment in it, I trust it will be thought I have fulfilled my tour,
like a punctual soldier, and may claim my discharge. But I am glad of
the sentiment from you, my friend, because it gives a hope you will
practise what you preach, and come forward in aid of the public vessel.
I will not admit your old excuse, that you are in public service though
at home. The campaigns which are fought in a man’s own house are not to
be counted. The present situation of the President, unable to get the
offices filled, really calls with uncommon obligation on those whom
nature has fitted for them. I join with you in thinking the treaty an
execrable thing. But both negotiators must have understood, that as
there were articles in it which could not be carried into execution
without the aid of the legislatures on both sides, therefore it must be
referred to them, and that these legislatures, being free agents, would
not give it their support if they disapproved of it. I trust the popular
branch of our legislature will disapprove of it, and thus rid us of this
infamous act, which is really nothing more than a treaty of alliance
between England and the Anglomen of this country, against the
legislature and people of the United States. I am, my dear friend, yours
affectionately,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXVIII.--TO WILLIAM B. GILES, December 31, 1795
TO WILLIAM B. GILES.
Monticello, December 31, 1795.
Dear Sir,
Your favors of December the 15th and 20th came to hand by the last post.
I am well pleased with the manner in which your House have testified
their sense of the treaty: while their refusal to pass the original
clause of the reported answer proved their condemnation of it, the
contrivance to let it disappear silently respected appearances in favor
of the President, who errs as other men do, but errs with integrity.
Randolph seems to have hit upon the true theory of our constitution;
that when a treaty is made, involving matters confided by the
constitution to the three branches of the legislature conjointly,
the Representatives are as free as the President and Senate were, to
consider whether the national interest requires or forbids their giving
the forms and force of law to the articles over which they have a power.
I thank you much for the pamphlet. His narrative is so straight and
plain, that even those who did not know him will acquit him of the
charge of bribery. Those who knew him had done it from the first. Though
he mistakes his own political character in the aggregate, yet he gives
it to you in the detail. Thus he supposes himself a man of no party
(page 57); that his opinions not containing any systematic adherence to
party, fell sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other (page 58).
Yet he gives you these facts, which show that they fall generally on
both sides, and are complete inconsistencies.
1. He never gave an opinion in the cabinet against the rights of
the people (page 97); yet he advised the denunciation of the popular
societies (page 67).
2. He would not neglect the overtures of a commercial treaty with France
(page 79); yet he always opposed it while Attorney General, and never
seems to have proposed it while Secretary of State.
3. He concurs in resorting to the militia to quell the pretended
insurrections in the west (page 81), and proposes an augmentation from
twelve thousand five hundred to fifteen thousand, to march against men
at their ploughs (page 80); yet on the 5th of August he is against their
marching (pages 83, 101), and on the 25th of August he is for it (page
84).