inferred from page 58), but objects to the men, to wit, Hamilton and Jay
(page 50).
5. He was against granting commercial powers to Mr. Jay (page 58); yet
he besieged the doors of the Senate to procure their advice to ratify.
6. He advises the President to a ratification on the merits of the
treaty (page 97), but to a suspension till the provision order is
repealed (page 98). The fact is, that he has generally given his
principles to the one party, and his practice to the other; the oyster
to one, the shell to the other. Unfortunately, the shell was generally
the lot of his friends, the French and republicans, and the oyster of
their antagonists. Had he been firm to the principles he professes
in the year 1793, the President would have been kept from an habitual
concert with the British and anti-republican party. But at that time,
I do not know which R. feared most, a British fleet, or French
disorganizers. Whether his conduct is to be ascribed to a superior
view of things, and adherence to right without regard to party, as he
pretends, or to an anxiety to trim between both, those who know his
character and capacity will decide. Were parties here divided merely by
a greediness for office, as in England, to take a part with either would
be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man. But where the principle of
difference is as substantial, and as strongly pronounced, as between the
republicans and the monocrats of our country, I hold it as honorable to
take a firm and decided part, and as immoral to pursue a middle line, as
between the parties of honest men and rogues, into which every country
is divided.
A copy of the pamphlet came by this post to Charlottesville. I suppose
we shall be able to judge soon what kind of impression it is likely to
make. It has been a great treat to me, as it is a continuation of that
cabinet history, with the former part of which I was intimate. I remark,
in the reply of the President, a small travestie of the sentiment
contained in the answer of the Representatives. They acknowledge that he
has contributed a great share to the national happiness by his services.
He thanks them for ascribing to his agency a great share of those
benefits. The former keeps in view the co-operation of others towards
the public good. The latter presents to view his sole agency. At a
time when there would have been less anxiety to publish to the people
a strong approbation from your House, this strengthening of your
expression would not have been noticed.
Our attentions have been so absorbed by the first manifestation of
the sentiments of your House, that we have lost sight of our own
legislature; insomuch, that I do not know whether they are sitting
or not. The rejection of Mr. Rutledge by the Senate is a bold thing;
because they cannot pretend any objection to him but his disapprobation
of the treaty. It is, of course, a declaration that they will receive
none but tories hereafter into any department of the government. I
should not wonder if Monroe were to be recalled, under the idea of his
being of the partisans of France, whom the President considers as the
partisans of war and confusion, in his letter of July the 31st, and as
disposed to excite them to hostile measures, or at least to unfriendly
sentiments; a most infatuated blindness to the true character of the
sentiments entertained in favor of France. The bottom of my page
warns me that it is time to end my commentaries on the facts you have
furnished me. You would of course, however, wish to know the sensations
here on those facts.
My friendly respects to Mr. Madison, to whom the next week’s dose will
be directed. Adieu affectionately.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXIX.--TO JAMES MADISON, March 6, 1796
TO JAMES MADISON.
Monticello, March 6, 1796.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you February the 21st, since which I have received yours of the
same day. Indeed, mine of that date related only to a single article in
yours of January the 31st and February the 7th. I do not at all wonder
at the condition in which the finances of the United States are found.
Hamilton’s object from the beginning, was to throw them into forms which
should be utterly undecipherable. I ever said he did not understand
their condition himself, nor was able to give a clear view of the excess
of our debts beyond our credits, nor whether we were diminishing or
increasing the debt. My own opinion was, that from the commencement of
this government to the time I ceased to attend to the subject, we had
been increasing our debt about a million of dollars annually. If Mr.
Gallatin would undertake to reduce this chaos to order, present us with
a clear view of our finances, and put them into a form as simple as they
will admit, he will merit immortal honor. The accounts of the United
States ought to be, and may be, made as simple as those of a common
farmer, and capable of being understood by common farmers.
Disapproving, as I do, of the unjustifiable largess to the demands
of the Count de Grasse, I will certainly not propose to rivet it by a
second example on behalf of M. de Chastellux’s son. It will only be done
in the event of such a repetition of the precedent, as will give every
one a right to share in the plunder. It is, indeed, surprising you have
not yet received the British treaty in form. I presume you would never
receive it were not your cooperation on it necessary. But this will
oblige the formal notification of it to you.
My salutations to Mrs. Madison, friendly esteem to Mr. Giles, Page, &c.
I am, with sincere affection, yours,
Th: Jefferson.
P. S. Have you considered all the consequences of your proposition
respecting post-roads? I view it as a source of boundless patronage to
the executive, jobbing to members of Congress and their friends, and a
bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating
the surplus of the post-office revenues: but the other revenues will
soon be called in to their aid, and it will be a source of eternal
scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their
State; and they will always get most who are meanest. We have thought,
hitherto, that the roads of a State could not be so well administered
even by the State legislature as by the magistracy of the county, on the
spot. How will they be when a member of New Hampshire is to mark out a
road for Georgia? Does the power to establish post-roads, given you by
the constitution, mean that you shall make the roads, or only select
from those already made those on which there shall be a post? If the
term be equivocal (and I really do not think it so), which is the safest
construction; that which permits a majority of Congress to go to cutting
down mountains and bridging of rivers, or the other, which if too
restricted may be referred to the States for amendment, securing still
due measures and proportion among us, and providing some means of
information to the members of Congress tantamount to that ocular
inspection, which, even in our county determinations, the magistrate
finds cannot be supplied by any other evidence? The fortification
of harbors was liable to great objection. But national circumstances
furnished some color. In this case there is none. The roads of America
are the best in the world, except those of France and England. But does
the state of our population, the extent of our internal commerce, the
want of sea and river navigation, call for such expense on roads here,
or are our means adequate to it? Think of all this, and a great deal
more which your good judgment will suggest, and pardon my freedom. T. J.
LETTER CXC.--TO WILLIAM B. GILES, March 19,1796.
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO WILLIAM B. GILES.
I know not when I have received greater satisfaction than on reading the
speech of Dr. Leib, in the Pennsylvania Assembly. He calls himself a new
member. I congratulate honest republicanism on such an acquisition, and
promise myself much from a career which begins on such elevated ground.
We are in suspense here to see the fate and effect of Mr. Pitt’s bill
against democratic societies. I wish extremely to get at the true
history of this effort to suppress freedom of meeting, speaking,
writing, and printing. Your acquaintance with Sedgwick will enable you
to do it. Pray get the outlines of the bill he intended to have brought
in for this purpose. This will enable us to judge whether we have the
merit of the invention; whether we were really beforehand with the
British Minister on this subject; whether he took his hint from our
proposition, or whether the concurrence in sentiment is merely the
result of the general truth that great men will think alike and act
alike, though without intercommunication. I am serious in desiring
extremely the outlines of the bill intended for us. From the debates on
the subject of our seamen, I am afraid as much harm as good will be done
by our endeavors to arm our seamen against impressments. It is proposed
to register them and give them certificates. But these certificates
will be lost in a thousand ways: a sailor will neglect to take his
certificate: he is wet twenty times in a voyage; if he goes ashore
without it, he is impressed; if with it, he gets drunk, it is lost,
stolen from him, taken from him, and then the want of it gives authority
to impress, which does not exist now. After ten years’ attention to the
subject, I have never been able to devise any thing effectual, but
that the circumstance of an American bottom be made, _ipso facto_, a
protection for a number of seamen proportioned to her tonnage; that
American captains be obliged, when called on by foreign officers, to
parade the men on deck, which would show whether they exceeded their own
quota, and allow the foreign officer to send two or three persons aboard
and hunt for any suspected to be concealed. This, Mr. Pinckney was
instructed to insist upon with Great Britain; to accept of nothing
short of it; and, most especially, not to agree that a certificate of
citizenship should be requirable from our seamen; because it would
be made a ground for the authorized impressment of them. I am still
satisfied that such a protection will place them in a worse situation
than they are at present. It is true, the British Minister has not shown
any disposition to accede to my proposition; but it was not totally
rejected: and if he still refuses, lay a duty of one penny sterling a
yard on British oznaburgs, to make a fund for paying the expenses of
the agents you are obliged to employ to seek out our suffering seamen. I
congratulate you on the arrival of Mr. Ames and the British treaty.
The newspapers had said they would arrive together. We have had a fine
winter. Wheat looks well. Corn is scarce and dear. Twenty-two shillings
here, thirty shillings in Amherst. Our blossoms are but just opening.
I have begun the demolition of my house, and hope to get through its
re-edification in the course of the summer. We shall have the eye of
a brick-kiln to poke you into, or an octagon to air you in. Adieu
affectionately. March 19,1796.
LETTER CXCI.--TO COLONEL MONROE, March 21, 1796
TO COLONEL MONROE.
Monticello, March 21, 1796.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you on the 2nd instant, and now take the liberty of troubling
you, in order to have the enclosed letter to M. Gautier safely handed to
him. I will thank you for information that it gets safely to hand, as it
is of considerable importance to him, to the United States, to the State
of Virginia, and to myself, by conveying to him the final arrangement of
the accounts of Grand and company with all those parties.
The British treaty has been formally, at length, laid before Congress.
All America is a tiptoe to see what the House of Representatives will
decide on it. We conceive the constitutional doctrine to be, that though
the President and Senate have the general power of making treaties, yet
wherever they include in a treaty matters confided by the constitution
to the three branches of legislature, an act of legislation will
be requisite to confirm these articles, and that the House of
Representatives, as one branch of the legislature, are perfectly free to
pass the act or to refuse it, governing themselves by their own judgment
whether it is for the good of their constituents to let the treaty
go into effect or not. On the precedent now to be set will depend the
future construction of our constitution, and whether the powers of
legislation shall be transferred from the President, Senate, and
House of Representatives, to the President and Senate, and Piamingo or
any-other Indian, Algerine, or other chief. It is fortunate that the
first decision is to be in a case so palpably atrocious, as to have been
predetermined by all America. The appointment of Elsworth Chief Justice,
and Chase one of the judges, is doubtless communicated to you. My
friendly respects to Mrs. Monroe. Adieu affectionately.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXCII.--TO JAMES MADISON, March 27,1796
TO JAMES MADISON.
Monticello, March 27,1796.
Dear Sir,
I am much pleased with Mr. Gallatin’s speech in Bache’s paper of March
the 14th. It is worthy of being printed at the end of the Federalist, as
the only rational commentary on the part of the constitution to which
it relates. Not that there may not be objections, and difficult ones,
to it, and which I shall be glad to see his answers to; but if they are
never answered, they are more easily to be gulped down than those which
lie to the doctrines of his opponents, which do in fact annihilate
the whole of the powers given by the constitution to the legislature.
According to the rule established by usage and common sense, of
construing one part of the instrument by another, the objects on which
the President and Senate may exclusively act by treaty are much
reduced, but the field on which they may act with the sanction of the
legislature, is large enough: and I see no harm in rendering their
sanction necessary, and not much harm in annihilating the whole
treaty-making power, except as to making peace. If you decide in favor
of your right to refuse co-operation in any case of treaty, I should
wonder on what occasion it is to be used, if not in one where the
rights, the interest, the honor, and faith of our nation are so grossly
sacrificed; where a faction has entered into a conspiracy with the
enemies of their country to chain down the legislature at the feet of
both; where the whole mass of your constituents have condemned this work
in the most unequivocal manner, and are looking to you as their last
hope to save them from the effects of the avarice and corruption of
the first agent, the revolutionary machinations of others, and the
incomprehensible acquiescence of the only honest man who has assented to
it. I wish that his honesty and his political errors may not furnish a
second occasion to exclaim, ‘Curse on his virtues, they have undone his
country.’ Cold weather, mercury at twenty degrees in the morning. Corn
fallen at Richmond to twenty shillings; stationary here. Nicholas sure
of his election, R. Jouett and Jo. Monroe in competition for the other
vote of the county. Affection to Mrs. M. and yourself. Adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXCIII.--TO JAMES MADISON, April 19, 1796
TO JAMES MADISON.
Monticello, April 19, 1796.
Dear Sir,
Yours of the 4th instant came to hand the day before yesterday. I have
turned to the Conventional history, and enclose you an exact copy of
what is there on the subject you mentioned. I have also turned to my own
papers, and send you some things extracted from them, which show
that the recollection of the President has not been accurate, when he
supposed his own opinion to have been uniformly that declared in his
answer of March the 30th. The records of the Senate will vouch for this.
My respects to Mrs. Madison. Adieu affectionately.
Th: Jefferson.
[The papers referred to in the preceding.]
_Extract, verbatim, from last page but one and the last page_.
‘Mr. King suggested that the journals of the Convention should be either
destroyed, or deposited in the custody of the President. He thought, if
suffered to be made public, a bad use would be made of them by those who
would wish to prevent the adoption of the constitution.
‘Mr. Wilson preferred the second expedient. He had at one time liked the
first best: but as false suggestions may be propagated, it should not be
made impossible to contradict them.
‘A question was then put on depositing the journals and other papers of
the Convention in the hands of the President, on which New Hampshire,
aye, Massachusetts, aye, Connecticut, aye, New Jersey, aye,
Pennsylvania, aye, Delaware, aye, Maryland, no, Virginia, aye, North
Carolina, aye, South Carolina, aye, and Georgia, aye. This negative
of Maryland was occasioned by the language of the instructions to the
Deputies of that State, which required them to report to the State the
proceedings of the Convention.
‘The President having asked what the Convention meant should be done
with the journals, &c. whether copies were to be allowed to the members,
if applied for, it was resolved _nem. con_., “that he retain the
journals and other papers subject to the order of the Congress, if ever
formed under the constitution.”
‘The members then proceeded to sign the instrument,’ &c.
‘In Senate, February 1, 1791.
‘The committee, to whom was referred that part of the speech of the
President of the United States, at the opening of the session, which
relates to the commerce of the Mediterranean, and also the letter from
the Secretary of State, dated the 20th of January, 1791, with the papers
accompanying the same, reported; whereupon,
‘Resolved, That the Senate do advise and consent, that the President of
the United States take such measures as he may think necessary for the
redemption of the citizens of the United States, now in captivity at
Algiers, provided the expense shall not exceed forty thousand dollars,
and also, that measures be taken to confirm the treaty now existing
between the United States and the Emperor of Morocco.’
The above is a copy of a resolve of the Senate, referred to me by the
President, to propose an answer to, and I find immediately following
this, among my papers, a press copy, from an original written fairly in
my own hand, ready for the President’s signature, and to be given in to
the Senate, of the following answer.
‘Gentlemen of the Senate,
‘I will proceed to take measures for the ransom of our citizens in
captivity at Algiers, in conformity with your resolution of advice of
the 1st instant, so soon as the monies necessary shall be appropriated
by the legislature, and shall be in readiness.
‘The recognition of our treaty with the new Emperor of Morocco requires
also previous appropriation and provision. The importance of this last
to the liberty and property of our citizens, induces me to urge it on
your earliest attention.’
Though I have no memorandum of the delivery of this to the Senate, yet
I have not the least doubt it was given in to them, and will be found
among their records.
I find, among my press copies, the following in my hand-writing.
‘The committee to report, that the President does not think that
circumstances will justify, in the present instance, his entering into
absolute engagements for the ransom of our captives in Algiers, nor
calling for money from the treasury, nor raising it by loan, without
previous authority from both branches of the legislature.
‘April 9, 1792.’
I do not recollect the occasion of the above paper with certainty; but
I think there was a committee appointed by the Senate to confer with
the President on the subject of the ransom, and to advise what is there
declined, and that a member of the committee advising privately with
me as to the report they were to make to the House, I minuted down the
above, as the substance of what he observed to be the proper report,
after what had passed with the President, and gave the original to the
member, preserving the press copy. I think the member was either Mr.
Izard or Mr. Butler, and have no doubt such a report will be found on
the files of the Senate.
On the 8th of May following, in consequence of questions proposed by the
President to the Senate, they came to a resolution, on which a mission
was founded.
LETTER CXCIV.*--TO P. MAZZEI, April 24, 1796
TO P. MAZZEI.
Monticello, April 24, 1796.
Mr Dear Friend,
*****
[* The first part of this letter is on private business, and is
therefore omitted.]
The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us.
In place of that noble love of liberty and republican government which
carried us triumphantly through the war, an Anglican monarchical and
aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over
us the substance, as they have already done the forms, of the British
government. The main body of our citizens, however, remain true to their
republican principles: the whole landed interest is republican, and so
is a great mass of talents. Against us are the executive, the judiciary,
two out of three branches of the legislature, all the officers of the
government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who prefer the
calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants
and Americans trading on British capitals, speculators and holders in
the banks and public funds, a contrivance invented for the purposes of
corruption, and for assimilating us in all things to the rotten as well
as the sound parts of the British model. It would give you a fever, were
I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men
who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have
had their heads shorn by the harlot England. In short, we are likely
to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and
perils. But we shall preserve it; and our mass of weight and wealth on
the good side is so great, as to leave no danger that force will ever
be attempted against us. We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian
cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep
which succeeded our labors.
I will forward the testimonial of the death of Mrs. Mazzei, which I can
do the more incontrovertibly as she is buried in my grave-yard, and I
pass her gravel daily. The formalities of the proof you require, will
occasion delay. I begin to feel the effects of age. My health has
suddenly broken down, with symptoms which give me to believe I shall not
have much to encounter of the _tedium vita_. While it remains, however,
my heart will be warm in its friendships, and, among these, will
always foster the affections with which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and
servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXCV.--TO COLONEL MONROE, June 12, 1796
TO COLONEL MONROE.
Monticello, June 12, 1796.
Dear Sir,
*****