(December 15th), wishing to know whether some officers of your country
could expect to be employed in this country. To prevent a suspense
injurious to them, I hasten to inform you, that we are now actually
engaged in reducing our military establishment one third, and
discharging one third of our officers. We keep in service no more than
men enough to garrison the small posts dispersed at great distances on
our frontiers, which garrisons will generally consist of a captain’s
company only, and in no case of more than two or three, in not one, of
a sufficient number to require a field-officer; and no circumstance
whatever can bring these garrisons together, because it would be an
abandonment of their forts. Thus circumstanced, you will perceive the
entire impossibility of providing for the persons you recommend. I wish
it had been in my power to give you a more favorable answer; but next to
the fulfilling your wishes, the most grateful thing I can do is to give
a faithful answer. The session of the first Congress convened since
republicanism has recovered its ascendency, is now drawing to a close.
They will pretty completely fulfil all the desires of the people. They
have reduced the army and navy to what is barely necessary. They are
disarming executive patronage and preponderance, by putting down one
half the offices of the United States, which are no longer necessary.
These economies have enabled them to suppress all the internal taxes,
and still to make such provision for the payment of their public debt
as to discharge that in eighteen years. They have lopped off a parasite
limb, planted by their predecessors on their judiciary body for party
purposes; they are opening the doors of hospitality to the fugitives
from the oppressions of other countries; and we have suppressed all
those public forms and ceremonies which tended to familiarize the public
eye to the harbingers of another form of government. The people are
nearly all united; their quondam leaders, infuriated with the sense
of their impotence, will soon be seen or heard only in the newspapers,
which serve as chimneys to carry off noxious vapors and smoke, and all
is now tranquil, firm, and well, as it should be. I add no signature
because unnecessary for you. God bless you, and preserve you still for a
season of usefulness to your country.
LETTER CCXCVI.--TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON, April 18, 1802
TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
Washington, April 18, 1802.
Dear Sir,
A favorable and confidential opportunity offering by M. Dupont de
Nemours, who is re-visiting his native country, gives me an opportunity
of sending you a cipher to be used between us, which will give you some
trouble to understand, but once understood, is the easiest to use, the
most indecipherable, and varied by a new key with the greatest facility,
of any I have ever known. I am in hopes the explanation enclosed will be
sufficient.
*****
But writing by Mr. Dupont, I need use no cipher. I require from him to
put this into your own and no other hand, let the delay occasioned by
that be what it will.
The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France, works most
sorely on the United States. On this subject the Secretary of State has
written to you fully, yet I cannot forbear recurring to it personally,
so deep is the impression it makes on my mind. It completely reverses
all the political relations of the United States, and will form a new
epoch in our political course. Of all nations of any consideration,
France is the one, which, hitherto, has offered the fewest points on
which we could have any conflict of right, and the most points of a
communion of interests. From these causes we have ever looked to her as
our natural friend, as one with which we never could have an occasion of
difference. Her growth, therefore, we viewed as our own, her misfortunes
ours. There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is
our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the
produce of three eighths of our territory must pass to market, and
from its fertility it will ere long yield more than half of our whole
produce, and contain more than half of our inhabitants. France, placing
herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain
might have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific dispositions, her
feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that
her possession of the place would be hardly felt by us, and it would
not, perhaps, be very long before some circumstances might arise, which
might make the cession of it to us the price of something of more worth
to her. Not so can it ever be in the hands of France: the impetuosity
of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, placed in
a point of eternal friction with us, and our character, which, though
quiet and loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high-minded,
despising wealth in competition with insult or injury, enterprising
and energetic as any nation on earth; these circumstances render it
impossible that France and the United States can continue long friends,
when they meet in so irritable a position. They, as well as we, must be
blind, if they do not see this, and we must be very improvident if we do
not begin to make arrangements on that hypothesis. The day that France
takes possession of New Orleans, fixes the sentence which is to restrain
her for ever within her low-water mark. It seals the union of two
nations, who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession of the
ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and
nation. We must turn all our attentions to a maritime force, for which
our resources place us on very high ground: and having formed and
connected together a power which may render reinforcement of her
settlements here impossible to France, make the first cannon which shall
be fired in Europe the signal for tearing up any settlement she may have
made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for
the common purposes of the United British and American nations. This is
not a state of things we seek or desire. It is one which this measure,
if adopted by France, forces on us as necessarily, as any other cause,
by the laws of nature, brings on its necessary effect. It is not from
a fear of France that we deprecate this measure proposed by her. For
however greater her force is than ours, compared in the abstract, it is
nothing in comparison of ours, when to be exerted on our soil. But it
is from a sincere love of peace, and a firm persuasion, that, bound to
France by the interests and the strong sympathies still existing in the
minds of our citizens, and holding relative positions which insure
their continuance, we are secure of a long course of peace. Whereas, the
change of friends, which will be rendered necessary if France changes
that position, embarks us necessarily as a belligerent power in the
first war of Europe. In that case, France will have held possession of
New Orleans during the interval of a peace, long or short, at the end of
which it will be wrested from her. Will this short-lived possession have
been an equivalent to her for the transfer of such a weight into the
scale of her enemy? Will not the amalgamation of a young, thriving
nation, continue to that enemy the health and force which are at present
so evidently on the decline? And will a few years’ possession of New
Orleans add equally to the strength of France? She may say she needs
Louisiana for the supply of her West Indies. She does not need it in
time of peace, and in war she could not depend on them, because
they would be so easily intercepted. I should suppose that all these
considerations might, in some proper form, be brought into view of the
government of France. Though stated by us, it ought not to give offence;
because we do not bring them forward as a menace, but as consequences
not controllable by us, but inevitable from the course of things. We
mention them, not as things which we desire by any means, but as things
we deprecate; and we beseech a friend to look forward and to prevent
them for our common interests.
If France considers Louisiana, however, as indispensable for her views,
she might perhaps be willing to look about for arrangements which might
reconcile it to our interests. If any thing could do this, it would be
the ceding to us the island of New Orleans and the Floridas. This
would certainly, in a great degree, remove the causes of jarring and
irritation between us, and perhaps for such a length of time, as might
produce other means of making the measure permanently conciliatory to
our interests and friendships. It would, at any rate, relieve us from
the necessity of taking immediate measures for countervailing such
an operation by arrangements in another quarter. But still we should
consider New Orleans and the Floridas as no equivalent for the risk of a
quarrel with France, produced by her vicinage.
I have no doubt you have urged these considerations, on every proper
occasion, with the government where you are. They are such as must have
effect, if you can find means of producing thorough reflection on
them by that government. The idea here is, that the troops sent to St.
Domingo, were to proceed to Louisiana after finishing their work in that
island. If this were the arrangement, it will give you time to return
again and again to the charge.
For the conquest of St. Domingo will not be a short work. It will take
considerable time, and wear down a great number of soldiers. Every eye
in the United States is now fixed on the affairs of Louisiana.
Perhaps nothing, since the revolutionary war, has produced more uneasy
sensations through the body of the nation. Notwithstanding temporary
bickerings have taken place with France, she has still a strong hold on
the affections of our citizens generally. I have thought it not amiss,
by way of supplement to the letters of the Secretary of State, to write
you this private one, to impress you with the importance we affix
to this transaction. I pray you to cherish Dupont. He has the best
dispositions for the continuance of friendship between the two nations,
and perhaps you may be able to make a good use of him.
Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem and high consideration.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCXCVII.--TO GOVERNOR MONROE, July 15, 1802
TO GOVERNOR MONROE.
Washington, July 15, 1802.
Dear Sir,
Your favor of the 7th has been duly received. I am really mortified at
the base ingratitude of Callender. It presents human nature in a hideous
form. It gives me concern, because I perceive that relief, which was
afforded him on mere motives of charity, may be viewed under the aspect
of employing him as a writer. When the ‘Political Progress of Britain’
first appeared in this country, it was in a periodical publication
called the ‘Bee,’ where I saw it. I was speaking of it in terms of
strong approbation to a friend in Philadelphia, when he asked me, if I
knew that the author was then in the city, a fugitive from prosecution
on account of that work, and in want of employ for his subsistence. This
was the first of my learning that Callender was the author of the work.
I considered him as a man of science fled from persecution, and assured
my friend of my readiness to do whatever could serve him. It was long
after this before I saw him; probably not till 1798. He had, in the mean
time, written a second part of the ‘Political Progress,’ much inferior
to the first, and his ‘History of the United States.’ In 1798, I think,
I was applied to by Mr. Lieper to contribute to his relief. I did so. In
1799, I think, S. T. Mason applied for him. I contributed again. He had,
by this time, paid me two or three personal visits. When he fled in a
panic from Philadelphia to General Mason’s, he wrote to me that he was
a fugitive in want of employ, wished to know if he could get into a
counting-house or a school, in my neighborhood or in that of Richmond;
that he had materials for a volume, and if he could get as much money
as would buy the paper, the profit of the sale would be all his own. I
availed myself of this pretext to cover a mere charity, by desiring him
to consider me a subscriber for as many copies of his book as the money
inclosed (fifty dollars) amounted to; but to send me two copies only, as
the others might lie till called for. But I discouraged his coming into
my neighborhood. His first writings here had fallen far short of his
original ‘Political Progress,’ and the scurrilities of his subsequent
ones began evidently to do mischief. As to myself, no man wished more
to see his pen stopped: but I considered him still as a proper object of
benevolence. The succeeding year he again wanted money to buy paper for
another volume. I made his letter, as before, the occasion of giving him
another fifty dollars. He considers these as proofs of my approbation
of his writings, when they were mere charities, yielded under a strong
conviction that he was injuring us by his writings. It is known to many,
that the sums given to him were such, and even smaller than I was in
the habit of giving to others in distress, of the federal as well as the
republican party, without attention to political principles. Soon after
I was elected to the government, Callender came on here, wishing to be
made post-master at Richmond. I knew him to be totally unfit for it: and
however ready I was to aid him with my own charities (and I then gave
him fifty dollars), I did not think the public offices confided to me
to give away as charities. He took it in mortal offence, and from that
moment has been hauling off to his former enemies, the federalists.
Besides the letter I wrote him in answer to the one from General
Mason’s, I wrote him another containing answers to two questions he
addressed to me; 1. whether Mr. Jay received salary as Chief Justice and
Envoy at the same time; and 2. something relative to the expenses of an
embassy to Constantinople. I think these were the only letters I ever
wrote him in answer to volumes he was perpetually writing to me. This is
the true state of what has passed between him and me. I do not know that
it can be used without committing me in controversy, as it were, with
one too little respected by the public to merit that notice. I leave to
your judgment what use can be made of these facts. Perhaps it will be
better judged of, when we see what use the tories will endeavor to
make of their new friend. I shall leave this on the 21st, and be at
Monticello probably on the 24th, or within two or three days of that,
and shall hope, ere long, to see you there. Accept assurances of my
affectionate attachment.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCXCVIII.--TO GOVERNOR MONROE, July 17, 1802
TO GOVERNOR MONROE.
Washington, July 17, 1802.
Dear Sir,
After writing you on the 15th, I turned to my letter-file to see what
letters I had written to Callender, and found them to have been of
the dates of 1798, October the 11th, and 1799, September the 6th, and
October the 6th; but on looking for the letters they were not in their
places, nor to be found. On recollection, I believe I sent them to you
a year or two ago. If you have them, I shall be glad to receive them
at Monticello, where I shall be on this day se’nnight. I enclose you
a paper, which shows the tories mean to pervert these charities to
Callender as much as they can. They will probably first represent me as
the patron and support of the ‘Prospect before Us,’ and other things
of Callender’s, and then picking out all the scurrilities of the author
against General Washington, Mr. Adams, and others, impute them to me.
I, as well as most other republicans who were in the way of doing it,
contributed what I could afford to the support of the republican papers
and printers, paid sums of money for the ‘Bee,’ the ‘Albany Register,’
&c. when they were staggering under the sedition-law, contributed to the
fines of Callender himself, of Holt, Brown, and others, suffering under
that law. I discharged, when I came into office, such as were under
the persecution of our enemies, without instituting any prosecutions in
retaliation. They may, therefore, with the same justice, impute to me,
or to every republican contributor, every thing which was ever published
in those papers or by those persons. I must correct a fact in mine
of the 15th. I find I did not enclose the fifty dollars to Callender
himself while at General Mason’s, but authorized the General to draw on
my correspondent at Richmond, and to give the money to Callender. So
the other fifty dollars of which he speaks, were by order on my
correspondent at Richmond.
Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem and respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CCXCIX.--TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON, October 10, 1802
TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
Washington, October 10, 1802.
Dear Sir,
The departure of Madame Brugnard for France furnishes me a safe
conveyance of a letter, which I cannot avoid embracing, although I have
nothing particular for the subject of it. It is well, however, to be
able to inform you, generally, through a safe channel, that we stand
completely corrected of the error, that either the government or the
nation of France has any remains of friendship for us. The portion of
that country which forms an exception, though respectable in weight,
is weak in numbers. On the contrary, it appears evident, that an
unfriendly-spirit prevails in the most important individuals of the
government, towards us. In this state of things, we shall so take our
distance between the two rival nations, as, remaining disengaged till
necessity compels us, we may haul finally to the enemy of that which
shall make it necessary. We see all the disadvantageous consequences of
taking a side, and shall be forced into it only by a more disagreeable
alternative; in which event we must countervail the disadvantages
by measures which will give us splendor and power, but not as much
happiness as our present system. We wish, therefore, to remain well with
France. But we see that no consequences, however ruinous to them, can
secure us with certainty against the extravagance of her present rulers.
I think, therefore, that while we do nothing which the first nation on
earth would deem crouching, we had better give to all our communications
with them a very mild, complaisant, and even friendly complexion, but
always independent. Ask no favors, leave small and irritating things to
be conducted by the individuals interested in them, interfere ourselves
but in the greatest cases, and then not push them to irritation. No
matter at present existing between them and us is important enough to
risk a breach of peace; peace being indeed the most important of all
things for us, except the preserving an erect and independent attitude.
Although I know your own judgment leads you to pursue this line
identically, yet I thought it just to strengthen it by the concurrence
of my own. You will have seen by our newspapers, that, with the aid of a
lying renegado from republicanism, the federalists have opened all their
sluices of calumny. They say we lied them out of power, and openly avow
they will do the same by us. But it was not lies or arguments on our
part which dethroned them, but their own foolish acts, sedition-laws,
alien-laws, taxes, extravagancies, and heresies. Porcupine, their
friend, wrote them down. Callender, their new recruit, will do the same.
Every decent man among them revolts at his filth: and there cannot be a
doubt, that were a Presidential election to come on this day, they would
certainly have but three New England States, and about half a dozen
votes from Maryland and North Carolina; these two States electing by
districts. Were all the States to elect by a general ticket, they would
have but three out of sixteen States. And these three are coming up
slowly. We do, indeed, consider Jersey and Delaware as rather doubtful.
Elections which have lately taken place there, but their event not yet
known here, will show the present point of their varying condition.
My letters to you being merely private, I leave all details of business
to their official channel.
Accept assurances of my constant friendship and high respect.
Th: Jefferson.
P. S. We have received your letter announcing the arrival of Mr. Dupont.
LETTER CCC.--TO ALBERT GALLATIN, October 13, 1802
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO ALBERT GALLATIN.
You know my doubts, or rather convictions, about the unconstitutionality
of the act for building piers in the Delaware, and the fears that it
will lead to a bottomless expense, and to the greatest abuses. There is,
however, one intention of which the act is susceptible, and which will
bring it within the constitution; and we ought always to presume that
the real intention which is alone consistent with the constitution.
Although the power to regulate commerce does not give a power to build
piers, wharves, open ports, clear the beds of rivers, dig canals,
build warehouses, build manufacturing machines, set up manufactories,
cultivate the earth, to all of which the power would go if it went to
the first, yet a power to provide and maintain a navy is a power to
provide receptacles for it, and places to cover and preserve it. In
choosing the places where this money should be laid out, I should be
much disposed, as far as contracts will permit, to confine it to such
place or places as the ships of war may lie at, and be protected from
ice: and I should be for stating this in a message to Congress, in order
to prevent the effect of the present example. This act has been built on
the exercise of the power of building light-houses, as a regulation of
commerce. But I well remember the opposition, on this very ground, to
the first act for building a light-house. The utility of the thing has
sanctioned the infraction. But if on that infraction we build a second,
on that second a third, &c, any one of the powers in the constitution
may be made to comprehend every power of government. Will you read the
enclosed letters on the subject of New Orleans, and think what we can do
or propose in the case?
Accept my affectionate salutations. October 13, 1802.
LETTER CCCI.--TO LEVI LINCOLN, October 25, 1802
TO LEVI LINCOLN.
Washington, October 25, 1802.
Dear Sir,