repeatedly at their meetings. The one, to settle the whole ungranted
territory of Orleans, by donations of land to able bodied young men, to
be engaged and carried there at the public expense, who would constitute
a force always ready on the spot to defend New Orleans. The other was,
to class the militia according to the years of their birth, and make all
those from twenty to twenty-five liable to be trained and called into
service at a moment’s warning. This would have given us a force of three
hundred thousand young men, prepared, by proper training, for service in
any part of the United States; while those who had passed through that
period would remain at home, liable to be used in their own or adjacent
States. These two measures would have completed what I deemed necessary
for the entire security of our country. They would have given me, on
my retirement from the government of the nation, the consolatory
reflection, that having found, when I was called to it, not a single
sea-port town in a condition to repel a levy of contribution by a single
privateer or pirate, I had left every harbor so prepared by works
and gun-boats, as to be in a reasonable state of security against any
probable attack; the territory of Orleans acquired, and planted with an
internal force sufficient for its protection; and the whole territory of
the United States organized by such a classification of its male force,
as would give it the benefit of all its young population for active
service, and that of a middle and advanced age for stationary defence.
But these measures will, I hope, be completed by my successor, who,
to the purest principles of republican patriotism, adds a wisdom and
foresight second to no man on earth.
So much as to my country. Now a word as to myself. I am retired to
Monticello, where, in the bosom of my family, and surrounded by my
books, I enjoy a repose to which I have been long a stranger. My
mornings are devoted to correspondence. From breakfast to dinner, I am
in my shops, my garden, or on horseback among my farms; from dinner to
dark, I give to society and recreation with my neighbors and friends;
and from candle-light to early bed-time, I read. My health is perfect;
and my strength considerably reinforced by the activity of the course
I pursue; perhaps it is as great as usually falls to the lot of near
sixty-seven years of age. I talk of ploughs and harrows, seeding and
harvesting, with my neighbors, and of politics too, if they choose,
with as little reserve as the rest of my fellow-citizens, and feel, at
length, the blessing of being free to say and do what I please, without
being responsible for it to any mortal. A part of my occupation, and
by no means the least pleasing, is the direction of the studies of such
young men as ask it. They place themselves in the neighboring village,
and have the use of my library and counsel, and make a part of my
society. In advising the course of their reading, I endeavor to keep
their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, the freedom
and happiness of man. So that coming to bear a share in the councils
and government of their country, they will keep ever in view the sole
objects of all legitimate government.
*****
Instead of the unalloyed happiness of retiring unembarrassed and
independent, to the enjoyment of my estate, which is ample for my
limited views, I have to pass such a length of time in a thraldom of
mind never before known to me. Except, for this, my happiness would have
been perfect. That yours may never know disturbance, and that you may
enjoy as many years of life, health, and ease as yourself shall wish, is
the sincere prayer of your constant and affectionate friend.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER LXXXIX.--TO DOCTOR JONES, March 5, 1810
TO DOCTOR JONES.
Monticello, March 5, 1810.
Dear Sir,
I received duly your favor of the 19th ultimo, and I salute you with
all antient and recent recollections of friendship. I have learned,
with real sorrow, that circumstances have risen among our executive
counsellors, which have rendered foes those who once were friends.
To themselves it will be a source of infinite pain and vexation, and
therefore chiefly I lament it, for I have a sincere esteem for both
parties. To the President it will be really inconvenient: but to the
nation I do not know that it can do serious injury, unless we were to
believe the newspapers, which pretend that Mr. Gallatin will go out.
That indeed would be a day of mourning for the United States: but I hope
that the position of both gentlemen may be made so easy as to give no
cause for either to withdraw. The ordinary business of every day is done
by consultation between the President and the Head of the department
alone to which it belongs. For measures of importance or difficulty, a
consultation is held with the Heads of departments, either assembled, or
by taking their opinions separately in conversation or in writing. The
latter is most strictly in the spirit of the constitution. Because the
President, on weighing the advice of all, is left free to make up an
opinion for himself. In this way they are not brought together, and it
is not necessarily known to any what opinion the others have given. This
was General Washington’s practice for the first two or three years of
his administration, till the affairs of France and England threatened
to embroil us, and rendered consideration and discussion desirable. In
these discussions, Hamilton and myself were daily pitted in the cabinet
like two cocks. We were then but four in number, and, according to the
majority, which of course was three to one, the President decided.
The pain was for Hamilton and myself, but the public experienced no
inconvenience. I practised this last method, because the harmony was so
cordial among us all, that we never failed, by a contribution of mutual
views of the subject, to form an opinion acceptable to the whole. I
think there never was one instance to the contrary, in any case of
consequence. Yet this does, in fact, transform the executive into a
directory, and I hold the other method to be more constitutional. It is
better calculated, too, to prevent collision and irritation, and to cure
it, or at least suppress its effects when it has already taken place.
It is the obvious and sufficient remedy in the present case, and will
doubtless be resorted to.
Our difficulties are indeed great, if we consider ourselves alone. But
when viewed in comparison with those of Europe, they are the joys of
Paradise. In the eternal revolution of ages, the destinies have placed
our portion of existence amidst such scenes of tumult and outrage, as no
other period, within our knowledge, had presented. Every government but
one on the continent of Europe, demolished, a conqueror roaming over
the earth with havoc and destruction, a pirate spreading misery and ruin
over the face of the ocean. Indeed, my friend, ours is a bed of roses.
And the system of government which shall keep us afloat amidst this
wreck of the world, will be immortalized in history. We have, to be
sure, our petty squabbles and heart-burnings, and we have something of
the blue devils at times, as to these raw heads and bloody bones who are
eating up other nations. But happily for us, the Mammoth cannot swim,
nor the Leviathan move on dry land: and if we will keep out of their
way, they cannot get at us. If, indeed, we choose to place ourselves
within the scope of their tether, a gripe of the paw, or flounce of the
tail, may be our fortune. Our business certainly was to be still. But
a part of our nation chose to declare against this, in such a way as to
control the wisdom of the government. I yielded with others, to avoid
a greater evil. But from that moment, I have seen no system which could
keep us entirely aloof from these agents of destruction. If there be
any, I am certain that you, my friends, now charged with the care of us
all, will see and pursue it. I give myself, therefore, no trouble with
thinking or puzzling about it. Being confident in my watchmen, I sleep
soundly. God bless you all, and send you a safe deliverance.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XC.--TO GOVERNOR LANGDON, March 5, 1810
TO GOVERNOR LANGDON.
Monticello, March 5, 1810.
Your letter, my dear friend, of the 18th ultimo, comes like the
refreshing dews of the evening on a thirsty soil. It recalls antient as
well as recent recollections, very dear to my heart. For five and thirty
years we have walked together through a land of tribulations. Yet these
have passed away, and so I trust will those of the present day. The
toryism with which we struggled in ‘77, differed but in name from the
federalism of ‘99, with which we struggled also; and the Anglicism, of
1808, against which we are now struggling, is but the same thing still,
in another form. It is a longing for a King, and an English King, rather
than any other. This is the true source of their sorrows and wailings.
The fear that Bonaparte will come over to us and conquer us also, is
too chimerical to be genuine. Supposing him to have finished Spain and
Portugal, he has yet England and Russia to subdue. The maxim of war was
never sounder than in this case, not to leave an enemy in the rear;
and especially where an insurrectionary flame is known to be under the
embers, merely smothered, and ready to burst at every point. These two
subdued (and surely the Anglomen will not think the conquest of England
alone a short work), ancient Greece and Macedonia, the cradle of
Alexander, his prototype, and Constantinople, the seat of empire for the
world, would glitter more in his eye than our bleak mountains and rugged
forests. Egypt, too, and the golden apples of Mauritania, have for more
than half a century fixed the longing eyes of France; and with Syria,
you know, he has an old affront to wipe out. Then come ‘Pontus and
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,’ the fine countries on the
Euphrates and Tigris, the Oxus and Indus, and all beyond the Hyphasis,
which bounded the glories of his Macedonian rival; with the invitations
of his new British subjects on the banks of the Ganges, whom, after
receiving under his protection the mother country, he cannot refuse to
visit. When all this is done and settled, and nothing of the old world
remains unsubdued, he may turn to the new one. But will he attack us
first, from whom he will get but hard knocks, and no money? Or will
he first lay hold of the gold and silver of Mexico and Peru, and
the diamonds of Brazil? A republican Emperor, from his affection to
republics, independent of motives of expediency, must grant to ours the
Cyclops’ boon of being the last devoured. While all this is doing, we
are to suppose the chapter of accidents read out, and that nothing can
happen to cut short or disturb his enterprises.
But the Anglomen, it seems, have found out a much safer dependence, than
all these chances of death or disappointment. That is, that we should
first let England plunder us, as she has been doing for years, for fear
Bonaparte should do it; and then ally ourselves with her, and enter into
the war. A conqueror, whose career England could not arrest when aided
by Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal, she is now
to destroy, with all these on his side, by the aid of the United States
alone. This, indeed, is making us a mighty people. And what is to be
our security, that when embarked for her in the war, she will not make a
separate peace, and leave us in the lurch? Her good faith! The faith
of a nation of merchants! The _Punica fides_ of modern Carthage! Of the
friend and protectress of Copenhagen! Of the nation who never admitted a
chapter of morality into her political code! And is now boldly avowing,
that whatever power can make hers, is hers of right. Money, and not
morality, is the principle of commerce and commercial nations. But,
in addition to this, the nature of the English government forbids, of
itself, reliance on her engagements; and it is well known she has been
the least faithful to her alliances of any nation of Europe, since
the period of her history wherein she has been distinguished for her
commerce and corruption, that is to say, under the houses of Stuart and
Brunswick. To Portugal alone she has steadily adhered, because, by her
Methuin treaty, she had made it a colony, and one of the most valuable
to her. It may be asked, what, in the nature of her government, unfits
England for the observation of moral duties? In the first place, her
King is a cipher; his only function being to name the oligarchy which is
to govern her. The parliament is, by corruption, the mere instrument
of the will of the administration. The real power and property in the
government is in the great aristocratical families of the nation. The
nest of office being too small for all of them to cuddle into at once,
the contest is eternal, which shall crowd the other out. For this
purpose they are divided into two parties, the Ins and the Outs,
so equal in weight, that a small matter turns the balance. To keep
themselves in, when they are in, every stratagem must be practised,
every artifice used, which may flatter the pride, the passions, or power
of the nation. Justice, honor, faith, must yield to the necessity of
keeping themselves in place. The question, whether a measure is moral,
is never asked; but whether it will nourish the avarice of their
merchants, or the piratical spirit of their navy, or produce any other
effect which may strengthen them in their places. As to engagements,
however positive, entered into by the predecessors of the Ins, why, they
were their enemies; they did every thing which was wrong; and to reverse
every thing they did, must, therefore, be right. This is the true
character of the English government in practice, however different
its theory; and it presents the singular phenomenon of a nation, the
individuals of which are as faithful to their private engagements and
duties, as honorable, as worthy, as those of any nation on earth, and
whose government is yet the most unprincipled at this day known. In
an absolute government there can be no such equiponderant parties.
The despot is the government. His power, suppressing all opposition,
maintains his ministers firm in their places. What he has contracted,
therefore, through them, he has the power to observe with good faith;
and he identifies his own honor and faith with that of his nation.
When I observed, however, that the King of England was a cipher, I did
not mean to confine the observation to the mere individual now on that
throne. The practice of Kings marrying only into the families of Kings,
has been that of Europe for some centuries. Now, take any race of
animals, confine them in idleness and inaction, whether in a sty, a
stable, or a state-room, pamper them with high diet, gratify all their
sexual appetites, immerse them in sensualities, nourish their passions,
let every thing bend before them, and banish whatever might lead them to
think, and in a few generations they become all body, and no mind: and
this, too, by a law of nature, by that very law by which we are in the
constant practice of changing the characters and propensities of the
animals we raise for our own purposes. Such is the regimen in raising
Kings, and in this way they have gone on for centuries. While in Europe,
I often amused myself with contemplating the characters of the then
reigning sovereigns of Europe. Louis the XVI. was a fool, of my own
knowledge, and in despite of the answers made for him at his trial.
The King of Spain was a fool, and of Naples the same. They passed their
lives in hunting, and despatched two couriers a week, one thousand
miles, to let each other know what game they had killed the preceding
days. The King of Sardinia was a fool. All these were Bourbons. The
Queen of Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by nature. And so was
the King of Denmark. Their sons, as regents, exercised the powers of
government. The King of Prussia, successor to the great Frederick, was
a mere hog in body as well as in mind. Gustavus of Sweden, and Joseph
of Austria, were really crazy, and George of England you know was in a
straight waistcoat. There remained, then, none but old Catherine, who
had been too lately picked up to have lost her common sense. In this
state Bonaparte found Europe; and it was this state of its rulers which
lost it with scarce a struggle. These animals had become without mind
and powerless; and so will every hereditary monarch be after a few
generations. Alexander, the grandson of Catherine, is as yet an
exception. He is able to hold his own. But he is only of the third
generation. His race is not yet worn out. And so endeth the book of
Kings, from all of whom the Lord deliver us and have you, my friend, and
all such good men and true, in his holy keeping.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XCI.--TO GENERAL DEARBORN, July 16,1810
TO GENERAL DEARBORN.
Monticello, July 16,1810.
Dear General and Friend,
Your favor of May the 31st was duly received, and I join in
congratulations with you on the resurrection of republican principles
in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and the hope that the professors of
these principles will not again easily be driven off their ground. The
federalists, during their short-lived ascendancy, have, nevertheless,
by forcing us from the embargo, inflicted a wound on our interests which
can never be cured, and on our affections which will require time to
cicatrize. I ascribe all this to one pseudo-republican, Story. He came
on (in place of Crowningshield, I believe) and staid only a few days;
long enough, however, to get complete hold of Bacon, who giving in to
his representations, became panic-struck, and communicated his panic to
his colleagues, and they to a majority of the sound members of Congress.
They believed in the alternative of repeal or civil war, and produced
the fatal measure of repeal. This is the immediate parent of all our
present evils, and has reduced us to a low standing in the eyes of the
world. I should think that even the federalists themselves must now be
made, by their feelings, sensible of their error. The wealth which the
embargo brought home safely, has now been thrown back into the laps of
our enemies; and our navigation completely crushed, and by the unwise
and unpatriotic conduct of those engaged in it. Should the orders prove
genuine, which are said to have been given against our fisheries, they,
too, are gone: and if not true as yet, they will be true on the first
breeze of success which England shall feel: for it has now been some
years, that I am perfectly satisfied her intentions have been to claim
the ocean as her conquest, and prohibit any vessel from navigating it,
but on such a tribute as may enable her to keep up such a standing navy
as will maintain her dominion over it. She has hauled in, or let herself
out, been bold or hesitating, according to occurrences, but has in
no situation done any thing which might amount to an acknowledged
relinquishment of her intentions. I have ever been anxious to avoid
a war with England, unless forced by a situation more losing than war
itself. But I did believe we could coerce her to justice by peaceable
means, and the embargo, evaded as it was, proved it would have coerced
her, had it been honestly executed. The proof she exhibited on that
occasion, that she can exercise such an influence in this country, as to
control the will of its government and three fourths of its people,
and oblige the three fourths to submit to one fourth, is to me the most
mortifying circumstance which has occurred since the establishment of
our government. The only prospect I see of lessening that influence,
is in her own conduct, and not from any thing in our power. Radically
hostile to our navigation and commerce, and fearing its rivalry, she
will completely crush it, and force us to resort to agriculture,
not aware that we shall resort to manufactures also, and render her
conquests over our navigation and commerce useless, at least, if not
injurious to herself in the end, and perhaps salutary to us, as removing
out of our way the chief causes and provocations to war.
But these are views which concern the present and future generation,
among neither of which I count myself. You may live to see the change in
our pursuits, and chiefly in those of your own State, which England will
effect. I am not certain that the change on Massachusetts, by driving
her to agriculture, manufactures, and emigration, will lessen her
happiness. But once more to be done with politics. How does Mrs.
Dearborn do? How do you both like your situation? Do you amuse yourself
with a garden, a farm, or what? That your pursuits, whatever they
be, may make you both easy, healthy, and happy, is the prayer of your
sincere friend,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XCII.--TO J. B. COLVIN, September 20, 1810
TO J. B. COLVIN.
Monticello, September 20, 1810.
Sir,
Your favor of the 14th has been duly received, and I have to thank you
for the many obliging things respecting myself which are said in it.
If I have left in the breasts of my fellow-citizens a sentiment of
satisfaction with my conduct in the transaction of their business, it
will soften the pillow of my repose through the residue of life.
The question you propose, whether circumstances do not sometimes occur,
which make it a duty in officers of high trust, to assume authorities
beyond the law, is easy of solution in principle, but sometimes
embarrassing in practice. A strict observance of the written laws, is
doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen: but it is not the
highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our
country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by
a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself,
with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them with
us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means. When, in the battle
of Germantown, General Washington’s army was annoyed from Chew’s
house, he did not hesitate to plant his cannon against it, although
the property of a citizen. When he besieged Yorktown, he leveled the
suburbs, feeling that the laws of property must be postponed to the
safety of the nation. While the army was before York, the Governor of
Virginia took horses, carriages, provisions, and even men, by force, to
enable that army to stay together till it could master the public enemy;
and he was justified. A ship at sea in distress for provisions,
meets another having abundance, yet refusing a supply; the law of
self-preservation authorizes the distressed to take a supply by
force. In all these cases, the unwritten laws of necessity, of
self-preservation, and of the public safety, control the written laws of
_meum_ and _tuum_. Further to exemplify the principle, I will state an
hypothetical case. Suppose it had been made known to the executive of
the Union in the autumn of 1805, that we might have the Floridas for
a reasonable sum, that that sum had not indeed been so appropriated
by law, but that Congress were to meet within three weeks, and might
appropriate it on the first or second day of their session. Ought he,
for so great an advantage to his country, to have risked himself by
transcending the law and making the purchase? The public advantage
offered, in this supposed case, was indeed immense: but a reverence
for law, and the probability that the advantage might still be legally
accomplished by a delay of only three weeks, were powerful reasons
against hazarding the act. But suppose it foreseen that a John Randolph
would find means to protract the proceeding on it by Congress, until the
ensuing spring, by which time new circumstances would change the mind
of the other party. Ought the executive, in that case, and with that
foreknowledge, to have secured the good to his country, and to have
trusted to their justice for the transgression of the law? I think he
ought, and that the act would have been approved. After the affair of
the Chesapeake, we thought war a very possible result. Our magazines
were illy provided with some necessary articles, nor had any
appropriations been made for their purchase. We ventured, however, to
provide them, and to place our country in safety; and stating the case
to Congress, they sanctioned the act.