that I received from you. Not of the fine texture, or delicate character
of yours, or, to drop our metaphor, not filled as that was with that
display of imagination which constitutes excellence in Belles Lettres,
but a mere sober, dry, and formal piece of logic. _Ornari res ipsa
negat_. Yet you may have enough left of your old taste for law reading,
to cast an eye over some of the questions it discusses. At any rate,
accept it as the offering of esteem and friendship.
You wish to know something of the Richmond and Wabash prophets. Of
Nimrod Hews I never before heard. Christopher Macpherson I have known
for twenty years. He is a man of color, brought up as a book-keeper by a
merchant, his master, and afterwards enfranchised. He had understanding
enough to post up his leger from his journal, but not enough to bear
up against hypochrondriac affections, and the gloomy forebodings they
inspire. He became crazy, foggy, his head always in the clouds, and
rhapsodizing what neither himself nor any one else could understand.
I think he told me he had visited you personally while you were in the
administration, and wrote you letters, which you have probably forgotten
in the mass of the correspondences of that crazy class, of whose
complaints, and terrors, and mysticisms, the several Presidents have
been the regular depositories. Macpherson was too honest to be molested
by any body, and too inoffensive to be a subject for the mad-house;
although, I believe, we are told in the old book, that ‘every man that
is mad, and maketh himself a prophet, thou shouldst put him in prison
and in the stocks.’
The Wabash prophet is a very different character, more rogue than fool,
if to be a rogue is not the greatest of all follies. He arose to notice
while I was in the administration, and became, of course, a proper
subject of inquiry for me. The inquiry was made with diligence. His
declared object was the reformation of his red brethren, and their
return to their pristine manner of living. He pretended to be in
constant communication with the Great Spirit; that he was instructed by
him to make known to the Indians that they were created by him distinct
from the whites, of different natures, for different purposes, and
placed under different circumstances, adapted to their nature and
destinies; that they must return from all the ways of the whites to the
habits and opinions of their forefathers; they must not eat the flesh
of hogs, of bullocks, of sheep, &c. the deer and buffalo having been
created for their food; they must not make bread of wheat, but of Indian
corn; they must not wear linen nor woollen, but dress like their fathers
in the skins and furs of animals; they must not drink ardent spirits:
and I do not remember whether he extended his inhibitions to the gun and
gunpowder, in favor of the bow and arrow. I concluded from all this that
he was a visionary, enveloped in the clouds of their antiquities, and
vainly endeavoring to lead back his brethren to the fancied beatitudes
of their golden age. I thought there was little danger of his making
many proselytes from the habits and comforts they had learned from the
whites, to the hardships and privations of savagism, and no great harm
if he did. We let him go on, therefore, unmolested. But his followers
increased till the English thought him worth corruption, and found him
corruptible. I suppose his views were then changed; but his proceedings
in consequence of them were after I left the administration, and are,
therefore, unknown to me; nor have I ever been informed what were the
particular acts on his part, which produced, an actual commencement
of hostilities on ours. I have no doubt, however, that his subsequent
proceedings are but a chapter apart, like that of Henry and Lord
Liverpool, in the book of the Kings of England.
Of this mission of Henry, your son had got wind in the time of the
embargo, and communicated it to me. But he had learned nothing of the
particular agent, although, of his workings, the information he had
obtained appears now to have been correct. He stated a particular which
Henry has not distinctly brought forward, which was, that the eastern
States were not to be required to make a formal act of separation from
the Union, and to take a part in the war against it; a measure deemed
much too strong for their people: but to declare themselves in a state
of neutrality, in consideration of which they were to have peace and
free commerce, the lure most likely to insure popular acquiescence.
Having no indications of Henry as the intermediate in this negotiation
of the Essex junto, suspicions fell on Pickering, and his nephew
Williams in London. If he was wronged in this, the ground of the
suspicion is to be found in his known practices and avowed opinions,
as that of his accomplices in the sameness of sentiment and of language
with Henry, and subsequently by the fluttering of the wounded pigeons.
This letter, with what it encloses, has given you enough, I presume, of
law and the prophets. I will only add to it, therefore, the homage of my
respects to Mrs. Adams, and to yourself the assurances of affectionate
esteem and respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CI.--TO JAMES MAURY, April 25, 1812
TO JAMES MAURY.
Monticello, April 25, 1812.
My Dear and Ancient Friend and Classmate,
Often has my heart smote me for delaying acknowledgments to you,
receiving, as I do, such frequent proofs of your kind recollection in
the transmission of papers to me. But instead of acting on the good old
maxim of not putting off to to-morrow what we can do to-day, we are too
apt to reverse it, and not to do today what we can put off to to-morrow.
But this duty can be no longer put off. To-day we are at peace;
to-morrow war. The curtain of separation is drawing between us, and
probably will not be withdrawn till one, if not both of us, will be at
rest with our fathers. Let me now, then, while I may, renew to you the
declarations of my warm attachment, which in no period of life has ever
been weakened, and seems to become stronger as the remaining objects of
our youthful affections are fewer.
Our two countries are to be at war, but not you and I. And why should
our two countries be at war, when by peace we can be so much more useful
to one another? Surely the world will acquit our government of having
sought it. Never before has there been an instance of a nation’s bearing
so much as we have borne. Two items alone in our catalogue of wrongs
will for ever acquit us of being the aggressors; the impressment of our
seamen, and the excluding us from the ocean. The first foundations of
the social compact would be broken up, were we definitively to refuse to
its members the protection of their persons and property, while in their
lawful pursuits. I think the war will not be short, because the object
of England, long obvious, is to claim the ocean as her domain, and to
exact transit duties from every vessel traversing it. This is the sum of
her orders of council, which were only a step in this bold experiment,
never meant to be retracted if it could be permanently maintained. And
this object must continue her in war with all the world. To this I
see no termination, until her exaggerated efforts, so much beyond her
natural strength and resources, shall have exhausted her to bankruptcy.
The approach of this crisis is, I think, visible in the departure of her
precious metals, and depreciation of her paper medium. We, who have gone
through that operation, know its symptoms, its course, and consequences.
In England they will be more serious than elsewhere, because half the
wealth of her people is now in that medium, the private revenue of her
money-holders, or rather of her paper-holders, being, I believe, greater
than that of her land-holders. Such a proportion of property, imaginary
and baseless as it is, cannot be reduced to vapor, but with great
explosion. She will rise out of its ruins, however, because her lands,
her houses, her arts, will remain, and the greater part of her men. And
these will give her again that place among nations which is proportioned
to her natural means, and which we all wish her to hold. We believe that
the just standing of all nations is the health and security of all. We
consider the overwhelming power of England on the ocean, and of France
on the land, as destructive of the prosperity and happiness of the
world, and wish both to be reduced only to the necessity of observing
moral duties. We believe no more in Bonaparte’s fighting merely for the
liberty of the seas, than in Great Britain’s fighting for the liberties
of mankind. The object of both is the same, to draw to themselves the
power, the wealth, and the resources of other nations. We resist the
enterprises of England first, because they first come vitally home to
us. And our feelings repel the logic of bearing the lash of George the
III. for fear of that of Bonaparte at some future day. When the wrongs
of France shall reach us with equal effect, we shall resist them
also. But one at a time is enough: and having offered a choice to the
champions, England first takes up the gauntlet.
The English newspapers suppose me the personal enemy of their nation. I
am not so. I am an enemy to its injuries, as I am to those of France. If
I could permit myself to have national partialities, and if the conduct
of England would have permitted them to be directed towards her,
they would have been so. I thought that, in the administration of Mr.
Addington, I discovered some dispositions towards justice, and even
friendship and respect for us, and began to pave the way for cherishing
these dispositions, and improving them into ties of mutual good will.
But we had then a federal minister there, whose dispositions to believe
himself, and to inspire others with a belief, in our sincerity, his
subsequent conduct has brought into doubt; and poor Merry, the English
minister here, had learned nothing of diplomacy but its suspicions,
without head enough to distinguish when they were misplaced. Mr.
Addington and Mr. Fox passed away too soon to avail the two countries
of their dispositions. Had I been personally hostile to England,
and biassed in favor of either the character or views of her great
antagonist, the affair of the Chesapeake put war into my hand. I had
only to open it, and let havoc loose. But if ever I was gratified
with the possession of power, and of the confidence of those who had
entrusted me with it, it was on that occasion, when I was enabled to
use both for the prevention of war, towards which the torrent of passion
here was directed almost irresistibly, and when not another person in
the United States, less supported by authority and favor, could have
resisted it. And now that a definitive adherence to her impressments and
orders of council renders war no longer avoidable, my earnest prayer is,
that our government may enter into no compact of common cause with the
other belligerent, but keep us free to make a separate peace, whenever
England will separately give us peace, and future security. But Lord
Liverpool is our witness, that this can never be but by her removal from
our neighborhood.
I have thus, for a moment, taken a range into the field of politics,
to possess you with the view we take of things here. But in the scenes
which are to ensue, I am to be but a spectator. I have withdrawn myself
from all political intermeddlings, to indulge the evening of my life
with what have been the passions of every portion of it, books, science,
my farms, my family, and friends.
To these every hour of the day is now devoted. I retain a good activity
of mind, not quite as much of body, but uninterrupted health. Still the
hand of age is upon me. All my old friends are nearly gone. Of those in
my neighborhood, Mr. Divers and Mr. Lindsay alone remain. If you could
make it a _partie quarrée_, it would be a comfort indeed. We would
beguile our lingering hours with talking over our youthful exploits, our
hunts on Peter’s Mountain, with a long train of _et cetera_ in addition,
and feel, by recollection at least, a momentary flash of youth.
Reviewing the course of a long and sufficiently successful life, I find
in no portion of it happier moments than those were. I think the old
hulk in which you are, is near her wreck, and that like a prudent rat,
you should escape in time. However, here, there, and every where, in
peace or in war, you will have my sincere affections, and prayers for
your life, health, and happiness.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CII.--TO THE PRESIDENT, May 30, 1812
TO THE PRESIDENT.
Monticello, May 30, 1812.
Dear Sir,
Another communication is enclosed, and the letter of the applicant is
the only information I have of his qualifications. I barely remember
such a person as the secretary of Mr. Adams, and messenger to the Senate
while I was of that body. It enlarges the sphere of choice by adding
to it a strong federalist. The triangular war must be the idea of the
Anglomen and malcontents; in other words, the federalists and quids. Yet
it would reconcile neither. It would only change the topic of abuse
with the former, and not cure the mental disease of the latter. It
would prevent our eastern capitalists and seamen from employment in
privateering, take away the only chance of conciliating them, and keep
them at home, idle, to swell the discontents; it would completely disarm
us of the most powerful weapon we can employ against Great Britain, by
shutting every port to our prizes, and yet would not add a single
vessel to their number; it would shut every market to our agricultural
productions, and engender impatience and discontent with that class
which, in fact, composes the nation; it would insulate us in general
negotiations for peace, making all the parties our opposers, and very
indifferent about peace with us, if they have it with the rest of the
world; and would exhibit a solecism worthy of Don Quixotte only, that
of a choice to fight two enemies at a time, rather than to take them
by succession. And the only motive for all this is a sublimated
impartiality, at which the world will laugh, and our own people will
turn upon us in mass as soon as it is explained to them, as it will be
by the very persons who are now laying that snare. These are the hasty
views of one who rarely thinks on these subjects. Your own will
be better, and I pray to them every success, and to yourself every
felicity.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CIII.--TO ELBRIDGE GERRY, June 11, 1812
TO ELBRIDGE GERRY.
Monticello, June 11, 1812.
Dear Sir,
It has given me great pleasure to receive a letter from you. It seems as
if, our ancient friends dying off, the whole mass of the affections
of the heart survives undiminished to the few who remain. I think our
acquaintance commenced in 1764, both then just of age. We happened to
take lodgings in the same house in New York. Our next meeting was in
the Congress of 1775, and at various times afterwards in the exercise of
that and other public functions, until your mission to Europe. Since we
have ceased to meet, we have still thought and acted together, ‘_et idem
velle, atque idem nolle, ea demum amicitia est_.’ Of this harmony of
principle, the papers you enclosed me are proof sufficient. I do not
condole with you on your release from your government. The vote of your
opponents is the most honorable mark by which the soundness of your
conduct could be stamped. I claim the same honorable testimonial. There
was but a single act of my whole administration of which that party
approved. That was the proclamation on the attack of the Chesapeake.
And when I found they approved of it, I confess I began strongly to
apprehend I had done wrong, and to exclaim with the Psalmist, ‘Lord,
what have I done, that the wicked should praise me!’
What, then, does this English faction with you mean? Their newspapers
say rebellion, and that they will not remain united with us unless we
will permit them to govern the majority. If this be their purpose, their
anti-republican spirit, it ought to be met at once. But a government
like ours should be slow in believing this, should put forth its whole
might when necessary to suppress it, and promptly return to the paths of
reconciliation. The extent of our country secures it, I hope, from the
vindictive passions of the petty incorporations of Greece. I rather
suspect that the principal office of the other seventeen States will be
to moderate and restrain the local excitement of our friends with you,
when they (with the aid of their brethren of the other States, if they
need it) shall have brought the rebellious to their feet. They count on
British aid. But what can that avail them by land? They would separate
from their friends, who alone furnish employment for their navigation,
to unite with their only rival for that employment. When interdicted
the harbors of their quondam brethren, they will go, I suppose, to ask
a share in the carrying-trade of their rivals, and a dispensation with
their navigation act. They think they will be happier in an association
under the rulers of Ireland, the East and West Indies, than in an
independent government, where they are obliged to put up with their
proportional share only in the direction of its affairs. But I trust
that such perverseness will not be that of the honest and well meaning
mass of the federalists of Massachusetts; and that when the questions
of separation and rebellion shall be nakedly proposed to them, the Gores
and the Pickerings will find their levees crowded with silk-stocking
gentry, but no yeomanry; an army of officers without soldiers. I hope,
then, all will still end well: the Anglomen will consent to make peace
with their bread and butter, and you and I shall sink to rest, without
having been actors or spectators in another civil war.
How many children have you? You beat me, I expect, in that count; but I
you in that of our grand-children. We have not timed these things well
together, or we might have begun a re-alliance between Massachusetts
and the Old Dominion, faithful companions in the war of Independence,
peculiarly tallied in interests, by each wanting exactly what the other
has to spare; and estranged to each other, in latter times, only by the
practices of a third nation, the common enemy of both. Let us live only
to see this re-union, and I will say with old Simeon, ‘Lord, now
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy
salvation.’ In that peace may you long remain, my friend, and depart
only in the fulness of years, all passed in health and prosperity. God
bless you.
Th: Jefferson.
P.S. June 13. I did not condole with you on the reprobation of your
opponents, because it proved your orthodoxy. Yesterday’s post brought
me the resolution of the republicans of Congress, to propose you as
Vice-President. On this I sincerely congratulate you. It is a stamp of
double proof. It is a notification to the factionaries that their nay is
the yea of truth, and its best test. We shall be almost within striking
distance of each other. Who knows but you may fill up some short recess
of Congress with a visit to Monticello, where a numerous family will
hail you with a hearty country welcome. T.J.
LETTER CIV.--TO JUDGE TYLER, June 17,1812
TO JUDGE TYLER.
Monticello, June 17,1812.
Dear Sir,
*****
On the other subject of your letter, the application of the common law
to our present situation, I deride with you the ordinary doctrine,
that we brought with us from England the common law rights. This narrow
notion was a favorite in the first moment of rallying to our rights
against Great Britain. But it was that of men who felt their rights
before they had thought of their explanation. The truth is, that we
brought with us the rights of men; of expatriated men. On our arrival
here, the question would at once arise, by what law will we govern
ourselves? The resolution seems to have been, by that system with which
we are familiar, to be altered by ourselves occasionally, and adapted to
our new situation. The proofs of this resolution are to be found in
the form of the oaths of the judges, 1 Hening’s Stat. 169, 187; of the
Governor, ib. 504; in the act for a provisional government, ib. 372; in
the preamble to the laws of 1661-2; the uniform current of opinions and
decisions; and in the general recognition of all our statutes framed
on that basis. But the state of the English law at the date of
our emigration, constituted the system adopted here. We may doubt,
therefore, the propriety of quoting in our courts English authorities
subsequent to that adoption; still more, the admission of authorities
posterior to the Declaration of Independence, or rather to the accession
of that King, whose reign, _ab initio_, was that very tissue of wrongs
which rendered the Declaration at length necessary. The reason for it
had inception at least as far back as the commencement of his reign.
This relation to the beginning of his reign, would add the advantage of
getting us rid of all Mansfield’s innovations, or civilizations of the
common law. For however I admit the superiority of the civil, over the
common law code, as a system of perfect justice, yet an incorporation of
the two would be like Nebuchadnezzar’s image of metals and clay, a thing
without cohesion of parts. The only natural improvement of the common
law, is through its homogeneous ally, the chancery, in which new
principles are to be examined, concocted, and digested. But when,
by repeated decisions and modifications, they are rendered pure and
certain, they should be transferred by statute to the courts of common
law, and placed within the pale of juries. The exclusion from the courts
of the malign influence of all authorities after the _Georgium sidus_
became ascendant, would uncanonize Blackstone, whose book, although the
most elegant and best digested of our law catalogue, has been perverted
more than all others to the degeneracy of legal science. A student finds
there a smattering of every thing, and his indolence easily persuades
him, that if he understands that book, he is master of the whole body
of the law. The distinction between these and those who have drawn their
stores from the deep and rich mines of Coke’s Littleton, seems
well understood even by the unlettered common people, who apply the
appellation of Blackstone-lawyers to these ephemeral insects of the law.
Whether we should undertake to reduce the common law, our own, and
so much of the English statutes as we have adopted, to a text, is a
question of transcendant difficulty. It was discussed at the first
meeting of the committee of the revised code, in 1776, and decided
in the negative, by the opinions of Wythe, Mason, and myself, against
Pendleton and Thomas Lee. Pendleton proposed to take Blackstone for that
text, only purging him of what was inapplicable, or unsuitable to us. In
that case, the meaning of every word of Blackstone would have become
a source of litigation, until it had been settled by repeated legal
decisions. And to come at that meaning, we should have had produced, on
all occasions, that very pile of authorities from which it would be said
he drew his conclusion, and which, of course, would explain it, and
the terms in which it is couched. Thus we should have retained the same
chaos of law-lore from which we wished to be emancipated, added to the
evils of the uncertainty which a new text and new phrases would have
generated. An example of this may be found in the old statutes, and
commentaries on them, in Coke’s second institute; but more remarkably,
in the institute of Justinian, and the vast masses, explanatory or
supplementary of that, which fill the libraries of the civilians. We
were deterred from the attempt by these considerations, added to which,
the bustle of the times did not permit leisure for such an undertaking.
Your request of my opinion on this subject has given you the trouble of
these observations. If your firmer mind in encountering difficulties,
would have added your vote to the minority of the committee, you would
have had on your side one of the greatest men of our age, and, like him,
have detracted nothing from the sentiments of esteem and respect which I
bore to him, and tender with sincerity the assurance of to yourself.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CV.--TO COLONEL WILLIAM DUANE, October 1, 1812
TO COLONEL WILLIAM DUANE.
Monticello, October 1, 1812.
Dear Sir,