limits, is big enough for its ruler, on the one hand, and whether, on
the other, the allied powers are either wicked or foolish enough to
attempt the forcing on the French, a ruler and government which they
refuse; whether they will risk their own thrones to re-establish that
of the Bourbons. If this is attempted, and the European world again
committed to war, will the jealousy of England at the commerce which
neutrality will give us, induce her again to add us to the number of
her enemies, rather than see us prosper in the pursuit of peace and
industry? And have our commercial citizens merited from their country
its encountering another war to protect their gambling enterprises?
That the persons of our citizens shall be safe in freely traversing the
ocean, that the transportation of our own produce, in our own vessels,
to the markets of our choice, and the return to us of the articles we
want for our own use, shall be unmolested, I hold to be fundamental, and
that the gauntlet must be for ever hurled at him who questions it. But
whether we shall engage in every war of Europe, to protect the mere
agency of our merchants and shipowners in carrying on the commerce of
other nations, even were those merchants and ship-owners to take the
side of their country in the contest, instead of that of the enemy, is a
question of deep and serious consideration, with which, however, you and
I shall have nothing to do; so we will leave it to those whom it will
concern.
I thank you for making known to me Mr. Ticknor and Mr. Gray. They are
fine young men, indeed, and if Massachusetts can raise a few more such,
it is probable she would be better counselled as to social rights and
social duties. Mr. Ticknor is, particularly, the best bibliograph I
have met with, and very kindly and opportunely offered me the means of
reprocuring some part of the literary treasures which I have ceded
to Congress, to replace the devastations of British Vandalism at
Washington. I cannot live without books. But fewer will suffice, where
amusement, and not use, is the only future object. I am about sending
him a catalogue, to which less than his critical knowledge of books
would hardly be adequate.
Present my high respects to Mrs. Adams, and accept yourself the
assurances of my affectionate attachment.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXXVII.--TO MR. LEIPER, June 12, 1815
TO MR. LEIPER.
Monticello, June 12, 1815.
Dear Sir,
A journey soon after the receipt of your favor of April the 17th and
an absence from home of some continuance, have prevented my earlier
acknowledgment of it. In that came safely my letter of January the 2nd,
1814. In our principles of government we differ not at all; nor in the
general object and tenor of political measures. We concur in considering
the government of England as totally without morality, insolent beyond
bearing, inflated with vanity and ambition, aiming at the exclusive
dominion of the sea, lost in corruption, of deep-rooted hatred towards
us, hostile to liberty wherever it endeavors to show its head, and
the eternal disturber of the peace of the world. In our estimate of
Bonaparte, I suspect we differ. I view him as a political engine only,
and a very wicked one; you, I believe, as both political and religious,
and obeying, as an instrument, an unseen hand. I still deprecate his
becoming sole lord of the continent of Europe, which he would have been,
had he reached in triumph the gates of Petersburg. The establishment in
our day of another Roman. empire, spreading vassalage and depravity over
the face of the globe, is not, I hope, within the purposes of Heaven.
Nor does the return of Bonaparte give me pleasure unmixed; I see in his
expulsion of the Bourbons, a valuable lesson to the world, as showing
that its ancient dynasties may be changed for their misrule. Should the
allied powers presume to dictate a ruler and government to France, and
follow the example he had set of parcelling and usurping to themselves
their neighbor nations, I hope he will give them another lesson in
vindication of the rights of independence and self-government, which
himself had heretofore so much abused, and that in this contest he
will wear down the maritime power of England to limitable and safe
dimensions. So far, good. It cannot be denied, on the other hand, that
his successful perversion of the force (committed to him for vindicating
the rights and liberties of his country) to usurp its government, and
to enchain it under an hereditary despotism, is of baneful effect in
encouraging future usurpations, and deterring those under oppression
from rising to redress themselves. His restless spirit leaves no hope of
peace to the world; and his hatred of us is only a little less than that
he bears to England, and England to us. Our form of government is odious
to him, as a standing contrast between republican and despotic rule; and
as much from that hatred, as from ignorance in political economy, he had
excluded intercourse between us and his people, by prohibiting the only
articles they wanted from us, that is, cotton and tobacco. Whether the
war we have had with England, the achievements of that war, and the hope
that we may become his instruments and partisans against that enemy, may
induce him, in future, to tolerate our commercial intercourse with his
people, is still to be seen. For my part, I wish that all nations may
recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown
may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance
may be ever maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce, and
friendship may be sought and cultivated by all. It is our business to
manufacture for ourselves whatever we can, to keep all markets open for
what we can spare or want; and the less we have to do with the amities
or enmities of Europe, the better. Not in our day, but at no distant
one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the
stoutest of them tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our
power, and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater it will
be.
The federal misrepresentation of my sentiments, which occasioned my
former letter to you, was gross enough; but that and all others are
exceeded by the impudence and falsehood of the printed extract you sent
me from Ralph’s paper. That a continuance of the embargo for two months
longer would have prevented our war; that the non-importation law
which succeeded it was a wise and powerful measure, I have constantly
maintained. My friendship for Mr. Madison, my confidence in his wisdom
and virtue, and my approbation of all his measures, and especially of
his taking up at length the gauntlet against England, is known to all
with whom I have ever conversed or corresponded on these measures. The
word federal, or its synonyme &c., may therefore be written under every
word of Mr. Ralph’s paragraph. I have ransacked my memory to recollect
any incident which might have given countenance to any particle of it,
but I find none. For if you will except the bringing into power
and importance those who were enemies to himself as well as to the
principles of republican government, I do not recollect a single measure
of the President which I have not approved. Of those under him, and
of some very near him, there have been many acts of which we have all
disapproved, and he more than we. We have at times dissented from the
measures, and lamented the dilatoriness of Congress. I recollect an
instance the first winter of the war, when, from sloth of proceedings,
an embargo was permitted to run through the winter, while the enemy
could not cruise, nor consequently restrain the exportation of our whole
produce, and was taken off in the spring, as soon as they could resume
their stations. But this procrastination is unavoidable. How can
expedition be expected from a body which we have saddled with an hundred
lawyers, whose trade is talking? But lies, to sow divisions among
us, are so stale an artifice of the federal prints, and are so well
understood, that they need neither contradiction nor explanation. As to
myself, my confidence in the wisdom and integrity of the administration
is so entire, that I scarcely notice what is passing, and have almost
ceased to read newspapers. Mine remain in our post-office a week or ten
days, sometimes, unasked for. I find more amusement in studies to which
I was always more attached, and from which I was dragged by the events
of the times in which I have happened to live.
I rejoice exceedingly that our war with England was single-handed. In
that of the Revolution, we had France, Spain, and Holland on our side,
and the credit of its success was given to them. On the late occasion,
unprepared and unexpecting war, we were compelled to declare it, and to
receive the attack of England, just issuing from a general war, fully
armed, and freed from all other enemies, and have not only made her
sick of it, but glad to prevent, by a peace, the capture of her adjacent
possessions, which one or two campaigns more would infallibly have made
ours. She has found that we can do her more injury than any other enemy
on earth, and henceforward will better estimate the value of our peace.
But whether her government has power, in opposition to the aristocracy
of her navy, to restrain their piracies within the limits of national
rights, may well be doubted. I pray, therefore, for peace, as best for
all the world, best for us, and best for me, who have already lived to
see three wars, and now pant for nothing more than to be permitted to
depart in peace. That you also, who have longer to live, may continue to
enjoy this blessing with health and prosperity, through as long a life
as you desire, is the prayer of yours affectionately.
Th: Jefferson.
P. S. June the 14th. Before I had sent my letter to the post-office, I
received the new treaty of the allied powers, declaring that the French
nation shall not have Bonaparte, and shall have Louis XVIII for their
ruler. They are all then as great rascals, as Bonaparte himself. While
he was in the wrong, I wished him exactly as much success as would
answer our purposes, and no more. Now that they are wrong and he in
the right, he shall have all my prayers for success, and that he may
dethrone every man of them.
LETTER CXXVIII.--TO JOHN ADAMS, August 10,1815
TO JOHN ADAMS.
Monticello, August 10,1815.
Dear Sir,
The simultaneous movements in our correspondence have been remarkable on
several occasions. It would seem as if the state of the air, or state of
the times, or some other unknown cause, produced a sympathetic effect on
our mutual recollections. I had sat down to answer your letters of June
the 19th, 20th, and 22nds with pen, ink, and paper, before me, when I
received from our mail that of July the 30th. You ask information on
the subject of Camus. All I recollect of him is, that he was one of the
deputies sent to arrest Dumourier at the head of his army, who were,
however, themselves arrested by Dumourier, and long detained as
prisoners. I presume, therefore, he was a Jacobin. You will find his
character in the most excellent revolutionary history of Toulongeon. I
believe also, he may be the same person who has given us a translation
of Aristotle’s Natural History, from the Greek into French. Of his
report to the National Institute on the subject of the Bollandists, your
letter gives me the first information. I had supposed them defunct
with the society of Jesuits, of which they were: and that their works,
although above ground, were, from their bulk and insignificance, as
effectually entombed on their shelves, as if in the graves of their
authors. Fifty-two volumes in folio, of the _acta sanctorum_, in
dog-Latin, would be a formidable enterprise to the most laborious
German. I expect, with you, they are the most enormous mass of lies,
frauds, hypocrisy, and imposture, that ever was heaped together on this
globe. By what chemical process M. Camus supposed that an extract of
truth could be obtained from such a farrago of falsehood, I must leave
to the chemists and moralists of the age to divine.
On the subject of the history of the American Revolution you ask who
shall write it? Who can write it? And who will ever be able to write it?
Nobody; except merely its external facts; all its councils, designs, and
discussions having been conducted by Congress with closed doors, and no
member, as far as I know, having even made notes of them. These, which
are the life and soul of history, must for ever be unknown. Botta, as
you observe, has put his own speculations and reasonings into the mouths
of persons whom he names, but who, you and I know, never made such
speeches. In this he has followed the example of the ancients, who made
their great men deliver long speeches, all of them in the same style,
and in that of the author himself. The work is nevertheless a good one,
more judicious, more chaste, more classical, and more true, than the
party diatribe of Marshall. Its greatest fault is in having taken too
much from him. I possessed the work, and often recurred to considerable
portions of it, although I never read it through. But a very judicious
and well informed neighbor of mine went through it with great attention,
and spoke very highly of it. I have said that no member of the old
Congress, as far as I knew, made notes of the discussions. I did not
knew of the speeches you mention of Dickinson and Witherspoon But on
the questions of Independence, and on the two articles of Confederation
respecting taxes and voting, I took minutes of the heads of the
arguments. On the first, I threw all into one mass, without ascribing
to the speakers their respective arguments; pretty much in the manner of
Hume’s summary digests of the reasonings in parliament for and against
a measure. On the last, I stated the heads of arguments used by each
speaker. But the whole of my notes on the question of Independence does
not occupy more than five pages, such as of this letter: and on the
other questions, two such sheets. They have never been communicated to
any one. Do you know that there exists in manuscript the ablest work
of this kind ever yet executed, of the debates of the constitutional
convention of Philadelphia in 1788? The whole of every thing said and
done there was taken down by Mr. Madison, with a labor and exactness
beyond comprehension.
I presume that our correspondence has been observed at the post-offices,
and thus has attracted notice. Would you believe, that a printer has had
the effrontery to propose to me the letting him publish it? These people
think they have a right to every thing, however secret or sacred. I had
not before heard of the Boston pamphlet with Priestley’s Letters and
mine.
At length Bonaparte has got on the right side of a question. From the
time of his entering the legislative hall to his retreat to Elba, no man
has execrated him more than myself. I will not except even the members
of the Essex Junto; although for very different reasons; I, because he
was warring against the liberty of his own country, and independence
of others; they, because he was the enemy of England, the Pope, and the
Inquisition. But at length, and as far as we can judge, he seems to have
become the choice of his nation. At least, he is defending the cause
of his nation, and that of all mankind, the rights of every people to
independence and self-government. He and the allies have now changed
sides. They are parcelling out among themselves Poland, Belgium, Saxony,
Italy, dictating a ruler and government to France, and looking askance
at our republic, the splendid libel on their governments, and he is
fighting for the principles of national independence, of which his whole
life hitherto has been a continued violation. He has promised a free
government to his own country, and to respect the rights of others; and
although his former conduct inspires little confidence in his promises,
yet we had better take the chance of his word for doing right, than the
certainty of the wrong which his adversaries are doing and avowing. If
they succeed, ours is only the boon of the Cyclops to Ulysses, of being
the last devoured.
Present me affectionately and respectfully to Mrs. Adams, and Heaven
give you both as much more of life as you wish, and bless it with health
and happiness.
Th: Jefferson.
P. S. August the 11th. I had finished my letter yesterday, and this
morning receive the news of Bonaparte’s second abdication. Very
well. For him personally, I have no feeling but reprobation. The
representatives of the nation have deposed him. They have taken the
allies at their word, that they had no object in the war but his
removal. The nation is now free to give itself a good government, either
with or without a Bourbon; and France unsubdued, will still be a bridle
on the enterprises of the combined powers, and a bulwark to others. T.J.
LETTER CXXIX.--TO DABNEY CARR, January 19, 1816
TO DABNEY CARR.
Monticello, January 19, 1816.
Dear Sir,
At the date of your letter of December the 1st, I was in Bedford, and
since my return, so many letters, accumulated during my absence, having
been pressing for answers, that this is the first moment I have been
able to attend to the subject of yours. While Mr. Girardin was in
this neighborhood writing his continuation of Burke’s History, I had
suggested to him a proper notice of the establishment of the committee
of correspondence here in 1773, and of Mr. Carr, your father, who
introduced it. He has doubtless done this, and his work is now in the
press. My books, journals of the times, &c. being all gone, I have
nothing now but an impaired memory to resort to for the more particular
statement you wish. But I give it with the more confidence, as I find
that I remember old things better than new. The transaction took place
in the session of Assembly of March 1773. Patrick Henry, Richard Henry
Lee, Frank Lee, your father, and myself, met by agreement, one evening,
about the close of the session, at the Raleigh Tavern, to consult on
the measures which the circumstances of the times seemed to call for.
We agreed, in result, that concert in the operations of the several
Colonies was indispensable; and that to produce this, some channel of
correspondence between them must be opened: that, therefore, we would
propose to our House the appointment of a committee of correspondence,
which should be authorized and instructed to write to the Speakers of
the House of Representatives of the several Colonies, recommending the
appointment of similar committees on their part, who, by a communication
of sentiment on the transactions threatening us all, might promote
a harmony of action salutary to all. This was the substance, not
pretending to remember words. We proposed the resolution, and your
father was agreed on to make the motion. He did it the next day, March
the 12th, with great ability, reconciling all to it, not only by
the reasonings, but by the temper and moderation with which it was
developed. It was adopted by a very general vote. Peyton Randolph, some
of us who proposed it, and who else I do not remember, were appointed
of the committee. We immediately despatched letters by expresses, to
the Speakers of all the other Assemblies. I remember that Mr. Carr and
myself, returning home together, and conversing on the subject by the
way, concurred in the conclusion, that that measure must inevitably
beget the meeting of a Congress of Deputies from all the Colonies, for
the purpose of uniting all in the same principles and measures for the
maintenance of our rights. My memory cannot deceive me, when I affirm
that we did it in consequence of no such proposition from any other
Colony. No doubt, the resolution itself, and the journals of the day,
will show that ours was original, and not merely responsive to one from
any other quarter. Yet, I am certain I remember also, that a similar
proposition, and nearly cotemporary, was made by Massachusetts, and
that our northern messenger passed theirs on the road. This, too, may be
settled by recurrence to the records of Massachusetts. The proposition
was generally acceded to by the other Colonies, and the first effect,
as expected, was the meeting of a Congress at New York the ensuing year.
The committee of correspondence appointed by Massachusetts, as quoted by
you from Marshall, under the date of 1770, must have been for a special
purpose, and _functus officio_ before the date of 1773, or Massachusetts
herself would not then have proposed another. Records should be examined
to settle this accurately. I well remember the pleasure expressed in the
countenance and conversation of the members generally, on this _début_
of Mr. Carr, and the hopes they conceived as well from the talents as
the patriotism it manifested. But he died within two months after, and
in him we lost a powerful fellow-laborer. His character was of a high
order. A spotless integrity, sound judgment, handsome imagination,
enriched by education and reading, quick and clear in his conceptions,
of correct and ready elocution, impressing every hearer with the
sincerity of the heart from which it flowed. His firmness was inflexible
in whatever he thought was right: but when no moral principle stood
in the way, never had man more of the milk of human kindness, of
indulgence, of softness, of pleasantry in conversation and conduct. The
number of his friends, and the warmth of their affection, were proofs of
his worth, and of their estimate of it. To give to those now living,
an idea of the affliction produced by his death in the minds of all who
knew him, I liken it to that lately felt by themselves on the death of
his eldest son, Peter Carr, so like him in all his endowments and moral
qualities, and whose recollection can never recur without a deep-drawn
sigh from the bosom of any one who knew him. You mention that I showed
you an inscription I had proposed for the tomb-stone of your father. Did
I leave it in your hands to be copied? I ask the question, not that I
have any such recollection, but that I find it no longer in the place of
its deposite, and think I never took it out but on that occasion. Ever
and affectionately yours.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXXX.--TO JOHN ADAMS, April 8, 1816
TO JOHN ADAMS.
Monticello, April 8, 1816.
Dear Sir,
I have to acknowledge your two favors of February the 16th and March the
2nd, and to join sincerely in the sentiment of Mrs. Adams, and regret
that distance separates us so widely. An hour of conversation would be
worth a volume of letters. But we must take things as they come.
You ask, if I would agree to live my seventy or rather seventy-three
years over again? To which I say, yea. I think with you that it is
a good world on the whole; that it has been framed on a principle of
benevolence, and more pleasure than pain dealt out to us. There are,
indeed, (who might say nay) gloomy and hypochondriac minds, inhabitants
of diseased bodies, disgusted with the present, and despairing of the
future; always counting that the worst will happen, because it may
happen. To these I say, how much pain have cost us the evils which have
never happened! My temperament is sanguine. I steer my bark with Hope in
the head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not
oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy. There are, I acknowledge,
even in the happiest life, some terrible convulsions, heavy set-offs
against the opposite page of the account. I have often wondered for
what good end the sensations of grief could be intended. All our
other passions, within proper bounds, have an useful object. And the
perfection of the moral character is, not in a stoical apathy, so
hypocritically vaunted, and so untruly too, because impossible, but in a
just equilibrium of all the passions. I wish the pathologists then would
tell us what is the use of grief in the economy, and of what good it is
the cause, proximate or remote.