the close of that century a disgrace to the history of man? Who could
have imagined that the two most distinguished in the rank of nations,
for science and civilization, would have suddenly descended from
that honorable eminence, and setting at defiance all those moral laws
established by the Author of Nature between nation and nation, as
between man and man, would cover earth and sea with robberies and
piracies, merely because strong enough to do it with temporal impunity,
and that under this disbandment of nations from social order, we should
have been despoiled of a thousand ships, and have thousands of our
citizens reduced to Algerine slavery. Yet all this has taken place. The
British interdicted to our vessels all harbors of the globe, without
having first proceeded to some one of hers, there paid a tribute
proportioned to the cargo, and obtained her license to proceed to the
port of destination. The French declared them to be lawful prize if they
had touched at the port, or been visited by a ship of the enemy nation.
Thus were we completely excluded from the ocean. Compare this state
of things with that of ‘85, and say whether an opinion founded in
the circumstances of that day, can be fairly applied to those of the
present. We have experienced, what we did not then believe, that there
exist both profligacy and power enough to exclude us from the field of
interchange with other nations. That to be independent for the comforts
of life, we must fabricate them ourselves. We must now place the
manufacturer by the side of the agriculturalist. The former question
is suppressed, or rather assumes a new form. The grand inquiry now is,
Shall we make our own comforts, or go without them at the will of a
foreign nation? He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufacture,
must be for reducing us either to dependence on that foreign nation,
or to be clothed in skins, and to live like wild beasts in dens
and caverns. I am not one of these. Experience has taught me that
manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort;
and if those who quote me as of a different opinion, will keep pace with
me in purchasing nothing foreign, where an equivalent of domestic fabric
can be obtained, without regard to difference of price, it will not be
our fault if we do not soon have a supply at home equal to our demand,
and wrest that weapon of distress from the hand which has so long
wantonly wielded it. If it shall be proposed to go beyond our own
supply, the question of ‘85 will then recur, Will our surplus labor be
then more beneficially employed, in the culture of the earth, or in the
fabrications of art? We have time yet for consideration, before that
question will press upon us; and the axiom to be applied will depend
on the circumstances which shall then exist. For in so complicated a
science as political economy, no one axiom can be laid down as wise and
expedient for all times and circumstances. Inattention to this is what
has called for this explanation, which reflection would have rendered
unnecessary with the candid, while nothing will do it with those who
use the former opinion only as a stalking-horse to cover their disloyal
propensities to keep us in eternal vassalage to a foreign and unfriendly
people.
I salute you with assurances of great respect and esteem.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXXXIV.--TO WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD, June 20, 1816
TO WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD.
Monticello, June 20, 1816.
Dear Sir,
I am about to sin against all discretion, and knowingly, by adding to
the drudgery of your letter-reading, this acknowledgment of the receipt
of your favor of May the 31st, with the papers it covered. I cannot,
however, deny myself the gratification of expressing the satisfaction I
have received, not only from the general statement of affairs at Paris,
in yours of December the 12th, 1814, (as a matter of history which I had
not before received,) but most especially and superlatively, from the
perusal of your letter of the 8th of the same month to Mr. Fisk, on the
subject of drawbacks. This most heterogeneous principle was transplanted
into ours from the British system, by a man whose mind was really
powerful, but chained by native partialities to every thing English; who
had formed exaggerated ideas of the superior perfection of the English
constitution, the superior wisdom of their government, and sincerely
believed it for the good of this country to make them their model in
every thing; without considering that what might be wise and good for a
nation essentially commercial, and entangled in complicated intercourse
with numerous and powerful neighbors, might not be so for one
essentially agricultural, and insulated by nature from the abusive
governments of the old world.
The exercise, by our own citizens, of so much commerce as may suffice
to exchange our superfluities for our wants, may be advantageous for the
whole. But it does not follow, that, with a territory so boundless, it
is the interest of the whole to become a mere city of London, to carry
on the business of one half the world at the expense of eternal war with
the other half. The agricultural capacities of our country constitute
its distinguishing feature; and the adapting our policy and pursuits to
that, is more likely to make us a numerous and happy people, than the
mimicry of an Amsterdam, a Hamburgh, or a city of London. Every society
has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and
to say to all individuals, that, if they contemplate pursuits beyond
the limits of these principles, and involving dangers which the society
chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that
we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on
such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons
infected with disease. Such is the situation of our country. We have
most abundant resources of happiness within ourselves, which we may
enjoy in peace and safety, without permitting a few citizens, infected
with the mania of rambling and gambling, to bring danger on the great
mass engaged in innocent and safe pursuits at home. In your letter to
Fisk, you have fairly stated the alternatives between which we are to
choose: 1. licentious commerce and gambling speculations for a few, with
eternal war for the many; or, 2. restricted commerce, peace, and steady
occupations for all. If any State in the Union will declare that it
prefers separation with the first alternative, to a continuance in union
without it, I have no hesitation in saying, ‘Let us separate.’ I would
rather the States should withdraw, which are for unlimited commerce
and war, and confederate with those alone which are for peace and
agriculture. I know that every nation in Europe would join in sincere
amity with the latter, and hold the former at arm’s length, by
jealousies, prohibitions, restrictions, vexations, and war. No earthly
consideration could induce my consent to contract such a debt as England
has by her wars for commerce, to reduce our citizens by taxes to such
wretchedness, as that laboring sixteen of the twenty-four hours, they
are still unable to afford themselves bread, or barely to earn as much
oatmeal or potatoes as will keep soul and body together. And all this
to feed the avidity of a few millionary merchants, and to keep up
one thousand ships of war for the protection of their commercial
speculations. I returned from Europe after our government had got under
way, and had adopted from the British code the law of drawbacks. I early
saw its effects in the jealousies and vexations of Britain; and that,
retaining it, we must become, like her, an essentially warring nation,
and meet, in the end, the catastrophe impending over her. No one can
doubt that this alone produced the orders of council, the depredations
which preceded, and the war which followed them. Had we carried but our
own produce, and brought back but our own wants, no nation would have
troubled us. Our commercial dashers, then, have already cost us so many
thousand lives, so many millions of dollars, more than their persons
and all their commerce were worth. When war was declared, and especially
after Massachusetts, who had produced it, took side with the enemy
waging it, I pressed on some confidential friends in Congress to avail
us of the happy opportunity of repealing the drawback; and I do rejoice
to find that you are in that sentiment. You are young, and may be in the
way of bringing it into effect. Perhaps time, even yet, and change of
tone (for there are symptoms of that in Massachusetts), may not have
obliterated altogether the sense of our late feelings and sufferings;
may not have induced oblivion of the friends we have lost, the
depredations and conflagrations we have suffered, and the debts we have
incurred, and to have to labor for through the lives of the present
generation. The earlier the repeal is proposed, the more it will be
befriended by all these recollections and considerations. This is one of
three great measures necessary to insure us permanent prosperity. This
preserves our peace. A second should enable us to meet any war, by
adopting the report of the war department, for placing the force of
the nation at effectual command: and a third should insure resources
of money by the suppression of all paper circulation during peace, and
licensing that of the nation alone during war. The metallic medium of
which we should be possessed at the commencement of a war, would be
a sufficient fund for all the loans we should need through its
continuance; and if the national bills issued, be bottomed (as is
indispensable) on pledges of specific taxes for their redemption
within certain and moderate epochs, and be of proper denominations for
circulation, no interest on them would be necessary or just, because
they would answer to every one the purposes of the metallic money
withdrawn and replaced by them. But possibly these may be the dreams of
an old man, or that the occasions of realizing them may have passed away
without return. A government regulating itself by what is wise and just
for the many, uninfluenced by the local and selfish views of the few
who direct their affairs, has not been seen, perhaps, on earth. Or if it
existed, for a moment, at the birth of ours, it would not be easy to fix
the term of its continuance. Still, I believe it does exist here in a
greater degree than any where else; and for its growth and continuance,
as well as for your personal health and happiness, I offer sincere
prayers, with the homage of my respect and esteem.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXXXV.--TO SAMUEL KERCHIVAL, July 12, 1816
TO SAMUEL KERCHIVAL.
Monticello, July 12, 1816.
Sir,
I duly received your favor of June the 13th, with the copy of the
letters on the calling a convention, on which you are pleased to ask
my opinion. I have not been in the habit of mysterious reserve on any
subject, nor of buttoning up my opinions within my own doublet. On
the contrary, while in public service especially, I thought the public
entitled to frankness, and intimately to know whom they employed. But
I am now retired: I resign myself, as a passenger, with confidence to
those at present at the helm, and ask but for rest, peace, and good
will. The question you propose, on equal representation, has become a
party one, in which I wish to take no public share. Yet, if it be asked
for your own satisfaction only, and not to be quoted before the public,
I have no motive to withhold it, and the less from you, as it coincides
with your own. At the birth of our republic, I committed that opinion
to the world, in the draught of a constitution annexed to the Notes
on Virginia, in which a provision was inserted for a representation
permanently equal. The infancy of the subject at that moment, and our
inexperience of self-government, occasioned gross departures in that
draught from genuine republican canons. In truth, the abuses of monarchy
had so much filled all the space of political contemplation, that we
imagined every thing republican which was not monarchy. We had not yet
penetrated to the mother principle, that ‘governments are republican
only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute
it.’ Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principle in
them. But experience and reflection have but more and more confirmed me
in the particular importance of the equal representation then proposed.
On that point, then, I am entirely in sentiment with your letters; and
only lament that a copyright of your pamphlet prevents their appearance
in the newspapers, where alone they would be generally read, and produce
general effect. The present vacancy too, of other matter, would give
them place in every paper, and bring the question home to every man’s
conscience.
But inequality of representation in both Houses of our legislature, is
not the only republican heresy in this first essay of our revolutionary
patriots at forming a constitution. For let it be agreed that a
government is republican in proportion as every member composing it has
his equal voice in the direction of its concerns, (not indeed in person,
which would be impracticable beyond the limits of a city, or small
township, but) by representatives chosen by himself, and responsible to
him at short periods, and let us bring to the test of this canon every
branch of our constitution.
In the legislature, the House of Representatives is chosen by less than
half the people, and not at all in proportion to those who do choose.
The Senate are still more disproportionate, and for long terms of
irresponsibility. In the Executive, the Governor is entirely independent
of the choice of the people, and of their control; his Council equally
so, and at best but a fifth wheel to a wagon. In the Judiciary, the
judges of the highest courts are dependent on none but themselves.
In England, where judges were named and removable at the will of an
hereditary executive, from which branch most misrule was feared, and has
flowed, it was a great point gained, by fixing them for life, to make
them independent of that executive. But in a government founded on
the public will, this principle operates in an opposite direction,
and against that will. There, too, they were still removable on a
concurrence of the executive and legislative branches. But we have made
them independent of the nation itself. They are irremovable, but by
their own body, for any depravities of conduct, and even by their own
body for the imbecilities of dotage. The justices of the inferior
courts are self-chosen, are for life, and perpetuate their own body in
succession for ever, so that a faction once possessing themselves of
the bench of a county, can never be broken up, but hold their county in
chains, for ever indissoluble. Yet these justices are the real executive
as well as judiciary, in all our minor and most ordinary concerns. They
tax us at will; fill the office of sheriff, the most important of all
the executive officers of the county; name nearly all our military
leaders, which leaders, once named, are removable but by themselves. The
juries, our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it, are
not selected by the people, nor amenable to them. They are chosen by an
officer named by the court and executive. Chosen, did I say? Picked up
by the sheriff from the loungings of the court-yard, after every thing
respectable has retired from it. Where then is our republicanism to be
found? Not in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of
our people. That would oblige even a despot to govern us republicanly.
Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our constitution,
all things have gone well. But this fact, so triumphantly misquoted by
the enemies of reformation, is not the fruit of our constitution, but
has prevailed in spite of it. Our functionaries have done well, because
generally honest men. If any were not so, they feared to show it.
But it will be said, it is easier to find faults than to amend them. I
do not think their amendment so difficult as is pretended. Only lay down
true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened
into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of
wealth against the ascendancy of the people. If experience be called
for, appeal to that of our fifteen or twenty governments for forty
years, and show me where the people have done half the mischief in these
forty years, that a single despot would have done in a single year;
or show half the riots and rebellions, the crimes and the punishments,
which have taken place in any single nation, under Kingly government,
during the same period. The true foundation of republican government
is the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and
in their management. Try by this, as a tally, every provision of our
constitution, and see if it hangs directly on the will of the people.
Reduce your legislature to a convenient number for full, but orderly
discussion. Let every man who fights or pays, exercise his just and
equal right in their election. Submit them to approbation or rejection
at short intervals. Let the executive be chosen in the same way, and for
the same term, by those whose agent he is to be; and leave no screen of
a council behind which to skulk from responsibility. It has been thought
that the people are not competent electors of judges learned in the law.
But I do not know that this is true, and if doubtful, we should follow
principle. In this, as in many other elections, they would be guided by
reputation, which would not err oftener, perhaps, than the present mode
of appointment. In one State of the Union, at least, it has been long
tried, and with the most satisfactory success. The judges of Connecticut
have been chosen by the people every six months, for nearly two
centuries, and I believe there has hardly ever been an instance
of change; so powerful is the curb of incessant responsibility. If
prejudice, however, derived from a monarchical institution, is still
to prevail against the vital elective principle of our own, and if the
existing example among ourselves of periodical election of judges by
the people be still mistrusted, let us at least not adopt the evil, and
reject the good, of the English precedent; let us retain a movability
on the concurrence of the executive and legislative branches, and
nomination by the executive alone. Nomination to office is an executive
function. To give it to the legislature, as we do, is a violation of
the principle of the separation of powers. It swerves the members from
correctness, by temptations to intrigue for office themselves, and to
a corrupt barter of votes; and destroys responsibility by dividing it
among a multitude. By leaving nomination in its proper place, among
executive functions, the principle of the distribution of power is
preserved, and responsibility weighs with its heaviest force on a single
head.
The organization of our county administrations may be thought more
difficult. But follow principle, and the knot unties itself. Divide the
counties into wards of such size as that every citizen can attend when
called on, and act in person. Ascribe to them the government of their
wards in all things relating to themselves exclusively. A justice,
chosen by themselves, in each, a constable, a military company, a
patrol, a school, the care of their own poor, their own portion of the
public roads, the choice of one or more jurors to serve in some court,
and the delivery, within their own wards, of their own votes for
all elective officers of higher sphere, will relieve the county
administration of nearly all its business, will have it better done, and
by making every citizen an acting member of the government, and in the
offices nearest and most interesting to him, will attach him by
his strongest feelings to the independence of his country, and its
republican constitution. The justices thus chosen by every ward, would
constitute the county court, would do its judiciary business, direct
roads and bridges, levy county and poor rates, and administer all the
matters of common interest to the whole county. These wards, called
townships in New England, are the vital principle of their governments,
and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the
wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its
preservation. We should thus marshal our government into, 1. The general
federal republic, for all concerns foreign and federal; 2. That of the
State, for what relates to our own citizens exclusively; 3. The county
republics, for the duties and concerns of the county; and, 4. The ward
republics, for the small, and yet numerous and interesting concerns of
the neighborhood: and in government, as well as in every other business
of life, it is by division and sub-division of duties alone, that all
matters, great and small, can be managed to perfection. And the whole
is cemented by giving to every citizen, personally, a part in the
administration of the public affairs.
The sum of these amendments is, 1. General suffrage. 2. Equal
representation in the legislature. 3. An executive chosen by the people.
4. Judges elective or amovable. 5. Justices, jurors, and sheriffs
elective. 6. Ward divisions. And, 7. Periodical amendments of the
constitution.
I have thrown out these, as loose heads of amendment, for consideration
and correction: and their object is to secure self-government by the
republicanism of our constitution, as well as by the spirit of the
people; and to nourish and perpetuate that spirit. I am not among those
who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for
continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not
let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election
between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into
such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in
our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for
our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people,
like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the
earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily
expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we
must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to
think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to
obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the
necks of our fellow-sufferers. Our land-holders, too, like theirs,
retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs,
but held really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs, in
foreign countries, and be contented with penury, obscurity, exile, and
the glory of the nation. This example reads to us the salutary lesson
that private fortunes are destroyed by public, as well as by private
extravagance. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A
departure from principle in one instance, becomes a precedent for a
second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society
is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities
left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the _bellum
omnium in omnia_, which some philosophers observing to be so general
in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive
state of man. And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt.
Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.