does the Holy Alliance in and out of Congress mean to do with us on the
Missouri question? And this, by the bye, is but the name of the case, it
is only the John Doe or Richard Roe of the ejectment. The real question,
as seen in the States afflicted with this unfortunate population,
is, Are our slaves to be presented with freedom and a dagger? For if
Congress has the power to regulate the conditions of the inhabitants of
the States, within the States, it will be but another exercise of that
power, to declare that all shall be free. Are we then to see again
Athenian and Lacedæmonian confederacies? To wage another Peloponnesian
war to settle the ascendancy between them? Or is this the tocsin of
merely a servile war? That remains to be seen: but not, I hope, by you
or me. Surely, they will parley awhile, and give us time to get out
of the way. What a Bedlamite is man? But let us turn from our own
uneasiness to the miseries of our southern friends. Bolivar and Morillo,
it seems, have come to a parley, with dispositions at length to stop
the useless effusion of human blood in that quarter. I feared from the
beginning, that these people were not yet sufficiently enlightened for
self-government; and that after wading through blood and slaughter,
they would end in military tyrannies, more or less numerous. Yet as they
wished to try the experiment, I wished them success in it: they have
now tried it, and will possibly find that their safest road will be an
accommodation with the mother country, which shall hold them together
by the single link of the same chief magistrate, leaving to him power
enough to keep them in peace with one another, and to themselves the
essential power of self-government and self-improvement, until they
shall be sufficiently trained by education and habits of freedom,
to walk safely by themselves. Representative government, native
functionaries, a qualified negative on their laws, with a previous
security by compact for freedom of commerce, freedom of the press,
habeas corpus, and trial by jury, would make a good beginning. This
last would be the school in which their people might begin to learn the
exercise of civic duties as well as rights. For freedom of religion they
are not yet prepared. The scales of bigotry have not sufficiently fallen
from their eyes, to accept it for themselves individually, much less to
trust others with it. But that will come in time, as well as a general
ripeness to break entirely from the parent stem. You see, my dear Sir,
how easily we prescribe for others a cure for their difficulties, while
we cannot cure our own. We must leave both, I believe, to Heaven, and
wrap ourselves up in the mantle of resignation, and of that friendship
of which I tender to you the most sincere assurances.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLVIII.--TO JOSEPH C CABELL, January 31, 1821
TO JOSEPH C CABELL.
Monticello, January 31, 1821.
Dear Sir,
Your favors of the 18th and 25th came together, three days ago. They
fill me with gloom as to the dispositions of our legislature towards
the University. I perceive that I am not to live to see it opened. As
to what had better be done within the limits of their will, I trust
with entire confidence to what yourself, General Breckenridge, and Mr.
Johnson shall think best. You will see what is practicable, and give it
such shape as you think best. If a loan is to be resorted to, I think
sixty thousand dollars will be necessary, including the library.
Its instalments cannot begin until those of the former loan are
accomplished; and they should not begin later, nor be less than thirteen
thousand dollars a year. (I think it safe to retain two thousand dollars
a year for care of the buildings, improvement of the grounds, and
unavoidable contingencies.) To extinguish the second loan, will require
between five and six instalments, which will carry us to the end of
1833, or thirteen years from this time. My individual opinion is, that
we had better not open the institution until the buildings, library, and
all, are finished, and our funds cleared of incumbrance. These buildings
once erected, will secure the full object infallibly at the end of
thirteen years, and as much earlier as the legislature shall choose. And
if we were to begin sooner, with half funds only, it would satisfy the
common mind, prevent their aid beyond that point, and our institution,
remaining at that for ever, would be no more than the paltry academies
we now have. Even with the whole funds we shall be reduced to six
Professors. While Harvard will still prime it over us with her twenty
Professors. How many of our youths she now has, learning the lessons of
anti-Missourianism, I know not; but a gentleman lately from Princeton
told me he saw there the list of the students at that place, and that
more than half were Virginians. These will return home, no doubt,
deeply impressed with the sacred principles of our Holy Alliance of
restrictionists.
But the gloomiest of all prospects, is in the desertion of the best
friends of the institution, for desertion I must call it. I know not the
necessities which may force this on you. General Cocke, you say, will
explain them to me; but I cannot conceive them, nor persuade myself
they are uncontrollable. I have ever hoped, that yourself, General
Breckenridge, and Mr. Johnson, would stand at your posts in the
legislature, until every thing was effected, and the institution opened.
If it is so difficult to get along with all the energy and influence of
our present colleagues in the legislature, how can we expect to proceed
at all, reducing our moving power? I know well your devotion to your
country, and your foresight of the awful scenes coming on her, sooner or
later. With this foresight, what service can we ever render her equal
to this? What object of our lives can we propose so important? What
interest of our own which ought not to be postponed to this? Health,
time, labor, on what in the single life which nature has given us, can
these be better bestowed than on this immortal boon to our country? The
exertions and the mortifications are temporary; the benefit eternal. If
any member of our college of Visitors could justifiably withdraw from
this sacred duty, it would be myself, who _quadragenis stipendiis
jamdudum peractis_, have neither vigor of body nor mind left to keep
the field: but I will die in the last ditch, and so I hope you will,
my friend, as well as our firm-breasted brothers and colleagues, Mr.
Johnson and General Breckenridge. Nature will not give you a second life
wherein to atone for the omissions of this. Pray then, dear and very
dear Sir, do not think of deserting us, but view the sacrifices which
seem to stand in your way, as the lesser duties, and such as ought to be
postponed to this, the greatest of all. Continue with us in these holy
labors, until, having seen their accomplishment, we may say with old
Simeon, ‘_Nunc dimittas, Domine_. Under all circumstances, however, of
praise or blame, I shall be affectionately yours.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLIX.--TO GENERAL BRECKENRIDGE, February 15, 1821
TO GENERAL BRECKENRIDGE.
Monticello, February 15, 1821.
Dear Sir,
I learn with deep affliction, that nothing is likely to be done for our
University this year. So near as it is to the shore that one shove more
would land it there, I had hoped that would be given; and that we should
open with the next year an institution on which the fortunes of our
country may depend more than may meet the general eye. The reflections
that the boys of this age are to be the men of the next; that they
should be prepared to receive the holy charge which we are cherishing to
deliver over to them; that in establishing an institution of wisdom for
them, we secure it to all our future generations; that in fulfilling
this duty, we bring home to our own bosoms the sweet consolation of
seeing our sons rising under a luminous tuition, to destinies of high
promise; these are considerations which will occur to all; but all, I
fear, do not see the speck in our horizon which is to burst on us as a
tornado, sooner or later. The line of division lately marked out between
different portions of our confederacy, is such as will never, I fear,
be obliterated, and we are now trusting to those who are against us
in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds
and affections of our youth. If, as has been estimated, we send three
hundred thousand dollars a year to the northern seminaries, for the
instruction of our own sons, then we must have there five hundred of our
sons, imbibing opinions and principles in discord with those of their
own country. This canker is eating on the vitals of our existence, and
if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy. We are now certainly
furnishing recruits to their school. If it be asked what are we to do,
or said we cannot give the last lift to the University without stopping
our primary schools, and these we think most important; I answer, I know
their importance. Nobody can doubt my zeal for the general instruction
of the people. Who first started that idea? I may surely say, Myself.
Turn to the bill in the revised code, which I drew more than forty
years ago, and before which the idea of a plan for the education of the
people, generally, had never been suggested in this State. There you
will see developed the first rudiments of the whole system of general
education we are now urging and acting on: and it is well known to those
With whom I have acted on this subject, that I never have proposed a
sacrifice of the primary to the ultimate grade of instruction. Let us
keep our eye steadily on the whole system. If we cannot do every
thing at once, let us do one at a time. The primary schools need
no preliminary expense; the ultimate grade requires a considerable
expenditure in advance. A suspension of proceeding for a year or two on
the primary schools, and an application of the whole income, during that
time, to the completion of the buildings necessary for the University,
would enable us then to start both institutions at the same time. The
intermediate branch, of colleges, academies, and private classical
schools, for the middle grade, may hereafter receive any necessary aids
when the funds shall become competent. In the mean time, they are going
on sufficiently, as they have ever yet gone on, at the private expense
of those who use them, and who in numbers and means are competent to
their own exigencies. The experience of three years has, I presume, left
no doubt, that the present plan of primary schools, of putting money
into the hands of twelve hundred persons acting for nothing, and under
no responsibility, is entirely inefficient. Some other must be thought
of; and during this pause, if it be only for a year, the whole revenue
of that year, with that of the last three years which has not been
already thrown away, would place our University in readiness to start
with a better organization of primary schools, and both may then go on,
hand in hand, for ever. No diminution of the capital will in this way
have been incurred; a principle which ought to be deemed sacred. A
relinquishment of interest on the late loan of sixty thousand dollars,
would so far, also, forward the University without lessening the
capital.
But what may be best done I leave with entire confidence to yourself and
your colleagues in legislation, who know better than I do the conditions
of the literary fund and its wisest application; and I shall acquiesce
with perfect resignation to their will. I have brooded, perhaps with
fondness, over this establishment, as it held up to me the hope of
continuing to be useful while I continued to live. I had believed that
the course and circumstances of my life had placed within my power some
services favorable to the outset of the institution. But this may be
egoism; pardonable, perhaps, when I express a consciousness that my
colleagues and successors will do as well, whatever the legislature
shall enable them to do.
I have thus, my dear Sir, opened my bosom, with all its anxieties,
freely to you. I blame nobody for seeing things in a different light. I
am sure that all act conscientiously, and that all will be done honestly
and wisely which can be done. I yield the concerns of the world with
cheerfulness to those who are appointed in the order of nature to
succeed to them; and for yourself, for our colleagues, and for all in
charge of our country’s future fame and fortune, I offer up sincere
prayers.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLX.--TO --------- NICHOLAS, December 11,1821
TO --------- NICHOLAS.
Monticello, December 11,1821,
Dear Sir,
Your letter of December the 19th places me under a dilemma, which I
cannot solve but by an exposition of the naked truth. I would have
wished this rather to have remained as hitherto, without inquiry; but
your inquiries have a right to be answered. I will do it as exactly
as the great lapse of time and a waning memory will enable me. I may
misremember indifferent circumstances, but can be right in substance.
At the time when the republicans of our country were so much alarmed at
the proceedings of the federal ascendancy in Congress, in the
executive and the judiciary departments, it became a matter of serious
consideration how head could be made against their enterprises on the
constitution. The leading republicans in Congress found themselves of
no use there, browbeaten, as they were, by a bold and overwhelming
majority. They concluded to retire from that field, take a stand in the
State legislatures, and endeavor there to arrest their progress. The
alien and sedition laws furnished the particular occasion. The sympathy
between Virginia and Kentucky was more cordial, and more intimately
confidential, than between any other two States of republican policy.
Mr. Madison came into the Virginia legislature. 1 was then in the
Vice-Presidency, and could not leave my station. But your father,
Colonel W. C. Nicholas, and myself happening to be together, the
engaging the co-operation of Kentucky in an energetic protestation
against the constitutionality of those laws, became a subject of
consultation. Those gentlemen pressed me strongly to sketch resolutions
for that purpose, your father undertaking to introduce them to that
legislature, with a solemn assurance, which I strictly required, that
it should not be known from what quarter they came. I drew and delivered
them to him, and, in keeping their origin secret, he fulfilled his
pledge of honor. Some years after this, Colonel Nicholas asked me if
I would have any objection to its being known that I had drawn them.
I pointedly enjoined that it should not. Whether he had unguardedly
intimated it before to any one, I know not: but I afterwards observed in
the papers repeated imputations of them to me; on which, as has been my
practice on all occasions of imputation, I have observed entire silence.
The question, indeed, has never before been put to me, nor should I
answer it to any other than yourself; seeing no good end to be proposed
by it, and the desire of tranquillity inducing with me a wish to be
withdrawn from public notice. Your father’s zeal and talents were too
well known, to derive any additional distinction from the penning these
resolutions. That circumstance, surely, was of far less merit than the,
proposing and carrying them through the legislature of his State. The
only fact in this statement, on which my memory is not distinct, is
the time and occasion of the consultation with your father and Colonel
Nicholas. It took place here I know; but whether any other person was
present, or communicated with, is my doubt. I think Mr. Madison was
either with us, or consulted, but my memory is uncertain as to minute
details.
I fear, Dear Sir, we are now in such another crisis, with this
difference only, that the judiciary branch is alone and single-handed in
the present assaults on the constitution. But its assaults are more sure
and deadly, as from an agent seemingly passive and unassuming. May you
and your cotemporaries meet them with the same determination and effect,
as your father and his did the alien and sedition laws, and preserve
inviolate a constitution, which, cherished in all its chastity and
purity, will prove in the end a blessing to all the nations of the
earth. With these prayers, accept those for your own happiness and
prosperity.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXI.--TO JEDIDIAH MORSE, March 6, 1822
TO JEDIDIAH MORSE.
Monticello, March 6, 1822.
Sir,
I have duly received your letter of February the 16th, and have now to
express my sense of the honorable station proposed to my ex-brethren
and myself, in the constitution of the society for the civilization and
improvement of the Indian tribes. The object, too, expressed, as that of
the association, is one which I have ever had much at heart, and never
omitted an occasion of promoting, while I have been in situations to
do it with effect, and nothing, even now, in the calm of age and
retirement, would excite in me a more lively interest than an approvable
plan of raising that respectable and unfortunate people from the state
of physical and moral abjection, to which they have been reduced by
circumstances foreign to them. That the plan now proposed is entitled
to unmixed approbation, I am not prepared to say, after mature
consideration, and with all the partialities which its professed object
would rightfully claim from me.
I shall not undertake to draw the line of demarcation between private
associations of laudable views and unimposing numbers, and those whose
magnitude may rivalize and jeopardize the march of regular government.
Yet such a line does exist. I have seen the days, they were those which
preceded the Revolution, when even this last and perilous engine became
necessary; but they were days which no man would wish to see a second
time. That was the case where the regular authorities of the government
had combined against the rights of the people, and no means of
correction remained to them, but to organize a collateral power, which,
with their support, might rescue and secure their violated rights. But
such is not the case with our government. We need hazard no collateral
power, which, by a change of its original views, and assumption of
others we know not how virtuous or how mischievous, would be ready
organized, and in force sufficient to shake the established foundations
of society, and endanger its peace and the principles on which it is
based. Is not the machine now proposed of this gigantic stature? It
is to consist of the ex-Presidents of the United States, the
Vice-President, the Heads of all the executive departments, the members
of the supreme judiciary, the Governors of the several States and
Territories, all the members of both Houses of Congress, all the general
officers of the army, the commissioners of the navy, all Presidents and
Professors of colleges and theological seminaries, all the clergy of
the United States, the. Presidents and Secretaries of all associations
having relation to Indians, all commanding officers within or near
Indian territories, all Indian superintendants and agents; all these ex
officio; and as many private individuals as will pay a certain price
for membership. Observe, too, that the clergy will constitute * nineteen
twentieths of this association, and, by the law of the majority, may
command the twentieth part, which, composed of all the high authorities
of the United States, civil and military, may be outvoted and wielded
by the nineteen parts with uncontrollable power, both as to purpose and
process. . Can this formidable array be reviewed without dismay?
* The clergy of the United States may probably be estimated
at eight thousand. The residue of this society at four
hundred; but if the former number be halved, the reasoning
will be the same.
It will be said, that in this association will be all the confidential
officers of the government; the choice of the people themselves. No man
on earth has more implicit confidence than myself in the integrity
and discretion of this chosen band of servants. But is confidence or
discretion, or is strict limit, the principle of our constitution? It
will comprehend, indeed, all the functionaries of the government: but
seceded from their consitutional stations as guardians of the nation,
and acting not by the laws of their station, but by those of a voluntary
society, having no limit to their purposes but the same will which
constitutes their existence. It will be the authorities of the people,
and all influential characters from among them, arrayed on one side, and
on the other, the people themselves deserted by their leaders. It is a
fearful array. It will be said, that these are imaginary fears. I know
they are so at present. I know it is as impossible for these agents of
our choice and unbounded confidence, to harbor machinations against
the adored principles of our constitution, as for gravity to change
its direction, and gravid bodies to mount upwards. The fears are indeed
imaginary: but the example is real. Under its authority, as a precedent,
future associations will arise with objects at which we should
shudder at this time. The society of Jacobins, in another country,
was instituted on principles and views as virtuous as ever kindled the
hearts of patriots. It was the pure patriotism of their purposes which
extended their association to the limits of the nation, and rendered
their power within it boundless; and it was this power which degenerated
their principles and practices to such enormities, as never before could
have been imagined. Yet these were men; and we and our descendants
will be no more. The present is a case where, if ever, we are to guard
against ourselves; not against ourselves as we are, but as we may be;
for who can now imagine what we may become under circumstances not now
imaginable? The object, too, of this institution, seems to require
so hazardous an example as little as any which could be proposed. The
government is, at this time, going on with the process of civilizing
the Indians, on a plan probably as promising as any one of us is able
to devise, and with resources more competent than we could expect to
command by voluntary taxation. Is it that the new characters called into
association with those of the government, are wiser than these? Is it
that a plan originated by a meeting of private individuals, is better
than that prepared by the concentrated wisdom of the nation, of men not
self-chosen, but clothed with the full confidence of the people? Is it
that there is no danger that a new authority, marching independently
along side of the government, in the same line and to the same object,
may not produce collision, may not thwart and obstruct the operations of
the government, or wrest the object entirely from their hands? Might we
not as well appoint a committee for each department of the government,
to counsel and direct its head separately, as volunteer ourselves to
counsel and direct the whole, in mass? And might we not do it as well
for their foreign, their fiscal, and their military, as for their Indian
affairs? And how many societies, auxiliary to the government, may we
expect to see spring up, in imitation of this, offering to associate
themselves in this and that of its functions? In a word, why not take
the government out of its constitutional hands, associate them indeed
with us, to preserve a semblance that the acts are theirs, but insuring
them to be our own by allowing them a minor vote only?
These considerations have impressed my mind with a force so
irrresistible, that (in duty bound to answer your polite letter, without
which I should not have obtruded an opinion) I have not been able to
withhold the expression of them. Not knowing the individuals who have
proposed this plan, I cannot be conceived as entertaining personal
disrespect for them. On the contrary, I see in the printed list persons
for whom I cherish sentiments of sincere friendship; and others, for
whose opinions and purity of purpose I have the highest respect. Yet
thinking, as I do, that this association is unnecessary; that the
government is proceeding to the same object under control of the law;
that they are competent to it in wisdom, in means, and inclination; that
this association, this wheel within a wheel, is more likely to produce
collision than aid; and that it is, in its magnitude, of dangerous
example; I am bound to say, that, as a dutiful citizen, I cannot in
conscience become a member of this society, possessing as it does my
entire confidence in the integrity of its views. I feel with awe the
weight of opinion to which I may be opposed, and that, for myself, I
have need to ask the indulgence of a belief, that the opinion I have
given is the best result I can deduce from my own reason and experience,
and that it is sincerely conscientious. Repeating, therefore, my just
acknowledgments for the honor proposed to me, I beg leave to add the
assurances to the society and yourself of my highest confidence and
consideration.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXII.--TO DOCTOR BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE, June 26, 1822
TO DOCTOR BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE.
Monticello, June 26, 1822.
Dear Sir,
I have received and read with thankfulness and pleasure your
denunciation of the abuses of tobacco and wine. Yet, however sound in
its principles, I expect it will be but a sermon to the wind. You will
find it is as difficult to inculcate these sanative precepts on the
sensualities of the present day, as to convince an Athanasian that there
is but one God. I wish success to both attempts, and am happy to learn
from you that the latter, at least, is making progress, and the more
rapidly in proportion as our Platonizing Christians make more stir and
noise about it. The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the
happiness of man.
1. That there is one only God, and he all perfect.
2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments.
3. That to love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself, is
the sum of religion. These are the great points on which he endeavored
to reform the religion of the Jews. But compare with these the
demoralizing dogmas of Calvin.