welcome of every thing which comes from you. With its opinions on the
difficulties of revolutions from despotism to freedom, I very much
concur. The generation which commences a revolution rarely completes it.
Habituated from their infancy to passive submission of body fend mind
to their kings and priests, they are not qualified, when called on,
to think and provide for themselves; and their inexperience, their
ignorance and bigotry, make them instruments often, in the hands of the
Bonapartes and Iturbides, to defeat their own rights and purposes. This
is the present situation of Europe and Spanish America. But it is
not desperate. The light which has been shed on mankind by the art of
printing, has eminently changed the condition of the world. As yet, that
light has dawned on the middling classes only of the men in Europe.
The kings and the rabble, of equal ignorance, have not yet received its
rays; but it continues to spread, and while printing is preserved, it
can no more recede than the sun return on his course. A first attempt to
recover the right of self-government may fail, so may a second, a third,
&c. But as a younger and more instructed race comes on, the sentiment
becomes more and more intuitive, and a fourth, a fifth, or some
subsequent one of the ever-renewed attempts will ultimately succeed.
In France, the first effort was defeated by Robespierre, the second by
Bonaparte, the third by Louis XVIII., and his holy allies; another is
yet to come, and all Europe, Russia excepted, has caught the spirit; and
all will attain representative government, more or less perfect. This
is now well understood to be a necessary check on Kings, whom they will
probably think it more prudent to chain and tame, than to exterminate.
To attain all this, however, rivers of blood must yet flow, and years of
desolation pass over; yet the object is worth rivers of blood, and years
of desolation. For what inheritance so valuable, can man leave to his
posterity? The spirit of the Spaniard, and his deadly and eternal hatred
to a Frenchman, give me much confidence that he will never submit, but
finally defeat this atrocious violation of the laws of God and man,
under which he is suffering; and the wisdom and firmness of the Cortes,
afford reasonable hope, that that nation will settle down in a temperate
representative government, with an executive properly subordinated to
that. Portugal, Italy, Prussia, Germany, Greece, will follow suit. You
and I shall look down from another world on these glorious achievements
to man, which will add to the joys even of heaven.
I observe your toast of Mr. Jay on the 4th of July, wherein you say that
the omission of his signature to the Declaration of Independence was by
accident. Our impressions as to this fact being different, I shall
be glad to have mine corrected, if wrong. Jay, you know, had been in
constant opposition to our laboring majority. Our estimate at the time
was, that he, Dickinson, and Johnson of Maryland, by their ingenuity,
perseverance, and partiality to our English connection, had constantly
kept us a year behind where we ought to have been, in our preparations
and proceedings. From about the date of the Virginia instructions of May
the 15th, 1776, to declare Independence, Mr. Jay absented himself from
Congress, and never came there again until December, 1778. Of course,
he had no part in the discussions or decision of that question. The
instructions to their Delegates by the convention of New York, then
sitting, to sign the Declaration, were presented to Congress on the 15th
of July only, and on that day the journals show the absence of Mr. Jay,
by a letter received from him, as they had done as early as the 29th
of May, by another letter. And I think he had been omitted by the
convention on a new election of Delegates, when they changed their
instructions. Of this last fact, however, having no evidence but an
ancient impression, I shall not affirm it. But whether so or not, no
agency of accident appears in the case. This error of fact, however,
whether yours or mine, is of little consequence to the public. But
truth being as cheap as error, it is as well to rectify it for our own
satisfaction.
I have had a fever of about three weeks, during the last and preceding
month, from which I am entirely recovered except as to strength.
Ever affectionately yours.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXV.--TO JOHN ADAMS, October 12, 1823
TO JOHN ADAMS.
Monticello, October 12, 1823.
Dear Sir,
I do not write with the ease which your letter of September the 18th
supposes. Crippled wrists and fingers make writing slow and laborious.
But while writing to you, I lose the sense of these things in the
recollection of ancient times, when youth and health made happiness out
of every thing. I forget for a while the hoary winter of age, when we
can think of nothing but how to keep ourselves warm, and how to get rid
of our heavy hours until the friendly hand of death shall rid us of all
at once. Against this _tedium vita_, however, I am fortunately mounted
on a hobby, which, indeed, I should have better managed some thirty
or forty years ago; but whose easy amble is still sufficient to give
exercise and amusement to an octogenary rider. This is the establishment
of a University, on a scale more comprehensive, and in a country more
healthy and central than our old William and Mary, which these obstacles
have long kept in a state of languor and inefficiency. But the tardiness
with which such works proceed, may render it doubtful whether I shall
live to see it go into action.
Putting aside these things, however, for the present, I write this
letter as due to a friendship coeval with our government, and now
attempted to be poisoned, when too late in life to be replaced by new
affections. I had for some time observed, in the public papers, dark
hints and mysterious innuendoes of a correspondence of yours with a
friend, to whom you had opened your bosom without reserve, and which was
to be made public by that friend or his representative. And now it is
said to be actually published. It has not yet reached us, but extracts
have been given, and such as seemed most likely to draw a curtain of
separation between you and myself. Were there no other motive than that
of indignation against the author of this outrage on private confidence,
whose shaft seems to have been aimed at yourself more particularly, this
would make it the duty of every honorable mind to disappoint that
aim, by opposing to its impression a seven-fold shield of apathy
and insensibility. With me, however, no such armor is needed. The
circumstances of the times in which we have happened to live, and the
partiality of our friends at a particular period, placed us in a state
of apparent opposition, which some might suppose to be personal also:
and there might, not be wanting those who wished to make it so, by
filling our ears with malignant falsehoods, by dressing up hideous
phantoms of their own creation, presenting them to you under my name,
to me under yours, and endeavoring to instil into our minds things
concerning each other the most destitute of truth. And if there had
been, at any time, a moment when we were off our guard, and in a temper
to let the whispers of these people make us forget what we had known of
each other for so many years, and years of so much trial, yet all men,
who have attended to the workings of the human mind, who have seen
the false colors under which passion sometimes dresses the actions and
motives of others, have seen also those passions subsiding with time and
reflection, dissipating like mists before the rising sun, and restoring
to us the sight of all things in their true shape and colors. It would
be strange, indeed, if, at our years, we were to go an age back to hunt
up imaginary or forgotten facts, to disturb the repose of affections so
sweetening to the evening of our lives. Be assured, my dear Sir, that I
am incapable of receiving the slightest impression from the effort now
made to plant thorns on the pillow of age, worth, and wisdom, and to
sow tares between friends who have been such for near half a century.
Beseeching you, then, not to suffer your mind to be disquieted by this
wicked attempt to poison its peace, and praying you to throw it by among
the things which have never happened, I add sincere assurances of my
unabated and constant attachment, friendship, and respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXVI.--TO THE PRESIDENT, October 24,1823
TO THE PRESIDENT.
Monticello, October 24,1823.
Dear Sir,
The question presented by the letters you have sent me, is the most
momentous which has ever been offered to my contemplation since that of
Independence. That made us a nation, this sets our compass, and points
the course which we are to steer through the ocean of time opening on
us. And never could we embark on it under circumstances more auspicious.
Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to entangle ourselves
in the broils of Europe. Our second, never to suffer Europe to
intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs. America, North and South, has a
set of interests distinct from those of Europe, and peculiarly her own.
She should therefore have a system of her own, separate and apart from
that of Europe. While the last is laboring to become the domicile of
despotism, our endeavor should surely be, to make our hemisphere that of
freedom. One nation, most of all, could disturb us in this pursuit;
she now offers to lead, aid, and accompany us in it. By acceding to her
proposition, we detach her from the band of despots, bring her mighty
weight into the scale of free government, and emancipate a continent at
one stroke, which might otherwise linger long in doubt and difficulty.
Great Britain is the nation which can do us the most harm of any one,
or all, on earth; and with her on our side we need not fear the whole
world. With her, then, we should most sedulously cherish a cordial
friendship; and nothing would tend more to knit our affections, than to
be fighting once more, side by side, in the same cause. Not that I would
purchase even her amity at the price of taking part in her wars. But the
war in which the present proposition might engage us, should that be its
consequence, is not her war, but ours. Its object is to introduce and
establish the American system, of keeping out of our land all foreign
powers, of never permitting those of Europe to intermeddle with the
affairs of our nations. It is to maintain our own principle, not to
depart from it. And if, to facilitate this, we can effect a division
in the body of the European powers, and draw over to our side its
most powerful member, surely we should do it. But I am clearly of Mr.
Canning’s opinion, that it will prevent instead of provoking war. With
Great Britain withdrawn from their scale, and shifted into that of our
two continents, all Europe combined would not undertake such a war. For
how would they propose to get at either enemy without superior fleets?
Nor is the occasion to be slighted which this proposition offers, of
declaring our protest against the atrocious violations of the rights
of nations, by the interference of any one in the internal affairs of
another, so flagitiously begun by Bonaparte, and now continued by the
equally lawless Alliance, calling itself Holy.
But we have first to ask ourselves a question. Do we wish to acquire to
our own confederacy any one or more of the Spanish provinces? I candidly
confess, that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting
addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control
which, with Florida Point, this island would give us over the Gulf of
Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as
all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our
political well-being. Yet, as I am sensible that this can never be
obtained, even with her own consent, but by war; and its independence,
which is our second interest (and especially its independence of
England), can be secured without it, I have no hesitation in abandoning
my first wish to future chances, and accepting its independence, with
peace and the friendship of England, rather than its association, at the
expense of war and her enmity.
I could honestly, therefore, join in the declaration proposed, that we
aim not at the acquisition of any of those possessions, that we will not
stand in the way of any amicable arrangement between them and the mother
country; but that we will oppose, with all our means, the forcible
interposition of any other power, as auxiliary, stipendiary, or under
any other form or pretext, and most especially, their transfer to any
power by conquest, cession, or acquisition in any other way. I should
think it, therefore, advisable, that the Executive should encourage the
British government to a continuance in the dispositions expressed in
these letters, by an assurance of his concurrence with them as far as
his authority goes; and that as it may lead to war, the declaration of
which requires an act of Congress, the case shall be laid before them
for consideration at their first meeting, and under the reasonable
aspect in which it is seen by himself.
I have been so long weaned from political subjects, and have so long
ceased to take any interest in them, that I am sensible I am not
qualified to offer opinions on them worthy of any attention. But the
question now proposed involves consequences so lasting, and effects so
decisive of our future destinies, as to re-kindle all the interest I
have heretofore felt on such occasions, and to induce me to the hazard
of opinions, which will prove only my wish to contribute still my mite
towards any thing which may be useful to our country. And praying you to
accept it at only what it is worth, I add the assurance of my constant
and affectionate friendship and respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXVII.--TO THE MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE, November 4, 1823
TO THE MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE.
Monticello, November 4, 1823.
My Dear Friend,
Two dislocated wrists and crippled fingers have rendered writing so
slow and laborious, as to oblige me to withdraw from nearly all
correspondence: not, however, from yours, while I can make a stroke with
a pen. We have gone through too many trying scenes together, to forget
the sympathies and affections they nourished.
Your trials have indeed been long and severe. When they will end, is yet
unknown, but where they will end, cannot be doubted. Alliances, Holy or
Hellish, may be formed, and retard the epoch of deliverance, may swell
the rivers of blood which are yet to flow, but their own will close the
scene, and leave to mankind the right of self-government. I trust that
Spain will prove, that a nation cannot be conquered which determines
not to be so, and that her success will be the turning of the tide of
liberty, no more to be arrested by human efforts. Whether the state of
society in Europe can bear a republican government, I doubted, you know
when with you, and I do now. A hereditary chief, strictly limited, the
right of war vested in the legislative body, a rigid economy of the
public contributions, and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses,
will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.
But the only security o£ all, is in a free press. The force of public
opinion cannot be resisted, when permitted freely to be expressed. The
agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary to keep the
waters pure.
We are all, for example, in agitation even in our peaceful country. For
in peace as well as in war, the mind must be kept in motion. Who is
to be the next President, is the topic here of every conversation. My
opinion on that subject is what I expressed to you in my last letter.
The question will be ultimately reduced to the northernmost and
southernmost candidates. The former will get every federal vote in the
Union, and many republicans; the latter, all those denominated of
the old school; for you are not to believe that these two parties are
amalgamated, that the lion and the lamb are lying down together.
The Hartford convention, the victory of Orleans, the peace of Ghent,
prostrated the name of federalism. Its votaries abandoned it through
shame and mortification; and now call themselves republicans. But the
name alone is changed, the principles are the same. For in truth,
the parties of Whig and Tory are those of nature. They exist in all
countries, whether called by these names, or by those of Aristocrats and
Democrats, Cote Droite and Cote Gauche, Ultras and Radicals, Serviles
and Liberals. The sickly, weakly, timid man, fears the people, and is
a tory by nature. The healthy, strong, and bold, cherishes them, and is
formed a whig by nature. On the eclipse of federalism with us, although
not its extinction, its leaders got up the Missouri question, under the
false front of lessening the measure of slavery, but with the real view
of producing a geographical division of parties, which might insure
them the next President. The people of the north went blindfold into the
snare, followed their leaders for a while with a zeal truly moral and
laudable, until they became sensible that they were injuring instead of
aiding the real interests of the slaves, that they had been used, merely
as tools for electioneering purposes; and that trick of hypocrisy then
fell as quickly as it had been got up. To that is now succeeding a
distinction, which, like that of republican and federal, or whig and
tory, being equally intermixed through every State, threatens none of
those geographical schisms which go immediately to a separation. The
line of division now is the preservation of State rights as reserved in
the constitution, or by strained constructions of that instrument,
to merge all into a consolidated government. The tories are for
strengthening the executive and General Government; the whigs cherish
the representative branch, and the rights reserved by the States, as the
bulwark against consolidation, which must immediately generate monarchy.
And although this division excites, as yet, no warmth, yet it exists,
is well understood, and will be a principle of voting at the ensuing
election, with the reflecting men of both parties.
I thank you much for the two books you were so kind as to send me by Mr.
Gallatin. Miss Wright had before favored me with the first edition of
her American work: but her ‘Few Days in Athens,’ was entirely new, and
has been a treat to me of the highest order. The matter and manner
of the dialogue is strictly ancient; the principles of the sects are
beautifully and candidly explained and contrasted; and the scenery and
portraiture of the interlocutors are of higher finish than any thing in
that line left us by the ancients; and like Ossian, if not ancient, it
is equal to the best morsels of antiquity. I augur, from this instance,
that Herculaneum is likely to furnish better specimens of modern than of
ancient genius; and may we not hope more from the same pen?
After much sickness, and the accident of a broken and disabled arm, I
am again in tolerable health, but extremely debilitated, so as to be
scarcely able to walk into my garden. The hebitude of age too, and
extinguishment of interest in the things around me, are weaning me from
them, and dispose me with cheerfulness to resign them to the existing
generation, satisfied that the daily advance of science will enable them
to administer the commonwealth with increased wisdom. You have still
many valuable years to give to your country, and with my prayers that,
they may be years of health and happiness, and especially that they may
see the establishment of the principles of government which you have
cherished through life, accept the assurance of my affectionate and
constant friendship and respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXVIII.--TO JOSEPH C CABELL, February 3, 1824
TO JOSEPH C CABELL.
Monticello, February 3, 1824.
Dear Sir,
I am favored with your two letters of January the 26th and 29th, and
am glad that yourself and the friends of the University are so well
satisfied, that the provisos amendatory of the University Act are mere
nullities. I had not been able to put out of my head the Algebraical
equation, which was among the first of my college lessons, that a—a = 0.
Yet I cheerfully arrange myself to your opinions. I did not suppose, nor
do I now suppose it possible, that both Houses of the legislature should
ever consent, for an additional fifteen thousand dollars of revenue,
to set all the Professors and students of the University adrift: and
if foreigners will have the same confidence which we have in our
legislature, no harm will have been done by the provisos.
You recollect that we had agreed that the Visitors who are of the
legislature should fix on a certain day of meeting, after the rising of
the Assembly, to put into immediate motion the measures which this act
was expected to call for. You will of course remind the Governor that
a re-appointment of Visitors is to be made on the day following Sunday,
the 29th of this month; and as he is to appoint the day of their first
meeting, it would be well to recommend to him that which our brethren
there shall fix on. It may be designated by the Governor as the third,
fourth, &c. day after the rising of the legislature, which will give it
certainty enough.
You ask what sum would be desirable for the purchase of books and
apparatus. Certainly the largest you can obtain. Forty or fifty thousand
dollars would enable us to purchase the most essential books of text
and reference for the schools, and such an apparatus for Mathematics,
Astronomy, and Chemistry, as may enable us to set out with tolerable
competence, if we can, through the banks and otherwise, anticipate the
whole sum at once.
I remark what you say on the subject of committing ourselves to any one
for the Law appointment. Your caution is perfectly just. I hope, and am
certain, that this will be the standing law of discretion and duty with
every member of our board, in this and all cases. You know we have
all, from the beginning, considered the high qualifications of our
Professors, as the only means by which we can give to our institution
splendor and pre-eminence over all its sister seminaries. The only
question, therefore, we can ever ask ourselves, as to any candidate,
will be, Is he the most highly qualified? The college of Philadelphia
has lost its character of primacy by indulging motives of favoritism and
nepotism, and by conferring the appointments as if the professorships
were entrusted to them as provisions for their friends. And even that
of Edinburgh, you know, is also much lowered from the same cause. We are
next to observe, that a man is not qualified for a Professor, knowing
nothing but merely his own profession. He should be otherwise well
educated as to the sciences generally; able to converse understandingly
with the scientific men with whom he is associated, and to assist in the
councils of the Faculty on any subject of science on which they may have
occasion to deliberate. Without this, he will incur their contempt,
and bring disreputation on the institution. With respect to the
professorship you mention, I scarcely know any of our judges personally;
but I will name, for example, the late Judge Roane, who, I believe, was
generally admitted to be among the ablest of them. His knowledge was
confined to the common law chiefly, which does not constitute one half
of the qualification of a really learned lawyer, much less that of a
Professor of law for an University. And as to any other branches
of science, he must have stood mute in the presence of his literary
associates, or of any learned strangers or others visiting the
University. Would this constitute the splendid stand we propose to take?
In the course of the trusts I have exercised through life with powers of
appointment, I can say with truth, and with unspeakable comfort, that I
never did appoint a relation to office, and that merely because I
never saw the case in which some one did not offer, or occur, better
qualified; and I have the most unlimited confidence, that in the
appointment of Professors to our nursling institution, every individual
of my associates will look with a single eye to the sublimation of its
character, and adopt, as our sacred motto, ‘_Detur digniori_? In this
way it will honor us, and bless our country.
I perceive that I have permitted my reflections to run into generalities
beyond the scope of the particular intimation in your letter I will let
them go, however, as a general confession of faith, not belonging merely
to the present case.
Name me affectionately to our brethren with you, and be assured yourself
of my constant friendship and respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXIX.--TO JARED SPARKS, February 4, 1824
TO JARED SPARKS.
Monticello, February 4, 1824.
Dear Sir,