the North American Review. This has anticipated the one I should receive
in course, but have not yet received, under my subscription to the new
series. The article on the African colonization of the people of color,
to which you invite my attention, I have read with great consideration.
It is, indeed, a fine one, and will do much good. I learn from it more,
too, than I had before known, of the degree of success and promise of
that colony.
In the disposition of these unfortunate people, there are two rational
objects to be distinctly kept in view. 1. The establishment of a colony
on the coast of Africa, which may introduce among the aborigines the
arts of cultivated life, and the blessings of civilization and science.
By doing this, we may make to them some retribution for the long course
of injuries we have been committing on their population. And considering
that these blessings will descend to the ‘_nati natorum, et qui
nascentur ab illis_,’ we shall in the long run have rendered them
perhaps more good than evil. To fulfil this object, the colony of
Sierra Leone promises well, and that of Mesurado adds to our prospect of
success. Under this view, the Colonization Society is to be considered
as a missionary society, having in view, however, objects more humane,
more justifiable, and less aggressive on the peace of other nations,
than the others of that appellation.
The second object, and the most interesting to us, as coming home to
our physical and moral characters, to our happiness and safety, is to
provide an asylum to which we can, by degrees, send the whole of that
population from among us, and establish them under our patronage and
protection, as a separate, free, and independent people, in some country
and climate friendly to human life and happiness. That any place on the
coast of Africa should answer the latter purpose, I have ever deemed
entirely impossible. And without repeating the other arguments which
have been urged by others, I will appeal to figures only, which admit
no controversy. I shall speak in round numbers, not absolutely accurate,
yet not so wide from truth as to vary the result materially. There are
in the United States a million and a half of people of color in
slavery. To send off the whole of these at once, nobody conceives to be
practicable for us, or expedient for them. Let us take twenty-five years
for its accomplishment, within which time they will be doubled. Their
estimated value as property, in the first place, (for actual property
has been lawfully vested in that form, and who can lawfully take it from
the possessors?) at an average of two hundred dollars each, young and
old, would amount to six hundred millions of dollars, which must be paid
or lost by somebody. To this, add the cost of their transportation
by land and sea to Mesurado, a year’s provision of food and clothing,
implements of husbandry and of their trades, which will amount to three
hundred millions more, making thirty-six millions of dollars a year
for twenty-five years, with insurance of peace all that time, and it is
impossible to look at the question a second time. I am aware that at
the end of about sixteen years, a gradual detraction from this sum will
commence, from the gradual diminution of breeders, and go on during
the remaining nine years. Calculate this deduction, and it is still
impossible to look at the enterprise a second time. I do not say this to
induce an inference that the getting rid of them is for ever impossible.
For that is neither my opinion nor my hope. But only that it cannot be
done in this way. There is, I think, a way in which it can be done; that
is, by emancipating the after born, leaving them, on due compensation,
with their mothers, until their services are worth their maintenance,
and then putting them to industrious occupations, until a proper age for
deportation. This was the result of my reflections on the subject five
and forty years ago, and I have never yet been able to conceive any
other practicable plan. It was sketched in the Notes on Virginia, under
the fourteenth query. The estimated value of the new-born infant is
so low (say twelve dollars and fifty cents), that it would probably
be yielded by the owner gratis, and would thus reduce the six hundred
millions of dollars, the first head of expense, to thirty-seven millions
and a half: leaving only the expenses of nourishment while with the
mother, and of transportation. And from what fund are these expenses to
be furnished? Why not from that of the lands which have been ceded by
the very States now needing this relief? And ceded on no consideration,
for the most part, but that of the general good of the whole. These
cessions already constitute one fourth of the States of the Union. It
may be said that these lands have been sold; are now the property of
the citizens composing those States; and the money long ago received and
expended. But an equivalent of lands in the territories since acquired
may be appropriated to that object, or so much at least, as may be
sufficient; and the object, although more important to the slave States,
is highly so to the others also, if they were serious in their arguments
on the Missouri question. The slave States, too, if more interested,
would also contribute more by their gratuitous liberation, thus taking
on themselves alone the first and heaviest item of expense.
In the plan sketched in the Notes on Virginia, no particular place
of asylum was specified; because it was thought possible, that in the
revolutionary state of America, then commenced, events might open to us
some one within practicable distance. This has now happened. St. Domingo
has become independent, and with a population of that color only; and
if the public papers are to be credited, their Chief offers to pay
their passage, to receive them as free citizens, and to provide them
employment. This leaves, then, for the general confederacy, no expense
but of nurture with the mother a few years, and would call, of course,
for a very moderate appropriation of the vacant lands. Suppose the whole
annual increase to be of sixty thousand effective births, fifty vessels,
of four hundred tons burthen each, constantly employed in that short
run, would carry off the increase of every year, and the old stock
would die off in the ordinary course of nature, lessening from the
commencement until its final disappearance. In this way no violation of
private rights is proposed. Voluntary surrenders would probably come in
as fast as the means to be provided for their care would be competent
to it. Looking at my own State only, (and I presume not to speak for
the others,) I verily believe that this surrender of property would
not amount to more, annually, than half our present direct taxes, to be
continued fully about twenty or twenty-five years, and then gradually
diminishing for as many more until their final extinction; and even this
half tax would not be paid in cash, but by the delivery of an object
which they have never yet known or counted as part of their property:
and those not possessing the object will be called on for nothing. I
do not go into all the details of the burthens and benefits of this
operation. And who could estimate its blessed effects? I leave this
to those who will live to see their accomplishment, and to enjoy a
beatitude forbidden to my age. But I leave it with this admonition, to
rise and be doing. A million and a half are within their control;
but six millions (which a majority of those now living will see them
attain), and one million of these fighting men, will say, ‘We will not
go.’
I am aware that this subject involves some constitutional scruples.
But a liberal construction, justified by the object, may go far, and
an amendment of the constitution, the whole length necessary. The
separation of infants from their mothers, too, would produce some
scruples of humanity. But this would be straining at a gnat, and
swallowing a camel.
I am much pleased to see that you have taken up the subject of the duty
on imported books. I hope a crusade will be kept up against it, until
those in power shall become sensible of this stain on our legislation
and shall wipe it from their code, and from the remembrance of man, if
possible.
I salute you with assurances of high respect and esteem.
Th: Jefferson„
LETTER CLXXX.--TO EDWARD LIVINGSTON, April 4, 1824
TO EDWARD LIVINGSTON.
Monticello, April 4, 1824.
Dear Sir,
It was with great pleasure I learned that the good people of New Orleans
had restored you again to the councils of our country. I did not doubt
the aid it would bring to the remains of our old school in Congress, in
which your early labors had been so useful. You will find, I suppose,
on revisiting our maritime States, the names of things more changed than
the things themselves; that though our old opponents have given up their
appellation, they have not, in assuming ours, abandoned their views, and
that they are as strong nearly as they ever were. These cares, however,
are no longer mine. I resign myself cheerfully to the managers of the
ship, and the more contentedly, as I am near the end of my voyage. I
have learned to be less confident in the conclusions of human reason,
and give more credit to the honesty of contrary opinions. The radical
idea of the character of the constitution of our government, which I
have adopted as a key in cases of doubtful construction, is, that the
whole field of government is divided into two departments, domestic and
foreign, (the States in their mutual relations being of the latter) that
the former department is reserved exclusively to the respective States
within their own limits, and the latter assigned to a separate set of
functionaries, constituting what may be called the, foreign branch,
which, instead of a federal basis, is established as a distinct
government _quo ad hoc_, acting as the domestic branch does on the
citizens directly and coercively; that these departments have distinct
directories, co-ordinate, and equally independent and supreme, each
within its own sphere of action. Whenever a doubt arises to which of
these branches a power belongs, I try it by this test. I recollect no
case where a question simply between citizens of the same State has been
transferred to the foreign department, except that of inhibiting tenders
but of metallic money, and _ex post facto_ legislation. The causes of
these singularities are well remembered.
I thank you for the copy of your speech on the question of national
improvement, which I have read with great pleasure, and recognise in it
those powers of reasoning and persuasion of which I had formerly seen
from you so many proofs. Yet, in candor, I must say it has not removed,
in my mind, all the difficulties of the question. And I should really be
alarmed at a difference of opinion with you, and suspicious of my own,
were it not that I have, as companions in sentiment, the Madisons, the
Monroes, the Randolphs, the Macons, all good men and true, of primitive
principles. In one sentiment of the speech I particularly concur. ‘If we
have a doubt relative to any power, we ought not to exercise it.’ When
we consider the extensive and deep-seated opposition to this assumption,
the conviction entertained by so many, that this deduction of powers by
elaborate construction prostrates the rights reserved to the States, the
difficulties with which it will rub along in the course of its exercise;
that changes of majorities will be changing the system backwards and
forwards, so that no undertaking under it will be safe; that there is
not a State in the Union which would not give the power willingly, by
way of amendment, with some little guard, perhaps, against abuse; I
cannot but think it would be the wisest course to ask an express grant
of the power. A government held together by the bands of reason only,
requires much compromise of opinion; that things even salutary should
not be crammed down the throats of dissenting brethren, especially when
they may be put into a form to be willingly swallowed, and that a great
deal of indulgence is necessary to strengthen habits of harmony and
fraternity. In such a case, it seems to me it would be safer and wiser
to ask an express grant of the power. This would render its exercise
smooth and acceptable to all, and insure to it all the facilities which
the could contribute, to prevent that kind of abuse which all will fear,
because all know it is so much practised in public bodies, I mean the
bartering of votes. It would reconcile every one, if limited by the
proviso, that the federal proportion of each State should be expended
within the State. With this single security against partiality and
corrupt bargaining, I suppose there is not a State, perhaps not a man
in the Union, who would not consent to add this to the powers of the
General Government. But age has weaned me from questions of this kind.
My delight is now in the passive occupation of reading; and it is
with great reluctance I permit my mind ever to encounter subjects of
difficult investigation. You have many years yet to come of vigorous
activity, and I confidently trust they will be employed in cherishing
every measure which may foster our brotherly union, and perpetuate a
constitution of government destined to be the primitive and precious
model of what is to change the condition of man over the globe. With
this confidence, equally strong in your powers and purposes, I pray you
to accept the assurance of my cordial esteem and respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXI.--TO MAJOR JOHN CARTWRIGHT, June 5,1824
TO MAJOR JOHN CARTWRIGHT.
Monticello, June 5,1824.
Dear and Venerable Sir,
I am much indebted for your kind letter of February the 29th, and for
your valuable volume on the English constitution. I have, read this with
pleasure and much approbation, and think it has deduced the constitution
of the English nation from its rightful root, the Anglo-Saxon, it is
really wonderful, that so many able and learned men should have failed
in their attempts to define it with correctness. No wonder then, that
Paine, who thought more than he read, should have credited the great
authorities who have declared, that the will of Parliament is the
constitution of England. So Marbois, before the French revolution,
observed to me, that the Almanac Royal was the constitution of France.
Your derivation of it from the Anglo-Saxons, seems to be made on
legitimate principles. Having driven out the former inhabitants of that
part of the island called England, they became aborigines as to you, and
your lineal ancestors. They doubtless had a constitution; and although
they have not left it in a written formula, to the precise text of which
you may always appeal, yet they have left fragments of their history
and laws, from which it may be inferred with considerable certainty.
Whatever their history and laws show to have been practised with
approbation, we may presume was permitted by their constitution;
whatever was not so practised, was not permitted. And although this
constitution was violated and set at nought by Norman force, yet force
cannot change right. A perpetual claim was kept up by the nation, by
their perpetual demand of a restoration of their Saxon laws; which shows
they were never relinquished by the will of the nation. In the pullings
and haulings for these ancient rights, between the nation, and its kings
of the races of Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts, there was sometimes
gain, and sometimes loss, until the final re-conquest of their rights
from the Stuarts. The destitution and expulsion of this race broke the
thread of pretended inheritance extinguished all regal usurpations, and
the nation reentered into all its rights; and although in their bill of
rights they specifically reclaimed some only, yet the omission of the
others was no renunciation of the right to assume their exercise also,
whenever occasion should occur. The new King received no rights or
powers, but those expressly granted to him. It has ever appeared to me,
that the difference between the whig and the tory of England is, that
the whig deduces his rights from the Anglo-Saxon source, and the tory
from the Norman. And Hume, the great apostle of toryism, says in so many
words, (note AA to chapter 42,) that, in the reign of the Stuarts, ‘it
was the people who encroached upon the sovereign, not the sovereign who
attempted, as is pretended, to usurp upon the people.’ This supposes the
Norman usurpations to be rights in his successors. And again, (C. 159,)
‘the Commons established a principle, which is noble in itself, and
seems specious, but is belied by all history and experience, that the
people are the origin of all just power.’ And where else will this
degenerate son of science, this traitor to his fellow-men, find the
origin of just powers, if not in the majority of the society? Will it be
in the minority? Or in an individual of that minority?
Our revolution commenced on more favorable ground. It presented us an
album on which we were free to write what we pleased. We had no occasion
to search into musty records, to hunt up royal parchments, or to
investigate the laws and institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We
appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts. Yet
we did not avail ourselves of all the advantages of our position. We had
never been permitted to exercise self-government. When forced to assume
it, we were novices in its science. Its principles and forms had entered
little into our former education. We established however some, although
not all its important principles. The constitutions of most of our
States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may
exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves
competent (as in electing their functionaries, executive and
legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all
judiciary cases in which any fact is involved), or they may act by
representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and
duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of
person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the
press. In the structure of our legislatures, we think experience has
proved the benefit of subjecting questions to two separate bodies of
deliberants; but in constituting these, natural right has been mistaken,
some making one of these bodies, and some both, the representatives of
property instead of persons; whereas the double deliberation might be
as well obtained without any violation of true principle, either by
requiring a greater age in one of the bodies, or by electing a proper
number of representatives of persons, dividing them by lots into two
chambers, and renewing the division at frequent intervals, in order
to break up all cabals. Virginia, of which I am myself a native and
resident, was not only the first of the States, but, I believe I may
say, the first of the nations of the earth, which assembled its wise men
peaceably together to form a fundamental constitution, to commit it to
writing, and place it among their archives, where every one should be
free to appeal to its text. But this act was very imperfect. The other
States, as they proceeded successively to the same work, made
successive improvements; and several of them, still further corrected
by experience, have, by conventions, still further amended their first
forms. My own State has gone on so far with its _première ébauch_; but
it is now proposing to call a convention for amendment. Among other
improvements, I hope they will adopt the subdivision of our counties
into wards. The former may be estimated at an average of twenty-four
miles square; the latter should be about six miles square each, and
would answer to the hundreds of your Saxon Alfred. In each of these
might be, 1. An elementary school. 2. A company of militia, with its
officers. 3. A justice of the peace and constable. 4. Each ward should
take care of their own poor. 5. Their own roads. 6. Their own police.
7. Elect within themselves one or more jurors to attend the courts
of justice. And, 8. Give in at their Folk-house, their votes for all
functionaries reserved to their election. Each ward would thus be a
small republic within itself, and every man in the State would thus
become an acting member of the common government, transacting in person
a great portion of its rights and duties, subordinate indeed, yet
important and entirely within his competence. The wit of man cannot
devise a more solid basis for a free, durable, and well-administered
republic.
With respect to our State and federal governments, I do not think their
relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose
the former subordinate to the latter. But this is not the case. They are
co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. To the State
governments, are reserved all legislation and administration, in affairs
which concern their own citizens only, and to the federal government
is given whatever concerns foreigners, or the citizens of other States;
these functions alone being made federal. The one is the domestic, the
other the foreign branch of the same government; neither having control
over the other, but within its own department. There are one or two
exceptions only to this partition of power. But you may ask, if the two
departments should claim each the same subject of power, where is the
common umpire to decide ultimately between them? In cases of little
importance or urgency, the prudence of both parties will keep them
aloof from the questionable ground: but if it can neither be avoided nor
compromised, a convention of the States must be called, to ascribe the
doubtful power to that department which they may think best. You will
perceive by these details, that we have not yet so far perfected our
constitutions as to venture to make them unchangeable. But still, in
their present state, we consider them not otherwise changeable than by
the authority of the people, on a special election of representatives
for that purpose expressly: they are until then the _lex legum_.
But can they be made unchangeable? Can one generation bind another, and
all others, in succession for ever? I think not. The Creator has made
the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powrers can only
belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter, unendowed with
will. The dead are not even things. The particles of matter which
composed their bodies, make part now of the bodies of other animals,
vegetables, or minerals, of a thousand forms. To what then are attached
the rights and powers they held while in the form of men? A generation
may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that
has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights
and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and
institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the
inherent and unalienable rights of man.